Question: who are "they"?
I don't refer to any particular source of information on this, however it may be that a person makes one's own life plan, there is no "other", no "they". Nothing is imposed by one on another in that planning. Such ideas only apply in this world, where all that planning is forgotten, the ego takes over and the greatest difficulty is in trying to remember who one is. Not in the sense of recalling an identity, though that can be important to some, but simply recalling one's nature, to know what is real and what is dust.
I wasn't claiming that there is a "they" in terms of a separarate person or group but rather that in teh case that there is/were a seperate person or group organizing and enacting such a plan then that person or group has an ability which could and certainly would be abused for personal gain.
That being said, my personal experience with the paranormal throughout this life suggests that this may be the case at least some of the time. It's a debate I've had over and over again with various spirits about the methods some of them claim to use. Namely the use of religion or at least religious sounding language and concepts to "teach" humans." My major dissagreement with this is that they're just lying and they know it. Thus I doubt their claims of being benevolent teachers who are only trying to help. Rather, that is just what they tell people as part of their manipulation, and I have a lot of reasons to believe this.
Some know and fully admit it's all bullshit and make a game out of whispering things to people, especially religious, gullible people, that they want to hear and manipulating those people into believing and doing things that can ruin their and other's lives. Knowing that there will be no consequences to them for such manipulation. Others seem to truly believe that teaching in this manner is neccessary and do have good intentions but can't see their own bigotry and narccissism. Their defense ultimately boils down to "well humans are really dumb and aren't capable of learning any other way" which isn't an argument but they usually aren't interested in talking much after I point that out. Some try to be more insidious about it and act as if they genuinely care but describe protocols and methods straight out of a cult leader handbook. Things such as putting a person in a religious life surrounded by other religious people, creating a "religious afterlife" that they enter when they die to confirm the religion they were brought up to believe during the previous life, rinse and repeat. Creating a closed loop of life experience that constantly confirms itself to the soul. Claiming that they close the person off from outside knowledge "until they're ready" which is of course decided by the people lying to the soul in the first place. And I'm sure there's
absolutely no conflicts of interest, ulterior motives, or abuse
whatsoever in that system... because they said so.
The idea being that if you put someone through enough loops then it doesn't really matter that they can't consciously remember everything about their past lives. They will always have an intuitive feeling of familiarity that still seeps through. The more loops confirming the same bias, the stronger the intuition about it, the more likely the person is to gravitate towards and accept the worldview during that life. I don't know if direct conscious memory would help or hinder such a system given the possibility of someone suspecting they're just being manipulated if given the time to look at the scenarios from an outside perspective. Perhaps feeling and of course, teaching people to trust their feelings, serves the manipulation better. I don't really know.
Things got violent for awhile between about 2010 - 2011 which taught me that things on the spirit plane can harm and kill things on the physical plane and vice versa. Although of course knowing how to defend yourself from such attacks is evil and teaching others how to defend themselves is dangerous and apocalyptic.... because they said so. It's likely the lion's share of the reason that someone or something tries to attack and/or shove me back in my body whenever I OOBE whether induced or not. Sometimes someone else will pull me out just to attack me although it's very rare these days and hasn't happened consistently for years.
The most frustrating thing about it is that I got hammered for months by spirits trying to pull all the religious bullshit on me when I first started consciously astral projecting until they eventually realized that I wasn't religious and thus wasn't a complete moron. So whenever anyone tries using the "humans are just dumb and can't understand" argument I ask them "well what about me?" to which they reply "well.... you're different" which isn't an argument. But of course, try telling them that.
The textbook example of this was in 2014, maybe around april or march or something, I don't remember, where a couple people induced a shared dream with me. One of them started introducing himself in very religious terms, I don't remember exactly what they said anymore. But they also spoke using a "upon high" tone. At least until his partner cut him off with a sharp "We don't need to do that with this one!" The other one paused, probably a little shocked and embarrassed, cleared his throat and started the introduction again. this time it was totally normal, I don't remember the wording verbatim anymore but it was essentially "Hi I'm Bob, and this is my supervisor Jim, and I know this all looks really
real right now but it's
actually just a big metaphor." To which I sarcastically thought to myself "Yes, thank you, I
have been in a shared dream before."
It wasn't just the religious bullshit titles and terms, their tone had completely changed from talking down
at me to talking
to me like an equal. It represented the fundamental problem I have with their methods. They make themselves out to be something they're not, better than other people. somehow more important. It's not an equal exchange, humans are just these poor, dumb, weak little creatures who don't know any better and couldn't
possibly fend for themselves whereas we're the smart, civilized, powerful people who must take on the
heavy burden of enlightening these savages.
But nothing I say is ever going to make a difference because I'm not the one in control.
Many other spirits, namely those who are native to that plane, believe the stereotypes about humans, that humans are dumb. worship anything they don't understand or that has power, don't have magic, are inherently weak, etc, largely because they don't have much if any personal experioence with humans themselves and have no reason to question such stereotypes as a result. So, infuriatingly, I usually get mistaken for a native spirit when I project and meet someone new. Based solely on the fact that I am "not dumb" and "have magic." I don't blame them for it though because it's understandable. Especially when other humans do go up there and ask shit like "what spiritual level am I on?" like what Jurgen Ziewe said he did once during his Skeptiko interview. With the unsurprisnging response being a blank stare because of how ridiculous such a question sounds to some random dude who just lives there. Like walking into a Starbucks and asking the barista "Is this where God lives?"
I could go on but I've been rambling for far too long. I didn't realize how long this comment was getting. But I hope it's at least somewhat explanatory and not competely batshit insane. Although I'm not holding my breath on the second part.