What survives after death?

A FUNNY EXTRA:

The column I write for Kevin Williams and my Q& A blog is an open, in-depth response to questions posed by people like yourself. Every once in awhile, though, I run across material that is both light-hearted and fun. Today, the day I am writing this column, is the very first day of Spring, 2007. In keeping with this lively splash of fresh energy now entering the earthplane, I share with you the following. The true authors of this piece I have searched for in vain, thus I offer their pen names as they declared them, hoping that is enough. To whoever they really are, thank you for your wonderful humor!

HOW THE TWELVE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC PROCESS NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES

By Merry Meet & Merry Part, LilithsCat

ARIES: "Who's in charge here? I'd like to see God right now, please. Am I dead? Gee, I never thought that could happen to me! Where can I get a crystal palace backlit with white light like that one?"

TAURUS: Leaving the body, Taurus realizes that he or she no longer has a stomach and immediately returns to the body (thud!), without seeing tunnels, light, God, etc., making Taurus skeptical for the rest of his or her life.

GEMINI: The key thing to the zodiacal twins isn't the experience itself, but how they can embellish it when telling the story (or writing about it). Since Geminis are comfortable in all worlds, except those without telephones, they usually bounce back to the body fairly rapidly - and the mouth tends to work before the rest of the body comes back to life.

CANCER: Cancerians can live to be 125 years old, and they don't usually have near-death experiences, but they can come awfully close to having a near life experience when they get brave and venture out of their houses for "supplies."

LEO: "Nooooooo, I am NOT dead. I am not, I am not, I am not.......Who are those guys in the white robes? What's that they're singing...? They're off key. I can sing better than that! Where's the choir director? I need a microphone immediately. Unless it's Rolling Stone or Spin, hold my calls."

VIRGO: Working a marathon 60 hours straight, Virgo collapses and leaves the body. She moves through that delightfully clean and sparkling tunnel of light, occasionally reflecting upon possible improvements .....but soon becomes so worried by the thought of her loved ones "managing without her" that she snaps back into the body like white lightning, sits up, and calmly pronounces herself alive, glancing at her watch.

LIBRA: Floating out of the body, then in, then out, then in, and finally out again....Libra sees a tunnel and a vibrant being of light at the other end. "Wow, is that Jesus? Wait a minute, maybe it's Kwan Yin. That looks like something she'd wear." Never deciding whether to go through the tunnel or not (after all, what's death without someone to share it with?), Libra ends up back in the body by default, hounded by a mysterious compulsion to start a dating service for discarnate souls.

SCORPIO: Since most Scorpios have nine lives, they tend to brainstorm different ways to trigger the near-death experience. Once nearly dead, most can barely get to the end of the tunnel without meeting some being with whom they have astral sex. When asked whom they prefer to greet them on the other side, 75% name a favorite vampire, and Medusa is a strong contender.

SAGITTARIUS: Sag floats out of her boy and has to laugh at the stupid way she bought the farm. After somehow BREAKING the tunnel of light, she absolutely refuses to return to the body, since she's been trying to get out of it for all these years (via clumsy accidents). Because Sag is immensely curious about whether the so- called organized religions have any validity at all, this stroke of luck leads to some amaaaaaaaazing lessons, until, alas, the astral folks tire of her and trick her into returning to Earth for the duration.

CAPRICORN: It might take Capricorn a little while to realize he is dead because there are special rooms set up to look like executive offices for newly-dead Goats. A sharp-looking, older gentlemen- ghost comes in and gives Cap an instruction manual titled HOW TO PROFIT IN THE ASTRAL MARKETPLACE, plus a "job evaluation" type assessment of Cap's achievements and mistakes over the lifetime, followed by a pink slip (meaning the body revived). Caps tend to return to their bodies quickly, unable to tolerate non-physical existence for long.

AQUARIUS: Aquarius gets to the pearly gates, sees that heaven isn't run by consensus, and opts for hell, where at least there is an appealing anarchy and rules are made to be broken. Ironically, Aquarian near-death experiences tend to be extremely traditional, i.e., God the Father, St. Peter, the celestial choir, and so on (another reason to rebel and opt for hell). Once in the underworld, they bedevil the hell out of Satan and his cronies with their loud and vigorous campaigns for progressive reforms, and are quickly expelled back to the body.

PISCES: For some reason, our Piscean friends barely notice their near- death experiences. Instead, during a typical day at the office, many Pisceans report seeing beings with long-suffering expressions on their faces and who patiently tell the Piscean to go back to his or her body.

I hope you enjoyed this fun-romp through the twelve signs of the zodiac. Now for a question submitted awhile ago.

QUESTION:

"I am an avid reader and collector of all your books and similar books. I have thought of questions related to the soul for 40 years of my 47-year life. I have not been able to resolve some questions, and I would love to have your insights.

"For instance, I would like to believe that for most people souls are gendered (male or female). There may be exceptions, of course, when the soul changes genders from one incarnation to the other and maintains a sort-of multi-gendered existence between incarnations.

"Further, I would like to believe that the soul is the totality of our being and not a separate, 'higher self.' In other words, it includes our personality as well as the spiritual aspects of our being. This is because people in reincarnation studies do carry some of the lower, humbler aspects of their being (such as birthmarks or personality quirks) between incarnations. Of course, the personality evolves within a life, from life to life, or from life to afterlife and back, while the self, the witness, the spiritual center, is more constant. So what survives death, in my view, is more than a spiritual center, it is the entire envelope of our evolving, gendered personalities and the expanding repertoire of our memories.

"Please do respond and let me know your view."....Roger

ANSWER:

In considering aspects of personality/soul/afterlife, we need to first recognize that there is rather convincing research to indicate that there are levels (differed by frequencies of vibration) to the afterlife and to the subject at hand. And, there are authorities galore about any given aspect to this subject and just as many books and research to back those books that "validate" whatever premise is expressed. Name a theory and you can find ample "evidence" to back it up - whether it be from psychics, researchers as myself, religious folk, or scientists, etc.

My response to your question is based on research with nearly 4,000 adults and children who experienced near-death states, and on a wealth of personal experience, other people's experiences, and from the research I conducted on altered states of consciousness and mysticism during the decade that preceded my death in 1977 (which involved many thousands). Yup, I've been poking my "nose" into this subject for over 40 years, not counting what I did as a child and a young "employed" mother.

With this background, I can say that forms and genders seem to exist only in the lower levels of what we call "real" - by that I mean within the lower (slower) vibrational frequencies ("hell" being the grossest of levels). In these regions you can readily find environments that either match the earthplane or are similar enough that they are recognizable. As one vibrates faster, becomes more refined and knowing as a soul, such environments fade - replaced often by light-filled worlds and/or abstractions that would seem foreign or unusual to the average person. In these realms there is no such thing as gender. Here we begin to look more like what we really are: luminous energy, a spark of Holy Fire. The notion here of any type of forms (trees, houses, beings, angels, animals, people) steadily dissolves in accord with the heightening of vibration.

I consider the "soul" to be one's "core self," who we really are. Some refer to it as our "higher self," although I frankly find that terminology to be somewhat misleading. The personality we form is like an overleaf or covering or sheath that can mask the soul, hide it, block it, or simply extend and alter it in shades and tones more applicable to our needs at the time, or to our liking. As near as I can tell, how we shape our personalities can and does "mark" us and follow us from incarnation to incarnation, and will continue to (thus birthmarks and general character traits can survive) - until such an overleaf no longer serves our progress or refinement. Although the "curriculum" we follow originates at the soul level, the real "muscle" or learning we gain comes from the lives we lead and the opportunities we have within the incarnations we take on. There does seem to be a progression, a "learning curve" if you will. And there is a goal: true enlightenment. I say "true" because enlightenment is not quite what we think it is, nor are "masters."

Please refer to two of my books for further material on this subject. They are: "Future Memory" (Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, VA, 1999), and "We Live Forever: The Real Truth About Death" (A.R.E. Press, Virginia Beach, VA, 2004).

Blessings, PMH