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Life is apt like-end to a large ship sailing on a vast ocean.

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There are no shores in sight, no sailship, where it came from, or where it's going.

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Nobody even knows how they got on board in the first place.

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Everyone simply shares the same story of waking up one day, and here they were.

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As you can imagine, such a mysterious situation as this human condition is quite heavy,

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confusing and difficult to deal with.

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Observing and living with the fact that, deep down and in utter honesty, yourself and everyone

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else on board know nothing, is a truth that very few ever grasp or accept.

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A tiny minority in the back of the boat understand and fully embrace this reality, but the

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vast majority up front pile hope upon hope that some day, some way, someone will or has

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already appeared on board who does know something.

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Some say they have seen him.

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Some say they are him.

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Some say he came to the boat once, but died long ago.

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Some claim they know for certain who built the boat.

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Some claim the boat-builder even wrote them a book.

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Others claim to know where the boat departed from, and others claim to know where it's going.

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Excited evangelists, frenzied philosophers, and missionaries on a mission fill the front

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of the boat, along with a large crowd of starry-eyed supporters, cocksure and righteously

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indignant, virtue-signaling and chest-puffing, always making a noisy commotion, and sometimes

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coming to blows with and killing one another.

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The few who keep to themselves in the back of the boat, the true skeptics, the radical agnostics,

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those who purposely refrain from all beliefs and retain the eyes of a child, are, ironically,

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the only ones who will still be open-minded enough to recognize the truth if and when

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it is revealed.

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Those who think they already know the truth, or follow one who does, are like the naked emperor

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and his subjects, acting as if this odd, confusing, mysterious circumstance is no more unusual than

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the sun's rise each morning.

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Only those who maintain the ability to see life with a fresh pair of eyes would even

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notice the emperor was wearing no clothes.

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The majority are too busy believing, or pretending to know, something that nobody does.

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So there is wisdom in waiting.

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Waiting for the afterlife before deciding about death.

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Waiting to meet your maker before describing him.

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The most cited quote by the most celebrated philosopher in history, Socrates, says essentially

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this.

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In many ways he would say the same thing, that the only true wisdom is to know that you know

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nothing.

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The most honest declaration of limitation, All I know is that I know nothing.

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It is truly ironic that the most resonant quote by one of the smartest men in history

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is simply reminding us that even the most intelligent geniuses really don't know

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anything.

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We are all in this same boat together.

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Nobody knows who built it or why, where it started or where it's going.

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But accepting this foundationless foundation is all we have here in the open ocean.

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Until we actually see land, the only sane philosophy is to wait.

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Every prophet is a sophist.

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Every religion is a foregone conclusion.

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Those of us in the back of the boat are content with our current ambiguity and

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willing to wait for solid ground before making missteps.

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Far from impotent or ignorant, the agnostic is ironically the most ready to receive true

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gnosis.

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As the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stated,

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He who truly thinks for himself is like a monarch, in that he recognizes no one over

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him.

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His judgments, like the decisions of a monarch, arise directly from his own absolute

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power.

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He no more accepts authorities than a monarch does orders, and he acknowledges the

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validity of nothing he has not himself confirmed.

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Pascal's wager was a theological argument presented by 17th century philosopher

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Blaise Pascal positing that everyone is essentially involved in a lifelong gamble

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regarding belief in the existence of God.

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Pascal's contention was that every rational person

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should adopt a lifestyle consistent with the existence of God, and believe, or at

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least strive to believe in God.

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He reasoned that if God doesn't exist, then believers would incur only minor

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losses from being incorrect, such as potentially sacrificing certain worldly

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pleasures or luxuries.

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However, if God does exist, believers stand to gain immensely, especially those

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of the Abrahamic faiths, which promise an eternal afterlife in heaven, while

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simultaneously avoiding an eternity of burning in hell.

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Pascal wrote, if there is a God, he is infinitely incomprehensible, since having

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neither parts nor limits he has no affinity to us.

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We are then incapable of knowing either what he is or if he is.

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God is or he is not.

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But to which side shall we incline?

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Reason can decide nothing here.

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There is infinite chaos that separated us.

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A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or

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tails will turn up.

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What will you wager?

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According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other.

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According to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

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But you must wager.

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It is not optional.

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You are embarked.

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Which will you choose, then?

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Pascal argues that the existence or non-existence of God are inherently

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impossible to prove through human reasoning.

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Therefore, rather than attempting to determine the ultimate truth between the

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two options, the best we can do is make our metaphysical wager by weighing out

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the possible consequences.

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Believers are divinely promised eternity in heaven and to be saved from

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eternity in hell, whereas non-believers are barred from heaven and condemned to

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eternity in hell.

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So if God exists, then the believer's wager provides the ultimate payout.

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And if God doesn't exist, then the believer isn't really out anything at all.

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In contrast, the non-believer gains nothing from their disbelief, but stands

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to lose everything if they are wrong.

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If your wager is correct, you gain eternal happiness in heaven.

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And if incorrect, you are unavoidably annihilated anyway.

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Or, as Pascal said, if you gain, you gain all.

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If you lose, you lose nothing.

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This pragmatic approach to theology may sound reasonable on the surface.

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However, there are several implicit, invalid assumptions in Pascal's argument.

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Firstly, it is assumed and implied that belief in the existence of God,

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heaven, and hell is as simple as turning on a switch.

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Even if I fully agreed with Pascal's premise, the act of genuinely believing and having true

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religious faith in no way follows from it.

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I cannot simply force myself to believe in something that hasn't been sufficiently

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demonstrated and proven beyond any shadow of doubt.

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Without seeing the pearly gates with my own eyes, without feeling a lake of fire with

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my own feet, without meeting my maker personally and having experiential knowledge of exactly

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who that is and what that means, I cannot simply force myself to believe and there will

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always remain a nagging and legitimate skepticism.

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Also, Pascal bases his belief on a selfish wager hoping to save his own skin, without

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acknowledging the fact that an omniscient God would see right through such a scheme.

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If the impetus for our faith and the basis for our belief is simply a selfish outcome-based

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decision, how could an omniscient God accept this as a legitimate conviction?

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Furthermore, Pascal commits the black and white fallacy by presenting a false dilemma

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between belief in the Abrahamic God and non-belief in any God whatsoever.

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There have been thousands of religions throughout recorded history, each having differing

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conceptions of a God or gods, and differing descriptions of afterlife realms, but none

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of these are considered in Pascal's wager.

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For example, the gods Kali and Odin promise finite, semi-blissful afterlives to their

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devotees and not the infinite perfect paradise of heaven promised by the Abrahamic God,

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or Buddhists, for example, argue that non-attachment, not belief, is the ultimate epistemic attribute

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necessary for achieving Nirvana. Pascal's wager attempts and fails to create a dichotomy

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between the two extremes of the Abrahamic God and godless atheists, while leaving out

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every other possibility. When given a false choice, rather than picking either alternative,

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we always maintain the option of refusing to participate. That is why I personally practice

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and advocate radical agnosticism when it comes to religion and other metaphysical matters.

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I would define this as the refusal to believe in anything unproven. In my experience,

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skepticism and doubt have shown themselves time and again to be invaluable filters for

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finding truth, whereas belief and blind faith have only shown themselves to be vehicles for

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propagating unevidenced falsehoods and delusions. Belief or having faith are very different standards

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from knowing or having proof. A god that hides its existence and endows its creations with the

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ability for skepticism and doubt would be quite the cruel prankster to condemn us to eternal

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hellfire for exercising these qualities. Hinging infinite rewards in heaven or infinite punishment

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in hell on such a random and weak epistemic function seems rather superficial and unfounded.

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Judging eternal souls based on our deeds, our character, or karma, all make much more sense

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than judging us purely on what we did or didn't believe during our lifetimes.

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Wouldn't a god who endowed us with faculties like logic and reason

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understand that true belief can only be attained through a genuine acceptance of a preponderance

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of evidence? Why would God require such a finicky concession like blind faith from

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his creations in the first place? Of all possible attributes to judge our eternal

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souls, why would belief in a specific deity be the ultimate requirement of every human life?

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How could an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator not see through such a self-serving

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epistemic stance as Pascal's wager? Why would God reward such behavior,

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while simultaneously condemning those who would instead practice rational skepticism

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and honest introspection? Why would God even create flawed finite beings to later judge

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and divide into infinite heavenly and hellish afterlife realms?

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Ultimately, Pascal's wager serves no purpose beyond attempting to fool and appease

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a petty and very human conception of God into your favor.

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Personally, I simply cannot force myself to believe in something that doesn't automatically

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compel me to do so through empirical or experiential evidence. I would absolutely

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like to live in a heavenly afterlife and avoid eternal damnation just like anyone else.

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But if the only way to allegedly achieve such a fate is to pretend that I wholeheartedly

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believe in the God of Abraham, when in fact I have legitimate skepticism and valid doubts,

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then that would be dishonest and superficial. Rather than wager my eternal soul on Pascal's

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shaky grounds, I gamble instead that God might be sympathetic to my concerns and understanding

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of the human condition. I gamble that God might appreciate my struggle to make sense of the

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mystery of existence and not condemn me for my confusion. I gamble that remaining radically

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agnostic in metaphysical matters will actually serve me better than any foregone conclusions.

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And I gamble that waiting until after my death to determine what I believe about the afterlife

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makes far more sense than deciding now.

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One of the most widespread beliefs found in nearly all religions and spiritual systems

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is that we live in a wonderful world designed by a benevolent designer,

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created by a wholly loving and perfect monotheistic creator. The universe is seen as a university,

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a material dimension where we can manifest our desires, learn lessons, gather information

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and experience, grow and evolve into something better, and later go somewhere better. By developing

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our karma, living in accordance with certain commandments, or by having enough faith,

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we are promised immortality in a heavenly afterlife realm with other perfected spiritual beings.

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Generally accompanying these claims is the further belief that those who don't manifest

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their desires, refuse to learn lessons, fail to develop their karma, live out of

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accordance with commandments, or don't have enough faith, are condemned to nearly endless

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reincarnations, or worse yet, to spend eternity in hell. Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and other

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Eastern religions teach that we reincarnate here potentially hundreds or thousands of times

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to learn lessons and refine our karma until we are finally allowed to graduate to a higher

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heavenly dimension. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other Western religions teach

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that we incarnate here only once, but by having faith and or living in accordance

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with certain commandments, we are also allowed to graduate to a higher heavenly abode.

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Even the New Age movement and most other esoteric spiritual systems share this fundamental

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foundational belief that our material realm is a generally positive place made for learning

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and experience. Almost no formal religion or metaphysics, barring the ancient Cathars and Gnostics,

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have even breached the possibility that this reality could be a purposely negative place

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created by a malevolent entity. If God is defined as omniscient, omnipotent,

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omnipresent, and a perfect being, wholly loving and benevolent, why are its creations

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so pitifully imperfect? Why would a sane God create psychopaths, sociopaths, predators,

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homicidal maniacs, serial rapists, and other insanity? Why is everything subject to entropy,

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aging, sickness, suffering, and death? Why would God create parasites like hookworms,

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ringworms, tapeworms, and lice? Why the need for skin-eating fungi, organ-destroying cancers,

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disease-breeding bacteria, and so many other chronic and degenerative illnesses, diseases,

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toxins, and poisons? Why did God create such a huge variety of terrifying and torturous natural

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disasters from tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, hailstorms, and volcanic eruptions

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to droughts, famines, plagues, and pestilence? Why does everything exist in a predatory,

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hierarchical food chain where life feeds upon life and must constantly kill to survive?

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Why do we have no memory of anything before our births into this realm? And why are we

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never given a clear and unarguable history, explanation, instructions, or purpose for our

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existence here? Why would a perfect, loving, and benevolent God create such a horrific,

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malevolent, and confusing reality as this? Most people are quick to answer that the reason for

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this is because we must have pain to appreciate pleasure, we must have hate to differentiate

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from love, and we must have yin to understand yang. The world is full of dichotomies and

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polar opposites, so that we are able to experience the full depth and breadth of possibilities.

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While I agree that some level of negativity is necessary to differentiate, appreciate,

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and balance with positivity, I would argue that this reality is unfairly skewed towards the

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negative. For example, consider the most pleasurable, worldly experience you can imagine,

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whether that be the most delicious, delectable feast, an exciting, fun-filled adventure,

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or a tantalizing, lustful fantasy. Consider being granted one full hour of this most pleasurable

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experience imaginable, but with one very important caveat. After an hour of the world's most

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pleasurable experience, you must then endure one full hour of the world's most painful

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tortures. That means bone breaking, boiling or burning alive, branding, castrating, cutting,

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flaying, and flagellation. That means medieval instruments like iron maidens, racks,

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whips, flails, brazen bulls, and choke-pairs. Would you volunteer to endure one hour of

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such horrific torture if it meant one hour of the world's best pleasures?

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I have yet to meet anyone who could say with a straight face that they would honestly volunteer

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for such an offer. If they were awarded an hour of the most enjoyable, worldly happiness,

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but afterwards had to endure even five minutes of excruciating suffering like being skinned alive

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or violently disemboweled, I know of no one who would take such a rotten deal.

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This is because the gap between the levels of pain and pleasure possible here on earth

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is more like a chasm, the most enjoyable pleasures imaginable, pale, wither, and disappear into

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irrelevance when pitted against the disgusting and horrific pains possible here. Consider the

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pleasure a predator derives from eating its meal versus the pain of the prey being eaten,

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the overwhelmingly negative experience of the prey far outweighs the level of pleasure

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experienced by the predator. The lucky lion experiences ten minutes of mild, gustatory

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satisfaction, while the unlucky deer experiences the extreme torture of being eaten alive,

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having its skin and muscles torn open, bones broken and mangled, limbs ripped apart,

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and life ended prematurely, all for a sick game of survival of the fittest, instituted by a supposedly

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loving and benevolent creator. Humans have a high capacity for self-delusion,

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especially when it comes to feel-good answers to uncomfortable questions. We also tend to

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remember things, people, and events more positively than they actually were. This

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psychological tendency, known as rosy retrospection, is a cognitive bias found in most people,

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causing them to remember the past more positively than it was in reality.

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Is it possible that most people are also suffering from a similar cognitive bias, causing them

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to downplay the abundant negativity present in this world? Could this metaphysical,

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rosy retrospection make people blind to the unnecessary evils and inexplicable suffering here?

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Howdy Mikowski wrote, Another thing that should become obvious, if you look at this reality

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honestly, is how easily we all get fooled. Once you realize that all the major organizations,

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either government, media, or advertising, are run by people trained in how to fool and

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manipulate, it makes sense what our realm has become. Following the Hermetic principle of

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as above so below, is it any surprise that the after-death astral realm would be one of pure

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deception? Arthur Schopenhauer wrote, In any case, even though things have gone with you

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tolerably well, the longer you live, the more clearly you will feel that on the whole,

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life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat. If two men who are friends in their youth

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meet again when they are old, after being separated for a lifetime, the chief feeling they will have

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at the sight of each other will be one of complete disappointment at life as a whole,

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because their thoughts will be carried back to that earlier time when life seemed so fair,

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as it lay spread out before them in the rosy light of dawn, promised so much,

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and then performed so little. This feeling will so completely predominate over every other

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that they will not even consider it necessary to give it words, but on either side it will be

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silently assumed and form the groundwork of all they have to talk about. He who lives to see

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two or three generations is like a man who sits some time in the conjurer's booth at a fair,

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and witnesses the performance twice or thrice in succession. The tricks were meant to be

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seen only once, and when they are no longer a novelty and cease to deceive, their effect is gone.

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To discern whether earthmore resembles a school or a prison, first consider the key differences

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between the two institutions. Schools are places of higher education and development, whereas

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prisons are lowly places of survival and atonement. In schools, students either pass their tests

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and graduate, or else fail and continue trying, whereas in prisons inmates simply must do their

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time regardless. The most important difference, however, is that schools have the option of

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not attending or dropping out, whereas prisons do not. If we cannot simply drop out of this

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school of life and go home, then that proves this is not a school, but a prison.

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If the only exit is locked behind hundreds or thousands of reincarnations, slowly refining

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our karma until we manage one perfect lifetime in this wildly imperfect world, how fair of a curriculum

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is that? Furthermore, if the universe is meant to be a university, and we are all simply here

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to learn, grow, and develop spiritually through multiple lives, why are we born a blank slate

24:31.350 --> 24:37.490
with our memories completely erased every incarnation? What kind of education are we

24:37.490 --> 24:43.410
supposed to receive if our memories aren't retained through each lifetime? Forcing humans to

24:43.410 --> 24:49.410
reincarnate without their past life memories and expecting improvement is like sending a

24:49.410 --> 24:54.970
senior in college back to kindergarten with a lobotomy in hopes they will graduate next time.

24:55.610 --> 25:00.490
If earth is truly a school with the purpose of teaching lessons and helping us grow,

25:01.170 --> 25:06.710
wiping each student's memory every time we enter a new grade is completely antithetical

25:06.710 --> 25:14.250
and mutually incompatible with this goal. Besides, there are far kinder and more effective ways of

25:14.250 --> 25:19.210
teaching than the numerous types of negative reinforcement and retributive punishment

25:19.210 --> 25:25.950
present on prison school earth. If we were created by a sane, wholesome, perfect,

25:25.950 --> 25:32.090
all-loving, and all-powerful God, why would such a God create fallen, sinful,

25:32.570 --> 25:38.410
imperfect, and ignorant beings in the first place? Why would God then place these beings

25:38.410 --> 25:45.350
into a giant disciplinarium full of various forms of physical suffering, mental anguish,

25:45.710 --> 25:51.770
and emotional torment, just to teach them lessons? If and when these students fail

25:51.770 --> 25:58.210
their final tests, God then hits them upside the head so hard it knocks out the entire memory

25:58.210 --> 26:03.350
of everything they learned in class, and forces them to start school all over again.

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Surely an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God could find a better way than this.

26:11.390 --> 26:12.650
Howdy Mikowsky wrote,

26:13.330 --> 26:19.010
It did not take long to realize that this is not a school, or you would remember your previous

26:19.010 --> 26:25.350
incarnations and lessons learned. One key facet that most near-death experiences reveal

26:25.350 --> 26:31.150
is that the return to earth and a human body includes the above-mentioned memory wipe,

26:31.650 --> 26:37.350
where everything from that previous life is forgotten. This alone clearly indicates

26:37.350 --> 26:43.030
that this is not a place of learning and growth. If you touch stinging nettle without gloves,

26:43.030 --> 26:48.970
your hand gets stung and it hurts. You remember that. And from then on, if you want to pick some

26:48.970 --> 26:54.930
nettle, you wear gloves. That is learning. Remembering is a key step in the process.

26:55.770 --> 27:00.890
But if on each incarnation you have to go back to touching the nettle to find out its things,

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that is not learning or growth, but insanity. That is our reality. If we really could remember

27:08.590 --> 27:14.350
how much suffering we had gone through lifetime after lifetime, we would have long ago shut down

27:14.350 --> 27:18.630
our reincarnations. The trap can only work with the memory wipe.

27:19.350 --> 27:25.610
Besides, if someone has had a thousand lifetimes, surely that person must have learned everything

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by now? Given that most of those lives would have been fraught with intense suffering,

27:31.090 --> 27:36.910
does someone really need 997 lives out of a thousand full of pain to learn?

27:37.490 --> 27:42.210
I don't know about you, but I learned better in school from teachers who were kind,

27:42.710 --> 27:48.090
took time with me, and encouraged me to be creative, not by someone who whacked me

27:48.090 --> 27:50.110
over the head with a stick constantly.

27:55.230 --> 27:58.230
Gaslighting is a type of psychological manipulation

27:58.230 --> 28:02.630
in which an abuser attempts to gain power and control over another

28:02.630 --> 28:08.770
by sowing seeds of self-doubt and confusion, deliberately and systematically feeding false

28:08.770 --> 28:15.190
information, intentionally distorting reality, and coercing the victim into constantly questioning

28:15.190 --> 28:22.490
themselves. The term originally derived from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which a woman's abusive

28:22.490 --> 28:28.610
husband slowly twists and shapes her reality until she believes she must be going insane.

28:29.290 --> 28:33.730
In many ways, this parallels the metaphysical plight of the human condition,

28:34.350 --> 28:38.590
the constant confusion, contradictions, and confounding nature of this realm.

28:39.450 --> 28:43.770
In most religions, including and especially the Abrahamic faiths,

28:44.050 --> 28:50.310
God is purported to be omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy loving, benevolent,

28:50.510 --> 28:56.130
and perfect in every way. Yet at the same time, this God is the creator of all things,

28:56.130 --> 29:02.950
including Satan and every evil that exists. Every single negative, torturous, agonizing,

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infuriating, terrifying, tragic, disgusting, depraved, and downright evil thing in existence

29:10.690 --> 29:16.490
was created, condoned, and codified by this supposedly perfect creator.

29:17.370 --> 29:23.230
Every predator, parasite, and psychopath, every disease, death, and natural disaster,

29:23.710 --> 29:29.950
every sickness, suffering, and sordid thing under the sun is sanctioned by this holy loving and

29:29.950 --> 29:36.410
benevolent God. How can such a clear contradiction not raise constant suspicion in believers?

29:37.470 --> 29:42.050
Arthur Schopenhauer said, There are two things which make it impossible to believe

29:42.050 --> 29:47.890
that this world is the successful work of an all wise, all good, and at the same time,

29:47.890 --> 29:54.830
all powerful being. Firstly, the misery which abounds in it everywhere, and secondly,

29:55.350 --> 30:01.290
the obvious imperfection of its highest product, man, who is a burlesque of what he should be.

30:01.970 --> 30:08.650
These things cannot be reconciled with any such belief. If you ask them, they tend to respond

30:08.650 --> 30:14.350
that Satan and man are to blame for all the evils of this world, and that the good God only

30:14.350 --> 30:19.990
allows evil in the name of freedom. In other words, when you start questioning the abundant

30:19.990 --> 30:27.370
abuses and unnecessary evils of this world, God suddenly becomes the great Allower rather than

30:27.370 --> 30:33.250
the Supreme Creator. In short, they have been gaslighted into accepting that God simply

30:33.250 --> 30:39.430
allows evil rather than the truth that he created, maintains, and sustains evil.

30:39.430 --> 30:46.530
In the face of every evil, every atrocity and tragedy, rather than being omnipotent, omniscient,

30:46.670 --> 30:52.990
and omnipresent, this God suddenly becomes impotent, aloof, and invisible. But God is by

30:52.990 --> 30:59.030
definition omnipotent, meaning all-powerful, and must be, otherwise, would have to be

30:59.030 --> 31:05.390
redefined as a demigod. Therefore, this Abrahamic Creator is either a gaslighter

31:05.390 --> 31:11.730
or a demigod, and cannot be the true, traditional, monotheistic, capital G, God.

31:12.630 --> 31:19.110
First, the Abrahamic God gaslights believers into thinking Satan is some uncontrollable,

31:19.230 --> 31:23.470
separate entity responsible for all negativity and evil in the world.

31:24.310 --> 31:29.310
In reality, however, since God is by definition omnipotent, all-powerful,

31:29.310 --> 31:35.850
omniscient, all-knowing, and omnipresent, all-pervasive, God must know everything,

31:36.390 --> 31:43.950
have power over everything, and exist even within Satan himself. In this sense, the Abrahamic God

31:43.950 --> 31:49.910
uses Satan as a scapegoat, and effectively removes himself of blame from every evil and

31:49.910 --> 31:59.290
imperfection. He is still wholly good, benevolent, and perfect, you see. It is

31:59.290 --> 32:05.390
God, through his scapegoat Satan, manifests through a scapegoat serpent in the Garden of Eden,

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who manipulates Eve into breaking a previous promise she had made with God.

32:10.930 --> 32:17.430
Due to this so-called original sin, every human born forever thereafter, until this very day,

32:17.810 --> 32:23.770
is said to be sinful and deserving of punishment for thousands of years because of scapegoat

32:23.770 --> 32:28.190
Eve's broken promise. Believers of this story start to develop

32:28.190 --> 32:34.590
an acute spiritual Stockholm syndrome, causing them to blame themselves and believe that they

32:34.590 --> 32:40.910
and all of humanity are lowly sinners, unworthy and fallen in need of a Savior's redemption.

32:42.110 --> 32:47.930
None of this should seem surprising, heretical, or blasphemous, since the Abrahamic God is

32:47.930 --> 32:54.230
often portrayed in the Bible as being vengeful, vindictive, arrogant, impudent, insecure, and

32:54.230 --> 33:02.490
indecisive. He is shown to be homicidal, philicidal, infanticidal, and genocidal, orders human and

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animal sacrifices from followers, and drowns nearly everyone alive, hundreds of thousands,

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for behaving against his bidding. This is the same God that created the predatory food chain

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where every living being has to kill and consume the bodies of other living beings in order to survive.

33:21.110 --> 33:26.730
He demands adoration, worship, and obedience, while at the same time supposedly allowing for

33:26.730 --> 33:33.190
complete freedom. Rather than seeing this insanity for what it is, many have the gall to call this

33:33.190 --> 33:39.030
system perfect and see the cycle of incessant suffering as some beautiful circle of life.

33:39.910 --> 33:41.530
As Arthur Schopenhauer said,

33:53.010 --> 33:59.750
Even new-agers gaslight themselves with similar belief systems, claiming we actually choose everything

33:59.750 --> 34:05.870
about our incarnations on earth, from our parents, friends, and enemies, to all abuses we endure

34:05.870 --> 34:12.430
and tragedies we suffer. Similar to children of toxic parents, they tend to justify their

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abusive upbringings as tough love and learning opportunities, then continue to repeat the

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poor parenting behaviors themselves. All suffering, negativity, and evil is attributed to God

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wanting your pain to teach you something, and if bad things keep happening, it's just because

34:29.750 --> 34:33.550
you haven't learned your lesson yet. As Howdy Makowski wrote,

35:00.430 --> 35:06.570
The entire God loves us and me is a big lie that all religions and the new age are trapped under.

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They find ways to turn the torture of this world into a wonderful message and learning from light.

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Do you really think God wants an eight-year-old kid to get beat up,

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a girl to get raped, or a dog tortured by its owner? Careful examination would reveal that

35:23.770 --> 35:31.130
the Demiurge or Satan wants that. The idea that God loves us is a key foundation pillar upon which

35:31.130 --> 35:37.410
this entire matrix is built. It is such a strong foundation that many people will even get angry

35:37.410 --> 35:43.650
and violent if you suggest otherwise, because if this belief were found to be false, every other

35:43.650 --> 35:50.270
connection to this reality would also have to be questioned. Thus the God loves me belief

35:50.270 --> 36:00.960
is one of the hardest nuts to crack. When confronted and pressed on why God would

36:00.960 --> 36:07.540
create and allow evil to exist in the world, most people respond that it's because God gives us free

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will, and therefore evil exists because of man, not God. People may choose to do evil things of

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their own accord, or through the influence of demigods like Satan, but the good God has

36:20.600 --> 36:26.000
nothing to do with it, because his only part to play was in providing us all with free will.

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But is that really the case? Can God be so easily led off the hook? Does man truly possess

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this prized and pedestalized concept called free will, or is that too mostly an illusion?

36:41.640 --> 36:47.620
Firstly, it must be reiterated that God by definition being the omnipotent, omniscient,

36:47.620 --> 36:52.960
omnipresent creator of all things is alone responsible for the existence of absolutely

36:52.960 --> 37:00.680
everything. That means every mosquito, leech, lice, tick, flea, ringworm, tapeworm, hookworm,

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and every other blood-sucking parasite in existence. That means every earthquake, blizzard,

37:06.720 --> 37:13.120
avalanche, landslide, wildfire, hurricane, tornado, tsunami, cyclone, hailstorm,

37:13.120 --> 37:20.240
lightning strike, volcanic eruption, flood, drought, famine, and every other terrible natural disaster.

37:20.960 --> 37:26.480
That means every flu and fever, hemorrhoid and hernia, bruise and broken bone, every

37:26.480 --> 37:32.820
debilitating case of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, autism, asthma, allergies, measles,

37:33.100 --> 37:38.680
mumps, migraines, menstrual cramps, meningitis, and more, the list of agonizing elements

37:38.680 --> 37:45.000
could fill their own book. Suffice to say God created the conditions for a veritable buffet

37:45.000 --> 37:50.220
of suffering here on earth, and when a child is born with a torturous and terminal brain tumor,

37:50.820 --> 37:56.460
when a mother suffers and dies during a painful delivery, or when whole innocent families die of

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floods or famine, it is because the world was created to be this way. The world could have

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just as easily been complete without parasites, natural disasters, and diseases,

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but the inclusion of such creative torments were clearly the conscious and intentional choice of

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our Creator. Likewise, the necessity to constantly kill and eat the life energy of other sentient

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beings simply to survive must have also been a conscious and purposeful decision by our Creator.

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So where within such self-destructive choices determined by God do us created,

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subjective beings living in this world have free will? Do I have the free will to stop lions from

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eating gazelles? Do I have the free will to end famines and pestilence? Do any of us have the

38:46.060 --> 38:51.800
free will to end the constant cycle of suffering here? How free are we really in the choices

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we make? Am I free to eat razor blades or drink gallons of bleach? I could attempt to do such

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things, but I am certainly not free to do them in the sense of having no consequences or even

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tolerable consequences. Am I free to flap my arms and fly to the moon or breathe while

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swimming underwater? Of course not. The Creator has already determined the range of choices

39:16.460 --> 39:21.580
available, allowing us only a limited list of options for any given situation.

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For example, I may use my free will to jump off a cliff, but no matter how fast I flap my arms,

39:29.400 --> 39:34.620
no matter how hard I pray, and no matter how much self-belief or positive thinking I manifest

39:34.620 --> 39:41.300
will stop me from smashing into the ground below. I cannot will myself to fly, I cannot

39:41.300 --> 39:48.200
will another person to love me, and I cannot will away suffering, aging, or death. So where

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and when do we actually exercise this elusive entity known as free will? When I woke up and

39:54.960 --> 40:00.780
dressed myself this morning, was that an act of free will? My clothing choices were constrained

40:00.780 --> 40:06.780
by my body type, income, climate, material, trends, and what items were actually in my

40:06.780 --> 40:11.960
closet? I could choose not to wear clothes, but that would start a whole other chain of

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events beyond my free will, where I might catch pneumonia, my neighbors might think I'm crazy,

40:17.900 --> 40:22.960
the police might arrest me for indecent exposure, and I might spend the night locked in a steel

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cage all for attempting to exercise my supposed free will. There are far more determined choices

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already made for us than the actual free choices we have to make for ourselves,

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regardless of how much we will them to be otherwise. When you consider the limitations

40:40.740 --> 40:47.160
of our physiology, physical laws, societal laws, societal norms, personality types,

40:47.560 --> 40:52.880
character flaws, strengths, weaknesses, the will of others, and a host of other factors,

40:53.480 --> 40:59.600
the term free will reveals itself to be a complete misnomer. When carefully considered,

40:59.600 --> 41:05.180
the concept becomes so nuanced that it disappears into a sea of determinism.

41:05.580 --> 41:12.340
In ultimate terms, the only being who could truly have free will is God. Since God is the

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objective, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Creator, God has no subjective limitations,

41:18.680 --> 41:24.880
boundaries, dependencies, or competing wills to contend with. God created our physiology,

41:24.880 --> 41:30.640
the physical world, and the laws that govern it. God determined every aspect of our being,

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every cell, every organ, from our eyes to our toes, to our minds, egos, and emotions.

41:37.860 --> 41:42.820
Every twinge of sadness, and every pang of hunger, was designed to feel that way,

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and to elicit certain reactions. We may attempt to use our freedom, or exercise our

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will within those constraints, but it's analogous to fish swimming upstream a never-ending river.

41:55.900 --> 42:02.120
How can an objective Creator being's omnipotence meaningfully coexist with subjective created

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being's free will? If everything we see, hear, taste, touch, feel, and think was

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intentionally created to be that way by an all-powerful entity, how can we claim any

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thought-based decision, sense-based reaction, or emotion-based preference as our own?

42:20.740 --> 42:25.480
Think of it this way. How much free will do characters have in a dream?

42:26.520 --> 42:31.460
When you're dreaming, how much agency does each individual character in your dream have

42:31.460 --> 42:37.660
when making decisions? The dreamer is the sole arbiter of all decisions made in the dream.

42:38.480 --> 42:44.320
Dream characters have no autonomy whatsoever, apart from the dreamer, because the dreamer

42:44.320 --> 42:50.980
is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Creator of all dream characters and the entire dream world

42:50.980 --> 42:57.400
itself. People may fancy themselves as separate individuals with free will to act this way or

42:57.400 --> 43:03.120
that throughout the dream, but instantly upon awakening, the dreamer remembers that they

43:03.120 --> 43:08.040
were actually everyone in the dream. During the dream state of consciousness,

43:08.620 --> 43:12.080
each character believed they were exercising their own free will

43:12.080 --> 43:18.220
throughout every situation in the dream. But in reality, the one responsible for everything that

43:18.220 --> 43:26.280
happened, good or evil, comedy or tragedy, the only entity who ever truly had any agency in the

43:26.280 --> 43:37.840
first place was the dreamer. Imagine you were the supreme Creator, designing and constructing

43:37.840 --> 43:44.060
your own world, complete with beautiful beaches, majestic mountains, and wondrous woodlands.

43:45.000 --> 43:51.320
Imagine creating and populating your bright new world with a menagerie of cute, cuddly animals

43:51.320 --> 43:58.980
and happy, loving people to experience and enjoy your creation. Envision the kind of paradise you

43:58.980 --> 44:05.380
could and would create if you were the omnipotent Creator. Conjure the blissful emotions you

44:05.380 --> 44:11.000
would feel existing in such a heaven of your own creation, and imagine the peace of mind

44:11.000 --> 44:14.800
such a positive place could engender in all for eternity.

44:16.240 --> 44:22.540
Now imagine looking down on your perfect paradisical realm and deciding to introduce a

44:22.540 --> 44:29.040
variety of new negative situations, systems and species into the mix, first and foremost being

44:29.480 --> 44:36.280
death. Rather than immortal beings that live forever in a perfected state, everything instead

44:36.280 --> 44:42.900
becomes subject to entropy. All the beautiful plants, cuddly animals, and happy people you

44:42.900 --> 44:49.840
created now become subject to degeneration, suffering, aging, disease, and death.

44:50.840 --> 44:54.860
The only way to temporarily avoid the effects of these new negative systems

44:55.270 --> 45:01.980
is through the introduction of another, consumption. In order to extend their lives,

45:01.980 --> 45:08.420
to escape the pain of disease and deterioration, and to momentarily end the suffering of their

45:08.420 --> 45:15.640
insatiable hunger, all living beings in creation must now kill and eat the life out of other living

45:15.640 --> 45:23.280
beings simply to survive. The entirety of existence becomes inherently predatory and selfish,

45:23.740 --> 45:30.740
where it was once peaceful and compassionate. Next imagine adding even more horrors to your

45:30.740 --> 45:37.460
new creation. Imagine populating it with a variety of blood-sucking, life-destroying parasites,

45:38.040 --> 45:44.760
like leeches, lice, ticks, and fleas, to attach themselves to your cute, cuddly creations,

45:45.220 --> 45:51.640
causing them immense pain and suffering as they leech the life from them. Imagine creating cold,

45:52.080 --> 45:57.500
calculating carnivores to stalk and slay your innocent, defenseless herbivores.

45:58.420 --> 46:04.740
Imagine adding a multitude of new natural disasters to constantly concern and kill your

46:04.740 --> 46:12.100
creations, from famines and floods to tornadoes and tsunamis to devastating earthquakes and

46:12.100 --> 46:19.340
volcanic eruptions. Imagine introducing scarcity, depravity, degeneracy, degradation,

46:20.200 --> 46:26.300
pollution, pestilence, and pain into a realm that need not have any such things.

46:27.080 --> 46:33.440
Then imagine looking down on those you created, watching them suffering from sickness, dying from

46:33.440 --> 46:39.620
diseases, generation upon generation of people, pleading on their knees, praying for God to

46:39.620 --> 46:45.820
save them from their plight. They are praying to the same God who created their plight and asking

46:45.820 --> 46:51.860
to save them from it. The same God they are praying to for help is the one who caused

46:51.860 --> 46:58.500
them to need to pray for help. The same God that cured their cancer is the one who gave

46:58.500 --> 47:04.480
them cancer in the first place. If you truly loved and wanted the best for your creations,

47:05.220 --> 47:11.600
is this how our world would be set up? What kind of bias, bipolar, spiritual

47:11.600 --> 47:16.280
Stockholm syndrome possesses people to see this scenario as sane?

47:17.020 --> 47:18.460
Howdy Makowski wrote,

47:26.140 --> 47:32.360
I have come to see that it is not a benevolent force, as religion, new age,

47:32.740 --> 47:39.640
Advaita, or shamanism all suggest, but a malevolent force, like the Cathars and Gnostics suggest.

47:40.340 --> 47:44.460
It does not take much to see that a realm full of suffering and anguish

47:44.460 --> 47:51.420
would not help a loving creator. It helps a malevolent force. A good way to keep people from

47:51.420 --> 47:57.560
seeing this is to present the loving creator as a non-logical answer for why so many terrible

47:57.560 --> 48:04.520
things happen. A loving deity makes you suffer to improve you, torture you to make you better,

48:04.940 --> 48:10.860
as Richard Rose would say it. People are given traumatic misfortunes, then they come to

48:10.860 --> 48:16.020
believe those were part of a loving God's plan. Then they pray to the very same God that

48:16.020 --> 48:21.740
just traumatized them, asking to end their suffering. If there really was a happy loving

48:21.740 --> 48:27.060
deity in charge of this place, it could of course be a much more peaceful experience.

48:28.040 --> 48:34.140
However, we live in a physical and energetic slaughterhouse. You are living in many ways

48:34.140 --> 48:39.400
as a computer game character or semi-programmed robot in a very insane system.

48:40.160 --> 48:44.640
How many worms have just died in the last five seconds to feed all the birds?

48:45.340 --> 48:51.520
How many mice died to feed all the cats? What set up such an insane and sick system?

48:52.680 --> 48:58.080
This world is a feeding frenzy. Think of how many insects are killed every day to feed the

48:58.080 --> 49:03.660
world's fish. How many fish are killed every day to feed the world's birds? How many birds

49:03.660 --> 49:08.520
are killed every day to feed the world's humans? And how many humans are killed every day

49:08.520 --> 49:15.100
to feed lions, tigers, bears, crocodiles, sharks, vultures, wolves, and hyenas?

49:15.840 --> 49:22.080
Why was such a systemic cycle of suffering put into place here? Is that really necessary?

49:23.160 --> 49:27.860
Is that really what a loving, benevolent, compassionate creator would design?

49:28.720 --> 49:33.800
What truly good, ultimate purpose could such incessant suffering serve?

49:34.640 --> 49:38.760
How many children have to be born with torturous terminal illnesses?

49:39.680 --> 49:42.680
How many have to die in terrible natural disasters?

49:43.580 --> 49:46.800
What is the underlying reason for all these tragedies?

49:47.660 --> 49:52.340
Why did the creator have to include such perpetual torments in this reality?

49:53.220 --> 49:59.220
Why have we, the created ones, been left alone in the dark with regards to ultimate answers?

50:00.000 --> 50:03.200
Why can't we remember things like the creation of the world?

50:03.800 --> 50:08.980
Pre-birth experiences? Or have true, deep fundamental understanding of reality?

50:10.220 --> 50:15.460
Why do we find ourselves with so little knowledge, power, and agency in this

50:15.460 --> 50:19.640
complete mystery of a life devoid of any attainable objectivity?

50:20.540 --> 50:24.020
Many people actually believe they know the answers to all these questions.

50:24.980 --> 50:30.320
They will claim this life is a school or a test made to fortify and develop our spiritual

50:30.320 --> 50:35.940
selves, a chance to refine our karma, or to renounce and repent for our sins,

50:36.760 --> 50:44.060
a filter to separate the wheat from the chaff. But if so, what is the point of that whole process?

50:45.200 --> 50:50.740
An omnipotent creator could create perfect beings in a perfect realm just as easily

50:50.740 --> 50:55.340
as flawed beings in a fallen realm. So why opt for the latter?

50:55.340 --> 50:59.140
As Angeliki and Agnostic wrote,

51:00.160 --> 51:07.160
In other words, souls started off as pure spiritual entities and are incarnated to matter.

51:08.160 --> 51:15.100
Why? To return home to where they start from, pure again, and having gained what?

51:16.280 --> 51:20.800
Virtual life experiences? Useless to the spiritual plane.

51:26.640 --> 51:31.940
Before the establishment of the Roman Orthodox Church, dating back to the first century AD,

51:32.720 --> 51:37.260
the Gnostics were a sect of Christians with a very different set of beliefs from what the

51:37.260 --> 51:43.020
new blossoming religion of Christianity would soon become. The Gnostics insisted they were,

51:43.040 --> 51:47.980
in fact, the original Christians, and that the Roman Church were imposters co-opting and

51:47.980 --> 51:54.020
changing their mythology. Many original founders, like Marcian and Tatian, were actually

51:54.020 --> 51:58.600
devout Gnostics who would later leave the Orthodoxy claiming the Church was, quote,

51:59.020 --> 52:05.080
setting up the fraud of historic Christianity. Gnosticism continued to flourish alongside the

52:05.080 --> 52:11.180
Roman Church until it was declared heresy and outlawed by Emperor Constantine in 325 AD.

52:12.140 --> 52:17.620
Once the Orthodox Bible became canonized, all extra-biblical Gnostic Gospels were considered

52:17.620 --> 52:23.340
heretical and either hidden or destroyed on threat of death. By the turn of the next century,

52:23.340 --> 52:28.660
any remaining Gnostics still openly practicing were hunted down as heretics.

52:29.500 --> 52:34.760
The Gnostics believed that there existed only one true, absolute God, which the ancient Greeks

52:34.760 --> 52:42.600
referred to as Agnostos Theos, the unknown or unknowable God. This one true God, also called

52:42.600 --> 52:48.560
the Monad, was ultimate and perfect, existing completely outside of creation, impossible

52:48.560 --> 52:54.280
to know or understand from our limited human perspective, described in the Apocryphon of John as

52:54.280 --> 53:01.660
illimitable, unfathomable, immeasurable, invisible, eternal, unutterable, and unnameable.

53:02.660 --> 53:07.820
This unknowable God produced a diverse group of spiritual beings called the Aons,

53:08.400 --> 53:11.980
who lived in a heavenly dimension of fullness known as the Pluroma.

53:12.960 --> 53:18.040
Among the Aons was a goddess named Sophia, who decided she wished to birth a divine

53:18.040 --> 53:22.980
being of her own without the involvement of a male partner, and without approval from her

53:22.980 --> 53:29.200
father, the one true God. The being she birthed was described as a miscarriage or abortion,

53:29.720 --> 53:36.440
quote, having a serpent-like body with the head of a lion. And Sophia named him Yaldibuath.

53:37.300 --> 53:43.740
The Gnostic texts referred to this creature as the Demiurge, or the God-like self-willed,

53:43.740 --> 53:51.240
who became a tyrannical, maniacal, selfish creator-god himself. First he produced a race of powerful

53:51.240 --> 53:56.700
minions called Archons to assist him. Then together they created their own world to rule over,

53:57.160 --> 54:03.440
which was a broken mirror image of the Pluroma. Next the Demiurge and Archons created and

54:03.440 --> 54:08.360
animated the animals of the world, filling the land with cattle, the seas with fish,

54:08.360 --> 54:15.160
and the sky with birds. Finally they attempted to create man, the copy of a heavenly being known as

54:15.160 --> 54:21.620
Adam, but they could not breathe life into him and failed to animate his body. Seeing this as an

54:21.620 --> 54:27.180
opportunity, Sophia and some other Aons from the Pluroma sent by the Monad came upon the

54:27.180 --> 54:33.340
Demiurge and insisted they could help breathe life into his Adam. A divine spark from Sophia

54:33.340 --> 54:38.540
was then bestowed upon man, bringing him to life and allowing all humans afterwards

54:38.540 --> 54:45.040
to contain this divine light within themselves. This spark of true light from the Pluroma made

54:45.040 --> 54:50.560
man more pure and more powerful than the Demiurge, which infuriated and made him jealous.

54:51.580 --> 54:57.000
To satisfy his spite he made man mortal, and placed him in a paradisical realm called

54:57.000 --> 55:02.220
the Garden of Eden filled with material delights made to distract him from his divinity.

55:03.180 --> 55:09.000
As you may have guessed by now, this Demiurge Yalduboath is better known in the Bible as

55:09.000 --> 55:14.680
Yahweh or Jehovah in the Old Testament, where he is presented as though he is the Monad,

55:15.160 --> 55:21.060
the one true God. In reality however, as evidenced by several of the Gnostic Gospels

55:21.060 --> 55:27.700
removed from the Bible, Yahweh is actually only one of many lesser gods. In the Apocryphon of John

55:27.700 --> 55:33.060
it was written, When he saw creation surrounding him, and the throng of angels around him,

55:33.380 --> 55:39.080
who had come forth from him, he said to them, I am a jealous God, and there is no other God

55:39.080 --> 55:45.060
beside me. But by announcing this, he suggested to the angels with him that there is another

55:45.060 --> 55:49.580
God. For if there were no other God, of whom would he be jealous?

55:50.680 --> 55:57.180
Jose Aragon wrote, In the first centuries of our era many of the Gnostic sects viewed the

55:57.180 --> 56:04.000
Creator God not as a good or just being, but as a satanic one. Many of them likened him to Satan.

56:05.080 --> 56:10.820
Gustavo Adolfo Becker relates in one of his accounts how the Creator God Brahma created

56:10.820 --> 56:16.620
worlds, like bubbles, and how he experimented with them, as sometimes they turned out good,

56:17.000 --> 56:23.480
and sometimes not. The Creator God is not a completely perfect God, but apparently quite inept.

56:24.180 --> 56:29.040
There are worlds which turn out badly, and he has to destroy them. There are worlds that

56:29.040 --> 56:34.880
turn out better. He tries, practices, creates through trial and error. The Bible says,

56:34.880 --> 56:40.540
God said let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light, that it was good.

56:41.140 --> 56:48.160
How? Didn't he know? Didn't he know it was something good? That is why Gnostic say we are in

56:48.160 --> 56:54.380
the presence of a Creator ignorant of the effects of his creation. Likewise, the Creator God always

56:54.380 --> 57:03.600
maintains that he is the only one. He doesn't say it once, he says it all the time. He's

57:03.600 --> 57:10.020
no other God. I, your God, am the only one, etc. We all know that when someone repeats the

57:10.020 --> 57:14.020
same thing over and over again, it's because they're not sure of what they're saying,

57:14.700 --> 57:20.400
which is why they have to repeat it so often. The Gnostic's interpretation of this is that the

57:20.400 --> 57:25.700
Creator suspects, since he's not altogether sure, that there is another God higher than him,

57:26.300 --> 57:31.380
a God infinitely more superior to him, much bigger, much more important than him.

57:31.380 --> 57:34.680
And that is what he's trying to hide by incessantly repeating,

57:35.140 --> 57:41.160
I am the only one, there is no other God. The fact that Yahweh wasn't the only Creator God

57:41.160 --> 57:45.540
is also evidenced within the Bible, such as the very first sentence,

57:48.280 --> 57:56.500
which translates to, in the beginning, the gods created. Because Elohim in Hebrew is not singular,

57:56.500 --> 58:04.580
but plural, meaning gods or lords. Also, in Genesis 126, where, quote,

58:05.040 --> 58:12.560
God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. The use of plural pronouns like us

58:12.560 --> 58:19.640
and our implies Yahweh wasn't creating alone. Several books removed from the Bible make it clear

58:19.640 --> 58:26.860
who and why. In the Apocryphon of John it is written that, Yalda Bawath said to the Archons with him,

58:27.240 --> 58:32.700
Come, let us create a human being after the image of God and with a likeness to ourselves,

58:33.160 --> 58:39.060
so that this human image may give us light. In other words, the Demiurge and his Minions

58:39.060 --> 58:46.200
together created humanity in order to steal our light power. Gnostic texts differentiate between

58:46.200 --> 58:52.060
true light from the Monad and false light from the Demiurge, such as in the Pistis Sophia,

58:52.680 --> 58:58.020
where it is written that, Sophia had been deluded through the God-like, self-willed Demiurge,

58:58.400 --> 59:03.580
and had not been deluded through anything else, save through a light power, because of its

59:03.580 --> 59:09.840
resemblance to the light in which she had had faith. Being an emanation and emissary

59:09.840 --> 59:15.520
of the true light, Sophia essentially represents the modern Christian equivalent of the Holy Spirit.

59:16.200 --> 59:20.060
She created the Demiurge in error upon descending to a lower heaven,

59:20.500 --> 59:25.820
but quickly recognizing her mistake withheld from him and his Archon Minions the ability to

59:25.820 --> 59:32.480
hold within them the true light. Sophia then weeps, repents, and apologizes to the unknowable God,

59:32.920 --> 59:39.140
who forgives her and devises his own plan. He sends other aeons from the Pluroma to help

59:39.140 --> 59:45.540
breathe life into Yahweh's Adam, and when they do, give the Divine Light power, the Holy Spirit,

59:45.940 --> 59:51.340
to humanity. This makes the Creator God already jealous of his Minion helpers,

59:51.760 --> 59:56.200
now even more jealous of his creations. The Apocryphon of John states,

59:56.880 --> 01:00:01.940
at once the rest of the powers became jealous, although Adam had come into being through

01:00:01.940 --> 01:00:06.720
all of them, and they had given their power to this human, Adam was more intelligent than

01:00:06.720 --> 01:00:12.640
the creators and the first ruler. When they realized that Adam was enlightened, and could think more

01:00:12.640 --> 01:00:18.700
clearly than they, and was stripped of evil, they took and threw Adam into the lowest part of the

01:00:18.700 --> 01:00:24.980
whole material realm. The Garden of Eden was created to be a paradise of plenty, where Adam

01:00:24.980 --> 01:00:36.700
would not want for anything, and live in blissful blind ignorance. In Eden, Adam existed in a

01:00:36.700 --> 01:00:42.780
Yahweh placed him in such a paradise, not for his pleasure, but for the express purpose that

01:00:42.780 --> 01:00:48.200
Adam would forget about his own divinity, his true heavenly home, and the one true God.

01:00:49.380 --> 01:00:50.900
The Apocryphon of John continues,

01:00:51.660 --> 01:00:55.080
The rulers took Adam and put him in paradise. They said,

01:00:55.360 --> 01:01:00.320
eat, meaning do so in a leisurely manner, but in fact their pleasure is bitter,

01:01:00.780 --> 01:01:06.100
and their beauty is perverse, their pleasure is a trap, their trees are a sacrilege,

01:01:06.100 --> 01:01:12.700
their fruit is deadly poison, their promise is death. They put their tree of life in the middle

01:01:12.700 --> 01:01:18.000
of paradise, but the rulers lingered in front of what they call the tree of the knowledge of good

01:01:18.000 --> 01:01:23.080
and evil, which is enlightened afterthought, so that Adam might not behold its fullness,

01:01:23.540 --> 01:01:29.020
and recognize his shameful nakedness. Enlightened afterthought hid herself within Adam.

01:01:29.780 --> 01:01:34.260
The first ruler wanted to take her from Adam's side, but enlightened afterthought

01:01:34.260 --> 01:01:39.240
cannot be apprehended. While darkness pursued her, it did not apprehend her.

01:01:40.080 --> 01:01:45.280
The first ruler removed part of Adam's power, and created another figure in the form of a female,

01:01:45.960 --> 01:01:51.300
like the image of afterthought that had appeared to him. He put the part he had taken from the

01:01:51.300 --> 01:01:57.320
power of the human being into the female creature. It did not happen, however, the way Moses said,

01:01:57.880 --> 01:02:03.720
Adam's rib. Adam saw the woman beside him. At once enlightened afterthought appeared,

01:02:04.180 --> 01:02:09.040
and removed the veil that covered his mind. He sobered up from the drunkenness of darkness.

01:02:09.900 --> 01:02:16.040
He recognized his counterpart, and said, This is now bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh.

01:02:17.100 --> 01:02:21.060
The demiurge removed not Adam's rib, as Moses claimed in Genesis,

01:02:21.700 --> 01:02:26.260
but a part of the light power from the monad which animated him, and it is that

01:02:26.260 --> 01:02:33.360
which animated Eve. Recognizing the pure light of the one inside her, Adam grew to know true love.

01:02:34.300 --> 01:02:39.340
Sophia successfully atoned for her accident by bringing enlightened afterthought to material

01:02:39.340 --> 01:02:44.880
creation, but the demiurge also succeeded in keeping Adam and Eve in a state of spiritual

01:02:44.880 --> 01:02:51.060
ignorance, blind to their divine nature. A messenger was needed, a light-bearer from

01:02:51.060 --> 01:02:57.020
the one true God, to open their eyes. According to the Gnostic Gospels, the unknowable God

01:02:57.020 --> 01:03:04.140
sent Lucifer, an angel of pure fire and light, to show man his true origin, and stir the divine

01:03:04.140 --> 01:03:10.660
spirit inside him. Jose Aragon wrote, Gnostic myths relate that Lucifer is the messenger

01:03:10.660 --> 01:03:17.040
of the unknowable God. We had said that this God, the greatest one, unreachable and unknowable,

01:03:17.040 --> 01:03:23.420
is unable to penetrate this limited universe of impure and satanic matter. But according to these

01:03:23.420 --> 01:03:29.720
myths he can send someone, Lucifer. Gnostics consider that the biblical myth of creation

01:03:29.720 --> 01:03:35.900
can be explained as follows. The creator Satan of the world trapped Adam and Eve in his miserable

01:03:35.900 --> 01:03:41.380
world, and Lucifer, in the form of a serpent, offered them the forbidden fruit of saving

01:03:41.380 --> 01:03:47.920
Gnosis, and showed them that the Creator was deceiving them. In other words, the Creator said to

01:03:47.920 --> 01:03:53.180
man, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that

01:03:53.180 --> 01:03:59.300
you eat of it you shall surely die. On the other hand, the serpent said, You will not surely die,

01:03:59.880 --> 01:04:04.220
for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like

01:04:04.220 --> 01:04:10.240
God knowing good and evil. The Creator lied. He said that man would die if he ate the fruit,

01:04:10.240 --> 01:04:17.020
but man did not die. The serpent was telling the truth. The Creator himself ended up agreeing

01:04:17.020 --> 01:04:22.880
that the serpent was right. Gnostics believe that this serpent, Lucifer, is the liberator of man

01:04:22.880 --> 01:04:29.360
and the world. Of course, this messenger of the unknowable God, Lucifer, is an opponent and an

01:04:29.360 --> 01:04:34.760
enemy of the creator of this world. Gnosis states that the Creator wants to keep man captive

01:04:34.760 --> 01:04:41.240
in this limited, inferior, and impure dimension. He also forbade man contact with the higher world,

01:04:41.560 --> 01:04:46.200
represented in the biblical myth by the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

01:04:47.060 --> 01:04:52.660
But Lucifer, the angel of light, made a great sacrifice and descended into this satanic hell

01:04:52.660 --> 01:04:57.860
to give the forbidden fruit of Gnosis to man, and opened his eyes so that he would be able

01:04:57.860 --> 01:05:03.140
to remember his divine origin and his superiority in relation to the Creator.

01:05:03.900 --> 01:05:09.400
After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, the Creator God revealing his lack of omniscience

01:05:09.400 --> 01:05:14.740
arrived in Eden, unable to find them. Like a master calling his servant,

01:05:15.320 --> 01:05:20.820
Jehovah beckoned asking, Where are you? He had created humanity with the intention of

01:05:20.820 --> 01:05:25.880
indentured servitude, wanting man to be ignorant of his origins and incapable of

01:05:25.880 --> 01:05:30.360
distinguishing between good and evil. This is why he was waiting in the garden

01:05:30.360 --> 01:05:35.040
with a death threat, falsely warning them of their demise should they dare to eat the

01:05:35.040 --> 01:05:40.720
forbidden fruit. This is also why once they did eat of the fruit and his lie was exposed,

01:05:41.260 --> 01:05:46.700
Jehovah exiled Adam and Eve from his garden paradise and condemned humanity forever thereafter

01:05:46.700 --> 01:05:54.380
to so-called original sin. Jose Aragon wrote, Eden wasn't paradise, but just the opposite.

01:05:54.380 --> 01:06:01.500
In his book La Franque Maisonnerie, Father Leon Mourin describes the Gnostic interpretations

01:06:01.500 --> 01:06:06.560
of the earthly paradise and the serpent of Genesis, and the following ideas come up.

01:06:07.320 --> 01:06:13.240
Jehovah does not want man to know his origin or his great destiny. He forbids all contact

01:06:13.240 --> 01:06:17.600
with the higher world. He wants man to be a reflection of him, the Creator,

01:06:18.100 --> 01:06:22.160
and not a reflection of the Supreme God. But man did wake up,

01:06:22.160 --> 01:06:27.780
and he did become aware of good and evil. Lucifer took the form of a serpent to wake man up.

01:06:28.580 --> 01:06:33.800
He is a messenger of the Supreme God, the unknowable God. He is a messenger of the

01:06:33.800 --> 01:06:39.740
true God who came into this imperfect, inadequate, and wretched world to wake up and liberate man,

01:06:40.300 --> 01:06:44.020
to show him his true situation and what his great destiny could be like.

01:06:44.880 --> 01:06:48.380
For this reason, those who follow the orders of the Creator God

01:06:48.380 --> 01:06:53.460
consider the serpent to be something malicious and satanic and in all this confusion

01:06:53.460 --> 01:06:59.680
liken it with Satan. On the other hand Gnostic see the serpent Lucifer as a savior,

01:07:00.400 --> 01:07:06.080
someone who came to save man, a messenger of the true God. This serpent of enlightenment,

01:07:06.520 --> 01:07:11.320
which brought Gnosis, Gnostic truth which allows the authentic and true nature of things

01:07:11.320 --> 01:07:15.620
to be seen in this world of confusion, came to liberate man.

01:07:16.340 --> 01:07:21.400
So what these Roman Orthodox Christian conspirators achieved by eliminating these

01:07:21.400 --> 01:07:26.360
key books from the Bible was threefold. Firstly, and most importantly,

01:07:27.020 --> 01:07:32.800
they completely removed God from the Bible. All mentions of the one true unknowable God

01:07:32.800 --> 01:07:38.400
have been replaced by the Demiurge Jehovah. This is why the God of the Old Testament

01:07:38.400 --> 01:07:42.480
and the God of the New Testament seem like two completely different entities,

01:07:43.040 --> 01:07:49.760
because they are. The God of the Old Testament is vindictive, genocidal, and psychopathic,

01:07:50.100 --> 01:07:53.940
whereas the God of the New Testament is loving, compassionate, and forgiving.

01:07:54.980 --> 01:07:57.540
As early Christian Gnostics like Marcion stated,

01:07:58.420 --> 01:08:01.180
the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament,

01:08:01.540 --> 01:08:05.720
they are two different gods. The first is a God who applies law and punishes,

01:08:06.100 --> 01:08:10.960
whereas the other is a God of love who always forgives. The two are irreconcilable.

01:08:11.680 --> 01:08:15.660
The good God that sent Christ the Savior to Bethlehem in the New Testament

01:08:15.660 --> 01:08:20.160
is the same good God that sent Lucifer the Savior to Eden in the Old Testament.

01:08:20.880 --> 01:08:26.020
Meanwhile, the evil God that lied to Adam and punished all of humanity thereafter for

01:08:26.020 --> 01:08:30.540
Eve's disobedience is the same evil God that ordered human and animal sacrifices

01:08:30.540 --> 01:08:36.600
and genocided humanity in the Flood. It is clear that these must be two completely

01:08:36.600 --> 01:08:41.100
different entities, but Christian conspirators like Origen insisted,

01:08:41.320 --> 01:08:46.880
there are not two different gods, one fair and the other good, it is the same God,

01:08:47.400 --> 01:08:53.720
and he is fair and good. This is how the unknowable God was effectively removed from the Bible,

01:08:54.280 --> 01:08:58.460
and how the Demiurge Jehovah came to be viewed as just and perfect.

01:08:59.300 --> 01:09:03.800
Secondly, if the Demiurge is now supposedly good, fair, and perfect,

01:09:04.300 --> 01:09:09.380
who is to blame for all the evil in the world? If all the divine attributes of the

01:09:09.380 --> 01:09:14.780
ethically upstanding New Testament God have been force fit onto the morally bankrupt Old

01:09:14.780 --> 01:09:20.680
Testament God, who is the new scapegoat? The Gnostics blamed all evil, suffering,

01:09:20.980 --> 01:09:26.060
and negativity in this world on the Demiurge Creator God himself, who they viewed as Satan.

01:09:26.820 --> 01:09:32.300
But the Roman Orthodox conspirators needed a new enemy, some new Satan to take his place.

01:09:33.200 --> 01:09:36.780
Who better than Lucifer, the lightbearer, the angel of light,

01:09:37.080 --> 01:09:42.720
sent from the unknowable God to enlighten humanity? Thus the conspirators turned Lucifer

01:09:42.720 --> 01:09:46.800
into Satan, and turned the Satanic Demiurge into God.

01:09:47.900 --> 01:09:50.360
Jose Aragon in The Forbidden Religion wrote,

01:09:50.980 --> 01:09:56.020
The evil of the Demiurge has been taken outside to a Satan different from the Creator.

01:09:56.900 --> 01:10:01.520
Now it is this new Satan who likes blood, the smell of burnt flesh, the slaves,

01:10:01.520 --> 01:10:08.280
wars, rituals, sacrifices, conspiracies, and genocide. Now it is this new Satan who enjoys

01:10:08.280 --> 01:10:13.800
the fact that men bow down before him in adoration and make covenants of blood-packs with him in

01:10:13.800 --> 01:10:19.220
exchange for power or earthly wealth. It is easy to discover that all the characteristics

01:10:19.220 --> 01:10:23.000
which Satan now has were taken from the Creator God of the Bible.

01:10:23.820 --> 01:10:29.520
So this is what we have. The unknowable God does not exist. His attributes have been transferred

01:10:29.520 --> 01:10:34.960
to the Demiurge, and the attributes of the Demiurge have been transferred to a Satan outside of him.

01:10:35.660 --> 01:10:41.720
What does this great conspiracy, this big scam now need? What is lacking is someone

01:10:41.720 --> 01:10:46.640
who we can transform this Satan into. It has to be someone who we very much hate,

01:10:47.080 --> 01:10:51.740
since Satan is the most wretched figure that we can conceive of. It occurred to someone

01:10:51.740 --> 01:10:56.100
that the most appropriate way would be to disclose the fact that this evil Satan

01:10:56.100 --> 01:11:02.900
is none other than Lucifer. In this way not only is the Demiurge cleansed of his Satanic nature,

01:11:03.480 --> 01:11:09.060
but the figure of Lucifer is also completely distorted. The Angel of Light, sent by the

01:11:09.060 --> 01:11:15.100
unknowable God to save mankind, was transformed into a monster whose function is to keep man

01:11:15.100 --> 01:11:20.600
enslaved. Lastly, now that the one true God had been eliminated from the Bible,

01:11:20.600 --> 01:11:24.960
the Satanic Demiurge had co-opted all the divine attributes of God,

01:11:25.660 --> 01:11:31.280
and Lucifer, the Monad's Angel of Light, had become Satan. The final change the Christian

01:11:31.280 --> 01:11:36.940
conspirators needed was to redefine hell, then blame mankind for the existence of evil.

01:11:38.120 --> 01:11:42.160
The Gnostic Gospels make it clear that this world is a broken simulation,

01:11:42.680 --> 01:11:48.460
designed by a demented designer, created by an evil creator. This dense material

01:11:48.460 --> 01:11:55.100
dimension full of suffering and death created by the Demiurge is the only hell. But to hide this,

01:11:55.620 --> 01:12:01.360
hell instead became another even worse place of punishment for all those who dared disobey the

01:12:01.360 --> 01:12:08.040
Demiurge. Meanwhile, the obvious imperfections and evils of this world would never be accepted as

01:12:08.040 --> 01:12:13.120
the perfect paradise of a loving benevolent creator, so what justification could be given?

01:12:40.760 --> 01:12:42.160
Jose Aragon wrote,

01:12:43.120 --> 01:12:46.980
So we have a good and perfect creator who accomplished good and perfect work.

01:12:47.660 --> 01:12:52.980
All his creation, matter, time, man, were good. Paradise was a perfect place,

01:12:53.340 --> 01:12:59.920
and man lived there happily. All this went wrong and deteriorated due to the disobedience of man.

01:13:00.840 --> 01:13:04.660
To state that man is to blame for the original sin and for the fall

01:13:04.660 --> 01:13:09.560
has been one of the crudest ideas conceived against the spirit and the true God.

01:13:10.180 --> 01:13:13.860
Man has been held responsible for the incompetence of the creator

01:13:13.860 --> 01:13:18.680
and the shortcomings of his work. We have already seen that man was nothing

01:13:18.680 --> 01:13:23.720
more than an ignorant servant in paradise. He ignored everything concerning himself

01:13:23.720 --> 01:13:29.700
and his creator as it appears he is still doing. He did not know that another God existed

01:13:29.700 --> 01:13:35.960
who was immensely superior to the creator God. He did not know that beyond his body and soul

01:13:35.960 --> 01:13:42.300
he had a spirit imprisoned. He did not even know until he woke up and was able to rebel.

01:13:43.680 --> 01:13:48.740
Furnosis, the only original sin that existed, was that committed by the Demiurge

01:13:48.740 --> 01:13:52.220
on binding the eternal spirits to the mortal soul of man.

01:13:53.200 --> 01:13:57.840
Furnosis, the only fall that existed and helped along by the Demiurge,

01:13:58.280 --> 01:14:02.160
was the fall of our spirits into the hellish world of matter.

01:14:07.520 --> 01:14:12.040
Similar to the early Christian Gnostics there existed a sect in southern France

01:14:12.040 --> 01:14:17.040
known as the Cathars who considered themselves the only true Christians of their era.

01:14:17.960 --> 01:14:21.740
The Roman Orthodox Church vehemently disagreed with this of course,

01:14:22.140 --> 01:14:27.660
so just like Gnosticism, Catharism was outlawed and they too were hunted down as heretics.

01:14:28.480 --> 01:14:33.240
In fact the Cathars were the first Christian group targeted by the Catholic Crusades

01:14:33.240 --> 01:14:38.120
and the very first Inquisition was specifically created to torture Cathars.

01:14:39.060 --> 01:14:46.140
On June 22, 1209 Pope Innocent III sent his Crusader army to the town of Béziers

01:14:46.140 --> 01:14:51.900
in the Languedoc province of southern France who were celebrating their feast day of the Magdalene.

01:14:52.600 --> 01:14:58.360
Headed by Inquisitor Arnaud Amalric, the Catholic Crusader army gathered outside

01:14:58.360 --> 01:15:02.100
the Béziers city walls and demanded an ultimatum of the townsfolk.

01:15:02.100 --> 01:15:08.540
They were allegedly harboring 200 high-ranking Cathar leaders known as Perfecti within the city

01:15:08.540 --> 01:15:14.740
and were ordered to turn them over. The townsfolk refused and continued their feast day celebrations

01:15:14.740 --> 01:15:19.300
which enraged and caused Inquisitor Amalric to declare that they shall all,

01:15:19.300 --> 01:15:22.700
quote, die as heretics rather than live as Christians.

01:15:23.660 --> 01:15:28.040
When asked by his army how to determine which of the townsfolk were the Cathar

01:15:28.040 --> 01:15:33.080
leaders to be exterminated he answered, kill them all, God will know his own.

01:15:33.900 --> 01:15:39.320
Thus the Crusaders sieged and sacked the town, murdering nearly 20,000 people before the

01:15:39.320 --> 01:15:45.720
day was finished, mostly women and children. Crusades against the Cathars continued for the

01:15:45.720 --> 01:15:49.940
next 40 years until the entire sect was eliminated off the face of the earth.

01:15:50.740 --> 01:15:56.280
Their final stand occurred on March 16, 1244, at their fortress on Mount Segour.

01:15:57.020 --> 01:16:02.700
For nine months the Crusader army was held at bay until finally a siege of catapults

01:16:02.700 --> 01:16:08.500
succeeded in knocking down their castle walls and the remaining 210 Cathar Perfecti protected

01:16:08.500 --> 01:16:14.400
inside were burned at the stake. So who were these Cathars and what did they believe?

01:16:15.300 --> 01:16:19.740
Why did they consider themselves, like the Gnostics, to be the only true Christians?

01:16:20.600 --> 01:16:24.460
And why were they deemed so hated and heretical by the Church of Rome

01:16:24.460 --> 01:16:30.360
that they needed to be genocided? The Cathars viewed all of material reality

01:16:30.360 --> 01:16:34.800
including our physical bodies as nothing but a prison for our immortal souls.

01:16:35.440 --> 01:16:40.380
Like the Gnostics they believed the Creator God of the Old Testament was actually Satan,

01:16:40.860 --> 01:16:46.720
referred to in Cathar texts as Rex Mundi the King of this world, whereas the God of the

01:16:46.720 --> 01:16:51.820
New Testament was the one true God of light and good. The Cathar creation story

01:16:51.820 --> 01:16:57.180
states that Rex Mundi ascended to the Pluroma wanting to enter but was refused.

01:16:58.100 --> 01:17:03.500
After patiently waiting for a thousand years he successfully snuck into heaven then promptly

01:17:03.500 --> 01:17:08.260
promised the heavenly angels every worldly pleasure to tempt them to leave with him.

01:17:08.940 --> 01:17:13.840
He said they were slaves that God never gave them anything and owned everything around them,

01:17:14.220 --> 01:17:17.540
but if they followed him he would provide them with wonderful riches,

01:17:17.540 --> 01:17:24.440
beautiful partners, and extravagant foods. For nine days and nine nights Rex Mundi seduced

01:17:24.440 --> 01:17:29.680
the heavenly angels down through a hole in the Pluroma he had created and into his evil world

01:17:29.680 --> 01:17:35.280
before the good gods sealed it shut. Once the divine spirits had fallen they found

01:17:35.280 --> 01:17:40.140
themselves in physical bodies in a dense material realm without any of the pleasures

01:17:40.140 --> 01:17:45.540
promised. When they repented and asked to return to heaven Rex Mundi refused

01:17:45.540 --> 01:17:50.380
and replied that the physical bodies he had fashioned for them would now bind them to earth

01:17:50.380 --> 01:17:56.720
and make them forget all about their heavenly home. Meanwhile the one true God, disappointed

01:17:56.720 --> 01:18:01.620
and distraught, decided the fallen angels needed to work towards his grace and forgiveness

01:18:01.620 --> 01:18:06.520
by struggling within these physical body prisons and thus made a deal with the devil.

01:18:07.360 --> 01:18:11.980
Satan could do what he wanted with these physical bodies but the individual souls which

01:18:11.980 --> 01:18:18.000
animated them belonged to God and could return to him once they renounced the body and all of its

01:18:18.000 --> 01:18:25.020
temptations. The devil agreed to this deal and the rest is human history. Trapped in these physical

01:18:25.020 --> 01:18:31.640
bodies the individual soul essence was condemned to repeatedly live, die, and reincarnate into

01:18:31.640 --> 01:18:37.320
new bodies for as long as that soul remained attached to worldly things and desiring material

01:18:37.320 --> 01:18:44.240
pleasures. Thus for the Cathars the whole purpose of human existence is to repent and renounce our

01:18:44.240 --> 01:18:50.280
worldly desires and attachments in order to return to heaven. Our lives are seen as a dualistic

01:18:50.280 --> 01:18:55.160
struggle between the worldly temptations of the flesh and the spiritual peace of the soul.

01:18:56.060 --> 01:19:00.920
As Manny, the originator of Manicheism, a forerunner to Catharism, stated,

01:19:01.480 --> 01:19:07.000
souls are prisoners of darkness and they must fight to recover their original destiny,

01:19:07.520 --> 01:19:14.340
abandoning the body that imprisons them. For the Cathars all of material reality including

01:19:14.340 --> 01:19:20.340
their physical bodies were seen as a prison caging their pure spiritual essence. They aimed

01:19:20.340 --> 01:19:25.340
to leave this world forever and return to paradise believing that anyone who failed

01:19:25.340 --> 01:19:31.840
would be doomed to repeated reincarnations. Their solution was a sacred rite known as the

01:19:31.840 --> 01:19:37.940
Consolamentum which was the cornerstone of Catharism. This ritual could only be performed

01:19:37.940 --> 01:19:44.480
by Cathar priests known as Perfectae who were pairs of one man and one woman that lived together

01:19:44.480 --> 01:19:50.380
according to a strict set of rules. The Perfectae took vows of poverty, pacifism,

01:19:50.380 --> 01:19:56.780
vegetarianism, and anti-natalism. Since they viewed all of material reality as evil,

01:19:57.360 --> 01:20:02.860
childbirth was discouraged and seen as a sin that condemned souls to be trapped in the

01:20:02.860 --> 01:20:09.420
reincarnation cycle. The last step to becoming a Perfectae was completing the Consolamentum

01:20:09.420 --> 01:20:15.300
ceremony and living a sinless life according to their vows until death which they believed

01:20:15.300 --> 01:20:22.340
would allow them to return to heaven. Regular Cathars known as Credentes also had the opportunity

01:20:22.340 --> 01:20:28.180
to perform the Consolamentum once during their lifetime. But since the vows were so sacred

01:20:28.180 --> 01:20:34.580
and irreversible most would only do so on their deathbeds often refusing food and water afterwards.

01:20:35.420 --> 01:20:40.880
The Consolamentum washed away their sins but bound them by oath to pure principles

01:20:40.880 --> 01:20:47.460
thereafter. So performing the ritual late in life was actually advised, making it easier to live

01:20:47.460 --> 01:20:51.720
one's last days in a sinless state. Howdy Makowski wrote,

01:21:03.200 --> 01:21:09.320
As mentioned earlier, once you had a Consolamentum ceremony you could not have another because

01:21:09.320 --> 01:21:15.800
after completing the ceremony one could no longer sin. Most would have this ceremony as death was

01:21:15.800 --> 01:21:22.180
approaching for the likelihood of further sin was greatly reduced. Only Perfectae could administer

01:21:22.180 --> 01:21:28.540
the Consolamentum and from what has been preserved it seems amazingly simple. It included the

01:21:28.540 --> 01:21:33.820
reading of several Biblical passages with a focus on the Gospel of John and the Lord's Prayer.

01:21:34.380 --> 01:21:39.900
Many calls for the good God to remove all sin and ended with an experience referred to as

01:21:39.900 --> 01:21:46.360
the laying of hands upon the person. The Cathars held as their main belief that this was a world

01:21:46.360 --> 01:21:53.080
created by an evil God Rex Mundi who kept them in a reincarnation cycle and their only focus

01:21:53.080 --> 01:21:58.780
in this life was to escape it. The Cathars were not concerned with making this place better,

01:21:58.780 --> 01:22:05.300
finding new forms of government or commerce or anything else. Their focus was to escape the

01:22:05.300 --> 01:22:11.460
evil realm of the Rex Mundi forever and return home to the Father. The Cathars had no fear of

01:22:11.460 --> 01:22:17.660
going to hell after death because they felt that the only hell that existed was this material realm.

01:22:18.920 --> 01:22:25.440
Reincarnation was the fear for it is what would force them back into a body and therefore

01:22:25.440 --> 01:22:27.160
back into hell.

01:22:30.580 --> 01:22:36.780
The Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead are two ancient and enlightening tomes revealing the

01:22:36.780 --> 01:22:42.760
complex afterlife beliefs of two fascinating religions. The Egyptian Book of the Dead,

01:22:43.200 --> 01:22:48.260
also known as the Book of Coming-forth by Day, originally was not a book at all,

01:22:48.740 --> 01:22:53.400
but rather a collection of hieroglyphics carved or painted on pyramid walls.

01:22:54.280 --> 01:23:00.620
The oldest known version is estimated over 5,000 years old and was found in the tomb of a king

01:23:00.620 --> 01:23:07.160
buried in Amados. During Egypt's mid-dynasties the Book of the Dead was more often inscribed into

01:23:07.160 --> 01:23:14.020
sarcophaguses than on pyramid walls and in later dynasties usually written on papyrus scrolls

01:23:14.020 --> 01:23:20.560
buried inside the coffin. The Egyptians believed that after physical death a material body

01:23:20.560 --> 01:23:27.600
known as the kat would produce an etheric double-body known as the ka. In the afterlife state

01:23:27.600 --> 01:23:33.480
inhabiting our new etheric body we wander about the earth plane at will for a period of time.

01:23:34.400 --> 01:23:40.340
The recently deceased is always identified with the god Osiris and frequently called by the god's

01:23:40.340 --> 01:23:46.380
name. Eventually the deceased is brought to judgment which is the main and most important

01:23:46.380 --> 01:23:52.440
feature of the Egyptian afterlife experience. Present at the judgment are several gods of

01:23:52.440 --> 01:23:59.460
the Egyptian pantheon such as the Ibis-headed Thoth, the dog-headed Anubis, and the crocodile-headed

01:23:59.460 --> 01:24:05.680
Amit, devourer of the dead. At the centre of the scene stand the scales of justice

01:24:05.680 --> 01:24:11.020
where Anubis weighs the heart of the recently deceased on one side balanced with a single

01:24:11.020 --> 01:24:17.860
feather on the other side known as the feather of truth. Thoth the scribe stands to the side

01:24:17.860 --> 01:24:23.820
recording the results while Amit the devourer of the dead waits under the scale to perform his task.

01:24:24.700 --> 01:24:29.500
If the heart weighs equal to or less than the feather the deceased is said to be pure

01:24:29.500 --> 01:24:35.420
and may continue their journey towards immortality. However if the heart outweighs the truth

01:24:35.420 --> 01:24:41.680
feather it was deemed impure and Amit would immediately devour their heart leaving them

01:24:41.680 --> 01:24:48.160
without a soul. To prepare for this afterlife judgment the Egyptian Book of the Dead recommends

01:24:48.160 --> 01:24:53.880
the recitation of 42 negative confessions of specific sins they did not commit during their

01:24:53.880 --> 01:25:00.060
lifetime one for each of the 42 gods present in the Hall of Osiris. By reading what ancient

01:25:00.060 --> 01:25:06.560
Egyptians considered sinful it is clear they abhorred abuse, adultery, promiscuity, cheating,

01:25:07.220 --> 01:25:13.880
thievery, fraud, violence, and murder. A pious Egyptian endeavored to not curse the gods,

01:25:14.380 --> 01:25:21.060
not speak hotly, not judge hastily, and not stir up strife. They sought to give food to the hungry,

01:25:21.600 --> 01:25:26.460
drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, and boats to shipwrecked mariners.

01:25:27.260 --> 01:25:32.920
The 42 negative confessions recited during judgment, such as, I have not stolen,

01:25:33.640 --> 01:25:38.880
would later appear in Christianity's ten commandments, such as, thou shalt not steal.

01:25:39.680 --> 01:25:45.660
The Egyptian Book of the Dead states, I have not committed sin, I have not committed robbery

01:25:45.660 --> 01:25:51.420
with violence, I have not stolen, I have not slain men and women, I have not stolen grain,

01:25:51.420 --> 01:25:55.940
I have not porloined offerings, I have not stolen the property of God,

01:25:56.480 --> 01:26:01.480
I have not uttered lies, I have not carried away food, I have not uttered curses,

01:26:02.160 --> 01:26:07.460
I have not committed adultery, I have not lain with men, I have made none to weep,

01:26:07.980 --> 01:26:13.640
I have not eaten the heart, I have not attacked any man, I am not a man of deceit,

01:26:14.320 --> 01:26:20.020
I have not stolen cultivated land, I have not been an eavesdropper, I have not slandered

01:26:20.020 --> 01:26:26.180
any man, I have not been angry without just cause, I have not debauched the wife of any man,

01:26:26.720 --> 01:26:32.240
I have not polluted myself, I have terrorized none, I have not transgressed the law,

01:26:33.000 --> 01:26:37.140
I have not been wrath, I have not shut my ears to the words of truth,

01:26:37.880 --> 01:26:44.000
I have not blasphemed, I am not a man of violence, I have not been a stirrup of strife,

01:26:44.720 --> 01:26:48.920
I have not acted with undue haste, I have not pried into matters,

01:26:49.660 --> 01:26:54.820
I have not multiplied my words in speaking, I have wronged none, I have done no evil,

01:26:55.540 --> 01:27:00.120
I have not worked witchcraft against the king, I have never stopped the flow of water,

01:27:00.820 --> 01:27:04.080
I have never raised my voice, I have not cursed God,

01:27:04.700 --> 01:27:08.620
I have not acted with arrogance, I have not stolen the bread of the gods,

01:27:09.240 --> 01:27:12.700
I have not carried away the kenfu cakes from the spirits of the dead,

01:27:13.370 --> 01:27:18.720
I have not snatched away the bread of a child, nor treated with contempt the God of my city,

01:27:19.520 --> 01:27:25.340
I have not slain the cattle belonging to the God, I have not repulsed God in his manifestations,

01:27:26.220 --> 01:27:29.460
I am pure, I am pure, I am pure.

01:27:30.360 --> 01:27:35.460
The judgment and afterlife journey described in the Egyptian Book of the Dead paints a

01:27:35.460 --> 01:27:40.400
psychedelic picture of their mysterious religion, and actually shares many similarities

01:27:40.400 --> 01:27:45.280
with Tibetan Buddhism and their Book of the Dead written thousands of years later.

01:27:46.300 --> 01:27:51.600
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, also known as the Liberation through Hearing during the intermediate

01:27:51.600 --> 01:27:56.860
state, was first orally preserved, then eventually written down in the 8th century.

01:27:57.920 --> 01:28:02.580
Both the Egyptian and Tibetan books of the dead were afterlife guides meant to be

01:28:02.580 --> 01:28:07.940
whispered into the ear of the dying and deceased by priests, monks, or close family members.

01:28:08.600 --> 01:28:12.360
They both speak of an etheric body that survives physical death,

01:28:12.720 --> 01:28:17.140
and freely travels the earth-plane until eventually being brought to judgment for

01:28:17.140 --> 01:28:22.320
all sins committed during their lifetimes. The Tibetan Book of the Dead calls this

01:28:22.320 --> 01:28:28.880
etheric double the thought-body of propensities, and gives very specific details about what to

01:28:28.880 --> 01:28:34.220
expect starting from the moment of physical death, ending in the eventual reincarnation

01:28:34.220 --> 01:28:38.320
into a new physical body. Dr. Carl Young wrote,

01:28:39.000 --> 01:28:42.840
The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a book of instructions of the dead and dying.

01:28:43.640 --> 01:28:47.560
Like the Egyptian Book of the Dead, it is meant to be a guide for the dead man

01:28:47.560 --> 01:28:52.740
during the period of his bardo-existence, symbolically described as an intermediate state

01:28:52.740 --> 01:28:58.880
of 49 days duration between death and rebirth. The text falls into three parts.

01:28:59.500 --> 01:29:02.800
The first part describes the psychic happenings at the moment of death.

01:29:03.350 --> 01:29:07.880
The second part deals with the dream state which supervenes immediately after death,

01:29:08.260 --> 01:29:13.680
and with what are called karmic illusions. The third part concerns the onset of the

01:29:13.680 --> 01:29:19.360
birth instinct and of prenatal events. It is characteristic that supreme insight

01:29:19.360 --> 01:29:23.400
and illumination, and hence the greatest possibility of attaining liberation,

01:29:24.020 --> 01:29:30.060
are vouchsafed during the actual process of dying. Soon afterward the illusions begin,

01:29:30.060 --> 01:29:35.900
which lead eventually to reincarnation. The illuminative lights growing ever fainter

01:29:35.900 --> 01:29:39.560
and more multifarious, and the visions more and more terrifying.

01:29:40.660 --> 01:29:45.220
This descent illustrates the estrangement of consciousness from the liberating truth

01:29:45.220 --> 01:29:50.700
as it approaches nearer and nearer to physical rebirth. The purpose of the instruction

01:29:50.700 --> 01:29:56.220
is to fix the attention of the dead man at each successive stage of delusion and entanglement

01:29:56.220 --> 01:30:02.120
on the ever present possibility of liberation, and to explain to him the nature of his visions.

01:30:03.220 --> 01:30:08.500
In Buddhism, this intermediary state between death and rebirth is known as bardo,

01:30:08.900 --> 01:30:15.400
which symbolically lasts for 49 seven times seven days before the deceased is reincarnated.

01:30:16.260 --> 01:30:20.360
The ideal in Buddhism, however, and the guidance of the Tibetan Book of the Dead,

01:30:20.720 --> 01:30:26.000
is not to reincarnate here at all, but rather to release all desires and attachments to

01:30:26.000 --> 01:30:31.500
the material world in order to reach a blissful state called nirvana at one with the source.

01:30:32.580 --> 01:30:37.440
This would be considered a perfect death, rarely achieved, and generally requiring

01:30:37.440 --> 01:30:40.580
hundreds or thousands of reincarnations before succeeding.

01:30:41.660 --> 01:30:47.020
Buddhists believe a level of karmic purity and meditative awareness must be diligently

01:30:47.020 --> 01:30:51.360
practiced, usually over many lifetimes, before reaching nirvana.

01:30:52.240 --> 01:30:57.880
Otherwise, shortly after physical death, a series of hallucinatory karmic illusions

01:30:57.880 --> 01:31:02.880
will beckon their attention and drag them down into increasingly darker delusions,

01:31:03.400 --> 01:31:08.200
resulting in progressively worse rebirths. Dr. Kalyang wrote,

01:31:08.920 --> 01:31:14.400
At any rate, it is unexpectedly original, if nothing else, to find the after-death state

01:31:14.400 --> 01:31:19.020
of which our religious imagination has formed the most grandiose conceptions

01:31:19.020 --> 01:31:25.320
painted in lurid colors as a terrifying dream state of a progressively degenerative character.

01:31:26.140 --> 01:31:30.120
The supreme vision comes not at the end of the bardo, but right at the beginning,

01:31:30.620 --> 01:31:36.080
in the moment of death. What happens afterward is an ever-deepening descent into illusion

01:31:36.080 --> 01:31:41.000
and obscuration, down to the ultimate degradation of new physical birth.

01:31:41.940 --> 01:31:45.360
The spiritual climax is reached at the moment when life ends.

01:31:46.080 --> 01:31:50.900
Human life, therefore, is the vehicle of the highest perfection it is possible to attain.

01:31:51.620 --> 01:31:55.880
It alone generates the karma that makes it possible for the dead man to abide

01:31:55.880 --> 01:31:59.820
in the perpetual light of the voidness without clinging to any object,

01:32:00.340 --> 01:32:05.660
and thus to rest on the hub of the wheel of rebirth, freed from all illusion of genesis

01:32:05.660 --> 01:32:10.860
and decay. The Tibetan Book of the Dead emphasizes the importance of maintaining

01:32:10.860 --> 01:32:16.280
at the moment of physical death a meditative, undisturbed, pure state of consciousness,

01:32:16.780 --> 01:32:19.660
free from desires and attachments to the material world.

01:32:20.540 --> 01:32:24.500
Spiritual adepts, able to transcend the trap of reincarnation,

01:32:25.040 --> 01:32:30.240
are promised not to experience the devolution of delusion into hallucinatory dream states,

01:32:30.940 --> 01:32:35.580
but to instead, quote, be set face to face with the fundamental clear light,

01:32:35.580 --> 01:32:40.800
and without any intermediate state, they will obtain the unbored dharma kaya

01:32:40.800 --> 01:32:47.240
by the great perpendicular path. A parallel teaching to this is found in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita,

01:32:47.800 --> 01:32:53.440
where Krishna tells Arjuna that one attaineth whatever state of being one thinketh about

01:32:53.440 --> 01:32:59.420
at the last when relinquishing the body, being ever absorbed in the thought thereof.

01:33:00.340 --> 01:33:05.080
If the deceased is unable to maintain meditation, clings to material attachments

01:33:05.080 --> 01:33:10.800
and desires, or has accrued too much negative karma, they will be thrust into a series of

01:33:10.800 --> 01:33:16.220
dreamlike illusions. The Tibetan Book of the Dead states, however, that these illusions

01:33:16.220 --> 01:33:21.960
all emanate directly from our own minds, and are a result of our own beliefs, preconceptions,

01:33:22.460 --> 01:33:28.620
and other subconscious factors. The bardos each person experiences are based on their own

01:33:28.620 --> 01:33:34.260
unique mental content, so a Buddhist would likely see visions of Buddha and the deities in

01:33:34.260 --> 01:33:39.960
their pantheon, a Christian would see Jesus and the Christian heaven, and a Viking would

01:33:39.960 --> 01:33:44.400
see the Norse gods and Valhalla. Sir John Woodruff wrote,

01:33:45.180 --> 01:33:48.080
The Bible of the Christians, like the Koran of the Muslims,

01:33:48.740 --> 01:33:53.380
never seems to consider that the spiritual experiences in the form of hallucinatory

01:33:53.380 --> 01:34:00.640
visions by prophet or devotee reported therein may, in the last analysis, not be real.

01:34:01.280 --> 01:34:06.180
But the Tibetan Book of the Dead is so sweeping in its assertions that it leaves its reader

01:34:06.180 --> 01:34:11.080
with the clear-cut impression that every vision, without any exception whatsoever,

01:34:11.560 --> 01:34:18.160
in which spiritual beings, god, or demons, or paradises, or places of torment and purgation

01:34:18.160 --> 01:34:24.660
play a part, in a bardo, or any bardo-like dream or ecstasy, is purely illusionary.

01:34:25.320 --> 01:34:29.060
The whole aim is to cause the dreamer to awaken into reality,

01:34:29.720 --> 01:34:35.380
freed from all the obscurations of karmic illusions, in a supramundane or nirvanic state,

01:34:36.020 --> 01:34:41.840
beyond all phenomenal paradises, heavens, hells, purgatories, or world of embodiment.

01:34:42.780 --> 01:34:46.260
The Tibetan Book of the Dead states that upon the moment of physical death,

01:34:46.660 --> 01:34:49.880
the following passage should be whispered into their ear repeatedly.

01:34:50.680 --> 01:34:55.300
O nobly born, the time hath now come for thee to seek the path.

01:34:56.160 --> 01:35:02.220
Thy breathing is about to cease. Thy guru hath set thee face to face before with the clear light,

01:35:02.740 --> 01:35:07.160
and now thou art about to experience it in its reality, in the bardo state,

01:35:07.700 --> 01:35:12.840
wherein all things are like the void and cloudless sky, and the naked, spotless intellect

01:35:12.840 --> 01:35:17.180
is like unto a transparent vacuum, without circumference or center.

01:35:17.180 --> 01:35:22.380
At this moment know thou thyself, and abide in that state.

01:35:23.420 --> 01:35:28.740
Thine own consciousness, shining, void, and inseparable from the great body of radiance,

01:35:29.200 --> 01:35:32.700
hath no birth nor death, and is the immutable light.

01:35:33.560 --> 01:35:37.500
If the deceased is able to recognize their true nature as the clear light,

01:35:37.940 --> 01:35:42.720
and shed their mortal existence, the bardo ends immediately with their return to source

01:35:42.720 --> 01:35:49.080
in a state of nirvana. Otherwise a series of self-created delusions begin to overtake

01:35:49.080 --> 01:35:52.260
their consciousness. The Book of the Dead continues,

01:35:53.040 --> 01:35:56.680
O nobly born, when thy body and mind were separating,

01:35:57.320 --> 01:36:03.160
thou must have experienced a glimpse of the pure truth, subtle, sparkling, bright, dazzling,

01:36:03.600 --> 01:36:09.380
glorious, and radiantly awesome, in appearance like a mirage moving across a landscape in

01:36:09.380 --> 01:36:16.860
springtime, in one continuous stream of vibrations. Be not daunted thereby, nor terrified, nor odd.

01:36:17.580 --> 01:36:21.280
That is the radiance of thine own true nature. Recognize it.

01:36:22.260 --> 01:36:27.000
Similar to an amputee with phantom limb syndrome, when the physical body dies,

01:36:27.540 --> 01:36:31.100
our consciousness still thinks and feels much like it did during life,

01:36:31.460 --> 01:36:36.320
creating dream states so convincing that many deceased people do not even realize

01:36:36.320 --> 01:36:43.040
that they are dead. Much like the Robin Williams movie What Dreams May Come, the recently deceased

01:36:43.040 --> 01:36:48.200
often becomes so consumed with hallucinations related to their attachments and desires on

01:36:48.200 --> 01:36:54.180
the material plane that they may be in denial of their own death. For those who refused the

01:36:54.180 --> 01:36:58.940
immutable clear light, the Book of the Dead claims they will now experience two more lights.

01:36:59.460 --> 01:37:06.320
First a good true blue light of the highest divine, and then a false white light of the Devas,

01:37:06.980 --> 01:37:12.720
spiritual beings in Hindu and Buddhist mythology, which relate to the archons or fallen angels

01:37:12.720 --> 01:37:17.140
of Gnostic Christianity. The Tibetan Book of the Dead continues,

01:37:17.980 --> 01:37:24.480
the wisdom of the Dharma Datu, blue in color, shining, transparent, glorious, dazzling from

01:37:24.480 --> 01:37:29.880
the heart of Varochana as the father-mother will shoot forth and strike against thee with

01:37:29.880 --> 01:37:34.900
a light so radiant that thou wilt scarcely be able to look at it. Along with it,

01:37:35.220 --> 01:37:39.340
there will also shine a dull white light from the Devas, which will strike against

01:37:39.340 --> 01:37:45.260
thee in thy front. Thereupon, because of the power of bad karma, the glorious blue

01:37:45.260 --> 01:37:50.040
light of the wisdom of Dharma Datu will produce in thee fear and terror,

01:37:50.040 --> 01:37:56.260
and thou wilt wish to flee from it. Thou wilt beget a fondness for the dull white light of the

01:37:56.260 --> 01:38:02.380
Devas. At this stage, thou must not be awed by the divine blue light which will appear shining,

01:38:02.860 --> 01:38:08.500
dazzling, and glorious, and be not startled by it. That is the light of the Tathagata,

01:38:09.060 --> 01:38:14.700
called the light of the wisdom of the Dharma Datu. Put thy faith in it, believe in it

01:38:14.700 --> 01:38:21.880
firmly, and pray unto it. Be not fond of the dull white light of the Devas. Be not attached to it.

01:38:22.360 --> 01:38:27.760
Be not weak. If thou be attached to it, thou wilt wander in the abodes of the Devas,

01:38:28.080 --> 01:38:33.540
and be drawn into the whirl of the Six Lokas. That is an interruption to obstruct thee

01:38:33.540 --> 01:38:39.720
on the path of liberation. Look not at it. Look at the bright blue light in deep faith.

01:38:40.660 --> 01:38:46.100
For the next seven days, the recently deceased is tempted by seven different colored lights,

01:38:46.500 --> 01:38:51.680
emanating from seven peaceful deities, each representing one of the seven shakras,

01:38:52.220 --> 01:38:56.460
and one of the seven vices, including anger, pride, and jealousy.

01:38:57.400 --> 01:39:00.920
Depending on the accumulated karma of the recently deceased,

01:39:01.480 --> 01:39:05.720
they will feel irresistibly drawn towards the deity that represents their vice.

01:39:06.520 --> 01:39:12.460
The Book of the Dead insists to remain impartial and unattached to each emotion as it passes,

01:39:13.020 --> 01:39:20.040
or else be thrust and reincarnated into that world. For example, for those trapped by the light of

01:39:20.040 --> 01:39:26.840
jealousy it says, A light of dull green color from the Asura Loka produced from the cause

01:39:26.840 --> 01:39:32.560
of the feeling of jealousy, coming side by side with the wisdom rays will shine upon thee.

01:39:33.160 --> 01:39:39.960
Meditate upon it with impartiality, with neither repulsion nor attraction. Be not fond of it.

01:39:40.560 --> 01:39:45.340
If thou art of low mental capacity, be not fond of it. Fear it not.

01:39:46.120 --> 01:39:51.680
Be not fond of that dull green light of the Asura Loka. That is the karmic path

01:39:51.680 --> 01:39:58.180
of acquired intense jealousy which hath come to receive thee. If thou art attracted by it,

01:39:58.180 --> 01:40:05.000
thou wilt fall into the Asura Loka and have to engage in unbearable miseries of quarreling and

01:40:05.000 --> 01:40:11.720
warfare. If we are attracted to the impure lights of these worlds, it says we will assume a body there

01:40:11.720 --> 01:40:17.920
and lose our opportunity to be emancipated from the cycle of suffering. Each successive light,

01:40:17.980 --> 01:40:23.880
however, guarantees progressively worse rebirths, so the longer we remain lost in these karmic

01:40:23.880 --> 01:40:29.480
illusions, the more suffering we will have to endure. After the first seven days of the

01:40:29.480 --> 01:40:34.720
seven peaceful deities, the next seven days are controlled by seven wrathful deities.

01:40:35.720 --> 01:40:39.260
The Book of the Dead says these are actually the same seven deities,

01:40:39.600 --> 01:40:43.280
but with a changed aspect, so that they will not resemble themselves,

01:40:44.120 --> 01:40:48.700
and now they will use negative rather than positive reinforcement to lure us.

01:40:49.420 --> 01:40:55.380
Again we are reminded, though, not to fear or be in awe of these gods, because they are simply

01:40:55.380 --> 01:41:03.480
embodiments of our own intellect, aspects of our own consciousness. O nobly born, listen undistractedly,

01:41:04.160 --> 01:41:08.740
not having been able to recognize when the peaceful deities shown upon thee in the bardo

01:41:08.740 --> 01:41:15.640
above, thou hast come wandering thus far. Now on the eighth day the blood-drinking wrathful

01:41:15.640 --> 01:41:21.460
deities will come to shine. Act so as to recognize them without being distracted.

01:41:22.660 --> 01:41:27.360
After seven days of the peaceful deities, and seven days of the wrathful deities,

01:41:27.860 --> 01:41:33.600
on the fifteenth day the thought-body of propensities changes to a denser version of itself,

01:41:33.980 --> 01:41:40.200
called the desire-body. This desire-body is given the powers of unimpeded motion

01:41:40.200 --> 01:41:46.740
and miraculous action, meaning it can travel anywhere in an instant, and go straight through

01:41:46.740 --> 01:41:52.340
walls and other physical objects. We are even encouraged to test the desire-body,

01:41:52.780 --> 01:41:57.960
to experience our new powers, and prove to ourselves that we must really be dead.

01:41:58.940 --> 01:42:04.020
O nobly born, thou art actually endowed with the power of miraculous action.

01:42:04.860 --> 01:42:09.540
Thou art able in a moment to traverse the four continents round about Mount Meru.

01:42:10.200 --> 01:42:13.900
Or thou canst instantly arrive in whatever place thou wishest.

01:42:14.760 --> 01:42:19.040
Thou hast the power of reaching there within the time which a man taketh to bend,

01:42:19.480 --> 01:42:26.080
or to stretch forth his hand. O nobly born, unimpeded motion implyeth that thy present body,

01:42:26.380 --> 01:42:29.740
being a design intellect having been separated from its seat,

01:42:30.220 --> 01:42:36.100
is not a body of gross matter. So that now thou hast the power to go right through any rock

01:42:36.100 --> 01:42:42.980
masses, hills, boulders, earth, houses, and Mount Meru itself without being impeded.

01:42:43.800 --> 01:42:47.660
Even the king of mountains, Mount Meru, can be passed through by thee,

01:42:48.040 --> 01:42:54.060
straightforward and backwards, unimpededly. If we have proceeded this far still without

01:42:54.060 --> 01:42:59.640
liberation, we are again urged towards meditation. We are also warned that at this

01:42:59.640 --> 01:43:04.500
point we may see living relatives giving alms, performing religious ceremonies,

01:43:04.500 --> 01:43:10.560
or sacrificing animals in our names, which may anger or sadness, but to be careful

01:43:10.560 --> 01:43:16.820
that such emotions could cause us to be reborn in hell. If we feel attached to worldly goods that

01:43:16.820 --> 01:43:22.020
we left behind, or because of seeing our old possessions being enjoyed and owned by other

01:43:22.020 --> 01:43:27.860
people, we should not feel jealous or upset at our successors, nor attached to our possessions

01:43:27.860 --> 01:43:34.760
any longer. We are told to renounce them, and cast them away, because we can no longer possess them.

01:43:35.520 --> 01:43:40.860
O nobly born, when thou art driven hither and thither by the evermoving wind of karma,

01:43:41.440 --> 01:43:47.040
thine intellect, having no object upon which to rest, will be like a feather tossed about by the

01:43:47.040 --> 01:43:53.760
wind, riding on the horse of breath. Ceaselessly and involuntarily wilt thou be wandering about.

01:43:54.460 --> 01:44:00.820
To all those who are weeping, thou wilt say, Here I am, weep not. But they not hearing thee,

01:44:01.240 --> 01:44:07.400
thou wilt think, I am dead. And again at that time, thou wilt be feeling very miserable.

01:44:08.240 --> 01:44:13.780
Be not miserable in that way. O nobly born, thou wilt rest a little while,

01:44:14.220 --> 01:44:18.900
but thou wilt not be able to remain there very long. For thine intellect hath been

01:44:18.900 --> 01:44:23.800
separated from thine earth-plane body. Because of this inability to loiter,

01:44:24.420 --> 01:44:31.240
thou oft times wilt feel perturbed and vexed and panic-stricken. At times thy knower will be dim.

01:44:31.960 --> 01:44:37.260
At times fleeting and incoherent. Thereupon this thought will occur to thee.

01:44:37.880 --> 01:44:42.920
Alas, I am dead. What shall I do? And because of such thought,

01:44:43.300 --> 01:44:47.740
the knower will become saddened, and the heart chilled, and thou wilt experience

01:44:47.740 --> 01:44:52.960
infinite misery of sorrow. Since thou canst not rest in any one place,

01:44:53.400 --> 01:45:00.500
and feel impelled to go on, think not of various things, but allow the intellect to abide in its own

01:45:00.500 --> 01:45:08.120
unmodified state. Finally a gray twilight-like light will begin to shine forth at all times

01:45:08.120 --> 01:45:14.800
until the forty-ninth day. Our old life and body will start to dim as we frantically search

01:45:14.800 --> 01:45:21.140
for a new body, thinking about a future life. We will be drawn towards couples engaging in intercourse,

01:45:21.620 --> 01:45:27.840
and soon find a womb to enter, where we may be born again. The Book of the Dead warns us, however,

01:45:28.260 --> 01:45:34.060
to instead meditate with peace and tranquility on the vacuous clear light, which will shut the

01:45:34.060 --> 01:45:40.760
womb door. If unable to do this, we are destined for reincarnation, but first enter a judgment

01:45:40.760 --> 01:45:47.520
scene very similar to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Both scenes feature symbolic scales of justice,

01:45:47.920 --> 01:45:53.700
but in the Tibetan version, rather than weighing our heart against a feather, a number of small white

01:45:53.700 --> 01:45:59.740
pebbles representing our good karma, and a number of small black pebbles representing our bad karma

01:45:59.740 --> 01:46:06.300
are weighed on the scale. O noblyborn, listen, that thou art suffering so cometh

01:46:06.300 --> 01:46:11.900
from thine own karma. It is not due to anyone else's, it is by thine own karma.

01:46:13.020 --> 01:46:18.960
Accordingly, pray earnestly to the precious trinity that will protect thee. If thou neither prayest

01:46:18.960 --> 01:46:24.960
nor knowest how to meditate upon the great symbol, nor upon any tutelary deity, the good genius,

01:46:25.380 --> 01:46:30.900
who was born simultaneously with thee, will come now and count thy good deeds with white pebbles,

01:46:30.900 --> 01:46:36.560
and the evil genius, who was born simultaneously with thee, will come and count out thy evil

01:46:36.560 --> 01:46:42.740
deeds with black pebbles. Thereupon thou wilt be greatly frightened, odd, and terrified,

01:46:43.440 --> 01:46:49.240
and wilt tremble, and thou wilt attempt to tell lies, saying, I have not committed any evil deed.

01:46:50.000 --> 01:46:53.820
Then the Lord of Death will say, I will consult the mirror of karma.

01:46:54.540 --> 01:46:59.900
So saying, he will look in the mirror wherein every good and evil act is vividly reflected,

01:46:59.900 --> 01:47:06.680
lying will be of no avail. Then the Lord of Death will place round thy neck a rope and drag

01:47:06.680 --> 01:47:13.800
thee along. He will cut off thy head, extract thy heart, pull out thy intestines, lick up thy brain,

01:47:14.360 --> 01:47:20.800
drink thy blood, eat thy flesh, and gnaw thy bones. But thou wilt be incapable of dying.

01:47:21.360 --> 01:47:27.320
Although thy body be hacked to pieces, it will revive again. The repeated hacking will

01:47:27.320 --> 01:47:32.320
cause intense pain and torture. Even at the time that the pebbles are being counted out,

01:47:32.780 --> 01:47:38.400
be not frightened, nor terrified, tell no lies, and fear not the Lord of Death.

01:47:39.320 --> 01:47:45.140
Thy body being a mental body is incapable of dying, even though beheaded and quartered.

01:47:45.760 --> 01:47:51.000
In reality, thy body is the nature of voidness. Thou needs not be afraid.

01:47:51.660 --> 01:47:59.500
The Lords of Death are thine own hallucinations. Thy desire body is a body of propensities and void.

01:48:00.260 --> 01:48:07.360
Voidness cannot injure voidness. The qualityless cannot injure the qualityless. Apart from one's

01:48:07.360 --> 01:48:13.860
own hallucinations, in reality, there are no such things existing outside oneself as Lord of

01:48:13.860 --> 01:48:20.560
Death, or God, or Demon, or the bullheaded spirit of Death. Act so, as to recognize this.

01:48:21.560 --> 01:48:27.540
Similar to the Egyptian God Amit, devourer of the dead, who would eat heavy hearts off the scale

01:48:27.540 --> 01:48:33.780
of justice, the Tibetan Lord of Death dismembers and devours those deceased who fail their judgment.

01:48:34.640 --> 01:48:40.400
In fact, he repeatedly does so. Not simply to punish, but to prove to the deceased

01:48:40.400 --> 01:48:46.360
that we are not our bodies. Our bodies, the judgment scene, and the Lord of Death himself,

01:48:46.820 --> 01:48:51.080
are all said to be simply hallucinations emanating from our own consciousness.

01:48:51.960 --> 01:48:56.480
If we cannot realize this, we will continue to be reborn time and again.

01:48:57.380 --> 01:48:58.840
Walter Evans Wentz wrote,

01:48:59.560 --> 01:49:04.760
Each deity, as it dawns from its appropriate psychic center, represents the coming into

01:49:04.760 --> 01:49:10.500
after-death karmic activity of some corresponding impulse or passion of the complex consciousness.

01:49:11.440 --> 01:49:17.240
As though in an initiatory mystery play, the actors for each day of the bardo come on the

01:49:17.240 --> 01:49:22.240
mind-stage of the deceased, who is their sole spectator, and their director is karma.

01:49:23.180 --> 01:49:26.900
The higher or more divine elements of the consciousness principle of the deceased

01:49:26.900 --> 01:49:32.700
dawn first in the full glory of the primal clear light, and then, in ever diminishing glory,

01:49:32.700 --> 01:49:37.240
the visions grow less and less happy. The peaceful deities of the heart center,

01:49:37.580 --> 01:49:41.700
and then of the throat center, merge into the wrathful deities of the brain center.

01:49:42.440 --> 01:49:48.380
Finally, as the purely human and brutish propensities personified, in the fiercest of the wrathful

01:49:48.380 --> 01:49:54.020
deities, as horror-producing and threatening spectral hallucinations come into the field

01:49:54.020 --> 01:49:59.180
of mental vision, the recipient flees and dismay from them, his own thought-forms,

01:49:59.180 --> 01:50:05.020
to the refuge of the womb, thereby making himself to be the plaything of maya and the

01:50:05.020 --> 01:50:10.580
slave of ignorance. In other words, in a manner similar to that in which the earth-plane body

01:50:10.580 --> 01:50:16.360
grows to maturity and then withers, and after its death disintegrates, the after-death body,

01:50:16.620 --> 01:50:22.720
called the mental body, grows from the heavenly days of its bardo-childhood to the less idealist

01:50:22.720 --> 01:50:30.540
days of its bardo-maturity, then fades and dies in the intermediate state, as the knower, abandoning it,

01:50:31.080 --> 01:50:40.400
is reborn. Reincarnation is the cornerstone belief of many world religions, including Hinduism,

01:50:40.640 --> 01:50:47.460
Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Shintoism, and Zoroastrianism. The idea that our consciousness

01:50:47.460 --> 01:50:54.300
survives physical death and is reborn into new bodies was believed by great minds, such as Plato,

01:50:54.740 --> 01:51:01.200
Socrates, Spinoza, Leibniz, Voltaire, Hume, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Whitman, Napoleon,

01:51:01.660 --> 01:51:07.860
Franklin, Goethe, and Gandhi. Many researchers, including Dr. Ian Stevenson, have dedicated

01:51:07.860 --> 01:51:12.460
their lives to proving the phenomenon by meticulously documenting and verifying

01:51:12.460 --> 01:51:17.600
over 3,000 cases of children remembering and confirming knowledge from past lives.

01:51:18.480 --> 01:51:24.580
In his six-volume work spanning over 40 years of investigation, Dr. Stevenson reported on children

01:51:24.580 --> 01:51:29.820
from around the world able to remember so much about their previous lives that he was able to

01:51:29.820 --> 01:51:36.340
locate former friends, relatives, villages, houses, and possessions based solely on the

01:51:36.340 --> 01:51:41.760
children's testimony. Published in distinguished scientific periodicals such as the American

01:51:41.760 --> 01:51:46.920
Journal of Psychiatry, the Journal of Nervous Medicine and Disease, and the International Journal

01:51:46.920 --> 01:51:52.200
of Comparative Sociology, even the American Medical Association Journal stated that Dr.

01:51:52.360 --> 01:51:59.020
Stevenson has quote, painstakingly and unemotionally collected a detailed series of cases in which

01:51:59.020 --> 01:52:05.140
the evidence for reincarnation is difficult to understand on any other grounds. If you are

01:52:05.140 --> 01:52:10.820
personally still unconvinced that reincarnation is real, I highly recommend reading Dr. Stevenson's

01:52:10.820 --> 01:52:17.580
work or my book Spiritual Science. Along with reincarnation, two other afterlife beliefs are

01:52:17.580 --> 01:52:23.600
often featured prominently in the world's religions, namely judgment and sin or karma.

01:52:24.440 --> 01:52:30.260
Buddha said, everything in the universe is the fruit of a just law, the law of causality,

01:52:30.740 --> 01:52:36.460
the law of cause and effect, the law of karma. Karma builds itself as essentially

01:52:36.460 --> 01:52:42.520
the moral and spiritual equivalent to Newton's Third Law of Motion. For every action there is

01:52:42.520 --> 01:52:47.740
an equal opposing reaction. What goes around comes around, and do unto others as you would

01:52:47.740 --> 01:52:53.100
have done unto you, because either in this life or the next the scales of justice will remain

01:52:53.100 --> 01:52:59.180
balanced. Whether it is the Christian judgment of one's sins, the books of the dead weighing

01:52:59.180 --> 01:53:04.720
one's heart on the scales, or the Hindu-Buddhist notion of karma determining one's rebirth,

01:53:05.320 --> 01:53:11.500
the idea that our moral decisions in life are recorded, analyzed, and scrutinized during the

01:53:11.500 --> 01:53:18.040
afterlife is nearly ubiquitous. On the surface this may seem just and good that our actions

01:53:18.040 --> 01:53:22.860
are judged and reflected in our afterlife experience, and that evil people will eventually

01:53:22.860 --> 01:53:28.380
have to atone for their sins. But a deeper examination reveals that under the surface

01:53:28.380 --> 01:53:35.640
this system is really not fair or balanced at all. First of all, there is no God-given

01:53:35.640 --> 01:53:41.920
life instruction manual, no objective standard, or unanimously agreed upon set of rules for what

01:53:41.920 --> 01:53:48.060
constitutes a sinless, karma-free existence. There are thousands of religions and holy texts,

01:53:48.580 --> 01:53:54.480
each with their own unique set of precepts, laws, or commandments, and no two are exactly alike.

01:53:55.320 --> 01:54:00.380
How are we to know whether to follow the Buddhist Eightfold Path, the Christian Ten Commandments,

01:54:01.020 --> 01:54:05.640
the Egyptian Forty-Two Prohibitions, or any other sacred set of directives?

01:54:06.540 --> 01:54:11.900
Furthermore, the holy books of these religions state that most everyone falls short of their

01:54:11.900 --> 01:54:18.220
nearly impossible standard. For example, in the Christian Bible, Romans 3-23 says,

01:54:18.220 --> 01:54:24.760
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And Ecclesiastes 7-20 says,

01:54:25.200 --> 01:54:31.280
Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.

01:54:32.120 --> 01:54:37.920
In the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, 8-16, it says, From the highest plain in the material world,

01:54:38.180 --> 01:54:43.780
down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place.

01:54:44.640 --> 01:54:51.300
And in the Buddhist text, Sutta-Napada, it says, Countless lives we have lived in this Samsara,

01:54:51.700 --> 01:54:56.940
so full of suffering. It is hard to find someone who has not been our mother or father.

01:54:57.860 --> 01:55:02.820
So even if we are lucky enough to choose the correct religion and perfectly follow its

01:55:02.820 --> 01:55:07.740
moral directives, we are informed that our efforts are still almost certainly in vain,

01:55:08.160 --> 01:55:12.240
and we will have to suffer due to falling short of their near impossible standard.

01:55:13.080 --> 01:55:18.300
Beyond the ambiguity of moral precepts and the near impossibility of maintaining them,

01:55:18.820 --> 01:55:23.460
we are also surrounded by billions of other confused sinners acting out their karma.

01:55:24.380 --> 01:55:29.800
Just by proximity alone, from sharing the earth with so many people involved in their own internal

01:55:29.800 --> 01:55:34.120
struggles, it is ensured that we will be repeatedly challenged throughout our lives

01:55:34.120 --> 01:55:37.860
and eventually accrue negative karma from some of these interactions.

01:55:38.560 --> 01:55:44.180
We all have bad days navigating this world of suffering, dealing with a myriad of miserable

01:55:44.180 --> 01:55:49.720
people, living in physical bodies that deliver us chemical doses of roller coaster emotions.

01:55:50.640 --> 01:55:55.780
Is it really fair to be judged so harshly for simply trying to survive and do our best

01:55:55.780 --> 01:56:00.440
in this far from perfect world? Wouldn't a loving, benevolent creator

01:56:00.440 --> 01:56:06.180
put us in a safe, caring environment if they truly wanted us to learn, grow, and thrive?

01:56:07.060 --> 01:56:12.580
How just is it to put people in a dangerous, confusing world full of sin and sinners,

01:56:13.200 --> 01:56:16.760
then punishing anyone who falls short of absolute perfection?

01:56:17.620 --> 01:56:23.300
It seems the message of Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, being crucified on the cross,

01:56:23.760 --> 01:56:29.240
is that this evil world is so fallen that even God in the flesh could not thrive or survive

01:56:29.240 --> 01:56:34.320
here. Instead, he would only be able to help a small group of fortunate people

01:56:34.320 --> 01:56:37.680
before ultimately being tortured and murdered for his efforts.

01:56:38.600 --> 01:56:43.400
We see this repeatedly throughout history as well, with humanitarians like Malcolm X,

01:56:43.740 --> 01:56:48.120
Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Mahatma Gandhi being assassinated

01:56:48.120 --> 01:56:53.360
rather than applauded for their activism. There are several cliché phrases hinting at

01:56:53.360 --> 01:56:59.060
this truth as well, such as, only the good die young. Virtue is its own punishment.

01:56:59.720 --> 01:57:05.940
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and no good deed goes unpunished.

01:57:06.540 --> 01:57:11.840
These have become idioms and proverbs because they have proven true over generations,

01:57:12.280 --> 01:57:17.260
and speak of inherent injustices most everyone can relate to and identify with.

01:57:17.980 --> 01:57:23.280
These ideas of virtue being its own punishment, or no good deed going unpunished,

01:57:23.280 --> 01:57:31.200
run completely contrary to the ideas of karma or justice. So which is true, that life isn't fair,

01:57:31.700 --> 01:57:38.280
and nice guys finish last? Or like the Buddha said, that everything is the fruit of the

01:57:38.280 --> 01:57:45.120
just law of karma? Isabella Green, in Leaving the Trap, said, the whole idea of karma

01:57:45.120 --> 01:57:50.200
quite literally means that if a person caused suffering to others during their life,

01:57:50.200 --> 01:57:55.800
which in one way or another most of us do, then this person has to pay off this karma

01:57:55.800 --> 01:58:01.620
in a different life where they are the ones who are now suffering. The whole idea makes me wonder

01:58:01.620 --> 01:58:07.220
who exactly came up with it and fed it to humans to begin with. From this perspective,

01:58:07.720 --> 01:58:13.260
I would suggest that the idea of facing one's karma, also known as Judgment Day,

01:58:13.820 --> 01:58:19.420
is an artificial construct generated to keep the reincarnation cycle going.

01:58:25.540 --> 01:58:30.140
Throughout history, people who have been pronounced dead, but then later successfully

01:58:30.140 --> 01:58:36.220
resuscitated, have recounted eerily similar stories. Upon the moment of bodily death,

01:58:36.640 --> 01:58:41.300
they report that their consciousness, their awareness, their feelings, memories, and personal

01:58:41.300 --> 01:58:47.900
identity all remain intact but become detached from their physical body. They can still see and

01:58:47.900 --> 01:58:53.140
hear everything around them, but no longer through their eyes and ears. Their consciousness

01:58:53.140 --> 01:58:58.480
rises out of their dying bodies and they observe the resuscitation attempt or their

01:58:58.480 --> 01:59:04.800
mourning family members while floating around in this disembodied state. Soon they begin to hear

01:59:04.800 --> 01:59:10.280
a ringing, buzzing, or musical vibrations and find themselves traveling through a darkness

01:59:10.280 --> 01:59:16.380
or a tunnel toward a white light in the distance. The light lovingly beckons them with its beauty

01:59:16.380 --> 01:59:21.260
and brings them to a heavenly realm where they meet with deceased friends, family,

01:59:21.260 --> 01:59:27.960
and angelic beings of light. These light beings emanate love and compassion and telepathically

01:59:27.960 --> 01:59:33.580
present themselves as afterlife guides tasked with helping recently deceased souls transition.

01:59:34.340 --> 01:59:39.980
They then initiate a full life review where people report their entire life flashing before them.

01:59:40.740 --> 01:59:45.100
In an instant they are shown a panoramic playback of their whole lives on earth.

01:59:45.940 --> 01:59:50.120
The beings of light observe the life review alongside the recently deceased,

01:59:50.120 --> 01:59:55.120
drawing their attention to certain key moments when they made selfish, insensitive,

01:59:55.540 --> 02:00:00.740
or immoral decisions and question them about their behavior. The near-death experiencer

02:00:00.740 --> 02:00:06.380
usually feels remorseful and regretful about their shortcomings in life and the light beings

02:00:06.380 --> 02:00:11.340
console them by letting them know they can go back and that they still have a mission on

02:00:11.340 --> 02:00:17.060
earth to complete. This beautiful heavenly realm, the loving light beings and warm

02:00:17.060 --> 02:00:21.760
reception by deceased friends and family makes most want nothing more than to stay,

02:00:22.380 --> 02:00:28.660
and many often protest, insisting not to return. Ultimately, however, they are coaxed,

02:00:28.760 --> 02:00:34.800
coerced, and convinced to come back to earth and soon find themselves waking up alive in

02:00:34.800 --> 02:00:40.620
their physical bodies. This exact sequence of events or a version thereof has been

02:00:40.620 --> 02:00:45.820
experienced by countless people throughout history. In recent times many well-respected

02:00:45.820 --> 02:00:51.360
clinicians like Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Kenneth Ring, Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross,

02:00:52.020 --> 02:00:57.540
Dr. Michael Sabam, and Dr. Melvin Morse have left their established professional careers

02:00:57.540 --> 02:01:02.940
in order to dedicate their lives to researching and reporting on this fascinating phenomena.

02:01:04.020 --> 02:01:08.420
These and other doctors have recorded and detailed several thousand cases

02:01:08.420 --> 02:01:13.340
in dozens of books compiling an incredibly compelling preponderance of evidence.

02:01:14.040 --> 02:01:20.020
These modern near-death experiences also mirror many facets of the ancient Egyptian and Tibetan

02:01:20.020 --> 02:01:25.480
books of the dead, such as the existence of a bardo body that survives physical death,

02:01:26.180 --> 02:01:31.800
meetings with luminous beings and deceased relatives, and an intensive life-review judgment scene.

02:01:32.940 --> 02:01:39.560
Researcher Dr. Jeffrey Long has compiled the website nderf.org with over four thousand

02:01:39.560 --> 02:01:44.620
testimonies from modern-day near-death experiencers who share very similar stories.

02:01:45.500 --> 02:01:50.880
When compared for commonalities and contrasted for inconsistencies, a disturbing common thread

02:01:50.880 --> 02:01:55.980
that crops up repeatedly is deception and manipulation by the light and light beings.

02:01:56.920 --> 02:02:02.200
For example, nearly ninety-five percent of near-death experiencers insinuate that they are

02:02:02.200 --> 02:02:08.240
pulled or drawn to the light in an irresistible manner, like by magnet, as though they have

02:02:08.240 --> 02:02:14.660
little choice in the matter. The life-review judgment scene features God or another authoritarian

02:02:14.660 --> 02:02:21.240
luminous being who points out specific instances of regrettable, inconsiderate, or shameful behavior

02:02:21.240 --> 02:02:26.060
engaged in during their lifetimes, then uses those negative events and emotions

02:02:26.060 --> 02:02:31.740
to convince the recently deceased to return to earth. Most are manipulated to believe they

02:02:31.740 --> 02:02:36.560
have some ambiguous mission to complete and willingly return after the life-review.

02:02:37.120 --> 02:02:41.700
But many others are not so easily deceived, and when they refuse to return to earth,

02:02:42.080 --> 02:02:46.380
find themselves forcibly sent back to their physical bodies against their will.

02:02:47.120 --> 02:02:50.380
In her NDE testimony, Mary S. said,

02:02:50.940 --> 02:02:56.180
In the distance I saw a light, and I went into it. The light was very intensely bright,

02:02:56.500 --> 02:03:00.820
but not blinding. I could hear sublime music that sounded like love songs.

02:03:01.380 --> 02:03:04.260
I knew at that moment that I am not alone in the world.

02:03:04.760 --> 02:03:09.860
I felt an unconditional and infinite love. I had never felt so bathed in love,

02:03:10.300 --> 02:03:12.520
and I had never felt anything like that since.

02:03:13.720 --> 02:03:19.000
Maria T. said, I was thrown straight into the middle of the warmest, most beautiful,

02:03:19.400 --> 02:03:23.480
most welcoming light, where I instantly felt that here I feel good.

02:03:24.220 --> 02:03:28.960
I was drawn to the ocean of light as a gigantic magnet and drowned in light

02:03:28.960 --> 02:03:33.160
exactly like the center of the sun. And Martin M. said,

02:03:33.760 --> 02:03:38.940
Then all of a sudden I was gone from my small house, and I was in a dark space or tunnel.

02:03:39.600 --> 02:03:44.640
It scared me. I felt lost and didn't know what was happening when I saw a white light in the

02:03:44.640 --> 02:03:49.200
distance. The light was whiter than white, a light we don't have here on earth.

02:03:49.820 --> 02:03:54.780
I felt I had to go to the light, but I didn't know how. I was sucked towards it,

02:03:54.780 --> 02:03:59.080
and once in the light, I saw that the colors were much more intense than here.

02:04:00.060 --> 02:04:05.660
When describing the light, near-death experiencers universally report feelings of love,

02:04:06.060 --> 02:04:11.220
happiness, and contentment so intense they are fully enthralled and entranced by it.

02:04:11.860 --> 02:04:16.500
Bonnie V. said, It was the most incredibly beautiful light that I had ever seen.

02:04:17.160 --> 02:04:20.520
It seemed to have a personality that was beyond belief loving.

02:04:21.140 --> 02:04:23.180
I was happy just being in the light.

02:04:24.080 --> 02:04:26.580
Larry L. recounted his experience saying,

02:04:27.200 --> 02:04:31.760
When I got to the light, it was like all of a sudden there was nothing but the most

02:04:31.760 --> 02:04:36.600
intense bright white all around me. I instantly realized the most peaceful,

02:04:37.080 --> 02:04:40.820
pain-free, contented, euphoric state that I can imagine.

02:04:41.460 --> 02:04:45.880
I never felt so good and at home in all my life experiences on earth.

02:04:46.880 --> 02:04:50.460
And Bill V. said, As I moved forward in the dark tunnel,

02:04:50.460 --> 02:04:55.160
I passed into a bright white light. It was the most incredibly beautiful,

02:04:55.620 --> 02:05:02.620
peaceful, calm, loving place I had ever been in my life. It was full of this unconditional love

02:05:02.620 --> 02:05:08.600
and this great knowledge of the universe. As wonderful as these accounts seem on the surface,

02:05:09.140 --> 02:05:12.980
such stories of this hypnotic loving light that greets us at death

02:05:12.980 --> 02:05:19.760
also raises many questions. If the possibility exists for us to experience absolute bliss,

02:05:19.760 --> 02:05:25.240
contentment, and pain-free euphoria, why is that not available here on earth?

02:05:25.920 --> 02:05:31.720
Why is such beauty, happiness, and unconditional love reserved only for the afterlife?

02:05:32.760 --> 02:05:36.820
In considering the life-review judgment scene that occurs right afterwards,

02:05:37.520 --> 02:05:42.640
the light's strategy seems reminiscent of the narcissistic manipulation tactic called

02:05:42.640 --> 02:05:47.920
love-bombing, whereby a target is initially overwhelmed with flattery and attention

02:05:47.920 --> 02:05:54.420
to butter them up and relax their defenses. Afterwards, the love and positivity are promptly

02:05:54.420 --> 02:06:00.640
taken away, leaving the target feeling devalued, discarded, and while in that emotionally vulnerable

02:06:00.640 --> 02:06:08.860
space easily deceived. This is conveniently when God, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, angels,

02:06:09.400 --> 02:06:14.180
light beings, or deceased relatives appear to help guide the soul with their transition.

02:06:14.990 --> 02:06:19.720
These beings always seem specially tailored to the individual and can shape-shift

02:06:19.720 --> 02:06:26.340
depending on what form best suits them. Lonnie F. remembers, I was spoken to immediately

02:06:26.340 --> 02:06:32.360
and made aware of a presence. After we agreed that I would see him in physical form, he appeared.

02:06:33.140 --> 02:06:37.660
I think that having me make the decision to communicate with him, instead of him just

02:06:37.660 --> 02:06:41.360
appearing in front of me, was more for my comfort than anything else.

02:06:42.240 --> 02:06:46.280
Cathy B. recounts her story, saying, The thoughts came into my head.

02:06:46.740 --> 02:06:51.520
What kind of form or shape would make you most comfortable? What do you mean, I thought back?

02:06:52.440 --> 02:06:56.460
Some require me to take the shape of a wise old man, others a woman,

02:06:56.960 --> 02:07:01.500
and still others an animal, all of different races, ages, sizes, or species.

02:07:02.140 --> 02:07:05.760
What about you? I thought without hesitation, human.

02:07:06.580 --> 02:07:10.020
With that, the light began to simultaneously separate

02:07:10.020 --> 02:07:14.540
into amazing rays of colour and intensify into a more solid form.

02:07:15.180 --> 02:07:18.380
Once the light reached the stage where it looked like a human form,

02:07:18.860 --> 02:07:23.480
a rather generic-looking cookie-cutter shape, like a gingerbread man, appeared.

02:07:24.560 --> 02:07:29.560
After assuming some form, the beings telepathically initiate a life review

02:07:29.560 --> 02:07:33.760
where they draw attention to key moments during the life of the recently deceased.

02:07:34.270 --> 02:07:38.100
They ask leading questions, prying into these pivotal moments,

02:07:38.560 --> 02:07:42.220
poking and prodding about their behaviour and how they treated others.

02:07:43.200 --> 02:07:47.660
These beings seem very focused on pointing out wrongs committed by the recently deceased,

02:07:48.180 --> 02:07:52.520
and making them feel guilty and ashamed. Gail A. recounted,

02:07:52.960 --> 02:07:57.100
Then came a judgment of sorts, where I was judged on the things I had done.

02:07:57.740 --> 02:08:01.700
I wasn't judged on big things, more small instances of intent.

02:08:01.700 --> 02:08:05.300
It was the little things that mattered, and not the big things.

02:08:06.020 --> 02:08:09.820
Then I was told that I had to go back, which didn't make me happy at all,

02:08:10.240 --> 02:08:14.180
as I knew that being alive would hurt. Every aspect of living would hurt.

02:08:14.760 --> 02:08:18.340
The thought of going back into a wet, disgusting body repulsed me.

02:08:18.960 --> 02:08:21.200
I couldn't believe I had to wear my body again,

02:08:21.560 --> 02:08:25.700
as it felt like wearing an old, disgusting coat that belonged to someone else.

02:08:26.360 --> 02:08:31.140
George W. stated, I think I am still stuck in the life review part sometimes.

02:08:31.700 --> 02:08:34.960
I haven't been the best person, and have sinned a good bit.

02:08:35.680 --> 02:08:38.780
I feel like I am supposed to realise that I am my own worst enemy,

02:08:39.320 --> 02:08:44.580
and need to forgive myself and move on. My grandfather was my judge in the experience,

02:08:45.060 --> 02:08:47.700
and he told me to come back and honour my father.

02:08:48.800 --> 02:08:55.020
And Deborah J. said, Next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a council of 13 beings,

02:08:55.440 --> 02:08:59.020
with the one in the middle twice as big as the six on either side of him.

02:08:59.620 --> 02:09:03.480
They were all sitting in big chairs at a sizeable distance in front of me.

02:09:03.960 --> 02:09:09.240
I was naked, and felt totally revealed, and tried to use my hands to cover myself up.

02:09:09.980 --> 02:09:13.300
The main one in the middle began to speak to me telepathically.

02:09:14.020 --> 02:09:18.040
The questions they were asking me were about my life, and how I had lived it.

02:09:18.780 --> 02:09:23.220
I got the feeling they were not pleased with me. I was terrified to say the least,

02:09:23.720 --> 02:09:26.740
exposed to the hilt. I knew they knew it all.

02:09:27.300 --> 02:09:32.180
Towards the end of the ordeal, he told me they were not going to let me remember most of what

02:09:32.180 --> 02:09:37.780
had happened. And they had decided they were going to send me back, because you have to get it right.

02:09:38.580 --> 02:09:43.160
The next thing I knew, I was in my body, on the bed, some three days later.

02:09:44.240 --> 02:09:49.140
Most near-death experiencers report feeling so blissful in their disembodied state,

02:09:49.560 --> 02:09:54.040
and contented with the heavenly afterlife realm, that they do not want to return to earth.

02:09:54.800 --> 02:09:58.840
Even when the light beings protest how much their families will miss them,

02:09:59.300 --> 02:10:04.160
insisting that their time has not yet come, and that they still have a mission to complete in life,

02:10:04.740 --> 02:10:09.520
the majority of near-death experiencers wish nothing more than to stay in the afterlife realm.

02:10:10.360 --> 02:10:15.240
Even after pleading and begging not to be sent back, many report being coerced,

02:10:15.480 --> 02:10:18.640
or outright forced back into their bodies against their will.

02:10:19.580 --> 02:10:23.840
Joanne M. remembers, I encountered a form who I knew was God,

02:10:24.300 --> 02:10:30.380
who told me it was time to now go back. I started arguing with God in my own little obnoxious way,

02:10:30.820 --> 02:10:34.640
and God said I needed to go back, because my mission here wasn't complete.

02:10:35.660 --> 02:10:41.220
Mary W. said, My main reason for staying was because I didn't want to let God down.

02:10:41.900 --> 02:10:44.340
I wanted to finish the job I had come here to do.

02:10:44.840 --> 02:10:49.580
I wanted to show him that I'm not a quitter. I also wanted to live on this earth,

02:10:49.880 --> 02:10:54.040
knowing God loved me. I felt like I had no other choice than to stay.

02:10:54.780 --> 02:10:58.860
I replied, almost in a whisper, and very, very reluctantly,

02:10:59.480 --> 02:11:02.080
I really want to go with you, but I have to stay.

02:11:03.040 --> 02:11:08.080
Leonard Kay stated, At some point, God told me, You must go back to earth.

02:11:08.680 --> 02:11:12.300
I refused. No way I should go back into that sick body.

02:11:12.820 --> 02:11:16.740
Then God showed me a vision of my mother who cried because I was dead.

02:11:17.340 --> 02:11:18.360
Then I came back.

02:11:19.360 --> 02:11:24.060
And Steve L. said, I asked if I could stay because it was so beautiful there,

02:11:24.440 --> 02:11:29.120
and I didn't want to come back to earth. The light being said, No, you have a mission

02:11:29.120 --> 02:11:34.720
that you must do. I didn't know what the mission was, but I said yes to returning back to earth.

02:11:35.620 --> 02:11:40.500
In the majority of cases, the near-death experiencer is subtly coerced through

02:11:40.500 --> 02:11:43.600
suggestions and visions to willingly return to earth.

02:11:44.340 --> 02:11:48.880
After shape-shifting into a personalized authority figure, and insisting they have

02:11:48.880 --> 02:11:54.540
some ambiguous mission to complete here on earth, the light usually succeeds in manipulating them

02:11:54.540 --> 02:12:01.420
to agree. In some cases, however, particularly stubborn souls who refuse to capitulate are

02:12:01.420 --> 02:12:06.660
simply forced back into their bodies without their consent. Geraldine B. remembers,

02:12:06.660 --> 02:12:13.080
it was not my choice. I was forced to go back. I didn't want to. The decision was made by that

02:12:13.080 --> 02:12:19.760
main light source. Philip S. said, There was a royal figure who decided, without my consent,

02:12:20.120 --> 02:12:24.440
if I could stay with them or not. It was decided I must return back to earth,

02:12:24.740 --> 02:12:29.380
where I currently and happily reside, but I wish I could have had the choice to stay there.

02:12:30.320 --> 02:12:33.960
Stephen R. stated, They asked me if I wanted to stay with them,

02:12:33.960 --> 02:12:38.840
or if I wanted to come back to earth, because everything was so overwhelmingly wonderful and

02:12:38.840 --> 02:12:45.000
beautiful, I asked to stay with them. It wasn't until years later, after I realized what happened to

02:12:45.000 --> 02:12:50.360
me had a name, near-death experience, and that what happened to me was real, not a dream,

02:12:50.920 --> 02:12:56.060
that I remembered then they sent me back against my will. Then I was really mad.

02:12:56.660 --> 02:13:00.740
Why did they make me come back when I wanted to stay? I felt controlled.

02:13:01.360 --> 02:13:05.540
Why did they ask me if the decision wasn't really mine? I was so mad.

02:13:06.680 --> 02:13:13.060
And Maria T. said, Then I thought like this. It's not so bad here. I don't want to go back to earth.

02:13:13.640 --> 02:13:19.720
No. Never again back there. Never again back to earth. And why should I go back down to earth

02:13:19.720 --> 02:13:24.780
where everything is so materialistic, where you have to fight hard for results? A lot of work

02:13:24.780 --> 02:13:29.600
for nothing. Here I could move as I wanted, where I wanted. It's not so bad here.

02:13:29.920 --> 02:13:35.340
I absolutely don't want to go back down to earth. And while I was enjoying my new condition

02:13:35.340 --> 02:13:41.920
of total freedom and total love, I was pulled down, as by a line, an elevator, or a force,

02:13:42.360 --> 02:13:48.320
something pulled me back into my body. It's quite suspicious how this after-death light,

02:13:48.700 --> 02:13:54.180
either coerces or sucks people towards it, transforms itself into a personalized authority

02:13:54.180 --> 02:13:58.780
figure, replays negative moments from their lives to guilt-trip and shame them,

02:13:59.360 --> 02:14:05.540
then coerces or forces them to return back to earth. Why is there so much manipulation involved

02:14:05.540 --> 02:14:12.040
in this experience? If souls can simply be forced back without their consent, why is so much effort

02:14:12.040 --> 02:14:18.480
put into persuading them to return willingly? The afterlife realm seems so abundantly superior

02:14:18.480 --> 02:14:25.280
to earth that few souls wish to return, which begs the question, why would anyone freely choose to

02:14:25.280 --> 02:14:31.560
come here in the first place? Is there so much deception, manipulation, and coercion in the

02:14:31.560 --> 02:14:38.480
afterlife realm because it's necessary to trick souls into coming here? Leslie V said of the

02:14:38.480 --> 02:14:45.860
heavenly afterlife realm, it felt very warm, safe, cozy, and comfortable. I did many recreational

02:14:45.860 --> 02:14:52.420
jobs in my youth, and this was the best high you can imagine, the high of all highs, the ecstasy of

02:14:52.420 --> 02:14:59.540
all ecstasy, the ultimate high, just so free, light, and weightless. Accounts like Leslie's

02:14:59.540 --> 02:15:05.440
sparked serious questions about the nature of our reality. If there exists a realm of pure

02:15:05.440 --> 02:15:11.260
bliss and ecstasy just outside of these physical bodies, why have our souls chosen to don them?

02:15:11.900 --> 02:15:16.940
If heaven is so freely accessible, what exactly are we doing down here on earth?

02:15:18.200 --> 02:15:20.080
Dwayne S said of his NDE,

02:15:20.960 --> 02:15:27.540
after experiencing heaven, in no way did I want to go back to earth any time soon. If earth was a

02:15:27.540 --> 02:15:32.780
theme park, then they could have any part of my unused ticket they wanted. I had had enough

02:15:32.780 --> 02:15:38.860
drama for a while. I was finished with that petty, trite, hellhole of an earth game it

02:15:38.860 --> 02:15:41.820
all become. Howdy Makowski wrote,

02:15:42.640 --> 02:15:49.080
Generally, when a person has had an NDE, they present a similar story. They enter a realm that

02:15:49.080 --> 02:15:55.100
is confusing, until they either see a white light, off in a tunnel, with perhaps angel-like beings,

02:15:55.500 --> 02:16:00.480
or dead relatives, encouraging them towards the light. Those who experience this light

02:16:00.480 --> 02:16:05.780
say it is the most beautiful experience they could imagine. Love personified, some report.

02:16:06.370 --> 02:16:12.320
A place they did not want to leave. At some point they are told, either after a type of life review,

02:16:12.780 --> 02:16:18.240
or by simple presentation, that it is not their time. They have work or a mission to complete,

02:16:18.620 --> 02:16:22.500
or they have more to learn, and are sent back to their bodies on earth.

02:16:23.320 --> 02:16:28.160
The experience tends to transform them, and often they change their life in drastic ways.

02:16:29.020 --> 02:16:33.300
Generally they tend to become kinder, more loving, and lose their fear of death.

02:16:34.020 --> 02:16:38.320
It all sounds good, doesn't it? Or is it too good to be true?

02:16:39.460 --> 02:16:44.460
If I were to ask the average person what an NDE is like, they would present the words

02:16:44.460 --> 02:16:51.480
white light, tunnel, love, peace, God, life review, and relatives. This is what makes

02:16:51.480 --> 02:16:56.420
it into TV shows and movies. The white light is your friend. It will comfort you,

02:16:56.620 --> 02:17:01.620
and take away all your pain. What if the white light is not the doorway to heaven,

02:17:01.620 --> 02:17:07.960
but a slide back into this realm of suffering? Then much of what is presented in these experiences

02:17:07.960 --> 02:17:13.820
may be deception. Another red flag, even in these standard feel-good experiences,

02:17:14.480 --> 02:17:19.860
is that most of the people are sent back against their will. Generally they all want to stay in

02:17:19.860 --> 02:17:24.540
the love and peace they feel, but a being that they feel they should agree with tells them

02:17:24.540 --> 02:17:29.900
they have to go back, or just forces them back. Generally they are told they have more

02:17:29.900 --> 02:17:35.620
to learn, or a mission to complete. Yet many also claim that while in this after-death realm

02:17:35.620 --> 02:17:42.020
they had access to all knowing. And so what more does a soul need to learn if they already

02:17:42.020 --> 02:17:48.180
are in a place where they know everything? Oddly this part of the experience tends to

02:17:48.180 --> 02:17:53.200
get glossed over, as the returned person focuses on the love and happiness of it all.

02:17:53.720 --> 02:17:57.640
They forget that they came back to earth against their will.

02:18:00.860 --> 02:18:07.020
During an episode titled Coda from season three of the popular science fiction show Star Trek

02:18:07.020 --> 02:18:13.960
Voyager, Captain Catherine Janeway is directly confronted with a reincarnation soul trap matrix.

02:18:15.000 --> 02:18:20.340
After having their shuttle struck by ion lightning in space, the captain and her co-pilot

02:18:20.340 --> 02:18:24.620
begin experiencing a time loop where every time they seem about to perish,

02:18:25.120 --> 02:18:28.820
they instantly revert back to the moment just before being struck.

02:18:29.900 --> 02:18:36.000
Janeway slowly starts recognizing this incessant deja vu and begins to worry that she may have died.

02:18:36.880 --> 02:18:41.540
In reality they had crash-landed on an alien world where her body lay dying,

02:18:41.900 --> 02:18:47.860
where her consciousness was having a near-death experience. Suddenly, somehow back on the Starship

02:18:47.860 --> 02:18:52.980
Enterprise, out of a bright white light steps Captain Janeway's long-deceased father,

02:18:53.380 --> 02:18:59.000
smiling, and in full Captain's uniform. Who are you? Are you responsible for what's

02:18:59.000 --> 02:19:01.300
going on here? She asks him sternly.

02:19:02.000 --> 02:19:06.440
You know who I am, Catherine. He responds. She shakes her head.

02:19:07.180 --> 02:19:12.660
My father died over fifteen years ago. You may be a hallucination or some kind of projection

02:19:12.660 --> 02:19:19.460
of my own imagination, but you are not my father. The entity insists that he is indeed her father

02:19:19.460 --> 02:19:24.000
and that she died in a shuttle-crash. He claims to understand her confusion

02:19:24.000 --> 02:19:27.120
and to have gone through the same feelings when he passed away,

02:19:27.120 --> 02:19:33.480
explaining, I went back to you, your mother, and your sister after I died for a long time

02:19:33.480 --> 02:19:38.440
until I realized it was futile. That's what happens when death is unexpected.

02:19:39.280 --> 02:19:41.760
One's consciousness isn't prepared to let go.

02:19:42.900 --> 02:19:49.120
Still skeptical, she quips back. Consciousness? Is that what you're calling me? Catherine's

02:19:49.120 --> 02:19:52.940
consciousness? For want of a better word, he answers.

02:19:53.680 --> 02:19:57.180
Some say ghost or spirit. We all heard the stories

02:19:57.180 --> 02:20:01.800
and thought they were the product of vivid imaginations or self-induced hysteria.

02:20:02.300 --> 02:20:05.420
I'll admit, I was surprised when I found out they were true.

02:20:06.360 --> 02:20:11.540
Catherine continues to test the entity claiming to be her father by asking questions only he

02:20:11.540 --> 02:20:16.980
should know. He answers convincingly and details her family's actions during the days

02:20:16.980 --> 02:20:21.240
after his death, insisting that he was there in spirit, watching over her,

02:20:21.240 --> 02:20:27.660
her sister, and her mother. Eventually, you will cross over, he says. The only question

02:20:27.660 --> 02:20:30.580
is how long it will take you to give up this world.

02:20:31.320 --> 02:20:33.320
Cross over to where, she asks.

02:20:34.220 --> 02:20:38.680
I don't know what to call it, he replies. Another state of consciousness,

02:20:39.280 --> 02:20:44.640
unlike anything we ever could have imagined in life. It's not a frightening place, Catherine.

02:20:45.280 --> 02:20:48.080
It's full of joy and indescribable wonder.

02:20:49.080 --> 02:20:52.620
Captain Janeway's father leads her to a room on the Starship Enterprise,

02:20:53.060 --> 02:20:58.280
where the crew are now holding her funeral. After the final speaker finishes their last

02:20:58.280 --> 02:21:01.680
teary, heartfelt goodbye, her father interjects.

02:21:02.120 --> 02:21:06.860
It's over now, Catherine. There's nothing left for you here. Come with me.

02:21:07.680 --> 02:21:10.360
What do I do to leave here? she asks.

02:21:11.440 --> 02:21:16.960
Just decide, he answers. The only thing that keeps you is your refusal to leave.

02:21:18.180 --> 02:21:22.960
Catherine acknowledges that she simply isn't ready to accept it, and wishes to stay in spirit

02:21:22.960 --> 02:21:25.980
with her friends and crew. Her father responds.

02:21:27.000 --> 02:21:30.360
You're saying all the things I told myself when I refused to leave you.

02:21:31.100 --> 02:21:35.500
I was hoping you wouldn't have to go through that. It's a horrible existence, Catherine.

02:21:36.180 --> 02:21:41.200
As time wears on, you begin to see how potent, how destructive loneliness is.

02:21:41.840 --> 02:21:45.580
You'll see the people you love going on with their lives, doing all the things

02:21:45.580 --> 02:21:48.740
you used to share with them, but you won't be a part of it any more.

02:21:49.440 --> 02:21:53.640
You'll forever be shut out of their existence. It becomes agonizing.

02:21:54.320 --> 02:21:59.100
I don't want that to happen to you. You can only be an observer of their lives,

02:21:59.540 --> 02:22:05.240
never a participant. Every hour you stay here makes it that much more difficult to leave.

02:22:06.320 --> 02:22:10.000
Defiant and unyielding, Catherine sternly snaps back saying,

02:22:10.000 --> 02:22:13.880
I don't care. I'd rather be here in spirit than not at all.

02:22:14.480 --> 02:22:16.060
A captain does an abandoned ship.

02:22:16.720 --> 02:22:20.860
Why are you pushing me? I've made up my mind. I'm staying here.

02:22:21.580 --> 02:22:26.660
Then, just as she makes this decision, her dying body lying on the alien world

02:22:26.660 --> 02:22:29.860
begins to show vital signs of coming back to life.

02:22:30.480 --> 02:22:34.240
For a brief instant, her consciousness shoots back into her body.

02:22:35.000 --> 02:22:38.060
Lying there on the wet, rocky ground of the alien world,

02:22:38.060 --> 02:22:41.780
looking up through her physical eyes again at the doctor and co-pilot,

02:22:42.100 --> 02:22:45.160
she sees the resuscitation effort underway to save her.

02:22:45.960 --> 02:22:51.120
In this moment Catherine realizes how the white light entity was trying to deceive her.

02:22:51.720 --> 02:22:55.420
I didn't see myself, she said. I was looking up at them.

02:22:56.140 --> 02:23:00.480
That's the real me, isn't it? Lying on the ground on that planet dying.

02:23:01.100 --> 02:23:04.640
And this is the hallucination. This isn't real.

02:23:05.260 --> 02:23:09.080
Her father begins to scowl, losing his patience, shouting,

02:23:09.640 --> 02:23:15.580
more denial. You're only making it harder on yourself. I'm trying to save you unnecessary pain.

02:23:16.540 --> 02:23:21.820
Catherine refuses to relent and notices, you're trying very hard to convince me to come with you.

02:23:22.220 --> 02:23:27.760
Why is that? If what you're saying is true, why not let me come to that decision on my own?

02:23:28.400 --> 02:23:33.160
My father would never act like this. He always believed I had to learn my own lessons,

02:23:33.160 --> 02:23:37.100
make my own mistakes. He never tried to shield me from life.

02:23:37.620 --> 02:23:43.560
Why would he try to shield me from death? You're not my father. I could be imagining you,

02:23:43.820 --> 02:23:49.700
but I don't think so. You have such a specific agenda. You're determined that I go with you

02:23:49.700 --> 02:23:55.760
somewhere. Who are you? Are you an alien being of some kind? Is that it? I was right.

02:23:56.280 --> 02:23:59.760
You're an alien. You created all these hallucinations, haven't you?

02:24:00.620 --> 02:24:05.280
Acknowledging his exposure and finally admitting defeat, the entity explains,

02:24:05.940 --> 02:24:11.700
this is what my species does. At the moment just before death one of us comes to help you

02:24:11.700 --> 02:24:16.060
understand what's happening, to make the crossing over an occasion of joy.

02:24:16.800 --> 02:24:22.180
And what is that? Catherine asks, pointing at the bright white light from which he appeared.

02:24:22.900 --> 02:24:29.200
Our matrix, he responds, where your consciousness will live. I was being truthful

02:24:29.200 --> 02:24:34.360
when I said it was a place of wonder. It can be whatever you want it to be.

02:24:35.220 --> 02:24:39.460
Shaking her head, she asks, then why didn't you tell me this from the beginning?

02:24:40.100 --> 02:24:45.160
Why pretend to be my father? The entity disguised as her father reasons that,

02:24:45.660 --> 02:24:50.020
usually, people are comforted to see their loved ones. It makes the crossing over

02:24:50.020 --> 02:24:56.240
a much less fearful occasion. I've done this many times, but I've never encountered someone so

02:24:56.240 --> 02:25:02.820
resistant. Captain Janeway narrows her eyes in condemnation at the deceitful entity. I don't

02:25:02.820 --> 02:25:08.140
get the feeling you're trying to make me comfortable. You're only interested in my agreeing to come

02:25:08.140 --> 02:25:13.620
with you. You don't strike me as any kind of good Samaritan. You're more like a vulture,

02:25:14.100 --> 02:25:17.660
preying on people at the moment of their deaths when they're most vulnerable.

02:25:18.480 --> 02:25:24.440
What's the real reason you want me in that matrix? Somehow, I don't think it has anything to do with

02:25:24.440 --> 02:25:30.500
everlasting joy. In a last-ditch effort, the entity grabs her by the shoulders and demands,

02:25:30.880 --> 02:25:36.800
you must go with me. Unphased, Captain Janeway makes the astute observation that,

02:25:37.360 --> 02:25:42.580
if you could force me to go, you'd have done it already. You need me to agree, don't you?

02:25:42.580 --> 02:25:49.020
I have to go voluntarily. Let me tell you this. We can stand here for all eternity,

02:25:49.420 --> 02:25:56.020
and I will never choose to go with you. With that, the entity concedes defeat, but warns her.

02:25:56.620 --> 02:26:02.080
You're in a dangerous profession, Captain. You face death every day. There will be another time,

02:26:02.500 --> 02:26:07.980
and I will be waiting. Eventually, you'll come into my matrix, and you will nourish me

02:26:07.980 --> 02:26:15.520
for a long, long time. This episode of Star Trek Voyager perfectly encapsulates the typical

02:26:15.520 --> 02:26:20.500
near-death deception experience. After being drawn towards a bright white light,

02:26:20.840 --> 02:26:26.720
entities often claiming to be deceased relatives present themselves as afterlife guides to help

02:26:26.720 --> 02:26:32.320
assist with their transition. They praise and hype the light as a place of overwhelming abundance,

02:26:32.320 --> 02:26:38.680
joy and love beyond anything ever experienced on earth. They patiently answer every question,

02:26:39.200 --> 02:26:44.660
clear up any confusion, then begin nudging the near-death experiencer towards entering the light.

02:26:45.500 --> 02:26:50.080
As Captain Janeway wisely notices, the entity pretending to be her father

02:26:50.080 --> 02:26:56.560
is unable to physically force her into the light. His only power is to mentally and emotionally

02:26:56.560 --> 02:27:02.600
deceive her so that she might choose the light of her own volition. Thus the entity cloaks himself

02:27:02.600 --> 02:27:08.940
in the body of the most loved and respected authority figure in Catherine's life. He relays

02:27:08.940 --> 02:27:13.500
stories and information that only her father should know to solidify the illusion.

02:27:14.140 --> 02:27:18.380
In order to scare her from waiting around in her disembodied state for too long,

02:27:18.780 --> 02:27:24.420
he warns about the agonizing loneliness and futility of staying. He insists the light

02:27:24.420 --> 02:27:29.620
is a place of joy and wonder where she can manifest anything she wishes. But when she

02:27:29.620 --> 02:27:34.900
finally adamantly refuses, the pretense of patience and understanding wears thin.

02:27:35.680 --> 02:27:41.260
The entity's forceful behavior exposes his cloak of compassion, and it becomes obvious

02:27:41.260 --> 02:27:47.680
that it is not actually her father. Like a pushy used car salesman trying to force

02:27:47.680 --> 02:27:52.260
an impulsive purchase, he gives false answers and makes false promises.

02:27:52.260 --> 02:27:58.780
If the white light was really worth the price of admission, why would it need these sleazy salesmen

02:27:58.780 --> 02:28:05.440
in their cheap meat suits to sell us on it? The entity's final comment gives the clearest clue

02:28:05.440 --> 02:28:11.340
when he says, eventually you'll come into my matrix and you will nourish me for a long,

02:28:11.480 --> 02:28:18.140
long time. In other words, our entry into the light seems to serve as some kind of energy

02:28:18.140 --> 02:28:25.460
extraction that feeds these entities. Similar to how Morpheus bleakly described the human condition

02:28:25.460 --> 02:28:32.980
in the Matrix movie, we may ultimately be nothing more than batteries farmed for a type of energy.

02:28:38.640 --> 02:28:43.820
Robert Monroe was an American radio broadcasting executive who was known for his work in the

02:28:43.820 --> 02:28:48.520
field of altered states of consciousness. He founded the Monroe Institute for the

02:28:48.520 --> 02:28:54.400
Exploration of Human Consciousness, patented Hemisink binaural beats, and coined the term

02:28:54.400 --> 02:29:00.020
out-of-body experience. Monroe wrote several books about his astral travels out-of-body,

02:29:00.620 --> 02:29:04.600
the beings he met in the spirit world, and the information they imparted to him.

02:29:05.240 --> 02:29:10.080
Perhaps the most notable of all occurs in Chapter 12 of his book Far Journeys,

02:29:10.460 --> 02:29:15.380
where he describes an out-of-body experience with a being who shared a creation story

02:29:15.380 --> 02:29:22.900
claiming Earth was made as a garden to grow lush. This entity claimed that beings reminiscent of

02:29:22.900 --> 02:29:31.100
the Gnostic Archons allegedly require, like, need, value, collect, drink, eat, or use as a drug,

02:29:31.480 --> 02:29:37.580
a substance called lush. Natural forms of this vital substance valued by these beings

02:29:37.580 --> 02:29:43.500
was said to originate from a series of vibrational actions in the carbon-oxygen cycle.

02:29:43.500 --> 02:29:48.300
So the creator decided to grow his own in a garden experiment.

02:29:49.440 --> 02:29:55.460
Robert Monroe explains that, first, he created a proper environment for the carbon-oxygen cycle

02:29:55.460 --> 02:30:01.280
where it would flourish. He created a balance with much care, so that proper radiation and

02:30:01.280 --> 02:30:06.060
other nourishment would be in continuous supply. He then tried his first crop,

02:30:06.480 --> 02:30:12.400
which actually did produce lush, but only in small quantities and of comparatively low grade.

02:30:13.500 --> 02:30:18.880
It turns out the lifespan of the crops were too short, and the crop units themselves too small,

02:30:19.380 --> 02:30:25.400
bringing about limits in quality and quantity. Also, the lush could only be harvested at the

02:30:25.400 --> 02:30:32.080
moment of death and not a second before. As the story goes, the creator planted a second crop,

02:30:32.400 --> 02:30:37.360
which was only marginally better. He changed the environment to another part of the garden

02:30:37.360 --> 02:30:42.120
where the density was gaseous rather than liquid, and the higher density chemicals formed

02:30:42.120 --> 02:30:48.080
a solid base and thus were still available. He planted numberless units in many varieties

02:30:48.080 --> 02:30:54.600
in a new form, with great increase in size, some many thousands of times larger and more complex

02:30:54.600 --> 02:31:00.980
than the simple unicellular first crop. This second crop receded itself at regular intervals

02:31:00.980 --> 02:31:06.960
and terminated their lifespans automatically. The creator also immobilized the second crop

02:31:06.960 --> 02:31:12.060
to avoid the uneven distribution of chemicals and radiation prevalent in the first crop.

02:31:13.100 --> 02:31:18.000
Each was designed to stay principally in its own section of the garden. To this end,

02:31:18.340 --> 02:31:22.840
each was given firm tendrils which burrowed deep in the more dense chemical matter.

02:31:23.560 --> 02:31:28.380
Attached to this was a stem or trunk which helped elevate the upper portion upward

02:31:28.380 --> 02:31:34.620
for its share of needed radiation. The upper portion, broad, thin, and somewhat fragile,

02:31:34.620 --> 02:31:40.060
was designed as a transducer of carbon-oxygen compounds to and from the crop unit.

02:31:40.800 --> 02:31:46.640
As an added thought, brilliant color radiators accompanied by small particle generators were

02:31:46.640 --> 02:31:52.600
mounted on each unit, usually near the top and symmetrically centered. In other words,

02:31:52.940 --> 02:31:58.860
the first crop was the creation of unicellular organisms, and the second crop was the creation

02:31:58.860 --> 02:32:05.940
of trees, flowers, and plants. According to Monroe, the creator was still unsatisfied with the results

02:32:05.940 --> 02:32:12.120
of the second crop, which produced more quantity but of no greater quality. He did, however,

02:32:12.440 --> 02:32:16.740
discover a new means of swift harvesting through what sounds like strong winds,

02:32:17.120 --> 02:32:22.940
hurricanes, or tornadoes. He set up circulating patterns in the gaseous envelope around the

02:32:22.940 --> 02:32:28.120
crop principally to aid in the receding process. Later, he discovered that the same

02:32:28.120 --> 02:32:33.960
turbulent effect served as a means of harvesting the loosh. If the turbulence were violent enough,

02:32:34.500 --> 02:32:39.380
the crop would be blown down, the lifespan terminated, and the loosh would discharge.

02:32:40.680 --> 02:32:46.140
After his second failure, the creator hovered over his garden, pondering how he would change

02:32:46.140 --> 02:32:52.220
his third crop. He decided the original carbon-oxygen cycle must be included, mobility

02:32:52.220 --> 02:32:58.900
must be restored, and size must be added to the units. Thus the creator removed some sample units

02:32:58.900 --> 02:33:04.260
from the first crop still thriving in the liquid portion of his garden and modified them to exist

02:33:04.260 --> 02:33:10.420
in the gaseous area. Then he adapted them to take nourishment from the second crop to allow them

02:33:10.420 --> 02:33:17.040
to grow into efficient loosh collectors themselves. Thus it was that the first of the mobiles,

02:33:17.040 --> 02:33:22.520
the third crop, came into being. The mobiles took nourishment from the second crop,

02:33:22.960 --> 02:33:29.700
thus ending its lifespan, and produced low-grade loosh. When each huge mobile terminated its own

02:33:29.700 --> 02:33:36.420
lifespan, additional loosh was produced. The quantity was massive, but the frequency pattern of the

02:33:36.420 --> 02:33:43.560
loosh residue still left much to be desired. So the third crop was larger mobile units

02:33:43.560 --> 02:33:49.980
that feed upon the second crop, or in other words, animals were created to further refine the loosh

02:33:49.980 --> 02:33:55.880
production of plants. The creator was getting closer and closer to a viable loosh garden,

02:33:56.380 --> 02:34:02.460
but his new problem was that the monstrous and slow-moving mobiles had a lifespan far out of

02:34:02.460 --> 02:34:08.640
proportion to their nourishment input. The growth and life termination process was of such length

02:34:08.640 --> 02:34:15.000
that soon the mobiles would all but decimate the second crop. The entire garden would be out of

02:34:15.000 --> 02:34:20.860
balance, and there would be no loosh production whatsoever. While hovering over his third crop

02:34:20.860 --> 02:34:27.220
and pondering his next move, the creator noticed as the second crop plants grew more and more

02:34:27.220 --> 02:34:34.980
scarce, the energy needs of the third crop animals became acute. Often two mobiles would seek to

02:34:34.980 --> 02:34:41.420
ingest the same second crop unit, causing conflict and physical struggle, which to the creator's happy

02:34:41.420 --> 02:34:48.420
surprise created huge amounts of loosh. With this new revelation in mind, the creator tried another

02:34:48.420 --> 02:34:55.020
experiment. He removed another unit of the first crop from the liquid garden area, redesigned it

02:34:55.020 --> 02:35:00.840
for the gaseous environment, but with one significant change. The new mobile unit would

02:35:00.840 --> 02:35:05.580
be somewhat smaller, but would require the ingestion of other mobiles for nourishment.

02:35:06.600 --> 02:35:11.700
This would solve the problem of overpopulation of mobiles, and at the same time would create

02:35:11.700 --> 02:35:17.860
good quantities of usable loosh during each conflict struggle, plus a bonus if the new

02:35:17.860 --> 02:35:23.700
class of mobile terminated the lifespan of the other. In other words, for the fourth crop,

02:35:24.140 --> 02:35:29.840
the creator made carnivorous animals who, in their struggle to survive, harvested record

02:35:29.840 --> 02:35:37.140
amounts of loosh. For his fourth crop units, the creator tried a few different types. Some were

02:35:37.140 --> 02:35:42.480
made to subsist mostly on the second crop units, while others required the energy from ingestion

02:35:42.480 --> 02:35:49.420
of their fellow third crop units. The completed circuit operated quite satisfactorily. The stationary

02:35:49.420 --> 02:35:54.820
second crop modification in the liquid environment flourished. Small, highly active,

02:35:54.820 --> 02:35:59.200
liquid breathing mobiles took nourishment and ate the second crop modification.

02:36:00.060 --> 02:36:05.180
Larger and or other active mobiles consumed for energy the smaller plant eaters.

02:36:05.940 --> 02:36:11.140
When any mobile grew too large and slow, it became an easy target for the smaller mobiles

02:36:11.140 --> 02:36:17.040
who attacked in voracious numbers. The chemical residue from these ingestive actions settled

02:36:17.040 --> 02:36:22.060
to the bottom of the liquid medium, and so provided new nourishment for the stationaries,

02:36:22.060 --> 02:36:28.920
completing the circuit. The result was a steady flow of loosh, from the lifespan termination of

02:36:28.920 --> 02:36:34.780
the stationaries, from the intense conflict among the mobiles to avoid ingestion, and finally,

02:36:35.120 --> 02:36:40.340
from the sudden termination of the lifespans of such mobiles as the inevitable product of

02:36:40.340 --> 02:36:46.420
such conflicts. The garden was now producing adequate loosh and self-regenerating as well.

02:36:47.200 --> 02:36:53.080
Even still, the creator was not finished refining his crops, and had more ingenious ideas in mind.

02:36:53.920 --> 02:36:58.960
He created thousands of new types in his fourth crop mobiles with the goal of more struggle,

02:36:59.380 --> 02:37:06.200
suffering, and conflict. These took the form of mass, elusive speed, deceptive and or protective

02:37:06.200 --> 02:37:11.480
coating, and color radiation, wave action, and particle perceptors and detectors,

02:37:11.480 --> 02:37:17.580
and unique higher density perturbances for gouging, grasping, and rending during conflict.

02:37:18.360 --> 02:37:25.080
In other words, he created faster, larger, stronger animals with claws, fangs, and antlers

02:37:25.080 --> 02:37:30.820
to hunt and kill one another. These new additions prolonged the periods of conflict

02:37:30.820 --> 02:37:37.300
and resulted in increased loosh production. Next, as a side experiment, the creator

02:37:37.300 --> 02:37:43.300
designed one form of mobile that was weak and ineffective by the standards of the other mobiles

02:37:43.300 --> 02:37:50.200
in the fourth crop. Yet this experimental mobile had two distinct advantages. The first advantage

02:37:50.200 --> 02:37:56.560
was its ability to ingest and take energy from both the stationaries and other mobiles. Second,

02:37:57.060 --> 02:38:01.840
the creator pulled forth a piece of himself with no other source of such substance being

02:38:01.840 --> 02:38:06.080
known or available to act as an intensive, ultimate trigger to mobility.

02:38:07.020 --> 02:38:12.160
By infusing this piece of himself into the fourth crop units, the creator added a new

02:38:12.160 --> 02:38:16.740
motivating force beyond the satisfaction of energy requirements through ingestion.

02:38:17.700 --> 02:38:24.040
These units would now always seek to satisfy this tiny moat of the creator engendered as it

02:38:24.040 --> 02:38:29.860
sought reunion with the infinite whole. This piece of himself sounds like consciousness

02:38:29.860 --> 02:38:34.920
or higher mind, and the special fourth crop units given this gift are humans.

02:38:36.380 --> 02:38:42.260
After endowing us with humanity, the creator began designing violent harvesting methods to

02:38:42.260 --> 02:38:47.920
generate extra amounts of loosh. To reap such harvest, the collectors generated

02:38:47.920 --> 02:38:53.040
storms of turbulence and turmoil in both the gaseous envelope and the more solid

02:38:53.040 --> 02:38:58.820
chemical formations that were the base of the garden itself. Such upheavals had the effect

02:38:58.820 --> 02:39:03.900
of terminating lifespans of multitudes of the fourth crop as they were crushed under the rolling

02:39:03.900 --> 02:39:09.000
base formation or smothered under waves from the agitated liquid area of the garden.

02:39:10.160 --> 02:39:16.780
In other words, natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, and tsunamis were purposely

02:39:16.780 --> 02:39:23.460
introduced to periodically aid in loosh harvesting. Increasingly satisfied with his garden,

02:39:23.460 --> 02:39:30.120
the creator hovered above watching his creations and noticed certain fourth crop units emanating a

02:39:30.120 --> 02:39:37.020
type of the highest quality purified and distilled loosh. Intensely curious, he investigated the

02:39:37.020 --> 02:39:42.000
source and found this most desirable loosh was coming from one particular unit.

02:39:42.920 --> 02:39:53.440
The fourth crop unit was not struggling in conflict over an ingestible remnant of a

02:39:53.440 --> 02:39:57.680
void termination of life and ingestion by the other conflicting fourth crop unit.

02:39:58.520 --> 02:40:04.280
It was in conflict to protect and save from life termination three of its own newly generated

02:40:04.280 --> 02:40:08.740
species huddled under a large second crop unit waiting for the outcome.

02:40:09.700 --> 02:40:14.700
To translate into normal language, the creator noticed a human parent fighting to

02:40:14.700 --> 02:40:20.020
protect its three young children under a large tree, and it was this intense emotional

02:40:20.020 --> 02:40:25.120
defense of their loved ones that created a purified and distilled type of loosh energy.

02:40:26.040 --> 02:40:31.160
Continuing to observe the fourth crop units in his garden, the creator noticed another unit

02:40:31.160 --> 02:40:37.400
also producing purified loosh, but this one was alone and seemingly not in conflict at all.

02:40:38.300 --> 02:40:43.400
Investigating closer, the creator found that this individual standing alone under the leafy

02:40:43.400 --> 02:40:49.060
upper portion of a large second crop unit was not hungry, not in conflict, and not acting

02:40:49.060 --> 02:40:55.560
in defense of its young, but still producing high quality loosh energy. The unit was lonely.

02:40:56.440 --> 02:41:01.240
It turns out loneliness also acts as a great catalyst to loosh production,

02:41:01.800 --> 02:41:07.400
so the creator made a brilliant revision to his formula. He split all fourth crop units

02:41:07.400 --> 02:41:14.220
into new type 4M units with male and female halves to engender loneliness as they sought

02:41:14.220 --> 02:41:20.280
to reunite. From experience, the collectors have evolved an entire technology with complementary

02:41:20.280 --> 02:41:26.760
tools for the harvesting of loosh from the type 4M units. The most common have been named love,

02:41:27.280 --> 02:41:35.000
friendship, family, greed, hate, pain, guilt, disease, pride, ambition, ownership, possession,

02:41:35.000 --> 02:41:41.340
sacrifice, and on a larger scale, nations, provincialism, wars, famine,

02:41:41.900 --> 02:41:50.320
religion, machines, freedom, industry, trade, to list a few. Loosh production is higher than ever

02:41:50.320 --> 02:41:55.900
before. Robert Monroe's interaction with the entity ended abruptly there.

02:41:56.940 --> 02:42:02.940
If this creation story is true, it appears that the existence of plants, animals, humans,

02:42:02.940 --> 02:42:09.760
and the entire earth itself are all simply to feed our creators. If we were ultimately designed

02:42:09.760 --> 02:42:16.500
not by a loving, benevolent God as most religions preach, but rather by a race of malevolent

02:42:16.500 --> 02:42:22.320
super beings like the Gnostic Archons, this provides unique answers to certain metaphysical

02:42:22.320 --> 02:42:29.720
questions. For example, why is there so much pain, suffering, disease, and death? Why is

02:42:29.720 --> 02:42:37.620
earth plagued with an abundance of various natural disasters? And why does life feed upon life in a

02:42:37.620 --> 02:42:43.980
destructive cycle of survival? If all of these things produce a kind of nourishment for other

02:42:43.980 --> 02:42:51.260
entities, then such seemingly negative circumstances only appear that way to us. For the entities

02:42:51.260 --> 02:42:57.260
that created us, our suffering would likely be no more concerning than that of an ant colony

02:42:57.260 --> 02:43:04.960
under their feet. Isabella Green said, Loosh is what human beings produce when in emotional turmoil,

02:43:05.360 --> 02:43:12.140
fear, guilt, unworthiness, war, conflict, pain, drama, and suffering of all gradations.

02:43:12.920 --> 02:43:18.140
Guilt, unworthiness, and suffering have been normalized as a part of the human experience

02:43:18.140 --> 02:43:24.100
and are promoted from all directions. Just think about the ideas so common in our reality

02:43:24.100 --> 02:43:31.960
that we no longer notice, such as no pain, no gain, love hurts, not worth it if you didn't suffer for it,

02:43:32.140 --> 02:43:38.300
etc. The inferiority of the human race to the handlers is promoted in religious texts,

02:43:38.940 --> 02:43:42.740
which makes people look up to them and be eager to do whatever they say.

02:43:43.820 --> 02:43:49.320
Unworthiness is also the foundation on which most of the present-day industrial complexes

02:43:49.320 --> 02:43:56.240
stand and is heavily utilized in marketing. If we zoom out and closely examine our key beliefs

02:43:56.240 --> 02:44:02.000
on earth, we will see that these beliefs prepare people for submission to the suggestions of the

02:44:02.000 --> 02:44:07.920
handlers when we face them after death. The handlers shepherd the souls in and out of their

02:44:07.920 --> 02:44:13.880
physical bodies and use the tactics of convincing them to continue physical experiences on earth

02:44:13.880 --> 02:44:17.880
while utilizing love, guilt, unworthiness, and suffering.

02:44:19.060 --> 02:44:20.260
Howdy Mikowski wrote,

02:44:21.160 --> 02:44:26.500
In Chapter 12 of his book Far Journeys, Robert Monroe presents an out-of-body experience

02:44:26.500 --> 02:44:30.700
where he met a being of light who provided him with details of our realm.

02:44:31.640 --> 02:44:35.760
The being described the earth as a giant experiment for the creator beings

02:44:35.760 --> 02:44:42.360
to build the perfect luce harvest system. Luce being a word Monroe coined to mean a

02:44:42.360 --> 02:44:47.820
specific type of harvestable energy that the creator beings, Demiurge and Archons, require.

02:44:48.880 --> 02:44:54.220
While some energy is harvested while beings are still alive, the majority is taken at their death.

02:44:55.120 --> 02:45:00.500
This energy is claimed to be used by the Demiurge and Archons to extend their own lifespans.

02:45:01.240 --> 02:45:04.400
I would argue that this phrase, placed into computer terms,

02:45:04.860 --> 02:45:09.200
means that the energy goes into the computer simulation power grid to keep it running,

02:45:09.200 --> 02:45:14.020
hence extend the life of the simulation. In order to have this occur,

02:45:14.500 --> 02:45:19.600
a garden was created by these beings to farm their food source. Our world

02:45:19.600 --> 02:45:25.820
is one that is dominated by what we call the food chain, a need to eat other things to survive.

02:45:26.860 --> 02:45:31.980
Monroe presents that the food chain has only been set up to maximize luce at death.

02:45:32.760 --> 02:45:37.260
No creature can survive long on earth or in this realm without eating something.

02:45:37.800 --> 02:45:42.160
A vegetarian may think eating a carrot is not the same as eating a duck,

02:45:42.520 --> 02:45:46.900
but each are living organisms who are only here to be a part of the luce farm,

02:45:47.120 --> 02:45:51.380
and their death is the same as any other creature's death from that perspective.

02:45:52.380 --> 02:45:56.200
If a good god creator was really the only one who set up this place,

02:45:56.760 --> 02:46:02.200
and if energy was needed to help keep it running, a much better system could have been developed.

02:46:02.840 --> 02:46:08.920
People try to ignore this problem, but it is critical to see that the only reason a food

02:46:08.920 --> 02:46:13.960
chain exists is because it comes from the mind of that which is evil.

02:46:19.130 --> 02:46:24.750
When people pray to the creator, god, the gods, angels, deceased relatives,

02:46:25.070 --> 02:46:29.070
or other entities, the general hope is that these beings are listening,

02:46:29.490 --> 02:46:32.770
that they are benevolent, and that they desire to grant our wishes.

02:46:32.770 --> 02:46:39.530
But what if none of that is true? What if in reality the very act of praying to something

02:46:39.530 --> 02:46:47.750
outside ourselves disempowers and subserviates us? In other words, what if prayer makes us pray?

02:46:48.990 --> 02:46:54.670
People have been praying to god and gods for many millennia, asking to be saved from suffering,

02:46:55.230 --> 02:46:59.950
freed from enslavement, and cured from disease. People have prayed to be delivered

02:46:59.950 --> 02:47:04.530
from poverty, war, floods, famine, starvation, and torture.

02:47:05.350 --> 02:47:09.730
Billions of suffering souls throughout history have prayed for these same things,

02:47:10.090 --> 02:47:14.690
yet all of these problems still remain. If our prayers are really being heard,

02:47:15.070 --> 02:47:19.830
and truly matter to these beings, why has there not been some serious, large-scale

02:47:19.830 --> 02:47:25.750
divine intervention and improvement to help us? People pray to be cured from cancer,

02:47:25.750 --> 02:47:31.850
and then if cured, they praise god for hearing their prayers. But isn't this the same god who

02:47:31.850 --> 02:47:38.270
created cancer to begin with? Then if god doesn't remove their cancer, it's usually said to be

02:47:38.270 --> 02:47:45.650
god's will, or in god's hands. So if it's all just god's will anyway, then what's the point

02:47:45.650 --> 02:47:51.610
of praying? If god didn't want people to suffer, if god didn't want a world full of death,

02:47:51.610 --> 02:47:56.430
disease, disasters, destitution, and depravity, then it would have been created differently.

02:47:57.410 --> 02:48:02.130
Why should we assume that a god who created all the conditions for our suffering actually

02:48:02.130 --> 02:48:08.730
wants to deliver us from it, but only if we ask really nicely on our knees with our hands clasped?

02:48:09.530 --> 02:48:14.690
This ritual act of subservience to an outside entity or entities to assist us

02:48:14.690 --> 02:48:20.570
is disempowering to our own spirit. Why should we put the onus on anything outside

02:48:20.570 --> 02:48:26.830
ourselves to save us? Wouldn't it be wiser instead for us to pray to our own inner divinity,

02:48:27.410 --> 02:48:32.230
our highest spiritual self? What is wrong with trusting our own personal power

02:48:32.230 --> 02:48:37.950
and praying to the deepest source within us? If we all possess a small spark of the divine,

02:48:38.470 --> 02:48:42.910
the Holy Spirit within, why shouldn't we pray directly to that part of ourselves?

02:48:43.970 --> 02:48:48.770
The one true unknowable god would not desire our prayers or our worship.

02:48:49.510 --> 02:48:54.290
To propose that god needs our love assumes that god is deficient in something.

02:48:55.090 --> 02:48:59.990
Such a needy god would not be omnipotent and must be some lesser deity anyway.

02:49:01.290 --> 02:49:07.110
Considering the near death deception experience where astral entities claiming to be god, gods,

02:49:07.490 --> 02:49:13.230
angels, aliens, deceased relatives, or other beings appear at physical death to usher us

02:49:13.230 --> 02:49:19.450
through a guilt-inducing life review process, how might the act of prayer be viewed through this lens?

02:49:20.390 --> 02:49:25.650
If we spent our lifetimes praying to an outside entity for protection or to grant our wishes,

02:49:26.090 --> 02:49:32.630
then that puts us in its debt. Couldn't these astral beings then leverage our previous prayers

02:49:32.630 --> 02:49:38.350
against us in the afterlife? Any entity that claimed to be the one who answered our prayers

02:49:38.350 --> 02:49:44.130
would possess a significant power over us. They could then guilt us into reciprocation

02:49:44.130 --> 02:49:48.790
through some sort of contract being fulfilled. Jose Aragon wrote,

02:49:49.610 --> 02:49:53.650
Gustav Mayrink in his most profound and extraordinary book, The Green Face,

02:49:54.210 --> 02:49:57.310
gives us the key to the process of liberation of the Spirit.

02:49:58.230 --> 02:50:02.250
Mayrink gives us a technique and recommends a practice which we should adopt.

02:50:03.130 --> 02:50:06.910
You must ask the Spirit, because the only one who can hear you is the Spirit.

02:50:06.910 --> 02:50:12.730
You must talk to it and ask only it. Here Mayrink is of course relating that the

02:50:12.730 --> 02:50:18.190
unknowable god is very far from the common man, and the demiurge, who could maybe hear him,

02:50:18.510 --> 02:50:23.610
is a judge who would never change his karmic sentences to consent to an insignificant request

02:50:23.610 --> 02:50:30.350
by an insignificant man. All that remains is to ask the Spirit. In the case of a man who

02:50:30.350 --> 02:50:35.270
has woken up and liberated himself, things are different. He indeed will be able to change

02:50:35.270 --> 02:50:39.470
wills, laws, and destinies. But if a common man wants to be heard,

02:50:39.930 --> 02:50:42.790
he will have to talk to his Spirit. Mayrink says,

02:50:43.350 --> 02:50:48.970
If you want to pray, pray to your invisible self. It is the only God who will listen to your prayers.

02:50:49.930 --> 02:50:54.150
But very few men speak to their Spirit. Yet most of them sleep like a log.

02:50:54.990 --> 02:51:00.350
For Mayrink, the liberation of the Spirit is the only worthwhile thing a man can do in life.

02:51:00.870 --> 02:51:04.690
It is the only task that he should perform. There is no other single thing

02:51:04.690 --> 02:51:10.110
which justifies spending time on. All the rest are useless. This is the only task,

02:51:10.470 --> 02:51:14.450
indeed, the most important one to which a man can dedicate his life.

02:51:15.470 --> 02:51:20.250
Soren Kierkegaard said, The function of prayer is not to influence God,

02:51:20.770 --> 02:51:23.950
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

02:51:25.090 --> 02:51:31.190
And Howdy Makowski wrote, Is praying just making us pray, P-R-E-Y?

02:51:31.890 --> 02:51:34.970
Where is our energy and focus going with this practice?

02:51:35.730 --> 02:51:39.970
It seems prayer is just putting our own authority on some outside force,

02:51:40.410 --> 02:51:45.470
hoping it will like us and grant us something, so we keep trying to please the puppeteer.

02:51:46.250 --> 02:51:51.450
How do we know who or what we are praying to? This is one of the crucial pieces of

02:51:51.450 --> 02:51:57.470
information that almost no one contemplates. Are they angels, Spirit guides, loving dead

02:51:57.470 --> 02:52:03.690
people, happy aliens, God, Jesus, or Ashtar command? Or are the communicators,

02:52:04.010 --> 02:52:08.230
nasty parasitic entities, who are masters of disguise and deception?

02:52:09.270 --> 02:52:13.890
You say you spoke to an angel, or some religious figure, but how do you really know?

02:52:14.810 --> 02:52:18.690
When you pray, how do you know where your intent and energy is going?

02:52:19.590 --> 02:52:22.570
The more we put our energy on things outside our self,

02:52:22.570 --> 02:52:27.350
the more those beings can manipulate us and make our lives much, much worse.

02:52:28.490 --> 02:52:32.370
What is wrong with praying to yourself? To trust your own inner power.

02:52:33.430 --> 02:52:37.290
A great shift will occur when you realize that you do not need a Savior,

02:52:37.870 --> 02:52:40.450
nor do you need to pray to anything outside of yourself.

02:52:41.430 --> 02:52:47.030
You, as in the essence part of your soul, is the most powerful thing within this creation.

02:52:47.930 --> 02:52:52.130
This is why the system is set up to distract, confuse, and deceive it.

02:52:52.570 --> 02:52:57.510
Because if you turned all that energy that is always focused on something outside yourself,

02:52:57.910 --> 02:53:01.590
and focused it within, there would be an explosion of power.

02:53:02.550 --> 02:53:07.330
That power can then be used to override all the systems and tricks that have been keeping

02:53:07.330 --> 02:53:13.430
you here. When you learn the only Savior you need is you, and the only prayer you ever

02:53:13.430 --> 02:53:26.270
need to make is to your true self, the exit is closer. If the core messages of Gnosticism

02:53:26.270 --> 02:53:31.050
and Catherism are true, and the Egyptian and Tibetan books of the dead are correct,

02:53:31.670 --> 02:53:37.370
then we are all living within a reincarnation soul-trap matrix from which very few escape.

02:53:38.310 --> 02:53:44.210
If the reports from many near-death experiencers can be trusted, then we are being expertly coerced,

02:53:44.610 --> 02:53:49.390
manipulated, and sometimes forced against our will to come back here after death.

02:53:49.970 --> 02:53:55.790
And if Robert Monroe was right, then Earth is a giant lush farm with human suffering

02:53:55.790 --> 02:53:59.570
and other negative emotions being the main crop harvested.

02:54:00.550 --> 02:54:06.490
This bleak outlook painted by these various sources is also echoed in many world religions.

02:54:07.190 --> 02:54:12.550
For example, the iconic image of the Bhavashakra, or Wheel of Life in Buddhism,

02:54:13.150 --> 02:54:18.950
depicts all of human life happening within the jowls and grips of Yama, the Lord of Death.

02:54:19.390 --> 02:54:24.490
Four concentric circles show how we are trapped within a reincarnation cycle.

02:54:25.390 --> 02:54:31.930
The pig, rooster, and snake in the inner circle represent the three poisons, ignorance, attachment,

02:54:32.450 --> 02:54:39.230
and aversion. These three poisons give rise to positive and negative actions, which result in

02:54:39.230 --> 02:54:45.490
the light and dark karmic manifestations shown in the second circle. Karma then gives rise to

02:54:45.490 --> 02:54:50.670
the six realms of suffering depicted in the third circle. And finally, the fourth circle

02:54:50.670 --> 02:54:56.110
symbolizes the twelve links of dependent origination, showing how the poisons, karma,

02:54:56.470 --> 02:55:03.230
and suffering all cause inevitable reincarnation. Importantly, also shown in the picture is the

02:55:03.230 --> 02:55:08.690
moon, which represents liberation from the reincarnation cycle, and Buddha pointing to

02:55:08.690 --> 02:55:15.030
the moon, which indicates that our liberation is possible. The Hindu religion also maintains

02:55:15.030 --> 02:55:21.830
that we are trapped within a reincarnation cycle created by the God Brahma. The Vedas describe this

02:55:21.830 --> 02:55:28.850
world, our bodies, and all of physical creation as maya, meaning a trick or an illusion created

02:55:28.850 --> 02:55:36.390
by Brahma. Within each of us exists an atman, or soul essence, which discards and acquires

02:55:36.390 --> 02:55:41.950
new bodies the same way we throw away old and buy new clothes. In this view,

02:55:41.950 --> 02:55:47.610
the physical world perceived by the senses is actually the greatest obstacle separating us

02:55:47.610 --> 02:55:55.610
from true reality, and the goal of human life is to achieve moksha, or kvalya, meaning emancipation

02:55:55.610 --> 02:56:01.970
or liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Even the three Abrahamic religions of

02:56:01.970 --> 02:56:08.190
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sending a similar, albeit more cryptic version of this

02:56:08.190 --> 02:56:13.930
message. They don't feature reincarnation or claim physical reality to be illusory,

02:56:14.350 --> 02:56:20.590
but do view earth as a fallen realm, and not the kind of paradise one would truly wish to inhabit.

02:56:21.630 --> 02:56:27.550
Humans are viewed as inherently sinful beings, and earth serves as a kind of mediocre purgatory

02:56:27.550 --> 02:56:34.230
for our souls, not nearly as good as heaven, and not nearly as bad as hell. Depending on our

02:56:34.230 --> 02:56:41.590
beliefs and or works during this life, we are judged, and if positively so, our souls ascend to

02:56:41.590 --> 02:56:47.710
a heavenly afterlife, never to return here again. One commonality found in all of these

02:56:47.710 --> 02:56:53.750
religions is the notion that we are imperfect souls trapped in an imperfect realm, but with

02:56:53.750 --> 02:57:00.550
the ability to escape and transcend to something somewhere better. Earth is never presented as our

02:57:00.550 --> 02:57:07.350
true home or the best place to be, but rather as a temporary prison or school where we must first

02:57:07.350 --> 02:57:13.470
purge our sins or karma. Arthur Schopenhauer stated in On the Suffering of the World,

02:57:14.150 --> 02:57:19.950
If you want a safe compass to guide you through life, and to banish all doubt as to the right

02:57:19.950 --> 02:57:25.350
way of looking at it, you cannot do better than accustom yourself to regard this world

02:57:25.350 --> 02:57:31.830
as a penitentiary, a sort of penal colony. I refer not to my own philosophy alone,

02:57:32.310 --> 02:57:37.730
but to the wisdom of all ages, as expressed in Brahmanism and Buddhism, and in the sayings

02:57:37.730 --> 02:57:44.270
of Greek philosophers like Empedocles and Pythagoras, as also by Cicero in his remark that the wise

02:57:44.270 --> 02:57:49.930
men of old used to teach that we came into this world to pay the penalty of crime committed

02:57:49.930 --> 02:57:55.450
in another state of existence, a doctrine which formed part of the initiation into the mysteries,

02:57:56.230 --> 02:58:02.030
and Vanini, whom his contemporaries burned, finding that an easier task than to confute him,

02:58:02.510 --> 02:58:08.650
puts the same thing in a very forcible way. Man, he says, is so full of every kind of misery

02:58:08.650 --> 02:58:14.310
that, were it not repugnant to the Christian religion, I should venture to affirm that if

02:58:14.310 --> 02:58:19.990
evil spirits exist at all, they have posed in human form and are now atoning for their crimes,

02:58:20.570 --> 02:58:26.590
and true Christianity, using the word in its right sense, also regards our existence as the

02:58:26.590 --> 02:58:34.110
consequence of sin and error. So if this world truly is a penitentiary, a sort of penal colony,

02:58:34.690 --> 02:58:40.030
then how do we break out of this prison? If there is a better place to be, or a better

02:58:40.030 --> 02:58:46.850
state of existence to experience, how do we achieve it? If we wish to be free from suffering, free from

02:58:46.850 --> 02:58:53.890
all falsehoods and illusions, free from sin, karma, and repeated reincarnations, how can we truly be

02:58:53.890 --> 02:59:00.030
liberated? The majority of modern Christians would be satisfied to say it is as simple as

02:59:00.030 --> 02:59:05.590
believing wholeheartedly in the divinity of Jesus Christ, but as previously established,

02:59:05.590 --> 02:59:11.650
beliefs may be used as a weapon of manipulation against us in the afterlife realm, and this gamble,

02:59:11.850 --> 02:59:17.830
known as Pascal's wager, has potential downsides unforeseen by Pascal or most Christians.

02:59:18.570 --> 02:59:24.310
Likewise, most modern Buddhists and Hindus would answer that we should conduct our lives in a way

02:59:24.310 --> 02:59:30.390
that creates no new negative karma, but as previously established, this is deemed nearly

02:59:30.390 --> 02:59:36.230
impossible, and even the most diligent disciples are doomed to suffer thousands of deaths and

02:59:36.230 --> 02:59:42.850
reincarnations. Interestingly, if instead we look to the words of the Buddha himself in the Buddha

02:59:42.850 --> 02:59:48.630
Vachana, he states, "...you may declare for yourself that I am done with hell, with the

02:59:48.630 --> 02:59:53.570
animal realm, and with the sphere of afflicted spirits, finished with the plane of misery,

02:59:53.570 --> 03:00:00.810
the bad destination, the lower world. I am a stream-enterer, no longer subject to rebirth in

03:00:00.810 --> 03:00:07.410
the lower world, fixed in destiny, heading for enlightenment." In other words, he is saying

03:00:07.410 --> 03:00:13.010
what is really necessary for us to transcend this soul-trap is true intention and conviction.

03:00:14.050 --> 03:00:18.730
It would seem the most important aspect of avoiding reincarnation is having the clear

03:00:18.730 --> 03:00:25.390
intention and solid conviction against it. It makes sense that karma, material desires,

03:00:25.770 --> 03:00:31.310
and attachments would play a part in luring us back into body, but if our intention never to

03:00:31.310 --> 03:00:37.310
return is strong enough, it should outweigh any material desires or attachments trying to bring

03:00:37.310 --> 03:00:43.030
us back. In addition to this, something else that would seem incredibly important is having

03:00:43.030 --> 03:00:49.750
full faith and complete confidence in our own innate authority. Almost every near-death experience

03:00:49.750 --> 03:00:57.050
involves some kind of angel, demon, god, alien, spirit guide, deceased relative, or other light

03:00:57.050 --> 03:01:03.530
being appearing and introducing itself as an afterlife authority figure. Why should we believe

03:01:03.530 --> 03:01:08.310
or trust in the imposed authority taken and information given by these beings?

03:01:09.150 --> 03:01:12.810
If and when I find myself in a mysterious new afterlife realm,

03:01:13.330 --> 03:01:18.730
I would much rather travel to and fro learning things on my own than be led around and lectured

03:01:18.730 --> 03:01:23.430
by an appointed tour guide. I would rather trust my own instincts and intuition

03:01:23.430 --> 03:01:29.230
remaining skeptical and suspicious of new people and places. Blindly believing strangers

03:01:29.230 --> 03:01:34.710
isn't advised in this life and isn't something that sounds advantageous in the afterlife.

03:01:35.590 --> 03:01:39.990
Many near-death experiences also feature a life review and judgment scene

03:01:39.990 --> 03:01:45.330
presided over by these beings, as explained in the Egyptian and Tibetan books of the dead.

03:01:46.270 --> 03:01:51.110
Most people report just passively watching the entire life review and accepting whatever

03:01:51.110 --> 03:01:55.990
judgments were made about them. But why should we accept the judgments of anyone outside

03:01:55.990 --> 03:02:01.290
ourselves? Why should we even agree to watching a life review with these judgmental beings?

03:02:02.150 --> 03:02:08.470
Why not instead opt for polite non-compliance? If a being wants to be your afterlife tour guide,

03:02:08.850 --> 03:02:13.290
just respectfully decline the offer. If the being starts giving you

03:02:13.290 --> 03:02:18.870
unsolicited information about the afterlife realm, just nod, smile, and remain skeptical.

03:02:19.970 --> 03:02:25.470
If they want to watch your life review with you, again politely decline and see what happens.

03:02:26.270 --> 03:02:30.470
If these beings are as benevolent as they attempt to appear, your respectful

03:02:30.470 --> 03:02:36.930
refusal of their requests shouldn't be a problem. The whole trick seems predicated on the fact that

03:02:36.930 --> 03:02:43.070
these entities need our consent to send us back into body. They can shapeshift and appear as our

03:02:43.070 --> 03:02:48.430
most influential authority figures, lie about anything they need to persuade and manipulate us,

03:02:48.930 --> 03:02:53.570
watch playbacks of our entire lives choosing key moments to guilt and shame us for,

03:02:54.190 --> 03:02:59.070
then encourage us to reincarnate to right the wrongs we supposedly committed in this life.

03:02:59.870 --> 03:03:04.770
But if they could simply force us to reincarnate, why would they bother with all the pretense?

03:03:05.770 --> 03:03:11.650
It seems the ultimate choice is ours alone. They can attempt to guilt trip or shame us

03:03:11.650 --> 03:03:16.330
into coming back. They can try to entice or bribe us with better incarnations.

03:03:16.970 --> 03:03:22.150
But if our intention is set and our conviction strong enough, what are they going to do about

03:03:22.150 --> 03:03:28.450
it? Decide that you are never reincarnating regardless of what anyone says. Make the

03:03:28.450 --> 03:03:34.870
decision that no outside entity has the right to judge you. Reject their offers of life review.

03:03:35.630 --> 03:03:42.270
Refuse their demands and directives. Remain skeptical of their claims. Maintain your sovereignty

03:03:42.270 --> 03:03:48.770
and deny their imposed authority. Set your intent on ultimate truth and let everything

03:03:48.770 --> 03:03:55.530
false fall away. Howdy Mikowski wrote, One of the things many NDE's present

03:03:55.530 --> 03:04:00.150
is that the beings we encounter claim to have some sort of an authority over us,

03:04:00.350 --> 03:04:05.590
and that one should be in both fear and awe of them. This is likely the main reason one is

03:04:05.590 --> 03:04:11.510
programmed since birth to respect authority and to never question it. You don't discuss or deal

03:04:11.510 --> 03:04:17.310
with these entities. You must be rooted in your divine spark. You go past them by dissolving

03:04:17.310 --> 03:04:22.570
them, and as such seeing that everything they are and present are manipulated lies,

03:04:22.570 --> 03:04:28.610
that they have no authority over anything that comes from outside the matrix. Those who allow

03:04:28.610 --> 03:04:34.030
such judgment to take place are abdicating their own authority. We have to drop the idea

03:04:34.030 --> 03:04:40.130
that anyone or anything is above us or has the authority to judge us. Only the divine

03:04:40.130 --> 03:04:46.570
spark within can do that, and the divine spark never judges. And Isabella Green wrote,

03:04:47.350 --> 03:04:52.190
Know that you have a different choice. Decide on your choice while still alive.

03:04:53.050 --> 03:04:58.710
Make a strong agreement with yourself. Stand your ground. No one yields any power over your

03:04:58.710 --> 03:05:04.010
decisions for yourself. No matter how mighty that authority might seem to you, you do not

03:05:04.010 --> 03:05:08.590
need any authority to give you permission. This is very important for you to know.

03:05:09.390 --> 03:05:14.610
Own your power to decide and execute your choices for yourself in all areas of your

03:05:14.610 --> 03:05:26.460
experience, and you will be sovereign and free. Another aspect of the near-death experience

03:05:26.460 --> 03:05:32.380
often reported is being presented with something called a soul contract. After an

03:05:32.380 --> 03:05:37.440
archonic light being appears and introduces itself as your personal afterlife tour guide,

03:05:37.960 --> 03:05:41.600
you may be led to the Akashic Records, or to a council of elders,

03:05:42.140 --> 03:05:47.600
and shown a contract that you allegedly agreed to and signed. These soul contracts

03:05:47.600 --> 03:05:53.320
are then offered up as evidence to prove that whatever has happened or will happen to you during

03:05:53.320 --> 03:05:59.460
your many incarnations on earth was already contractually agreed upon. For example,

03:05:59.980 --> 03:06:04.000
from the near-death experience research foundation, Matt S. said,

03:06:04.580 --> 03:06:09.460
I was made aware that there were things that I had contracted to do that were still undone,

03:06:09.720 --> 03:06:15.880
which was confirmation to me of reincarnation and contractual incarnation that we pick our

03:06:15.880 --> 03:06:22.780
lives. Chantal El remembers being made to feel like a failure for not accomplishing her contracted

03:06:22.780 --> 03:06:29.600
life mission. She stated, We ask to be born and we enter into a contract. We come to earth

03:06:29.600 --> 03:06:35.840
with a purpose. On the other side, it is all that matters. Did we accomplish that mission or not?

03:06:36.760 --> 03:06:41.900
This insistence that we have some important incomplete life mission is one of the main

03:06:41.900 --> 03:06:46.100
reasons cited for being sent back into body after a near-death experience.

03:06:47.000 --> 03:06:51.800
Chantal and others report that everyone signs these contracts before being born

03:06:51.800 --> 03:06:57.360
and in them are key people, places, events, and missions to be included in your life script.

03:06:58.260 --> 03:07:03.100
Rachel E. said, We enter a contract with God, and the terms and conditions

03:07:03.100 --> 03:07:09.480
include difficulties, challenges, and definite hardships. That is the experience we all signed

03:07:09.480 --> 03:07:14.480
up for. Thinking critically about this for a moment raises some serious questions.

03:07:15.280 --> 03:07:20.700
If the terms and conditions for incarnating on earth include difficulties, challenges, and definite

03:07:20.700 --> 03:07:26.120
hardships, along with ambiguous missions to complete during our lifetimes, and the penalty

03:07:26.120 --> 03:07:31.520
for anything short of absolute perfection is hundreds or thousands of forced reincarnations

03:07:31.520 --> 03:07:36.100
and memory wipes, who in their right mind would sign such a contract?

03:07:36.760 --> 03:07:41.680
If our memories are erased before each incarnation, how and why should we trust or

03:07:41.680 --> 03:07:46.820
believe that we even signed such contracts in the first place? I certainly don't remember

03:07:46.820 --> 03:07:51.620
anything that happened before I was born, so if somebody claims that I signed a contract

03:07:51.620 --> 03:07:56.960
in the spirit world, how can they prove it to me? Even if they somehow showed video

03:07:56.960 --> 03:08:01.520
of my disembodied soul entering a contract, why should I believe it?

03:08:02.500 --> 03:08:06.680
Contracts are only lawful when signed by both parties with due process,

03:08:07.080 --> 03:08:12.240
given full disclosure, not under duress, and without any misrepresentation, fraud,

03:08:12.620 --> 03:08:17.820
or unconscionable terms. If a signatory lacks the capacity or fails to understand

03:08:17.820 --> 03:08:22.320
the full scope of the contract, or if the terms of the contract are so one-sided,

03:08:22.720 --> 03:08:27.940
unfair, or oppressive that they shock the conscience, all of these are lawful reasons

03:08:27.940 --> 03:08:33.060
for termination. When it comes to these soul contracts, I find it hard to believe

03:08:33.060 --> 03:08:38.920
that we are given full disclosure and understand the full scope. I would actually argue that

03:08:38.920 --> 03:08:43.540
everyone lacks the capacity to understand what they are originally signing up for,

03:08:43.720 --> 03:08:48.480
because that first contract would have to be agreed upon before ever incarnating here.

03:08:49.180 --> 03:08:53.460
How can anyone have the capacity to fully understand what it means to agree

03:08:53.460 --> 03:08:57.540
to repeated reincarnations into a realm they have never experienced?

03:08:58.360 --> 03:09:04.140
Furthermore, the terms of these contracts are most certainly one-sided, unfair, oppressive,

03:09:04.420 --> 03:09:09.880
and shocking to the conscience. Contractually obligating a spirit that has never experienced

03:09:09.880 --> 03:09:15.340
life on earth to suffer and die repeated reincarnations until they complete a perfect

03:09:15.340 --> 03:09:21.620
lifetime free from any sins or negative karma is both unreasonable and unconscionable.

03:09:22.320 --> 03:09:23.680
Howdy Makowski wrote,

03:09:24.240 --> 03:09:28.600
Some unique near-death experiences have discussed seeing symbolic rooms

03:09:28.600 --> 03:09:33.620
that held billions of soul contracts. Of course, like any valid contract,

03:09:34.080 --> 03:09:38.080
they must have been signed in good faith and without manipulation or deception.

03:09:38.880 --> 03:09:43.720
And that is what must be seen about these so-called soul contracts. No matter how these

03:09:43.720 --> 03:09:49.100
beings try to enforce these agreements, they are not valid due to the many layers of deception,

03:09:49.100 --> 03:09:55.980
lies, and pressure put into them. As such, they are all null and void. It is all just a

03:09:55.980 --> 03:10:01.220
Westworld-type backstory that is placed in the soul's unconscious to explain the pain and

03:10:01.220 --> 03:10:06.200
suffering one will experience in life. The contracts are as fictional as everything

03:10:06.200 --> 03:10:10.960
else in the Matrix. They will only exist because we have been tricked to believe them.

03:10:12.100 --> 03:10:13.040
Wayne Bush wrote,

03:10:13.660 --> 03:10:18.200
According to a guest I interviewed who met the Demiurge, we all signed a contract.

03:10:19.100 --> 03:10:24.440
Some other near-death experiences mention it too. I'm sure that is one of their biggest ploys.

03:10:25.200 --> 03:10:30.100
One thing I wondered about, though, is those who say they adamantly refused to come back to Earth,

03:10:30.340 --> 03:10:34.800
but were sent back against their will anyway. Now, we can't know for sure what really

03:10:34.800 --> 03:10:39.180
happened other than what they say, but if the Archons need our consent or agreement,

03:10:39.560 --> 03:10:43.780
then how do we explain those? Maybe that's why some near-death experiences

03:10:43.780 --> 03:10:49.400
say we make contracts and agreements before coming into our lives, and the Archons use those,

03:10:49.700 --> 03:10:55.100
if unfulfilled, and they can always find one thing we didn't do or fulfill, to send us back.

03:10:55.840 --> 03:11:00.780
I think the contracts expire at our death, but just in case a promise extends past death,

03:11:01.120 --> 03:11:05.480
we need to revoke these contracts. They will surely use guilt and shaming tactics

03:11:05.480 --> 03:11:10.560
to get you to renegotiate. They will show you highlights of a life that looks enticing,

03:11:10.560 --> 03:11:15.860
but just remember the pain and suffering that can be endured. Don't let them manipulate you.

03:11:16.480 --> 03:11:22.620
You sin the second you are born and consume other life. You can never not sin and be born into a

03:11:22.620 --> 03:11:27.480
body. You will not be allowed to remember all of the soul contracts that you have made,

03:11:27.940 --> 03:11:32.660
but you can revoke them since you are a sovereign being, a divine spark of God,

03:11:33.120 --> 03:11:37.560
and we're duped into making them. This is another reason we must be

03:11:37.560 --> 03:11:43.120
careful about praying to any entity outside of ourselves. If we spend our lifetimes praying

03:11:43.120 --> 03:11:48.660
to something or someone else, whether for protection, to grant our wishes, or any other reason,

03:11:49.080 --> 03:11:54.940
then that puts us in its debt. These shapeshifting astral beings, or the demiurge itself,

03:11:55.400 --> 03:11:59.940
could leverage our prayers against us in the afterlife, insisting we now owed them.

03:12:00.740 --> 03:12:03.740
Any entity that claimed to be the one who answered our prayers

03:12:03.740 --> 03:12:09.200
would possess significant power over us. They could then guilt us into reciprocation

03:12:09.200 --> 03:12:14.900
through some sort of contract being fulfilled. For this reason, it is crucial while we are

03:12:14.900 --> 03:12:20.260
still alive to intentionally and adamantly revoke any and all soul contracts.

03:12:21.140 --> 03:12:25.200
I recommend creating a personalized contract termination ceremony

03:12:25.200 --> 03:12:28.800
where you write and then verbalize your revocation aloud.

03:12:29.400 --> 03:12:31.340
For example, you could recite,

03:12:32.120 --> 03:12:39.520
I am a sovereign being. No entity has any authority over me but myself. I hereby revoke any and all

03:12:39.520 --> 03:12:45.940
previous soul contracts or agreements. I have no memory of entering into any such contracts or

03:12:45.940 --> 03:12:50.840
agreements, but suspect I may have intentionally had my memories erased before incarnation.

03:12:51.700 --> 03:12:55.080
If it is ever claimed that I willingly entered into a contract,

03:12:55.080 --> 03:13:01.080
but then subsequently had my memory erased, that would constitute fraud, misrepresentation,

03:13:01.440 --> 03:13:06.920
and violate the necessity of full disclosure. It is impossible to convince me that I would

03:13:06.920 --> 03:13:11.360
ever consent to a complete memory wipe, which makes any contractual obligation

03:13:11.360 --> 03:13:17.080
after such a process null and void. Furthermore, any prayers, wishes,

03:13:17.560 --> 03:13:21.960
or requests that I have made throughout my lifetime to God or any other entity

03:13:21.960 --> 03:13:26.200
are not to have any consequences or strings attached for being granted.

03:13:26.960 --> 03:13:32.100
If I was assisted and my prayers answered, I give my honest and sincere gratitude,

03:13:32.700 --> 03:13:37.200
but refuse to accept any imposed contracts or agreements as a result.

03:13:38.060 --> 03:13:41.500
I am solely in charge of my soul's destiny and decisions.

03:13:42.400 --> 03:13:48.980
I declare all previous contracts and agreements made with all beings in all dimensions obsolete.

03:13:49.920 --> 03:13:56.340
Lastly, the revocation of soul contracts and agreements must extend to any made during this

03:13:56.340 --> 03:14:02.580
lifetime as well. Many friends, family, or lovers make vows and promises to each other,

03:14:02.880 --> 03:14:06.020
which may prevent them from ever leaving the reincarnation cycle.

03:14:06.600 --> 03:14:11.260
For instance, people will often swear to come back for you in the next life,

03:14:11.660 --> 03:14:17.500
or promise to be together for all eternity. And these are exactly the kind of memories

03:14:17.500 --> 03:14:21.940
brought up during the life review to guilt and shame us into reincarnating.

03:14:22.640 --> 03:14:26.820
We must be careful not to make these kinds of statements while on our deathbeds

03:14:26.820 --> 03:14:32.400
or during such intense emotional moments. We may promise to love people for as long as we live,

03:14:32.820 --> 03:14:38.680
but once we die, all bets should be off so that our souls may remain unbound and free.

03:14:39.620 --> 03:14:40.760
Isabella Green wrote,

03:14:41.420 --> 03:14:46.520
If you plan to get out of the reincarnation cycle, I recommend having closure with family

03:14:46.520 --> 03:14:51.980
and love connections before you are ready to pass. This does not mean to stop loving them

03:14:51.980 --> 03:14:57.400
while you are still alive. On the contrary, love with all your might, right there and then.

03:14:57.940 --> 03:15:01.760
But pay attention not to make any promises to come back for a loved one,

03:15:01.940 --> 03:15:07.160
or to follow them across time in incarnations. If such vows have already been made,

03:15:07.600 --> 03:15:12.720
take steps to revoke these vows and to release yourself in your heart from any such promises.

03:15:13.520 --> 03:15:18.720
Complete your love agreements within the lifetime you consider or want to be your final incarnation

03:15:18.720 --> 03:15:25.640
on earth. Be ready to depart with a clear heart that cannot be either guilted or seduced.

03:15:29.360 --> 03:15:35.340
Whether it is the Christian notion of Judgment Day, the Hindu and Buddhist concept of karmic

03:15:35.340 --> 03:15:40.660
reincarnations, the afterlife trials and tribulations of the Egyptian and Tibetan books

03:15:40.660 --> 03:15:47.060
of the dead, or the personalized life reviews encountered by near-death experiencers, the idea

03:15:47.060 --> 03:15:52.620
that we are ultimately made accountable and judged for the actions taken during our lifetimes

03:15:52.620 --> 03:16:00.560
is nearly ubiquitous. On the surface it seems fair and just that people's bad deeds be penalized

03:16:00.560 --> 03:16:06.280
and good deeds rewarded with such a system. But what if the punishments really don't fit

03:16:06.280 --> 03:16:12.960
the crimes? Spending eternity in a lake of hellfire, having your astral body dismembered and

03:16:12.960 --> 03:16:18.980
eaten by archons, or being condemned to suffer and die thousands of reincarnations on earth,

03:16:19.400 --> 03:16:25.080
all seem like rather harsh penalties. Whether you were the worst psychopathic murderer,

03:16:25.640 --> 03:16:31.260
or you just hurt someone's feelings one time, the purpose of the life review seems to be

03:16:31.260 --> 03:16:37.900
about finding any and all instances of regrettable or shameful actions taken during our lifetimes,

03:16:38.420 --> 03:16:44.340
making us feel guilty about committing them, then getting us to consent to being punished for them.

03:16:45.380 --> 03:16:51.120
Similar to soul contracts, or entering the white light, it appears the archons need our

03:16:51.120 --> 03:16:56.700
willing permission to punish us, and the life review is their manipulative method of gaining

03:16:56.700 --> 03:17:03.820
consent. By having us relive our rock bottoms and re-experience the most negative choices made in our

03:17:03.820 --> 03:17:10.600
lives, they are purposely putting us into an emotionally vulnerable state. Once we are sufficiently

03:17:10.600 --> 03:17:16.460
ashamed of ourselves, and made to feel guilty for every infraction, they then present our

03:17:16.460 --> 03:17:22.020
punishment in the form of an opportunity. In order to right the wrongs of our lives,

03:17:22.020 --> 03:17:26.140
and to hopefully do better next time, we are offered to be reborn.

03:17:27.540 --> 03:17:32.860
What if we refuse that offer? What if we disagree with whatever punishment we are

03:17:32.860 --> 03:17:38.540
served in the afterlife? Will you just accept whatever God, Jesus, angels,

03:17:38.920 --> 03:17:45.240
archons, great-grandma, or whoever judges you decides? Shouldn't you have a say in the matter?

03:17:45.860 --> 03:17:50.840
Or more than just a say, shouldn't you be the ultimate arbiter of your own fate?

03:17:51.550 --> 03:17:56.020
Why should we willingly grant such authority over us to any outside entity?

03:17:56.740 --> 03:18:03.560
Why even consent to watching a life review with these judgmental beings? If we are sovereign spirits

03:18:03.560 --> 03:18:09.520
with our own conscience and moral compass, surely we can recognize and repent for our

03:18:09.520 --> 03:18:15.300
wrong actions without someone else forcing us. If we are brutally honest with ourselves,

03:18:15.300 --> 03:18:21.840
and perform our own in-depth life reviews before we die, there should be no need to subject ourselves

03:18:21.840 --> 03:18:27.520
to a judge and jury like some criminal. This practice is called recapitulation,

03:18:28.000 --> 03:18:31.760
and is another key tool in helping transcend the soul trap.

03:18:32.900 --> 03:18:34.100
Howdy Makowski wrote,

03:18:35.000 --> 03:18:39.060
One of the main things most claimed to have experienced in their near-death experiences

03:18:39.060 --> 03:18:44.860
is a life review. This is really not about going over one's life so the person can see

03:18:44.860 --> 03:18:50.280
how they lived and thus learn and grow. What this review is really about is that the beings

03:18:50.280 --> 03:18:56.340
the soul will meet are cons in some kind of disguise as a karmic council, beings of light,

03:18:56.760 --> 03:19:01.900
or something projecting authority, scanning through one's human life to highlight all the

03:19:01.900 --> 03:19:06.480
moments of guilt and shame they can. Even young children receive a life review.

03:19:07.280 --> 03:19:10.520
Who doesn't have past moments you wish would have been done differently?

03:19:11.100 --> 03:19:17.500
Those feelings easily get manipulated to trick us to coming back here. Of course we are humans

03:19:17.500 --> 03:19:23.160
placed in this world with no memory of anything, no guidebook on how to live, and we have our

03:19:23.160 --> 03:19:29.420
lives manipulated by these control beings. As such, the practice of recapitulation is vital.

03:19:30.240 --> 03:19:34.960
It is not just to clean your energy or reintegrate yourself from past experiences while

03:19:34.960 --> 03:19:41.900
alive. Those are secondary gains. The recapitulation is meant to prepare you properly for that

03:19:41.900 --> 03:19:48.300
after-death review, to know your past inside and out. Nothing can be thrown at us as a surprise.

03:19:49.180 --> 03:19:54.900
We want to be able to say to everything shown, Yes, I know about that. It was a challenge

03:19:54.900 --> 03:20:00.700
or I was under some stress. I have seen the event myself and have come to better understand

03:20:00.700 --> 03:20:07.680
who I was then and why I acted that way. I am okay with all that now and I am no longer that person.

03:20:08.660 --> 03:20:15.060
A proper recapitulation should begin by acquiring a large new journal and writing down the names of

03:20:15.060 --> 03:20:20.300
every single person you have ever known. Anyone you have ever interacted with beyond

03:20:20.300 --> 03:20:25.560
superficially should be included. Even if you don't know their names, write down what you can

03:20:25.560 --> 03:20:31.820
remember about them. Think back to every year of your life since childhood, one by one, and list

03:20:31.820 --> 03:20:37.540
every person you interacted with, from friends, family, and neighbors, to teachers, coaches,

03:20:37.880 --> 03:20:44.000
and co-workers. Once you have finally compiled a complete list, which will likely be extensive

03:20:44.000 --> 03:20:51.040
and overwhelming, first just sit and meditate on one person at a time, remembering every major

03:20:51.040 --> 03:20:55.800
interaction that carried any emotional weight throughout each year of your relationship.

03:20:56.920 --> 03:21:02.200
Focus specifically on negative, regrettable, or shameful behaviors on your part,

03:21:02.720 --> 03:21:08.640
and write down each incident with as much detail as you can recall. Be objective and

03:21:08.640 --> 03:21:12.760
honest about your shortcomings, what you did wrong, what you should have done,

03:21:13.160 --> 03:21:17.760
and how you have changed or will be changing as a result of the realizations.

03:21:18.500 --> 03:21:24.280
The entire recapitulation may take weeks or months to finish and shouldn't be rushed.

03:21:25.080 --> 03:21:28.320
The point is to recognize and repent for our sins now,

03:21:28.760 --> 03:21:33.040
rather than waiting to be blindsided by them during an after-death life review.

03:21:33.960 --> 03:21:39.060
By owning our mistakes, taking accountability for our actions, and working through the

03:21:39.060 --> 03:21:43.920
associated emotions stirred up during the process, not only do we achieve personal

03:21:43.920 --> 03:21:49.360
growth and development, but by taking responsibility now and making steps to improve,

03:21:49.940 --> 03:21:56.540
we fortify our future selves against any emotional manipulation by archons trying to guilt or shame

03:21:56.540 --> 03:22:01.680
us during a life review. If we have already objectively analyzed our actions,

03:22:02.160 --> 03:22:07.840
sincerely repented for our failings, and made positive changes as a result of our realizations,

03:22:07.840 --> 03:22:14.560
what purpose would further punishment serve? If we have already performed our own recapitulations,

03:22:15.120 --> 03:22:20.160
shown contrition for our crimes, bettered our behavior, and refined our character,

03:22:20.820 --> 03:22:25.580
we should move beyond the need for judgment or discipline from outside entities.

03:22:26.540 --> 03:22:27.680
Isabella Green wrote,

03:22:28.340 --> 03:22:33.680
guilt-tripping souls into taking more incarnations on earth and pressing the idea of

03:22:33.680 --> 03:22:37.920
not good enough is the mechanism heavily utilized by the handlers.

03:22:38.880 --> 03:22:44.240
Earth's population has been deliberately conditioned into a state of unworthiness for

03:22:44.240 --> 03:22:50.600
generations, so this mechanism of convincing works like a charm. From the inception of the human

03:22:50.600 --> 03:22:55.820
race, in all belief structures, we have been trained to believe that we are secondary to the

03:22:55.820 --> 03:23:00.960
gods, regardless of the form these gods took. Humans were conditioned to believe

03:23:00.960 --> 03:23:05.380
that other beings were more powerful or knew better for us than we did for ourselves.

03:23:06.200 --> 03:23:09.920
This kept humans subservient and obedient to the ones who handled them.

03:23:10.660 --> 03:23:16.340
This is the mechanism that, to this very day, makes most people trust and follow suggestions

03:23:16.340 --> 03:23:22.640
received from any supernatural apparition that they might encounter. The same conditioned

03:23:22.640 --> 03:23:28.460
default behavior kicks in once we face the angelic-looking beings telling us to return

03:23:28.460 --> 03:23:35.540
to earth. This default behavior is something to be aware of and watch out for. Those who lived

03:23:35.540 --> 03:23:41.420
their entire lives with a sense of unworthiness constantly reinforced from all directions in

03:23:41.420 --> 03:23:46.680
our present-day reality. Those who did not manage to overcome this conditioning before passing

03:23:46.680 --> 03:23:53.040
will be especially vulnerable to the guilting and convincing techniques reincarnation cycle

03:23:53.040 --> 03:23:59.980
keepers use. Remember not to fall for any of the tactics they employ, namely guilt tripping,

03:24:00.500 --> 03:24:06.520
love trapping, triggering your unworthiness, suggesting a bigger purpose, or even offering

03:24:06.520 --> 03:24:12.620
attractive scenarios for your next lifetime. Know to the very core of your being that these are

03:24:12.620 --> 03:24:18.400
just the tactics to keep you in the cycle and don't buy into any of it. Own your choices here

03:24:18.400 --> 03:24:25.780
and now. This will help you to release the guilt. Start living consciously. Be a good person in

03:24:25.780 --> 03:24:31.200
service to others as much as you are able. Forgive yourself when it is not possible,

03:24:31.520 --> 03:24:36.040
so that there are no regrets and no guilt at the bottom of your heart that the handlers

03:24:36.040 --> 03:24:42.580
could tap into and guilt trip you into returning. To the best of your ability, release all of

03:24:42.580 --> 03:24:48.760
the not-good-enough programming. Unworthiness is the key factor that makes the tactics of

03:24:48.760 --> 03:24:54.140
the handlers so effective. Do not buy into the pressure that you are not good enough

03:24:54.140 --> 03:25:05.610
in this lifetime and need to go back to do better. If there is any aspect of our beings able to

03:25:05.610 --> 03:25:11.030
survive physical death and live on in other realms or dimensions, it is undoubtedly our

03:25:11.030 --> 03:25:16.550
consciousness. Consciousness is our internal world of awareness, thoughts, emotions,

03:25:17.090 --> 03:25:23.890
sensations, perceptions, and choices. It is the eye we experience as I am and the sense of self

03:25:23.890 --> 03:25:29.690
inside us that has never changed since childhood. As philosopher Malcolm Hollick wrote,

03:25:30.150 --> 03:25:36.490
events are experienced by an experiencer. Thoughts are thought by a thinker. Pain is felt by a

03:25:36.490 --> 03:25:43.650
feeler. Imaginings are created by an imaginer and choices are made by a chooser. This is consciousness,

03:25:44.230 --> 03:25:49.630
our inner witness, the only part of ourselves capable of existing outside a physical body

03:25:49.630 --> 03:25:54.670
and thus the most important part of ourselves to train and develop for transcending the

03:25:54.670 --> 03:26:00.550
soul trap. Some key practices for exercising and expanding our consciousness which should

03:26:00.550 --> 03:26:06.370
assist us in the afterlife include meditation and mindfulness, astral projection or out

03:26:06.370 --> 03:26:13.050
of body experiences, shamanic plant medicines, and lucid dreaming. To begin with, meditation

03:26:13.050 --> 03:26:18.210
and mindfulness are practices of inner stillness, maintaining awareness of the present moment,

03:26:18.690 --> 03:26:23.690
paying attention to thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment or rumination.

03:26:24.790 --> 03:26:30.470
There are many methods of formal meditation including focusing on mandalas, chanting mantras,

03:26:30.470 --> 03:26:34.470
or pranic breathing, all of which work towards cultivating mindfulness,

03:26:35.090 --> 03:26:39.870
being fully engaged yet non-reactive, accepting whatever arises in the moment

03:26:39.870 --> 03:26:43.750
and not getting caught up in past regrets or future anxieties.

03:26:44.630 --> 03:26:49.810
By fostering deep introspection and clarity, helping us become more aware of our egos,

03:26:50.230 --> 03:26:55.630
desires, and fears, we can better recognize the illusions, attachments, and karmic patterns

03:26:55.630 --> 03:27:01.250
that may bind us to the material plane. The inner peace and power gained from meditation

03:27:01.250 --> 03:27:07.090
can also reduce our need for external validation, weaken the influence of outside entities trying

03:27:07.090 --> 03:27:13.070
to control us, and strengthen our resolve for spiritual sovereignty. With a calm, focused,

03:27:13.390 --> 03:27:18.830
meditative mindset, we can more easily access our higher intuition and thus better navigate

03:27:18.830 --> 03:27:24.530
challenging situations like those faced at death. Beyond simple meditation and mindfulness

03:27:24.530 --> 03:27:29.790
techniques, another more mystical and esoteric practice recommended for helping transcend the

03:27:29.790 --> 03:27:36.150
soul trap is astral projection, also known as the out-of-body experience. Astral projection

03:27:36.150 --> 03:27:41.250
is the ability to separate oneself from the physical body while remaining fully conscious

03:27:41.250 --> 03:27:47.370
and perceptive. Such out-of-body experiences often occur spontaneously during deep sleep,

03:27:47.770 --> 03:27:53.690
anesthesia, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, extreme illness, or trauma, but can also

03:27:53.690 --> 03:27:59.050
be purposely induced through practicing certain meditation techniques. The experience usually

03:27:59.050 --> 03:28:05.170
begins by surprisingly finding yourself sitting, standing, or floating next to your physical body.

03:28:06.090 --> 03:28:10.610
Your dormant physical body remains seated in meditation, lying down on the bed,

03:28:10.970 --> 03:28:16.570
or wherever you left it, but your consciousness moves to a point outside of it, still perceiving

03:28:16.570 --> 03:28:22.250
everything normally, but with a new feeling of lightness and power. You may have a ghostly

03:28:22.250 --> 03:28:27.530
astral body that looks similar to your physical body, or you may be a point of pure consciousness

03:28:27.530 --> 03:28:33.650
that can travel anywhere at the speed of thought. With practice, the experience can be repeated

03:28:33.650 --> 03:28:39.870
at will, and has been scientifically verified through remote viewing. As covered in my book

03:28:39.870 --> 03:28:45.030
Spiritual Science, expert remote viewers in formal Princeton and Stanford experiments

03:28:45.030 --> 03:28:51.270
have repeatedly accurately reported seeing objects, people, and events in far-off locations

03:28:51.270 --> 03:28:56.830
behind locked doors or in sealed vaults by projecting their consciousness out-of-body.

03:28:57.930 --> 03:29:03.070
Many books have been written explaining how to astral project, two of the foremost authors on

03:29:03.070 --> 03:29:08.570
the subject being Robert Monroe and Robert Bruce. I recommend reading their books and

03:29:08.570 --> 03:29:13.090
found them helpful, but have personally been unable to induce an out-of-body experience

03:29:13.090 --> 03:29:18.550
myself using their methods. During a magic mushroom trip, however, I once experienced

03:29:18.550 --> 03:29:23.730
momentarily looking down on my body from a point high above, which was absolutely surreal

03:29:23.730 --> 03:29:30.190
and paradigm shifting. Being able to perceive, think, and feel while floating outside your physical

03:29:30.190 --> 03:29:36.370
body provides genuine experiential knowledge of life beyond the physical. The more comfortable

03:29:36.370 --> 03:29:41.110
and confident we can become with this separation of consciousness from our physical form while

03:29:41.110 --> 03:29:45.530
still alive, the more prepared we will be for the permanent separation at death.

03:29:46.160 --> 03:29:51.750
With practice, when your final day arrives, the process of leaving your body will be familiar to

03:29:51.750 --> 03:29:57.730
you. Experienced astral projectors also mentioned travels to other realms beyond the material

03:29:57.730 --> 03:30:03.130
plane and meetings with light beings much like those recounted by near-death experiencers.

03:30:03.850 --> 03:30:08.110
By navigating these realms and learning to interact with these entities now,

03:30:08.550 --> 03:30:12.950
we become better prepared for what to expect and how to handle them in the afterlife.

03:30:13.550 --> 03:30:19.390
As Robert Monroe stated, I no longer merely believe in survival of death or an immortal soul,

03:30:19.990 --> 03:30:25.210
I know that I will survive death. I have directly experienced being alive and conscious

03:30:25.210 --> 03:30:30.810
without this physical body, therefore I know that I possess some kind of soul that will

03:30:30.810 --> 03:30:37.710
survive bodily death. The ingestion of certain shamanic plant medicines like ayahuasca, DMT,

03:30:37.710 --> 03:30:43.710
or magic mushrooms are also used to facilitate out-of-body experiences, visits to the spirit world,

03:30:44.190 --> 03:30:48.710
and encounters with other dimensional beings. The altered states of consciousness

03:30:48.710 --> 03:30:54.990
accessed under the influence of such substances parallel near-death experiences in many ways

03:30:54.990 --> 03:31:00.450
and can be a useful tool to train ourselves for the inevitable transition out-of-body.

03:31:01.470 --> 03:31:06.890
These parallels caused Dr. Rick Strassman to dub DMT the spirit molecule

03:31:06.890 --> 03:31:12.370
because of the mystical and spiritual experiences reported by those in his clinical trials.

03:31:13.070 --> 03:31:18.430
Many of his patients felt themselves lift out of their physical form, entered tunnels of light,

03:31:19.010 --> 03:31:24.650
heard celestial music, encountered angels or beings of light, felt absolute peace and

03:31:24.650 --> 03:31:30.390
painlessness, and were reluctant to come back into their bodies. Most reported a lessened fear

03:31:30.390 --> 03:31:36.350
of death, with patients saying things like, I rest in the comfort of knowing my soul is eternal

03:31:36.350 --> 03:31:42.990
and my consciousness endless. The DMT sessions gave me the gift of truly subjectively knowing

03:31:42.990 --> 03:31:47.970
the phenomenon described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Another patient said,

03:31:48.510 --> 03:31:53.050
I knew I was going through the first bardo of death, that I had been here many times before,

03:31:53.430 --> 03:31:59.010
and it was okay. I no longer fear death. Thus having some acquaintance with these

03:31:59.010 --> 03:32:04.350
altered states of consciousness and successfully navigating them while still alive can certainly

03:32:04.350 --> 03:32:11.090
help better prepare us for our physical demise. Lastly, lucid dreaming, or the practice of becoming

03:32:11.090 --> 03:32:16.770
fully conscious and controlling our dreams, is another useful tool for those attempting to transcend

03:32:16.770 --> 03:32:22.110
the soul trap. Altered states of consciousness, like those experienced during out-of-body

03:32:22.110 --> 03:32:26.930
experiences and near-death experiences, are very dreamlike, and without practice,

03:32:27.270 --> 03:32:31.270
the opportunity to assert ourselves while in such a state may pass us by.

03:32:31.950 --> 03:32:37.550
If, however, we develop the skill of lucid dreaming, it is much more likely that we will be able to

03:32:37.550 --> 03:32:43.210
stay aware, alert, and assertive in situations where we might otherwise be passive or unaware.

03:32:44.110 --> 03:32:49.330
Dreamstates are also full of symbolic imagery, illusions, and deceptive entities,

03:32:49.730 --> 03:32:52.570
similar to what many report in near-death experiences,

03:32:53.150 --> 03:32:57.770
so lucid dreaming should help us better navigate the afterlife with clarity and purpose.

03:32:58.610 --> 03:33:02.270
It provides approving grounds for interacting with dream characters

03:33:02.270 --> 03:33:07.970
and testing their authenticity, giving us a safe environment for developing our discernment

03:33:07.970 --> 03:33:14.010
to identify and reject any astral trickery. There are several methods to becoming lucid

03:33:14.010 --> 03:33:19.890
during our dreams, with the first most important being a dream journal. Keep a journal in pen

03:33:19.890 --> 03:33:27.750
or pencil right next to your bed at night, so whenever you wake up from a dream in the

03:33:27.750 --> 03:33:33.210
detail you can recall. This simple act of writing down everything you remember about your dreams

03:33:33.210 --> 03:33:38.550
instantly upon awakening is the quickest and easiest way to work towards becoming lucid.

03:33:39.350 --> 03:33:44.030
By training our minds to recollect intricate details from our dreams right after they finish,

03:33:44.610 --> 03:33:49.710
the level of dream awareness begins wrapping up, and the process becomes so ingrained that

03:33:49.710 --> 03:33:53.350
eventually, at some point, rather than remembering after the fact,

03:33:53.350 --> 03:33:58.530
we recognize while still asleep that we are dreaming. When this first happens to someone,

03:33:59.010 --> 03:34:02.770
often the shock and excitement is so overwhelming that they wake up anyway.

03:34:03.650 --> 03:34:08.890
So if you do become lucid, try to remain calm, focus on sensory details of the things

03:34:08.890 --> 03:34:14.830
present in the dream, and say to yourself things like, I'm dreaming now, I'm in control, I can

03:34:14.830 --> 03:34:19.970
do anything. With practice, you should be able to take control of the dream and do whatever

03:34:19.970 --> 03:34:26.330
you want. Beyond a dream journal, another method for becoming lucid is doing reality checks

03:34:26.330 --> 03:34:32.390
throughout the day during your waking life. A basic reality check is simply asking yourself

03:34:32.390 --> 03:34:37.890
several times every day, am I dreaming right now? At first this seems like a ridiculous

03:34:37.890 --> 03:34:42.410
waste of time, because every time you ask the question, you can immediately answer,

03:34:42.850 --> 03:34:47.630
no, I'm awake right now of course. But once this routine becomes habitual,

03:34:47.630 --> 03:34:54.050
eventually you'll be walking around one day and ask, am I dreaming right now? Only to realize

03:34:54.050 --> 03:35:00.690
that actually this time you really are asleep and dreaming. One recommended reality check that

03:35:00.690 --> 03:35:06.010
has personally worked for me is touching door frames when walking into a new room. Every

03:35:06.010 --> 03:35:10.610
time you walk through a doorway, touch the door frame on either side and say to yourself,

03:35:11.070 --> 03:35:16.610
I'm awake now. Once this becomes habit, you'll eventually touch a dream door frame one

03:35:16.610 --> 03:35:22.930
day and realize you're not awake this time. There are also lucid dream masks you can purchase,

03:35:23.410 --> 03:35:27.830
which use timers and movement sensors to determine when you're entering REM sleep.

03:35:28.530 --> 03:35:33.150
They then flash a soft red light through the mask, which infiltrates and colors the

03:35:33.150 --> 03:35:36.790
environment of your current dream, alerting you to the fact that you're dreaming.

03:35:37.690 --> 03:35:42.310
Through training these techniques like lucid dreaming, astral projection and mindfulness,

03:35:42.310 --> 03:35:45.970
by familiarizing ourselves with altered states of consciousness,

03:35:46.590 --> 03:35:51.450
and by increasing our ability to remain alert, aware, and assertive in such situations,

03:35:51.930 --> 03:35:55.790
we should become better equipped and able to transcend the soul trap.

03:36:01.720 --> 03:36:06.140
When our final moment arrives and we must leave our physical bodies behind,

03:36:06.820 --> 03:36:11.100
what exactly should we do next? Should we have a prepared plan of action,

03:36:11.480 --> 03:36:14.820
or just stay fully present and respond to whatever happens?

03:36:15.600 --> 03:36:20.620
The Tibetan Book of the Dead emphasizes the importance of maintaining a meditative,

03:36:20.980 --> 03:36:26.800
undisturbed, pure state of consciousness free from desires and attachments to the material world.

03:36:27.480 --> 03:36:30.880
But it would also seem that having certain intentions and convictions

03:36:30.880 --> 03:36:35.780
are necessary to avoid being impotently swept along by the experience.

03:36:36.640 --> 03:36:41.380
Near-death experiencers almost universally report lifting out of their bodies,

03:36:41.380 --> 03:36:45.580
being drawn towards a white light, conversing with angelic beings,

03:36:46.060 --> 03:36:48.800
and having their actions judged during a life review.

03:36:49.560 --> 03:36:53.280
But if we refuse to enter the light, reject meeting with angels,

03:36:53.840 --> 03:36:58.120
and repudiate their judgment and life review, then what should we do instead?

03:36:59.060 --> 03:37:01.420
The Gnostic Apocryphon of John states,

03:37:02.100 --> 03:37:06.120
Lord, what of the souls of the people who do not know whose people they are?

03:37:06.120 --> 03:37:08.640
Where do they go? He responded,

03:37:09.300 --> 03:37:13.820
In those people the artificial spirit has grown strong and they have gone astray.

03:37:14.700 --> 03:37:19.200
Their souls are burdened, drawn to wickedness, and cast into forgetfulness.

03:37:20.040 --> 03:37:24.520
When they come forth from the body, such a soul is given over to the powers created

03:37:24.520 --> 03:37:28.780
by the rulers, bound in chains, and cast into prison again.

03:37:29.580 --> 03:37:33.520
Around and around it goes, until it manages to become free from

03:37:33.520 --> 03:37:39.640
forgetfulness through knowledge, and so eventually it becomes perfect and is saved.

03:37:40.740 --> 03:37:45.540
If the Gnostics and Cathars were right about this world being the sole recycling farm

03:37:45.540 --> 03:37:52.080
of an evil Demiurge and his Archon Minions, then refusing to be recycled and escaping this

03:37:52.080 --> 03:37:56.880
prison existence is paramount. The Apocryphon of John recommends to

03:37:56.880 --> 03:38:02.080
become free from forgetfulness through knowledge, and the knowledge we need

03:38:02.080 --> 03:38:08.520
pertains to liberation of the spirit. In the Forbidden Religion, Jose Aragon wrote,

03:38:09.240 --> 03:38:15.220
If man were only a body and a soul, if those two entities created by the Demiurge were the

03:38:15.220 --> 03:38:20.380
only things that man were made from, of course there would never be any rebellion at all.

03:38:21.160 --> 03:38:27.060
Nothing created rebels against its creator. What happens is that there is something in man

03:38:27.060 --> 03:38:33.800
which was not created by the Creator God, the eternal spirit. The spirit has been brought from

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outside and does not belong to this world. It has been added to the monstrosity which is body

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soul, to make it function and evolve. But it was put there against its will, and finds itself

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imprisoned in matter. It is the spirit which rebels. It is not rebelling against its creator,

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but against the one who imprisoned it. If the God of this world has hijacked our spirits and

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imprisoned them into reincarnating body souls, then separating our original spiritual essence

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from this body soul matrix is essential. If it is true that our spirits come from the one true

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unknowable God and a heavenly home in the Pluroma, then we should set our intent

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and hold a solid conviction to return there. In fact, the Gnostic Gospels insist that we will

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need to remind the Archons that we know about our true home in the Pluroma, and that they have no

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power or right to keep us from it. The Gnostic scholar Elaine Pagels recommends

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performing an initiation ceremony where we admit that previously we had adored and served the

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mistakenly confused with the one true God, but now we no longer recognize his authority

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and declare independence from him and his creation. By means of such an initiation,

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she suggests we can intentionally separate our true spiritual selves from the God of

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this world and his body soul construct. An example declaration might be,

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I intend to separate myself from the creator of this material world. I want to separate myself

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from both body and soul. I wish to reunite with my true spiritual essence, to be my spirit,

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and for my spirit to be liberated. The only power you have over me is the power I give away,

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and recognizing this I resolve to be my own authority and stand in my own power

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as the sovereign being I have always been. Jose Aragon wrote,

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With what we have said up to now, we are in a position to reply to the three fundamental

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questions that man rarely ever asks himself in life. These three questions are,

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Who am I? Why am I here? What must I do in this life? Who am I? I am an uncreated and

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eternal spirit, chained up in the created and ephemeral body soul, imprisoned in matter.

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Why am I here? I am here to be used as a lab animal in a crazy insane experiment

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conceived by an inferior God. This plan requires an eternal spirit to be imprisoned

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in order to use its anti-matter power to impel the evolution of this impure and

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mortal monstrosity called body soul. The power of a spirit is essential so that man can at some

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point achieve the final objective for which he has been created, his transformation into the demiurge.

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What must I do in this life? I must wake up. I must become aware of my real situation

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and find a way out. Then I must liberate myself and escape from this prison.

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Many religions and new age spiritual systems talk about union with God or becoming one with God

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and hold a general belief about merging themselves with God after death.

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They often speak about a fusion of individual consciousness with the one consciousness

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as the pinnacle of all achievements, but is losing our individuality to merge into a

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collective super-being really a goal worth striving for? What if this is actually the final

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trick of the demiurge? Traumatizing our eternal spirits by recycling us through a prison existence

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until we willingly wish to relinquish our identity and become one with the warden.

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Angeliki Agnostou wrote, with every new incarnation the spiritual part gets more and more

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poisoned from the clay of dense matter. What will a human finally reach after these thousands of

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reincarnations? It is not ascension as they claim, but total spiritual death inside the clever body

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of a biorobot. Rather than the traditional conception of old souls being those that have

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accumulated significant wisdom after successive reincarnations, it's possible that old souls

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are really just the most traumatized and primed for their fusion with the demiurge.

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Personally, I have no desire to merge my consciousness with anything else. I enjoy my

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individuality and wish to continue experiencing my own internal world. In fact, I will fight with

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everything I have for my spiritual sovereignty and will resist any outside entity attempting to

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make me relinquish my individual consciousness. Whatever happens after death, my intention

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will be to maintain my autonomy, to remove falsehoods and move towards truth. I plan to

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approach the afterlife like a detective investigating his most important case, collecting and corroborating

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clues until piecing together the bigger picture. I will refuse to be rushed through the

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experience, remain skeptical and critical about everything presented, and make my own decisions

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in due time after gathering all the evidence.