Posted on 01 November 2010, 18:27

It is doubtful that there will be a sequel to the new Clint Eastwood directed movie, Hereafter, but just in case there is I would recommend more depth by having some scenes and dialogue to enlighten the viewer as to what mediumship is all about.  The current movie doesn’t discuss this at all.  Here are some suggestions for the sequel. 

George (Matt Damon) doesn’t appear to really understand his gift of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and/or clairsentience.  So in the sequel George should seek out a much older and wiser person, perhaps an experienced medium, one I’ll call Leonore Leonard.  Here is how the scene might play out: 

George:  (shaking his head in frustration)  Mrs. Leonard, I don’t understand what’s going on.  Are these spirits I’m receiving messages from in heaven or hell?  Are they good or bad?  Some of my friends tell me that it is all the work of Satan.  My doctor says I’m delusional. 
 
LL:  George, first of all, your doctor is obviously grounded in materialistic medicine, so forget him, and your religious friends are no doubt reacting to mistranslations and misunderstandings of their good books.  You’ve got to begin by putting this religious idea of either heaven or hell out of your mind.  The spirits tell us that that there are many realms, many planes, many states, many spheres, whatever you choose to call them.  Jesus is quoted as saying there are ‘many mansions,’ but I’ve heard that the Greek word from which they got mansions could have better been translated to “abodes.”

George:  I didn’t know that.  How many planes or abodes are there?

LL:  Many spirits have said that there are seven with the seventh one being true heaven.  It sort of gives meaning to seventh heaven mythology, doesn’t it?  But I don’t think they are really numbered.  I believe the spirits just give them numbers to simplify things for us.  It’s like people being classified as lower, middle, or upper class here on earth.  There is no fine dividing line between the classes and it is not always clear when a person moves from one class to the other.

George:  That makes sense, Mrs. Leonard.  So, if we do number them, is the first one what religion calls hell?

LL:  That is my understanding, George.  They refer to those spirits on the first level as “earthbound” and tell us that often they don’t even know they have passed from the material world.  It’s like they are having a bad dream or nightmare.  It is a fire of the mind, so to speak.  I think that is where we get the fire and brimstone associated with the hell of religions. 

George:  But how can a person not know that he is dead?

LL:  My dear boy, do you know that you are alive when you dream as you sleep?

George:  Hmm.  Never thought about it that way.  So what spirits do we find on the first plane?

LL:  Well, I guess religions would call them the wicked, but the spirits usually refer to them as the depraved.  They developed no spiritual consciousness at all while in the flesh, but it is important to understand that they are not there for eternity as religions would have you believe.  They can be educated and enlightened and eventually work their way up into higher and higher realms.
 
George: Are they judged by God and sentenced to the first plane?

LL:  Gracious, no, lad.  The spirits tell us that everything we do out of love or lack of love generates an electrical impulse that is impressed on our energy field, what we commonly call the aura.  The combined vibrations over a person’s lifetime determine his or her initial level in the afterlife.  We just automatically gravitate to the level corresponding to the acts and thoughts we have compiled during our lives and we enter the spiritual world with precisely the same character, enlightenment and disposition as that with which we have left the material world. 

George:  [Smiling] Sounds like we have computer chips installed in our energy fields.

LL:  [Laughing]  I don’t know about those things, but maybe so.

George:  What class of spirits end up on the second plane?

LL:  I think we find there the very materialistic person who is not necessarily depraved.  They have developed a little spiritual consciousness, but not enough to fully awaken in the spirit world.  They are in something of a half-conscious stupor, I would say.  They tell us that these days there are far more spirits on the first two planes than on the five planes above them.

George:  And the third plane?

LL:  It is my understanding that most decent people start from the third plane, which the Spiritualists call Summerland.  They lived reasonably good lives, but were still materialistic and didn’t develop much of a spiritual consciousness.  They say it is fairly pleasant and comfortable there and not too unlike those here on the earth plane. 
 
George:  And above the third plane?

LL:  Again, George, it is a matter of consciousness developed during the earth life.  Keep in mind that all consciousness at that point is only spiritual consciousness. All materialistic consciousness is a drag on the wheel of progress on that side. On the fourth plane, I believe we find spirits more spiritually developed than those on the third plane and less spiritually developed than those on the fifth plane.  After all, we are not all either wicked or righteous as many religions suggest.  There are many degrees of good and evil between the extremes.
 
George:  The spirits I’m hearing from – are they on any particular plane?

LL:  I suspect most of them are on the third plane.  The spirits tell us that the lower the vibration the easier it is to communicate with those of us still fettered in the flesh.

George:  In that case, it should be easier for spirits on the first and second planes to communicate with us than those on the third.

LL:  [nodding] Quite true, my boy.  That is why the Bible tells us to “test the spirits whether they are of God” and to “discern” the messages.  The good spirits tell us that many low level spirits try to interfere in the communication and even take on the identity of those we are trying to communicate with.  We call them impostor spirits.

George:  So how can we know if the message is not from an impostor?

LL:  Generally, you can tell by the nature of the message.  The messages from the impostors are usually misleading, devious, or mean-spirited. Again, you must test and discern and examine the overall purity of the message. 

George:  Can spirits from the fourth plane and up communicate with us?

LL:  I understand they can, but they must often relay the message though a spirit at a lower vibration – a well-meaning spirit of course, probably one on the third plane.

George:  It sounds so complicated and difficult.

LL:  It most certainly is. What you have to understand, young man, is that celestial matters don’t easily lend themselves to terrestrial methods or words.  So much of this is beyond our understanding and that is why mainstream scientists scoff at it all.  They think, in all their arrogance, that we should be able to understand everything.

Another scene

In a later scene, George, now more enlightened, is visited by a man named Justin, who wants a reading. 

Justin:  I have to warn you.  I am very skeptical when it comes to this stuff, but I thought I would give it a try.

George:   That’s fine, Justin.  It’s good to be skeptical.  But let me tell you from the outset that if your skepticism turns to negativity, I probably won’t get anything.  There has to be a certain harmony existing among all of us in order for me to get something.  That is why the debunkers rarely get anything.  Their negativity defeats the whole process. Of course, in their ignorance, they jump to the conclusion that the medium is a fraud and see it as a victory for themselves.

Justin:  I’m not sure I understand all that.

George:  Let me put it this way.  Let’s say you are making love to your wife.  There is a certain harmony there and things just spontaneously happen as you expect them to.  But let’s now put you on a stage in front of a bunch of observers who tell you that you must prove to them that you are able to make love to your wife.  There is a good chance you might not be able to respond.  The harder you try, the more difficult it becomes.  It’s like that in mediumship.  When we start trying, it often doesn’t happen.

Justin:  I think I understand. 

George:  Good, Let me further explain how all of this works. It is not like I am on a telephone talking to someone.  Because I am clairaudient, I do hear words now and then, but I am primarily clairvoyant and the messages come mostly by the pictographic method.  The communicating spirit will project a thought to me and I’ll receive it as a picture.  I’ve then got to interpret that picture and figure out what he or she is trying to tell me.  I might not interpret the image correctly and give you something that doesn’t make sense to you.  I’ll then try to reinterpret it.  I might ask for your help in figuring out what it is I am seeing.  The debunker would say I’m “fishing” for information, which is partially true.  I’m fishing for the correct interpretation of the thought-image I’m seeing.

Justin:  Wow! I didn’t realize it was that complicated.

George:  It clearly is.  Frequently, I can’t get the person’s name, and people wonder how I can get other information and not a simple name.  Well, the problem is that most names don’t have a pictograph symbol for them.  There are times when I’ll hear a name, but it will come through very faintly.  I might catch that it starts with a “J” or a “G” but I can’t hear the whole name.  There again, the debunker would say I am fishing for a name, which is in a sense true.  It is so much easier for me to get ideas than actual names. 

Justin: Do you go into a trance or anything like that?
 
George:  Not really.  I try to remain in a passive state.  There are many varieties of mediumship.  Some are trance mediums, some semi-trance, some no trance at all.  There are physical mediums and mental mediums and various types within those two broad classifications.  That’s another thing that confounds the debunkers.  They seem to assume that we should all operate in the same way. It just doesn’t work that way.

Justin:  Very interesting.

Closing scene of the movie

George is speaking to a group of grieving people and quoting the words of Silver Birch, an apparently advanced spirit or soul group able to communicate through the trance mediumship of Maurice Barbanell.

“No, death is a not a tragedy to those who die; it is only a tragedy to those who are left behind.  To go from darkness to light is not something over which you should grieve.

“If you grieve, you are in reality grieving over your loss and not for one who has in truth become enfranchised.  She is better off.  She will no longer suffer all the ills of the human body.  She will be no longer be subjected to the ravages of wasting disease.  She will unfold all the gifts with which she has been endowed, and will express them free from any thwartings, and will be able to give a larger service to those who require it.

“Death cannot part you from the one you love, for love always claims its own.  Your sorrow is based on ignorance.  With knowledge you could be sure that the one you love is closer than ever he or she has been before.  You could taste some of the joy that comes with the appreciation of an understanding of spiritual reality.

“Do not mourn because the caterpillar has become a beauteous butterfly.  Do not weep because the cage has been opened and the bird has been set free.  Rejoice, and know that the enfranchised soul has found liberty and that, if you would but unfold the powers of that the Great Spirit has given you, you could share some of the new beauty and joy which is theirs.  You could understand the plan of death and realize that death is but a stepping stone, a door through which you enter into the larger freedom of the realms of spirit.”

Next blog post:  November 15-16

hello White Crows,
  “Hereafter”, is really setting the table for a modern, real life, albeit, alt. history, Da Vinci Code Chase, like, flick.  The action needs to move from the station in London, over to Paris, and use the female lead’s family spirits, the surviving twin brother, and the Charles Dickens connections.  George’s hobby could tie things together.  Think of “Tale of Two Cities”, writ large.  All of those spirits in the Tsunami scenes, were once French, since that’s who Marie is.  They weren’t Indonesian, nor British, and certainly not American.  Mr. Eastwood has really come close to a perfect launch for the sequel.  So much so, that I look at “Hereafter”, as a pre-quell.  I sent a missive to Warner Bros., but could use all the help I can get on this one.  The gist of all this is that DNA posits that a sickly, barely surviving 14&1/2 year old twin brother, of the deceased, Prince Louis Joseph de Bourbon, was secreted out, from birth, in a convent, and then smuggled into the prison cell of his healthy ten year old younger brother, Louis Charles de Bourbon.  After his death, the little ten year old, would have become titular Louis XVIII.  As of 2005, the now deceased fourteen year old, surviving twin, is buried in his correct niche in St. Denis, as Louis XVII.  But the “Lost Dauphin” is still very much lost.  But understanding the real conspiracy, and just who escaped from Paris, in 1795, opens the door to tracking down what really happened to these two infamous refugees.  Either the movie, or as a publicity ploy, before the movie, would start an avalanche of seekers wanting to geo-tag the final resting place of France’s Lost King, Louis Charles de Bourbon. This sequel will drive the Paris Press Corps, right up the wall!  They have bitten on the DNA apple, but have flumoxed over the telling clues, which posits that a teenager, with a superior claim to the French Throne, died in that prison cell.  If G. Lenotre had had access to DNA fingerprinting, back in 1920, I believe he would have climbed all over this, in his work, “Louis XVII and the Temple Enigma”.  This book, published in 1920 by Flamarion Press, is now unavailable, on inter-library loan, except in a Spanish Edition.  But both Edgar Cayce, and Nostradamus, have weighed in on this mystery.  So George is in good company,IMHO.

I really appreciated this post. I share the passion of wishing that a few places in our mainstream entertainment would transcend Hollywood cliches and give us something spiritually stimulating for our mental diets. Mainstream movies rarely attempt to explain things of a metaphysical nature. There must be some sort of unwritten Hollywood rule in play that I don’t know about—“Don’t explain.” You might enjoy a post I wrote on movies I would like to see: http://joshuabagby.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/movies-set-free-from-idea-jail/

Thanks for the great read.

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Sorry

RBB

Robert and Richard,

I fully agree with you, but the problem is that few, if any,people would attend the lectures.

Thanks for the comments. 

Mike

Robert Simpson (above, Nov 5) is right on target.  I think we remember “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle” and “Arthur Findlay”, as two examples who contributed a significant part of their lives and fortunes to speak and write about the “Afterlife”.

They would be proud of Robert’s suggestions ...

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I last commented in September, when I remarked that the time has come for a more forceful proclaiming of the absolute truth of the afterlife. I referred to the need for “radical spiritualism”, and Eastwood’s bomb is irrefutable proof that the entire subject is offered for considerations weakly, almost apologetically. “Hereafter” proved nothing except that Mr. Eastwood took no time to do any real research into this subject. I cannot fathom his intent, other that perhaps as he has now reached his 80’s, the subject has all of a sudden become relevant to him. Your ideas for a sequel are very good. However, too much dialogue along those lines, even if very accurate would turn the average uninformed person off. The movie need many more scenes of the afterlife. Good portrayals would have been patterned after the descriptions of the next life as related by Mons. Benson in Borgia’s classic, “Life in the World Unseen” and others like it. As you noted, the insipid dreamlike unclear figures scene by the woman who is about to drown, is the typical fluff portrayal of some vague, shadowy, half alive dream state that has become the cliche image of spirits. The movie could have developed into a true teaching moment for the entire world, if even a half hearted effort were put into providing facts, and not typical Hollywood fancy. What is needed is for people who have a grasp of this material, to go out on a lecture circuit and to start introducing the truth in a way that admits of nothing other than the fact of the afterlife. It cannot be addressed any longer as a possibility with credible evidence to advance the theory until it is proven someday. It has been proven, over 100 years ago. Period. End of story. Now we need to roll up our sleeves and start shoving it down the peoples throats, in a loving way, like a good dose of castor oil, to save the patient (human civilization). Best.
Robert Simpson

Shalom & Erev tov, Michael: I would also add that Mr Morgan did make a sincere effort—but he seemed terrified of what he was writing. The Swiss NDE researcher is obviously based on Pim von Lommel—but the script (and film)does semantic tap-dancing about what she was discovering. I do, however, give Mr Eastwood credit for choosing the subject matter—but his purpose was not an Anthony Borgia-like show-and-tell. (He deliberately chose not to explore further.) Kol tuv uv’racha, Stephan

Shalom & Erev tov, Michael:
In your review, the film title should read WHAT DREAMS MAY COME…which I found a travesty compared to Richard Matheson’s thoughtful book (he wrote a screenplay, never produced or published, by the way). Peter Morgan’s script leaned quite a bit on Justine Picardie’s 2001 If the Spirit moves you (Macmillan)...the book, in parts, quite moving, but her supercilious portrayal of clairvoyance makes one wonder if, in fact, she pursued the subject further.

Well done.  Good overview.

Another great contribution from you, Mike, about how we sensitives communicate!
Blessings,
and with gratitude,
Jane Katra

Mike,

The movie “Hereafter” was a step in the right direction, however, someone with your knowledge and experience could have made this movie so much better, more accurate, etc - please contact the “Screenwriters Guild”, or whoever, and volunteer your services for future movies, documentaries, etc.

RBB

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Hi Mike,
What a very economical and effective summary of the spiritual perspective. Well done.

Hi Mike- a very nice summary of Spiritualist philosophy and mediumship. I’m probably going to use it in my “Philosophy of Spiritualism” seminar
on Sunday, 7 Nov., after service at Two Worlds
Spiritualist Centre here in Nanaimo. Did you by
any chance get to read my article on my anthropological fieldwork in Paranthropology #2?
It’s called “The Anomolous Anthropologist”. Cheers.
Paul Biscop