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Mini book review and summary

KenJ

Moderator Emeritus
This may not be the place for this, please move to a thread more fitting if desired.

I grouped some text into topics currently being discussed on the forum.

Mini-review of “Incarnation and Reincarnation” By Dr. John Christopher Daniels and Roy C. Smith through the Mediumship of Rev. Grace Wittenberger Loehr. 1975 Pillar Books.

Note about the Author: Dr. John Christopher Daniels is discarnate and at sometime in the future intends to incarnate as Dr. John Christopher Daniels, he has not incarnated as that name before. John gets his information from various sources, but primarily from the Akashic records.

Roy Smith arranged and indexed Grace's readings so that they could be used for other purposes such as this book.

Incarnations: It is very seldom, as we read the records that a soul goes over the two hundred mark. They occur for two major reasons; to learn through experience through an earth life, and to be of service to other people.

Soul: The soul is many things. It can be expressed as being an individuated portion of Cosmic Intelligence and Cosmic Love. It is also expressed as being a grouping together of energies – energies which are not understood by that term “energy” as you people in earth-living have understanding.

The soul is a force field of beingness. …we might label it as a vibration in the beginning, a movement in the Great Cosmos. Some have labeled the beginning of the soul as a point of light, and that has validity in it.

We do not think there is any one source that encompasses the whole version of what the soul is. Only God knows truly what the soul is in wholeness, and God, because He is constantly increasing His own beingness is also constantly increasing the beingness of individual souls.

…a soul can not be fully comprehended by mortal consciousness, by earth consciousness. What a soul is is a consciousness that is continually increasing. It is increasing in earth consciousness and it is increasing in other-realm consciousness. As the individual soul goes on in the unnumbered realms of expression over and beyond the earth realm, its own comprehension of what it is is constantly increasing.

[Only a portion of the soul incarnates in and through a personality; what happens to the rest of the soul?] There are times when much of the soul is held in attendance upon that portion of the soul which is having a specific earth life. Other forces from that soul may backup that portion, feeding in the needed strengths and vitality. Then there may be other forces of the soul drawn out into individual expression and given specific learning experiences on the astral realm in cosmic schools of learning.

The earth personality is the agent by and through which the eternal soul makes its growth and achievements into Christhood. The personality is the servant of the soul. At the same time, because it serves and teaches the soul by taking on the effects the soul has reaped from activities in former personalities the personality is the teacher, the guide, and way-shower to the soul.

The soul has many purposes that guide it in planning and experiencing its various earth lives. One of the purposes of the whole experience of earth living is for the soul to take mastry of every condition, every situation. The soul, as a whole, is to achieve Godhood. It is to stand side by side with God as a cocreator.

The destiny of the soul is to become a coworker with God. In the beginning it is an individuated and unorganized bundle of energies whose immediate task is to start getting itself organized.

The raw materials for the soul’s personalities are its own energies plus the factors it draws from heredity and environment. The soul creates personalities by organizing these energies.

After a series of lifetimes, perhaps forty or fifty with a personality representing each lifetime, the soul no longer resembles one individual, but seems more like a croud of people. Then it is time to reorganize itself back toward individuality. This new individual is called (by Dr. John) a Solity which could be thought of as a superpersonality. The solity tends to transform the soul from a conglomerate into an integrated unit. The solity does not reincarnate, it operates at a higher level.

The individual personalities may exist for hundreds of years after the death of the bodies they occupied, but they will eventually be broken up, disbursed, the different energies in it will be gathered into a reservoir of being. It is the soul itself that is eternal.

Continued...
 
Continuation,


Past-life affects on current life: A soul forces from past lives, the soul’s learning, the soul’s failures are carried by what is known as the subconscious. The subconscious mind of an individual does not begin with the birth of the physical body. It is in the subconscious which carries the memories of the past lives and memories of in-between life experiences. It is into the subconscious area that the soul forces flow. And then it is the subconscious which affects the “I” of the present personality conscious expression.


The knowledge of what and who you are lies deep within you. That knowledge can be uncovered. … The knowledge of past lives is on a time schedule in the development of the soul…


Sex problem: When the soul is scheduled for earth-life it is split into two parts called soul mates. This split separates the soul energies along masculine and feminine lines, thus polarizing the soul sexuality. … Each soul mate must function as a whole soul and go through a series of incarnations in both sexual valences. After a series of lifetimes in one sexual valence developing the qualities of that sexual valence, the soul must switch to the opposite sex and develop the qualities of the opposite valence.


This switch in sex seems to give the soul more trouble than any other problem encountered in earth life. … In addition to the (adjustments to the) physical body, there is also an emotional body that must be reoriented. And after all the necessary technical adjustments are made, the soul has to incarnate and learn to live, feel, and be the opposite sex.


What religion is right: The one that fills one’s own individual needs is the correct religion for that one. There is no one school of religion which is, cosmically speaking, The One. Truth expresses itself in many forms. Earth minds have not evolved an all comprehensive school of religion. You don’t even have that on what you call the psychic level.


Suicide: [speaking about a reading] There is only one place she is in danger of making alliance with sin. That is the flirting with the idea of taking her own life. That is a sin and she would pay a heavy penalty. She would find that it didn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t take her out of a single situation that she is facing now. The taking of one’s life does not mean the taking of one’s remembrance. She would have just as clear memory as now. She would not be one bit removed from the situations she seeks to escape from. … The forces to which it gives in, the forces which drive it to suicide, the loneliness, the sense of failure, unhappiness, whatever it may be; those forces remain with the soul and it is as though the soul were enclosed in a room in which there is nothing but those forces from which it sought to escape. It must still find a positive way out and much of the help available to it as a personality is withdrawn from it when it breaks its bonds with earth.


I liked this book, both the structure and language. The readings are numbered and recorded like Cayce's are.


I don't recall the word "spirit" being used in the entire book. Dr. John used the word "personality" to define that portion of soul-energy that is associated with an incarnation.
 
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Hi Ken,


This sounds like a book that was well ahead of its time in a variety of areas that have since come up through Newton, Stevenson and others. I tend to be very suspicious of anything that is "channeled" but this is way out beyond anything I was aware of in 1975. Interesting. I wonder if the speaker is "incarnate" at this point.


Cordially,


S&S
 
Greetings S&S,


After reading Eowyn's book, which was good, I read The Map of Heaven by Eben Alexander (which I thought you would like), and then read this book which I felt compelled to write about for some reason.


It also had a section that spoke about having to be careful about opening up to a spirit that wants to communicate. It was mainly about automatic writing and ouija boards but would include all forms of "contact". Dr. John stated that they are mainly spirits that have a limited view, are stuck in some turmoil, or just mischievous and should not be communicated with. These "sources" often have an agenda that can be harmful.


The book contains a lot more than I covered in this brief review.
 
Hi Ken,


I read through what Eowyn had posted online, which was very interesting, but I'm pretty limited in terms of what I can read. If it ain't free online or is not online, I'm very unlikely to try and read it, though I certainly make exceptions. Reasons: (1) very limited time, and (2) possible family turmoil (for reasons I've talked about in the past), though they all know at this point (in a disapproving sort of way) that I am exploring this subject area.


Hence, mini-reviews like this are useful to me in that they not only provide a quick synopsis, but help me evaluate where I would like to invest time, etc. BTW--the book on heaven sounds very interesting to me. I've tried (subject to the limitations above) to read what I could find--first hand "traveler's reports" from the OB projection crowd--about the various planes of existence and what they are like. I don't know whether this book gets into such things or sticks with a pretty broad overview, but it sounds interesting.


S&S


PS--On the "heaven" book, what are the chances that co-authors would both have unusual first names like "Eben" and "Ptolemy"? The last is definitely one that hasn't been heard much for the last thousand years.


PPS--I'm not sure who penetrates the farthest in terms of these domains, NDE folks or OB folks. Both are going to return, so it could be that neither can go as far as might be possible for a totally discarnate spirit, but . . . .
 
SeaAndSky said:
This sounds like a book that was well ahead of its time in a variety of areas that have since come up through Newton, Stevenson and others. I tend to be very suspicious of anything that is "channeled" but this is way out beyond anything I was aware of in 1975.


S&S
There is somebody who wrote much more detailed and extremely clear information about the spirits, the incarnation process and everything else connected to it - I don't know if you've heard of Allan Kardec. He lived at the beginning of the 1800's. Comparing his books to this one presented here (although I haven't read it, but just read the mini review) it seems to me that Dr John, although a benevolent spirit and one of some knowledge, is not however one of the superior spirits that have been contacted by Kardec, by Chico Xavier, or by Mother Veronica for that matter.


On the contrary, I would say that since these authors above (Kardec- 1840, Xavier - 1950, Mother Veronica - 1970) no new author has been so far able to surpass the knowledge brought to us by them. It is a little dissapointing...
 
Hi Malva,


I am very interested in Kardek and Spiritism. I have read some of the material online, and it seems to be a solid attempt to put the variety of information coming in into a comprehensive and (from my limited review) fairly straightforward framework. Further explorations of this area are on my "to do" list, but unfortunately, my list is pretty long at present. Hence, it may be a while before I get to it.


Thanks for the suggestion,


S&S
 
Yes, this is what I too appreciated most about Kardec - that he is so scientific about the issue. There is also a movie made after Chico Xavier (well, several, but the best known is " Nosso Lar"). He is very detailed about what life as a spirit is like. It's really fascinating! :) I don't think you can find anything about Mother Veronica yet though, although her writings bring even more information as the former 2.
 
Another Book that I found interesting - Portrait of a Past Life Skeptic by Robert L. Snow (2015). Mr. Snow was a police captain in the Indianapolis police department when on a dare was hypnotically regressed to several past lives. He used his police skills and knowledge to investigate, and find, the identity of one of those prior incarnations.

Perhaps the notable difference between this book and others is his detailed description of his hypnotic experience. I found it to be an enjoyable read even though I had read about his experience previously.
 
I second the recommendation. Great book. Thank you for reminding us about it.
 
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