Sunday 20 January 2008

dual beliefs?

Hi, I have just finished reading ITLAD and need some advice, guidance , thoughts from your good selves. I have always believed that consciousness continues after death. Personal experiences have supported this. This has always been held as the idea that our deceased loved ones continue to be around us, let us know they are there in various ways and so forth.

However this seems at odds with Tony's hypothesis that we start over again at the end of each life cycle and do a 'groundhog day'. I can completely relate to this idea as well as many of my own and families experiences support the suggestion of repeating lives.

So am I missing something fundamental? Have I interpreted the book incorrectly? If we keep repeating lives, how can our loved ones stay around us after death? Is there away to amalgamate the 2 concepts?

I hate having 2 ideas that make sense to me but don't make sense to each other so any explanation would be welcome.

Thanks guys

12 comments:

SM Kovalinsky said...

I have had the same confusion, and for the same reason. The two ideas seem mutually exclusive, and yet there must be a way to unite them. I have thought of "in-between periods"; time-dilation differences, etc. I wonder what Mr. Peake himself would say? I feel I've missed something essential as well. Might it be that the deceased loved ones communicate through the larger daemon, who can be in 2 periods at once: a "groundhog" rerun partially, and also in the vast eternal spaces?

Hurlyburly said...

My take on this would be an extension of what Anthony explains several times. Our loved ones, for example, die in our reality, therefor in our lifetime they are dead and therefor able to communicate through "an inbetween state" Meanwhile in their reality they have gone back to birth.

Who people are to you and who they are to themselves remain two separate concepts. They cannot automaticaly return to birth whilst we are still alive in our reality because that would set our lives back aswell, so instead perhaps a small percentage of their existance remains in our own reality's.

I know what i mean, my brain hurts.

SM Kovalinsky said...

Hurlyburly; You are putting into words the same thoughts which I have had at times, and you are clarifying it quite well--thank you, and do something about that aching brain of yours!!

johar said...

Thanks guys, I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling with this!! I am currently reading the afterlife experiments and the mediums have produced amazing results, suggesting they really are talking to deceased relatives. This is a concept I am totally comfortable with however getting to grips with the evidence Tony presents kinda wobbles it a bit. I like your explanation hurly and kinda know what you mean. Am most interested in this in between state you mention Susan which is so inherent to the aborigine culture - must investigate further i think, maybe help explain my dilemma!

SM Kovalinsky said...

Yes, I agree that the "in-between" state which Anthony mentions in regard to that culture would seem to be the solution, or its key, in a sense.

Anonymous said...

Hello
I found your post interesting, I work as psychic and a medium, and I mix with some very famous mediums. I have also been tested scientifically, now I can only tell you what I know to be true, when the first mediums started out they were entertainers and they use to say that they were talking to the dead, through the years it has stayed like that, but I know that we don’t really talk to the dead, im not saying these people are not really gifted they are, they are picking things up about those we love that have passed over , but that person who passed is not there with the medium ,
And is not there in spirit, all the medium does is pick up what you feel and think plus all the clues you give out, I really have met hundreds and hundreds of mediums and some are on the telly and there all good clairvoyants that say they contact the dead, but honest they don’t it’s a money thing and a very old saying that carried on with us psychics from long ago. If there was a true medium, why is it they only tell you bits?
Or they only tell you the first letter of a name and if they do get a name they can’t tell you the last name, that’s because the dead person is not there in any shape or form.
We humans need to know that there is more to this life once we die. It’s our natural defence against death. I do know that our energies can some times stay behind once we die, but that is all it is.
I did a reading once for a lady on a radio show, so it was live, I told her of this man and everything I said was true, she told me that I picked up things that know body new, she was eternally grateful and live on air, she said “its my husband he passed over 5 years ago” then she asked “can you see him”,
I answered”no I just picked it up”, she then said “well he must be around then, as you got so much info on him”. In the end because she was old, I had to lie and say yes he is with you, and his talking to me. It’s impossible for any medium to be honest about there work. Yes science does prove that mediums do contact the dead, they proved me to do this, but really I don’t. . All we do is pick up you.
So do our loved ones live on? No they are part of your universe and when you are born again in your universe you will meet them again and again and again.
This is just my thoughts on what I know and believe .

Carenza Waters said...

If you accept the Everett 'many worlds interpretation' then life as we each perceive it can be different to how others perceive it. As Anthony points out though, the people in our lives are not 'puppets', even though the experiences we see them having are not part of theirs.

The MWI is interesting, as it sees a life as a locus or trace through a space of many possible outcomes. Quite why we chose one path over another is a mystery to me (it's probably decided by the daemon).

Another interesting aspect is what happens if we deviate from this locus slightly, i.e. we take a temporary excursion into another history of our lives. In some of these alternative lives we may be in different places, or with different people. And in some alternative lives, lost loved ones are still around.

This is my interpretation of ghosts and spirits in general. They are people who are still here in a very real sense, though inaccessible to us for most of the time.

Of course, these people aren't aware of this life where they are not here. They go about their life routine as though nothing had happened. Isn't that how ghosts are so often seen - going about seemingly repetitive actions?

But that's just my interpretation! I don't know whether its correct, but I place more credibility on it than the idea that we simply cease to exist after death.

Anthony Peake said...

This is a question that I am regularly asked during my lectures. My response is always the same - "I have no hard opinions when it comes to the question of is there life after death?" Unfortunately my publishers placed me in a very difficult position when they insisted that the book should have that misleading title when I was insistent that it should be called "Cheating The Ferryman". Purchasers and those attending my talks would not be then mislead in any way. I am attempting to present a scientifically acceptable suggestion as to what may happen in the final few moments of this life - whilst the brain is still alive. In this way I try to answer the ultimate question "What happens when you die" via physics and neurology. What happens after you die is in the realm of metaphysics and as long as science seems to show that consciousness cannot exist without a brain then it will remain so.

On that point I am comfortable with the idea that the brain is a form of receiver and that consciousness may exist elsewhere and the brain works like a wireless receiver. However I then come up with the problem of if consciousness is not in the brain then where is it located? - and why?

I too have worked with many mediums over the years and many have become close friends.Unfortunately in my personal experience they have never told me anything with regard to any dead relatives that convinced me of anything other than they were guessing. At that time I was very open minded on the subject but time and time again I was disappointed and, sometimes, quite irritated as the information given was clearly guesswork using 'cold reading'. But this is only my personal experience. I am told by others that their experiences with mediums have been amazingly accurate.

This is not to say that sensitives do not communicate with those who have passed on but I am in total agreement with Zenna in that I cannot understand why the spirits cannot simply say "Hi, I am your Grandfather Joseph and I died on 24th June 1984". What we get is "I am receiving a message from somebody with the letter 'J' in their name". Why would a spirit keen to communicate with his loved ones play parlour games?

I think the problem will always be what constitutes 'scientific proof'? That a medium has a 'accuracy rate' higher than probability proves one thing - that they have an accuracy rate higher than probability. This is not scientific proof. For this to be so they would need 100% accuracy every time and this, as far as I am aware, has never happened. As long as some responses are incorrect then questions have to be asked. Surely if a medium communicates with my dead father he will, through the medium, be able to consistantly describe things that only he and I could possibly be aware of - with an accuracy approaching 100% - particularly if he was trying hard to convince me that it really was him. Furthermore science will naturally then ask 'what does this 100% accuracy actually tell us about life after death. Could it also be proof of telepathy for example? Of course if ITLAD is correct then what this really is is that the medium has very open communication channels between Daemon and Eidolon and that the 'spirit guide' is, in fact, The Daemon.

With regard to CTF the survival of consciousness after actual death is not an issue. It may well be that after many life re-runs consciousness then moves on to another level (in the same way that in the movie Groundhog Day Phil Conners eventually does 'pass over' to the next day).

If this was the case then maybe this is where 'Dark Matter' comes into the equation. Could it be that the 95% of the universe that we cannot detect with our scientific devices is the world of spirit inhabited by those who have passed on through my suggested re-runs?

Indeed, playing with ideas here, could it be possible that spirit communication may really be communication between personal Bohmian IMAX's contained in Everett's Many-Worlds concept. The medium of communication could be facilitated within the realms of David Bohm's Implicate Order? This would explain why the messages received by 'Daemon-Sensitives' are not as accurate as science would like. The channels of communication are capricious and difficult to manipulate so garbled messages come through.

Interestingly enough in his book UBIK Philip K Dick suggests a very similar scenario.

This is what I would personally like to believe and, like many of us, I would be delighted if actual concrete proof of such a reality was presented to science.

Maybe other members of this blog or any casual readers may know of such information. If so it would be great to hear from you.

Hurlyburly said...

I told you.

Exactly what i said...!

Hurlyburly said...

Ghosts are actually caused by Chuck Norris killing people faster than Death can process them.

Anonymous said...

From an evoluntary standpoint the physical mechanisms that negates a lot of pain and allows the consciousness to re-experience its entire life is quite odd to say the least.

Could it be that the additional and heightened electrical activity is in fact trying to preserve the entire life's experience. As electrical impulses travel at sub light speeds, hence the effect of entropy is vastly reduced, enabling a perception of an extended time period, explains how nde's occur in such short periods of time.

Instead of re-living the life, it has the effect of impressing upon the quantum universe the experience of the individuals life, hence preserving consciousness in an extended form within the em spectrum that was achieved in the last few moments of life. Possibly in Dark matter or as dark energy as Anthony mentions above.

A possible explaination that slightly differs from mwi and reliving over and over.

On eternal return part of your book
, recently it has been observed that the universes expansion appears to be accelerating - suggesting that the universe is not a closed system.

On chapter seven - check your information of Ka, Ba and Khu - here's a link http://www.kheper.net/topics/Egypt/egyptian_soul.htm

Anthony Peake said...

Thanks to slm for some interesting comments, particularly with regard to entrophy as a contributor (if not prime cause) of time slowing down at the point of death.

Thank you also with regard to the complexities of the relationship between the Ka, Ba and Khu. In my next book I have both expanded and refined my thoughts on this triune and its similarities with the Daemon-Eidolon Dyad. Indeed I was very surprised to disciver that Huna beliefs of the Polynesian Islands also reflect this trinity structure of the soul.