Hi Patricia,

Concerning James Randi, everyone in the psychic and afterlife communities knows it to be a sham. You can read some of the criticism at http://www.mind-energy.net/archives/163-About-the-James-Randi-Million-dollar-challenge.html

This is a good desription of the impossible hurdles set up so no one could meet the challenge: http://www.dailygrail.com/features/the-myth-of-james-randis-million-dollar-challenge

More importantly, serious scientists don't issue million dollar challenges. They look at the studies show that psi abilities and the afterlife exist and they set up studies to replicate the results. They show that the results couldn't be replicated or they conclude that the original studies were valid. Issuing a million dollar challenge with conditions no one could meet is a way of avoiding having to test the hypotheses and possibly finding that what you've spent your life crusading against is in reality true. It's a defense mechanism.

Your second question was about what happens at birth (or just before it) that prevents us from remembering our existence in the spiritual realm?

Everything in the universe is the result of consciousness. That isn't metaphysics; it's physics. If you look into quantum mechanics, you'll find that's true.

To learn the lessons we need to learn on each spiritual plane onto which we incarnate, we must be engaged in rules that will challenge our eternal self to grow. On the Earth plane, we must be challenged to be more loving and compassionate by facing situations in which others are cruel, we ourselves might be cruel. For that to be a challenge that results in growth, we must genuinely believe we are cruel or they are cruel. If we believe we're just prentending, like children playing house, then we won't learn the lessons. We'll see it as a sham, and we'll just quit when it gets to feel too real. Feeling that we're in a real situation is necessary to growth.

And so, when we incarnate into the Earth plane, we bring with us a set of rules that we all who are on the Earth plane accept as reality. Within those rules, we play out our lives. The rules are so realistic that people actually spend their entire time on the Earth plane following the rules and never getting to the lessons. That's fine. They have free will. They can do that.

If we started off knowing that we're eternal, both as individuals and as a species, we never would learn the lessons. We'd be cruel eternal beings, insensitive eternal beings, greedy eternal beings. Instead, we have to come to the point where we reject cruelty, insensitivity, and greeed to really understand that we're eternal. We have to die to the old self to be reborn in the new self that is loving and compassionate. Only by doing that can we and society mature spiritually. We have to feel the rules are genuine reality.

We're right now on this Earth plane with these rules because this is where we need to learn certain lessons. The condition of the Earth we're in gives us an indication of the lessons we need to learn. If we needed to learn other lessons, we would have incarnated on another plane, perhaps at a past or future vibration that is the Earth plane. But you and I are here because we need to learn lessons this vibration, this time, of the Earth plane can teach us. To learn them, though, we have to be genuinely engaged in the Earth plane at this time, with these rules.

You wrote, "It seems to me that if we were able to remember, even just a little, maybe death would not be so frightening to so many."

Yes, that's true. And as we learn and teach about our eternal natures, we as individuals and humankind will eventually evolve to a point at which society and its individuals accept our eternal natures. We are helping to make that happen. But that Earth is already on a vibration. What we're doing today has already resulted in that Earth of people who are loving, compassionate, and confident in their eternal natures. But we had to go through what we're going through now for consciousness, the whole mind of all sentient bengs, to evolve to that point.

We aren't incarnated onto that Earth plane because that plane couldn't teach us the lessons we need to learn. Perhaps at a later time, we'll incarnate onto it, and we'll learn its lessons.

But not now. Now we have lessons to learn here. And we're learning them every moment of our lives together.

Love and peace, Craig

: Thank you for your time. I just finished reading your book (Your Eternal Self") and thoroughly enjoyed it!