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Ask the Author: Roberta Grimes
Answered Questions (9)
Roberta Grimes
Hello Julia! I'm afraid that the actual roots of our racial problems go back for more than two centuries, and the only way we ever can truly and permanently heal our racial divide is to go back to its sources and heal it there. All the attempts we have made in modern times to address what are actually just symptoms of much deeper issues have availed us little, and some have actually made our racial problems worse! But the good news is that our divide can indeed be healed altogether, and there are foundations now that are setting about beginning to do it right. A very much better future is dawning!
Roberta Grimes
Hello Nissim! Good question. Quantum physicist Max Planck said that what we think of as consciousness is what gives rise to what we think of as reality; in fact, nothing else but consciousness exists. But of course, there is no good definition of consciousness that I have seen; scientists seem really not to know what it is, and the fact that they are stuck with treating consciousness as just an artifact of our material brains makes them unable to even begin to figure consciousness out. The best definition I ever have found of God might also apply to consciousness: "An energy-like potentiality without size or form, alive in the sense that your mind is alive, infinitely powerful and highly emotional and therefore probably self-aware." It's the creative force that continuously brings forth the universe. Essentially, perhaps consciousness and God are one.
I hope this helps! If you have other questions or want to discuss this further, you can always email me at [email protected].
I hope this helps! If you have other questions or want to discuss this further, you can always email me at [email protected].
Roberta Grimes
Hello Mary! There are few descriptions in the literature of anyone having actual negative experiences with people who have completed their transitions to the afterlife levels. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any. Nearly all of these negative experiences are actually one of the following:
1) Near-death experiences can be negative, and can involve encounters with nasty beings - PMH Atwater tells us that as many as one in five NDES is negative or hellish to some extent. But none of these experiences involves a trip to the genuine afterlife. Most are constructed by our spirit guides for our spiritual benefit (perhaps to shape us up?). These are, in other words, not encounters with real negative beings (although we might be visited in an NDE by actual transitioned loved ones).
2) Encounters with negative earthbound spirits. You're right: some of the nastiest characters who die will stick around here rather than completing their trip to the afterlife levels. And yes, they will plague susceptible people. An especial problem is the fact that addicts who die will often stick around and latch onto living addicts to try to feed their cravings, which is one reason why addictions (alcohol, drugs, even sex) can become so established and so hard to cure (spirit disposession techniques can work; little else often will). Some people will pick up a "shadow man" who bugs them at night, so they sleep with a nightlight. Each of us who is adult and in physical and spiritual health has an aura that offers strong protection against our even being aware of the nasty earthbound spirits that are always around us, but people with defective auras can sometimes be plagued by these guys.
3) Actual demons apparently do exist. This is one of those areas that I don't like so I haven't much researched it! Reports suggest that many of them are extraterrestrial and inter-dimensional in origin, and they are something like germs attacking healthy people: they can't penetrate a solid spiritual immune system, but they might get through one that is not healthy.
4) Spiritual fragments are another thing that I haven't much researched, and I don't know that anyone knows a lot about them. If someone has an extremely bad and intense experience, it is possible for a part of that person's mind/spirit literally to fragment off and become stuck in that spot. Sensitive people can sometime sense these fragments, and the experience can be quite unpleasant.
It is crucial to remember that the more evil an entity is, the weaker it is. That seems to be a fundamental law of the consciousness that is reality's underlying physics. So although the bad guys can scare you, it is extraordinarily unlikely that they will have the ability to harm you. The key to protecting yourself in all cases is to learn ever more perfect love, since that will very much strengthen you spiritually. Thank you for asking, Mary!
1) Near-death experiences can be negative, and can involve encounters with nasty beings - PMH Atwater tells us that as many as one in five NDES is negative or hellish to some extent. But none of these experiences involves a trip to the genuine afterlife. Most are constructed by our spirit guides for our spiritual benefit (perhaps to shape us up?). These are, in other words, not encounters with real negative beings (although we might be visited in an NDE by actual transitioned loved ones).
2) Encounters with negative earthbound spirits. You're right: some of the nastiest characters who die will stick around here rather than completing their trip to the afterlife levels. And yes, they will plague susceptible people. An especial problem is the fact that addicts who die will often stick around and latch onto living addicts to try to feed their cravings, which is one reason why addictions (alcohol, drugs, even sex) can become so established and so hard to cure (spirit disposession techniques can work; little else often will). Some people will pick up a "shadow man" who bugs them at night, so they sleep with a nightlight. Each of us who is adult and in physical and spiritual health has an aura that offers strong protection against our even being aware of the nasty earthbound spirits that are always around us, but people with defective auras can sometimes be plagued by these guys.
3) Actual demons apparently do exist. This is one of those areas that I don't like so I haven't much researched it! Reports suggest that many of them are extraterrestrial and inter-dimensional in origin, and they are something like germs attacking healthy people: they can't penetrate a solid spiritual immune system, but they might get through one that is not healthy.
4) Spiritual fragments are another thing that I haven't much researched, and I don't know that anyone knows a lot about them. If someone has an extremely bad and intense experience, it is possible for a part of that person's mind/spirit literally to fragment off and become stuck in that spot. Sensitive people can sometime sense these fragments, and the experience can be quite unpleasant.
It is crucial to remember that the more evil an entity is, the weaker it is. That seems to be a fundamental law of the consciousness that is reality's underlying physics. So although the bad guys can scare you, it is extraordinarily unlikely that they will have the ability to harm you. The key to protecting yourself in all cases is to learn ever more perfect love, since that will very much strengthen you spiritually. Thank you for asking, Mary!
Roberta Grimes
I like to work on two at once - that way, if one wants to cook for a bit I can skip to the other. My two most recent books are The Fun of Staying in Touch, about afterlife communication, which has been on my mind since The Fun of Dying came out in 2010 - I knew almost at once that The Fun of Dying was the first of a trilogy. The Fun of Growing Forever - about spiritual growth and what the afterlife is like - will come out in 2016 or 2017.
On the fiction front, the first trilogy of my Letters From Love Series will be completed when Letter from Wonder is published in September. I found a thirty-year-old novel of mine quite accidentally in late 2012 and knew immediately that it had a sequel, so I spent 2013 writing Letter from Money (that old novel became Letter from Freedom). Then as I was finishing writing Letter from Money, Letter from Wonder just came fully formed into my mind, so I wrote that one in late 2013 and early 2014. Each novel gave me the idea for the next one! But the ideas about what human nature actually is and what we really are that are at the core of the alternative culture in the Letters from Love Series come directly from what I have learned about human nature from studying the afterlife evidence. In truth, we are glorious and perfectly loving eternal beings! Who knew??
On the fiction front, the first trilogy of my Letters From Love Series will be completed when Letter from Wonder is published in September. I found a thirty-year-old novel of mine quite accidentally in late 2012 and knew immediately that it had a sequel, so I spent 2013 writing Letter from Money (that old novel became Letter from Freedom). Then as I was finishing writing Letter from Money, Letter from Wonder just came fully formed into my mind, so I wrote that one in late 2013 and early 2014. Each novel gave me the idea for the next one! But the ideas about what human nature actually is and what we really are that are at the core of the alternative culture in the Letters from Love Series come directly from what I have learned about human nature from studying the afterlife evidence. In truth, we are glorious and perfectly loving eternal beings! Who knew??
Roberta Grimes
I have 20 years of pent-up fiction ideas from my long period of writer's block that began when My Thomas was orphaned at Doubleday in 1993. I have many more whole novels in my head than I ever will have time to write! The Letters From Love Series has four more (maybe five more) novels still to come over the next ten years, and I pretty much know what they will be. Just have to get the third generation to grow a little older! I love spending time with these characters who are such complete human beings to me that they write their own stories - I feel as if I'm just watching and trying to get it all written down prettily. I've also got a mystery-thriller in my mind that has been there for at least twenty years - I may get to that one for next year as well. I love trying new kinds of fiction, but always with a love story in there somewhere!
Roberta Grimes
We are post-copyedit on The Fun of Staying in Touch (about afterlife communication), which comes out later in August. Letter From Wonder is about to go to copyediting - it comes out in September, and will complete the first trilogy of the Letters From Love Series. Once they are both off my desk, I will go back to Letter From Crisis, my 2015 novel, which is set in the 1540s and is bloody and violent and scary (but also a love story) - it's a new direction for me. My editor and a test-reader love it! We'll see....
Roberta Grimes
The only thing that I know how to suggest is to do what I did: read very good writers, and then WRITE. In the seventies I was reading John Steinbeck, John Updike, and Anne Tyler - three beautiful wordsmiths - and then in 1977 I sat down and wrote the first (horrendously bad) draft of a novel that I called various things, but eventually it became Letter from Freedom. I rewrote that novel repeatedly, played with every aspect of it, and eventually lost track of it. When I rediscovered it 30 years later - after having mainstream-published two other novels - I thought that, wow, it was pretty good! But that was only because Steinbeck, Updike, and Tyler were wonderful teachers and because I rewrote it maybe 20 times. Keep writing until you can put words together in your sleep!
Roberta Grimes
For me, the very best thing about writing is hearing from readers. The best! I have heard from so many people who have read The Fun of Dying and been helped by it, and each one of them absolutely made my day. Now I am hearing from people who have read one or more of my novels and have questions or ideas to share. I feel as if I am making so many wonderful friends who care about the same things that are important to me!
Roberta Grimes
Actually, I can't deal with writer's block. When My Thomas was orphaned at Doubleday in 1993 - my editor left for another house just before its publication date, so Doubleday basically dropped the novel - I went into writer's block for 20 years! I can recall sitting for hours with my fingers on the keys, knowing what I wanted to write, but unable to write anything. Eventually I gave it up. It was only when my afterlife research got to the point where I had to write The Fun of Dying or burst, and then the book was indy-published in 2010, that I discovered that being published can be fun! My writer's block became a writer's flood ;-). Counting the republication of my two early-nineties mainstream novels, I will be publishing six books this year, with many more to come!!
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