LSP45: Atheism: You Think You've Escaped the Perils of Religion . . . So Why Isn't Your Life Getting Better?

If the militant atheists are right, and the world's greatest ills can be blamed on religion, then I'm wondering why, at the close of 2015, when more people than ever are rejecting faith and religion and relationship with God for the simple logic of atheism, the world is looking less loving, not more loving?

Could it be that militant atheism, in its religiosity, pure ideology, anger, lack of empathy, and anthropocentric hubris, is simply a new manifestation of the same neurophysiological patterning that leads to fundamentalism of all stripes?

Could it be that militant atheism is a fundamentalist philosophy with characteristics no different, say, than the Middle East movement known as ISIL, which purports to be a religious movement, but is really just a haven for human beings who have damaged their brains and have turned themselves into the Four Horsemen of the Dark Psychological Tetrad (Psychopathy, Narcissism, Sadism, and Machiavellianism)?

Black Beauty T. Rex at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta. Sure, it's unrealistic and unscientific for Creationists to deny the evidence of the fossil record and claim that Planet Earth is only a few thousand years old. No argument there. But it's also unrealistic and unscientific for militant atheists to deny the evidence of the quantum record, which speaks of weird phenomena such as non-locality, the conscious observer, bosons, fermions, and magnetism, not to mention all the dark matter and dark energy we know almost nothing about. From my perspective, the atheist belief that "dumb luck" led to the evolution of the universe requires a much higher degree of sanctimonious denial than the Creationist position could ever muster. Are we humans really so incredibly amazing that the entire universe evolved just so we could have consciousness with all the rights and privileges of the conscious observer effect? Really? We can't even manage our own bank accounts, let alone act as wise custodians of Planet Earth, so why would the universe evolve to give humankind the unique right to mess with the laws of physics? Photo credit JAT 2015.

The militant atheists I've known (and I've known quite a few) strut and preen in exactly the same harsh way as the spiritual and theological narcissists I've known. They're certain of their rightness, certain of their objective intellect, certain they have all the facts. They're quick to judge and even quicker to punish. They have no empathy (though they rush to claim they live by the laws of empathy's hobbled cousins "compassion" and "mercy"). They rely almost exclusively on the brain's System 2 thinking processes (linear thinking) and pour contempt on the brain's much older and more adaptive System 1 thinking processes (creative and intuitive thinking). They're slow to learn from their mistakes and even slower to admit they made any mistakes in the first place.

Here's something else I've noticed about militant atheists and other fundamentalist philosophers: they're really, really poor at constructing a whole and complete argument. In fact, most of them couldn't argue their way out of a wet paper bag. But don't say this to their face, because they'll explode in vengeful anger -- maybe even treat you to a narcissistic rage reaction -- and they'll make you pay BIG for pointing out they're not really as smart as they think they are.

I take issue with militant atheist philosophies on the following fronts:

• They use restricted data sets and then claim they're using a complete data set. One example is an extreme reliance on Materialist cause-and-effect "Law" without regard or deference to the non-Materialist laws that govern most of the universe. Why is it "wrong" for religious leaders to ignore the actual laws of physics but "right" for atheists to do it when it suits them?
• Another example, taken from the field of religious studies, is a tendency for atheists to conflate many different topics into a single "bugaboo" called religion. Sure, religious fundamentalists conflate stuff all the time -- but why is it okay for atheists to fall back on conflation, over-simplification, literalism, and myth-making of their own?  
• Atheists, in my experience, rely heavily on "revelation" to an extent that rivals the worst abuses of "religious revelation" from major world religions. Under the category of "revelation" you find "proofs" such as "Because I said so," "Because I'm smarter than you," "Because I cherry-picked one small fact from an entire body of knowledge and used it out of context to show how smart I am," and "I just know it's true."
• Atheism has its own set of gods, though it likes to pretend otherwise. Top on the list of atheism's idols are "The Perfect Human Mind," followed closely by scientism; algorithmic solutions; and variations on the "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my genes made me do it" argument (which is really no different than the ancient religious argument that says "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my demons made me do it").
• Atheism is marked by a petulant, narcissistic refusal to examine the enormous and interconnected questions of scale, time, peripheral vision, alternating current, bonding, probability wave currents, and other non-linear, non-Materialist questions related to God and consciousness and Creation. They use their own personal human limits as proof that God can't actually exist! (as if God has ever understood questions of scale, time, etc. in the way a human brain does!) 

How are these philosophical approaches any different, characterologically speaking, from those used by religious fundamentalists?

How can you expect to become a happier, healthier person who understands patience and love and forgiveness and calmness and flexibility and healing and scale and time and bonding and breadth of knowledge and self-directed morality when you've made the choice to turn yourself into an "iceberg thinker" who refuses to look at anything except the small percentage of data floating above the surface of your System 2 thinking?

And why do you think it's wrong for religious teachers to do this but okay for you to do exactly the same thing?

In my view, militant atheism is hypocrisy in as pure a form as one can get.

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March 2, 2016 addendum: A recent piece by Brian Bethune in Macleans highlights some interesting research by social scientists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog into the unusual percentage of Islamist terrorists who have engineering degrees: http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-do-so-many-jihadis-have-engineering-degrees/. Bethune says: "That takes Hertog and Gambetta to the thorny question of “mindsets for extremists.” Different types of people are attracted to different kinds of extremism—engineers mostly on one side, social scientists and humanities grads on the other—and the authors went in search of traits found in both secular and jihadi extremists as well as among engineers. Three stand out among conservatives in general in recent psychological research: disgust (or the felt need to keep one’s environment pure, which can underpin everything from homophobia to xenophobia); the “need for cognitive closure” (a preference for order and certainty that can support authoritarianism); a very high in-group/out-group distinction."

LSP37: The Coat of Many Colours: What Scientology Teaches Us About Gnosticism

There's only thing I like about L. Ron Hubbard's cult of Scientology, and that's the way it serves as a teaching tool about the brutal efficiency of prophetic "revelation."

This morning, on the BBC site, I found a wonderful article by Owen Gleiberman about the new Alex Gibney documentary on Scientology. The documentary, called "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" has been attracting a lot of attention since its release earlier this year. The film is in turned based on the 2013 book by Lawrence Wright called "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief."

Gleiberman ends his article by saying this:

The twisted genius of L Ron Hubbard is that he figured out a way to define and exploit contemporary soul sickness. He was right about the disease. But Going Clear makes a powerful case that he came up with a cure that only made it worse.

Yes, L. Ron Hubbard was a twisted genius. As Gleiberman notes, the film "captures how Hubbard fused reality, fantasy and the pursuit of enlightenment in a way that, according to the film's witnesses, expressed his own highly unstable and even violent nature."

This is what prophets do.

(Please note that I draw clear distinctions between the terms "prophet" and "mystic." For me, the term "prophet" is reserved for an individual of dubious mental health who uses claims of "divine revelation" to establish his or her primacy of authority over others. By contrast, I use the term "mystic" to refer to individuals who are on the extreme end of the "intuition" spectrum, most of whom go through life as writers and philosophers without becoming consciously aware of their vocation as "mystics.")

Prophets who claim divine religious authority for themselves aren't new. Shown here is a red granite statue from Egypt's 18th Dynasty (Temple of Khonspakhered) on display at the British Museum, London UK. Photo credit JAT 2023.

A prophet isn't interested in teaching people how to heal their relationship with God. A prophet is instead interested in crafting an entire "philosophy of science" (a cosmogony, if you will) for the purpose of explaining to you in ruthlessly logical ways why you should hand over to the prophet your integrity; your money; your free will; your core self of worthiness and wisdom; and your relationship with God.

The coat of many colours you were born with is stripped away from you, and in its place you're given a "new and improved" garment of ash.

You're told when you put it on that you're donning the pure white garb of enlightenment. You're told that you're abandoning the burden of emotion, replacing the heaviness of emotion with the weightlessness of pure reason. You're told that all the proof you need lies around you in the Materialist laws of Cause and Effect. You're told that when you see past of the illusions you've created for yourself, you'll suddenly recognize that you can transcend your lowly humanness and reclaim your rightful place in the universe as God. Or Buddha. Or Thetan (as Scientologists describe it).

The garment you've been given reeks of pure narcissism. It reeks of the prophet's absolute refusal to accept that he's a mere child of God. It reeks of his conviction that he himself is so omniscient and so omnipotent that he surely MUST be a god who has lost his memory of his own godhood and fallen to Earth, where he's obliged to dig his way out of Earth's heavy muck so he can stop being reincarnated here.

So have I conflated several different religious beliefs here? On the surface, it would seem so. But no.  What I've done here is describe a single religious paradigm that manifests again and again in humanity's many diverse cultures, not because it's right but because it so beautifully suits the psychological needs of bullies, tyrants, narcissists, and psychopaths.

What I've described here is Gnosticism.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Scientology's underlying cosmogony:

Scientology beliefs revolve around the thetan, the individualized expression of the cosmic source, or life force, named after the Greek letter theta (θ). The thetan is the true identity of a person – an intrinsically good, omniscient, non-material core capable of unlimited creativity. 

In the primordial past, thetans brought the material universe into being largely for their own pleasure. The universe has no independent reality, but derives its apparent reality from the fact that most thetans agree it exists. Thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity.  Eventually they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. As a result, thetans came to think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings.

Thetans are reborn time and time again in new bodies through a process called "assumption" which is analogous to reincarnation. Like Hinduism, Scientology posits a causal relationship between the experiences of earlier incarnations and one's present life, and with each rebirth, the effects of the MEST universe (MEST here stands for matter, energy, space, and time) on the thetan become stronger.

It's easy to see the narcissism that underlies the teachings of Scientology. This particular body of teachings is so new that most of us haven't yet overlaid the raw narcissism of it with layers and layers of "divine authority" derived from "ancient tradition." Scientology would like you to pretend that L. Ron Hubbard successfully transcended his own flawed humanity, but, as Going Clear shows, this isn't true. The legacy of a revelatory prophet is most vulnerable in the decades soon after his life, when there are still witnesses with long memories and solid documentation who can attest to the true character of the prophet.

Scientology, like other forms of Gnosticism, is really an attempt to rupture the relationship between individuals and God.

It's just so damned inconvenient, from the narcissist's point of view, to have a God who's already here and already acting for our benefit. The narcissist can't tolerate the idea that he -- a human being -- isn't the smartest, fastest, strongest being in Creation. So, to assuage his intolerably monstrous ego, he invents an entire cosmogony where he is God and he is on a brave and bold quest to reclaim his rightful power as God. Or Buddha. Or Thetan.

By looking at the origins of Scientology -- and specifically at the psychological issues that have driven the founders and chief promoters of this new cult -- we can see the pattern of narcissistic behaviours for ourselves. We can then use our observations to help us decide which aspects of our own spiritual journeys are holding us back as we try to heal our relationship with God.

In order to progress on the Spiral Path of faith, science, wonder, and relationship with God, you must start with the assumption that it's good enough for you to be a child of God instead of trying to become Mother Father God themselves.

Being a child of God entitles you to all the benefits of wearing the coat of many colours God gives to all God's children. It entitles you to be fully yourself, without judgment, abuse, or psychological violence. It entitles you to live passionately according to the needs of both the Heart and the Mind. It entitles you to view your human lifetime as a richly rewarding, positive experience instead of a punitive, degrading, sin-filled, mud-wrestling match. It entitles you to blend both Materialist laws and non-Materialist laws in your daily life. It entitles you to be honest with yourself about how much you really want and need to be in relationship with God.

Gardens are one way to experience the coat of many colours while you're here on Planet Earth. God invites you to help with planting and watering and weeding a garden to create a place of peace, beauty, and healing for others to enjoy (including creatures great and small). But God doesn't expect you to be in charge of the design of every living organism in the vast universe we live in. That's God's job!  Enjoy the gardens of Earth while you're here and rejoice in the ways you can help create and sustain such beauty. It may not be a much of a contribution as far as a spiritual narcissist is concerned, but it's important as far as God and your angels and your own soul are concerned.  Great blessings come in small packages!

It's no fun at all believing you're required to be responsible for everything in Creation. Fortunately, God doesn't expect you to be God.

If you can manage to embrace the first stanza of the Serenity Prayer and live in basic accordance with the tenets of the Twelve Step Program, you'll be doing very well as far as your angels -- and your God -- are concerned.

Best of luck to you!

LSP36: Do You Agree with the Statement that "You Are God"?

Click here to find out everything he revealed!!!!! Yes, you too can know you are God!!!!!

So went the text of a recent promo sent to me via OMTimesMedia. I've retyped some of the relevant passages here:

In a recent message from Dr. Baskaran Pillai, who Dr. Wayne Dyer has called ‘one of the most Enlightened people on the planet’, he reiterated that you (yes you) are in fact God.

There is, however, a catch…

You must realize it. That is to say ‘real-ize’ or ‘actual-ize’ it.

However for most of us, and maybe you can relate, most of our time and energy goes into our human identity, not our spiritual one.

This is the root cause of so many of our frustrations, disappointments, and problems in life.
Dr. Pillai has shared 2 things from his recent meditations that he wants you to know:

1. You MUST defeat your image to real-ize your inherent God potential.
2. A set of divine tools and techniques that can make this process easy.

“This is my New Teaching that just came from my meditation over the past few days. I barely slept. I kept up all night, and then I had visions about humanity changing, and then I was given this teaching. ‘Defeat the Image.’ Why? Then only you can put a new image in.” – Dr. Pillai

 
Dr. Pillai isn't the only one peddling this spiritual snake oil. It's been around for millennia. This is one of the reasons I laughed out loud when I read his self-important statement above: "This is my New Teaching that just came from my meditation over the past few days. I barely slept. I kept up all night, and then I had visions about humanity changing, and then I was given this teaching."

Well, you know, when you abuse your biological brain in this way, you're bound to start having biological consequences such as hallucinations.

Self-induced hallucinations, combined with personality issues such as narcissism, status addiction, and schadenfreude frequently generate what is known in theological circles as "revelation" -- in other words, a "New Teaching" given to a specially chosen prophet along with "a set of divine tools and techniques that can make this process easy."

Ah yes, the "easy fix" promised by "Enlightened Masters" today and in days long past. Oh wait  . . . you're not supposed to bring up the topic of days long past. You're only supposed to focus on today's message, today's very special, one-of-a-kind, never-heard-before message from today's specially chosen divine messenger, because this time it's different! This time, after all God's failed efforts to make himself heard and understood, God has finally -- at long last and at great peril! -- managed to push his way through the terrible obstacles of the Unseen Realms and speak to one specially chosen messenger!

When you take the time to study the history of religious claims about God, you start to see the same claims popping up over and over across different religions, cultures, time spans, and geographical places. Some claims are positive and helpful, like the good fruits from God's garden that keep your body, mind, and inner heart healthy. Other claims, such as the revelation that you're actually God, are a waste of your time and money -- sort of like buying a big bag of juicy autumn pears and discovering when you get home that all of the pears are rotten in the middle. Photo credit JAT 2022.

O, lucky us, that we, at this unique time and place, should somehow manage to be the only ones ever in history to whom God has managed to speak the One Truth! How did we survive before this special time of ascension?! How did we cope without realizing we're actually God?! I mean, really, if we'd known this before, we could have had smartphones and movie streaming centuries ago without wasting our time on all that stupid stuff like insight, forgiveness, morality of happiness (as opposed to morality of obligation), and what it means to use our free will (and our humanity) as children of God! We could have just jumped straight to the good stuff without all the bother and hard work of trusting God and trusting each other and trusting the science of Creation! Who needs trust and love and respect when you can claim God potential instead?

I refuse to supply a link for the above "spiritual infomercial." You're welcome to search for it if you insist. But I have free will and I don't believe that all religious teachings are equally healing and equally helpful in our lives as human beings. I tend to believe the evidence of my own eyes, which suggests that some religious teachings -- far from showing people how to be loving and respectful -- actually turn people into spoiled, narcissistic brats incapable of making moral decisions.

The "You Are God" teachings turn people into spoiled, narcissistic brats.

Use them at your own risk.

But if you use them, ask this question: Why isn't it enough for you to be you -- a child of God who is fully cherished and respected as an equal member of God's wondrous family precisely BECAUSE you aren't God?

Why would you want to be somebody you're not? 

LSP30: Spirituality: Don't Let It Become Your Personal Addiction Playground

I wrote the following paragraphs in response to a question posted recently in an online spirituality forum. The question was, "Why must those who claim to be Spiritual be so afraid of honest debate?"

Honest debate is a good antidote for the problems created by top-down philosophical authority (a.k.a. Revelation). But first it's helpful to understand the obstacles that get in the way of honest debate.

________________________________________________________

It's easier to see the effects of status addiction in spheres of life such as politics or business, as highlighted in a recent Atlantic article by Jerry Useem about the "power paradox." But the same thing happens in spiritual and religious circles because, like it or not, we only have so many brain networks. The biological networks you use to build knowledge, authority, relationships, and organizational planning in the business world are the same networks you use to build knowledge, etc., in the religious or spiritual world. You can't separate the networks (though many unethical spiritual teachers will tell you you can). So if you're vulnerable to the problems of addiction -- especially status addiction -- you're not immune to the problems caused by too much power or too much infallibility in the spiritual world. Like everybody else, you have to deal with the biology God has given you -- not the biology you'd like to think you have. Photo credit JAT 2017.

Another point to consider is the neuroscientific perspective, since a person who's on a spiritual path is still a human being who's dealing with all the realities of biology, chemistry, and physics. 

The human brain is vulnerable to addiction issues. (Actually, many other species are vulnerable to addiction issues, too, but this isn't the place for that discussion.) Addiction issues can really get in the way within spiritual circles, especially when the "drug of choice" is status.

Status addiction is a physiological addiction -- a biological addiction -- that's no different (as far as the brain is concerned) than better known addictions such as alcohol or substance abuse. It hasn't been examined much in scientific studies. I hope this lack of scientific interest will soon change.

Status addiction often expresses itself as the "Right to Be Right" -- a psychological need to present a belief or an opinion as a "universal truth" that can't be challenged. This status-driven "Right to Be Right" is often seen in both scientific and theological circles, where the payoff for being "right" can be quite large. (Note that acquiring money isn't the key issue here; acquiring status points is the goal, so an ascetic who's given up all his or her money and belongings can still be suffering from a self-devouring status addiction.)

When a status addict's "Right to Be Right" is challenged, he or she will respond as all addicts do (until they begin to confront their personal addictions): they'll do whatever they have to do to protect their daily "fix."

I've had personal encounters with a number of status addicts who've chosen the spiritual world as their personal addiction playground, and let me tell you -- it ain't pretty when you confront them.

As with any form of addiction, a Twelve Step Program could prove very helpful for dealing with the intense cravings of status addiction and the unloving behaviour that often results.

Hope this helps.

Blessings,
Jen

LSP23: Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . . Pseudo-Dionysius!

A number of years ago, I picked up a remaindered book called The Physics of Angels: Exploring the Realm Where Science and Spirit Meet by theologian Matthew Fox and biologist Rupert Sheldrake (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996). At first glance, it looked fascinating, but I didn't open the cover until I was writing a term paper about Pseudo-Dionysius for a 2009 church history course.

I returned to Fox and Sheldrake's book yesterday when I discovered it on the list of "Recommended Reading" on Eben Alexander's website (www.ebenalexander.com). My eyebrows shot to the top of my head. Why was The Physics of Angels being touted by a neuroscientist?

I didn't like The Physics of Angels in 2009, and I like it even less now. It's a perfect example of how NOT to approach the study of mysticism.

You probably think it doesn't matter that Pseudo-Dionysius was an early 6th century Neoplatonic Christian mystic and writer who single-handedly invented Western Christianity's early doctrines of "mystical theology" -- and you'd be right if it weren't for the fact that people today are still gobbling up this fake mystic's writings, putting them on a pedestal, and treating them like gospel truth.

Statue of Archangel Michael, late 13th century, Ile-de-France, on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Although much has been written over the centuries in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources about Michael (said by many to be the first of the seven archangels and the leader of the Hosts of Heaven), the focus on angelic hierarchies in Pseudo-Dionysius's writings should set off your alarm bells. Divine Love isn't based on ladders of ascension or hierarchies of perfection. Divine Love spreads outwards, not upwards. Once you get used to the idea that there's no evil force opposing God in the universe (an evil entity variously named Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, etc.), you quickly see there's no reason for God to have an angelic army led by a sainted archangelic demi-god. Photo credit JAT 2018.

In their book, Fox and Sheldrake look at the writings of three historical Christian mystics -- 6th century Pseudo-Dionysius, 12th century Hildegard of Bingen, and 13th century Thomas of Aquinas -- to discuss who and what angels are in light of modern findings from physics. 

The problem here is that Fox and Sheldrake haven't done their historical homework, so they seem to think it's okay to use the "teachings" of Pseudo-Dionysius as if they're a reliable source.

Since when is a man reliable when he pretends he's a 1st century disciple of Paul, but really he's a 6th century writer who elaborately constructs a "mystical paradigm" about Heaven, and then presents it as "divine revelation" so the side he's taking in a big theological debate will win? (His side was the side that wanted to bring Plato's "truths" into the Christian fold as "Christian truths." His side won.)

Since when is the man who first coined the word "hierarchy" a reliable source for those who want to feel God's non-hierarchical love in their everyday lives?

Pseudo-Dionysius has a lot to say about angels because he has a lot to say about why human beings should obey their bishops, commanders, and rulers. He understands that if you're using religion to control the populace (a familiar tactic in so many human cultures), it's very helpful if you can "reveal" lots of impenetrable gobbledygook about celestial spheres. Then you can wave it about and tell people that if they want to get closer to God, they should submit to the same hierarchical structure of obedience to human leaders on Earth as angels joyfully abide by in Heaven. As above, so below -- but with a tyrannical twist. 

The methods of Pseudo-Dionysius are both devious and brilliant. And for centuries, his invented stories about angels have made it really difficult for regular people to trust that Heaven is a place where they'll be welcome.

In our culture, we don't take scientific concepts from the 6th century and give them special status just because they're old. Instead, we take historical scientific concepts and carefully reexamine them in light of newer findings. We acquire new data, compare it to older data, ask new questions, and ask whether the older questions were the best questions possible. We don't just take a writer's word for it because he uses lofty words and images. We should approach historical theological claims with the same rigour we apply to historical scientific claims.

Mystics of the past have changed the course of history, but this doesn't mean they were right -- or even very nice. When a person makes super-claims for himself and his side in a theological debate, we should think twice about his motives. And we should ask who was benefiting most from his "revelations": himself or God.

No one who has actually felt the loving presence of God or God's angels could treat God and God's angels the way Pseudo-Dionysius did.

That's why I think he was a fraud.


For Further Reflection:

Everybody who believes in Heaven is incredibly curious about it. We want to know what it looks like, what it feels like, what it sounds like. We want to know what happens when we get to Heaven. We want to know who we'll see and how we'll be received when we arrive. What will happen to us in the future? What do angels look like and how do they behave? We want to know pretty much everything. And this is perfectly normal for all human beings.

But our abundant curiosity about Heaven makes us vulnerable to spiritual and religious charlatans.

By all means, feel free to explore the personal narratives of those who've had near death experiences, or those who've had visions of Heaven and angelic beings. Many reported experiences are legitimate and life-altering, obviously so for the individuals who've found themselves coming face-to-face with God in the most unexpected ways, and sometimes equally so for the people around these individuals.

Bear in mind, though, that every single human description of Heaven and heavenly beings is only a partial picture of the Truth. The human brain can know quite a few things about Heaven, but we can't know everything because our brains have limits. Even mystics such as myself, who voluntarily connect with God's presence each day, have limits.

This is normal and healthy, and there's no way around these built-in limitations, so don't try. And don't listen to spiritual gurus who tell you that God has revealed to them everything you'll ever need to know about Heaven -- and MORE!!! God sometimes does speak directly to certain individuals, but when this happens, the words and images and feelings are highly specific, highly end-user-directed. In other words, the way God communicates with you isn't exactly the same way God communicates with your neighbour. And Divine communications aren't usually about Truth with a capital "T" -- they're almost always about relationships. So what one person sees and feels about Heaven isn't going to be exactly the same as what his/her neighbour sees and feels, with a small number of exceptions, as follows.

This is a list of things about Heaven that every human being can relate to, even though during our human lives we can't always believe we'll one day feel so loved:

1. Every single soul who incarnates on Planet Earth will return to the place we call Heaven when the physical body dies. No exceptions, not even for tyrants, pedophiles, and the unshriven.

2. When you return Home to Heaven, you will (as you've heard so often) be reunited with your loved ones, and they'll be crying because they're so happy to see you.

3. You'll feel wrapped in a blanket of Peace and Divine Love that's so warm and blissful it's a bit beyond words. You'll feel safe, happy, sad, proud, and confused all at the same time. But mostly you'll feel loved.

4. You'll feel grateful for all the experiences you had as a human being (even the painful ones).

5. You'll spend some time healing and learning from your experiences, and, when you're ready, you'll help others do the same.

6. You'll understand God's wisdom in ways you never thought possible, and your Heart will feel as if it's going to burst with the wonder of God's Divine Love and Forgiveness.

7. You'll probably decide you don't want to incarnate again, but if you think another incarnation might be right for you, you'll talk it over with your angelic family for many, many years, and then you'll reincarnate several centuries in the future. Physical incarnation is a difficult process for all persons-of-soul, so there are no exceptions to the "wait-and-see" guidelines for future incarnations. God only lets you incarnate if there's something you can't learn through any other angelic learning process.

That's about it.

The rest is all gravy.