A FOURTH SUMMARY BOOK: SCIENTIFICALLY A DISAPPOINTMENT BUT GOOD ILLUSTRATION OF A POINT
 

Only because Melvin Morse wrote a glowing Foreword, praising the scientific stature of its authors and acknowledging his debt to both at realizing scientific study of the NDE was possible, and also for realizing that even in this field of inquiry "science must be totally objective and be willing to entertain any hypothesis capable of explaining observed facts." Because of that endorsement of the authors as scientists, I threw this book into my hopper for this review series.
 

The book Morse heartily endorses is "The Eternal Journey, How Near-Death Experiences Illuminate Our Earthly Lives" by Craig R. Lundahl and Harold A. Widdison (Warner Books, New York, 1997). It is a very comprehensive review, and it is logically structured to illuminate the next life. It gives a very thorough treatment of many aspects of the life prior to and after life, and the insights both give on life's purpose here. Don't get me wrong, it is a very good read, but it is not objective in the scientific sense.
 

In my letter to Melvin Morse (see link, above) I suggested that his first book's account of a little girl seeing Deity in Mormon terms was a reflection of the girl's background even if the family was not actively participating in that religion. In my view, the girl saw what she expected to see.
 

Bettie J. Eadie's first book describes a hereafter filled with Mormon cultural accouterments. No wonder, one of the two churches she alleges she needs to be happy is the Mormon one. This is made quite clear in the official description of the book, claiming that the book corroborates much that is distinctly Mormon, that was only pasted into copies of the book, by the publisher, if it was to be sold through Mormon outlets. Nothing wrong with that, but it does strongly suggest that ones expectations color, or even dictate, what is seen in an NDE.
 

Speaking of Mormon things, I have already mentioned that an early NDE type book was "Life Everlasting: by Duane S. Crowther (Bookcraft, 1967). It was Mormon through and through, and its visions were supportive and corroborative of Mormon doctrines and ideals. Crowther is cited in "The Eternal Journey" by Lundahl and Widdison, as are a number of other plainly Mormon sources. Yet the authors accept the 'facts' in these accounts at face value, without analyzing their peculiar reflection of the distinctive cultural traditions and religious views of Mormonism (members of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
 

Not only do Lundahl and Widdison fail to analyze this connection between prior belief and experience, but they do not even make a note of the particular religious tradition of several witnesses. Of course they do acknowledge that they used many Mormon sources (pages xvi to xvii). But in specific instances they fail to tell the reader that some of the stranger features of the afterlife that are described through a broad sampling of NDEs are due to the Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) influence in the lives of some of the NDE experiencers. Nothing wrong with that, but I was surprised that the scholars writing this work would not have cautioned their readers about the peculiarities of the Mormon NDE corroborating such unique practices as keeping family records and compiling genealogies to aid the salvation of progenitors, for example (pp. 96-97).
 

Generally, earlier NDEs are not likely to mention the light, or so it seems from my reading of this and one other book, the one by Crowther mentioned above. Perhaps this is another indication that expectation determines experience. It seems as if that now near-ubiquitous feature of the tunnel, and especially the light, required 25 years of NDE publications to become firmly established as a ubiquitous expectation. Thus the light in most recent NDE accounts. That is what I think, and I wish it had been addressed by Lundahl and Widdison but it was not.
 

Why am I so concerned about a book that integrates NDEs from a number of sources, uncritically, and accepts what they say at face value, and draws conclusions about the afterlife from them all? Because it is not a cautious or critical approach, it is not a skeptical, scientific inquiry. And that was what was promised by Morse's Foreword. Oh well. But the likelihood that belief colors experience isn't my only problem, there is also the impression I have from my years as a believing Mormon that most believers write to promote their faith, and I believe this more seriously calls into question these accounts that so closely follow accepted beliefs. But the good news is that Mormons, like other humans, also want to promote themselves, and this also, surely, colors their NDEs as they do every other person's NDE.
 

So, read the book, it is interesting. But retain all normal skepticism as with all the other books on this and any other topic. Why do I recommend a book when it disappoints me scientifically? Because it is an unedited collection of NDEs, old and recent, without parallel, and because I keep coming back to what Moody and Ring both said: don't worry about the pedigrees of the ideas, but judge the ideas for their utility, and if they seem useful, try them out. Proof is in the experience, if its fits you, wear it! It really is a treasure trove they have put together. But it is not a scientific discourse on the subject. But, so what?
 

JUST ONE MORE OVERVIEW TYPE OBSERVATION
 

Wouldn't you know it? Just as I wrap up this summary of summaries I go to a library and a bookstore and hit on two books that make me want to add to the end of this overview piece! I have got to keep out of these types of places, but am helpless.
 

Lucid dreaming. That is what the venerable Helena P. Blavatsky said was the state of the spirits between lives, according to the"Encyclopedia of Afterlife Beliefs and Phenomena" (James R. Lewis, Visible Ink, Detroit, page 52). Well, the way it is explained is that . . . "she postulated a postmortem state or transitory mental condition that represents the interval between two incarnations, and is similar to a vivid dream."
 

And what is a vivid dream? For that answer I consulted an extremely irritating yet interesting book, "The Dreaming Universe, A Mind-Expanding Journey Into the Realm Where Psyche and Physics Meet" by Fred Alan Wolf, (Touchstone, New York, 1994). Why was it so irritating to me? Because it did that thing I abhor of trying to bolster its psychological arguments with comparisons to a science no one understands, by definition: quantum mechanics. I wrote a hundred page protest against this type of thing as done by Gary Zukav in his book "The Dancing Wu Li Masters." (Click on the title to go to my review online).
 

But, staying away from the science-babble and concentrating instead on the better-founded psycho-babble allowed me to glean some useful insights.
 

One of those quotes I love to hate is on pages 339, where Wolf says: "The world according to physics is not just out there. It arises when it is observed to exist. This much we owe to Werner Heisenberg, who pointed out that subatomic matter does not exist independently of our observational power to see it." I think this is a monstrous misuse of an observation that Heisenberg himself calls "extreme" in a quote on Wolf's page 338.
 

Of course anyone that has been in the world for a while realizes that this is not a concept of much utility in living physical life from day to day. Wolf makes the point that (p. 340) this concept that matter arises when it is observed to exist "makes the role of the observer extremely powerful." Wolf goes on to explain the observer some more: "Where does the observer live? The answer appears to be, in the imaginal realm from which everything comes into being: observers and observed. What is the process? The answer I have offered is the process we experience when we dream."
 

Wolf then goes on to point out that dreaming goes on at many levels: "Not only do people dream, but states of systems dream. A nation dreams, So does a political party or a sect."
 

Wolf goes on to explain many things about dreamers, but what I found the most surprising is his "Confessional Retrospective" at the end of the chapter. His confession is on page 350, and consists of his having sensed "the Presence of the Big Dreamer:" His description of this experience is: "One day I had a particular [sic] strong impression of this Presence. I had taken LSD (this was back in the mid-seventies). I was in a beautiful area, the coastline of northern California. It is a wonderful place. It was a perfect earthday. Under the LSD, I walked out into the sun and felt it beaming. I saw the sky growing brilliant blue. The clouds were faultlessly white. . . . . [Much more description of the vividness of the colors and sounds around him and his feeling of being an integral part of it.] I looked at all this carefully. Then suddenly I began to realize that it wasn't real, it was all an illusion. A great feat of art. It was like a painting or a sculpture. . . . It was perfect and it was ordered, and it was clearly a creation of a great artist or a great dreamer.

"At this moment I realized that the world I saw was no longer compelling me to see it as immediately given and out there but as something that was painstakingly created. I felt not the presence of the overwhelming art scene I was immersed in, but the overwhelming sense of the artist. It was as if the artist had spoken to me. It was as if God had taken me by the hand and said, 'So you really want to see? You really want me to take you beyond the illusion?' Then everything I was experiencing had tremendous meaning. . . . I was seeing into the artifact of the world and seeing it as an illusion, a creation and not as random nature.

"I wasn't looking at this as if forces had created it blindly. . . . A clearly organized, intelligent, feeling, sensing, like-myself, anthropomorphic being had created it. In that sense I felt the presence of God." . . . 
 

In case this brings a smile to your face, a Divine revelation under the influence of a notoriously powerful hallucinogenic, remember that Moody and Morse pleaded for using "utility" as a guide, is it a useful insight? If so it is quite irrelevant whether you can buy into the explanation of where it came from and how? And what I found useful in this concept is that this corrects the error of thinking that 'we' are the continual creators, that our puny observations create the magnificence that is our universe. Therefore, the idea that there is a Great Dreamer, of which we are but a little part, makes the concept harmless. There may not be reality, only illusion, but it is God's illusion, and becomes our reality since we can only sense that it is illusion, but have to eat, eliminate, reproduce, and pay bills if we use resources provided to us by others. Life is real. To us.
 

However, the part of this book that is of interest, and caused me to peruse it in the first place, is what light it promised to shed on the concept of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Theosophist extra ordinaire, who likened death to: a vivid, or lucid, dream, an existence in pure subjectivity. 
 

Wolf discusses lucid dreaming in a way that directly compares it with the NDE, consulting Kenneth Ring several times along the way. From pages 245 through 255 was particularly illuminating: lucid dreams, like NDEs, seem to structured outside of time, and both leave the experiencer feeling euphoric and like the dream or NDE was the reality, more real than normal life experience. Particularly fascinating, to me, was the idea that the dream may be a timeless, non-linear collage of images, that the brain subsequently structures into a narrative that progresses in time. I found this chapter full of new (for me) insights, one of which was that there is a connection between a history of child abuse and later NDEs (see page 249): a child subjected to trauma learns to dissociate and not "be" there when being abused, and in a later life-threatening trauma, therefore, more readily splits consciousness off from the body and its pains and malfunctions. 
 

Interesting. But, the point of visiting Wolf was to gain insight into the thing that Blavatsky compared the life between lives to: vivid or lucid dreaming. It seems Wolf agrees with Blavatsky. And what insight does Wolf provide into some of the pronouncements of Eadie and Browne and Newton and others? That their experiences can be likened to the lucid dream state, a state that can be induced in ways other than an encounter with the onset of death. Wolf describes both drug and shamanic experiences that have much in common with NDEs (p. 253). On his page 254 Wolf says: "I have had many lucid-dream experiences while sleeping and lucid-awake experiences during shamanic ceremonies. I notices at the end of these experiences, when I 'awoke,' I felt an extreme sense of bliss and well-being as if all of my material cars, difficulties with relationships, and other aspects of waking life were just dissolved away.

"As described above, Ring has found that NDErs seem to express a similar feeling after their experiences." Interesting.
 

But now it is time to do some reading by experiencers and hypnotherapists and gain what we can from their insights. 
 

SO, WHAT DID CROWTHER HAVE TO SAY?
 

The use of the Crowther book by Lundahl and Widdison (see above) caused me to search for my copy. It literally fell at my feet out of my closet. Reading it again reminded me that this book was written to promote the faith of its Mormon readers. It is very overt and thus honest in that respect.
 

Crowther presents us with an early example of an NDE book.. His is "Life Everlasting: by Duane S. Crowther (Bookcraft, 1967). Its insights and assumptions are Mormon through and through, and its visions are supportive and corroborative of Mormon doctrines and ideals. The book is a mix of near-death experiences, dreams and visitations, official and unofficial pronouncements of men thought of as prophets in the Mormon culture, and corroborative quotes from the four books of Mormon scripture (Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price). I recall, in the 1970's as a believing Mormon, being excited and enthused by its descriptions of life after death, especially in the very specific descriptions of spirit bodies and duties and work places exactly reflecting the teachings of Mormon leaders. The doctrines of eternal (monogamous or polygynous) marriage, eternal procreation, and other things pertaining to achieving a deified status was inspiring to me at that time. Now? Well, I covered that elsewhere on my websites (link here). Does the close conformance of Crowther-cited NDEs with Mormon expectations show that the content of an NDE is dictated by personal expectations? I think so.
 

One other thing that immediately struck me in this re-read of Crowther was the lack of a mention of entering the light in these early NDEs. I believe that generally, earlier NDEs cited in Lundahl and Widdison were equally unlikely to mention the light. Does, the lack of mention of the welcoming light, a now near-ubiquitous feature of NDEs, show that it required 25 years of NDE publications to have the light become known and established in the expectations, and thus the experience, of the general member of society experiencing an NDE? Seems quite plausible to me: NDEs reflect expectations.

But there is more to Crowther's book: Crowther begins his book by citing several NDEs (the words near death experience were not yet used in Crowther's time of course). The first is from 1898, the next two from 1920. In the first two, reference is made to seeing the body as the spirit stood at a distance. The first mentions "standing three or four feet in the air" (p. 4), which is comparable with Browne's observation that the spirit world is here on earth but 3 feet in the air compared to the earth's surface (that last part is my surmise, she never mentions elevation in an absolute sense but simply says it is elevated 3 feet). The third NDE mentions passing "through a film" (p. 5). No tunnel is mentioned, and light is mentioned on page 15 as accompanying and surrounding a spirit-visitor. Several facts about the transition into the spirt world are quickly established in the sampling of NDEs and dreams of the first 15 pages: (1) the spirit body has the same shape and sense attributes as the physical body, (2) everyone is met by their guardian angel and/or relatives, (3) the spirit world is here on earth, hidden by a veil, (4) time and distance mean little there, and gravity seemed to be lacking in one case, and (5) spirits seemed to associate in family units. The remainder of the chapter cites doctrinal statements on death and the spirit world from Mormon leaders of the 19^th century that are in harmony with these observations. Towards the end of the chapter are some accounts of visions and dreams announcing that death is near.
 

The second chapter, in fact, is all about the time of death. Contrary to Browne's declarations on the subject, Crowther's sources (NDEs as well as doctrinal declarations) say that natural disasters and our mistakes or others' actions can cause us to die at unscheduled times. There can also be changes in our scheduled death dates, resulting from the pleas of self or others. The needs of the "work" of the world of spirits can also lead to a specific person's death. That work, of course is the organizing and carrying out of missions to spirits, who are first identified and placed into a records system, after which baptisms and other saving ordinances are performed by the living standing proxy for them in temples. Chapter 6 is dedicated to describing this spirit-world missionary work and gives accounts of spirits witnessing this ordinance work being performed on their behalf in Mormon temples.
 

Angels are characterized on pages 122-127. In complete contrast with Browne's description of angels as another species, the Mormon view is that these are human spirits, either before or after their earthly life, and even including resurrected (having regained a heavenly physical body) who have special status as servants or assistants to God. The resurrected no longer live in the spirit world, but dwell where God dwells. There are also evil angels, evil comes in many gradations, and they can be recognized even if they imitate the appearance of an angel of light.
 

Much to my surprise, having been a believing Mormon who did not believe in the reality of hell, the book explains in Chapter 5 that there are basically three locations in the world of spirits: the place of the righteous, the spirit prison where the unbelieving dwell and are taught the saving ministry of Jesus Christ, and a hell that lasts until the resurrection where there is great remorse and suffering for the very evil and unrepentant. I had frankly forgotten that even though the spirit world hell's inhabitants are largely redeemed into the lower of three heavens, there was a contingent of hard-core evil persons that would be in a hellish state forever, described in chapter nine.
 

I don't want to completely duplicate the content of this book here, but several things about the Mormon view of heaven appear to be at odds with what has been revealed through the other sources I have consulted. For example, Browne asserts there is no sex, no procreation, and no marital relationship in the hereafter. Crowther's last chapter, reflecting Mormon teachings, says just the opposite. For those resurrected into the bodies of the highest degree of heavenly glory, and who were married by the proper authority on earth (in person or by proxy in Mormon temples), will have an eternal marriage, and will sexually reproduce and bring forth spirit children to populate worlds without end, requiring there to be an infinite number of worlds in the universe.
 

It is in this state of being that man becomes as God is, and equal to God. Crowther cites (p. 367) the famous Mormon couplet: "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be." This suggests that there are multiple Gods, and the plurality of the Gods is discussed frankly on pages 361-367, but, Crowther emphasizes that, to us, there is but one God who is literally the father of our spirit being (with his wife or one of his wives as the literal mother of our spirit being). Godhood is described as a parent-child relationship by Crowther (p. 340): just as God sired our spirits and we acknowledge Him as God, so will we, if we live up to our destiny, one day populate our own worlds with our spirit children, as their one God.
 

The reason I cite these ideas is because they are very different from what is reported by Browne, who sees no way for man to become God, and, in another difference from Crowther suggests that man will study forever and yet never obtain a completeness of all knowledge. Only God is omniscient in Browne's universe, whereas Crowther declares that all men who attain godhood will have all of God's attributes, including omniscience. A very different view, of course, but based on seeing the fatherhood of God in a more literal way, and seeing all men, angels, and Gods as one species of beings but at different stages of development.
 

The idea of men and women, as Gods, bringing forth spirit children by some natural means, assumed to be very much like what is done on earth, is very much contrary to the spirit-birthing process described by the witnesses we will cite when we review Newton's book, below. But as an appetizer, let me preview that in Newton's book egg-like structures containing spirit matter are expelled from a large pulsating mass and are cared for, cleaned up and spiritually enlivened by mothers until they reach a state of maturity from which they graduate into a childhood and then, finally, an adulthood that includes the cycle of mortal births we are all into (if we are reading this while embodied on this earth of course).
 

Where there is some potential agreement between the Mormon view of the origin of spirits and the Newtonian description is in the concept of intelligence: Brigham Young and Joseph Smith taught that intelligence is diffused through all of the universe, and a concentration of it is made into the being of spirt that we are. We can have intelligence added to us, or we can lose it and even lose it to the point where we are recycled. Newton seems to cover this same territory, and although the images used illustratively are very different, the principles are surprisingly similar.
 

A SUPER-ECLECTIC REPORT BY A DECEASED PERSON
 

That NDEs reflect expectation is carried to an absurd degree, in my opinion, in a totally eclectic account of a series of visitations between a New Age devotee and her now dead Catholic husband. The book is"Messages from Heaven, Amazing Insights on Life After Death, Life's Purpose and Earths Future," by Patricia Kirmond, (Summit University Press, Crown Springs, Montana, 1999). On pages 3 and 4 she reveals that there were two religions observed in the home that she and her husband made together. He was a Catholic, she was a New Age believer, a follower of the 'Messenger' Elizabeth Clare Prophet. So, there should be no surprise that upon his death (see pp. 12-13) Mother Mary comes to welcome her husband. He sees her again as is described on page 26. And to close out the Mariology in this book, there is a section on pages 229-231 that speaks of and laments the inability of the world to accept her revelations and a plea to do so. He was very devoted to Mary in life.
 

Patricia Kirmond's husband reports to her that Christ and Buddha and Khrisna and others are all working hard planning the salvation of souls, assisted by a whole pantheon of New Age gurus and prophets (see pages 63 through 74, for examples). This, in my opinion, is clearly an imaginative work setting out to make everyone feel good about their Deity or prophet being included in the leadership of the afterlife. The life lessons the book teaches are undeniably worthwhile, but they are wrapped in packaging that bother me for its audacity, as well as for the attempt the book makes to settle many age old theological disputes with simple factual declarations by a dead person. Many of the potentially helpful and undeniably true insights I have seen in the other books reviewed here are in this book too. So if you are a believer in the mission of Elisabeth Clare Prophet, and/or a Christian, and/or a Catholic, and/or a Buddhist, and/or anything else, and you want everyone to get along and see there is but one religion after all, perhaps this book's for you. I am trying to not succumb to the easy temptation to make light of this, someone else's vision. So I will stay factual from this point on.

The afterlife is a carefully structured society with Ascended Masters playing major roles. There is an ascension ceremony described (p. 236). Ascended Masters have so far led four dispensations on the earth (p. 242). Karma and Dharma are true principles (pp. 81 and 93). Reincarnation is a fact (pp. 86-87). There are levels of heaven and of hell (p. 28) and after death there is a life review witnessed by a committee (p. 30), yet you are your own judge (p. 31). Soul retrieval is real, and healing of those souls is done as well (pp. 32-33 and 204). Fallen angels or bad angels are mentioned several times (pp. 150, 164, 224). Teachings that do not come through or are not authorized by Ascended Masters are not reliable, and her husband had special permission to speak with his wife, a very unusual occurrence, and limitations were imposed on what he could tell her.
 

Perhaps as a slap at the competition in writing guides to the afterlife, it is matter-of-factly stated that hypnosis is not a reliable way to find out about the afterlife (120). The last book to be reviewed below is just such a hypnosis-produced guide.
 

I found the book to be enigmatic in that it dealt with many topics of interest to Catholics, but came to conclusions that would not necessarily sit well with them even if Mother Mary and Jesus are both seemingly endorsing what is written in this book. Financial offerings are not necessary on her part, says her deceased husband now, when he had said otherwise prior to his death (pp. 36-37). Abortion can be forgiven, but is serious (pp. 125-127). Patricia's New Age church is endorsed by the Ascended Masters (p. 176). Etc.
 

Not only do planets exist with life, but the life of humans on earth prior to the fall is remembered in the legends of Atlantis and Lemuria, which were real places, according to p. 237. 
 

Perhaps you can tell that I lack enthusiasm in reviewing this book. I was not amused or impressed as I read it. It did, however, have good discussions of love (p. 148), of the imminence of God (pp. 154-155), of the need to focus on the 'now' (p. 184). Of the need to respect the environment (p. 187) and to be harmless as taught by Saint Francis (p. 188). So, there was much that was useful in this book. But whatever I found striking a chord within me in this book I found also in the other books in the number reviewed here. Nothing unique except the very concrete descriptions of afterlife bodies, structures, hierarchies and places that I really can't relate to or buy into by my nature. The footnotes on page 243, numbers 29, 30 an 33 in particular, show some of this specificity in descriptions of the astral plane, of demons and earthbound spirits, and how angels can't intercede unless asked. In addition to this mechanistic content, I found it interesting that many footnotes were from a book by Prophet on Saint Germain's teachings. The very Saint Germain that Moody cited as an archetypical example of an exceedingly clever person making a living off dispensing knowledge concerning the unknowable and unconfirmable.
 

A TALK WITH GOD
 

So, what about this nonsense book referred to by Moody? The one byNeale Donald Walsch, "Conversations with God, an uncommon dialogue," book 1 (G.P.Putnam's Sons, New York, 1996). After what Moody said about it I found myself having to read it of course. Did Walsch have a very, very long conversation with God? Yes, the God within, within us all, within all that is. Quite a witty and delightful God at that. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and found myself agreeing with a lot of what Walsch (=God?) had to say. 
 

I'll peruse the other volumes in the series (there are several more), but just for fun, not for this review.
 

This is part of an overall review of books on the afterlife. I am not forgetting that, and Walsch does have some interesting stuff to say about that. If you'd like to skip down to that discussion, it is last, under a subtitle called: Lives after Lives and Eternal Life.
 

But first, just for fun, let me share what I found of particular interest in this book regarding The Nature of God, Religion, and Scripture.
 

The Nature of God, Religion, and Scripture
 

So how does Walsch describe his God, or, rather, how does Walsch's God describe him/her/itself? On page 1 Walsch indicates that these revelations were the result of an automatic writing experience, with God moving his hand to write down answers to his questions. On page 9 Walsch asks God to reveal himself in "the form or shape you actually have." The answer is:
 

That would be impossible, for I have no form or shape you understand. I could adopt a form or shape you could understand, but then everyone would assume that what they have seen is the one and only form and shape of God, rather than a form and shape of God-one of many.
 

The answer goes on, but the gist of it is that the personifications and descriptions of God current in the world are all gross over-simplifications, God is ineffable and in all who are and all that is (as Sister Katrei suggested, cited above). Part of the charm of Walsch's book is that to get to that point there is much thoughtful and even funny dialogue with this rather irreverent God.
 

God says to only express gratitude in prayer, not to ask for anything (p. 11). This dialogue on prayer goes on for several pages, and on page 13 God says it is wrong to . . .
 

believe that God is some omnipotent being who hears all prayers, says "yes" to some, "no" to others, and "maybe, but not now" to the rest . . .
 

But the important point is that God not only does not function this way, he/she/it also does not muck in your life in any way, and what this boils down to is this all important statement (p. 13):
 
 

. . . your will for you is God's will for you.

Scooting ahead for just a moment, the nature of a human and the nature of God are clearly described on page 73:
 

You are in a partnership with God. We share an eternal covenant. My promise to you is to always give you what you ask. Your promise is to ask; to understand the process of the asking and answering. . . . [We will get to this later - it is not a begging through prayer, but a thanksgiving through prayer that is described as 'asking.']

You are a three-fold being. You consist of body, mind, and spirit. You could also call these the physical, the non-physical, and the meta-physical. This is the Holy Trinity, and it has been called by many names.

That which you are, I am. . . .

. . . It as necessary first for you to release (deny, forget) your connection to Me in order to fully experience it by fully creating it-by calling it forth. For your grandest wish-and My grandest desire-was for you to experience yourself as the part of Me you are. You are therefore in the process of experiencing yourself by creating yourself anew in every single moment. As I am. Through you. . . .

The promise of God is that you are His son. Her offspring. Its likeness. His equal.

Moving back again to enter a different discussion: God says the devil is a man-made illusion on page 14. There is a grand discourse on fear on the next few pages (pp. 15-19) that I would boil down to this: Fear is a human emotion attached to religion, fear of God is something some insist on so strongly that they will persecute those who are without fear and filled with joy. God's love is not to be constrained by comparing it to the limited and conditional love of parents and others in this world. It is truly unconditional, and the outcome of everyone's path, eventually, will be a full reconciliation with God. It can't be otherwise. Pages 20 and 21 are filled with dialogue, and the great nugget for me was on page 20 when God says:
 
 

You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out Who You Are, seek to determine Who You Want to Be.

This came after an explanation that life is not a "process of discovery, but a process of creation."

There is an important discussion on pages 22 through 29. In these pages God explains the motive for creation and for dividing the Divine Nature into beings and things. It is all a process of self-discovery for God, who is both all that is and all that is not, but who can only appreciate what is by having "offspring" as observers from the place created in what was not. It is confusing here, clearer in the book, but in essence explains why we have such freedom of choice, freedom to create, because we are sparks of the Divine Fire as it were, and destined to rejoin that fire after we are done becoming what we want to become.
 

The state of the world and the idea of right and wrong are discussed at length on the remaining pages of the first chapter, which ends on page 58. Several things in these pages I doubt the veracity of, like the physical processes that make the Earth the dynamic body that it is, which were operating long before humans, being "created by the combined consciousness of man." (P. 37) So the floods, volcanoes, and earthquakes that kill and destroy are the product of "All of the world, co-creating together." . . . To me, this is hokey New Age talk, but the path woven through everything from natural disasters through birth defects through human inhumanity is a very practical one, don't worry or judge, just do what you can to help when you can and when asked. Jesus' healings were given to those who asked, there is an important lesson in that. (Pp. 46-47)
 

A catchy thing is written on page 44:
 
 

If I do not
go within
I
go without

The meaning here, as explained in the book, is to act in the outside world from within, from who you have determined yourself to really be. Good advice. There are some promises attached to that advice, with a long discussion on human potential and judging, etc.
 

God, on pages 48-52, goes at length into there being bad things because people will them to be, states there is no accident or coincidence, and gives advice on making things better such as (p. 51):
 

Feed your hungry, give dignity to your poor. Grant opportunity to your less fortunate. End the prejudice which keeps masses huddled and angry, with little promise of better tomorrow. Put away your pointless taboos and restrictions upon sexual energy-rather, help others to truly understand its wonder, and to channel it properly. Do these things and you will go a long way toward ending robbery and rape forever.

You have come here to work out an individual plan for your own salvation. Yet salvation does not mean saving yourself from the snares of the devil. There is no such thing as the devil, and hell does not exist. You are saving yourself from the oblivion of non-realization.

You cannot lose this battle. You cannot fail. Thus it is not a battle at all, but simply a process. Yet if you do not know this, you will see it as a constant struggle. You may even believe in the struggle long enough to create a whole religion around it. This religion will teach thatstruggle is the point of it all. This is a false teaching. It is in not struggling that the process proceeds. It is in surrendering that the victory is won.

Speaking of religion, on the next page God, or Walsch, clarifies the meaning and purpose of the crucifixion of Christ (p. 52):
 
 

He allowed himself to be crucified in order that he might stand as man's eternal salvation. Look, he said, at what I can do. Look at what is true. And know that these things, and more, shall you also do. For have I not said, ye are gods? Yet you do not believe. If you cannot, then, believe in yourself, believe in me.

Such was Jesus' compassion that he begged for a way-and created it-to so impact the world that all might come to heaven (Self realization)-if in no other way, then through him. For he defeated misery, and death. And so might you.

This is a novel, and not unsatisfying, way to view what is easily viewed as a pagan blood sacrifice to an exacting God who cannot tolerate any degree of unrighteousness and thus had to be bought off by the spilling of innocent blood.
 

The atomic bomb is mentioned on page 55 as an illustration of the fact that matter is energy. The manipulation of matter-energy relations is called "the knowledge of good and evil of which Adam and Eve partook." Then the Adam and Eve myth is exploded:
 

Until they understood this, there could be no life as you know it. Adam and Eve-the mythical names you have given to represent First Man and First Woman-were the Father and Mother of the human experience.

What has been described as the fall of Adam was actually his upliftment-the greatest single event in the history of humankind. For without it, the world of relativity would not exist. The act of Adam and Eve was not original sin, but first blessing. You should thank them from the bottom of your hearts-for in being the first to make a "wrong' choice, Adam and Eve produced the possibility of making any choice at all. (Pp. 55-56)

I cited that at some length because it is so strikingly similar to teachings on this topic in the Book of Mormon! In fact, many things in this book reminded me of Mormon teachings, particularly the teachings of the 19^th century leaders who were trying to make clear the differences between Mormonism and normative Christianity. The discussion of human equality with God, in a sense, and in particular of God having a God who has a God, etc., on pages 197-198 and continuing through page 202 was particularly reminiscent of things I had read in early Mormon theological thought.
 

In the next chapter, there is another statement very much at home in the Mormon theology, at least in terms of just acknowledging that evil must be so that good can be. But it is followed by a statement of apparent importance that, to me, could have gone without saying (p. 61):
 

Evil is that which you call evil. Yet even that I love, for it is only through that which you call evil that you can know good; only through that which you call the work of the devil that you can know and do the work of God.

I do not love "good" more than I love "bad." Hitler went to heaven. When you understand this, you will understand God.

The discussion continues with a discourse on why, even though it is God's lot to just accept and love all that is, good and bad, it is not OK for an individual to have no values to live by, as stated on page 62:
 

Your ideas about right and wrong are just that-ideas. They are the thoughts which form the shape and create the substance of Who You Are. There would be only one reason to change any of these; only one purpose in making an alteration: if you are not happy with Who You Are.

Only you can know if you are happy. Only you can say of your life-"This is my creation (son), in which I am well pleased."

If your values serve you, hold to them. Argue for them. Fight to defend them.

Yet seek to fight in a way which harms no one. Harm is not a necessary ingredient in healing.

Sex and money are discussed on pages 63 and 64, but to me the more interesting discussion is on pages 64 and 65 where God assures us that we need not worship, obey, or serve God. God has no needs but does have desires: (1) to know and experience God (through us in part), (2) for us to come to know and experience who we really are, and (3), "I desire the whole life process to be an experience of constant joy, continuous creation, never-ending expansion, and total fulfillment in each moment of now." Adopting these as our needs will bring us to "Godliness." (P. 66)
 

The Bible is discussed on page 67 with arguments again very familiar to Mormons: it is essentially a man-made book with good as well as bad and irrelevant stuff. God's discussion covers most of a page, of course. The one-liner I wrote caricatures that discussion, but not wrongly so in my opinion.

God endorses this book on page 69, something also familiar to the Mormon tradition which has added three books of scripture to the Bible and considers all of that, plus whatever has been uttered while inspired by living prophets, to be truth. Walsch in a roundabout way says the same thing: God has spoken to many at diverse times and places and holy scriptures have resulted. And Masters and prophets have been condemned and killed, and Walsch too is promised persecution for being engaged in this work of revelation (see pp. 76, 145, 196 for examples).
 

Dying, and allowing persons to die with dignity, is discussed on pages 80-81 in terms I find interesting and agreeable. But the Heresy of the Free Spirits, a heresy in the Middle Ages that included realizing one's unity with God and then seeking, like God, to experience every conceivable emotion and feeling so as to be more like God, is hiding behind a discussion on pages 

82-84. All experience is necessary, the discussion goes, but the Free Spirit heresy is avoided by making this statement, saying forthrightly that it is good to . . . "choose the grandeur-to select the best of Who You Are-without condemning that which you do not select."
 

This is explained in the context of religions and beliefs leading to aggression against and attempted suppression of those who believe differently. To be able to not judge the paths of others, but bless them, takes "many lifetimes." (P. 84) The first hint, I think (I could have missed something) of reincarnational belief on the part of God, or Walsch.
 

Something I think silly is the idea that we as individuals are responsible for collective decisions that lead to suffering on a community to world-wide scale. God waltzes through some of this type of logic on pages 89-90. I thought it was silly, but liked where this discussion went on pages 91 and 92, where God lists ten principles of creation, urging a certain course of thinking, speaking, and doing that will lead to a manifestation of . . . "God's will 'on earth as it is in heaven.'" . . . and on page 93 it even acknowledges that this path is not easy, it requires self control and discipline. That is realistic, in my judgement, and an ingredient not always mentioned in New Age type thought as being necessary to finding joy in life.
 

God is funny, but thoughtful, in suggesting there never were ten "commandments," since God does not command. Instead, what he gave Moses was a statement of ten commitments, recreated on pages 96-98. Renunciation and detachment are interesting discussions on pages 100-104, which ends up with Walsch complaining that all this effort and suffering don't get you anywhere (like a heaven) as a reward. This causes God to spit out this gem:
 

The point of life is not to get anywhere-it is to notice that you are, and always have been, already there. You are, always and forever, in the moment of pure creation. The point of life is therefore to create-who and what you are, and then to experience that.

I was pleased that God and Walsch recognize the Jungian idea of the collective unconscious, on page 106 where they call it "the 'collective consciousness.'" This is in the context of a discussion about . . .
 

Some events you produce willfully, and some events you draw to you-more or less unconsciously. Some events-major natural disasters are among those you toss into this category-are written off to "fate."

Yet even "fate" can be an acronym for "from all thoughts everywhere." In other words, the consciousness of the planet.

I am sorry, but that last line just does not ring true to me. Walsch's God would not be the first one I disagreed with, however.
 

There is very good advice on pages 114-116 about family life and other trials. The good part of the advice is to not abuse or destroy, and to not neglect the needs of those dependent on you. But also the advice says to make your dependents capable of being independent of you as quick as you can: "you are no blessing to them so long as they need you to survive, but [you] bless them truly only in the moment they realize you are unnecessary."
 

This line of advice continues by pointing out that it also is true for God: "God's greatest moment is the moment you realize you need no God." (P. 114) "And a true God is not One with the most servants, but One who serves the most, thereby making Gods of all others." (P. 115)
 

I really appreciated the discussion on original sin and salvation on pages 119 and 120. God says there is no such thing as original sin, 
 

. . .all that to which I give life-is perfect; a perfect reflection of perfection itself, made in the image and likeness of me.

Yet, in order to justify the idea of a punitive God, your religions needed to create something for Me to be angry about. So that even those people who lead exemplary lives need to be saved. If they don't need to be saved from themselves, then they need to be saved from their own built-in imperfection. 

Needless to say, God says this is very wrong and leads to "weird, vindictive, angry religions." This also leads to power hierarchies, etc. This criticism of Christian religions continues on page 136, where the idea of salvation by grace without any work or effort on your part being meaningful is attacked.
 

Between pages 121 and 136 is good advice regarding relationships and the need to be Self-centered, not self-centered, and to ask: "What would love do now?" at critical junctures in relationships. Some very good advice is centered around this gem on page 134: "Choosing to be God-like does not mean you choose to be a martyr. And it certainly ds not mean you choose to be a victim." Some of God's advice repeats what Ernest Becker taught in his Pulitzer-Prize winning book "The Denial of Death," concerning seeking salvation in or through another not being workable in a long term, or any, relationship. Pages 140 and 141 continue to address relationships that last. Good insights and advice.
 

Page 151 decries violence and killing except in defense of self or others. But societal and religious killings are decried on the next two pages. 
 

The pages that follow deal with money, success, and negativity causing disease. More health advice is given on pages 187-193, and as a non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarian (for pacifist, not health reasons) I appreciated the confirmation of my choices. Negativity, anger, and worry are also admonished against. Of course. These sections on money and health I did not find astounding or offering something unique or new. There was nothing in them that upset me either, except that Walsch is apparently a slow learner when it comes to some things and so they get repeated. On pages 194 and 195, where God says the human body was designed to last forever, however, with reference to extreme longevity in the book of Genesis, I just had to shake my head and chalk that up as pure nonsense.
 

Evolution and creation viewpoints are reconciled, in what to me is an unsatisfactory way, on pages 194 and 195. I have already referred to the very interesting discussion on the nature of God on pages 196-202, but within that discussion is a sub-discussion of eternity that is of interest in and of itself, to me. The context on page 198 is a question about a hierarchy among the Gods, which is answered with:
 

We are now trying to do the impossible, which is to speak of the unspeakable. As I said, that is what religion seeks to do. Let Me see if I can find a way to summarize this.

Forever is longer than you know. Eternal is longer than Forever. God is more than you imagine. God is the energy you call imagination. God is creation. God is first thought. And God is last experience. And God is everything in between.

This is followed by a discussion of how distances telescope down as well as up. And apparently God has not heard that physicists have established an absolute lower limit to distance, because distance can be divided an infinite number of times. (P. 200) This was a meaningful curiosity to me since so many New Age writers try so hard to confirm and thus seemingly be confirmed by the pseudoscientific interpretations of the modern physics of a few decades ago. (If you are interested in this topic, please see my rather nasty and critical review of "The Dancing Wu-Li Masters," by Gary Zukav, on this website).
 

Final gems occur in the repeat discussion of love and sex on page 208. That same page also declares there to be life on other planets and that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials. Another link, in my mind, to one early Mormon leader who taught that the first parents of the human race came from elsewhere and began humanity by sacrificing their immortality to become, temporarily of course, mortal, so that humanity as we know it, could become possible. Book three promises more on "extraterrestrial life and the nature(s) of God" . . . . I'll read it but not report on what I read here.
 

Lives after Lives and Eternal Life
 

Coping with the unpleasantries life serves up, like unexpected unemployment, is addressed with advice to find one's "God space," the space where there is acceptance and trust and "great peace of mind." An eternal perspective is admonished in these words (p. 116): 
 

When you are in your God space, you know and understand that all that you are now experiencing is temporary. I tell you that heaven and Earth shall pass away, but you shall not. This ever-lasting perspective helps you to see things in their proper light.

So, what is the substance of this ever-lasting perspective? Well, on pages 150 and 151 it is quite clear that there is reincarnation, as was already hinted once before on page 84. On page 204 this is again reiterated, with the added point, very much consistent with there being no judgment, that there is no such thing as 'karmic debt.'
 

This fits in with the declaration on page 183 that there is no judgment, either by God or by us, of our lives in the afterlife. But there is a life review:
 

. . . while there will be no judgment in the afterlife, there will be opportunity to look again at all you have thought, said, and done here, and to decide if that is what you would choose again, based on Who You say You Are, and Who You Want to Be.

Perhaps the words I liked best in the entire book are these from page 184:
 

What occurs in your life after this is far too extraordinary to describe here in terms you could comprehend-because the experience is other-dimensional and literally defies description using tools as severely limited as words.

That, to me, feels like a truth. But there is a context to this 'truth' and that context makes it clear that God is describing life between life (p. 184 still):
 

It is enough to say that you will have the opportunity to review again this, your preset life, without pain or fear of judgment, for the purpose of deciding how you feel about your experience here, and where you want to go from here.

Many of you will decide to come back here; to return to this world of density and relativity for another chance to experience out the decisions and choices you make about your Self at this level.

Others of you-a select few-will return with a different mission. You will return to density and matter for the soul purpose of bringing othersout of density and matter. . . . Their work is finished. They have returned to Earth simply and merely to help others. This is their joy. This is their exaltation. They seek naught but to be of service.

But the one thing I want to emphasize out of all that has gone before is this quote from page 184:

What occurs in your life after this is far too extraordinary to describe here in terms you could comprehend-because the experience is other-dimensional and literally defies description using tools as severely limited as words.

Keep these words in mind. I believe them to be true. But we will now move into several books whose authors have a better command of the human tongue than this God apparently does: they are not at all bashful in describing the next life in words!
 

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