Merkabah
- Thread starter Skarekrow
- Start date
“I believe now that no matter what we consciously believe to be our true destination in life,
unless we explore them all, we will never find it.
The search may continue forever, and sometimes the only way to take some rest,
is to convince ourselves that we have finally arrived,
till we realise that we cannot stay where we are anymore.
Hence we look back at the whole life itinerary, scanning all routes,
crossroads and roundabouts, searching for a missing dream.
We acknowledge whether we turned right, left, went straight or back.
And no matter how far in space and time is that crossroad, we will return there and choose otherwise.
When happiness or pain reach their climax, we often believe that the journey is over.
And yet I can assure you that this is the best moment to acknowledge which routes we did not take,
which dream we didn't dream, and choose again.”
― Franco Santoro
Curious.
I reported on this a few years back but there were no new stories on it at that time, just the program statement by the Navy.
I find it funny how semantics play into this.
“Intuition” or a “sixth sense” are the new words, as in, soldiers stopping a convoy just before an IED explodes or other well documented and reported phenomena.
Those words have replaced “precognition” and “ESP” in order to satiate certain critics and skeptics that don’t realize the military has proven and acknowledges the existence of those abilities “albeit rare and not easily reproducible”.
These programs eventually seem to putter out when they can verify it exists but cannot find the source and means or even a working model - so is therefore dismissed as unprovable though it has been!
Enjoy!
The United States Navy has started a program to investigate how members of the military can be trained to improve their “sixth sense,” or intuitive ability, during combat and other missions.
The idea for the project comes in large part from the testimony of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who have reported an unexplained feeling of danger just before they encountered an enemy attack or ran into an improvised explosive device, Navy scientists said.
“Research in human pattern recognition and decision-making suggest that there is a ‘sixth sense’ through which humans can detect and act on unique patterns without consciously and intentionally analyzing them,” the Office of Naval Research said in an announcement late last month.
The scientists managing the program — which the the naval research office is calling “revolutionary” — commonly refer to this mysterious perception as feeling one’s “Spidey sense” tingling, after the intuitive power of Spiderman.
“Evidence is accumulating that this capability, known as intuition or intuitive decision making, enables the rapid detection of patterns in ambiguous, uncertain and time restricted information contexts,” the office said, citing numerous peer-reviewed studies in cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
The program, called Enhancing Intuitive Decision Making Through Implicit Learning, will be making available $3.85 million over four years to researchers who want to investigate how intuition works.
Initial proposals are due April 15, and executives at more than a dozen companies specializing in fields like logistics, software and artificial intelligence have so far expressed interest in applying for the money.
The Navy expects the research will offer insight into the scientific basis of intuition, a concept that many in the general public confuse with the supernatural.
It also hopes the findings will eventually allow military scientists and planners to build sophisticated computer models of how intuition works and to design training programs to help troops learn to better use their intuitive ability.
“There is a growing body of anecdotal evidence, combined with solid research efforts, that suggests intuition is a critical aspect of how we humans interact with our environment and how, ultimately, we make many of our decisions,” Ivy Estabrooke, a program manager at the Office of Naval Research, said in an e-mail.
“The whole goal of this research endeavor is to determine if we can develop techniques to measurably improve intuition,” she added.
The impetus for the program comes from “reports and discussions with marines and soldiers returning from deployment” in recent years, said Cmdr. Joseph Cohn, also a program manager at the naval office.
“These reports from the field often detailed a ‘sixth sense’ or ‘Spidey sense’ that alerted them to an impending attack or I.E.D., or that allowed them to respond to a novel situation without consciously analyzing the situation.”
The Navy references the case of a company of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, who, after a Taliban ambush in the summer of 2006, said in hindsight that their intuitions had set off a warning.
They also point to the case of Staff Sgt. Martin Richburg who, after sensing something odd about a man at an Iraqi Internet cafe, managed to save the lives of 17 cafe patrons from the improvised bomb the man had planted there.
Of course, such intuition is not always correct, and one of the research program’s goals is to find ways to fine-tune it.
The program’s results are expected to be used in cyberwarfare, unmanned drone operations and other areas in which members of the military are called to act in situations where reliable information is not available or where the amount of information that must be processed is overwhelmingly large.
“This is a very creative idea on the Navy’s part,” said John Kounios, a professor of psychology at Drexel University. Mr. Kounios, whose work is among the studies cited in the announcement, said he became aware of the research program only a few days ago.
“Military equipment is very expensive,” he said in an e-mail, “but training is, by comparison, relatively cheap. Not only can such training help to save lives, it can help military personnel to more effectively use their equipment.”
Mr. Kounios said he believed the Navy’s goal – to train troops how to use their intuition better – was possible, but he emphasized that the intuitive ability in question was not a supernatural one.
“The term ‘sixth sense’ is evocative, but risks conveying the idea that intuition is a psychic or paranormal phenomenon,” he said.
When an idea appears as an “aha” moment, Mr. Kounios added, “people often think that this is a psychic phenomenon because they don’t know where the idea came from. But it’s the product of unconscious information processing.”
Some studies suggest that the neural and cognitive processes involved in intuitive decision-making actually share many similarities with those involved in “implicit learning,” or learning that happens without the learner being aware of what was learned or how, the Navy said.
In addition to enhanced military training, researchers also want to use the new program to develop enhanced technology.
Ezra Sidran, a computer scientist, said he planned to apply for the naval research funding to investigate “unsupervised machine learning,” in which a computer program independently “analyzes, remembers and learns.”
“When Pandora suggests a song for you or when Amazon suggests a book for you,” Mr. Sidran said, “this is an example of supervised machine learning” because “you, albeit unknowingly, are supervising the learning of the machine” with each book or song selection.
“In unsupervised machine learning,” he explained, “the program looks at all the unsorted data and – without any human intervention – clusters the data into separate categories.”
After that sorting process, experts can then identify “these clusters as places an I.E.D. is likely to be hidden or places where an ambush is likely to occur.”
Michael Sick, president of Serene Software, a technology consulting firm in Jacksonville, Fla., also said he was considering submitting a proposal for funding. His research, he said, would most likely be on how to create basic computer models of intuition “that can be applied to any number of problems,” including drones and video games.
“There are endless applications to this type of technology,” Mr. Sick said.
For the Navy, the program’s four-year timeline may be just the beginning.
“If the work produces new insights into our understanding of intuition and the neural basis, then it may be expanded into a longer program,” said Ms. Estabrooke of the research office, “but this is an initial effort.”
Don Tucker, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon whose work is also cited in the Navy’s announcement, said the research eventually “could improve training not only in the military, but also in sports and many job settings.”
“Spiderman had superpowers,” Mr. Tucker said. “But maybe the rest of us can learn to use the experience of the intuitive cognition we have.”
I reported on this a few years back but there were no new stories on it at that time, just the program statement by the Navy.
I find it funny how semantics play into this.
“Intuition” or a “sixth sense” are the new words, as in, soldiers stopping a convoy just before an IED explodes or other well documented and reported phenomena.
Those words have replaced “precognition” and “ESP” in order to satiate certain critics and skeptics that don’t realize the military has proven and acknowledges the existence of those abilities “albeit rare and not easily reproducible”.
These programs eventually seem to putter out when they can verify it exists but cannot find the source and means or even a working model - so is therefore dismissed as unprovable though it has been!
Enjoy!
U.S. Navy Program to Study How Troops Use Intuition
The United States Navy has started a program to investigate how members of the military can be trained to improve their “sixth sense,” or intuitive ability, during combat and other missions.
The idea for the project comes in large part from the testimony of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who have reported an unexplained feeling of danger just before they encountered an enemy attack or ran into an improvised explosive device, Navy scientists said.
“Research in human pattern recognition and decision-making suggest that there is a ‘sixth sense’ through which humans can detect and act on unique patterns without consciously and intentionally analyzing them,” the Office of Naval Research said in an announcement late last month.
The scientists managing the program — which the the naval research office is calling “revolutionary” — commonly refer to this mysterious perception as feeling one’s “Spidey sense” tingling, after the intuitive power of Spiderman.
“Evidence is accumulating that this capability, known as intuition or intuitive decision making, enables the rapid detection of patterns in ambiguous, uncertain and time restricted information contexts,” the office said, citing numerous peer-reviewed studies in cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
The program, called Enhancing Intuitive Decision Making Through Implicit Learning, will be making available $3.85 million over four years to researchers who want to investigate how intuition works.
Initial proposals are due April 15, and executives at more than a dozen companies specializing in fields like logistics, software and artificial intelligence have so far expressed interest in applying for the money.
The Navy expects the research will offer insight into the scientific basis of intuition, a concept that many in the general public confuse with the supernatural.
It also hopes the findings will eventually allow military scientists and planners to build sophisticated computer models of how intuition works and to design training programs to help troops learn to better use their intuitive ability.
“There is a growing body of anecdotal evidence, combined with solid research efforts, that suggests intuition is a critical aspect of how we humans interact with our environment and how, ultimately, we make many of our decisions,” Ivy Estabrooke, a program manager at the Office of Naval Research, said in an e-mail.
“The whole goal of this research endeavor is to determine if we can develop techniques to measurably improve intuition,” she added.
The impetus for the program comes from “reports and discussions with marines and soldiers returning from deployment” in recent years, said Cmdr. Joseph Cohn, also a program manager at the naval office.
“These reports from the field often detailed a ‘sixth sense’ or ‘Spidey sense’ that alerted them to an impending attack or I.E.D., or that allowed them to respond to a novel situation without consciously analyzing the situation.”
The Navy references the case of a company of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, who, after a Taliban ambush in the summer of 2006, said in hindsight that their intuitions had set off a warning.
They also point to the case of Staff Sgt. Martin Richburg who, after sensing something odd about a man at an Iraqi Internet cafe, managed to save the lives of 17 cafe patrons from the improvised bomb the man had planted there.
Of course, such intuition is not always correct, and one of the research program’s goals is to find ways to fine-tune it.
The program’s results are expected to be used in cyberwarfare, unmanned drone operations and other areas in which members of the military are called to act in situations where reliable information is not available or where the amount of information that must be processed is overwhelmingly large.
“This is a very creative idea on the Navy’s part,” said John Kounios, a professor of psychology at Drexel University. Mr. Kounios, whose work is among the studies cited in the announcement, said he became aware of the research program only a few days ago.
“Military equipment is very expensive,” he said in an e-mail, “but training is, by comparison, relatively cheap. Not only can such training help to save lives, it can help military personnel to more effectively use their equipment.”
Mr. Kounios said he believed the Navy’s goal – to train troops how to use their intuition better – was possible, but he emphasized that the intuitive ability in question was not a supernatural one.
“The term ‘sixth sense’ is evocative, but risks conveying the idea that intuition is a psychic or paranormal phenomenon,” he said.
When an idea appears as an “aha” moment, Mr. Kounios added, “people often think that this is a psychic phenomenon because they don’t know where the idea came from. But it’s the product of unconscious information processing.”
Some studies suggest that the neural and cognitive processes involved in intuitive decision-making actually share many similarities with those involved in “implicit learning,” or learning that happens without the learner being aware of what was learned or how, the Navy said.
In addition to enhanced military training, researchers also want to use the new program to develop enhanced technology.
Ezra Sidran, a computer scientist, said he planned to apply for the naval research funding to investigate “unsupervised machine learning,” in which a computer program independently “analyzes, remembers and learns.”
“When Pandora suggests a song for you or when Amazon suggests a book for you,” Mr. Sidran said, “this is an example of supervised machine learning” because “you, albeit unknowingly, are supervising the learning of the machine” with each book or song selection.
“In unsupervised machine learning,” he explained, “the program looks at all the unsorted data and – without any human intervention – clusters the data into separate categories.”
After that sorting process, experts can then identify “these clusters as places an I.E.D. is likely to be hidden or places where an ambush is likely to occur.”
Michael Sick, president of Serene Software, a technology consulting firm in Jacksonville, Fla., also said he was considering submitting a proposal for funding. His research, he said, would most likely be on how to create basic computer models of intuition “that can be applied to any number of problems,” including drones and video games.
“There are endless applications to this type of technology,” Mr. Sick said.
For the Navy, the program’s four-year timeline may be just the beginning.
“If the work produces new insights into our understanding of intuition and the neural basis, then it may be expanded into a longer program,” said Ms. Estabrooke of the research office, “but this is an initial effort.”
Don Tucker, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon whose work is also cited in the Navy’s announcement, said the research eventually “could improve training not only in the military, but also in sports and many job settings.”
“Spiderman had superpowers,” Mr. Tucker said. “But maybe the rest of us can learn to use the experience of the intuitive cognition we have.”
This is from a few years back (2007)...so just imagine where they are with it now?
Pretty amazing stuff!
Enjoy!
Pretty amazing stuff!
Enjoy!
Lecture by Jacques Vallee
Remote Viewing, Early Internet Orgins,
The Software of Consciousness,
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) aka SRI International,
Psychic Phenomena, & Parapsychology.
2007 Lecture by Jacques Vallee on Remote Viewing, Early Internet Orgins,
The Software of Consciousness, Stanford Research Institute (SRI) aka SRI International, Psychic Phenomena, & Parapsychology.
Jacques Fabrice Vallée (French: [vale]; born September 24, 1939) is a computer scientist,
venture capitalist, author, ufologist and former astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California.
In mainstream science, Vallée co-developed the first computerized map of Mars for NASA in 1963.
He later worked on the network information center for the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet,
as a staff member of SRI International's Augmentation Research Center under Douglas Engelbart.
Vallée is also an important figure in the study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),
first noted for a defense of the scientific legitimacy of the extraterrestrial hypothesis and later for promoting the interdimensional hypothesis.
*This Video is in compliance with Fair Use policy - No Monetization is on for this video & is for educational purposes only*
Remote Viewing, Early Internet Orgins,
The Software of Consciousness,
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) aka SRI International,
Psychic Phenomena, & Parapsychology.
2007 Lecture by Jacques Vallee on Remote Viewing, Early Internet Orgins,
The Software of Consciousness, Stanford Research Institute (SRI) aka SRI International, Psychic Phenomena, & Parapsychology.
Jacques Fabrice Vallée (French: [vale]; born September 24, 1939) is a computer scientist,
venture capitalist, author, ufologist and former astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California.
In mainstream science, Vallée co-developed the first computerized map of Mars for NASA in 1963.
He later worked on the network information center for the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet,
as a staff member of SRI International's Augmentation Research Center under Douglas Engelbart.
Vallée is also an important figure in the study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),
first noted for a defense of the scientific legitimacy of the extraterrestrial hypothesis and later for promoting the interdimensional hypothesis.
*This Video is in compliance with Fair Use policy - No Monetization is on for this video & is for educational purposes only*
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My cousin got an Oscar nomination for the movie “A Star is Born” with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - he is up for best sound mixing...so I would say he stands a good chance since the movie has lots of music and was very complicated sound-wise I guess (though I have yet to see the film).
He previously was nominated for “La-la Land” but didn’t win for some reason.
So keep your fingers crossed everyone!
He previously was nominated for “La-la Land” but didn’t win for some reason.
So keep your fingers crossed everyone!
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That's amazing, Skare!
In French, we say "merde" ("shit") to wish someone good luck. Yeah, it's weird. But anyway, merde to your cousin! ♥
I just realized something. @Skarekrow doesn't technically have a "member mlog", but Merkabah is kind of his member blog.
I just realized something. @Skarekrow doesn't technically have a "member mlog", but Merkabah is kind of his member blog.
Thanks man!!
I think he stands a good chance though I’m not sure who he’s up against?
It took him many years to work his way up through the business...doing tiny indy films all the way to huge blockbusters now, pretty freaking awesome for him and his wife!
And yes...this has become my blog thingy in a roundabout sort of way...not really intentionally...it just sort of happened, haha.
That’s a rad comment, thanks.In an Ni sort of way
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The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.
Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren the Secret name.
This corresponds to my Director.
He directs the film of your life from conception to death.
The Secret Name is the title of your film.
When you die, that's where Ren came in.
Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power. Light.
The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.
Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel.
He, she or it is third man out...depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light.
Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama.
The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense - but not permanently,
since the first three souls are eternal.
They go back to Heaven for another vessel.
The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the land of the dead.
Number four is Ba, the Heart, often treacherous.
This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist.
Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.
Number five is Ka, the double, most closely associated with the subject.
The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death,
is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the Western Lands.
Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.
Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.
- William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands
Something to ponder...
In The Supreme Adventure, Robert Crookall summarizes a great deal of evidence pointing to the idea that matter, in some sense, is part of the soul's experience throughout nearly all if its journey.
Some kind of "body" is necessary, he argues, even at higher levels of development.
Specifically he argues for four bodies, initially intertwined.
They are:
Sometime later — usually three or four days, but occasionally much longer in cases of "earthbound" spirits — the vehicle of vitality is sloughed off, in what Crookall calls "the second death.”
Until the vehicle of vitality has been shed, the discarnate person may be confused, existing in a dream world similar to the bardo described in the Tibetan Book of Dead.
Crookall notes that many mediumistic communications originate from this realm and from this state of consciousness, which accounts for their confusing and sometimes even nonsensical nature.
Once the vehicle of vitality has been shed, the soul body is free to shine without the distorting and veiling influence of the auric field.
It is as if blinders have been taken off.
Confusion is replaced by expanded awareness, and this change in consciousness is matched by a change in "location," as the discarnate moves into the Paradise or Summerland environment.
According to Crookall, most people will experience two life reviews.
The first, occurring at the point of death, is unemotional and without moral significance — one's whole life flashes before one's eyes, but with no judgments being rendered.
Crookall interprets this experience as the vehicle of vitality imprinting itself on the soul body.
The second life review comes after the vehicle of vitality has been discarded, when the soul (now in touch with the higher self) is able to survey the panorama of its earthly life and form mature judgements about it.
To distinguish it from the first life review, Crookall calls this one the Judgment.
Crookall acknowledges that some people have experienced the Judgment at a surprisingly early point in the dying process.
Even in his day, before the term "near-death experience" had been coined, there were scattered reports of people who had nearly died but had been revived, a few of whom had reported a life review complete with moral judgment.
He says that such reports pertain only to a minority of cases, which still appears to be true; most NDEs do not include the Judgment.
In his opinion, NDErs who undergo the Judgment are those whose vehicle of vitality is unusually "loose" to begin with.
Mediums, psychics, seers, and people of elevated spiritual awareness are characterized (he thinks) by a looser vehicle of vitality, which accounts for their spiritual or paranormal gifts.
Such people may experience the Judgment right away, but others must wait until the soul body has entirely cast off the vehicle of vitality.
Throughout all these changes, there is still a body of some kind.
As noted above, Crookall argues that a bodily vessel of one sort or another is necessary until one arrives at the very highest level of spiritual evolution.
He writes,
"On earth, the subjective (or thought) aspect is subordinate to the objective (or environmental) aspect: as the 'spheres' are ascended, the importance of the subjective increases and that of the objective decreases … Only the 'Father', the Infinite Absolute, Transcendent and Unmanifested is purely 'subjective', pure 'Spirit', unconditioned by even the finest 'matter’.…"
"The importance of the physical body, and the corresponding physical environment in the development and evolution of the human 'soul' was indicated by Phoebe and Dr. L.J. Bendit (Man Incarnate, Theosophical Publishing House Ltd., 1957, p. 5). "
They said: "Without a body, man, as naked Spirit, would be left in a subjective state, with no consciousness and hence no possibility of gaining objective experience or realizing himself for what he is."
The idea here is that matter plays the largest role in our present, physically incarnated existence; a somewhat lesser role in the transitional state that Crookall calls "Hades" (i.e., limbo, the bardo), when the vehicle of vitality maintains a tenuous connection to the earth; a still lesser role in the Paradise or Summerland environment; and an increasingly minimal role as the soul ascends to higher realms.
But only the very highest realm (or state of consciousness), that of the divine, is entirely free of any dependence on what we call matter.
In order to make some sense of this, I'd like to suggest two different models.
They both say essentially the same thing, but in different terms.
First, the information-universe model.
In this model, our experience of the physical world is analogous to our interaction with images on a computer screen.
The images may appear like real objects, but they are actually only arrangements of pixels dictated by the underlying computer code.
Likewise, our experience of the physical world consists of sensory impressions in which we are immersed.
These impressions originate in matrices of information that are constantly undergoing changes (information processing).
Ultimately the information itself is what is real, while the sensory impressions (like the images on the computer screen) have only a secondary, dependent, and – in a sense – illusory reality.
The "rendered" images that surround us are what Crookall calls "matter" or "the objective.”
What he calls "consciousness" or "the subjective" is the mind that apprehends these images.
Thus it is perfectly true that "without a body" a person would be left with "no possibility of gaining objective experience or realizing himself for what he is," since there would be no way of perceiving any sensory impressions and therefore no way of obtaining any contents for consciousness.
The mind would still exist, but it would be empty – a blank – a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of.
As the soul climbs higher in the planes of spiritual development, it becomes less dependent on the "rendered" images and more aware of the underlying information – the source code.
If a given consciousness were to become completely conversant with the source code, to the point where the source code constituted the entire contents of the mind, then it would be, in effect, God.
That's because in this model, the source code or fundamental information is held in the mind of God – that is, in a universal, primordial consciousness that transcends time and space.
So, in this model, the slow climb toward the spiritual heights involves shedding one's dependence on quasi-illusory "rendered" imagery and apprehending the source code directly.
This corresponds to a gradual lessening of reliance on "matter" or the "objective environment," and a gradually deepening apprehension of pure information.
For those who don't like the computer model, here's an alternative.
We can see the world as a manifestation of ideas in the mind of God.
We apprehend these ideas in the form of sensory impressions.
We don't directly perceive abstractions; we perceive concretes and imaginatively extrapolate abstractions from them.
As the soul climbs the ladder of spiritual development, it gradually becomes less reliant on sensory impressions or concretes and more able to apprehend the underlying abstractions.
This brings the soul closer and closer to God, because only God has unimpeded, comprehensive access to these ideas.
In either analogy, whether we see the "objective environment" of "matter" as an expression of information or ideas, the basic concept is the same.
We are intended to eventually lose our dependence on quasi-illusory forms and to become fully conversant with the supporting reality, the ground of being, which is the mind of God and its contents — or Source and source code, or the Thinker and its thoughts.
Four bodies
Some kind of "body" is necessary, he argues, even at higher levels of development.
Specifically he argues for four bodies, initially intertwined.
They are:
- the physical body
- the vehicle of vitality, or the aura, which enshrouds the other bodies and serves as an interface between the physical and the spiritual realms
- the soul body, which shines brightly once the vehicle of vitality has been cast off; and
- the spirit body, the highest and most sensitive vessel.
Sometime later — usually three or four days, but occasionally much longer in cases of "earthbound" spirits — the vehicle of vitality is sloughed off, in what Crookall calls "the second death.”
Until the vehicle of vitality has been shed, the discarnate person may be confused, existing in a dream world similar to the bardo described in the Tibetan Book of Dead.
Crookall notes that many mediumistic communications originate from this realm and from this state of consciousness, which accounts for their confusing and sometimes even nonsensical nature.
Once the vehicle of vitality has been shed, the soul body is free to shine without the distorting and veiling influence of the auric field.
It is as if blinders have been taken off.
Confusion is replaced by expanded awareness, and this change in consciousness is matched by a change in "location," as the discarnate moves into the Paradise or Summerland environment.
According to Crookall, most people will experience two life reviews.
The first, occurring at the point of death, is unemotional and without moral significance — one's whole life flashes before one's eyes, but with no judgments being rendered.
Crookall interprets this experience as the vehicle of vitality imprinting itself on the soul body.
The second life review comes after the vehicle of vitality has been discarded, when the soul (now in touch with the higher self) is able to survey the panorama of its earthly life and form mature judgements about it.
To distinguish it from the first life review, Crookall calls this one the Judgment.
Crookall acknowledges that some people have experienced the Judgment at a surprisingly early point in the dying process.
Even in his day, before the term "near-death experience" had been coined, there were scattered reports of people who had nearly died but had been revived, a few of whom had reported a life review complete with moral judgment.
He says that such reports pertain only to a minority of cases, which still appears to be true; most NDEs do not include the Judgment.
In his opinion, NDErs who undergo the Judgment are those whose vehicle of vitality is unusually "loose" to begin with.
Mediums, psychics, seers, and people of elevated spiritual awareness are characterized (he thinks) by a looser vehicle of vitality, which accounts for their spiritual or paranormal gifts.
Such people may experience the Judgment right away, but others must wait until the soul body has entirely cast off the vehicle of vitality.
Throughout all these changes, there is still a body of some kind.
As noted above, Crookall argues that a bodily vessel of one sort or another is necessary until one arrives at the very highest level of spiritual evolution.
He writes,
"On earth, the subjective (or thought) aspect is subordinate to the objective (or environmental) aspect: as the 'spheres' are ascended, the importance of the subjective increases and that of the objective decreases … Only the 'Father', the Infinite Absolute, Transcendent and Unmanifested is purely 'subjective', pure 'Spirit', unconditioned by even the finest 'matter’.…"
"The importance of the physical body, and the corresponding physical environment in the development and evolution of the human 'soul' was indicated by Phoebe and Dr. L.J. Bendit (Man Incarnate, Theosophical Publishing House Ltd., 1957, p. 5). "
They said: "Without a body, man, as naked Spirit, would be left in a subjective state, with no consciousness and hence no possibility of gaining objective experience or realizing himself for what he is."
The idea here is that matter plays the largest role in our present, physically incarnated existence; a somewhat lesser role in the transitional state that Crookall calls "Hades" (i.e., limbo, the bardo), when the vehicle of vitality maintains a tenuous connection to the earth; a still lesser role in the Paradise or Summerland environment; and an increasingly minimal role as the soul ascends to higher realms.
But only the very highest realm (or state of consciousness), that of the divine, is entirely free of any dependence on what we call matter.
In order to make some sense of this, I'd like to suggest two different models.
They both say essentially the same thing, but in different terms.
First, the information-universe model.
In this model, our experience of the physical world is analogous to our interaction with images on a computer screen.
The images may appear like real objects, but they are actually only arrangements of pixels dictated by the underlying computer code.
Likewise, our experience of the physical world consists of sensory impressions in which we are immersed.
These impressions originate in matrices of information that are constantly undergoing changes (information processing).
Ultimately the information itself is what is real, while the sensory impressions (like the images on the computer screen) have only a secondary, dependent, and – in a sense – illusory reality.
The "rendered" images that surround us are what Crookall calls "matter" or "the objective.”
What he calls "consciousness" or "the subjective" is the mind that apprehends these images.
Thus it is perfectly true that "without a body" a person would be left with "no possibility of gaining objective experience or realizing himself for what he is," since there would be no way of perceiving any sensory impressions and therefore no way of obtaining any contents for consciousness.
The mind would still exist, but it would be empty – a blank – a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of.
As the soul climbs higher in the planes of spiritual development, it becomes less dependent on the "rendered" images and more aware of the underlying information – the source code.
If a given consciousness were to become completely conversant with the source code, to the point where the source code constituted the entire contents of the mind, then it would be, in effect, God.
That's because in this model, the source code or fundamental information is held in the mind of God – that is, in a universal, primordial consciousness that transcends time and space.
So, in this model, the slow climb toward the spiritual heights involves shedding one's dependence on quasi-illusory "rendered" imagery and apprehending the source code directly.
This corresponds to a gradual lessening of reliance on "matter" or the "objective environment," and a gradually deepening apprehension of pure information.
For those who don't like the computer model, here's an alternative.
We can see the world as a manifestation of ideas in the mind of God.
We apprehend these ideas in the form of sensory impressions.
We don't directly perceive abstractions; we perceive concretes and imaginatively extrapolate abstractions from them.
As the soul climbs the ladder of spiritual development, it gradually becomes less reliant on sensory impressions or concretes and more able to apprehend the underlying abstractions.
This brings the soul closer and closer to God, because only God has unimpeded, comprehensive access to these ideas.
In either analogy, whether we see the "objective environment" of "matter" as an expression of information or ideas, the basic concept is the same.
We are intended to eventually lose our dependence on quasi-illusory forms and to become fully conversant with the supporting reality, the ground of being, which is the mind of God and its contents — or Source and source code, or the Thinker and its thoughts.