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 A segment of the documentary DVD "Spiritual Teachings Weekend with Paul in Eastbourne" (2005) is entitled "Demonstration of Trance with other guides."  This sequence is 22 minutes.  Paul, the spiritual healer who regularly works through trance medium Ray Brown is seen informing an audience in the Stone Cross Village Hall about the next part of the presentation: I have to get Raymond out of the way so that he will be quiet enough to allow the other people through.  So I will disappear in a moment and whoever gets through, gets through.  So just bear with me a little bit because he hates this part.  It is deeper overshadow, not quite deep trance so it is a different situation than you've got with me.  So he's not too happy with the situation.  He goes along with it.  I'm going to see who comes along.  And as always with this type of thing with the people we've got is when they've decided they've had enough they go away.  ...

In a comment on one of my recent articles, The ego is essentially a formless and hence featureless phantom , a friend called ‘Sleepwalker’ quoted a sentence from its thirteenth section, Can self-awareness be considered to be a feature of the ego? (which I had quoted from We are aware of ourself even though we are featureless , the second section in one of my earlier articles, Being attentively self-aware does not entail any subject-object relationship ), namely “When we say, ‘I slept peacefully last night’, we are expressing our experience of having been in a state in which we experienced no features”, and asked whether the peacefulness of sleep is not just a feature. Since the concept of nirviśēṣatva (featurelessness or absence of any distinguishing features) is a significant and useful idea in advaita philosophy, and since it is very relevant to the practice of self-investigation, I decided to write the following detailed answer to this question: In what sense is the peacefulness...

Image from "Life After Death: Your Spiritual Journey" DVD     'Paul' is the spiritual healer who regularly inhabits the body of trance medium Ray Brown .  One of the intricacies of this case is that unlike Paul, when other 'guides' speak through Ray's body for brief interims his eyes remain closed.  Paul has explained that as these guides and helpers see through their own eyes they don't need to use Raymond's eyes.     The autobiography A Mere Grain of Sand (2004) by Ray & Gillian Brown with Paul Dickson is one of the sources offering instruction from Paul about the spiritual evolution processes of karma and reincarnation. The most important thing you must realize is that you are responsible for every word, deed and action on the Earth plane. You cannot avoid the Laws of Karma.  There are those who are of the opinion that karmic debts are cleared down here.  Forget that idea, all karmic debts are cleared in Spir...

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In a comment on one of my earlier articles, The fundamental law of experience or consciousness discovered by Sri Ramana , a friend called Chimborazo wrote: Michael, sometimes it is said that the source of the ego (all thoughts, ‘I’-thought) is the heart. And the same heart is said to be the source of the breath. Therefore thoughts and breath have the same source. So if one holds one’s breath no thoughts would rise. I cannot confirm that and I did not learn it in my experience of meditation. Please could you comment on this or clarify. In reply to this I wrote a comment in which I explained: When it is said that the source of the ego and the source of the breath are both only ‘the heart’ (which does not mean any physical organ or location in our body, but only the core of ourself, which is what we really are), and that therefore when either the ego or the breath subsides, the other will also subside, what is meant by the word ‘breath’ or prāṇa is not just the physical act of breathin...