copyright (c) 2011 by macyafterlife

Our complex multi-dimensional nature can be simplified by envisioning four bodies—physical, astral, ethereal, and central. Rather than separate, as pictured, imagine them all superimposed over each other.

Our Spirit Bodies

Physical. The outer shell of this multi-level structure is our physical body, geared to life on Earth. Hormones, ego, and the physical brain help us to react appropriately in this unpredictable world. So we’re motivated not just by thoughts of good will and trust, but also by suspicion and fear to help us survive amid the dangers around us. The physical body seems the most real to our conscious mind… but it’s really the most illusory.

Central. Our truest self is our central body or soul, an eternal ray of perfect, nonvibrating light and consciousness. As a piece of the source, or God, our soul has access to complete knowledge and wisdom. We can connect our conscious, physical mind to our soul through practiced meditation.

Between our central body and physical body there’s a morphing process in which our spiritual bodies become less god-like and more human.

Ethereal. Our formless light body inhabits vast ethereal seas of consciousness where love, knowledge, and good will are reality. At this level we’re like a powerful supercomputer that shares oceans of information instantly with those around us.

Astral. Our astral body is like a perfect physical body at the prime of life… around age 25 or 30 in appearance. It’s impervious to aging and disease, and it heals quickly if injured. It’s geared for life in a paradise world in which humans live in peace with each other and with animals and other living beings… and so trust and good will are a way of life for astral beings living in astral worlds.

Ideally, when our physical body dies, the astral body becomes our outermost garment, and we live in a paradise world that’s similar to Earth but more vibrant. Life no longer kills life to survive, so paradise is a world of trust and good will. I say “ideally” because we sometimes cling to the patterns of troubled earthly thinking when we die, and then our astral body takes on a more dismal appearance for awhile and finds itself living in dismal, non-paradise surroundings marked by confusion, fear and suspicion.

Every physical thing has spiritual bodies that trace inward to a central self. If a rock or a tree or a building or an entire planet is destroyed in this physical universe, its astral template continues to exist, complete with an ethereal body and central body.

Eden and Earth

That brings us back to the human story. When did human beings come about… and why?

Earth and Eden Comparative Sizes

The legend. The Biblical book of Genesis tells the story of God planting a garden in the east of Eden where people lived among the most beautiful foliage imaginable. When Adam and Eve made bad choices, such as eating forbidden fruit and having sex, they were driven from paradise and replaced there by angels and a flaming sword to perpetuate “the tree of life.”

The common interpretation. Over the centuries Bible scholars have deduced that if there was an Eden, the paradise birthplace of humanity, it was probably located here on Earth, somewhere in or around the Middle East. Adam and Eve were the first two humans created by God.

A more likely story. Based on modern evidence, ITC contacts, and a bit of speculation, I suggest that Eden (also called Marduk) was one of many worlds set up in the physical universe and populated by finer spiritual beings incarnating in human form… with the aim of spreading source-consciousness out into the dense, dark fringes of the omniverse. This probably happened some 10,000,000,000 (10 billion) years ago, not long after this material universe was formed some 13.7 billion years ago. (We have to bear in mind, though, that time is one of many illusions of the material universe, and I’ll include an article later on in this series about those illusions.)

Our Early Solar System, with Eden

In any case, Eden was a Saturn-size planet that came into existence in our solar system long, long ago. The superhuman stewards of Eden lived in peace with each other and with the other living things in that paradise world.

Life on Eden was probably a lot like life in the astral paradise worlds. The life forms didn’t have to eat each other to survive, but instead received sustenance from the life energies flowing through their world. Their bodies didn’t age, and they healed quickly from injury. They probably were not locked into the physical domain as we are today; they could move back and forth among dimensions… living as astral beings for awhile, maybe even as formless ethereal beings… before returning to Eden in physical form to resume stewardship of that beautiful world.

They were busy colonizing other nearby worlds, including Earth, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, when disaster struck. Some 4 billion years ago, the advanced technologies on Eden got out of hand and destroyed their world in a massive explosion, ravaging the entire solar system with planetary shrapnel. The only Edenites who survived the explosion were the colonists on Earth. Physical life was mostly destroyed on all the other planets in the solar system.

Our Solar System After Eden’s Destruction (courtesy of “Learning By Grace”)

Over time, much of the debris from the explosion settled into Eden’s orbit, forming the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Some was flung beyond the planets, forming the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud.

The Edenite castaways lived on Earth for several billion years, probably up to the last ice age, which began some 360,000,000 (360 million years) ago.

It was probably the descendants of the Edenite colonists, whom we today call “Titans,” who first fell into the life-and-death cycles of Earth—eating food for sustenance, having sex to propagate, and bio-engineering various lesser species of humans to live the Earth experience.

The Greek philosopher Plato wrote that very early on, the Edenite descendants (whom he called “gods”) divided the inhabitable Earth among themselves as stewards of various districts, providing wise, gentle guidance to the lesser humans. Plato had learned about the ancient gods indirectly from the Greek statesman Solon, who had learned about them from the Egyptians, who in turn had inherited their knowledge from earlier civilizations. Most of the details of our ancient history were lost during long dark ages when people were preoccupied by survival, Plato said. During those difficult periods, few facts were preserved accurately, so that by the time of Plato the ancient stories sounded more like myth than history. The only details that were preserved accurately, said Plato, were the names of the gods. Athena and her brother Hephaestus loved philosophy and art and were in charge of the area that is now Greece. Poseidon was in charge of Atlantis. Other descendants of the original Edenites were in charge of other regions. The human cultures that evolved under the stewardship of the Titans included warrior classes as well as farmers and craftsmen.

In Hebrews 11, the prophet Enoch was visited by angels (very tall men with faces that shone like the sun, eyes that glowed like lamps, wings of gold, and hands white as snow), and they took him on a tour of the spirit worlds. First stop was an Ethereal world of angels and light beings. Then he was taken to a dense, dismal world where lost souls and troubled spirits implored Enoch to pray for them. Then Enoch was shown an astral paradise called Eden that was sustained by a magnificent tree of life. Onward, then, to another ethereal realm inhabited by angels and light beings. Then to another dense spiritual world inhabited by godless, remorseful beings called “Grigori” (perhaps what we today would call “reptilian extraterrestrials”) who had lost their connection to God, and finally to a highly refined ethereal world of archangels who were so majestic that they frightened Enoch. The wisest of the archangels spent a month teaching Enoch all about the vast worlds of spirit and the human role in the big picture, including humanity’s fall from paradise. Enoch recorded the information as accurately as he could in a series of books and was told to give the books to no one, but to share the information with anyone who wanted it—to spread it as far and wide as possible. Because of Enoch’s ethereal connection, his family was blessed for several generations. (I believe the blessings came in the form of genetic cross-breeding by highly advanced beings to produce Enoch’s progeny.) His son Methusaleh (whose name meant “after his death a flood will come”) lived to be several centuries old. Enoch’s grandson Lamech had a wife who bore a child with blond hair, white skin, and illuminated eyes that filled dark rooms with light. Bear in mind that the early Hebrews were a swarthy lot, so a fair-haired, light-skinned baby with glowing eyes would have been startling and out of place. That great-grandson was named Noah, and when he grew up he built the proverbial Ark to survive the Great Flood when his grandfather Methusaleh died. Was Noah an albino? He was probably much more than that if his eyes filled dark rooms with light!

There are said to be mystics living in the Himalayas today leading multidimensional lives, retaining their youthful physical form for centuries. Mahavatar Babaji is one such ageless ascended master who inhabits the Northern Himalayan caves near Badrinath Temple in northern India. Mahavatar Babaji appeared in front of Lahiri Mahashaya between 1861 and 1935. Lahiri Mahashaya, after being initiated into Kriya Yoga by Mahavatar Babaji, then became the guru or teacher of Sri Yukteswar Giri, who also described his encounters with the ascended master Mahavatar Babaji in his book, The Holy Science. Sri Yukteswar was, in turn, the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, who also discussed Mahavatar Babaji in his own book (one of my all-time favorites), Autobiography of a Yogi. Yogananda writes, “The Mahavatar Babaji is in constant communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption, and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully-illumined masters—one with the (physical) body, and one without it—is to inspire the nations to forsake suicidal wars, race hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang-evils of materialism.”

Where We Go When We Die

As I mentioned earlier, all physical things have astral bodies, including planets. It makes sense, then, that many astral humans live on those astral planets, just as we physical humans live on Earth.

All Physical Things Have Spirit Bodies

So when we die, our astral body might find itself living on an astral Earth… or better still, an astral Eden.

Considering the finer nature of the Edenites long ago and the radiant nature of their paradise world, it makes sense that the astral Eden would be a brilliant, beautiful place… the proverbial Heaven.

And considering the noble-savage nature of life on Earth, even among us modern humans, it makes sense that the astral Earth would not be so radiant. It would be a more mundane world where life goes on as usual.

Through ITC contacts, our spirit friends have talked about their world, which they call Marduk. It has three suns, which are really higher beings shining light onto their world. It’s a Saturn-size planet inhabited by 60 billion humans and “humanoids” (gnomes, giants, and various others). They have also mentioned a “shadow world” of the Earth inhabited by human groups who can produce crop circles and other phenomena in our world. I suspect that “shadow world” is part of or in some way related to the astral Earth.

In any case, our human lives are much more complicated than modern science can imagine… especially when considering not only our very ancient heritage, but our multidimensional nature as spiritual beings enjoying a brief physical experience here on Earth.

(The next installment of this series will explore timelines in the ancient human story.)

Other posts in the “Human Story” series:
1 – From the Source of All-That-Is
2 – Physical Life and Spiritual Life
3 – An Ancient Timeline
4 – The Edenites and Their Descendants
5 – The Seven Ethereals
6 – The Afterlife Eden
7 – The Afterlife of Jules Verne
8 – The Afterlife of Arthur Moos
9 – The Afterlife of Sir Richard F Burton
10 – The Afterlife of Anne de Guigné
11 – Afterlife Wrap-Up
12 – Atlantis and the First Epoch
13 – Thoth the Atlantean
14 – Modern Civilization Sprouted from Ancient Pyramids
15 – Hands that Caress and Strangle the World
16 – End of Story, End of Times