Letters to the Editor
ScepticThomas.com© invites you to respond to our articles with your own ideas, philosophies, opinions, and points of view. Send your letters to Jane.
Our first contributor to this section is Jeff Bronson. Jeff is the proprietor of Obscuria.com and a serious student of Vedantic, Hermetic, and other classic and ancient philosophies. Jeff's "Letter to the Editor" follows.
Letter 1: Reply to "Saliba's Mechanics of Dying"
by Jeff Bronson
I think the main things that differ in our approach is that I "think" that consciousness and personal identity can exist independent of the physical organism. Instead of death being the termination of life, I view it as a continuation of life; even a continuation into a more substantial life than we just experienced in the physical. As you rightfully mentioned, it is difficult to “philosophize about death without first taking into consideration the nature of consciousness.”
Where you refer to the Jungian model of the Conscious/Unconscious dichotomy, I refer to the philosophy of the Hindu Vedas and the Hermetic thought of ancient Egypt; e.g., Hermes Trismegistus, Thoth, and the ancient wisdom traditions pre-dating this. So we are simply using different terms for similar principles and ideas. Attempting a detailed comparison and contrast would require many pages to do the subject justice.
So to simplify, I think my equivalent view would be that Jung's Conscious equates to Spirit and his Unconscious is the medium that contains the archetypes represented as the Aether, or the Astral Light of the Kabbalists. My overall high level view of the universe is that we are sparks of divine consciousness of the eternal, unchanging One, or God; and that our mission is to experience every realm of existence possible until our eventual return to the bosom of the Godhead. As we act, the law of Karma is ever attentive and we either amass both good and bad Karma, or eventually release ourselves from the bounds of Karma and attain liberation within the Godhead. However, even the many stages of afterlife are in themselves "Maya" (maya is a Hindi term from Mahayana Buddhism meaning illusion or unreality). Only upon perfection can we finally actively choose to give up our "individuality" and merge with the Godhead. I admit this sounds fairly elaborate and "Intelligently Designed," but the notion of our physical vessels being composed so perfectly that we simply live one life with no purpose before we pass into total oblivion seems a waste. Even if we consider the notion that we are actually sitting on a giant rock, planet Earth, that is slowly rotating and miraculously floating in space is itself astounding; especially if we think it is without purpose.
There are many recorded cases where upon physical death of the body and complete lack of brain activity people had near death experiences. If, for example, they died in a hospital they were able to recall events that happened out in the hallway, on the hospital roof, or even from great distances. These are examples of where consciousness may exist independent of the physical body. I sometimes worried that perhaps faculties like Astral Projection are only available to "Physically" alive beings, but examples like this, along with personal experience, led me to a different conclusion.
I believe that Jung was very much into Astral Travel, Alchemy, and Self-perfection. I am not certain, but I think he may have also believed in an Afterlife (after having had a vivid Near Death Experience himself) that the higher principles of an "Individual" can inhabit?
As for religion, it seems that the energy that is projected into the "Collective Unconscious" by various religions creates an environment that one can experience for a time based on that religion’s belief system. Some envision a "Heaven" of gross inactivity filled with white robes and harps and lethargy. But nothing in nature is truly inactive; just as you mentioned, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So even those who envision this stereotype of heaven may experience it for a time, but they will eventually come to realize that it is but a dung hill compared to the not yet conceptualized spheres that they can eventually inhabit after perhaps millions of years of "work" upon themselves. After physical death, a robber or a murderer might experience a Hell of sorts, but it is a mental creation of his own. Even in this "Hell" of his own creation he would have a chance to progress; after all, nothing is eternal. According to the major religions of the US's belief, it is almost inconceivable that a loving, anthropomorphized deity (like the ones of most major religions) condemn one into an Eternal suffering for its mistakes with no hopes of progress. Another way to look at the Hell is that it is a temporary purging of the lower principles and desires that allows the Spirit to learn from its mistakes so it can progress. Some even say that the Spirit's descent into matter is Hell on the physical earth.
If Spirit can experience Astral/Mental Projection while the physical body is alive, does that mean that Spirit can separate from the body to travel to distant locations? It is always easier to say "I left my body," but it can be viewed simply as attuning your consciousness to a different plane; not a physical “plane” but an alternate mode of being. You may feel vibrations throughout your body and feel like you are leaving it during an Out of Body Experience or Astral Projection, but in essence you are tuning your consciousness to a different and higher mode of being.
Supposedly upon physical death you continue to inhabit your "Astral body" for a short period to experience a review of your last physical incarnation and learn how the choices you made affect your progression forward. After that your Astral body slumbers in a sort of dream state while discarding everything but the highest principles it has; hopefully it discards much of the lower ego desires. After this slumber your Astral Body is cast off to become an “Astral Shell” [1] which gradually dissolves. Only then does your immortal Spirit slowly wake into the realm for which it is most suited, based on its Karma, to outlive any remaining desires until it yearns for another "earth" life to continue on the path to perfection.
I "believe" that each level of consciousness has its own physical, mental, and spiritual manifestation and each represents a different mode of existence. These manifestations are like analogies that make it easier to explain different rates of vibration. For example, a sound can be measured with physical equipment that projects a visible form onto a monitor--like a sine wave on a screen. The conversion of the vibration to a visual representation just makes it easier to show the rate of vibration (frequency, amplitude, etc.) of the sound wave. The monitor shows a visual representation of the sound wave but is not itself the sound wave. If we smash the monitor we do not destroy the sound wave. Similarly, when the physical body dies the Spirit (attracting or animating principle that causes the physical body to remain intact) separates from the body; and thus begins the decomposition process of the corporeal container (physical body). In a way, you are not leaving your physical body, it is leaving you! Hence, your physical container (your body) is no longer needed. So you then inhabit your Astral body (a different container that exists at a faster rate of vibration) for a time; when your Astral body is no longer needed, you then inhabit your Spirit vessel (another container that exists at an even higher rate of vibration).
It could even be said that the physical body and Astral body are both Maya--or an illusion--so there really isn't any "leaving" at all. If we are already within the mind of God where this grand saga is taking place, then there is no where to actually "go." But who is to say what is "real" and what is “illusion”? When we experience the physical it seems real; when we dream, that seems real; or when we Astral Project, that seems real. Reality is simply then a matter of perception.
[1] “Astral shells” contain only a dim representation of the individual’s former “identity.” These shells are usually the “departed” relatives contacted by the Spiritualists, which as we see are no more their loved ones than the physical shell disintegrating in the grave.
