do you believe there is life after death and why

[chasman]

do you believe in life after death, and why?

Seth says definitely yes.

do you agree or not? and why?

[Sena]

do you believe in life after death, and why?

Seth says definitely yes.

do you agree or not? and why?

Charlie, this is the million-dollar question. I think there is probably life after death, but I can't be certain. I think I am 99% convinced that there is life after death.

P.S. To be more precise, I believe that consciousness is indestructible and is not terminated by death. What I am not certain about is whether individual consciousness (personality) continues after death. Seth says that it does, but I am not certain.

[Michael Sternbach]

do you believe in life after death, and why?

Seth says definitely yes.

do you agree or not? and why?

I do. In the metaphysical view, spirit is the primary reality.

[jbseth]

Hi Chasman,

I absolutely do believe in life after death?   

I apologize for being so wordy here but this is one of my favorite subjects.

For me, some of this has to do with peoples NDE experiences and the various types of NDE experiences that people claim to have had.  I've noticed that for some people, their NDE experience seems to be mainly some type of OBE experience. Then there's other people who have what I would call a full on Life after Death, NDE experience. In addition to this, there are also some people who have both of these.


Here are some of the reasons why I do believe in life after death.

1.
My mother had what sounds to me like a NDE while she was in a hospital for surgery, when I was very young. She said that suddenly she found herself in this wonderful place where she was just floating and she felt fantastic. No pain, very joyful and very happy. Then someone talked to her and told her that she had to go back. The next thing she knew she was back in her body in the hospital.

She was absolutely convinced that the place that she went to was the place that we all will go, after we die. After this experience, she always said that she was not afraid to die. She was convinced that she had already experienced death and it was wonderful.


2.
My sister-in-law had an OBE experience as a result of an aneurysm where she probably actually died and then somehow managed to survive. On her way home, one night, she suddenly felt really horrible and so she pulled off the road and called 911. Then when the EMT's arrived she proceeded to observe their activity from somewhere outside of her body, maybe 15 feet above the scene. Once they arrived at the hospital, she popped back into her body. The hospital staff were amazed that she survived and was alive. 

 
3.
There's are many books that have been written by people who have collected and documented the stories of peoples personal NDE experiences. Here I'm talking about people like Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, Melvin Morse and Carol Bowman. 


4.
There's some really incredible personal stories by people who have had NDE's. Here I'm talking about the stories of people like Anita Morjani in her book "Dying to be Me" and Pam Reynolds, who's story (see link below) is also really incredible as well.

https://www.near-death.com/science/evidence/people-have-ndes-while-brain-dead.html


5.
There are people in the medical community, people like Dr. Sam Parnia and Pim van Lommel, both of whom were cardiologists, who have been studying this phenomon as well. Along with this, there's Lauren Bellg, a doctor who worked in a hospitals ICU (Intensive Care Unit), who also wrote a book about her experiences with peoples NDE's and death experiences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Parnia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_van_Lommel

https://www.amazon.com/Near-Death-ICU-Laurin-Bellg/dp/0996510303/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Near+death+in+the+ICU&qid=1606680790&sr=8-1

In this same arena, there's also Kimberly Clark Sharp, who in working in a hospital in Seattle WA, wrote about NDE's in her book, "After the Light". In this book she tells the incredible story of Maria. Maria, was admitted to the hospital while suffering a heart attack. During her heart attack, Maria apparently had an OBE experience where floated up to the hospital roof and saw a dirty tennis shoe.  Later, after she was better, Maria told Kim about this shoe, and Kim got permission to go look for it. Kim found the shoe on the roof where Maria told her to look for it and then later she showed it to Maria. Maria said that this was the dirty shoe that she saw. The issue here is that there was no way that Maria could have physically seen that shoe from any of the places where she was located in the hospital. All were amazed.


6.
Then there are psychologists and psychiatrists who have been performing past life regressions on people. People like Brian Weiss and Michael Newton. Some of them report on peoples between life experiences.


7.
Finally, there's also Seth who in his book "Seth Speaks" tells us all about the death experience.


Given all of this various information, I do very much believe in life after death. 

 
-jbseth

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Chasman,

Yes I do believe in life after death. When I was 3-4 I knew I had multiple prior lives. It was a kind of knowing that came to me. In my teens prior to reading Seth, in the dream state I helped people cross over

[jbseth]

Hi T.M., Hi All,

Wow that's really awesome T.M., both remembering your past lives as a child, and your helping people cross over.

I've read that many children do recall their past lives. One of the most interesting non-fiction books that I've read about this topic was, "Soul Survivor".

https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Survivor-Reincarnation-World-Fighter/dp/0446509345/ref=sr_1_4?crid=27H99IRB9W7HL&dchild=1&keywords=soul+survivor&qid=1606689032&sprefix=soul+surviv%2Caps%2C257&sr=8-4

Do you still remember any of your past lives?


-jbseth

[T.M.]

Hi All,

Hi Jbseth,

The ones I got the most was being an Indian on the plains in America, and a life in England involved with magic/witchcraft.
Also strong identifications as a horse, as well as ability to telepathically converse with dolphins. I often astral traveled at the time, though I didn't know that's what it was called. I actually thought it was something ordinary, as much as I thought about things like that at the time.

Sometime after reading Seth  I came across  a book on ufos, the Bermuda triangle  and some other subject. Before i actually read the book, I had a week long series of dreams about being a specific sailor on a ww1 ship that went down in the triangle.
The dreams would pick up each night where the previous one left off, for 5 nights in a row. After the dreams stopped, I was thumbing through the book and found a pic and story about the ship. Since I had gotten the book at a use book stored, I figured it was cursed and quickly got rid of it.

Though to me I find it odd that I love water and swimming but have always been afraid of sailing, or boats that go to far from the shore and drowning

[jbseth]

Hi T.M.

Thanks for your reply.

Your experiences are really interesting. As an adult, I have had an experience, a "vision" really of being a Japanese navy person on one of the Japanese aircraft carriers, during the WW2 Battle of Midway. I was reading a book about this battle at the time, and all of a sudden, I had this vision of standing on the deck of this Japanese aircraft carrier just when the American planes commenced to dive bomb the ship that I was on. It was a brief moment of both awe and sheer terror. The vision was there and the feelings were there too.  Really strange.

-jbseth

[chasman]

thank you everybody for your excellent thoughtful replies.
jbseth, I will read your long post later. (I'm too tired to focus right now.)

[Sena]

Since I had gotten the book at a use book stored, I figured it was cursed and quickly got rid of it.

T.M., thanks for sharing your experience. I used to buy second-hand books, but now I usually download to my Kindle.

[Sena]

As an adult, I have had an experience, a "vision" really of being a Japanese navy person on one of the Japanese aircraft carriers, during the WW2 Battle of Midway.

jbseth, that is a very convincing story. If you had been an American sailor on the winning side in your vision, it could have been wishful thinking. Have you ever been to Japan?

[jbseth]

Hi Sena, Hi All,

No, I've never been to Japan.  I am a big history buff though and maybe this had something to do with this experience.

I also can't claim that this was an actual past life experience. Although the experience itself was visual and it was visual in that what I saw was like that of a video camera, where I was seeing both the action (the planes, the bombs and the explosions) and the Japanese man himself who I felt was actually experiencing these events.

-jbseth

[leidl]

do you believe in life after death, and why?

Hey chasman and all,

It was a real pleasure to read about everyone's ideas and experiences!  I see death as being just another adventure within consciousness, like birth was.  Why do I believe this?  Because I've worked really hard at it, based on tiny inklings that first started arising when I was in college when I was reading Emerson on the "oversoul."  We've all inherited to some degree the idea that we are objects in a material world, and it has been hard for me to shake this.  Those in this thread who had experiences as children or young adults that kept the paradigm of scientific materialism from ever getting a strong foothold in their psyches are very fortunate.  For me, settling into the notion that consciousness is the fundamental reality, and the world and bodies are modulations of consciousness, has taken...decades.  But I'm getting there.

T.M. mentioned being aware of a past life as an Indian on the plains, which reminded me of a dream I had as a child.  It is probably the most vivid dream I've ever had, and it never occurred to me until just now that it may have been something other than a dream.  A genderless, Native American-seeming version of me was riding on horseback over a rolling landscape, and there were others with me, scattered and galloping across the land.  Others on horseback were in pursuit, long hair streaming in the wind.  Suddenly I felt a pain in my ear, and I knew it had been pierced by an arrow.  I instantly woke up and sat up in bed.  The pain felt only like a tiny pin-prick, but a feeling of warmth spread all around my ear as I sat there, which I interpreted to be the warmth of blood from the headwound. 

Was it just a dream, or a probable reality in which I just experienced the adventure of death?  I don't know, but it is interesting to look at this dream from this new vantage point, so thank you to T.M. for the nudge.

[chasman]

hello and thank you leidl. 
very interesting, all you said. Emerson was a Speaker.

https://findingseth.com/q/emerson/

jbseth, I am so grateful to you, for all you wrote.
and same to you Sena.
it is comforting to some extent to me, to hear that you guys, who I know are highly intelligent, and knowledgeable about many things, including Seth,

that you believe in life after death (yes I know you said 99% Sena, but thats a pretty high percent).

so, thank you again to everyone.

[chasman]

I skimmed through this again, and want to say thank you for your replies,
Michael Sternbach and T.M.

and fascinating, all you wrote T.M.

[jbseth]

Hi Chasman, Hi All,

To me, there are two other idea's from Seth and Jane that also play into this question of life after death. The first one has to do with Probabilities and the second has to do with their ideas about Reincarnation.

Regarding Probabilities, in UR1, Section 1, S681, Seth had some interesting things to say to Rob. 

Sorry but you must log in to view spoiler contents.

From the standpoint of probable realities, the idea of life and death takes on some interesting meanings. Apparently there was a Rob, who died when he was a young boy in an operation. There was also a Rob who didn't died in the operation but who did die in WW2. Then there was the Rob that we knew who didn't die as a young boy in a operation, and didn't die in WW2, but lived a full life and died in 2008.   The Rob that we knew did not have an after death experience either after an operation as a young boy or during WW2. Our Rob, lived on until 2008.




Regarding Reincarnation, both Seth and Jane had some interesting things to say about this topic in regards to life after death.

In Jane's OS7 (Oversoul Seven) trilogy, we read about OS7 and its four human personalities, Ma-ah, who lived in 35,000 BC, Joseph who lived in the seventeenth century, Lydia, who lived in the twentieth century and Proteus, who lived in the twenty third century.

From our physical reality perspective, some of us would interpret this to mean that OS7 had just four human personalities. Furthermore, some of us would also interpret this to mean that Ma-ah was born first. Then after she died, she reincarnated next as Joseph. Then after Joseph died, he reincarnated as Lydia. Then after Lydia died, she was reincarnated as Proteus.

This may not be true however. As we read these books, we find that after Lydia dies, she does reincarnate once again. However, when she does this, she is reborn as Joseph's (and Bianca's) daughter, Tweety.

Thus, when Lydia reincarnates, not only does she "not" reincarnate as Proteus, who lived in the twenty third century, but instead, she reincarnates backward in time, from the twentieth century to the seventeenth century. This is something that some people don't think about or consider possible in terms of reincarnation.

This choice by Lydia, also seemingly results in OS7, now having a new human personality, a fifth personality, Tweety, that OS7 did not previously have.


Seth tells us that all time is simultaneous. This means that all of these human personalities, are all alive at the same time. This also means that all of their in-between lives, both their before lives and after lives (the topic here) also occur at the same time.


So, in addition to everything else, in regards to what Seth and Jane say about probable realities and reincarnation, I really do believe that there is life after death.  


-jbseth

[LarryH]

jbseth, you remind me of some thoughts that I have had regarding reincarnation from a Sethian viewpoint. The implication of incarnations not necessarily being in the order of our timeline is that we could have multiple incarnations "at the same time", meaning that one entity could have incarnations of both a parent and that parent's child. Or one's best friend (or worst enemy) could be one's different incarnation! Or to take it to the extreme, maybe we are all incarnations of the same entity (giving literal meaning to the Golden Rule).

I am also reminded of the fact that there are hypnotherapists who are able to "progress" subjects to "future" lives. This was discovered by accident, just as regression ("go back to the origin of this trauma") sent someone back to a "past" life, to the surprise of the therapist. I have to wonder if a hypnotherapist were to suggest to the subject with some condition related to an unknown trauma, "go to" instead of "go back to", could the source of a current condition be found to be related to a "future" life? For instance, we hear about birth marks being associated with a way that someone died in a past life, but could a birthmark be associated with a trauma from a "future" life?

[chasman]

jbseth, thank you. loved all you wrote. especially the part about you really believing in life after death.
I feel more hopeful.
and that is such a good thing.
super thank you.
also loved OS7 when I read it (the series), many decades ago.
cherished them.

LarryH,
  thank you for your very interesting thoughts.
time is such a fascinating thing.
from the spacetime of relativity to the songs of Pink Floyd and Alan Parsons,
and of course Time After Time, (how about Time Before Time? hahaha) Sinatra and Cyndy Lauper,
to Quantum stuff (have you heard of a Chronon?), and our dear Seth's explanation.









https://www.exactlywhatistime.com/physics-of-time/quantum-time/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronon

[jbseth]

jbseth, you remind me of some thoughts that I have had regarding reincarnation from a Sethian viewpoint. The implication of incarnations not necessarily being in the order of our timeline is that we could have multiple incarnations "at the same time", meaning that one entity could have incarnations of both a parent and that parent's child. Or one's best friend (or worst enemy) could be one's different incarnation! Or to take it to the extreme, maybe we are all incarnations of the same entity (giving literal meaning to the Golden Rule).

I am also reminded of the fact that there are hypnotherapists who are able to "progress" subjects to "future" lives. This was discovered by accident, just as regression ("go back to the origin of this trauma") sent someone back to a "past" life, to the surprise of the therapist. I have to wonder if a hypnotherapist were to suggest to the subject with some condition related to an unknown trauma, "go to" instead of "go back to", could the source of a current condition be found to be related to a "future" life? For instance, we hear about birth marks being associated with a way that someone died in a past life, but could a birthmark be associated with a trauma from a "future" life?

Hi LarryH, Hi All,

Hey LarryH, great points.  

Some of your comments made me think about what Seth had to say about "counterparts" in UR2.  In UR2, we learn that counterparts are people who lived separate lives during the same time period. For example, in UR2, we learn that in the first century, Rob had a reincarnational life, as a person named "Nebene". We also learn that Rob also had a reincarnational life as a Roman Officer in the first century. This first century Roman officer and "Nebene" were counterparts of each other.

Specifically, I like what Seth had to say in S721 to Rob about Rob's various counterparts (see spoiler below)

In addition to Nebene and this Roman officer, in S721, (see S721 and S721 footnote 1) we also learned that Rob had a reincarnational life as a black Jamaican woman, Maumee, who lived in the early 1800's. This black Jamaican woman, was most probably a counterpart of Rob's previous life, the one where he and Jane knew each other and lived in Boston, in the 1800's. Seth talks about Rob's and Jane's previous Boston lives in the 1800's, in several places in the TES books. 


Not only were all four of these lives (Nebene, Roman Office, Maumee, and Rob) related, they also seemed to interact with each other in some interesting ways.  For example, Seth tell us that while Nebene and the Roman officer were followers of authority, neither Rob, who questions authority, nor Maumee who only followed her instincts and emotions necessarily did so.  On the other hand, both Nebene and Rob were heavily involved in copying manuscripts, while neither the Roman Officer nor Maumee, had much to do with manuscripts.


Given what Seth has to say about our various lives and how they relate to each other, I don't necessarily believe, for example, that some past life trauma necessarily causes some present life trauma. Even though to some people, it may appear that this is what is going on. I think that often, in cases like this, people fail to see the bigger picture that is going on instead.  Instead I think that the various lives that we lead, all interact and influence each other, sometimes in opposite ways like in the way that Nebene and Rob look at authority, and sometimes in similar ways, like how both Nebene and Rob both spent their lives working on manuscripts.

If a hypnotherapist regressed Rob and asked him to go back to a life where he worked on manuscripts, Rob would most likely pick up on the life of Nebene, and probably wouldn't pick up on the Roman officer or Maumee. This doesn't necessarily mean that Nebene caused Rob to focus on manuscripts during this life. It may just mean that in this life, Rob and Nebene have shared some common interests in this regard.

Likewise, if a hypnotherapist regressed Rob and asked him to go back to a life where he had no regard for authority, Rob would most likely pick up on the life of Maumee. This doesn't necessarily mean that, in this life, Rob questions authority as a result of Maumee's influence. It may just mean that in this life, Rob and Maumee have shared interests in this regard, both questioned authority.



I do think that a hypnotherapist could send someone to the future, instead of the past, and in the future, they likewise could probably pick up on some future lives that had shared interests with someone's present life. This may be negatively influenced by a persons belief (if the person doesn't believe this is possible, it may not be possible for them to do this, due to their belief).

I believe that Dolores Cannon may have been doing some of this future hypnotherapist work.

https://www.amazon.com/Dolores-Cannon/e/B001K818HK


In addition to this, TES5, Session 239, Seth talks about how it is possible for a person, this year, to become ill at the smell of a particular perfume because subconsciously he knows that in some future time like the year 2025, his mother will be wearing that perfume when she dies.

Sorry but you must log in to view spoiler contents.

-jbseth

[LarryH]

Given what Seth has to say about our various lives and how they relate to each other, I don't necessarily believe, for example, that some past life trauma necessarily causes some present life trauma.

Yes, when I gave examples in that vein, I was speaking conventionally. In Seth terms, there is no cause and effect. However, the birthmarks may still relate to another incarnation's manner of death. Elsewhere here, I suggested that one could look at one's death being "caused" by one's birth. And yet, they are two events dropped into time, each requiring the other. So it is no more accurate to say that a birth "caused" a death than it is to say that a death "caused" its prior birth.

[jbseth]

Hi LarryH, Hi All,

Yes, LarryH, I completely agree. 

And so, in an interesting sort of way, it could be that a birth mark, say in the kidney area, of a person living in this life, could have resulted in a stabbing of this person in a previous life, in the kidney area.

An interesting twist on an old idea, the stabbing of a person in a previous life, resulted in a birth mark in this life.

-jbseth

[jbseth]

Hi All,

Baskin-Robbins, BR, is a chain of ice cream restaurants that advertises that it has 31 different flavors of ice cream. I sometimes think of this reincarnation concept in terms of an entity desiring to experience these 31 flavors. The entity creates many humans in order to do this. Some of these humans will only experience just one of these flavors. However, some of these humans will experience more. They'll order a double scoop, or a triple scoop, each scoop being either the same flavor or a different flavor. Then again, some will even order one or more scoops with peanut chunks or chocolate chips on top.


In our limited view of reality, we sometimes incorrectly conclude that in our previous life, we experienced eating vanilla ice cream from BR. As a result of this, we tend to think that this is the reason why, in this life, we experienced eating one of the various chocolate flavors instead. Completing missing the concept that, all 31 of these flavors are experienced by some reincarnational, or probable, or counterpart life of ours.


Years ago my wife and I attended a gathering of people who went to go see "Menos". Menos, was a personality, similar to Seth, who was channeled by Alice Ann Parker.  I had first discovered the channeling of Menos from the "MetaPsychology" Magazines that were created by Tam Mossman (the editor of many of the Seth and Jane Roberts books). From what I could tell, it seemed to me that Menos messages were Seth like in nature.  Anyway, the only significant message that I came away with, from that gathering, many years ago was Menos comments that,

"We're only here to eat ice cream."

How awesome is that? 

-jbseth