Eternity by James Sloan

Eternity;

Note, this blog is my personal opinion about the topic of eternal existence. They are my opinions based on my personal experiences and those of others in my life, and my personal research, logical deduction and discernment. I know for a fact from discussions with Brian and Justin they agree with me on many of these issues, but I delve quite deep into the topic here, and it must be noted that these opinions in their totality are of the writer and not necessarily the views of real news online, though I believe strongly in what I have written. It was my decision to put this disclaimer on, this is not censorship, but this is the most subjective topic we have dealt with, and there will simply never be wholesale agreement on this topic. Although, the same could also be said of everything we talk about on here.

We are eternal. Our body is merely a vehicle for our existence on this version of the earth plane. Once we die our spirit (soul and mind) leaves the body and moves on. There is overwhelming empirical evidence of an afterlife, and of our eternal existence, both before we chose to come here and after we leave, but so few truly understand this because of the focus on burden of proof, the science vs. religion, the creation vs. evolution debate.

Throughout my life there are many things I could never quite comprehend. I was always open minded, which is no surprise as to why I became a "conspiracy theorist". But that was much later in life. The most pondered question in history is without a doubt "what happens to us when we die?". The second would be I assume "are we alone in the universe?". Though there is some parallel between the two questions, many wrongly assume we will never know the answer to one or both. The truth is we already know the answer to what happens to us when we die. Our mind knows, but our brain has to learn. It is a pre requisite of coming here.

Most of conventional religion focuses around a soul, a heaven and a hell, but in spirituality you hear just as much about the mind and the spirit as you do about the soul. The central idea is the mind and brain being separate. The brain is a receiver, a learning computer of sorts. It is responsible for all our cognitive functions, sending messages to the body to move etc. But our mind is a far greater, separate entity, our mind exists outside of our physical body. Most people have heard of spirits and souls, but only choose to use the term "mind" as an interchangeable way to refer to the brain. They simply never give it much more thought than that.

I was never partial to religion growing up, but neither Atheism. Atheism seems to take the approach of "when we die we die that is it", and that conventional religion where a Deity creates and rules over all of us is the only alternative explanation anyone has ever come up with, and to "debunk that notion". It's easy to identify as agnostic, and I effectively did for a long time, but one day it just seemed like too easy a way out. Not that it is a cop out per say, it is a quite reasonable stance to take on the issue given the amount of lies we have been told. However I’ve never tolerated unanswered questions before, so why with this one, the greatest question of all? Just put it to the back of the brain. "We can't know, no one knows. We were obviously not meant to know". "It can't be proved". I only liked the sound of Christianity because it seemed the nicer option of the two. The word Atheist was only made known to me as an older teenager. That word was simply never used in Religious Instruction, or anywhere else in the school curriculum.

Not meant to know? Doesn't that imply that there is something to know, and that it is being kept from us?

To many of us atheism is a dirty word. It never inspired me in the slightest. Why would anyone be an Atheist? You can't prove there isn't a God. Even they admit that. You cannot prove a negative is their answer. The burden of proof is on others to prove there is a God or Gods, or an afterlife.

That philosophy never sat well with me. First of all, we don't "know" where we came from. If you admit we don't know where we come from, and how we got here, how can you say for sure you know where we aren't going? How can you proclaim to know absolutely that there is nothing after death? Have you died to find out, and if so, how is it that you are among the living to claim this? No, Atheism is a logical fallacy.

The burden of proof is not on anyone. It is not a burden of proof issue. If anything though, Atheists ignore a lot more than even staunch religious people do. There are numerous things that point to a greater existence; dreams, lucid dreams, experience with spirits, out of body experiences, near death experiences, clairvoyants, psychics, ghosts, haunted houses, astrology, Ouija boards, Séances, coincidences, irony etc. At least religion for the most part acknowledges these phenomena, though they do describe it as dangerous and to be avoided. Atheists basically dismiss all of it as nonsense, telling all the millions and millions of people who have experienced it first hand that they must be either wrong or mistaken. Telling somebody else that their independant life defining experience was wrong. What could possibly be more arrogant and presumptuous than that? It's one thing to cast doubt or aspersion, to say it could be either or, that is constructive, to tell someone they are wrong. That’s fucking bullshit. Think about it, if even just one of the people who has had any of those experiences is correct, Atheism is already disproved. Could so many be mistaken? Though in reality strictly speaking atheism is simply the rejection of a supreme Deity, not a spiritual afterlife, but pretty much all Atheists simply focus on disproving religion and poking holes in the bible, so they reject afterlife. "When you die you die that’s it". What if there was another alternative?It is NOT a burden of proof issue. One thing about many Atheists that always frustrated me was the presumed use of science to disprove an afterlife. The claim is that science has answered the questions for us. But think of many of the greatest or regarded as the greatest scientists ever, Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, even inventors like Tesla (Tesla was a physicist also) Thomas Edison, other scientists like Galileo, Nicholas Copernicus, none of them identified as Atheists, in fact they resented when they were called as such. It would be a stretch to call all of them creationists, but many quotes attributed to them tended to pointed closer to that direction. Einstein remarked like many of us, the position of the earth in the solar system, a little to the left, we burn up, a little to the right and we freeze to death, the impossibility of a "non created universe". He also expressed an admiration for Buddhism. The conditions being so perfect for life, the odds are infinitesimal it could happen by chance. Sir Issac Newton was a Christian, as were a lot of people of his time. Tesla is perhaps the greatest inventor/scientist of all time, he was very spiritual, saying that he felt there was a place in the center of the universe where knowledge is stored, our brains are receivers, but indicating that our mind exists outside our physical body, as per spirituality.

Whatever the case, science has not disproved anything related to these issues. There are many scientists who believe in an afterlife. There are many who do not. Though this hurts a lot of people, it's an issue that is BEYOND science. Science is great, but limited, like everything in this earth plane. This is not nor has it ever been the kind of thing you can prove in a laboratory with an experiment, though there are some indicators. In my view old school science accepted there was an afterlife, but that is an opinion. The science is never settled. Yes Science tends to be the field with the highest amount of Atheists. I know in this writing I am dismissing a lot of conventional meaningless coincidence to explain things, but it doesn't mean they don't exist. It could be a random fact too. Dentists for example have the highest suicide rate of any profession. But can you really garner any conclusion from that, or demonstrate a cogent cause and effect process?There are indicators though. One of the most basic accepted laws of science is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. Another is for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. How are these laws compatible with death being an ultimate end? These are accepted laws of science. I'm not even saying they are correct. But for those whom use Science to disprove afterlife, that seems a contradiction in terms. Although it is one of the lesser pieces of evidence, it has also been established that immediately upon death, the human body has been shown to lose weight. Not a great deal, but around 21 grams. There seems to be no biological explanation for this, and it has been attributed to a soul or spirit leaving the corpse. Of course it is often debated as to the cause, but it remains an unexplained phenomena that would be entirely consistent with a spirit leaving the body.

But regardless I have never been in the habit of telling people their experiences are misguided. My older sister claims to have had a frightening experience with an Ouija board as a teen with her friends. So have thousands of other people who swear it moved all by itself. Are they all lying? My mother claims she saw an angel at or during one of or the most trying periods of her life, I never assumed her to be false. I have numerous friends who have had experiences with spirits and haunted houses/ghosts. Many said there was a ghost in a bedroom in my grandparents old house. Another friend was present during a possession at a haunted house during his childhood, there are around 9 corroborating witnesses. Spirits exist. I am able to remember most of these things as I have a better memory than most. I bet lots of people told them they were wrong, maybe they made them doubt themselves. Maybe they are lying for attention? Nobody can claim to be able to spot a liar 100% of the time, and all of us do lie, but I have a pretty good radar with people as to when they are being untruthful, for example many girls I dated/courted with claimed to have been raped. I know 90% of them were being truthful, the story never changed each time it was recited, it was told with absolute clarity being a life defining event they would never forget even the minor details of. 2 or 3, the story changed, and the behavior during and after was inconsistent with such an event. In regards to every last person who has ever told me about any experience with spirits/ghosts, the story remains vivid and the same every time, even when they are re telling me and have forgotten that they told me in the past, in fact I often feign that they never told me just to hear them re tell it. They have no reason to lie to me, and their stories also match up with what other people experience, I believe them. It is truly mind blowing when you think about how many people have had these experiences but never tell another soul about it, out of fear. Or put it down to a simple dream or hallucination. We know with sleep paralysis people do this.

You just have to think about it logically. I'm not saying they know everything or are always right, but there are clearly people with psychic gifts. Would tarot card readers, psychics, astrologists, fortune tellers etc ever make a dime or a consistent living if they were relying on guesswork? I can't see how.

But like with anything in this arena, it is not a proof based thing. You can only learn from your own experiences. Those who have never had spiritual experiences often dismiss them. Those who have are left in no doubt about it. Not many people remain neutral or open which is a shame.

I often wonder, as do many, why it was back in biblical times or a long time ago that it seemed mostly everybody accepted there was a higher power. It could be because of primitiveness or brainwashing, but I doubt it somehow. Aspects of conventional religion obviously rely on fear and control, but I don't think this explains it. I think a long time ago, it was obvious to everyone where they came from. For some reason, in fact many reasons, in this modern day world, walls we have built, within and around, have made us more close minded than ever. We always assume that back then people knew very little. Ancient Aboriginals talked a lot about things like astral projection (out of body experiences), as did the Inuit people. What if they knew MORE? Sure, where technology is concerned we have advanced. And in other ways. But in how many ways have we gone backwards? Too many to list. It is asinine to assume that people back then didn't in fact know MORE about issues of greater importance, just because they couldn't post on facebook about it.

Why then is it our instinct to imagine our deceased loved ones watching over us? Contrary to popular opinion, this is NOT any idea that comes from religion, in fact going to a heaven is a different idea, you cannot be privy to or have any connection to this screwed up earth and be living in any kind of bliss. It is our instinct to think of this. It is our instinct to KNOW this. It could be our fear of death projected, it could be our longing to see them again, it could just be it is easier to explain death to children (particularly of another young person) this way. Atheists often claim we tell our kids things that we know for a fact aren’t true to make the harshness of life easier (eg. Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy) but eventually we grow up and accept our fate. But that answer doesn't satisfy me. I am not a parent at the time of writing this, none of that is the reason I accept deceased relatives have been with me in spirit. I accept it because I have FELT it. Not once but many times. It is not a hallucination. We imagine our relatives moving on because we know they do, it's burned into us, whether we want to deny it or not. We say Rest In Peace because we acknowledge they are travelling into the unknown where the negative will attract such and the positive beautiful spirits will rest easy. It is always perplexing seeing people who identify as atheist using the R.I.P acronym. Why? You know or feel you know it's irrelevant, they will rest easy, they will do nothing but rest, because there is nothing left, according to your beliefs. Maybe you are just conforming to society, or maybe you are just kidding yourselves. Maybe I am kidding myself too, but I will never presume to tell anyone that their unique experiences are null and void either. That’s narcissistic.

Creation vs. Evolution/Religion vs. Atheism often reminds me of left-right politics. In fact I listen to them go at it and I think "You guys have so much more in common than you care to admit", though I doubt either party would thank me for the comparison. The absurdity of politics is present in the Creation vs. Evolution debate. The idea one group of people can always be right 100% of the time and the other always wrong 100% of the time is a logical fallacy for imperfect human beings. Whether both sides like it or not, they are both responsible in large part for our limited understanding as a society. The idea that the afterlife/eternal existence and religion are INTERCHANGABLE is burned into most people’s brain. What if both Creation and Evolution are wrong/incomplete?

To many people, the earth has obvious handprints of creative sculpting on it, compared to other planets, however in other ways it's also obvious we have evolved as a species and as a planet. The divide is just another illusion. Just like religion, just like politics, anything to keep us controlled. It is worth noting though and so often forgotten that creation does take two forms. Creation of us as people, and the creation of the planet we occupy, the earth plane. Could this earth have been created, was it always here, does it predate our spirits, or did we make it? Did we always co exist? And then, there is us. Our existence being eternal certainly doesn't co-exist with a God creating us from scratch, even if that God did know us "in the womb" or even before then as the bible says. That’s possibly why in Christianity abortion is generally a big sin, whilst in Spirituality many feel abortion is not a sin at all, since a spirit may have planned to only occupy the womb for a short time before dying. Miscarriages also fall into this category, though blame isn't usually apportioned to people for those. It's an interesting and refreshing way to consider two of life’s cruelest "mistakes". How could God ever let that happen or send a child to the womb only to destroy it? What kind of sick plan would that be, even if that soul did inherit heaven afterwards? But if we as "God" sent ourselves to learn life lessons, and the mother and father involved, and then that plan all comes together after the passing of all or even during life, it's not such a cruel event after all. Tickets on earth are in high demand after all. The abortion debate certainly does bring a lot of hatred from many camps, another divide I am quite sure the global elite don't mind in the slightest.

How do I know I am eternal? The reasoning is quite straightforward. First of all, you cannot get something from nothing here. It's the chicken and the egg. How did we get here? Where did we come from? Two people need to fuck for someone to be born, they can't come from one person. Not way back when anyway. Contrary to popular opinion, even Sciences best guess, the Big Bang Theory, doesn't purport to explain what happened in the VERY beginning. It is an obvious logical deduction in the very least that there is a supreme entity that is not subject to the same laws and limitations as we are on this earth plane, you can call it God, you can call it whatever you wish. It must exist. It exists in fact within US. We were sent here by ourselves, our spirit, our mind, to occupy our body for a brief time, to learn on this lower earth plane. When we leave and our spirit departs our body dies but we move on. Our family members here on earth may or may not be in our spiritual family, but deceased ones will certainly greet us on the other side, as will our higher spiritual being even whilst we are here.

How do we know this? Amongst other things, dreams, out of body experiences and near death experiences. Most people are familiar with NDE's, however many dismiss them as a dream or hallucination. There are numerous reasons why this is impossible. Not just improbable, but reasons taken in their entirety, impossible.

First of all, when you examine the accounts, they are all revolving around the same thing. They all involve floating out of and above one’s body once being clinically dead, often seeing medics working on them in the hospital or on the scene of an accident/murder. Then going up through a tunnel, often being met by deceased family members, Jesus, and a myriad of other people. They experience the unique and fantastic feeling of weightlessness flying up the tunnel, where they are almost always met by a voice asking if they want to go further, or being told it is not their time yet, they must go back. Then they are sent back quickly through the tunnel much faster and land back in their body. The feeling of being totally pain free floating outside the body is a unique one and nobody who has ever been outside their body will know it. If it were a dream or hallucination that our body makes at or just prior to death, then wouldn't everybody be having a different dream? A few might have the same one, but how would everyone have almost the exact same experience? If, as Atheists claim, our dreams are just manifestations of existing thoughts, wouldn’t everyone have a mostly different one? Yes, most of us ponder all our lives about life after death and seeing loved ones after we die, so maybe that would be in the hallucination, but most of us are unaware of any tunnel or feeling of weightlessness being a spirit, this stuff is never talked about openly. People would have no reason to have this in their thoughts in the first place.

Secondly, there are many, many documentaries and accounts of emergency room doctors and surgeons who have had patients who have had NDE's. This phenomena is not a secret or hidden, or a conspiracy theory, it's just not talked about openly these days. The mainstream has no interest in it, preferring to instead control us with religion vs Atheism and left right politics. But there is an over abundance of information if people seek it out. It is just more common in the last 10-20 years because of advances in medical technology it is "easier" to bring a patient back from clinical death. Though it is worth noting that television has for years painted a totally unrepresentative picture of resuscitation. Even arresting in an ideal hospital setting with professionals all around you, hooked up to machines, there is only a 2-4% chance of being brought back. Many might be entitled to feel it was more like 40-50% based on television shows showing CPR. Even though TV isn't real, it has strong effects on our subconscious we don't often realize.  Patients often talk about watching for a time being worked on, and can recall how many people came into the room, the clothes they were wearing and the exact things they did. These people came into the room after they were unconscious or clinically dead and had left before they regained consciousness. Some also floated up through the roof of the hospital where they had never been and were able to identify objects in there and people went up later and checked and confirmed it. There are also numerous people who were brought back to life after flat lining from a coma, and despite having been measured to have almost, or zero actual identifiable brain function, had these vivid experiences. These people cannot have been dreaming or hallucinating.

Nor can people on record who were born blind who had near death and/or out of body experiences in full, vivid color. We know that people who go blind after birth dream in color, but people who are born blind do not, they dream in shapes and patterns throughout their lives. If even one of these blind at birth people had a NDE in color, that already proves it correct, as they have done something their physical body is demonstrably incapable of doing, having never learned color. Saying these experiences are dreams or hallucinations is wrong. The same reverse situation is also true of people born deaf who experience crystal clear sound in their NDE's/OBE's. There is far too much empirical evidence to dismiss the phenomena as a dream or hallucination. There are also numerous people who have had a friend or relative simply astral project from a different location and visit them, then afterwards explain to them what they did in detail when they were not in the room to have been able to see it.

We dream every single night. For a myriad of reasons we may not always remember it. Every single night for our entire lives we have left our bodies, we are just not consciously aware of it. Astral Projection is where you project a copy of your consciousness onto other planes of existence, but your physical body still maintains all its functions like heartbeat and brain function and digestion. Of course many dreams are garbled and don't have any deeper meaning, but many are communications. Dreams and Music are the two biggest gateways to our soul, but of course any technology can be used to communicate. Can you imagine a life without music? Nobody can. Music is an integral part of our psyche. Spirits often use music to communicate messages to us.

Take the view of an atheist, why would we dream at all? Why wouldn't our body just go into a sleep mode like a computer for 8 hours? What would the point of dreams be if they don't mean anything or have consequence? Think about it. Atheism is kind of like nihilism. Life has no purpose. That never made sense to me. We're born we live we die. I don't think so. Most of us follow a path, have a reason to be here. I appreciate that what does and doesn't make sense is often a function of circumstance, but the idea some of us are born into absolute wealth, others born in poverty, some born with working bodies other disabled, some with great intelligence, others borderline intellectual functioning, never made sense to me. Luck of the draw? We are here for a reason, to learn, to experience. It makes absolutely no sense to me some people can be so lucky their entire lives and others never. Some people live to be 100 years old, other poor souls die in the womb never tasting fresh air even once, leaving their mothers and fathers heartbroken. No, there is a reason for everything in this game of life. It also shows that material possessions/fame are not important. Those famous on this planet may not be right away or at all on the other side, likewise those who have done great work on earth may be revered on the other side.

Much along the points of the NDE's before, recurring dreams are a very real phenomena. Polls and surveys have shown there are a definite top 5-10 recurring dreams we all have. For example personally one of the top 5 and the one I definitely have the most is being back at school, usually high school. Others include a plane crash, despite me having no fear of flying. If, dreams were just manifestations of thoughts, we would have recurring dreams, but would we really all have the same recurring dreams? Unlikely. It is not just surveys, everybody I have talked to on the topic all have the same top 5-10 recurring dreams, and the exact same ones almost every time. Yes, many of us had our best years at high school, so it would make sense to have that recurring dream, but what if we don’t think of that often? Many people have the plane or car crash dream despite not driving or flying. There are also many things we think of a lot more often that we never actually dream of. You cannot establish a cause and effect for dreaming based on how often you think of something. It doesn't always work that way, dreams have deeper meaning and if something isn't important, you most likely won’t dream of it despite how often you think of it. Dream analysts have shown that by looking at the recurring dream and events in your life there will be most likely a deeper meaning and representation to the dream that correlated to events in your life.

Scientists have never been able to explain why despite how many years we dream, unless we launch a lucid dream, we can never know that we are dreaming. It feels so real, in fact it often feels more real than life, despite being unable to recall getting to the locales or certain aspects being not what they should/would be. Again why is this? Despite how absurd or impossible circumstances and ambience can be in a dream, it always feels so real. It is because it is real. The projection is actually happening, and you are outside of your body though not in this physical plane. We also all fall back into our bodies in bed at some point. That’s what that famous feeling of "falling" in bed is, that sensation that we all have and are often curious about. You can fall back in from being just out of it, halfway out, or miles away.

They also can't explain how we can SENSE so vividly in our dreams. Not only can we feel, we can feel pain, we can touch, we can eat, we can taste, we can sense. When we kiss in dreams we can feel it, when we have sex in dreams we can feel ourselves orgasm, despite often times not having an actual wet dream, which can be confirmed when you wake up by an absence of semen stains. Sex often feels BETTER in dreams than in real life. How is that possible? Why can we taste food and drink in our dreams. When you hug someone you can feel their arms around you. Their warmth, their aura. How can any of this be possible if we are not actually experiencing it? People who astral project have confirmed you can eat on other planes. Yes our brains can recall smells, tastes, sounds/songs and feelings/sensations when we are awake, but not very vividly. Not with 1/10th of the vividness we FEEL it with in our dreams. Dreams are obviously a gateway to the other side.

It's also worth remembering that the majority of people dream in the first person. 3rd person dreams have certainly been reported but seem to be far less common and many including myself don't have them at all. This is further evidence pointing to an actual experience taking place. If dreams were just random projections of our desires and existing thoughts, wouldn't dreams in the 3rd person where we see ourselves be much more common, or perhaps the norm? Especially in this day and age with so many photographs, so much social media and television, and so many people who focus on their looks and appearance, spend hours at the gym or in front of the mirror, the single image of our face and body is burned into our mind as much as or more than any other. Why then do we not tend to dream of it? Because it probably doesn't matter in the grander scheme of things, that’s why. It will be but a rotting, stinking pile of flesh once we move on. That’s why I also think the focus too many humans have on gravesites and final resting places is sometimes unhelpful. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have a place of remembrance, a place to go to. But at the same time it could cause tunnel vision and place too much emphasis on the earth body. Communicating with spirits is just as important. That’s why quite frankly I don't give a toss whether I am cremated or buried at this point. There are many ways we can remember and embrace those gone before us, and we shouldn't feel guilty for not visiting grave sites, as long as we remember in other ways, and never forget. Never forget to remember, and your loved ones will live on IN YOU. Through you and as a part of you. Keep their spirit alive here.

The idea our mind and consciousness exists outside/beyond our body also explains why our short term memory can go but our long term memory almost always remains. Like Tesla and many others theorized, could our memories/knowledge or at least segments of, actually be stored outside of our body? It would explain why scientists have never pinpointed the exact location memories are stored in the brain. The idea that the mind exists independently and outside of the brain/body is being more and more endorsed in mainstream Science. Boston scientists recently published a study concluding that dreams do take place in a parallel universe. Mathematicians also accept overwhelming probability that a parallel universe indeed exists. Comparing a brain to a computer isn't always helpful, but think of computers through history. They always need upgrading to store memory. Eventually they need replacing. Yet from the beginning of time, it seems our brain can retain unlimited long term memory, even with little training or exercise. The most that can go wrong with our brains are tumors and Alzheimer’s, or depression/mental illness, or brain damage and concussion. But even then, in the vast bulk of cases long term memories remain or eventually return. Everyone recalls memories from age 3-5 onward. It seems storage of memories and data is not always, if ever finite. No matter how primitive technology was, or how advanced it will be in 1000 years, our mind will always trump it. Not even mentioning that we are seeing but not a fraction of what we are capable of in greater realms. Perhaps this is because our mind and spirit exists in different planes beyond our bodies, and will always trump anything here. This would also explain why brain transplants appear to be impossible in any time. Each of our brains are unique receivers linked to our greater consciousness. Sever the link, and your earth body dies. I often wonder if we are conscious from age 3 backwards into the womb, but it gets temporarily wiped at some point after that. Who knows what lessons we may have learned but don't remember yet during our time in the womb and through ages 1-4. As any of us who have been around toddlers know, even at 2 years of age and sometimes younger, they speak with amazing clarity and are clearly conscious beings with amazing recall of events. In fact people often recall being alert as children, being able to astral project even easier than they can as an adult. Children often have gifts and claim to see entities. Maybe we are more mortal as adults than children. It's impossible to know though. That information like certain others appears to be unavailable to us here. I know for a fact that I am certainly not the only one who swears black and blue toddlers have told me many things about me/life that they almost certainly would have no way of knowing.

On that note, I have always wondered why we count our age from the day we were born. Technically we should add 9 or so months to our actual age, or at least several, because regardless of what people believe about fetal rights, there is a cut off point long before we pop out where we are fully formed humans. Just another example of the self, or system imposed limitations we place on ourselves not to think of the grander picture. Being that I was 2-3 weeks overdue, I am definitely a little older than my age and will always see myself that way.

The brain is a receiver. Many of us can't visualize our brain as children, often picturing some elaborate computer, and are often underwhelmed when we see an actual brain. I have never believed that organ is capable of producing our entire consciousness. Not even close. It's obviously a receiver responsible for all our cognitive function, and is truly amazing in it's own right, but I have had the hardest time believing it is capable of producing my consciousness. Not even close.

How did I arrive where I am now? It's not something that happens overnight. I would say over a period of about 2-3 years through numerous experiences I confirmed much of what I already felt I knew for much of my life. It's not one single experience, nor is it ever likely to be. I didn't have any experiences with spirits or haunted houses or ghosts as a child, at least that I recall. Nor was I touched too much by death personally. When a childhood friend committed suicide a couple of years ago, and I went back to the place we hung out as children, memories flooded back, emotions boiled over, and I could feel her with me. The thing is, I had lost contact with this girl for 11 years, and had been back to that place numerous times in the years between, but those memories were gone, I never recalled them. Nor did I recall them in the 2-3 days after I learned of her passing, but once I went to that location, the memories came flooding back. Regardless, this emotional moment was not in my head, as when I went back there a year later again, it was not the same. Though I did go on to have later experiences with her. We can definitely feel deceased people watching us.

It is not coincidence. It can't be connecting dots after the fact. These are only the experiences I remember after becoming aware, imagine all the thousands and thousands that happened during life that I never picked up on. During a much more recent time period a friend who I knew from online also died. We used to post in a music group a lot, along with hundreds of other people. thousands and thousands of different songs with many friends of mine, both from "real life" and online. Not only did I feel her watching over me, with me at times, but sitting down one evening thinking of her, a song randomly came to my mind and I played it, as you do. Never thought much about it at the time and kept playing music, but listening to the song it seemed to attract the strongest vibes from her. A week later whilst searching the music group I did come across the song. No coincidence she posted she loved it from her childhood. But not only that, the song was defined by the artist as being about being able to live your life true to who you are, not caring what others think of you, and don't be a gatekeeper just out of fear of judgment. Live the life you planned for yourself. The song was Karma Chameleon by the Culture Club. As a "conspiracy theorist", what could possibly be a greater message to send in a song? Many could accuse me of just connecting dots after the fact that aren't there, but they will never comprehend that anything being written is about a past experience. When you live through it and notice it as it happens, you realize just how real it is. That is why the written word, whilst powerful in it's own right, is not the best way to convey a message or to learn. Experience is. Knowledge is not power. Applied knowledge is power. Learning knowledge makes you a person with power, applying your learnt knowledge makes you a powerful person.Realization that songs you have liked all your life often describe your life to a tee is bliss. You realize these issues are in songs and popular culture everywhere and always have been. Songs have different meanings to different people, always will, but lyric interpretation is phenomenal. Especially songs that I came to know in the previous 2-3 years of my life I felt an awakening taking progress, though not always understanding what was occurring at the time. Peter Gabriel has always been one of my favorite artists and I see the spiritual side of his music right off the bat. Mike and the Mechanics "Silent Running" is profound. Queensryche's "silent lucidity" also. Trains "drops of Jupiter" in my opinion is a beautiful song about a soul astral projecting through our solar system. Paul Simons "slip sliding away". pied piper - Crispian St Peters, Kansas - Carry on my wayward son, river of dreams - Billy Joel, Live - lightening crashes. It is truly amazing when you see references to this topic and of astral projection etc in lyrics throughout music you have loved all your life. I personally believe many artists sing about these feelings as it doesn't seem socially a topic that anyone wants to talk about beyond religion. Many artists just pick up the pen and write and don't even know what their song is about. People who were put here to make music may not always realize the greater significance of their work.  Even conventional sayings like "the light at the end of the tunnel" is about the near death experience of going up through the tunnel and towards the light. Most people don't even realize that though. They just think it means the silver lining in the cloud. They don't think about what it really means. Music is the gateway to the soul. I believe our musical tastes describe us as a person. So much can be learned about ourselves just from listening to music. They may even describe our destiny. I have had these over and over again, each more profound than the last. There is just too many to list and they are an ongoing phenomena.

After trying astral projection for a while, I finally launched an OBE from a lucid dream. I physically floated out of my body. I was paralyzed by fear and thought of my body as id read to do so to end an astral projection and it worked. I woke up. Despite achieving the success I wanted, I found the experience frightening. Yet I didn't encounter anything bad. It wasn't as terrifying as sleep paralysis, but I wanted out. I guess I just was too tied to my body at that point. But the unique feeling of floating out of the body combined with the terror is something I have never experienced in a dream before or since. Even in my plane crash/death dreams I always accept my fate with poise and wake up apon death. This terror was genuine. I hope when I am ready I can have many more experiences and finally voyage beyond this room.

It's also worth noting that many people have had dreams or nightmares of fighting, and woken up with real injuries on their bodies, or discovered injuries on their bodies they cannot account for and have no recollection of receiving. This also points to dreams being "real". I myself have woken with injuries after fight dreams, injuries which are in shapes and patterns I have never seen before and are not consistent with someone grabbing or scratching, having experienced that injury many times before. We have all experienced during the day finding bruises/cuts/welts on our bodies that we have no recollection of receiving, in fact cannot have received here. But if you think back to your dreams/nightmares, if you can still remember them, you may recall fighting an entity on the astral plane. Skeptics claim that the injuries are caused during sleep by the dreamer causing them, however the injury patterns are often very inconsistent with self caused injuries. Sometimes the injuries are even on the back or in the middle of the spine and are only noticed when/if the person sees their reflection in a mirror, in an area people can't reach during sleep, so unless they were out of the bed sleepwalking, cannot have caused those injuries themselves. It shows how far reaching some will go to deny reality and tell others their experiences are incorrect. Another thing that confirms OBE's are not dreams or hallucinations is when people are moving and look into a mirror they see something truly amazing. Their glowing spirit reflected in the glass. I remember looking into a mirror as a child and wondering if the room reflected back in the image was somewhat of a parallel universe. If I could somehow get into that mirror, I could unlock the gateway to the other side. I wasn't far off I don't think.

Having said that, it is worth noting that many humans do have a natural fear of death. That does create an inherent bias to want to believe in something else/higher existence. It is largely impossible to be entirely neutral. On the other hand, many people detest life and hope death is the end. Fear of the unknown/blackness can be very unbecoming. Naturally though, it is certainly possible to go too far the other way and dismiss everything as a meaningless coincidence or irony, in the name of objectivity, when in reality you may be actually over compensating and ignoring the obvious. We see this all throughout life, but particularly here. Conspiracists often say, there is no such thing as coincidence. I prefer to say there is no such thing as MEANINGLESS coincidence. Coincidences certainly exist, but most of the time, they mean something. They convey a message to you, they explain. Of course, as said, many dreams can be mumbled and have no greater meaning. But profound ones convey much, and once you are aware, you will know exactly the difference between the two.

Another thing that pre disposes us to believing in higher power is loneliness. In a world full of people who invariably let us down, the idea of an all loving God and never being totally alone is very comforting. That’s a good thing! But God is also US. We are never alone, nor have we ever been. Our guides/relatives/family are always with us in spirit. We are all God. God is love. In a world where people often ridicule those with unique perspective, it is comforting knowing how I am inspiring those gone before me and how they will be learning from me here, perhaps watching with pride. That does make the going easier when people from all quarters call you crazy for your beliefs. We need to know we are not alone, life is much easier that way. But we need not the fear that organized religion often brings with it. The weight of your shoulders once you realize life has purpose is immense. It's a much healthier way to live.

Finally, explaining death to our children is the hardest part of being an adult, and a discussion we will eventually have to have with them. Atheists rightly point out that few could look a child in the eye and say their favorite person has just faded into blackness forever. It is much easier to explain they have gone to a better place (heaven). But as I have demonstrated, it is much closer to the actual answer.

How do you become spiritual? It's not instant "salvation". I don't ever wish to define it. Obviously my views would be defined as spirituality, but I refuse to define it in terms, there are simply no words great enough to describe our eternal existence. "Salvation" is earned as it is received, nobody gets it on a plate and nobody gets a free guaranteed pass immediately upon death either. Your beliefs do NOT make you a better person, your behavior and attitude does. Love makes the world go around. Superior belief is the gateway to superior living, but you cannot have one without the other. Just as it's absurd to say someone would instantly go to heaven after murdering 50 people just because they found God in Jail but a person who lead a great loving life never hurting anyone but didn't accept Jesus as their savior will burn in hell forever. I reject eternal hell. Even many Christians do, I believe the bible is true on many things, I believe there was a person called Jesus Christ, I believe in God too, but God is in all of us, we are all God. Many things were inserted a long the way, often through fear, to control people, eternal hell is one. It's a logical fallacy that an all loving God would send at least 66% of his creations (2/3 of the world isn't Christian so would automatically go there no matter what) to burn in hell forever, everyone knows this. Who would seriously want any part of that if it were true? Nobody said life after death will always be easy, or that there aren't personal hells, but damnation does not exist. You in many ways go where you believe. If you are a negative person, you will have a low spiritual level. If you are a loving person you will soar far and high. You will stay on the lower planes until you are able to change or are helped out. We like to believe there is some place where murderers and evil people will linger forever, but it's not true. Everything happens for a reason and we may very well chose our date of death and how we die before we come here. Even the people we detest most in life, are there for some lesson or greater purpose for us. I believe our bodies are immortal to a point but we also have an expiration date, a pre determined time of death where we will expire on this plane of existence and move on.

I also find Astrology very compelling, my star sign is Cancer, being born on June 23, and all descriptions I read of Cancerians described my personality traits perfectly.  From my tight fistedness with money, being emotional and wearing my heart on my sleeve, to careful planning of life and the future, to preferring routine/organization and plan over spontaneity. Compatibility charts described all 10 or so girlfriends/courtships I'd had to this point and our relationships/dramas/arguments more perfectly than I ever could, not just right on some things, but 110% on every area, even things I didn't fully realize, as if I were writing it myself. The description of those girls personalities were also all spot on. The one girl who was my biggest "the one that got away" story that we all have, the one I loved more than any other, the one whom I banked all the odds on being with and the one I thought certain to succeed but the one relationship that capitulated so spectacularly before me, was also one of only a few star signs deemed to be totally incompatible with mine. Not only that but I also keyed in my parents star signs, and my sisters and brother in laws. All came back with perfect descriptions of the things they share in common and the things most often fought about, and I should know those as well as anyone, they are my family. Not just cherry picking or joining of dots, perfect descriptions. I find the idea to dismiss all of that as meaningless coincidence too much to bare. Sure, Astrology is as much a core belief as anything else is, and I cannot speak for others success with astrological descriptions/predictions, but I find it hard to believe so many would be taken in by something if it were pure unadulterated rubbish, and the accusation that it is appears to me to be baseless and unfounded. I have never followed weekly or monthly horoscopes closely enough to judge their accuracy, but they are two different topics that people often confuse. I am only talking about astrology and star signs broadly.

Time doesn't exist. Certainly not in the afterlife. There is no crossover. Time is a way we use to catalogue and structure our lives here. It has no use in eternal afterlife. Things can happen in an hour that takes days weeks or years here. I have many friends who are agnostic, atheist and religious. I love them all. I fight with my dying breath for their rights to all have their own core beliefs and not be judged for that. However I must say, lately more and more I found myself levitated toward the agnostics and religious. In my opinion many atheists are often the definition of what they accuse creationists of. I would prefer a Mormon or Jehovah’s witness knocking on my door to an Atheist. Though the latter probably never would. I find the atheists to often be more close minded than the religious. Their identities are both a manufactured product in my opinion. But at least all or most of the spiritual aspects I have covered here, creationists don't deny them, they may have different conclusions, but they don't deny the existence of the phenomena (or even the POSSIBLE existence) or tell me or others that their independent experiences are wrong. Judgment and anger are something we will never totally rid ourselves of, but they are by far and away our greatest enemy in life. There has been more than enough judgment from me in this piece alone.

One thing humorously enough that I'm sure all three will agree on, is that no human being is perfect. Never was, never will be. And just for the record, that doesn't happen by chance either.

By James Sloan