Hello Rachel,

You have good questions. I have answered each below.

1 - I just finished reading Heaven is for Real, and in that book, the little boy that had the NDE says he met his little sister who died in his mother's womb. But you have said somewhere that if a child is not born in a body, it will be born in another body. That makes me wonder.

Yes, we have many reports of children who have been stillborn who have grown up on the next plane of life. The issue with abortion is the belief that somehow, an abortion kills a person. That's not true. If the person is to be born and live life on the Earth plane, that person will be born to another woman, or to the same woman later. We also have reports of that happening.

In other words, the eternal self may grow on the next plane of life after dying before birth, or may simply wait for another opportunity to incarnate. What will happen is what is in the best interests of the individual. Our lives aren't governed by natural laws that dictate that all people will do this or be that. What happens is in our individual best interests. The eternal self cannot be harmed, and will have available what it needs, regardless of what happens to a body or fetus on the Earth plane. The debate over abortion is full of ignorance about who we really are, and the result is conflict, hatred, and even murder in the name of saving the unborn child. It's needless turmoil borne of ignorance.

: 2- Where or how do you get answers so specific to all the questions asked in this forum?

I've studied the statements by mediums about the afterlife, the research into the nature of consciousness, and all other sources that I can find that help us understand who we are in eternity. We know a great deal, but most people just don't read the literature.

: 3 - A lot of times I read that in the afterlife, we have ethereal bodies, but you say that our bodies in the afterlife is real and concrete?

There really isn't an afterlife. That's a misnomer. There is only this life. We are living on a spiritual plane now. We lived on spiritual planes before this one. This isn't life and then there's an afterlife. It's all just life.

The ethereal body or astral body is relative to the Earth plane. In other words, we have an Earth body, but also an ethereal body or astral body. When we leave the Earth plane, we no longer have need for any of these bodies. The best way to understand it is to realize that consciousness is the basis of reality. We are who we think we are. When we leave the Earth body behind, our consciousness provides the basis for the body we take on in the next plane of life. It's as real and solid as this body we're in now. Earth is just another spiritual plane. The next spiritual plane will be just like this to us, with bodies, trees, birds, flowers, and all the rest, all just as solid and real as we have on this spiritual plane. We can see what the other spiritual planes are like by looking around on this spiritual plane. We are spirit right now! The bodies we have suit us now. On the next plane of life, another solid body will suit us then. In the resting plane we enter after this one, people take on bodies that are what they most admire about their life on the Earth plane. So if they were older, they take on bodies on their 20s or 30s. But they're bodies just like what we have now.

: 4 - You say we will have millions of experiences after this life. How is it explained that our body look the same in the afterlife? i.e. if we reincarnate as a man vs a woman, how do our loved ones recognize us when me meet again from life to life?

When we leave the Earth plane, we are still entirely as we were in mind when on the Earth plane. Our minds don't change. As a result, we expect the things we had on the Earth plane. If a person wants to continue eating, he or she will be able to eat, even though eating isn't necessary. I know of one person who came through in a Leslie Flint seance who said he still smoked a pipe. Of course, he has the experience of smoking a pipe, but there is no smoke because there is no pollution.

Life on the next plane is just like Earth life because everyone who goes there from Earth expects it. So, for a period of time (meaning centuries of Earth time), we keep our familiar forms. A husband is still himself, a male, looking as he did on the Earth plane. A woman is still the person she was on the Earth plane. Then, gradually, people mature away from the Earth plane. They change. They no longer need to have things as they were. They may then choose to incarnate with their soul group on some other plane or other time on the Earth plane.

As to how we recognize each other, we are much more than bodies with genders, recognizable faces, and personalities. These are just temporary costumes. We have a hard time understanding that now because who we are now is all we know. We think we'll be Craig and Rachel forever. But our eternal selves are much larger than that. We're made up of many lives. They all form who the eternal self is. We were 5 years old and 20 and 50 and 70, as quite different people each time, but we still say "That was me at 5" and make awkward statements like "No, I'm not who I was when I was 5 now, but that was me!" We'll always know each other, but not as who we are during this brief time on the Earth plane. We'll know each other as the eternal selves who were 5 and 25 and a woman in a past life and a man in another and on and on.

: 5 - Is there a one place where every soul calls home? Like where we go to between experiences?

No. There are millions of planes. We go to the plane where our soul group goes that is familiar to us, like the Earth plane. But someone who incarnated onto another planet or other plane entirely different from planets and Earth would transition to a plane that was familiar to them and their soul group. We just don't communicate with them because we communicate with people who are close to the Earth plane because they came from it.

: 6 - You say when we die we 'awake' to the environment we expect and that feels like home. What if my expectations differ from the ones of my loved ones / soul mate? What happens then?

The "expectations" are in broad terms. I expect to see grass. I expect to see trees. I expect to see my loved ones as they were on the Earth plane, although they may be younger than when I last saw them. I don't mean by expectations that I want to live in a medieval castle and my wife wants to live in a cottage on the beach. It isn't a conscious thought, and it isn't something as specific as the place in which we live. I mean only that if you transitioned from the depths of the African jungle and had never seen civilization, the next plane of life would look just like an African jungle, not like a street in San Francisco. You just expect life to be familiar.

: 7 - If I suffer from Depression, do I bring that with me? In other words, If I don't feel happy and excited and motivated in my life, will it be different in the afterlife?

Yes, you take with you whatever you had mentally, but the physical part is gone. If your depression was from a chemical imbalance, that will go away. The body had the chemicals. But if you had a depressive personality because of fears, you'll still have the fears. Over time, you'll outgrow them, because fears are taught by the physical realm. When you no longer have to have the fears, eventually they'll pass away. But you learn to live without them. They don't suddenly disappear. The learning is just like learning on this side of life. It takes time and experiences.

When we first transition over, we are exactly the same, with the exception of anything that came from the body. We have to continue growing spiritually and mentally.

: 8 - How do we know which mediums/books etc are the real thing, and which are frauds? Do you have any book recommendations?

Expect that when you have a reading, those on the other side will give you information the medium could never have known, and lots of it. If the person claiming to be a medium is fishing and saying general things and says few things that might be accurate details, then that person is not a medium. Google Lisa Williams and watch a YouTube video of her doing a reading. That's what a medium does.

: 9 - And finally, If we have had more than one spouse, how does it work in terms of who I'll be with in the afterlife? And will it always be the same? If it's my 'soulmate'? How do I know?

There is no such thing as a "soulmate" because that entails ownership. I own you because we're meant to be together. You will be with someone on the next plane of life for the same reasons you're with someone on this spiritual plane. If you don't want to be with someone, you won't be, even if they want to be. You'll just have to get over it.

Love and peace, Craig