Posted Feb. 20, 2000: What follows was circulated in 1994 to subscribers to two newsletters I edited at the time. Please note that I use pronouns in the traditional way, with the masculine being generic and not necessarily referring to a male person.

I am a child of God. I wish to serve Him. Thus it is and was and ever shall be. To God be the glory. Amen.

There are likely dimensions beyond the three well-known to us (plus time); our physical universe is a three-dimensional aspect of the multiple-dimension totality and is wholly immersed in that totality.

An Intelligence has directed and is directing our universe and all of its contents, including lesser beings which I shall call spirits (or non-physical essences of personalities) and who continue to exist as it pleases that Intelligence.

That Intelligence is unique and discrete and has traits and characteristics that can be described (a personality) in the same sense as any other spirit, even you and I. (I don't hold, as some do, that the organizing Intelligence must necessarily reside outside the results of His creation; in fact, I accept that, however many dimensions there are, He exists and operates within those boundaries.)

For want of better terms I call that portion of the totality occupied by spirits the 'Spirit Realm' to distinguish it from the three-dimensional Physical Realm of our physical senses; in that construction the Physical Realm is a specialized aspect of the more embracing Spirit Realm -- not apart from it but an integral part of it.

That Intelligence (God, Yahweh, Dios, Allah, or whatever term you prefer) is the Spirit Chieftain of the Spirit Realm and resides there in company with the hosts of other spirits that have resulted from His creative activity.

God continues to take an active interest in and be involved with the product of His creative activity, and life, in the larger sense, is the continuing saga of His interests intertwined with the interests of other personalities (or spirits, if you wish).

As it suits His purpose -- or capricious wish or whatever motivation He holds -- God creates further spirits or other elements within His universe, not according to an over-all plan but as He perceives suits His immediate or extended purpose.

Because of the enormity of His creation God has put in place a political structure in the Spirit Realm and has assigned oversight responsibilities so that the universe [and life within that universe] may continue in an orderly fashion while He devotes His attentions as He chooses.

Any individual spirit may have resulted from His initial surge of creation or resulted from later creative activity by God Himself or by other members of the Spirit Realm -- whose activities there must evidently, as activities here, be in accord with the Chieftain's enunciated desires.

This physical body that I recognize as me is the host of a spirit. In my own case I do not date to the original creation, but I have occupied other physical bodies in the past and likely will in the future. I have also served in specific roles in the Spirit Realm.

My body resulted from a union in the physical realm complete with hereditary influences and was chosen as a vehicle for my spirit by me in collaboration with other members of the Spirit Realm. This body is animated through its nervous system by its brain, but its brain is animated by me, the spirit.

As a spirit I am a unique, discrete personality, an individual in my own right, have been since my origination and throughout my history in both the Physical and Spirit Realms, and will continue with my own unique identity until ultimate reabsorption into the Spirit that created me. From my vantage point here and now in this physical body I have no reason to wish reabsorption but wish to continue as a distinct entity.

How did God Himself arise? What preceded the Big Bang to create conditions necessary to the Bang? For my part I like the model of the oscillating universe, where gravity with time reverses the expansion and the ensuing contraction leads to another compression and resultant explosion. But that merely pushes the question of ultimate origin further into distant past time. I am content with the notion that the pre-existing nothingness was inherently unstable; it split here and there into physical and virtual particles that coalesced until, over time, there resulted the physical agglomeration and spiritual essences we experience.

Was God pre-existent and caused the rift? Or was He one of the consequences? I know not and learning is beyond my capacity, since, even were I one of the spirits created in His initial surge of creative effort, I could not penetrate the veil to what existed before.

I have toyed with the thought that atheists must define what it is they reject, and I have goaded some to give forth with their thoughts. It has been fruitless. My presentation here, while it may prove to be in error, at least is plausible and concrete and gives some hope that life is understandable and does indeed have meaning.

I view most religious thought (and I include Atheist, Humanist, Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, Hindu, ...) as resulting from the same core rationale: a need to subordinate ourselves to something larger than ourselves. Consider the concept of the House of Man with its many windows overlooking the one Reality; some see only each other or reflections of themselves, some peer through one or another of the windows, some are privileged to view Reality through more than one window. Thus it is that honest men have reached divergent views of that single Reality.

I am a child of God because my spirit emanated from Him, from His creative power. I see no more lofty goal than to please Him Who created me. That is why I have written, and now write. To God be the glory. Amen.

The following was an addendum to my initial article, above. It continues the discussion:

Because of the dimensions beyond our three, spirits in residence in the Spirit Realm are not bound by the limits of our three dimensions and may therefore traverse from one physical point to another in three-dimensional space in what appears to us to be instantaneous.

Each spirit in the Spirit Realm, as a unique individual, has his own experiences, interests and agenda, as well as aspirations for himself and other kindred spirits; while subservient to God, interests may be contrary, leading to possible conflicts of interest within the Spirit Realm. Moreover, there are groupings within the Spirit Realm, roughly analogous to family, so not all spirits are equally aligned with or in communication with all other spirits. These are both consequences of each spirit being unique and individual. [Beyond that, there are assigned duties, whether temporary or permanent.]

[Time passes in the Spirit Realm just as it passes here. A moment in time there, once past, is spent and is beyond recall.]

While God created His companion spirits 'in His own image,' and while He has imbued them with powers not unlike His own, He is yet superior, not by acquiescence but by possession of superior and primordial power or authority. God is still the Prime Mover and has not delegated to any committee or consortium of spirits His ultimate authority.

Because the mind is a spirit it operates on some level in the Spirit Realm and coincident with its habitation of this body, yet we are largely oblivious to the Spirit Realm and its machinations. But through this dual existence or connection, thoughts are transmissible to other spirits; hence our notions of answered prayer. That is not to say other spirits are always in attendance or even aware of our presence there, or that obligatory assignments have been made in the Spirit Realm to provide oversight while any one of us is 'on leave' to inhabit a physical body; thus within our perceptions here there may be unequal responses to prayers.

Some say Karma is the operation of absolute justice. That there was a purpose in my leaving the Spirit Realm for a sojourn in the Physical Realm is undeniable; everything has purpose. The teaching of Karma is that that purpose was enunciated and was a prime consideration in the selection of a suitable vehicle for this physical life. Evils perpetrated in past lives must be expiated; lessons must be learned; evils perpetrated in this life add to Karmic burden just as good lessens that burden.

The notion that Jesus of Nazareth (the spirit) has an uncommonly intimate relationship with God seems entirely rational and I am completely willing to recognize His special preeminence. The thought that some other outstanding religious leaders were in fact other incarnations of that same personality is not even a strange thought even though it is beyond my knowing in this life.

I have no quarrel with such books as Life After Life or the inquiries leading to the books. I see them as essentially honest efforts to correlate human experience into an overall understanding of 'reality.' There are of course charlatans at every turn, and no doubt this field, likely more than some others, has been appropriated as their domain. However, I find it difficult to dismiss out of hand totally all of these efforts: _QuoteWhere there is so much smoke, there is surely fire._EndQuote