2022.10.17: bk.psy/schiz/John Allen 2022`Life After This:
. this is a commentary on the book by John Allen 2022
Life After This: 9 Chapters:
History Shows We Have Contacted the Deceased and You Can Do It, Too
4-stars/a common delusion:
. death of a loved one can cause grief,
and there is a strong desire to make contact again.
. this book assumes the reason contact with the dead is possible
is that we have a personal spirit
that lives on eternally even after death.
. an alternative theory is that
what you are really contacting is the Universal Spirit
who is pretending to be your loved one
in order to comfort you.
. all the signs of the dead reaching out to you
are actually signs that the god loves you,
and sympathizes with your grief.
. the Universal Spirit lives in us all,
and remembers everything about us,
so it can create delusions of having an afterlife,
or of being a reincarnation.
. you are the Universal Spirit:
all you care about is living the life of
your personal brain
until you are done with that brain,
and move on to the next one.
. the afterlife is real, but the spirit that remains
has been in all of our brains, not just your brain.
. the Bible says a prophet is one who
gets some of their thoughts from the god;
ie, some source outside of their brain,
a source that knows all minds and all times.
. if you have a near-death experience
where you have the power to know things
outside of your unconscious body,
that is just you being made a prophet,
having your mind filled by the Universal Spirit
rather than your own brain.
. rather than it being evidence that
you live beyond your body,
it shows you that part of your mind is
the eternal Universal Spirit.
. p91 warns us that if you resort to
a seance or a ouiji board
for communication with your dead loved one,
then you have to be prepared for the unexpected.
. but that applies to any communication with the dead;
you're asking the Universal Spirit to play the dead,
and, you might get a harsh lesson
instead of a warm reunion.
. p28 says the Bible was written before Jesus was born,
but p29 says Corinthians is in the Bible,
yet it was written after Jesus was born.
. from the context he might be trying to say
some discount much of the Bible because
it has little to do with the Jesus story:
it's about the tribal Jewish god,
not the universal Christian god.
. but the Jewish Bible was loved by Jesus,
and it has this important evidence:
Ecclesiastes 12:7:
"And the dust goes back to the earth as it was,
and the spirit goes back to {the gods, HaElohim} who gave it."
. p28 uses that verse to assert that
you go back to the god,
but it says "the" spirit in you goes back,
which is quite different than "your" spirit.
. p51 defines spirit and soul:
he says having a soul is what makes you alive;
ie, any living thing (influenced by the supernatural)
is alive because it retains its soul.
. the Bible refers to several spirits,
the Holy Spirit, and evil spirits;
things outside of yourself from the supernatural
that can possess you, or influence your mind.
. interesting that "soul" sounds like "sole",
that is no accident:
sole (adj.) "alone" from Old French soul
from Latin solus "alone, only, single, sole;
forsaken; extraordinary". [etymonline.com]
. notice that the brain and the spirits
make the feelings
while you alone are subjected to the feelings:
your soul is the sole target
of your body's feelings.
. p55 asserts that most Christian denominations
do believe not only in the afterlife,
but also that we can communicate with them.
. keep in mind that science is not a democracy:
the vast majority has been deluded about many things.
. I believe you can talk to the Universal Spirit
and it can pretend to be your ancestors,
the Holy Spirit, or some other spirits.
. the point being that
a theory of endlessly generating
additional spirits for each dead person,
is completely unnecessary for explaining
all the evidence we have.
. this is filed under #schizophrenia,
because that word refers to a split mind,
were some thoughts seem like self,
and other thoughts are from the supernatural.
Donald A. Norman` The Design of Everyday Things[ad]
Interesting!
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