# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Asked Questions Frequently Asked Questions ## No Life after Death? RICHARD: Physical death is the end. Finish. RESPONDENT: Funny, aren’t you the same Richard who is so not into beliefs? But this sounds suspiciously like a belief to me. RICHARD: A fair enough question ... but easy to understand with a little reflection. It is the psychological entity within the body – the ‘I’ – that projects a perpetuation of itself even unto an ‘After-life’. Just like all Gods and Goddesses are but a projection of ‘self’, so to is ‘Immortality’. This is what is a belief, not the statement: ‘Physical death is the end. Finish’. As there is no ‘I’ anywhere whatsoever inside this body, I can experience – and thus know as a fact – that there is no actual ‘Immortality’ in some ‘After-life’ because there is no one here to have it (Immortality) or go into it (an After-life). It is all but a fantasy spun out of a delusion born out of an illusion. ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ am so important that ‘I’ must live forever. It is a pernicious belief with its roots buried deep in self-importance and self-aggrandisement. It is where conceit meets arrogance and become meekness and humility ... and seeks its post-mortem reward. ‘I’ will do anything to survive. * RESPONDENT: You make it sound as if the only alternative to believing that physical death is the end of consciousness were believing that consciousness survives the death of the body, that is, believing in some form of immortality. But neither alternative escapes the status of ‘belief’, in its narrow epistemological sense. I would suggest that there is another alternative, that of a reservation of judgment in the absence of conclusive evidence one way or the other. I think such a reservation of judgment is consistent with faith, which, as existential commitment, transcends both belief and unbelief (in their narrow epistemological sense, that is). RICHARD: I write this assuming you did mean to write ‘in its narrow epistemological sense’ and not ‘in its narrow etymological sense’. (I have been recently accused of doing the latter – which disingenuously allows one to avoid having to examine the action of believing and its dire consequences). As epistemology has to do with the validity of knowledge, I am wondering how ‘belief’ can be considered ‘narrow in an epistemological sense’ . Belief is, per definition, not knowledge ... unless we allow the word ‘knowledge’ to devolve into including anything at all that anyone would care to imagine or fantasise about. Be that as it may, I appreciate that it sounds like I am presenting only two alternatives to believe in, yet I am not. I am consistently urging not only the discarding of all beliefs, but to examine and discard the very action of believing in itself. I only present a refutation to a particular belief in order that a person may come to see, not only how silly it is, but how dangerous it is to believe at all. I would not want anyone to stop believing in immortality and start believing in death as oblivion ... that would be to swap one belief for another and the action of believing remains intact. Where the action of believing remains intact, the ‘believer’ – the ‘I’ – is supported, affirmed, verified and perpetuated. This is the primary danger of beliefs (the secondary danger, of course being the result of a specific belief put into practice out in the world ... for example: Religious Wars and Crusades). Thus to propose a reservation of judgment is to do nothing about the ‘I’ at all. Being agnostic about something believed unknowable – whilst satisfying to an intellect desiring to ‘transcend belief and unbelief’ – amounts to yet another belief (‘I believe it is unknowable’). The question to ask oneself is: ‘Why am I procrastinating’. Procrastination allows ‘me’ to continue to subsist ... and yet ‘I’ will thus wreak ‘my’ havoc in another area. And where you say that ‘a reservation of judgment is consistent with faith’, we are back into the same arena as the action of believing, for faith, trust, hope and belief are all part of the same package. The action I am referring to is the passionate involvement required to maintain the synthetic credibility of whatever is believed in, or what one has faith in, or what one trusts and what one hopes for. It is impossible to dispassionately believe, dispassionately have faith, dispassionately have hope or dispassionately trust. Anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the experiential reality lying under those words. ‘I’ am, to a large part, an emotional ‘being’ ... ‘I’ am, to a large part, made up of beliefs, values, principles, ideals, theories, traditions, customs, mores and so on. Belief is an emotion-backed thought ... and not sensible thought at that. For a start, any belief is nonsensical. By its very nature a belief is not factually true ... otherwise it would not need to be believed to be true. A fact is obvious; it is out in the open, freely available for all to see as being correct. To believe something to be true is to accept on trust that it is so. A fact does not have to be accepted on trust ... a fact is candidly so. A fact is patently true, manifestly clear. A fact has actual verity, whereas a belief requires synthetic credence. It is a fact that I, as this body, am mortal. I will die in due course ... this heart will stop beating, these lungs will cease breathing, this brain will quit thinking. The flesh will decompose, if buried, or will be dispersed, if burnt, as smoke and ash. There could be nothing more final, more conclusive, more complete, of an ending to me than this. So the belief in Immortality goes against all the factual, evidential actuality. It must, therefore, have its roots buried deep in the psyche, to be held so passionately by so many people. It is not merely the passing whim of a thoughtless few. It is something that people feel deeply to be true. It is dear to their heart’s desire. Herein lies the clue to ascertain why this fancy has persisted: a feeling is not a fact. Feelings have led humankind astray for millennia, without ever being questioned as to whether they are the correct tools for determining the correctness of a matter. Feelings are held to be sacrosanct; they are given a credibility they do not deserve. They are seen to be the final arbiter in a contentious issue: ‘It’s a gut-feeling’, or ‘My intuition is never wrong’, or ‘It feels right’, and so on. Thought, shackled by emotion and passion, cannot operate with the clarity it is capable of. At the centre of feelings lies a passionate entity known as the soul. The soul, which has no substance whatsoever, is revered as being the seat of ‘me’; it is ‘my’ essential ‘being’. The feeling of ‘being’ is the impression of being present; it is the perception of a ‘presence’ that transcends time and space ... giving rise to the improper assumption that ‘I’ am Immortal. It must be stressed again that all this is derived from calenture; nothing in this has any facticity. This is because ‘I’ generate unfortunate misinformation on account of ‘being’. ‘I’ may be real ... but ‘I’ am not actual. Reality is not actuality. Reality is a world-view created and sustained by emotive thought. This affective vision is a blinkered version of what is actual. Time is actual, space is actual ... and any personal interpretation of the actual is an emotional transubstantiation of it into an illusion called reality. To then transcend this reality is to take a mystical leap into an Other-Worldly Realm ... a Supernatural Reality. This Supernatural Reality is always spelt with a capital to denote Divinity. Everyday reality – which the Spiritual people call ‘worldly’ – is already an illusion, so any rising above this is to move from an illusion into a delusion. In this delusion ‘I’ feel a Oneness with all of Creation, an intuitive sense of ‘Being’. In this intuition of ‘Being’, ‘I’ am Timeless and Spaceless ... in other words; Eternal and Infinite. ‘I’ have cheated Death itself. When the body dies, ‘I’ will discard it as ‘I’ would a suit of old clothes and live forever in that Transcendental Realm. ‘I’ will have attained to ‘My’ Essential Nature, which is one of Love Agapé and Divine Compassion. The Incomparable Beauty of ‘My’ Heavenly State is best described as being Ineffable ... which is to dissemble in such an ingenious way that the gullible cannot help but be impressed by and be in awe of, ‘My’ Supreme Condition. ‘I’ have realised ‘Myself’ as being the Absolute, the Supreme ... as being God Incarnate. ‘I’ have manifested ‘Myself’ in order to bring ‘My’ Teachings to humankind. Remember, all this is a delusion born out of an illusion ... it is all a feverish play in a super-active imagination, spurred on by a morbid dread of not ‘being’. Death is viewed as a calamity, a tragedy. ‘I’, being non-material, cannot accept, let alone embrace, that which is physical, that which is actual. Mortality is a physical phenomenon; it is a fact to be faced and understood. To act otherwise is a denial of the actual. This universe is so enormous in its scope, so grand in its order, so exquisite in its form, that it is sheer vanity and utter insolence to presume that what occurs intrinsically to the scheme of things is somehow ‘Wrong’. With an attitude like that, no wonder people hate having to be here on earth. It is no wonder that they feel that they have to cope with life whilst waiting for death to release them. It is such a shame that billions of human beings are missing out on the unadulterated perfection of being fully alive; missing out on rejoicing in being here now; missing out on deriving immense pleasure at living this moment, here on earth. This universe knows what it is doing ... to assume that it does not is absurd. This universe was miraculously able to give birth to me, it is marvellously capable of bearing me and will, eventually, wondrously manage to end me. This is the physical, actual order of things in this, the only universe there is. There is nowhere else but here ... and there is no time but now. Anything else than here and now exists only in an enthusiastic imagination ... enthused by ‘me’, by any ‘being’ at all. Any intuition of ‘being’ is created and sustained by emotive thought ... it is the egocentric fear of not ‘being’ that gives rise to the notion of an ‘myself’. Any fear of the death of ‘me’ is an irrational reaction to the demise of an apparently enduring psychological entity. The ‘death’ of ‘me’ is a non-event; ‘I’ do not actually exist in the first place. There is no actual ‘me’ to either ‘die’ or to have Eternal Life. RESPONDENT: Furthermore, if you make the argument that since there is no ‘I’, there can also be no immortality of the ‘I’, you have to accept the argument that since there is no ‘I’, there can also be no death of the ‘I’. Otherwise, while you might be beyond enlightenment, you would not be very consistent. RICHARD: Oh, yes ... it is a delicious sensation to be here; I experience myself as no-one in particular; I am simply a body enjoying this exquisite moment of being alive unimpeded by any ‘self’ within. Only this moment actually exists, for there is no lasting ‘I’ present which would make the past and future real. The freedom from enduring over time as the past, the present and the future, leaves one completely able to appreciate the impeccable purity of being here. This appreciation is the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here and now. This type of attention is best known as apperception, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Apperception is a way of seeing that can be arrived at by pure contemplation. Pure contemplation is when ‘I’ cease thinking ... and thinking takes place of its own accord. Such a mind, being free of the ‘thinker’ and the ‘feeler’ – ‘I’ as ego and soul – is capable of immense clarity and purity. All this is born only out of pure intent. Pure intent is derived from the PCE experienced during a peak experience, which all humans have had at some stage in their life. A peak experience is when ‘I’ spontaneously cease to ‘be’, temporarily, and this moment and place is here and now. Everything is seen to be perfect as-it-is. Diligent attention paid to the peak experience gives rise to pure intent. With pure intent running as a ‘golden thread’ through one’s life, reflective contemplation rapidly becomes more and more fascinating. When one is totally fascinated, reflective contemplation becomes pure awareness ... and then apperception happens of itself. With pure intent operating more or less continuously in ‘my’ day-to-day life, ‘I’ find it harder and harder to maintain credibility. ‘I’ am increasingly seen as the usurper, an alien entity inhabiting this body and taking on an identity of its own. Mercilessly exposed in the bright light of awareness – apperception casts no shadows – ‘I’ can no longer find ‘my’ position tenable. ‘I’ can only live in obscuration, where ‘I’ lurk about, creating all sorts of mischief. ‘My’ time is speedily coming to an end, ‘I’ can barely maintain ‘myself’ any longer. The day finally dawns where the definitive moment of being here, right now, conclusively arrives; something irrevocable takes place and every thing and every body and every event is different, somehow, although the same physically; something immutable occurs and every thing and every body and every event is all-of-a-sudden undeniably actual, in and of itself, as a fact; something irreversible happens and an immaculate perfection and a pristine purity permeates every thing and every body and every event; something has changed forever, although it is as if nothing has happened, except that the entire world is a magical fairytale-like playground full of incredible gladness and a delight which is never-ending. With no ‘me’ inside to mess things up, I can ascertain, with clarity, that there is no soul inside this body. The soul was a feeling, not a fact. With no soul to ‘quit the body’ at physical death, there is, perforce, nowhere to go to. There is no After-Life; it was all a creation of ‘me’ and ‘my’ longings for Immortality. Being here now, this moment is perennial, not timeless. I am perpetually here, not immortal. The present has vanished, as did the past and the future, into the mists of ‘my’ time. With ‘me’ gone, all myths end. It is possible to actually know. RESPONDENT: Richard, now I question from my own mind: I remember Vineeto saying she is ‘100% certain’ that there is no God or afterlife. I remember thinking then (and still basically thinking the same thing) that it is impossible to ‘100%’ prove a negative. RICHARD: Or so the epistemologists are prone to claim ... yet as one can indeed prove, for oneself and beyond any doubt whatsoever (not just beyond reasonable doubt), that no afterlife/ deity does or can even possibly exist there is at least that (major) exception to their rule. RESPONDENT: Of course I don’t believe in Gnomes or trolls (internet trolls are a fact of course) and as an actualist I don’t consciously engage in any kind of believing, but that does not ‘100% prove’ that they do not exist. RICHARD: Indeed not, but what disbelief does prove, however, is that belief is not an essential prerequisite for a comparatively successful life (and thus society) – comparable to believer’s lives (and thus societies) that is – and that is not something to be dismissed lightly. RESPONDENT: It is of course very improbable that Trolls or a God exists. RICHARD: Yet improbability is not proof per se, eh? RESPONDENT: Don’t get me wrong, I find the notion of believing in God, and afterlife, or any spiritual belief to be unobjective, nonfactual, and a silly waste of one’s precious time. RICHARD: Given that believers do not have a corner on (relatively) successful lives/ successful societies that is demonstrably true. RESPONDENT: I understand that the notion of anything apart from this physical universe is unconceivable in a PCE, but that still does not seem to warrant Vineeto’s ‘100% certainty’ argument (which seems strangely fundamentalistic in the manner of fundamentalist Christianity to me). RICHARD: Ahh ... in a pure consciousness experience (PCE) it is not so much that it is inconceivable, that there be anything other than this physical universe, it is patently obvious there be not. RESPONDENT: I don’t remember you saying exactly ‘I’m 100% certain there is no God’ ... RICHARD: I may not have said it in those words. RESPONDENT: ... (as you may have guessed this does go into the Karl Popper view that 100% certainty is impossible for certain topics/ questions). RICHARD: For certain topics/ questions ...yes (in an infinite and eternal and perpetual universe there just might be a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-eater somewhere and somewhen); for the topic/ question of an afterlife/ a deity ... no, not at all impossible. RESPONDENT: I remember you saying something to the affect of ‘As for myself, I am certain there is no God or afterlife’. Now to me that is not exactly the same statement as Vineeto’s. RICHARD: I would rather say it this way: here in this actual world it is as plain as the nose on one’s face that all deities/ any afterlife have no existence whatsoever outside of the human psyche. It is all so peaceful, here, where there are no gods/ goddesses to meddle in human affairs. RESPONDENT: It seems to me that you did not entirely dismiss the Popperian view that some things cannot be known with 100% certainty. RICHARD: The following may be of interest in this regard: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Please point us in the direction of your actual/ factual and thus irrefutable evidence. Thankyou. • [Richard]: ‘As all it would take to refute my report (of being the first flesh and blood body to be actually free from the human condition) is a recorded instance – be it on paper, carved in stone, impressed into clay tablets, or painted on a cave wall, for example – of another flesh and blood body being so prior to 1992 it can be equally said that the evidence to the contrary is remarkably unforthcoming. We have been down this path (of abstract logic) before, you and I, in previous discussions inasmuch as, similarly, the evidence that Mr. Edmund Hillary and Mr. Tenzing Norgay were not the first to have ascended Mt. Everest, on May 29 1953, has yet to be found ... to say, by way of illustration, that someone from Tibet/ Nepal/ Mongolia/ Wherever may have already done so 10/100/1000/10,000 years ago (and just never got around to informing their fellow human beings) is to also say they may not have done so, too, as the usage of ‘may’ in such an argument automatically includes ‘or may not’ when spelled-out in full. As does the word ‘might’: for example, if a person were to argue that someone from, say, Outer Gondwanaland might have already been to the South Pole long before Mr Roald Amundsen travelled there they are also saying they might not have, too. For an instance of spelling-out such an argument in full: • [example only]: ‘Mr. Yuri Gagarin may, or may not, have been the first human being to leave the planet’s atmosphere. [end example]. And: • [example only]: ‘Mr. Neil Armstrong might, or might not, have been the first human being to set foot on the moon. [end example]. In short: it is a variation on what is known as an agnostic argument (that nothing can ever be known with 100% certainty) such as what Mr. Karl Popper made popular and stems, as I understand it, from the occasion wherein, prior to the exploration of Australia’s west coast, all (European) swans were white ... meaning that, somewhere, somewhen, in an infinite and eternal universe a purple swan may very well exist. Or not, of course, which is why, by and large, Mr. Karl Popper’s logic has been discarded as merely abstract and/or irrelevant and/or useless by many thoughtful human beings’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 53e, 3 November 2004). RESPONDENT: To me what you were saying is that you are sensibly certain (not 100%/ godlike/ absolutic certain) that there is no God or afterlife. RICHARD: Ha ... it is not an omniscient certainty, if that is what you mean by ‘godlike’, for that is what Mr. Karl Popper’s logic is based upon (no human can ever be all-knowing). RESPONDENT: Speaking of the God and afterlife debate, I can easily see the ridiculousness of the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving Being. RICHARD: Aye, the religionist versus rationalist debates, both on the internet and elsewhere, have flogged that topic to death via the ‘existence of evil’ dilemma. RESPONDENT: As for an ‘afterlife’ I suppose there could be some small probability for a physical/ energetic ‘survival’ of some aspect of human consciousness. RICHARD: About a year and a half ago someone posted reams and reams of words on this mailing list from a web site which proposed that an afterlife was to be found in the (theoretical) dark matter of the (mathematical) universe. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I had put in the list some subjects on metaphysical facts. • [Richard]: ‘If you are referring to the 12, 027 words you copy-pasted from an after-death survivalist’s web site then you are using the word ‘facts’ very, very loosely ... so loosely that your usage of it is indistinguishable from what the word ‘beliefs’ commonly refers to. For example, the author you quoted at length first proposes there are two bodies (the finite physical body which contains the brain that dies and an infinite etheric body which contains a mind which does not die) and two worlds (the physical world and an etheric world) and then proposes that etheric body/ mind is made-up of the sub-atomic particles of quantum theory and that etheric world is made-up of the missing dark matter of theoretical physics ... specifically the neutrino. In short: an after-death abode which lies in an invisible nine-tenths of the universe. Moreover the author then proposes that invisible universe is what is creating the visible universe: • [Mr Michael Rolls]: ‘The great strength of the powerful materialists who control orthodox, scientific thinking is that they are banking on the fact that most people are not making an effort to understand even basic subatomic physics. Even a cursory glance at the subject shows that the physical universe is being produced from the invisible – the etheric universe’. [endquote]. As his proof for survival after death comes from materialisations of physically dead people via paranormal mediums I did not consider there was anything in what you copy-pasted to answer ... especially as nowhere on his web page did I see any mention of the meaning of life, peace on earth, happiness and harmlessness, freedom from malice and sorrow, or anything else of that ilk. Not that those subjects are of particular interest to you, of course, but they are to me’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44d, 15 September 2003). RESPONDENT: It would not be ‘spiritual’, but rather a different manifestation of this physical universe. Now, since I don’t engage in believing, I am not proposing that I believe this (not only do I not, I never will again), just saying I don’t see the possibility or even need for an actualist to say with ‘100%’ certainty that such a course of events is impossible. RICHARD: Oh, there is indeed the possibility to say that ... as for the need to: as more than a few peoples have been horrifically put to death (ostensibly so as to save their immortal souls) over the years, and as more than a few wars have been religious wars, there are certainly some very beneficial reasons to do so. RESPONDENT: Of course, if my identity ever self-immolates, perhaps I would see things differently. Yet, I presently think I’d reject this ‘100% certain’ notion even after I had attained a actual freedom (or a virtual freedom for that matter). I’d simply say: ‘As for myself, I am sensibly certain that there is no God or afterlife, and that is that’. RICHARD: Someone once earnestly said to me, quite a few years ago and after having utilised their interaction with me over many, many months to their advantage, that were they to become free they would never speak of it, never mention it to another, but go about living their life in humble obscurity (no doubt being strongly influenced by that ‘he who knows does not speak/ he who speaks does not know’ aphorism). Upon me saying it was just as well that was not the case with me, then (else they would never had even heard of such a freedom), there was a stunned silence. RESPONDENT: I remember Vineeto saying she is ‘100% certain’ that there is no God or afterlife. I remember thinking then (and still basically thinking the same thing) that 1) it is impossible to ‘100%’ prove a negative. Of course I don’t believe in Gnomes or trolls (internet trolls are a fact of course and as an actualist I don’t consciously engage in any kind of believing), but that does not ‘100% prove’ that they do not exist. It is of course very improbable that Trolls or a God exists. Don’t get me wrong, I find the notion of believing in God, and afterlife, or any spiritual belief to be unobjective, nonfactual, and a silly waste of one’s precious time. I understand that the notion of anything apart from this physical universe is unconceivable in a PCE, but that still does not seem to warrant Vineeto’s ‘100% certainty’ argument (which seems strangely fundamentalistic in the manner of fundamentalist Christianity to me). VINEETO: I see that you have addressed your question to Richard but as you have mentioned me, I’ll respond as well. In one of my early discussions with Richard I asked him: ‘How do you know for sure that there is no life after death?’ His answer was simple and straightforward. He said something along the lines of ‘there is nothing (no entity) inside this body that could survive physical death, because there is only this flesh-and-blood body’. In an instant I could see that what he said made sense. As a then-spiritualist I had left the option open that ‘something’ could survive physical death but that ‘something’ that I imagined would survive was clearly some aspect of the entity inside and separate from the physical body – someone or something I called soul, Presence, spirit, ‘Being’, or whatever. I never had any doubt that my physical body is mortal and yet all spiritual teaching has it that ‘you are not the body’ because the body is only a temporary abode, they maintain that ‘who you really are is a consciousness separate from the body’, a consciousness that is part of, or ‘at one with’, the ‘Universal Consciousness’ and which can unite with the universal Consciousness either before or after death. Consequently when Richard told me that there was no entity inside his body, I knew that this was the end of my hope for ‘life’ after death. If one can get rid of one’s entity in toto before death, it sure ain’t something that survives death. Why did I take Richard’s report that there is no alien entity inside his body at face value? It was obvious to me that he genuinely experiences what he reports. There is no contradiction in his body language, no obfuscation in his words, no evasion of delicate topics, and not a skerrick of resentment, anger, sadness or condescendence. Within a few meetings I could determine that what Richard said made a lot of sense, whatever topic he talked about, which cannot be said about any of the enlightened people I had met, and I had met quite a few in my time. The spiritual gurus rely on their magnetic energy of Love and Compassion, their authoritative Wisdom, their Ancient metaphysical knowledge while Richard had none of these affective properties. Instead of the affective power play I knew so well from the spiritual gurus, Richard encouraged me to utilize my own common sense and native intelligence in order to assess his reports. The other thing that gave credence to his reports was that Richard said he had been enlightened himself and managed to get out of it, in other words he could give a personal-experience-insight into the whole realm of spiritual enlightenment. As such I could easily see that he knew far more about the ins and outs of enlightenment than any master or wannabe I had ever met or read for that matter. As for my belief in God, it fell apart in bit and pieces and I have written about it on various occasions – Finally one evening, when talking and musing about the universe, I fully comprehended that this physical universe is actually infinite. The universe being without boundaries or an edge means that it is impossible, practically, for God to exist. In order to have created the universe or to be in control of it God would have to exist outside of it – and there is no outside! This insight hit me like a thunderbolt. My fear of God and of his representatives collapsed and lost its very substance by this obvious realisation. In fact, there can be no one outside of this infinite universe who is pulling the strings of punishment and reward, heaven and hell – or, according to Eastern tradition, granting enlightenment or leaving me with the eternal karma of endless lives in misery. This insight presupposes, of course, that there is no place other than the physical universe, no celestial, mystical realm where gods and ghosts exist. It also implies that there is no life before or after death and that the body simply dies when it dies. (A Bit of Vineeto). The insight that hit me like a thunderbolt catapulted me into a PCE and with the ‘self’ (and ‘my’ passions and beliefs) temporarily absent it became suddenly obvious that the belief in a God, by whatever name, is part of the passionate defensive armour of ‘me’. In a PCE neither agnosticism, Popperism or any other philosophical abstract thinking have any relevance because the facts of what it is to be a human being become immediately clear, sensately and sensibly. With no passionate entity present it is patently clear that God has no existence in actuality – that he/she/it is nothing other than a universally-sustained and collectively-endorsed belief that billions of lost, lonely and frightened ‘beings’ have a vested interest in keeping in existence. In a pure consciousness experience a lot of things of what it is to be a human being become stunningly clear whenever I focussed my attention on these topics. Just as when a background noise suddenly stops and its very absence makes you aware of how much the noise had infiltrated your experience, when the ‘self’ and its incessant ‘noise’ is absent, it becomes obvious how ‘I’ constantly live in a fear-filled world of ‘my’ own making and as a consequence ‘I’ am wont to seek succour and solace in beliefs – no matter how inane they may be. A PCE is not a matter of degree – it is a fundamentally different experience of the world – one directly experiences the actuality of the world as-it-is and of people as-they-are. Not only does the grim reality that ‘I’ normally experience disappear, but so too does the imagined panacea to grim reality – the belief in a Greater Reality (God by any other name). A PCE gives you an outsider’s view for the very first time, temporarily free from the very entity who shapes and distorts this body’s experience of the world. You could compare it to previously knowing only the village you live in and its surrounding hills and suddenly being in a position from where you see the planet from outer space. Contrary to No 81’s firm belief and persistent repetition, my 100% certainty about a god-less universe and a non-existent afterlife has nothing to do with dogmatism but rather it is the result of deliberately and consistently cracking the firmament of my beliefs and prizing apart the stronghold of the ‘self’-centred worldview that is the inescapable result of the human condition. This process has allowed me to have many direct experiences that God has no existence whatsoever outside of human imagination. And once you know a fact as a fact, that’s the end of having an opinion or a belief or a degree of uncertainty about it. I always liked a story told about Galileo’s, which, although unconfirmed, helps to make the distinction between fact and belief so very obvious. The story goes, when Galileo was forced to recant his radical discovery that the earth moves around the sun and as such is neither stationary nor at the centre of the universe, he whispered, ‘eppur si muove’ (‘and yet it moves’). His later books spirited out of Italy to the Netherlands confirm that despite overwhelming opposition Galileo was 100% certain of what he had seen and understood – repeatable empirical observation contradicted ubiquitous ancient belief. It is interesting to note that it took until 1992 before the Church formally acknowledged its error in condemning Galileo – that it took so long speaks volumes for the recalcitrant nature of spiritual/ religious belief. My certainty of the fact that matter is all there is and that there is no consciousness outside of matter is the result of sensible contemplations and discussions, cemented and verified by many ‘self’-less experiences. This combination has allowed me to whittle away at my former conditioning and persistently question my intuition, to recognize that what most people believe and preach is not based in fact and by doing so to understand beyond doubt, that the magic of this universe lies in the fact that matter, in this case the human brain, is capable of not only reflecting but also of reflecting on itself. It is the inherent quality of matter itself that makes it capable of such wondrous magic, just as it is inherent to the stuff that is this planet that it continues to manifest itself as the ginormous variety of terrestrial and aquatic fauna and flora visible on its surface crust. Life is so incredibly miraculous in operation, whichever direction you look, and when you take your ‘self’ out of the centre, i.e. when ‘you’ are no longer the most important person in ‘your’ universe, then the vibrancy of the non-passivity of matter itself becomes vividly apparent and tangibly obvious. As if by magic, all conceptualizing of a duality of dull/ dead matter one side and a Transcendental Consciousness on the other side fall in a heap and I am no longer separate from all that is happening. I am matter and as matter I am eminently capable of not only being apperceptively aware but also of reflecting upon the fact that consciousness is an inherent quality of matter at a certain stage of its evolution. * RESPONDENT: I don’t remember you saying exactly ‘I’m 100% certain there is no God.’ (as you may have guessed this does go into the Karl Popper view that 100% certainty is impossible for certain topics/ questions). I remember you saying something to the affect of ‘As for myself, I am certain there is no God or afterlife.’ Now to me that is not exactly the same statement as Vineeto’s. It seems to me that you did not entirely dismiss the Popperian view that some things cannot be known with 100% certainty. To me what you were saying is that you are sensibly certain (not 100%/ godlike/ absolutic certain) that there is no God or afterlife. Speaking of the God and afterlife debate, I can easily see the ridiculousness of the idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving Being. As for an ‘afterlife’ I suppose their could be some small probability for a physical/ energetic ‘survival’ of some aspect of human consciousness. It would not be ‘spiritual’, but rather a different manifestation of this physical universe. Now, since I don’t engage in believing, I am not proposing that I believe this (not only do I not, I never will again), just saying I don’t see the possibility or even need for an actualist to say with ‘100%’ certainty that such a course of events is impossible. Of course, if my identity ever self-immolates, perhaps I would see things differently. Yet, I presently think I’d reject this ‘100% certain’ notion even after I had attained an actual freedom (or a virtual freedom for that matter). I’d simply say: ‘As for myself, I am sensibly certain that there is no God or afterlife, and that is that.’ VINEETO: As for ‘the Popperian view that some things cannot be known with 100% certainty’ – Karl Popper’s proposition was that, logically, nothing can ever be known exhaustively by the ordinary way of knowing, which in itself is absolute claim that according to his philosophy can never be known exhaustively. Apart from this logical impassé, his theories have, by and large, been refuted and discarded by more than a few people years ago and for a down-to-earth non-philosopher it is obvious that some things can definitely be known for sure – for instance the fact that everyone will die one day. To distinguish fiction from fact I found the simple scientific principle useful, which demands that legitimate theories must be falsifiable. You might be familiar with the old debating trick where one side is asked to disprove the existence of something that doesn’t exist: ‘Prove to me there isn’t a green-eyed monster under this table. It is an invisible, odourless monster, and you can’t tangibly sense it – it has no mass. But it’s THERE! Now prove to me it isn’t there!’ To pose non-falsifiable hypotheses is the hallmark of a pseudo science. The claim of the existence of God or an afterlife is equally pseudo science because it is a non-falsifiable hypothesis. Have you noticed that it is impossible to prove that God doesn’t exist? By God’s very nature He/She/It is beyond and above sensual perception. And life after death cannot be proven wrong because dead people don’t talk … and yet their ‘souls’ are reported to make people’s hair stand on end. (For an explanation of the principle of falsifiability see http://theautonomist.com/autonomist/science.html, https://web.archive.org/web/20050206042450/http://electric-cosmos.org/index.htm, http://www.bluffton.edu/~bergerd/NSC_111/science1.html) RESPONDENT: Addendum: I want it to be perfectly clear that I do not consider the workings of Vineeto’s mind to be similar to a ‘Christian fundamentalist.’ Rather, one particular statement of hers (i.e. being 100% certain of no God/ no after life) seems to me to be similar to some from of dogmaticism – and Christian dogmaticism is one that I’m deeply familiar with personally. Aside from Richard’s writing, Peter and Vineeto’s explication of becoming free from the human condition, is second to none (that is to me of course). I know all too well how list members can twist statements to fit there all too apparent agenda. Ultimately, one’s exploration of actualism involves rigorous self-honesty, integrity, and finding out for oneself. There is no excommunication in actualism for honest disagreement on our way to freedom. Perhaps, in freedom, all major disagreements will dissolve. VINEETO: Yes, they do dissolve because, contrary to the affective/ psychic world, which is intuitive and therefore an affective experience that is unique to everyone, the actual world is the same for everyone – it is actual and can be sensately and sensibly experienced as an actuality by everyone once the ‘self’ steps out of the way. * A remark on your recent post to No 81, because it’s on the same topic – RESPONDENT to No 81: To believe in god, afterlife, or any sort of dualistic spiritual energy is a belief and therefore silly in my book. Nonetheless, I don’t claim 100% certainty on those issues because I remain skeptical that anyone can know whether or not there is a spiritual realm with 100% certainty. Quite frankly, I see no need for an actualist to be 100% certain. I’d take reasonably/ sensibly certain as being quite enough. Which is what I am at this point. VINEETO: You may reconsider when you think about how many things in life you already take with 100% certainty to be factual. The very process of actualism involves the incremental diminishing of the habit of believing what others tell you to be truth (or Truth) so as to enable to flourish uninhibitedly one’s innate curiosity and naiveté to discover for oneself the facts of the matter. RESPONDENT: You say that there is no soul or self but just flesh and bones therefore no life after death. Therefore how do you explain Outer body experiences (OBE’s) and near death experiences where people report seeing events and their own physical bodies in Real Time. It would be impossible for a thought or a feeling (self) to experience an OBE. Happy days. RICHARD: ... I would explain OBE’s (out of body experiences) and NDE’s (near death experiences), where the identity residing inside the flesh and blood body locates itself outside the flesh and blood body, in the same way I explain altered states of consciousness (ASC’s) and any other paranormal, supernatural or suprasensory experiences ... they are all the product of identity, the psychological and psychic entity (‘I’ as ego and ‘me’ as soul), parasitically inhabiting the flesh and blood body. Why do you say that it would be impossible for ‘a thought or a feeling (self)’ to experience an OBE? RESPONDENT: To experience an OBE I would have to exist separate from the body then I could leave the body (OBE) and still function (think) while apart from the body which is what many people who OBE experience. RICHARD: Whereas all what does happen is that the identity locates itself outside of the body – there is no leaving of the body – which is not to deny that the experience of leaving the body is very realistic (more realistic than night-time dreaming). There is a simple way to test this for validity: typically the identity (seemingly) hovers above the body – up at the ceiling level say – meaning that it should be able to see what is on top of a tall cupboard, for example, where previously someone else has taped a piece of paper with words on it that only they know. There have been umpteen tests done apparently, of a more thorough nature than this simple example, with no conclusive results. Mr. Keith Augustine, for instance, has this to say: • ‘Madelaine Lawrence designed an information retrieval experiment where an electronic screen placed in the cardiac rehabilitation ward in Hartford Hospital, Connecticut, displayed a sentence that was changed randomly and could not be seen from the vantage of a patient or the staff (Lawrence 158-9). When someone had an NDE, all they had to do is repeat what the sentence said; then the staff could report what the NDEr said and determine if there was a match. The results produced no evidence that anyone could retrieve information from a remote location during an NDE. (...) Other NDE information retrieval experiments have been carried out by Peter Fenwick and Charles Tart with similar results’. (www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/immortality.html#scicase). Ms. Susan Blackmore, a former parapsychologist who has personally investigated the subject over thirty years, has published books and articles ... some of which articles are available on-line: http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/ Her interest in the subject started when she had an OBE in 1970 whilst at Oxford University ... a fascinating account of which, written three days after the event, can be found here: http://www.issc-taste.org/arc/dbo.cgi?set=expom&id=00075&ss=1 It is well worth a read, if you can get access to it, as not only did she (seemingly) drift about at ceiling level but over the roof tops of the college as well and off to various places – the Mediterranean, Italy, Switzerland, France, New York, South America, through the planets of the solar system, the whole galaxy itself, many other galaxies, the limit of the universe, another dimension and finally a whole new set of dimensions – before the OBE was over. She was suspicious about various aspects of the experience though ... here is what she has to say, in part, towards the bottom of that web page: • ‘At the time I assumed that my astral body had left my physical body. I felt wonderfully blessed to have had the experience, and interpreted it as evidence that the mind, or soul, or astral body can leave the physical and travel in some other world. It also seemed to me to be evidence for the possibility of life after death. However, even at the time I had some sceptical doubts. (...) The next day I tried to check up on things I had seen and immediately discovered that some were wrong. For example, I had ‘seen’ old metal gutters on the roofs of the college when in the morning I realised that they were modern white plastic ones. I had seemed to travel through rooms above Vicki’s room which were not in fact there, and had seen chimneys which did not exist. This led me to all sorts of sceptical questioning, but more to elaborate my astral theories than to abandon them. For many years I continued to think of my experience as an astral excursion’. Furthermore, there is a reward in excess of $1,000,000, offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation, for the first person who can conclusively demonstrate any paranormal phenomena. Viz.: http://www.randi.org/research/index.html In case you do not get to access that web page the most pertinent part is this: • ‘All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the ‘applicant’ becomes a ‘claimant’. *To date, no one has ever passed the preliminary tests*. [emphasis added]. There is also 100,000 rupees offered by Mr. B. Premanand, of the Indian Sceptic, for ‘any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability of any kind’. Viz.: http://www.indian-skeptic.org/html/rules.htm And the Australian Sceptics offer $100,000 ... Viz.: http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/challenge.htm Plus, if my memory serves me correctly, there was a society in the U. K which offered something like 20,000 pounds or thereabouts some years ago ... and nobody ever claimed it. * RESPONDENT: My beef is – If one is not free from ego at the time one physically dies (99.9% population) doesn’t then the ego continue to exist apart from the body (as in an OBE) and experience life after death with all its ramifications (heaven, hell, reincarnation) until it too dies or dissolves. RICHARD: No ... as the identity is born of the instinctual passions, genetically endowed at conception by blind nature, then when the body dies the identity ceases to exist. There is nothing to beef about ... death is the end, finish. Kaput. RESPONDENT: Is there a soul that lives on after death of body? RICHARD: No ... physical death is the end, finish. Kaput. RESPONDENT: Then how do you explain near death experiences, past life memories, séances, mediums, hauntings, demonic possession, astral travelling, dreams, UFO’s, clairvoyants & children who see – fairies, angels, nature spirits, demons etc. RICHARD: As there is no way anybody can explain an etcetera it is obvious that you are not asking for an explanation of each and every one of those symptoms (especially as you include Unidentified Flying Objects into the mix) but rather a general explanation. In a word, then, it is identity which generates same (including more than a few of the UFO ‘sightings’ by the way). RESPONDENT: It doesn’t make sense to exist now but not later when we die. RICHARD: What does the word die mean to you, then, if not ‘cease to live; cease to be alive; cease to exist’ (Oxford Dictionary)? Is it not a fact that all flesh and blood bodies are mortal; that the heart stops beating, the lungs cease breathing, the brain no longer operates; that the flesh decomposes, if buried, or disperses, if burnt, as smoke and ash? There could be nothing more final, more conclusive, more complete, of an ending to living/ to being alive/ to existing than that, surely? RESPONDENT: I mean we either exist or we don’t exist it can’t be both, so from the evidence we have its obvious that we exist as a body and also as an awareness entity. RICHARD: A flesh and blood body can be aware (aka conscious) sans an entity ... indeed it is the altruistic ‘self’-immolation of that entity, in toto, which enables the already always existing peace-on-earth to be apparent for the remainder of one’s life. Concomitant to the total demise of that entity all that which you ask about (further above), including the etcetera, also ceases to exist ... as does all gods/ goddesses (by whatever name). It is all so clean, clear, and pure, here in this actual world. RESPONDENT: Countless spirits in contact with clairvoyants claim to have had a physical body and have died either recently or long past. These spirits seem to be experiencing a life after death. Just the fact that they exist in another frequency and can come in contact with some of us shows life exists beyond the physical world. RICHARD: Am I to take it that you were not asking for a general explanation after all (else why single out clairvoyants from what you asked about at the top of the page)? The first item you asked about is NDE’s (near death experiences) which, along with OBE’s (out of body experiences), I was asked to explain previously. So I did a little research on the topic. Viz.: (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 37, 27 October 2002). I am not about to do any more such research about specifics ... so as to obviate you re-presenting, one-by-one, each and every other one of what you asked about at the top of the page (including the etcetera as well) I will repost the following exchange: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘... why not to apply it [the scientific method] also in the supernatural phenomena? Like ectoplasm mediums that communicate with dead persons, documented with scientific observation? There are many frauds, yes, but are also documented phenomena. • [Richard]: ‘The few times I have looked-up the subject of scientifically observed psychic phenomena – and there are plenty of instances to look at – it has always turned out to have been a fraud ... as I have no expertise on the subject [of scientifically observed psychic phenomena], nor have any intention of gaining any, you may find the following to be of interest: • [Richard]: ‘... there is a reward in excess of $1,000,000, offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation, for the first person who can conclusively demonstrate any paranormal phenomena. Viz.: (www.randi.org/research/index.html). In case you do not get to access that web page the most pertinent part is this: [quote]: ‘All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the ‘applicant’ becomes a ‘claimant’. *To date, no one has ever passed the preliminary tests*. [emphasis added]. There is also 100,000 rupees offered by Mr. B. Premanand, of the Indian Sceptic, for ‘any psychic, supernatural or paranormal ability of any kind’. Viz.: (www.indian-skeptic.org/html/rules.htm). And the Australian Sceptics offer $100,000 ... Viz.: (www.skeptics.com.au/features/challenge.htm). Plus, if my memory serves me correctly, there was a society in the U. K which offered something like 20,000 pounds or thereabouts some years ago ... and nobody ever claimed it. And there are many other people, who have also made it their business to investigate the ‘documented phenomena’ you speak of, as well’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 44c, 15 September 2003). I will say it again for emphasis: it is identity which generates all that which you ask about (further above) ... and concomitant to the total demise of that entity all that also ceases to exist. As do all gods/ goddesses (by whatever name). Actual Freedom Homepage
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