She Spoke to the Dead. They Told Her to Free the Slaves.

Of course slavery was abolished (well, supposedly in most parts of the world) long before NDE's were brought to our attention in huge numbers, but of course the experience has always been there. We don't have any reliable sources? to know if slavery was frowned upon during old or ancient "life reviews" (shall we say) as more or less everyone stayed dead (when they died).  

Of course I cannot see how it could ever be justified under any circumstances but that leads us into all kinds of problems with the term 'all knowing' and 'all loving' deity etc and the problem of evil and it's logical origin or not.

I suspect the afterlife doesn't provide an immediate access to what we might think of as grand moral truths.

Gary Lachman's said something about this relating to Revelation, that people like Blavatsky had some insight into reality but this was seen through a veil of societal conditioning. We also see this in some occult/religious figures, a mix of time-based prejudices with pronouncements of all humans being equal in spirit.

There's also the way spiritual belief can inform moral direction - even the atheist Chomsky has noted how belief in dualism helped push abolition of slavery.

One explanation, perhaps too easy, is that just as Spirit descends into Matter our perception of the Good is clouded.

I suspect the afterlife doesn't provide an immediate access to what we might think of as grand moral truths.

Gary Lachman's said something about this relating to Revelation, that people like Blavatsky had some insight into reality but this was seen through a veil of societal conditioning. We also see this in some occult/religious figures, a mix of time-based prejudices with pronouncements of all humans being equal in spirit.

There's also the way spiritual belief can inform moral direction - even the atheist Chomsky has noted how belief in dualism helped push abolition of slavery.

One explanation, perhaps too easy, is that just as Spirit descends into Matter our perception of the Good is clouded.

I felt enormous relief that I had returned from a nut house, but also some shame about my behaviour, quickly receiving the message that 'nothing that happens there matters, all that matters is that you return'.

The other message last year was 'the others [still] bite and scratch at each other' but again, the sense that this doesn't matter.

But one odd story makes me pause... the 'Lyndhurst Estate, Erdington, Birmingham' experience from 'Credible Witness I' (a collection of paranormal experiences from UK police force personnel) is an odd story where a guy the policeman meets knows things about him, and says he has a message for him. The policeman agrees to meet some days later at a bedsit in a large house on Chester Road, near the railway station. It's here that the guy speaks to the policeman '...about opening a door, which would give me information, and if I chose to do that then there would be no going back...'. The policeman declined the offer, but returning to the house later, he was stunned to find the attic bedsit did not exist.

The full story is very weird... it's the one that makes me doubt a little... and makes one wonder whether there is much more going on here than we suspect... and the rest of the stuff is just a 'keep off the grass' notice?

I felt enormous relief that I had returned from a nut house, but also some shame about my behaviour, quickly receiving the message that 'nothing that happens there matters, all that matters is that you return'.

The other message last year was 'the others [still] bite and scratch at each other' but again, the sense that this doesn't matter.

But one odd story makes me pause... the  'Lyndhurst Estate, Erdington, Birmingham' experience from 'Credible Witness I' (a collection of paranormal experiences from UK police force personnel) is an odd story  where a guy the policeman meets knows things about him, and says he has a message for him. The policeman agrees to meet some days later at a bedsit in a large house on Chester Road, near the railway station. It's here that the guy speaks to the policeman  '...about opening a door, which would give me information, and if I chose to do that then there would be no going back...'. The policeman declined the offer, but returning to the house later, he was stunned to find the attic bedsit did not exist.

The full story is very weird... it's the one that makes me doubt a little... and makes one wonder whether there is much more going on here than we suspect... and the rest of the stuff is just a 'keep off the grass' notice?

In hindsight, perhaps I was not explicit enough about why the Birmingham experience has caused me some doubt.

Take North Korea... imagine if you arrived in some small village, and told a peasant who lived in that place, that if they wished, you could give them access to information about an existence beyond their own knowledge. But you knew that once you revealed this knowledge, there would be no going back for them. They would not be able to unlearn what they had experienced, and unless they could find a way to live in peace with this information, they would be forever conflicted by their knowledge of it's existence.

Now imagine that North Korea, is just a slightly different system, one of many (including your own) spread upon the earth, all of which are built upon another more fundamental system. Imagine if someone, a stranger, from outside of this more fundamental system, met you on the street one day, and told you that if you wished, they could help you access information that exists beyond your own knowledge, but if you chose to open this door, there would be no going back.

“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.”
Rumi

To be honest, I think Rumi is speaking here of the transcendent soul's ascent back to God through the celestial spheres. It's more an exercise in medieval cosmology than anything else.

I think there are some teleological aspects in different faiths. Both ancient Greece and India seem to have ideas relating to consciousness actively creating/entering the world and then ascending again. [Also Gnosticism/Hermeticism and Kabbalah could be said to express this to some degree I think?]

They "fit" with evolution but I don't think any of them necessarily can be said to predict it.

Transmigration. Interesting. I'll give it a think.

Thinking about this one more...I'd be curious if there were similar messages. This seems like one of the few clearly moral commandments through a paranormal exchange?

Plato describes an NDE, the first historical record of one, but he doesn't seem to receive any messages to free the slaves of Greece. I don't recall any Hindu/Vedic mystic experiences of seeming Absolute Idealism making a change to the caste system either.

There are some NDEs telling people to spread the faith of Pure Land Buddhism but again I don't recall a clear moral message beyond that about challenging some long held cultural evil like, say, foot binding of women.

https://bq.blakearchive.org/13.2.paley

The message in the engraving and in the the accompanying story was clear that Africans had insight to the soul an religion.  They were WINNING a contest over the Euro ability to experience "higher love".  At the time this was published in London - the slave trade was at its peak.

I am unsure there is anything else quite like this, where the "white" moral authority and prejudice was directly challenged by a spiritualistic source.  

 Engraving by Metz after Després.  Cidaris Erit Africo. 

This was published in the first number of the New Jerusalem Magazine (1790). The design illustrates a Memorable Relation in The Delights of Wisdom Respecting Conjugal Love (no. 114). Angels in the spiritual world hold a contest on the subject of “the true origin, virtue, and power, of Conjugal Love.” The prize is a golden mitre adorned with precious gems. Learned Europeans from different countries are unable to give a correct answer; one of a band of Africans then speaks, and a voice from heaven declares “The Mitre shall be for the African.”

https://bq.blakearchive.org/13.2.paley

The message in the engraving and in the the accompanying story was clear that Africans had insight to the soul an religion.  They were WINNING a contest over the Euro ability to experience "higher love".  At the time this was published in London - the slave trade was at its peak.

I am unsure there is anything else quite like this, where the "white" moral authority and prejudice was directly challenged by a spiritualistic source. 

Just glanced at this and will dig deeper but great find! Very interesting to see mysticism and the paranormal experiences of Swedenborg inspiring some to fight against slavery.

I'll have to double check and look into whether any spiritual movements in India led to opposition of the caste system.

To be honest, I think Rumi is speaking here of the transcendent soul's ascent back to God through the celestial spheres. It's more an exercise in medieval cosmology than anything else.

I see no reference to spheres nor medieval ideas, but wont continue the discussion.

I see no reference to spheres nor medieval ideas, but wont continue the discussion.

I'm happy to explain, but it'll have to be in a few days time.  Oh, and I could be totally wrong of course.

[Ninshub]

Nat Turner: the case of a slave whose visions led him to stage a slave revolt. (Not sure if this counts as precognition instead of spiritual commandments, though!)

[Ninshub]

And allegedly mediums visiting Abraham Lincoln at the White House urged issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.

They formed a circle and Nettie was quickly entranced. Spirit spoke to the President for over an hour. President Lincoln was advised not to delay beyond the opening of the New Year, issuing and enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation. it the crowning achievement of his administration and his life. He was to Ignore his Cabinet advisors who were against.

“Conklin visited the presidential mansion on four succeeding Sundays and… Mr. Conklin has himself alleged that the Spirits no only urged the subject of the Emancipation Proclamation, but that they in the name of the Independence Fathers, spelled out, letter by letter the preliminary draft of the famous document.”