A last winter trip to the cabin brought me from melting puddles of dirty snow to the Big Deep, 3 feet base with 6 inch powder in the incredible snowscape of the UP. There are always the dark hours, though, and I brought with me the perfect book for those times, heavy enough for thought, but light enough for pleasure: Seeking Jordan by Mathew McKay.
The premise is touching: McKay, a psychologist from the Bay area, gets a phone call from the police late at night, informing him that his 23 year old son has been murdered - senselessly, as it turns out. He and his wife are devastated, and in time seek out mediums and trans-personal psychologists to cross the divide of death and contact their son. They are successful, and this book is purportedly co-written, the father using automatic writing to convey his son's answers about the after-death life to him and now, to us.
This has been done in the modern way since the 19th century, when talking to the dead was no longer considered (by many) the sin of necromancy - the ancient sorcerer's route for gaining knowledge from the dead. It is the knowledge gained that makes it different from 100 years ago, but it fits well within New Age concepts that have linked Christian and Eastern religions. To me, who loves reading this genre, this book relates very familiar stuff: we are on Earth to gain knowledge, even at the cost of pain, which can make the knowledge more compelling; we come back to Earth in many lifetimes to learn lessons, or relearn lessons that were refused in the last life; we are schooled in the afterlife along with our spiritual cohorts by wise masters; we choose our next life after this long (although time is different here) period of learning by examining our past life and others; and that all is love in the after world.
There are also some new wrinkles in McKay's (and son's) work: that God is all of us, everything, not some distinct all-knowing being; that the universe is made by consciousness, and as we grow as a group, the universe changes; and that the darkness and emptiness of our current universe reflects our own ignorance. This last made the greatest impression, for knowledge is light, and our knowledge is like the pinpricks of planets and sons in the vast emptiness of our unknowns. Obviously, we have a long way to go before we fill our universe with "light," or knowledge.
Overall, the author wants us to understand that we never die, nor are ever separated. He believes, or was told, in fact, that a part of us never leaves the after life, which looks after us, knowing much more about our greater existence and reasons for being here than our conscious selves do (this I have understood to be the Overmind, a term I gave it when first experienced. It was not until later that I discovered that others had found it, too, and had often given it the same name). Our reason for this painful life of separation and amnesia is to experience the world as something raw, as real, not as the part-time play that it really is. The pain goes away after death, leaving us with the knowledge gained for eternity. There, we understand and approve of the suffering that is sometimes necessary here.
Ah, but is it so? I do not believe McKay would use his son for profit in this manner, and so must really believe in his experiences. In the book, he makes it clear that he understands the probable skepticism on the reader's part, questioning himself often as well. He knows that many of his peers will ridicule him, or feel sorry for him, but believes that this knowledge is essential - and I believe he believes this. However, as usual with such New Age stuff, it does seem like wish fulfillment, too down-pat and normal for the Otherworld. But this might be because it is lost in translation - that to communicate what is on the other side is only possible in our own terminology.
I don't know; I wish it were so, too. Hell scares me, and the faith necessary to make it to the Christian heaven is largely not up to us. In much the same way, the perfection needed to make it to the Eastern nirvana is also way, way beyond most of us mortals. That we always will go to a place of love after death is a nice thought, as is the idea that our departed loved ones are always with us, watching out for us.
Yes, it seems too perfect, too suited to the comparatively wealthy and safe citizens of the Western world. On the other hand, the author reminds us that telepathy and talking with the dead - with corresponding real-world results - has been noted by many investigators, who have counted such subjects in the thousands. Yes, something odd is going on, something far beyond what we know in the clouded human conscious. And yes, we are also told again and again by religions across the globe that whatever god or nirvana is, it is, ultimately, love.
Are we then to believe the grieving father? We must reiterate, I think, the idea that we can never really understand what is going on "out there' and must be fed something that explains it in terms we can understand. It could never be exactly as McKay describes, as we and the others are on such different plans, but perhaps - maybe even probably - the underlying and connecting factor is love; that behind the pain and fear and suffering in this life lies a reason for it all based in love. Good enough for now, and reason enough to write - and read - the book. FK
The premise is touching: McKay, a psychologist from the Bay area, gets a phone call from the police late at night, informing him that his 23 year old son has been murdered - senselessly, as it turns out. He and his wife are devastated, and in time seek out mediums and trans-personal psychologists to cross the divide of death and contact their son. They are successful, and this book is purportedly co-written, the father using automatic writing to convey his son's answers about the after-death life to him and now, to us.
This has been done in the modern way since the 19th century, when talking to the dead was no longer considered (by many) the sin of necromancy - the ancient sorcerer's route for gaining knowledge from the dead. It is the knowledge gained that makes it different from 100 years ago, but it fits well within New Age concepts that have linked Christian and Eastern religions. To me, who loves reading this genre, this book relates very familiar stuff: we are on Earth to gain knowledge, even at the cost of pain, which can make the knowledge more compelling; we come back to Earth in many lifetimes to learn lessons, or relearn lessons that were refused in the last life; we are schooled in the afterlife along with our spiritual cohorts by wise masters; we choose our next life after this long (although time is different here) period of learning by examining our past life and others; and that all is love in the after world.
There are also some new wrinkles in McKay's (and son's) work: that God is all of us, everything, not some distinct all-knowing being; that the universe is made by consciousness, and as we grow as a group, the universe changes; and that the darkness and emptiness of our current universe reflects our own ignorance. This last made the greatest impression, for knowledge is light, and our knowledge is like the pinpricks of planets and sons in the vast emptiness of our unknowns. Obviously, we have a long way to go before we fill our universe with "light," or knowledge.
Overall, the author wants us to understand that we never die, nor are ever separated. He believes, or was told, in fact, that a part of us never leaves the after life, which looks after us, knowing much more about our greater existence and reasons for being here than our conscious selves do (this I have understood to be the Overmind, a term I gave it when first experienced. It was not until later that I discovered that others had found it, too, and had often given it the same name). Our reason for this painful life of separation and amnesia is to experience the world as something raw, as real, not as the part-time play that it really is. The pain goes away after death, leaving us with the knowledge gained for eternity. There, we understand and approve of the suffering that is sometimes necessary here.
Ah, but is it so? I do not believe McKay would use his son for profit in this manner, and so must really believe in his experiences. In the book, he makes it clear that he understands the probable skepticism on the reader's part, questioning himself often as well. He knows that many of his peers will ridicule him, or feel sorry for him, but believes that this knowledge is essential - and I believe he believes this. However, as usual with such New Age stuff, it does seem like wish fulfillment, too down-pat and normal for the Otherworld. But this might be because it is lost in translation - that to communicate what is on the other side is only possible in our own terminology.
I don't know; I wish it were so, too. Hell scares me, and the faith necessary to make it to the Christian heaven is largely not up to us. In much the same way, the perfection needed to make it to the Eastern nirvana is also way, way beyond most of us mortals. That we always will go to a place of love after death is a nice thought, as is the idea that our departed loved ones are always with us, watching out for us.
Yes, it seems too perfect, too suited to the comparatively wealthy and safe citizens of the Western world. On the other hand, the author reminds us that telepathy and talking with the dead - with corresponding real-world results - has been noted by many investigators, who have counted such subjects in the thousands. Yes, something odd is going on, something far beyond what we know in the clouded human conscious. And yes, we are also told again and again by religions across the globe that whatever god or nirvana is, it is, ultimately, love.
Are we then to believe the grieving father? We must reiterate, I think, the idea that we can never really understand what is going on "out there' and must be fed something that explains it in terms we can understand. It could never be exactly as McKay describes, as we and the others are on such different plans, but perhaps - maybe even probably - the underlying and connecting factor is love; that behind the pain and fear and suffering in this life lies a reason for it all based in love. Good enough for now, and reason enough to write - and read - the book. FK
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