Also, hypnosis is a method to tap the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is not something that is carried over from one life to another. It certainly is not taken with us to the mansion worlds. The subconscious mind is nothing more than an overflow receptacle for all the stuff that cannot be held by the conscious mind during wakeful hours. Once all that stuff overflows into the subconscious, it is no longer subject to the conscious mind’s ability to filter, organize and compartmentalize . . . hence the chaotic mess that often surfaces during dreams. The dream state is mostly a parade of subconscious spill-over from ordinary life which hasn’t had the opportunity to be rationalized . . . in other words: total nonsense. Why would anyone structure a religion around subconscious emanations conjured up by hypnosis? There’s no difference between that and mysticism, channelling and mediumship.
Reincarnation
560 posts · 25 participants · started Jun 2, 2017, 2:41 PM
I am always in a state of assimilation, putting things together, finding the why’s, making things make sense . . . .
Yes, me too. Always asking questions. For me reincarnation was an interesting explanation based on an old religion – a religion very different from modern Christianity embracing things I always found unacceptable. It was a concept that seemed reasonable, at least superficially, to me at the time, and, at the time I just could not accept that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, among other things. But then I found the revelation. The Urantia Book. And my eyes were opened, so to speak. Since I once believed the idea of reincarnation, I can empathise with people like my friend who prefers to continue with her beliefs. It takes a leap of faith to give up one’s long-cherished beliefs. Jesus said this in answer to a question posed by Simon regarding Teherma, a Persian doing business at Damascus.
141:6.2[Part IV]When Simon Zelotes and Jesus were alone, Simon asked the Master: “Why is it that I could not persuade him? Why did he so resist me and so readily lend an ear to you?” Jesus answered: “Simon, Simon, how many times have I instructed you to refrain from all efforts to take something out of the hearts of those who seek salvation? How often have I told you to labor only to put something into these hungry souls? Lead men into the kingdom, and the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error. When you have presented to mortal man the good news that God is his Father, you can the easier persuade him that he is in reality a son of God. And having done that, you have brought the light of salvation to the one who sits in darkness. Simon, when the Son of Man came first to you, did he come denouncing Moses and the prophets and proclaiming a new and better way of life? No. I came not to takeaway that which you had from your forefathers but to show you the perfected vision of that which your fathers saw only in part. Go then, Simon, teaching and preaching the kingdom, and when you have a man safely and securely within the kingdom, then is the time, when such a one shall come to you with inquiries, to impart instruction having to do with the progressive advancement of the soul within the divine kingdom.”So I am not worried about my dear friend. Eventually the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error..One thing about the idea of reincarnation is sort of interesting. It is very self-centered. There is nothing altruistic about it as far as I can see. There is a sort of me-ism about it.94:2.3 The undue concentration on self led certainly to a fear of the nonevolutionary perpetuation of self in an endless round of successive incarnations as man, beast, or weeds.I doubt that anyone has claimed to have lived previously as a weed.- Ragathea wrote: (A woman had pain in her back… hypnotized… went to previous life… discovered she’d been stabbed in the back and died… returned to the present… pain now gone. This is a very brief example of his work.)
Obviously this woman’s back pain was primarily psychological, not to mention the fact that she was probably seeking relief in the first place. It’s interesting that most of the healing Jesus did involved people with psychic issues. He healed their minds and the mind healed the body. All hypnotism does is make the suggestion to the mind in such a way that it becomes free to act. In the case of the woman with back pain, hypnotism probably relieved some source of guilt or self-inflicted punishment she was not conscious of, which did the trick, it was enough to “release the burden,” so to speak.
Jesus did not hypnotize but he did open the mind to new possibilities and new hopes for the future. Jesus was and is all about newness, going forward, not backwardness; he’s about being fearless, positive and strong. That kind of attitude is curative on many levels. And this is why having a relationship with the Spirit of Truth can actually improve the health. (The joy of this outpoured spirit, when it is consciously experienced in human life, is a tonic for health, a stimulus for mind, and an unfailing energy for the soul. 194:3.19)
146:6.1 These people believed in signs; they were a wonder-seeking generation. By this time the people of central and southern Galilee had become miracle minded regarding Jesus and his personal ministry. Scores, hundreds, of honest persons suffering from purely nervous disorders and afflicted with emotional disturbances came into Jesus’ presence and then returned home to their friends announcing that Jesus had healed them. And such cases of mental healing these ignorant and simple-minded people regarded as physical healing, miraculous cures.
148:2.1-2 Jesus visited the sick of this encampment not less than three times a week and made personal contact with each sufferer. As far as we know, no so-called miracles of supernatural healing occurred among the one thousand afflicted and ailing persons who went away from this infirmary improved or cured. However, the vast majority of these benefited individuals ceased not to proclaim that Jesus had healed them. Many of the cures effected by Jesus in connection with his ministry in behalf of Elman’s patients did, indeed, appear to resemble the working of miracles, but we were instructed that they were only just such transformations of mind and spirit as may occur in the experience of expectant and faith-dominated persons who are under the immediate and inspirational influence of a strong, positive, and beneficent personality whose ministry banishes fear and destroys anxiety.
141:8.2 They now made the discovery that the good news of the kingdom was very comforting to the sick; that their message carried healing for the afflicted.
- Ragathea wrote:“everything that exists has consciousness”Is that your belief or Dolores Cannon’s?So, does that mean that my refrigerator really does have a mind of its own? It’s been telling me lately to replace the water filter . . . it’s annoying . . . I wish it would shut up . . . beeping all the time. I do know my hair has a mind of its own though. That’s for sure. No doubtaboutit! Can’t get it to do anything I want.
- Ragathea wrote: Basically, we leave pieces of us where we came from, parts of our souls. . . . . I picture a timeline of all of earth’s history and future, and pieces of ourselves preparing to become individuals, determining the time they want to live in that would best serve the whole by offering experiences that would give the most advancement. So they select lives, . . .
This is the classic pre-existence of the soul meme. I’m sorry, but it is one of the biggest frauds foisted onto humanity that I know of other than original sin. I understand how it came to be from pre-historic times, but I don’t understand why people continually perpetuate it. If you love the idea of soul shards, you’ll love Manichaeism. It’s an offshoot of Zoroastrianism. Google it. You’ll find it fascinating. Even St. Augustine loved that religion at one time.
Anyway . . . . . . basically, we leave pieces of actualized reality behind us during our short life on this planet. We do not leave pieces of our souls behind, unless it is meant metaphorically. Obviously, actualized reality can be either good or bad, evil or true, beautiful or ugly. What we want to do is leave a trail of actualized reality in harmony with the universe. When we do, we leave behind a legacy of truth, beauty and goodness, and this alone is what grows the soul.
But alas, our souls themselves cannot be left behind. Souls cannot function on the material/physical level of existence. They are morontial. But they do take with them all that is of value from having created the legacy of truth, beauty and goodness (which is how they grow). Souls must await the mansion worlds where they can exercise a little autonomy, i.e. be the morontia mind and character of the new morontia personality with its powers of choice. There they can rock and roll, so to speak.
Time is essential for the working out of actualized reality that is not in harmony of the universe, i.e evil and imperfection. We are all still paying the price for the big blunders of time – the rebellion and the default. Those inharmonious realities are still being worked out, but the souls that created the mess have long gone. Those who had souls did not leave them behind in pieces. Adam and Eve were not required to come back and relive the mess they created, nor gather up their soul shards. (And they did have souls after they got their Adjusters.)
The truth is that neither a self nor a soul can function if it is all blown apart into little pieces. The goal of the universe is unity. The best personality is a unified personality; a balanced personality; a personality wholeheartedly devoted to discovering, recognizing, interpreting and choosing reality (God’s will), right here and right now in this very moment of time.
If everything that exists has a consciousness, then everything that exists must be minded, but we know that is not true. A rock is not minded . . . although the CGW (Church of Global Warming) would have you think otherwise . . . but I digress. Seriously, the physical universe is different from the minded universe:
29:4.37 These living barometers are solely concerned with the automatic and unerring registration of the status of all forms of force-energy. They are to the physical universe what the vast reflectivity mechanism is to the minded universe.
The physical universe is controlled by the minded universe, not the other way around. Life, and hence mind since they are part and parcel, is initiated upon a pre-established physical substrate. That does not give the physical substrate itself mindedness or consciousness. Mind is the creative power which utilizes the physical substrate to evolve the life it brings with it. It is only after the physical universe is organized by the Creative Spirit that she imparts life to it. And as I said, life and mind ministry come as a package . . . first via the Physical Controllers, second by the adjutants mind spirits, third by the Creative Spirit herself as the Holy Spirit. Since mind is unity, life itself strives for unity as well. Such a beautiful plan would totally fall apart if mind and life were constantly breaking up into little pieces. I simply cannot picture it.
42:12.2 Mind is always creative. The mind endowment of an individual animal, mortal, morontian, spirit ascender, or finality attainer is always competent to produce a suitable and serviceable body for the living creature identity.
Thanks Bonita for sharing your perspective on the topic. We know the power of the mortal mind to transform itself and transcend the material limitations of our existence also contains the very real potential for delusion, confusion, and substitution in the normal operating system called brain/mind. A very potent potential indeed!
I think past life memories are either self created or embedded by those who make money by making memories in the minds of others. Anyone who has had a few ‘readings’ can easily ascertain the timeless mediumship parlor game. A review of Houdini and other medium debunkers shows that no amount of money offered has ever resulted in any form of verification for such claimants. As you say, those who practice such mediumship may be serious in their delusion but are more likely profiting by the belief of others and are manipulators of the mind just like the channelers and portenders do so. Those who perform these acts are not too hard to understand but their seemingly endless audience is interesting to consider.
I think everyone wants to believe in immortality and eternity and a friendly universe filled with beings who abide in God’s creation. A good thing. I think many seek to explain, understand, and escape the material vicissitudes and the uncertainties and the confusions of this mortal life. Also a good thing. So I don’t worry too much about those who embrace such beliefs as prior lives and progressive experience and growing wisdom and spirit who feel that we all need to know more and better and do more and better to experience and express the spiritization of our dual natures….growth in time by personal choices, motives, and priorities.
The notion of reincarnation, as inaccurate as it may be, truly requires growth and change….unlike the instant salvation fiction offered by Western Christianity. But it is best to understand the source of the myth of reincarnation to better understand reality and the true nature of spiritual progress in this singular mortal life and in the morontia state to come! It is a childish and primitive belief once we gain the knowledge provided in the FER. But….plenty of those to go around….hahahahaha!
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
Yes, Bradly. Recall these words from the Foreword: “…to expand cosmic consciousness…”? It is the revelators who know much more than we mortals. So, with that, we may assume all of mankind’s beliefs are subject to correction and expansion.
Toward greater enlightenment for all…………………..!
- Mark Kurtz wrote: . . . we may assume all of mankind’s beliefs are subject to correction and expansion.
I agree, beliefs are subject to change. Faith is subject to growth.
The question I always come up against is the best way to deal with people’s beliefs. When people find out you don’t share their beliefs, they can get pretty weird about it. Some will shun you, some with scorn you and some will chop off your head . . . it’s a crazy business. I think the best I can do is not be one of “those people”. Sooooo . . . . . I hope Ragathea doesn’t get the wrong impression. I’m fine with people believing in reincarnation and soul shards . . . I just don’t find any of it useful to my personal philosophy of life and I share my reasons, for whatever they’re worth . . . about 2¢.
In her opening post of this topic Ragathea says: “I am confused. TUB states in several places that the idea of reincarnation is absurd. How would one explain, then, the work of those such as Brian Weiss, Dolores Cannon, and Michael Newton? (Not to mention the religions of Buddhism and Hinduism). I have an idea on the issue, but I would first like to see some discussion on it to get some other ideas I may not have considered. Then I would like to share my thoughts on the subject.”
I really appreciate R’s approach so far…questions and conflict rather than declarations. Very good. One sign of the sincere student who discovers conflict/contradiction to preconception. We’ve all had them and they take many forms, some of which are direct and blunt contradictions to long cherished religious beliefs even and some more subtle and easier to lay aside.
For me the UB offered many such conflicts which required I lay them aside for a season, suspended in time, to keep moving through the UB. Why keep going at all? First of all, the true truth seeker is aware of our limitations and prejudices, both learned personally and imposed by the family/tribe/church/culture/community, and we know to be skeptical of our own perspectives and conclusions….the open mind to further discoveries.
Mostly though for me, for all such conflicts there were so many more confirmations than conflicts that I was motivated to keep pursuing my studies of the UB. Also, many other points filled in blanks and connected confirmations in ways that appear to be perfectly plausible, even logical and reasoned in the harmonizations of every single fact and teaching (and so called conflict)….especially so the Jesus story. I was already a Jesusonian in my rejection of the Christianity which hijacked it and buried it within the doctrines, creeds, ceremonies, etc. of the church, and nothing has ever so purely, profoundly, and redundantly presented the Jesusonian Gospel that I had ever read before!
After much study and several readings, the whole tapestry and symphony of its contents began to gain strength and melody and tempo, as it delivered a perspective of reality that reverberated truthfully within – internal confirmations. This is all I hope for newer readers….that they give the UB sufficient time and patient attention for it’s own voice to find expression in mind to allow it’s wondrous sensibilities to be discovered. So I agree with Bonita that our purpose here is not to bash the heads of new readers with 40 lbs. of Big Blue and insist it be believed and immediately!!
Nonetheless, we do gather here together in study OF the UB and to share our experiences IN our spiritual and material life regarding the UB. We are not here to be persuaded by others anymore than we are here to persuade someone of our beliefs. But it is the UB that is the core and foundation of our discussions and discoveries here….regardless of our personal beliefs in favor of or opposed to the UB. May we do so in ways that encourage new readers and all sincere inquiry here.
Sometimes students must eventually come to choose our source materials and measure our own loyalty to our beliefs and the beliefs (and claims) of others. There is much that is believed by many which has no fact or truth content and yet some cling to what is believed today at the risk of the negative effects of pride and prejudice…or the closed mind. A deadly poison for a truth seeker.
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
Sorry, following some necessary travel, I had a bit of a log-in issue. Now all is good. Thank you all so much for your fascinating information and willingness to assist a new UB reader. I’m sure I’m in the right place. This book for me has sadly become one of those “do it later when I have more time” projects. 5-6 years ago, my brother found an old copy in a used bookstore, shared brief parts with me, and I fell in love. Felt like home. I wanted to read it immediately, but having a lot going on, I did not think I would have the opportunity to really dig into it’s entirety the way I want to due to time factor. So I put it off and just now am finding some spare time. Being too anxious for the information, however, I did read Malcolm Locke’s Urantia Revelation. I must note that a few years ago, my brother shared the book with my father, who has read it backward and forward at least 5 times…no exaggeration. He said it answered every question he ever had about history and the bible and is truly convinced of its authenticity. Now I will begin my own journey in the study of its information.
Bonita, the consciousness quote was not mine. This is one of Dolores Cannon’s tenets (for lack of a better word). I don’t know if I made it clear, but the work of the three doctors I cited are not my beliefs. I tried to summarize the work of each while keeping it as brief as possible. Besides reincarnation, the information collides with my instinct. I am having a difficult time in even considering the consideration of its accuracy, let alone accepting it as “belief”. Since reincarnation seems so far to be the only bump in my road, I thought I’d start there.
Again, please accept my gratitude for your responses. I appreciate the welcoming atmosphere of this site, and the time responders have taken to offer me a personalized start on learning about the UB. I also appreciate you not taking the attitude many religious folk do….. my way or the highway…. and recognizing the fact that any information we receive could be flawed. I am not offended in the least, but am happy to receive the info you offer. My name is Karen, by the way. Out of habit, I used my email as user name. Have a nice evening.
OK, Ragathea AKA Karen,
This forum has hosted hundreds of topics; thank you for this one.You may be interested in finding other readers in your area. A very good online directory of study groups is listed here http://urantiastudygroup.org/find.php.
See you around!!!!
Thanks Mark. I will check out the site. Later this week, I will have time to read through this thread a little better and I’m sure I will have more questions if that’s ok ☺
- Bradly wrote: I really appreciate R’s approach so far…questions and conflict rather than declarations. Very good. One sign of the sincere student who discovers conflict/contradiction to preconception.
I agree. It’s refreshing to welcome a sincere student of TUB. To be honest, I’ve become so accustomed to agendas that I’m not really sure how to act. I can say that I look forward to further discussions, that’s for sure. There are so many misunderstandings concerning the soul, and thankfully, TUB has taught us all a great deal about it. It’s my favorite part . . . that and the Spirit of Truth.
That being said, I think TUB offers the psychic/cosmic circles as a substitute for the philosophy of reincarnation. Reincarnation came about because early men and women witnessed the cycles of death and rebirth in nature and extrapolated that phenomenon to answer their metaphysical questions. The psychic circles are a newly revealed kind of cycle, actually more spiral, designed to progress the soul in a single lifetime. At the core, and I mean deep core, the two concepts seen ti satisfy similar needs of the cosmic-oriented personality . . . I think.
I am late to this thread but I just wanted to comment a bit about Brian Weiss’ book, Many Lives Many Masters. I was given that book unexpectedly by a friend a few years back. I was a skeptic about a lot of things at the time I was given that book and I thought it was funny that my friend felt that I should have that book for some reason. So I read it, and it piqued my curiosity like nothing before.
That book turned out to be the first stepping stone of my year-long ‘independent study’ program of reading a book, mining its footnotes and references for more sources, and reading more. I went from book to book, over 35 books on topics spiritual and supernatural, including theosophy, buddhism, and all kinds of things I never expected I’d be interested in. Eventually, I arrived at a book about Angels, which included in its references The Urantia Book. My search ended there and I’ve been reading and re-reading The Urantia Book exclusively ever since. Of course, everyone’s individual experiences are authentically their own; I just thought I’d share mine since I attribute my ‘education’ to the Brian Weiss book as the first step that opened my mind to new possibilities and eventually led me to TUB. In a way, it sort of prepared the soil of my mind to be receptive to the fruitful seed of The Urantia Book.
Hey Keryn. You’re not alone on that path. Even though I started to read TUB around 1970, I was totally alone as a reader and a bit scared to delve too deeply into it at first. Like you, I explored everything . . . everything and anything that even bordered on spirituality . . . even the channelling stuff piqued my interest for a while. Those Conversations with God books were favorites at one time. I even went to a Sylvia Browne event once because I was desperate to know more about the “other side”. Lots of things started out so powerful. I chased every shiny object that crossed my path, but they all lost their luster rather quickly. That didn’t stop me though. I think I’ve read almost everything in the spirituality and parapsychology sections of the bookstore. I even took classes in ACIM. Nothing stuck long. Everything seemed to shrivel on the vine with time.
TUB, on the other hand, never disappointed. The more I put into it, the more I got out of it. It has never stop satisfying my desire for more. But the best thing for me was the realization that all my inner stirrings and feelings are real. I mean they’re really real! Once I woke up to that, the world changed. I can see how the other sugar-coated stuff I was initially drawn to never fully satisfied me . . . just gave me that sugar rush, if you know what I mean.
I think a lot of people are searching for something in all those books and groups. There’s nothing wrong with searching. There’s nothing wrong with sugar now and then either. But it’s not as healthy as the real thing . . . the real spiritual food that comes from inside. TUB has helped me see that. And despite what some naysayers on this forum would have you believe, studying TUB strengthens resolve, encourages commitment and steadies the mind. It is a form of inspiration, a vision into reality, which essentially is what revelation’s about. Isn’t it? I think that’s why it’s so satisfying. I’m totally into it.
The mechanism for “reincarnation” exists in the universe. It may not necessarily be as taught in Hinduism, but UB does imply reincarnation, at least, in my estimation; the papers refer to it as “crossfertilization.” The following revelations lead me to conclude so:
“[…] the higher self (divine spirit) ” (103:5.5)
“In a sense the Adjusters may be fostering a certain degree of planetary crossfertilization […] But they are seldom given two indwelling experiences on the same planet; there is no Adjuster now serving on Urantia who has been on this world previously. ” (109:4.6)
The revelator states that Adjusters are the higher self of the personality –thus, in essence, a part of one’s selfhood. He also informs us the reincarnation event is rare but occurs. He goes further to qualify that by stating there is no Adjuster on Urantia who has been here previously. But this statement must be taken within the context of the timeframe revelation is revealed, circa 1955. Therefore it cannot logically apply to post-1955.
One’s higher self can enjoy rebirth/reincarnation based on the above. This would explain the flashes of partial memory recall of past lives many people experience. I do not think UB contradicts reincarnation, per se.
BB
Hello BB….an interesting twist to a whole new definition of ‘reincarnation’. So you’re saying that because the TA survives every voluntary assignment of indwelling but not every mortal candidate for survival does so, then those TAs experience a form of reincarnation? And that is a source of deja vu and memory recall? So people who claim such memory of prior lives are having memories of others and not their own in a prior life? I wonder if the whole concept is not confusing (and false) enough without trying to find a ‘legitimate’ definition in the UB?
What the UB says about reincarnation (and there’s far more on the topic of pre-existence, etc. – also a falsehood according to UB):
46:7.5 (528.3) Spornagia are the only creatures in all the universe of Nebadon who experience this or any other sort of reincarnation. They are only reactive to the first five of the adjutant mind-spirits; they are not responsive to the spirits of worship and wisdom. But the five-adjutant mind equivalates to a totality or sixth reality level, and it is this factor which persists as an experiential identity.
94:2.3 (1029.1) The undue concentration on self led certainly to a fear of the nonevolutionary perpetuation of self in an endless round of successive incarnations as man, beast, or weeds. And of all the contaminating beliefs which could have become fastened upon what may have been an emerging monotheism, none was so stultifying as this belief in transmigration — the doctrine of the reincarnation of souls — which came from the Dravidian Deccan. This belief in the weary and monotonous round of repeated transmigrations robbed struggling mortals of their long-cherished hope of finding that deliverance and spiritual advancement in death which had been a part of the earlier Vedic faith.
94:2.4 (1029.2) This philosophically debilitating teaching was soon followed by the invention of the doctrine of the eternal escape from self by submergence in the universal rest and peace of absolute union with Brahman, the oversoul of all creation. Mortal desire and human ambition were effectually ravished and virtually destroyed. For more than two thousand years the better minds of India have sought to escape from all desire, and thus was opened wide the door for the entrance of those later cults and teachings which have virtually shackled the souls of many Hindu peoples in the chains of spiritual hopelessness. Of all civilizations, the Vedic-Aryan paid the most terrible price for its rejection of the Salem gospel.
86:4.6 (953.5) The orange race was especially given to belief in transmigration and reincarnation. This idea of reincarnation originated in the observance of hereditary and trait resemblance of offspring to ancestors. The custom of naming children after grandparents and other ancestors was due to belief in reincarnation. Some later-day races believed that man died from three to seven times. This belief (residual from the teachings of Adam about the mansion worlds), and many other remnants of revealed religion, can be found among the otherwise absurd doctrines of twentieth-century barbarians.
If the belief and promotion of reincarnation is considered one of the most absurd doctrines of twentieth century barbarians, perhaps it is counter productive to promote it among UB students? Just sayin’………… = )
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
Thought Adjusters don’t incarnate, so how can they reincarnate? Thought Adjusters indwell. I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the words.
Ragathea said she remembers things from before she was born, and that she’s spoken of them her entire life, since she learned to talk. Wouldn’t that memory of hers be before her Adjuster came? That is, unless she didn’t start talking until she was almost 6 years old. How then would her past life memories be caused by Adjuster cross-fertilization?
