The Soul
“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” ~ Irish novelist C.S. Lewis
There is a physical plane and a spirit plane. The 2 are entangled.
To incarnate is to take bodily form. Being alive is an incarnation.
Consciousness is an incarnation of an immortal soul. This has been a common belief worldwide since prehistory.
Is there evidence of souls? There is indeed. In abundance.
Paranormal refers to phenomena in the psychic realm. Well beyond what matterism can explain.
There are 7 well-documented paranormal phenomena which show that souls are real: out-of-body experiences, remote viewing, near-death experiences, terminal lucidity, ghosts, reincarnation, and spirit presences. Ample proof.
Out-of-Body Experiences
An out-of-body experience is awareness detached from the physical body. The mind senses from outside its body.
Out-of-body experiences have been reported throughout history. They were known to the ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, American Indians, Hindus, Hebrews, Muslims, and Oceanic peoples. 90% of the cultures in the world have a tradition regarding out-of-body experiences.
1 in 5 people have an out-of-body experience sometime during their life. Out-of-body experiences tend to be spontaneous. But some people can leave their body at will.
Many recall an out-of-body experience as blissful.
Out-of-body experiences has been repeatedly confirmed. Out-of-body travelers can often reveal details about environments they could not have otherwise known.
Remote Viewing
Out-of-body experiences are minor league compared to remote viewing: long-distance vision.
Ingo Swann was an American artist who lived from 1933 to 2012. Swann saw remotely. Experiments in 1972 confirmed Swann’s inexplicable talent.
Swann was extensively tested at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in 1973. He quickly got bored with such tests as describing pictures in sealed envelopes.
So, researchers gave Swann a formidable challenge: view Jupiter. The largest planet in our solar system. From his chair in an SRI lab in California.
Swann described many details of Jupiter as if looking down on the planet. Among them were glittering rings in the upper atmosphere.
In 1973, details of Jupiter’s appearance were unknown. What Swann described he could not possibly know if he had not seen it himself.
Voyager 1 was the first space probe to fly by Jupiter. That was in 1979. The precise picture of Jupiter Swann described 6 years earlier was confirmed. American astrophysicist Russell Targ explained: “unlike Saturn’s rings, which are clearly visible from Earth, even through small telescopes, Jupiter’s rings are so difficult to see that they weren’t discovered until the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1979.”
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The US military ran a remote viewing program called Stargate from 1978 to 1995. Swann and several other remote viewers participated. CIA official Norm J was responsible for the US military’s Fort Meade remote viewing unit. He said, “you can’t be involved in this for any length of time and not be convinced.”
Stargate remote viewers found a downed Russian bomber in Africa. Looked in on American hostages in Iran. Located a kidnapped American general in Italy. Saw Soviet weapons factories from thousands of miles away. Witnessed a Chinese atomic bomb test 3 days before it happened. And mapped numerous archeological sites that were otherwise undetectable. English psychologist and paranormal skeptic Richard Wiseman could only confess, “by the standards of any science, remote viewing is proven.”
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Out-of-body and remote viewing experiences show that sensory awareness is not necessarily bound to the body. Consciousness and physicality can be a fluid connection. Near-death experiences further confirm this.
Near-Death Experiences
There have been innumerable credible reports of being conscious while deceased. People who are clinically dead but still aware.
The brain typically stops working within 30 seconds after the heart stops beating. People who die from a heart attack but then revive often report a near-death experience. Stories vary.
David Bennett drowned off the coast of California in 1983. He was underwater for 18 minutes. His lungs filled with seawater.
Bennett finally popped to the surface. Was revived.
Bennett reported seeing dancing, coherent light while drowned. Feeling bliss. And love.
Most of those who have near-death experiences report inner peace. Many are able to accurately recall attempts to revive them. Some report out-of-body experiences while dead, revealing details they could not possibly know from where their body was.
The most common aftereffect of having a near-death experience is a renewed sense of purpose. Living is more enjoyable, more meaningful.
Many people who have had near-death experiences or out-of-body experiences no longer fear death. They are content for life’s adventure to last as long as it does. And be done with it.
Terminal Lucidity
Getting old sucks. You can’t do what you once could. As you get older it only gets worse. Alas, I speak from experience.
Along with the body, the mind often weakens. It is especially bad for those with dementia: oldsters who lose their marbles. Unable to remember what happened 10 seconds ago. Or for the last 10 years.
Almost all with dementia have rotted brains. Various diseases which chewed at brain tissue. Destroyed physical function. And yet….
Terminal lucidity occurs when someone with a severe chronic brain disease has a revival of mental clarity before dying. This inexplicable phenomenon has repeatedly been reported since antiquity. “The most remarkable cases involve patients whose brains were destroyed by diseases, but who seemed to recover shortly before death with their memory intact,” noted German American neurobiologist Michael Nahm.
Terminal lucidity provides a way for folks with dementia to close their book of life gracefully.
If the brain was responsible for mental function, terminal lucidity would be impossible.
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Terminal lucidity helps ease the passage of a soul. Ghosts show how that transition can go wrong. Badly.
Ghosts
“A ghost is somebody who’s gotten stuck in the physical world but is not part of the physical world.” ~ American paranormal researcher Hans Holzer
Ghosts have been noted in every culture worldwide throughout history. Attachment to life can be so strong that the shock of its sudden end is unacceptable to a soul.
Ghosts show that a soul has will.
Normally, at death, one’s spirit is ushered out of the body. For ghosts, the soul transition process faltered because their death was traumatic.
Ghosts just won’t let go. They linger where their tragedy or emotional attachment was before their physical death.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the mental illness of being stuck in the past, holding on to a legendary bad memory that won’t go away. Suffering crippling chronic fear or remorse. A ghost is a soul with PTSD after their body has died.
The presidential mansion in the United States of America is called the White House. The White House is haunted. Beyond doubt.
Willie Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln, died of typhoid fever in 1862 while in the White House. He was 11.
Willie’s parents thereafter received regular visits. A bereaved Mary Lincoln spoke of seeing her son’s ghost once at the foot of her bed. Willie Lincoln was also seen by staff members of the Ulysses S. Grant administration in the 1870s. President Lyndon Johnson’s daughter Lynda saw and talked with the disembodied young Lincoln.
After his 1865 assassination, President Lincoln joined his son in phantasmal appearances. First lady Grace Coolidge spoke of seeing Lincoln looking out a window in his former office.
In 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had just stepped out of a hot bath in the Lincoln bedroom, wearing nothing but a cigar, when he encountered Lincoln by the fireplace. Churchill dryly said, “Good evening, Mr. President. You seem to have me at a disadvantage.”
Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom in 1942 when she heard a knock on the bedroom door. She opened it to see Lincoln and fainted.
President Ronald Reagan said that his dog would go into any room in the White House except the Lincoln bedroom, where he’d just stand outside the door and bark. Reagan and his daughter Maureen both admitted that they saw the spectral Lincoln in the White House.
There have been many other reports by numerous people serving in various administrations of seeing Lincoln, including President Theodore Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt.
Abigail Adams was the 1st First Lady to live in the White House. She used the East Room to dry sheets. Since her death, there have been repeated sightings of her likeness in that area. She walks with her arms out-stretched, as if holding clean linens.
Dolley Madison liked taking care of the White House garden. During the Woodrow Wilson administration, staff members reported seeing her ghost as they were about to move the Rose Garden. They decided to leave the garden where Dolley wanted it.
William Henry Harrison was the first US President to die in the White House. He haunts the attic.
“The damned place is haunted, sure as shootin’.” ~ US President Harry Truman on his tenure at the White House
Reincarnation
An afterlife has been a central tenet in all religions. Reincarnation figures in creeds spawned in the Far East, India, the Middle East, the philosophies of ancient Greece, and among indigenous peoples worldwide.
Young children, typically between the ages of 3 to 5 years, have the most vivid memories of a past incarnation. Canadian-born American psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, who extensively recorded the memories of reincarnation in 3,000 children worldwide, observed: “too often the children are troubled by confusion regarding their identity. This becomes even more severe in those children who, conscious of being in a small body, can remember having been in an adult one, or who remember a life as a member of the opposite sex.”
Numerous researchers have reported on children who remember a previous incarnation, citing details they could not possibly know. Some children exhibit xenoglossy: being able to speak an unfamiliar foreign language.
Researchers have found odd links in the reincarnated to a past life. Birthmarks. Physical defects. Inexplicable food and clothing preferences. In some cases, certain fears.
A common myth about reincarnation is that it is progressive, that a soul matures through lifetimes. Nature is not a moral accountant. The soul is not a diary of social convention. Not a moral ledger.
The evolution of a soul is in its learning from experience over a lifetime. Every incarnation presents a challenge that reflects a previous incarnation. And something more.
Life learning works as a puzzle to be solved. To progress from iğnorance to self-realization. A beckoning to wisdom. A summoning to master The Matrix.
“The supreme calling of every human being is to aspire to self-realization.” ~ Indian guru Anandamayi Maa
Presences
“You are never alone. There are powers and presences who serve you all the time most faithfully. You may or may not perceive them. Nevertheless, they are real and active.” ~ Indian guru Nisargadatta Maharaj
Every culture since prehistory, and nearly all religions, have teachings of paranormal presences. Hinduism. Taoism. Buddhism. Judaism. Christianity. Islamism.
The most publicized, and extreme, aspect of presences is exorcism. Expunging an evil spirit. Expelling a malingering inner malice.
There are exorcism rituals in all the religions mentioned. And among many indigenous cultures worldwide.
An individual soul is part of a group, like a leaf on a tree. This spirit complex corresponds with biology.
All animals are home to many colonies of microbes. Altogether, a microbiome. The term biome refers to a type of environment.
Your microbiome is involved in most of your bodily functions. It helped guide your childhood development.
Your body can only digest simple sugars. All the food you eat first feeds your gut microbiome, which then feeds you the leftovers. This works because your body and microbiome constantly communicate. Your appetite for certain foods comes from your gut microbes.
The composition and quality of your gut microbiome depends upon the foods you eat. The microbes in your gut reflect your dietary choices. A bad diet leads to poor health. Because you’ve grown a lousy microbiome.
Your psychic presences are like your microbiome. Your spiritbiome reflects the quality of your psychic energy.
Presences may feed – or feed off of – your psychic energy. Benevolent ones help you. Bad ones drain you, sour you.
Spirit presences make themselves felt in various ways. Transient feelings. Moods. Thoughts. Insights. In dreams.
The body is warm and energy cold. Strong presences may sometimes be felt as a chilling sensation. Ghosts too may feel like a chill in the bones.
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Ghosts and presences are proof that existence is extra-dimensional: larger than the 3 dimensions of space which our mind creates for its nominal story of Nature.
“The simple things you see are all complicated.” ~ English musician Pete Townshend
The physical plane is just a playground. Existence is infinitely more complex than your mind makes it appear. Among the mind’s deceits is simplification. Actuality is just a rough sketch.
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Physics offers insights into the nature of Nature and the mechanics by which existence is fabricated. Physics offers further proof that the material world is really immaterial.
