THE AFTERLIFE AS A PATHWAY TO A MORE PURPOSEFUL LIFE by CARLTON J. BULLER A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF METAPHYSICAL SCIENCE July 14, 2015 On behalf of the Department of Graduate Studies of the University of Metaphysics this submission has been accepted by the Thesis Committee. _________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor _________________________________________ Dean _________________________________________ President Acknowledgements From the tender age of five, until I was eleven years old, while suffering multiple types of abuse at the hands of perpetrating adults, my spirit somehow knew that it had to separate from my body in order to protect me from the physical and emotional pain. And I began traveling out of my body in my dreams and while awake. The abuse had forced me through the doorway of astral projection and into the reality of other parallel existences. As I grew up and matured, my natural curiosity about these and other related topics moved me to further investigate possibilities beyond our physical reality. That ultimately led to multiple paranormal experiences. These culminated with a dream where I traveled out of my body and witnessed an event in real time as it happened. This ultimately convinced me that there is indeed life beyond our physical manifestation, and for that I am extremely grateful. Am I grateful to my perpetrators for the abuse they precipitated upon me? That is an extremely difficult case to make. But everything is connected. There are no accidents. And there is no longer any doubt in my mind that everything that has unfolded in my life happened the way it did in order to make me who I am. Therefore, I am thankful to everyone, including my perpetrators, for contributing in one way or another to my continued awakening. Embracing the reality of life beyond our physical world has caused me to begin living a more purposeful life that is filled with unconditional love and compassion for myself and others. i Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................ i I. Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 1 II. Review of Research ............................................................................................................................... 3 III. Discussion............................................................................................................................................... 17 IV. Conclusion............................................................................................................................................... 33 Works Cited..................................................................................................................................................... 36 ii I. Introduction Religious teachings are typically based on blind belief. The flock is expected to accept a particular creed on the authority of the organization and its leaders. Of course, the Bible is cited as the ultimate authority on the word of God. But even belief in the words inscribed in the Bible is still blind belief because the believers do not know for themselves. These people are advised to have faith, blind faith, that what they are being taught is so. Conversely, teachers of metaphysics recommend that people not believe anything blindly. This includes the idea of life after death. Instead, they are highly encouraged to know the truth by finding out for themselves. On the surface, it may appear that the only way to really know the truth about life after death is by experiencing death, which is not a very practical way of finding out. But for centuries, a select few have gained this very knowledge through meditation. Today, with increasing frequency, ordinary people are utilizing meditation to make contact with the inner levels of the mind, referred to in psychology as the unconscious. Through deep meditation, they encounter astral dimensions of consciousness. And because, as psychic and mystical metaphysicians agree, we carry our after-death existence in the deeper recesses of our minds during our physical lifetimes, they are able to mentally experience these other planes of existence. Another way of acquiring the truth about life after death is through knowledge of the astral body. There is general agreement among mystical metaphysicians and psychics that, during our physical lifetime, the after-death or astral body resides within our physical body. This knowledge has come through both voluntary and involuntary astral projections. 2 During the latter, typically practiced by psychics and some mystics, a person senses his astral body separating from his physical body. Such a phenomenon can actually be experienced by anyone, usually during exhaustion, stressful, and life-or- death situations, such as near fatal accidents. But increasingly people and the media are reporting involuntary astral projections during surgery. In such cases, patients who were completely sedated before the operation would indicate, upon being awakened, that they had been out of their physical body during the entire procedure and observed everything that had taken place in the operating room. Their stories are believable because they are able to accurately relate things they could not possibly have known or seen during such a deep sleep. Other than the ones involving surgery, experiences that lead to knowledge of other dimensions may not readily withstand the scrutiny of those who have not themselves had the experience. And the primary importance of the experience is to prove that a secondary body does exist, thereby lending credibility to the idea that there is indeed life after life. In an effort to go beyond anecdotal information and demonstrate that there is indeed scientific backing for the metaphysical conclusion that life after death does exist, I will, in the following pages, summarize the work of a number of life-after-death researchers. I will also highlight the stories of some credible individuals whose personal experiences and stories will help to demonstrate that learning about the afterlife can indeed be a pathway to living a more purposeful and meaningful life before death. 3 II. Review of Research According to Dr. Paul Leon Masters, “By combining the knowledge of other dimensions encountered through clairvoyant meditation, and the experiences of astral body projection, METAPHYSICS CAN DECLARE THAT LIFE AFTER DEATH DOES EXIST. And this declaration is based not on blind belief, but on personally experienced psychic fact” (Master’s Degree Curriculum 1:44). Mystics have long made the case for the existence of the afterlife through meditation and astral projection. But others not able to have this experience have had to believe, or not, based on the sum of their experiences up to that point. As time marched on, increasing numbers of ordinary people began meditating and engaging in astral projection. But this still left the vast majority of society to believe based on someone else’s personal experience. Many of the non-believers had been among the most prominent in the fields of medicine and psychiatry. Now, science is finally beginning to produce the long sought evidence that life after death is real. And some of the most respected doctors and psychiatrists, in addition to documenting the experiences of others beyond a shadow of doubt, are having their own experiences, many of which occur under circumstances that leave little doubt about their validity. One of the first to study the out-of-body experience long before it became popular was Victor Frankl, author of the critically acclaimed book, The Search for Meaning. In the early thirties, he continuously sought out people in Europe who had fallen from mountains and had experienced a review of their lives during the fall. Attempting to determine how many of these life experiences went through their minds 4 during the few seconds of the fall, he carefully studied them and concluded that time could not possibly exist during these out-of-body experiences. There just wasn’t enough time for them to process all these reviews in a linear fashion. Others have had similar experiences when in grave danger, or during near death experiences such as almost drowning. The significance of Victor Frankl’s findings would not be fully appreciated for many decades. But it marked the beginning of a gradual process of open mindedness toward this critically important topic. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., one of the better known early pioneers in this area of research, was influenced by Victor Frankl’s work. Having realized that thousands of people worldwide reported the awareness of some relatives or friends, who had previously died shortly before their own deaths, she decided to find a way to study and verify the phenomenon. And so she began sitting with dying children after family accidents, specifically ones that occurred after long weekends like 4th of July weekend, etc., as that was when most accidents involving an entire family occurred. She reports that these critically injured children were never made aware of the passing of any family members as a result of the same incident, and yet they were always aware of those that had already died. In her book, Death is of Vital Importance: On Life, Death, and Life After Death, Dr.