Beverly Gilmour, 100s of NDE and a New Insight About Consciousness |350|

Are they definitely talking about a real dream - not a day dream?

When I first started astral projecting by accident, before I even knew I was astral projecting or what it was, I referred to them as "lucid daydreams" because of how different they were from normal day dreams. In some early cases I got pulled in so deep that I actually thought I was sleeping for real at home in bed only to then come out of it sitting completely upright at a desk fully awake and aware.

Thank you for making this point David. This reminds me of something I found out shortly after the Brussels bombings (which inevitably affected me considerably since I live in that city, and one of the suicide bombers blew himself off in an underground station that I would be in practically everyday -- I no longer do, for many reasons). I wanted to post these links on this Forum but then I never got round to it in the end. I'll do so now as this is relevant to this discussion

http://boredjihadi.tumblr.com/post/142889314077/three-dreams-of-a-brussels-bomber
"As regular readers of this blog will know, jihadis discuss their dreams all the time"

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brussels-isis-suicide-bomber-vision-7745742
"I then saw my soul and those of the three soldiers. All of a sudden, the soldiers’ souls burned and vanished and, suddenly, the banner of Islam – represented in the dream by the flag of the Islamic State – came out of the earth and was shining brightly. My soul then became full of light.”
He added that his dream finished with a voice telling him that he had achieved 'deliverance' and he awoke with his heart racing."

I think that this is very interesting not only from the moral point of view but also if we simply objectively wish to understand who is "communicating" from beyond the Veil (supposing these contacts/visions/messages are real and not imagined, of course). Who exactly is giving these people such dreams/visions? If all is "love and light", whence all this? Does it all come from "Jesus" anyway, because horrifically (as this would mean that "the end justifies the means" both for Machiavelli and 'God' -- for those who believe in him) these tragedies HAVE to happen for us to 'learn'? In that case we should be grateful that suicide bombers get thus 'spiritually encouraged' to blow themselves up and kill dozens of innocents, so that we all get amazing opportunities to "learn"! How can we be sure that this reality is some kind of bizarre but ultimately benevolent (??) "splatter school" as many would like to believe, and not a place whose events (and even people) can be manipulated both by good and evil entities pursuing completely different agendas, instead?

Oh my god thank you! Someone other than me finally made this point! Granted maybe this point has ben made hundreds of times before I even joined Skeptiko but you'er the first I've seen.

I've been harping on about this since I joined. The whole good vs evil thing is childishly naive and logically impossible anyways. In my experience people's belief in some form of structured, objective morality, usually religion, gets taken advantage of by some spirits fo their own ends. Manipulating humans for reasons ranging from "just for fun" to "taking out the competition" to "I just like helping people" to "world domination" and beyond. It's all just self interest, nothing more, nothing less.

Believing anything is wholly good or bad is ridiculous, everyone has their own motives, and when there's this much of a power gap between you and them it would be outright stupid to just take their word on anything. And those who do invariably seem to end up as little more than disposable tools, whether it's for gods or governments it doesn't really matter. It's all the same thing at the end of the day.

I was originally going to post on this thread and go "So, why couldn't a spirit give someone a message of mass murder and call it good?" as a counter to the benevolent afterlife narrative. But now I don't even need to because you linked to actual examples. Doesn't matter how much love they radiat or how bright they shine, feelings don't matter. Question the motives behind the message to figure out what, if anything, is really happening.
 
When I first started astral projecting by accident, before I even knew I was astral projecting or what it was, I referred to them as "lucid daydreams" because of how different they were from normal day dreams. In some early cases I got pulled in so deep that I actually thought I was sleeping for real at home in bed only to then come out of it sitting completely upright at a desk fully awake and aware.



Oh my god thank you! Someone other than me finally made this point! Granted maybe this point has ben made hundreds of times before I even joined Skeptiko but you'er the first I've seen.

I've been harping on about this since I joined. The whole good vs evil thing is childishly naive and logically impossible anyways. In my experience people's belief in some form of structured, objective morality, usually religion, gets taken advantage of by some spirits fo their own ends. Manipulating humans for reasons ranging from "just for fun" to "taking out the competition" to "I just like helping people" to "world domination" and beyond. It's all just self interest, nothing more, nothing less.

Believing anything is wholly good or bad is ridiculous, everyone has their own motives, and when there's this much of a power gap between you and them it would be outright stupid to just take their word on anything. And those who do invariably seem to end up as little more than disposable tools, whether it's for gods or governments it doesn't really matter. It's all the same thing at the end of the day.

I was originally going to post on this thread and go "So, why couldn't a spirit give someone a message of mass murder and call it good?" as a counter to the benevolent afterlife narrative. But now I don't even need to because you linked to actual examples. Doesn't matter how much love they radiat or how bright they shine, feelings don't matter. Question the motives behind the message to figure out what, if anything, is really happening.

It's been covered in some earlier threads and (iirc?) also a couple podcasts.
Search 'Siren call of hungry ghosts'
 
I think one has to be a bit careful with dreams. They may be supernatural messages but the mind does have a tendency to replay what is occupying it in the conscious state and often does so metaphorically apparently. Perhaps the suicide bomber bombers dreams are simply their subconscious replaying the story that is occupying them?
 
I think one has to be a bit careful with dreams. They may be supernatural messages but the mind does have a tendency to replay what is occupying it in the conscious state and often does so metaphorically apparently. Perhaps the suicide bomber bombers dreams are simply their subconscious replaying the story that is occupying them?
I mean, I would definitely not rule out the idea that evil deeds are inspired by certain non-material entities - it doesn't have to be the subconscious.

David
 
I mean, I would definitely not rule out the idea that evil deeds are inspired by certain non-material entities - it doesn't have to be the subconscious.

David
My question then is (to you and to those who believe that ultimately it's all "love and light") where do these non-material entities come from? Who lets them loose in our reality if there is a benevolent "God/Jesus" etc behind it all? Surely the freedom of will of these "non-material entities" is not a good enough reason to let them (indirectly) murder children? I mean, even mankind as a whole is (or has become) more compassionate than this God, since in most countries there are laws that prohibit "extreme" uses of free will such as murdering other people, and law enforcement that tries to prevent this.

Btw as to your worries about my first link, David -- what kind of person do you think I am? :-) That was a perfectly kosher link. The blog belongs to a researcher, here he is: http://hegghammer.com

As to those who posted saying that it remains to be proven that those terrorist's dreams were "supernatural". I hope you are not taking the line that whatever doesn't fit with your idea that all is love and light is suspicious by definition and is probably just a product of the imagination/an hallucination/a lie = nothing to worry about. I think that's too much of an easy way out. Of course it's very consoling to think that behind this reality there is only love. Pity this doesn't explain in the least the extreme horror we see here (and lots of disturbing paranormal occurrences, too). And what is wrong with our reality is not just a consequence of the actions of terrorists, criminals etc ("bad human beings abusing their free will", supposedly). Nature can be extremely cruel, too. Whence comes nature, if not from this supposed "Jesus/God" who is all love? I keep asking these questions because they are too easily disregarded and I still haven't found a convincing explanation, not even remotely.

Last but not least, Mediochre - I have read some of your posts and sometimes I agree with you and some times I most definitely don't. I would say I am half-way between the rose-tinted-spectacled views of so many people here and the cynical approach you seem to espouse (according to which existence is all about "having one's way"). I actually believe there is objective goodness and evil, or I wouldn't be so preoccupied with the nature of reality. The fact that they are entangled in this reality proves that there's something profoundly wrong with it, not that they do not exist in their pure form. In fact they could very well be the ultimate sourceS behind all that is (note the plural) -- their respective ultimate will being a very primal "pleasure in creating good actions and feelings" or its opposite (pleasure in causing chaos, pain and suffering). This seems a much more logical explanation to me of what I see, including other people's reports of their experiences (including that terrorist's dreams/visions).
 
My question then is (to you and to those who believe that ultimately it's all "love and light") where do these non-material entities come from? Who lets them loose in our reality if there is a benevolent "God/Jesus" etc behind it all? Surely the freedom of will of these "non-material entities" is not a good enough reason to let them (indirectly) murder children? I mean, even mankind as a whole is (or has become) more compassionate than this God, since in most countries there are laws that prohibit "extreme" uses of free will such as murdering other people, and law enforcement that tries to prevent this.

I'd agree. Presumably such entities (if they exist) develop from the same origins as everyone else? I don't see them doing anything worse than human beings on earth are capable of really do you?

As for who lets them loose, we could ask the same question about bad people here.

As for the law here, although it seeks to prevent crimes, it often fails. Laws are clearly not enough in themselves.

The idea that god (if there is one) exercises control over bad people is clearly false here in the physical world. That being the case, why would it be any different in any 'spirit world'?
 
My question then is (to you and to those who believe that ultimately it's all "love and light") where do these non-material entities come from? Who lets them loose in our reality if there is a benevolent "God/Jesus" etc behind it all? Surely the freedom of will of these "non-material entities" is not a good enough reason to let them (indirectly) murder children? I mean, even mankind as a whole is (or has become) more compassionate than this God, since in most countries there are laws that prohibit "extreme" uses of free will such as murdering other people, and law enforcement that tries to prevent this.
Clearly there are some deeply malevolent forces at work on earth. Whether these extend to 'out there' I realld don't know, bu tI wouldn't rule it out.
Btw as to your worries about my first link, David -- what kind of person do you think I am? :) That was a perfectly kosher link. The blog belongs to a researcher, here he is: http://hegghammer.com
I was not criticising you at all, but obviously accessing links that glorify ISIS may well raise some sort of flag - indeed would hope it does!

David
 
(according to which existence is all about "having one's way")

Although an understandable misconception my position is not that existence is about getting your way.

My position is that existence has no meaning at all and thus any meaning that one believes in comes solely from themselves. Meaning that their personal meaning at it's most fundamental level neccessarily is "getting their way."

The only variations between people's meaning being their personal definitions of "their way."

It's a very important distinction.

I actually believe there is objective goodness and evil, or I wouldn't be so preoccupied with the nature of reality. The fact that they are entangled in this reality proves that there's something profoundly wrong with it, not that they do not exist in their pure form.

And it's been demonstrated for at least a century that objective morality cannot exist, making arguments from morality logical fallacies.

Description: When the conclusion expresses what is, based only on what one believes ought to be, or what isn’t is based on what one believes ought not to be.

This is the opposite of the naturalistic fallacy.

In his 1957 paper, Edward C. Moore defined the moralistic fallacy as the assertion that moral judgments are of a different order from factual judgements. Over the years, this concept has been simplified to deriving an “is” from an “ought.”

Logical Forms:

X ought to be.
Therefore, X is.

X ought not to be.
Therefore, X is not.
 
Agreed. I'm just saying it's perhaps not easy to distinguish.

I can definitely say it's very hard to tell the difference. I've spent a long time designing and testing methods to do just that and although I've discovered coorelations that have greatly helped increase predictive accuracy it is in no way perfect. This is largely because of a combination of time being really, really weird and non linear and perceptions of control and whether or not you have it. Also there's a skill component, there's no way for me to tell someone "if X occurs then a dream is real" because they'd probably lack the skill to determine if X is occurring. They'd need to practice a bunch first before they could really try. Conversely there's certain dreams/projections that neatly tick off all of the boxes and are almost certainly real.

In general it's easier to determine if a dream/projection is real or not the deeper in it you are. More depth means less of your own mental interference which makes it easier to tell if other characteristics are happening or not.
 
My question then is (to you and to those who believe that ultimately it's all "love and light") ...

... the rose-tinted-spectacled views of so many people here ...

Have to say that your tone seems somewhat sneering. While I do believe that the source is "love and light", hence one might say that we all originate from state of pure innocence, that is not to say that the drama that is the world as we know it is all love and light: far from it! I also think that we shall ultimately return to that pure state but the journey between must necessarily be one of contrasts otherwise nothing is gained. Essentially, we learn what love is because we experience fear, hatred, cruelty and all the other negatives. As we grow through those experiences, so does that from which we came.

If there is an evil force - a "dark side" - it is because we (that is the constituent fragments of the whole) create it for contrast. We can only overcome it through love, in my opinion. Not through some celestial "war" against evil. I despair that this lesson has still not been learned and we still think that we can defeat evil using the weapons of evil.
 
Including the view that if one identifies with the Christian tradition then one must have placed one's head in the sand or is resistant to critical inquiry. Glad that you can help (hopefully) dispel such notions..
I hope so but I can only do my best with the evidence I have. As for bias, I'm afraid I am as human as everybody else here but I try to be objective. :)
 
Have to say that your tone seems somewhat sneering. While I do believe that the source is "love and light", hence one might say that we all originate from state of pure innocence, that is not to say that the drama that is the world as we know it is all love and light: far from it! I also think that we shall ultimately return to that pure state but the journey between must necessarily be one of contrasts otherwise nothing is gained. Essentially, we learn what love is because we experience fear, hatred, cruelty and all the other negatives. As we grow through those experiences, so does that from which we came.

If there is an evil force - a "dark side" - it is because we (that is the constituent fragments of the whole) create it for contrast. We can only overcome it through love, in my opinion. Not through some celestial "war" against evil. I despair that this lesson has still not been learned and we still think that we can defeat evil using the weapons of evil.

No, not sneering - sorry if it sounded that way. It's just that I definitely think one has to put on rose-tinted spectacles for seeing things that way. Btw if you have some spare ones, please send them over :). As much as I try, I can't bring myself to see how what you describe can be the case - how can a source can be all "love and light" and then give rise (by "fragmenting itself") to the many horrors of the material world - if it is the only source, the EXTREME negatives you acknowledge must come from it, too, right? How can this be exclusively the nature of the fragments, given that you say that they come from a pure source? They obviously did not exist before this source supposedly fragmented itself. So whence all this negative?
Moreover if, as you say, the purpose is to return to that supposedly pure state, what was the purpose of leaving it in the first place? Masochism? Learning love, you say.
Even if it involves having children murdered at a pop concert? Is this really a necessary means to "learn love" (does the end justify ANY means in your opinion)? Is "learning love" worth this "journey"? And, even more importantly, if the source was already "love and light" as you say, why did it need to learn love in the first place? What does learn and grow even mean for a source which is all "love and light"?
My questions are genuine -- I am looking for convincing answers, I'm not here to sneer at anybody, but I fail to see the logic in the love and light theory and I'm hoping that some of my questions will somehow manage to elicit a convincing answer from someone who believes they know the Truth.
Btw I am all for love but hey, it shouldn't be an entitlement - do you advocate "loving the terrorist" no matter what? Do you think one can love the huge flaws of this world away? Earthquakes, diseases etc? Or the very fact that most animals are forced to eat each other alive to survive? And why the deep mystery about the nature of reality in which we are forced to live btw (hence Skeptiko)?
 
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I think that this is very interesting not only from the moral point of view but also if we simply objectively wish to understand who is "communicating" from beyond the Veil (supposing these contacts/visions/messages are real and not imagined, of course). Who exactly is giving these people such dreams/visions? If all is "love and light", whence all this? Does it all come from "Jesus" anyway, because horrifically (as this would mean that "the end justifies the means" both for Machiavelli and 'God' -- for those who believe in him) these tragedies HAVE to happen for us to 'learn'? In that case we should be grateful that suicide bombers get thus 'spiritually encouraged' to blow themselves up and kill dozens of innocents, so that we all get amazing opportunities to "learn"! How can we be sure that this reality is some kind of bizarre but ultimately benevolent (??) "splatter school" as many would like to believe, and not a place whose events (and even people) can be manipulated both by good and evil entities pursuing completely different agendas, instead?

I've wondered this for a long time and have settled on the idea that if there's a voice beyond the Veil it is really many voices with many different goals. Just as with people in this world you have your benevolent & kind persons, your cold & cruel scam artists, etc. So you do have your Love & Light persons, and they might not even be in same reality as the darker entities on account of which the Good is unaware of the Evil.

We also make assumptions about how the world beyond shapes this one, but what about the other way around? Do beings feed on fear/hate/war? Does worship of a particular religion give certain entities power, and so they manipulate the people of this world?

Also have to add in how much of this could be Living Agent Psi in some form, making entities show up and "miracles" happen.
 
I'm not sure that logic is the way to approach such questions. In theory it is, I held the view myself that everything - I mean literally everything - can be understood logically, if only one has sufficient information and understanding in order to do so. Myself I don't think I have even a tiny amount of either the information or of the understanding to even attempt to nibble away at the corner of the problem.

Instead, I think we need a more practical approach. That is to say, we can try out different ways of living and see which brings greater peace and uplifting outcomes both for ourselves and for others. I think it is by seeking practical solutions that at least some headway can slowly be made. One can of course look to the thousands of years of experience already recorded by others as providing some hints. But ultimately it reminds me of an analogy I made years ago, sometimes one can approach learning to swim by saying, "I'm not getting into the water until I've learned to swim". Maybe answers to this existence are rather like that, it needs doing, being, becoming the answers.
 
As much as I try, I can't bring myself to see how what you describe can be the case - how can a source can be all "love and light" and then give rise (by "fragmenting itself") to the many horrors of the material world - if it is the only source, the EXTREME negatives you acknowledge must come from it, too, right? How can this be exclusively the nature of the fragments, given that you say that they come from a pure source? They obviously did not exist before this source supposedly fragmented itself. So whence all this negative?

All I can say is that we - the fragments to continue with my inadequate term - are given absolute freedom to create and absolute responsibility for those creations. The source doesn't throw in a bunch of terrorists and say "let's see how you handle that". The terrorist is responsible for his/her actions no matter how much he/she might claim to be committing horrors in the name of God. To my mind, we live in just one of a multitude of possible creative realities. It is, by nature, hard to survive in this one but then that survival is only relative to the immediate environment. Once we die, we are free of the hardships that we face here. And we probably have unlimited opportunities to come back and do it over, learning something new and valuable each time.

I'm not belittling the suffering that happens every day but I'm also not blaming it all on some imaginary force of evil out there. We are responsible for our actions and their consequences.
 
Btw I am all for love but hey, it shouldn't be an entitlement - do you advocate "loving the terrorist" no matter what?

Just thought I'd address this one since it kind of continues your earlier tone of righteous anger. Might I turn the question around and ask you what is the alternative to love? What I see is a group of people who are convinced their anger is also righteous. They act our that anger because they think they are justified. But that, in turn, creates the righteous anger you are expressing. So what do we do? Do we gather our forces of right and rain down vengeance on those who would attack us? Who are they? Islamic fundamentalists, perhaps? So what do we do? Send some drones to flatten their bases and shrug off the collateral damage?

Righteous anger produces reaction in kind. Violence begets violence. War leads to more war - we never seem to learn this. Who's anger is more righteous? Who's foreign policies created the breeding ground for terrorism? I remember an incident in Israel - a terrorist bombing from once side was answered by a barrage of artillery from the other. Many innocents died on both sides. Just another day in Palestine. But the thing that sticks in my mind from that particular incident was a photo that appeared in the aftermath: a picture of a devout Jew walking hand-in-hand with a Palestinian. I doubt that got reported widely but, to my mind, they understood that only love can heal.
 
Just thought I'd address this one since it kind of continues your earlier tone of righteous anger. Might I turn the question around and ask you what is the alternative to love? What I see is a group of people who are convinced their anger is also righteous. They act our that anger because they think they are justified. But that, in turn, creates the righteous anger you are expressing. So what do we do? Do we gather our forces of right and rain down vengeance on those who would attack us? Who are they? Islamic fundamentalists, perhaps? So what do we do? Send some drones to flatten their bases and shrug off the collateral damage?

Righteous anger produces reaction in kind. Violence begets violence. War leads to more war - we never seem to learn this. Who's anger is more righteous? Who's foreign policies created the breeding ground for terrorism? I remember an incident in Israel - a terrorist bombing from once side was answered by a barrage of artillery from the other. Many innocents died on both sides. Just another day in Palestine. But the thing that sticks in my mind from that particular incident was a photo that appeared in the aftermath: a picture of a devout Jew walking hand-in-hand with a Palestinian. I doubt that got reported widely but, to my mind, they understood that only love can heal.
I think it probably depends on what one means by love. Imho hatred achieves nothing and damages oneself. Showing love to a person doesn't necessarily mean liking them or ignoring what they have done.

Although a good parent loves their child, the child needs to understand the consequences of the decisions it makes and of course there are always consequences.
 
All I can say is that we - the fragments to continue with my inadequate term - are given absolute freedom to create and absolute responsibility for those creations. The source doesn't throw in a bunch of terrorists and say "let's see how you handle that". The terrorist is responsible for his/her actions no matter how much he/she might claim to be committing horrors in the name of God. (...). We are responsible for our actions and their consequences.

I appreciate your replying to my post but I would have preferred direct answers to my specific questions because several of them would invalidate this general framework you describe. In fact yes, the source did throw in a bunch of terrorists and say "let's see how you handle that" in that it suddenly (apparently) created the potential for this to happen, by "fragmenting itself" into creatures who were potentially able to do this (including you and me, we are potentially not better than terrorists of course). It didn't have to, I suppose? Because if it had no other choice, then I could even accept this -- but if it was just for the futile purpose of "learning" what you yourself believe it already knew (being "love and light"), how is this not some kind of cruel pasttime? What about, say, earthquakes or carnivore animals ("nature red in tooth and claw")? Are you also appreciative of this kind of infinite freedom expressing itself? Not to mention cases such as people with mental handicaps or mental illness -- what kind of freedom is that? Freedom for the source maybe, not for the individuals suffering from them (and the people around them, whose freedom as well as peace of mind gets also limited considerably by having to care for them btw).

Also, In your post you spoke about absolute freedom to create -- it seems evident that only VERY few people have that freedom (if any), the vast majority of mankind (not to mention animals) has had to face huge limits and constraints of all types (now and since the beginning of times).
Also any very relative freedom (certainly not absolute) of an individual whose nature is so potentially flawed has the effect of limiting the "freedom" of many others (in other words: the freedom of a terrorist is the lack of freedom of his victims; how is this fair?). As for responsibility -- that's very relative, when you have been killed or maimed, as many have in these attacks. The damage is done and no amount of justice will put things right. I keep using the terrorism example to focus the discussion but I could make lots more.

As for your post on love -- first of all I have to echo Obiwan's post above and wonder what love means exactly then in this specific case of terrorism, for example? Do you think you could take these ISIS fighters and show them love and that will solve the problem? You ask "what is the alternative to love" but I ask you is the kind of unconditional love you seem to refer to a viable alternative? Let me clarify that I was most definitely not advocating hatred towards entire populations (so your Jews/Palestinian example is not on point) but when confronted with an ISIS fighter who has beheaded a journalist -- how could you love him? Please stick to this point instead of trying to accuse me of advocating wars and violence, because this is not at all what I am trying to discuss.

And since you referred to my tone as righteous anger, isn't this talk about "love as the solution to all" a way for you to feel "righteous", too, by taking the moral high ground even when it is very unlikely that you would actually feel love if you were directly affected?

But maybe this disagreement depends on your definition of love I guess. It seems to be a word a lot of people use, like "God", but precisely because of this indiscriminate use, it can lead to huge misunderstandings.
 
And since you referred to my tone as righteous anger, isn't this talk about "love as the solution to all" a way for you to feel "righteous", too, by taking the moral high ground even when it is very unlikely that you would actually feel love if you were directly affected?

Ok - this is one of those where I've learned that proceeding is futile. It seems to me that you have made your mind up that God/Source/Satan/whatever is to blame for all our suffering whereas in my worldview the source feels all the pain that we feel because we are the source. There is no separation. I hope you find your answers but I'm not getting into an angry exchange to feed your anger even more.

No wait, there's one thing I can't let pass without comment. I AM as angry as anyone at the beheading of the journalist or the murder of innocents in Manchester. But the point about the Jew and the Palestinian was my whole argument - the more they kill each other the more the hatred becomes entrenched. They have been hating each other for several thousand years and where has that got them? And who is responsible for all that hatred and slaughter? God or people? Your disenfranchised billions might be better off, happier, well fed and in charge of their own destiny if PEOPLE could learn to love and respect each other. I said earlier that this world is tough - it is a survival battle yet nobody and nothing survives. We all die - that should be your clue. This is not the end game right here and now. The end game is something I don't believe we are capable of comprehending. We don't have the vantage point or the perspective to know how our dark but temporary suffering might provide important lessons in compassion and empathy which we need in order to evolve as spiritual beings. Nevertheless, we did not have to choose the route of hatred and war. We could have built a world based on love and respect. That's what I mean by having the freedom to choose.

Sorry if that's too hippy-like for your sensitivities but that's all I have to say to you right now. Take it or leave it.
 
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