Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Are the Messages posted on this site edited?
A: Most of the Messages have been received via "automatic writing" and typed out in real time as they came through. A few have originated as recorded trance-channeling sessions that were then transcribed. These typescripts have been lightly edited to clean up spelling, punctuation, and minor grammatical issues. Where any questions remain, the medium will consult with the source to clarify their intentions. On several occasions there have been three-way conversations that include the source, the medium and the editor, working together to craft the language that best expresses the source's intent. When Messages include personal information we consult the persons in question, who then decide whether to leave it in place, abridge it, or remove it.
-----
Q: Why do you capitalize "Messages?"
A: We do that to make it clear that we're referring specifically to the channeled Messages posted on this site. It's similar to how lawyers may capitalize "Will" and "Trust" to distinguish these particular documents from the same words in general usage.
-----
Q: A new view of life and death has been emerging over the past few centuries and particularly in the last 50-60 years. What are some of its foundations as you understand them?
A: Here are a few, in simple terms:
• Physical life is an evolving, dynamic, recirculating system that constantly sheds old forms to make way for the new. What we call death is an indispensable feature of this system; without it, the living environment would soon be overcrowded, its resources depleted, and its innate capacity for renewal overwhelmed.
• Underlying nature's dynamic systems is a stable foundation ultimately rooted in what we loosely term "consciousness." Until recently, Western science (arguably the dominant world "religion") has tended to dismiss such ideas, mainly by refusing to investigate phenomena and experiences that don't fit its purely mechanistic/materialistic presuppositions. But this view has now begun to evolve, and in recent years this evolution has been accelerating. This has given rise to some new branches of scientific inquiry.
• Despite the turnover of physical bodies, personal and collective consciousness continues its "long path" of evolution on a higher "octave" of life that exists outside of space and time as we understand them. This continuity may include, but not be limited to, reincarnation in this or other physical systems.
• The more we acknowledge the possibility that reality can include more than one "level" or "octave," the easier it is for us to communicate across the veil of disbelief that, until now, has tended to "set heaven and earth infinitely apart."
-----
Q: Why do descriptions of the afterlife environment seem to vary as much as they do?
A: Our picture of the afterlife is an evolving one, but here's our understanding at this point in time: Just as the physical world is made of matter, energy, space and time, the "greater reality," as we understand it, is essentially made of consciousness, so it is more easily influenced by thought. (It is often suggested that we might think of it as a distant cousin to the dream experience.) In this field of consciousness, individual minds can apparently project their preferred self-images and surroundings. They can also participate collectively in stable "consensus realities," including comfortably familiar environments such as towns, cities and landscapes. They can also explore environments and experiences that appear to be beyond the carrying capacity of our earthbound languages.
-----
Q: Why did you name the site "Cosmic Voices?"
A: It was suggested by one of our correspondents on the other side. For the full story, click here.
-----