For Chapter 4, click here.
As the rock group The Police say in their song of the same title, “We are spirits in the material world.” While the hope of an afterlife certainly fuels our fascination with near-death experiences, we miss much of their significance if we take them only as interesting information about what will happen to us when we die.
Most of us have a number of years left in our lives here on earth before the afterlife will become a present reality for us. For us, the greatest significance of NDEs, as well as Swedenborg’s and others’ descriptions of the afterlife, is in what they mean for us here and now. If we think of the material world as an expression of the spiritual world, all these descriptions of the afterlife can take on this kind of here-and-now meaning for us.
If we read accounts of NDEs simply out of fascination for the descriptions of the spiritual world, it will not necessarily touch our hearts and lives. But if we think of them as patterns for our life here we are presented with a deep and lasting challenge. The Book of Revelation speaks of a city descending to earth out of heaven from God. Our knowledge of the spiritual world provides a blueprint: a plan that we can use to build communities based on mutual love and understanding right here on earth.
This community-building must start in the soul of each one of us. By starting on a spiritual path and taking the steps described one way in this book, and other ways in others, we lay the foundations for the heavenly city in ourselves. As each of us finds our own spiritual path, we will also be reaching out to those around us and forming a spiritually-based community, built on mutual love and understanding. This, I believe, is the direction we are being shown by those who have experienced the spiritual world and come back to tell us about it.
Further Reading
(Note: Links are not necessarily to the edition listed)
- Basford, Terry K., ed. Near-Death Experiences: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1990.
- Book of the Dead. The Egyptian Text. New York: Dover, 1967.
- Brinkley, Dannion. Saved by the Light. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
- Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
- Dryden, S. H. Daisy Dryden: A Memoir. Boston: Colonial Press, 1909 (third edition).
- Evans-Wentz, W. Y., ed. The Tibetan Book of the Dead. London: Oxford University Press, 1960.
- Ford, Arthur. The Life Beyond Death. New York: Putnam, 1971.
- Gallup, George, Jr. Adventures in Immortality: A Look Beyond the Threshold of Death. New York: McGraw Hill, 1982.
- Grey, Margot. Return from Death: An Exploration of the Near-Death Experience. London: Arkana, 1983.
- Greyson, Bruce, and Charles P. Flynn, eds. The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives. Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas, 1984.
- Grof, Stanislav, M.D., and Joan Halifax. The Human Encounter with Death. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977.
- Kavanaugh, Kieran, ed. John of the Cross, Selected Writings. New York: Paulist Press, 1987.
- Kubler-Ross, Elisabeth, M.D. On Death and Dying. New York: MacMillan, 1969.
- Moody, Raymond, Jr., MD. Life After Life. New York: Bantam, 1975.
- Moody, Raymond, Jr., MD. Life After Life (Video). Cascom International, 1992.
- Moody, Raymond, Jr., MD. Reflections on Life After Life. New York: Bantam Books, 1977.
- Morse, Melvin, M.D. Closer to the Light. New York: Ballantine, 1990.
- Plato. Republic. New York: Random House, 1964.
- Rhodes, Leon S. “The NDE Enlarged by Swedenborg’s Vision.” Anabiosis Vol. 2, No. 1 (June 1982), p. 15-35.
- Rhodes, Leon S. Tunnel to Eternity: Beyond Near-Death. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 1997.
- Ring, Kenneth. Heading Toward Omega: In Search of the Near-Death Experience. New York: Morrow, 1984.
- Ring, Kenneth. Life at Death, A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience. New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1980.
- Ritchie, George G., M.D. Return from Tomorrow. New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell, 1978.
- Sagan, Carl. Broca’s Brain. New York: Random House, 1974.
- Sigstedt, Cyriel Odhner. The Swedenborg Epic. London: Swedenborg Society, 1981.
- “Silencing of Survival Instinct May Explain Near-Death After-Effects,” Brain/Mind: A Bulletin of Breakthroughs, Vol. 20, No. 18 (May 1995), pp. 1, 6.
- Swedenborg, Emanuel. Arcana Coelestia. London: Swedenborg Society, 1984–1995.
- Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 2000.
- Swedenborg, Emanuel. The Heavenly City: A Spiritual Guidebook. West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Foundation, 1993.
- Swedenborg, Emanuel. Journal of Dreams. New York: Swedenborg Foundation, 1977.
- Swedenborg, Emanuel. The True Christian Religion. London: Swedenborg Society, 1988.
- Zaleski, Carol. Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern Times. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
(Note: This is the Conclusion and bibliography to my book Death and Rebirth, first published in 2005. This text and associated artwork are copyright 2005 by Lee Woofenden.)
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
Thank you so much. It is all finally beginning to make sense for me. I look forward with hope and inspiration for more articles.
Shelly Evans
Hi Shelly,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I’m glad you’re finding our blog enlightening.
Godspeed on your spiritual journey!
Thanks, Lee, for this articles. I have been looking for some NDE researchs in the last few months… Reading your texts is truly illuminating. I assume you are familiarized with the investigations of Kevin Williams in http://www.near-death.com (although there are some NDE’s that confirm the possibility of reincarnation, which you rejected in a previous article, but that’s another subject). Anyway, we are on The Way.
I understand and share all the things you pointed out here, but unfortunately there’s still “a conflict between Rational and Irrational, between Good and Evil”, like it’s said in Apocalypse Now, and it’s that some “religions” aspire to have the absolute truth in their doctrines. They reject universalism and ecumenism. For me that’s ‘spooky’, and it’s the reason why so many people now reject God (well, not God, but THAT vision of God). You know, I’m spanish, and here in Europe only old folks and priests talk about Jesus. I think it’s normal… catholics, evangelical/protestants, JW’s and some others have discredited the christian faith by trying to control the minds of the believers and imposing their faith showing unbiblical teachings that have nothing to do with Jesus.
We need to act following our conscience, like Pope Francis said. “Sin” appears when we love badly. We need to think, ponder, study, learn, fall, raise, wake up and have dreams. We need to taste life in order to find what’s good and bad. Unfortunately, not all christians, or muslims, or buddhists, or whatever-you-want-to-call-them are open minded to a deeper, wiser and mature spiritual path like this. And in modern civilizations that is a dreadful thing because people is scared to believe in ‘something deeper’. There are two reasons for that:
1) The “modern” church is still anachronic, with their sex-restrictions, “pre-historical” language and their patriarchal system. To believe in God, in our modern society, and specifically in Spain, where church is associated with Franco’s dictatorship, is like being an anachronical fascist. That’s an impediment. What can we do, then?
2) Materialistic and scientific teachings have irrupted in our lifes and they prevent us from seeing beyond reality. It’s not so easy to belive in God in our modern times. And if we do so, we need, like Michael Morwood said, to “have a deeper spiritual faith” (I recommend you his book “Is Jesus God?”), like you propose in SIEL.
By the way… I’ve read all your articles related to sex (masturbation, pornography, premarital sex, etc.). Congratulations! I think we shall live our sex life with freedom and love. I reject that an “eunuch” dressed in black points at me and says: “you, immoral boy, are impure because you have sex with your non-married girlfriend. You are going to hell”. What The Heck! That’s the problem with religions. They need to adapt to modern times (and I’m not saying to adapt God… but to be coherent with reality and modern societies). That’s the only way to grow spiritually. Having those anachronic doctrines only makes us be restricted, complexed and square-headed human beings. Are you with me?
Another question… about Hell. You said in all your articles that we freely choose hell. But if someone hates hell and wants to reach God but he is “chained” to his passions and materialistic desires… isn’t there a contradiction? What happens to that person that wants to avoid hell but he/she can’t help to do bad things? If someone freely chooses heaven being a terrible person… Is he/she allowed to enter heaven? If not… then, his/her choice is not being respected. What happens there?
Regards from Madrid!
Hi David,
Thanks for your extensive thoughts and references. There’s a lot here, and I won’t be able to respond to all of it. But here are a few thoughts and responses:
On your last point and question, I see that you posted another comment (here) about that in response to a different article. I’ll respond to that shortly. Meanwhile:
Our choice for heaven or hell is not a mere intellectual one. It is a “kinesthetic” one, meaning it is expressed in the way we live our life. Many people have theoretical idea in their head about who they think they are and what sort of person they imagine themselves being. But the way we live shows the actual choices we have made. As Jesus said, “By their fruits you will know them.”
People who live self-indulgent, greedy, and power-hungry lives hate heaven, with its atmosphere of thinking of others first and serving others’ needs first. People who live thoughtful, loving lives of useful service to others find hell distressing, with its atmosphere of always putting oneself first. Each sorts him- or herself out to the area of the spiritual world that matches his or her own character.
Even if a good person isn’t perfect, it’s what’s in the heart that counts, and what the person does his or he best to express in life, even if we humans may never fully achieve our best ideals. We all have our vices, and we all stumble at times. But the overall pattern of our intentions and our life will guide us either toward heaven or toward hell, according to where we put our primary focus and energy. And in our second stage after death, covered in this series, we’ll leave behind our worst remaining vices and contradictions as we make our way toward our final home in heaven.
About the unfashionableness Christianity (and other religions) in Europe and various other parts of the world:
I believe this is the inevitable result of the long, slow corruption of Christianity into something that Jesus and his disciples would never have recognized as the religion of Jesus Christ. And I have come to believe that institutional Christianity as it has existed for most of the past 2,000 years will have to die out before any genuine Christianity can take root and grow in our world. Here are a few articles along these lines:
What’s dying in contemporary culture today is not the Christianity that Jesus Christ founded and taught, but an interloper that has claimed the name “Christian” for itself while teaching doctrines that neither Jesus Christ nor anyone else in the Bible ever taught. As far as I’m concerned, it can’t die off fast enough.
As far as sexual mores and practices, not only non-Christians, but even many Christians, and especially Catholics, are simply ignoring what the church teaches on the subject of sex and marriage. As I say in the articles, I am all in favor of loving, faithful, monogamous marriage, and I continue to believe that is the ideal. But the idea that anything that is not that is evil, evil, evil simply isn’t realistic. And it’s not what’s portrayed in the Bible either, despite a few hard-and-fast sounding statements in the Bible taken out of context.
We are all on a pathway and a journey. You don’t get to the top of a mountain in a single step. You climb your way there through many experiences some good, and some not so good, and all of them learning experiences if we’re paying attention.
More plainly, I believe that many people today who are engaging in sex and various sexual practices outside of marriage are still headed toward good, loving eternal marriages, even if the pathway to get there may go through many twists and turns.
Besides, some sexual practices, such as masturbation, simply are not forbidden, condemned, or even mentioned in the Bible. The strictures against them were made up by human beings over the centuries, and have little or nothing to do with what the sourcebook of Christianity actually says.
Hi i was wondering what do you think is the best evidence that shows that sweedenborg was right and divinely inspired ? because recently ive have been having what i would say is crisis of belief as part me keeps thinking what if sweedenborg isnt right or what if he made it up ?
Hi AJ749,
The best evidence, in my view, is reading Swedenborg’s writings and considering whether the things he says there ring true to your mind and heart. Get a copy of Heaven and Hell and read it. Then make up your own mind.
In the realm of more objective evidence, there are several credible reports of Swedenborg having knowledge that he could only have had by supernatural means. You can read them in one of the major biographies of Swedenborg, The Swedenborg Epic, by Cyriel Odhner Sigstedt. Here is a link to the relevant chapter if you want to read it online:
Chapter 31 – Astonishment in Sweden
I’m sure skeptics would find ways to reject all of these accounts. But they were well-attested at the time they occurred. For people who don’t reject the reality of the spiritual world altogether, they do provide a reasonable basis for concluding that Swedenborg had access to reliable information from the spiritual world.
Thanks for that lee its just ive had this nagging feeling saying loads of people have said they know god and know what the afterlife is like and that little bit was saying why would sweedenborg be the one who knows it all
but then i think to myself that sweedenborg is so logical and is massively backed up with near death expieriences and also everything he says about this universe and t the spirit world totally agrees with quantum physics.
I also have compared what sweedenborg says to what i used to think and fear e.g edgar cayce, psychics, even near death prophecies and what Swedenborg tells of everything solves what they say for example i know from swedenborg that when people say they have seen the future in a near death expierience its just symbolism for spiritual change and never meant to be literal .
Hi AJ749,
That’s why I say that reading Swedenborg and considering whether what he says makes sense to your mind and heart is the best evidence for the truth and reality of his experiences and his teachings. Not that Swedenborg was perfect, mind you. He did get a few things wrong. But they are minor compared to the grand, overarching system he presented to the world in a way that no one before him or since has done.
I’ve spent my life reading and studying Swedenborg’s writings and comparing it not only to all of my experience in this world, but also to every other religion and philosophy that I’ve learned something about. Not that I’m an expert on any of them. And some of them are pretty good. But so far I haven’t found anything that even comes close to Swedenborg in finally making sense of the Bible and Christianity, and in making sense of the universe and our place in it. Not even close.
That is why I have great confidence in the things I speak about here on Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life. (Anything I’m speculating about I label as such.) That’s why I feel perfectly comfortable saying to people: “This is how it works. This is the truth of the matter.” As you read what Swedenborg wrote and compare it to your experience and to what your heart is telling you, you’ll gain that confidence over time as well. Trust takes time to build. Give it time. Do the work. Your doubts will gradually fade, and your faith will grow.
Hi AJ749,
I should add, for those reading in, that I have laid out my view of Swedenborg’s writings, and some of my reasons for giving credence to what he says, in this article:
Do the Teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg take Precedence over the Bible?
Hi Lee
What do you make of when near death experiences say they were sent back because it was not their time, to me this implies that our time of death is set .
It does scare me a little to think that those i love could have their time of death set for Tommorow. I know they would be safe and happy in the afterlife but it worries me to think there time of death is set in stone
Hi AJ749,
Nothing is “set” until it happens, including death. This is not the same as saying that God doesn’t know when when we’re going to die. See:
If God Already Knows What We’re Going to Do, How Can We Have Free Will?
About NDEs in which people are sent back because “it isn’t their time,” there are many possible factors involved. The greatest factor is that God and the angels see that this person still has significant spiritual work to do here on earth.
I understand that god being out of space and time knows when we are going to die .
But can we know our time of death ( if you havent got a terminal illness that is ) ?
Secondly . The reason i say about ndes was i saw on a website regarding this subject that said that . The expierencer being told its not their time indicates that the time of our death is set in stone which is why i ask .
It worried me cuz it made me think if our time of death is set in stone then god must cause that person to die no matter if their Healthy or not, rich or poor, good or bad etc
Hi AJ749,
Well . . . I disagree with that website. Within the arrow of time, nothing is set in stone until it actually happens.
I think we can have a sense of when we might die. And some people have a clear sense of when they will die, especially as their time comes close. Swedenborg predicted the day of his death several months before it happened. But that is unusual. For most of us, the time of our death is unknown. And that keeps us moving forward with our life.
Thats a relief because i know only gods divine providence can provide life and death, so if our death was set in stone then god must cause it , but this is against what i know god is like ,
I know god dosent cause a person to die wether they are sick, healthy, young , old , spiritual or not that is not the god i know in my heart.
When a person dies young with their whole lives ahead of them it wasnt anything that god or spirits did is it ?
Hi AJ749,
No. If you look at the death certificate, you’ll see a cause of death. Usually there is a specific physical or biological cause. Heart failure, an accident, a bullet wound, and so on. These are not things that God and the angels do, but things that the physical world, and sometimes other human beings, do to us.
Thank you for these lee it just bothered me that people die young sometimes with no apparent cause i could not imagine god ever doing anything like that.
And regarding NDEs and the not your time aspect. Is it a case of people not understanding it correctly as in thinking because of what is said that our time of death is set in stone ?
Hi AJ749,
Let’s say you’re learning karate, and you think you’re ready for the black belt, so you begin the testing process, but before you get very far your instructor says, “It’s not your time yet. Go back to your training.” Does this mean that the time you will get your black belt is set in stone? No. Just that your time is not yet, and you need to spend more time working on it in order to achieve it.
Hi Lee
as not everyone who has an accident or falls unconscious has a NDE
Is it a case as well by saying its not your time god and the angels show those that their is more to life than this world and that they want them to learn about this other world.
Hi AJ749,
Yes, that is a common purpose and result for NDEs. People who have had one commonly have a whole new perspective on life, knowing that it continues after death in a realm immeasurably greater than this material realm.
Hi Lee by now im sure your at your wits end and are thinking of blocking me from the site 😂😂
What do you make of The literalist christian view that NDEs are a satanic illusion as of course the literalist view dosent match up with NDEs?
And what do you make of NDEs that say that reincarnation is a possibility and say they saw people planning their lives ?
Hi AJ749,
Why would I block you from the site for asking questions and keeping the conversation going, and interesting, here? 🙂
Of course literalist Christians can’t accept NDEs, because literalist Christians believe that we stay in our grave until some future resurrection day. Also, many of them believe that we will be resurrected and live on this earth, and that only angels and devils live in the spiritual world. So since NDEs regularly convince people that we will live in the spiritual world immediately after death (which is the actual truth), literalist Christians have to reject them as falsities and satanic illusions. It is primarily because of their physical-minded and “fleshly” (to use the biblical term) beliefs that they reject NDEs.
About some people saying that their NDEs presented reincarnation as a possibility, or reality, that’s no different than some people saying that their NDEs showed that the old Christian view of heaven as a place where St. Peter stands guard at the Pearly Gates is how things really are. People tend to see what they want to see, especially in the spiritual world. And even angels won’t argue with people about their existing beliefs, which wouldn’t accomplish much. Instead, angels will use those beliefs to motivate people toward living good lives.
Hi lee in my head i was thinking i ask so many questions that im sure your sick of them aha
Hi Lee,
I wanted to get your thoughts on these statements about interpretations of NDEs. I guess there is a lot of people who have NDEs or spiritual experiences who say that “Do NOT Go into the Light” is the SOUL TRAP Concept Real?” And that “Today, many say “the Light” is a trap. Many people experience it during NDEs. A pretty wild accusation. So, what’s going on?” He pulls up this website talking about how a “gold light” is fake and how “a lot” of people experienced this along with “Roman solders” or guards of some kind not allowing the person the enter. I’ve even heard him talk about people with NDEs who experience “elf race of ETs” and preventing them from going further or they’ll be “destroyed”? In another video he pulled up random NDEs from like IANDS or NDERF (I may be spelling them wrong) that all espouse this as well with no Solidness to the experience?
And my second question is there are “think tanks” and “top NDE researchers” who say “This Strange Thing MAY Happen To You When You Die” about “Discussing an element of the near death experience and some revelations about what it really means.” Basically we merge into nothingness Dr. Peter Fennick along with “think tanks” are mentioned and supposedly people get mad if you disagree with him regarding his afterlife map and science behind how we just merge into a “galactic soup”. It’s also mentioned how this lady in her NDE felt like she was going to be destroyed and delete if she kept going and how she was in a tunnel or light that looked like test tubes. The YouTube says those are just wormholes to different timelines. The NDEr also said how she attended class in the spiritual world with a void behind everyone’s said and how ever can travel via a wormhole. And how this jarring sensation is we are loosing ourselves. What are your thoughts on this? And why do people come to these conclusions?
And my last question is what do you make of this “afterlife map” video called “Where We Go When We Die BREAK DOWN – Part 1” and part “Two”. This YouTuber says “Stafford Betty’s breakdown of what the afterlife is like based on many historical spirit communication accounts. Here’s a look at points 1-10.” What do you make of these so called afterlife descriptions? Supposedly they’re all consistent across many years, continents, and the same spirit coming through different mediums saying the same thing. They use this to prop up and say “this is what the afterlife is like” so everyone else is “wrong” all these description make the afterlife sound extremely boring like theres no roads it’s all grass, no sports, no this, no that, how we will eventually reincarnate to experience being “fully physical” and the list goes on. Would this be like you said like minded spirits gathering together and being pulled to like minded environments?
Here is the link https://www.tumblr.com/swedenborg-topics/740550719690735616/two to the quotes.
Thank you kindly Lee
Hi Sam,
I watched the videos, which are from the same channel whose videos you’ve linked me to before. My general reaction is that this YouTuber seems to have had some genuine experiences of the spiritual world, but they’re also mixed in with mistaken ideas that cause him to come to some faulty conclusions.
When he talks about his experiences in the spiritual world, and what it is like there, much of it agrees with what Swedenborg reports. We’re not wispy and ethereal, but solid and touchable. We’re exactly the same person there that we were here. It is not an empty world, but is full of all the things we are used to here, and as we go on, many things that don’t even exist here. We live in human society there just as we do here, and that society is just as rich and complex and even contradictory as it is here. In short, our life in the spiritual world is not something completely different than our existence here on earth, but a seamless continuation of it in another realm. All of this I completely agree with.
Unfortunately, this solid and realistic understanding of what the spiritual world, and our life in it, are like gets mixed up with mistaken ideas such as reincarnation, pre-existence of the soul, “choosing our own reality,” and so on. This YouTuber seems not to have much use for God, but to think instead that we create our own existence according to some pre-existing consciousness that we have. This is all consistent with a materialistic understanding of Eastern religious ideas that are really not about being physically reborn, but about being spiritually reborn.
It seems to me that a belief in reincarnation, and a lack of belief in a personal God who created us and cares about us, leads to many errors even if the experiences of the spiritual world themselves may be genuine.
For example, this YouTuber seems concerned that maybe the Light that people commonly experience in NDEs is a trap, and that we probably should not go to it. But according to Swedenborg, when we die, it is the Lord who personally wakes us up in the spiritual world, and also assigns angels to be with us and protect us. This is why the vast bulk of NDEs are good and positive experiences. Yes, there are some negative ones, but these are much rarer, and I suspect they happen because that person had some inner darkness and fear that needed to be confronted and dealt with. However, the main point is that there’s no possibility that we will be dragged off into something completely against our will by nefarious spirits, because God and the angels protect us from that. Only if we have rejected their protection could this possibly happen.
As for the light, Swedenborg does describe the Lord and the angels as existing in great light. The sun of the spiritual world is precisely the light and love in which God dwells. And this light commonly shines through the faces of the highest, heavenly angels, especially. When NDEers describe the light, it is always incredibly warm, understanding, and loving. If anyone had a negative experience of it, it would have to be because that person just couldn’t accept that much love, for whatever reason, and had to reject it. Further, God would never allow evil and deceptive spirits to be the ones accompanying a person’s death. If there is a light, it is a genuine light representing the love and wisdom of God and the highest angels.
Even in the case of hellish NDEs, we have to keep in mind that the person didn’t ultimately die. These, I believe, are spiritual experiences given to people who, for whatever reason, need some “tough love” to shock them onto a better path. (Not that they will necessarily take the big, fat hint! As even this YouTuber says, we always retain our free will, which means we can always choose a bad path, no matter how starkly the consequences of that path may be laid out for us.)
There is no possibility that we will end out eternally in some terrible state that we didn’t choose and don’t want. In the afterlife, everything unfolds for us as directed by our ruling love, which is what we have chosen in this life to love most of all, and to put in the center of our life as its guiding motive. A person who has chosen love of God and/or the neighbor may indeed experience some hard things in the other life, but these will be temporary, as needed to get us to drop some negative parts of our outward character, or abandon bad friends and relatives, that we are very attached to, but that don’t match our actual heart. Ultimately, people who have a good heart—meaning a good ruling love—will end out in heaven because that’s where their heart will lead them. Only people who have chosen love of self and the world (to use Swedenborg’s terms) as their ruling love will end out in hell long-term (as in, forever). And they will end out there because that is exactly where they want to be.
Reincarnation assumes that there is nothing immutable about our character—that we can just change arbitrarily, from one life to the next, into a completely different person, or even into an animal. But that is not possible. From conception each one of us represents an individual and distinct reflection of some specific element of God. We may develop that core identity one way or another, but we cannot become something completely different than the fundamental character we are born with. It is like our DNA. It is specific and unique to each one of us, we have it from the moment of conception, and it doesn’t change, no matter what type of life we live, whether good and healthy or evil and destructive. We can go up with it or down with it. But each of us is a unique individual who cannot be changed into anyone else.
This also means that we can never lose our identity, nor can we be reabsorbed into some cosmic or divine soup, so that we don’t exist as individuals anymore. That is not possible.
Of course, we may fear this happening. That is a version of our fear of death, which is one of our greatest fears. And I suspect that this fear is why some people have spiritual experiences in which they feel they are about to lose their identity and become erased as a person.
But just as no one actually dies, but only moves on to the spiritual world when the physical body dies, so no one dies spiritually, meaning no longer existing as the unique person he or she is and has become. Because we have spiritual and heavenly levels in our spirit, and not just an earthly level, and because we have an inmost soul that is above our conscious awareness, and that is the place where God flows directly into us with life and light, we can never die to all eternity. This also means that we can never lose our identity to all eternity.
There’s plenty more that could be said, but I think this covers your main questions. If I missed something important—which is perfectly possible!—please let me know. Meanwhile, I hope these thoughts are helpful to you.
Hi Lee,
Thank you so much and I appreciate you always going above and beyond with your detail responses and for your time. What you said really cleared up the misconceptions on the materialistic interpretations (which are rampant in the New Age / afterlife community) but what you said, always makes so much more sense and also the reason why people have those kinds of experiences which no one ever addresses. This helped so much and now I don’t have to fear the light!
Thank you again Lee