DivisionTheory does not suggest that the NDE is unreal or an illusion. On the contrary, it says it is VERY real. The only illusion is the mistaken impression that no division has occurred.

I do not see DivisionTheory as violating or compromising an iota of the perceived value or reality of the NDE; it does not say, suggest, or imply that the NDE or anything noticed or experienced within it is an illusion or false or unreal in any meaningful way.

The only illusion DivisionTheory suggests occurs is that when the mind splits apart, neither half of the mind notices it. This is the only illusion. The split is covered up, hidden, whitewashed, and the individual proceeds to assume the mind is not split when in fact it is. Thus, I say that the individual is under the illusion that the mind has not split, and this illusion is false.

But outside of that single qualifier illusion, all else experienced within the NDE DivisionTheory would not deny, but instead would confirm, and even add its weight to and defend, even providing a scientific basis that defend the NDErs' insistence that they had such experiences.

That the mind splits does not mean that whatever the mind registers after that point is erroneous, each half is still registering valid experience. How can I explain this? Let me try with a story :

A few weeks ago I had to go buy a new set of glasses, because my old set had finally bit the dust after about ten years (I was flabbergasted by the price glasses go for nowadays, but I won't go into that now). While I was waiting, I noticed a display on the counter for polarized sunglasses. There was an apparently imageless picture in a frame sitting on the counter, and a pair of polarized glasses you were supposed to put on to look at the picture. When you do, you see a brilliant and detailed scene, where before you saw nothing. The scene was there all along, but you couldn't see it until part of the visual data was filtered out.

This, I think, is the same dynamic that occurs during NDEs. That realm is here now, everywhere, but we can't see it until part of our mental perception is filtered out.

So in that respect, I think that the division, or at least the differentiation, of the conscious and unconscious is a good thing, in that it assists us to see what we otherwise would not in the other world. But a too extreme division, I think, causes one to end up rather like those souls in the "Realm of Bewildered Spirits".

Now try to follow this - I'm going to try to explain something I've only recently started to think I see. Now, you already know that I think that both sides of the mind continue to operate and have their own experiences, independently of one another, in the afterlife. Let's review these separate experiences:

1. The conscious mind finds itself sitting all

alone in a vast emptiness, pure dispassionate

mind, limitless, intelligent, and completely free

to choose or think whatever it wishes.

2. The unconscious mind, meanwhile, experiences

a great Realm or Being of Light with which it

merges, at which point it sees all the history,

all the forms, all the thoughts and feelings that

have ever existed in the entire universe. We

merge with that Being or Realm of Light,

somehow becoming "one with it", but we do

not thereby acquire willful control over it.

Insofar as will is concerned, God's Will remains

separate and distinct from our own. WE are still

not "in charge of the universe", no matter how

deeply we feel we have united with the

"Being of Light".

I think, to cut to the chase here, that each of these experiences is the same thing - each is an experience of personally BEING God. These are the two halves of GOD's mind that we are experiencing as our OWN mind. But we don't realize that at the time, we don't make the connection that WE are experiencing BEING God, that we actually seem to BE God Himself during these precious moments, because these two halves of the coin are not integrated together in our awareness.

But think about it - the above-described experience of the conscious mind would be just what God's EXTERNAL, objective experience would be. Many scriptures tell the same story - in the final analysis, all that exists does so within God's Being, and besides Him, nothing else exists at all. Why did God create the universe, create man? Many theologians insist it was because He was lonely, and that is exactly what the conscious mind's experience would be, according to DivisionTheory (and to the NDE reports of the tunnel and PLR reports of the void). So from God's objective perspective, He sits alone in the universe, and besides Himself, nothing else exists. Many scriptural passages from many different religions assert the very same thing.

Meanwhile, the experience of the unconscious (reports of the Being of Light and Realm of Light) would be what God's INTERNAL, subjective experience would be - this is the universe He created within Himself, within His own imagination. All his dreams, everything He has planned, designed and built up, the entire universe all existing and preserved within His own unconscious imagination.

So the division of conscious and unconscious, in this respect, hides something from us - it hides the ultimate secret, the ultimate revelation - the fact that WE are God, that it is Us Who is that being floating alone in that void, it is Us Who is making up this whole universe inside Our imagination. But We cannot truly experience, realize, and fully KNOW the truth of that Identity until We integrate both sides of the afterlife experience. So long as We experience the void and the Light as two unconnected and unrelated experiences, the truth about Our identity remains hidden from Us.

Thus we find again value in the ancient and modern suggestion that the goal is to reunite and deeply integrate these two elements of the self, for indeed, it seems that even the reports coming from modern afterlife research suggest that "the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" for each of us.

And Who lives in that Kingdom and sits on that Throne? Only the King.

"To him who overcomes,

I will give the right to sit with me on my throne,

just as I overcame

and sat down with my Father on his throne."

- Revelation 3:21

"In the beginning there was the void", our scriptures tell us. God found Himself all alone in an infinite emptiness. "And then God said 'Let there be light', and there was light." DivisionTheory suggests that this Light He created only came into being within His own internal, subjective imagination - his unconscious. All the while, He remained consciously aware (i.e., His conscious mind continued to register the fact) that on another level (the level of the conscious mind) He still remained alone in that empty void.

The conscious mind holds the free will, the unconscious does not. This is the key, this is the riddle.

So long as we remain convinced that our whole existence is to be found within that interior dream God is having, we remain cut off from the full use of our free will, which is controlled by the conscious mind, the half that knows that it is all, ALL, a dream, a fantasy, an illusion.

So that, then, I guess contradicts my earlier statement that the NDE is not an illusion. But only to say, in accordance with the Hindus and Buddhists, that all this universe is an illusion.

Have I made myself better understood, or worse?