John Allen 2022 Life After This --a common delusion

 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 

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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]