Spirit Dialogues

Explorations of Spirit
by Michael Edwards

Site Map (Contents of site)
New pages
Recently updated pages
Areas on my main web site of possible spiritual interest
Links to my main web site

... or on to What this web site is about, and the Foreword

What this web site is about

Welcome to this web site, and thank you for visiting. I am currently experimenting with a new colour scheme and style of presentation of the pages on this web site, so I hope you will excuse any inconsistencies which may be present in the short term.
I will, first of all, write a brief summary of what this web site is about, so that you can decide quickly whether you want to continue reading or not.
The various pages linked to from this front pages consist of writing by myself. The topics are not fixed, but the overall focus is very much on exploring various spiritual or metaphysical ideas as they occur to me. Any thoughts on other topics are introduced freely if they seem to be relevant, or even if they are merely an interesting or amusing diversion, and there are many references to events or issues in my own personal life, although I don't think they are the main focus of the pages. I suppose the pages could best be described as a personal spiritual journal or diary.
If you are not interested in reading writings of this sort, this web site will not contain anything of interest to you. If you are interested in spiritual topics, but have firm beliefs of your own about what is true spiritually (for example, if you are a committed Christian, Moslem, atheist, etc. - I am none of these myself), and are not willing to consider the possibility that other outlooks may have just as much truth to them, you will probably not find the writings here congenial to your own outlook, and some of the ideas discussed may sometimes appear very questionable or disreputable to people of strong, fixed faith, and may occasionally even be offensive to such people. In these pages, nothing is too sacred to be questioned, even criticized.
The format for most of the pages is a dialogue between my ordinary self and my higher self. In my spiritual search over the years, I have attempted in various ways to tune into a greater reality or into my higher self, and I was attempting to channel my higher self, to gain insight or knowledge from my higher self that may not be normally available to one's everyday consciousness; so the use of the dialogue format is actually more than a literary device to expose various ideas.
However, those who are sceptical of the idea that one can tap into one's higher self and have a discussion with that higher self, or sceptical even of the existence of a higher self, may choose to regard the dialogue format merely as a literary device for bring out the various aspects of whatever topic or idea is under discussion. In fact, I am not sure myself whether one has a higher self, or whether I have in fact contacted my higher self, and I do not make that absolute claim - so indeed the format of this writing may be nothing more than a literary device. I am quite happy for anyone who feels sceptical to regard the dialogue format, the higher-self trappings, and so on merely as a literary device if they wish, and I ask only that the ideas be evaluated on their own merit (or, possibly, lack of merit), and not on the supposed nature of their source, which is something I do not myself feel certain of. But I did conceive these dialogues in a way that was attempting to be more than a literary device.
I will just explain briefly the conventions I've used in the dialogues for labelling the two parts. There are two early dialogues from 1990 and 1991, written before I had fully established a style for these dialogues, which are more in the manner of an early groping for this method of exploring spiritual issues, and the parts there are labelled "ME" (for "Michael Edwards" or possibly "me") and "C" (for Counsellor - a kind of fictitious amalgam of an idealized counsellor and my higher self).
This style of dialogue never really got off the ground, and tapered off after only two sessions. I started again in mid-1994, and it really took off this time, and I developed a new approach and style, strongly influenced by some of the ideas I was exposed to in the New-Age circles I started moving in late in 1993. The parts belonging to my ordinary self are labelled "Michael" from 1994 to the present. From 1994 to 1998, my higher self's parts are labelled "Bivalia", which obviously needs some explanation. In 1994, a mystic told me that "Bivalia" was my higher self's name, and, although I never felt easy about this, I accepted it as a convenient name to use for my higher self in these dialogues. From 2000 onwards, I abandoned this label in favour of "Higher Self" and "Spirit".
For more on this, please read the firstnote at the end of the dialogue on Monday, 13 June, 1994 (the first to use the name "Bivalia").
If, going by what I've just said, the content of this web site sounds as if it may interest you, you may read a bit about how this web site is organized in the Foreword immediately following; and below that is a complete Site Map listing every page on the site and links to them.

Foreword

Welcome to this web site of dialogues between my Higher Self and my everyday self, and thank you for visiting.
The dialogues on this web site are an attempt on my own part to contact my Higher Self and possibly gain spiritual insights by so doing. For further information on how I began doing this, and the spiritual assumptions this exercise is based on, please see the note What this web site is about immediately above, and also the Introduction, which I strongly suggest you read before you go on to the actual dialogues and related material; this Foreword is more about the web site itself, and covers a few matters I would like to explain concerning it.
You may like to read to read these points in order, or else you can go to each broad section via the links given just below. A bit further down is a site map which lists every page on this web site in an indented way that clearly shows their hierarchical relationship.
This web site is not easy for the general public to find, although it can be found if one follows the right links - ones which you will only be likely to find if you are interested in reading about my spiritual ideas. Therefore, if you have reached this page, it is quite likely because I personally told you about it, so very likely you have some idea of why I have written dialogues with my Higher Self, and some idea of the contents of the dialogues. If not, well perhaps you don't know who I am, and merely stumbled on this web site by chance. Now that I have linked this web site to my main web site, it is possible now for people to find it - and, I suppose, eventually for search engines to find it and index the pages in their databases. If you have come here not knowing who I am or what this web site is all about, I hope you enjoy what I have written here nonetheless, and I ask you to be open-minded in considering some of the ideas you will encounter, which may strike you as unorthodox.
And if you think the idea of spiritual dialogues or conversations with my Higher Self is merely a rip-off from Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God series of books, to which my own dialogues bear a faint (only faint) resemblance, I would point out that I began writing these dialogues well before I was even aware of Walsch's very interesting work, and my dialogues have precursors in diaries I wrote as far back as the early 1980s in which I had conversations between various personified parts of my own personality. While these do sometimes touch on similar spiritual ideas as the following dialogues do, they are not as explicitly spiritual in outlook, and I do not plan at this stage to include them on this web site. Another couple of reasons for this: they are very extensive, and would make this web site far too large (and entail perhaps hundreds of hours of typing, because they are all handwritten); and also, at times they discuss very personal (and non-spiritual) things I am not ready to share with anyone at all thus far.
This Foreword discusses only the structure of the web site; for discussion of the spiritual and personal premises of the dialogues themselves, please read the Introduction (a link to which is also included at the top of the site map given below).

Links within this page
Top
What this web site is about
Foreword
Links within this page (you're already here)
(Slightly) technical notes about the structure of this web site
Why this web site was formerly not linked to from my main
web site, and why the link is still not prominent
Contacting me
About the site map
New pages
Recently updated pages
Site Map

(Slightly) technical notes about the structure of this web site
This is structurally and "virtually" a separate web site from my regular one at http://www.foxall.com.au/users/mje, but, as far as the hardware and software are concerned, it is just a set of pages from the same web site. The thing that makes the web site you are now in effectively a separate web site from my regular one is that it is self-contained, and largely unconnected to the other site. The current site does contain links to the other site when that is appropirate, but this does not in any way affect the self-contained structure of this site; and the other site does now contain a couple of rather unobtrusive links to this site, but once again, this in no way obscures the clearly separate nature of the two sites, and so the net result is that these pages behave almost exactly like a separate web site.
There is only one way in which this is not quite true: if a website is called <domain name> / <user-name> and there is a page within that web site called Index.htm, then going to <domain name> / <user-name> will automatically take you to that file to begin with, without the U.R.L. having to include that file-name. This is a requirement of my service provider, Fox All, and I believe it is usual practice.
But since that name is already taken up by my regular web site, this separate virtual web site will need a front page named differently (which is this file, Spirit.htm), and therefore any U.R.L.s to it will have to specify that file (if you want to go to the front page) or another file that belongs to it, in the form <domain name> / <user-name> / <file-name>. Thus this page's U.R.L. has to be specified in full, thus: http://www.foxall.com.au/users/mje/Spirit/Spirit.htm. Other pages can of course be referred to in the normal way by naming them in full at the end of the U.R.L.
Provided this requirement is met, this web site will in all other respects behave like a completely separate web site from my regular one. However, because it does not have a file called Index.htm, it is not technically a separate web site at all. (I could probably arrange a separate web site, but that would probably cost me a bit too much money for now, so I won't do that until one or both "virtual" sites grow sufficiently in size and/or traffic to justify that.)
I just thought I'd explain this in case anyone notices that it doesn't quite behave like a fully independent web site, such as not having a page called Index.htm, or for links to its front page needing to have the front-page file-name to be included in the U.R.L. See the next section of this Foreword for the reasons I have arranged things this way.

Why this web site was formerly not linked to from my main web site, and why the link is still not prominent
For some months, I quite deliberately did not provide links to this web site from my main web site, so that anyone visiting the latter would not have seen the slightest clue that this one even exists, even though it is at the same domain address. This was because this web site contains the text of attempts I have made to channel my Higher Self, and for some time I did not feel ready to share this with the general public - and even now, although I feel it appropriate to make the pages publicly available, I do not want any links to them to be splashed all over the place, and want them to be findable mainly by people who are likely to find my explorations of spiritual ideas interesting. This I have effected by placing the only links to this web site on two pages you will be unlikely to read if you are not interested in such areas of spirituality. (These pages are two of the pages of notes about haiku I wrote myself, which briefly discuss spiritual concepts which possibly lie behind the haiku.) Obviously this web site relates to my personal spiritual life, and does so very intimately, and it also presumes certain spiritual beliefs or outlooks which not only many people won't share, but which would be seen as extremely controversial and questionable, especially by people of a conventional Christian background.
Accordingly, I originally decided not to actively publicize these pages (for instance, by not linking to them at all from my main, public web site), and preferred to limit knowledge of them to individuals I chose to tell about them. (Why have these pages on the Internet at all then, you may wonder? The reason was so that the pages could be conveniently available to those individuals I chose to share them with.) And even now, the personal nature of the pages means that I am attempting to limit publicity for them in the way described above.
I am aware that I could possibly get an extremely negative reaction from some people if I make the pages fully public, including from many people I know and am close to. While it is true that I don't need the negativity this would induce in me, I feel prepared to take some risk of this happening, because favourable comments from a few people who have read some of my dialogues have persuaded me that the material may be of some help to a few people. However, I don't really want to waste time defending or reasoning about my views to people who are not open to even considering whether there might be merit to those views. I am not evangelistic by nature, and I do not care whether other people accept or reject my views, and at the same time I am less interested now in engaging in prolonged (and inevitably fruitless) debate started by people whose interest is only in telling me where I am wrong (usually for no reason than that it differs from what they believe to be right).
I actually dare to entertain the apparently radical idea that you are okay spiritually, and in no need of salvation, whatever you happen to believe or disbelieve about the spiritual nature or purpose of the universe, and I see no urgency in persuading anyone to accept my point of view. (I may at times enjoy trying to persuade others; but that's another matter, and I attach no spiritual importance to such efforts.) So, as a result, I wish to make the pages available to those who are likely to find them interesting or helpful, but am making no effort to make them easily findable by people unlikely to be receptive to what they say.

I might also explain a slight change to some web pages I've felt compelled to make in the wake of this more public profile for this web site. As of mid-2001, I've discovered that the search engine Google has found, and listed publicly, the pages in this site, which was not really intended by me, but couldn't be prevented if I wanted to have any links to this site from my main site; I used to believe search engines only listed pages if you submitted information about them, but it appears that the search engines explore the web on their own, probably in an automated way, and they discover new web pages by following links from one page to another.
These web pages mention various individuals who have figured in my life in one way or another, and I initially identified them by their real names, since the dialogue documents began life as purely private documents which were shown only to personal friends. Some of these individuals are known within their own circles of colleagues or spheres of interest, and if any of their contacts read these documents as I originally wrote them, they would recognize the names of some of the people mentioned.
I don't believe I've said anything that would defame or embarrass anyone - indeed, most of the people in question are or were relatives or personal friends with whom I was on friendly terms; but nevertheless I've decided I would prefer not to so publicly talk about people in a way that might be recognized. To that end, I've removed some surnames and replaced them with an initial letter to disguise their identity better; in cases where a first name is very unusual, I've even replaced that with an initial, because it alone might identify the individual concerned. (Where I'm just talking about the person, I use an initial; in one or two cases where I'm talking about the name itself, I've used a series of dashes after the initial letter to suggest that I'm talking about the name. It doesn't happen often, but it does arise once or twice. (The number of dashes is always four, and does not suggest the length of the name.))
Even so, I can't be totally sure some may not be recognized, but I have at least done a better job of disguising them. Broadly speaking I do not want to change these documents unless there is a good reason for it; but at least I can say that changing names to initial letters does not change the meaning of the documents in any real way. If anyone I talk about in these documents gets to read them, I am sure they will recognize themselves, in spite of my disguise; I hope they will not object to my referring to them in this manner, and that they will feel that I have said nothing that would embarrass them.

Contacting me
Readers can contact me by e-mail at m j e (no dots or spaces) at remove-spam-block foxall dot com dot au, if they wish. (Please read this if it is not obvious to you what you have to do with this e-mail address before sending the e-mail, and why.) I will always welcome any reactions to what I've written here, or any suggestions for improving the web site, or corrections which should be made. I would be really glad if I could establish contact with anyone who thinks I may have got in touch with Spirit in some sense, and will also welcome constructive criticism from anyone who wishes to discuss reasons why they may think my whole channelling venture to be misguided.
I might perhaps make a slight exception to my general statement about welcoming comments from interested readers. I am not especially interested in hearing from narrow-minded, fundamentalist Christians who are certain beyond any possibility of doubt that they alone possess The Truth, and who don't want to say anything beyond that I'm wrong because the Bible says so, and who are merely interested in converting me to their viewpoint or in informing me that I will be damned and I will suffer in hell for eternity if I don't accept Jesus Christ. I don't regard this as constructive criticism, but merely as narrow-mindedness.
People with this outlook may nevertheless be tempted to e-mail me because they are sure they have something very important to tell me, and that they will be different from run-of-the-mill evangelists. However, if converting me to your faith or finding fault with the views I express is all you want to say to me, don't bother wasting either of our time. Believe me, I have heard all the arguments and reasoning there are to be had on this matter. Over a few decades I have spoken to a great many Christians of various viewpoints, some of them very evangelical in nature, and I have listened to them and spent much time thinking about what they had to say to me, and I have considered almost every conceivable argument as open-mindedly as I am capable of doing. Nevertheless, as the result of many years' thought, I have concluded that none of these arguments is convincing to me, and mainstream Christianity does not strike me as being especially true in any unique sense, although no doubt it contains elements of truth, just as many other spiritual or religious outlooks do.
I feel pretty sure I have heard, and considered, and discussed, every conceivable argument that might be intended to convert me, because, whenever I discuss it nowadays, I never hear a new argument, never hear anything I haven't heard or read dozens of times before. Accordingly, I am not especially interested in rehashing these tired old debates over and over again. If, after decades of considering such views, I have not so far been persuaded of their overwhelming truth, merely hearing the same arguments yet again is unlikely to make me see the error of decades' worth of considered thought.
If you, one of my readers, are an evangelical Christian, and want to write to me to try to tell me the error of my ways, and to let me know about the one true religion, I suppose you will write, regardless of my having just advised you not to bother. Well, thank you for your thoughtfulness: I do appreciate that you mean well. I will read what you have to say; but please bear in mind that unless I feel you really do have something new and interesting to say in support of your views, I will not guarantee to reply to what you say. (New information, new arguments, are the only thing likely to change my view on such matters - and that seems to be very thin on the ground. Personally, I think inner experience or insight or intuition is more formative in deciding one's spiritual outlook than any amount of hard facts or reasoning - something the dialogues themselves discuss in detail. Read them in full before bothering to write and tell me why I'm wrong.)
I am only referring to fundamentalists who are dogmatically certain their religion is the only true one. I would welcome discussion from people of any faith, including Christians - or people of no faith at all - who are interested in discussing issues raised in an open-minded way, who are open to considering whether other views may have some merit, and nothing of what I've just said should be taken to apply to such people. I just don't have the time to spend on debates with people whose interest goes no further than evangelizing to me or finding fault with my spiritual path.

About the site map
On this front page, immediately after this Foreword, you will find a Site Map of this web site (to which you can go instantly by using the link just given).
This is a detailed table showing every page on this web site (and also some pages on my main web site that may be of related interest), and showing the overall structure of the site. The structure of this web site is a simplified version of the style of my main web site, with a simpler hierarchy of pages reflecting the more homogenous nature of this dialogues web site. Instead of having pages at various hierarchical levels, as in my main web site, pages are all at the same level, and simply listed in chronological order. All pages are directly accessible from the site map on this page, though.
This table is as much a planning tool for myself as a map for what is already in the web site. All links are active, but I am using typographic devices to give an indication to the current completeness of pages, thus:
Pages which are more or less complete are shown in bold. (This does not mean that they will not change further, or even have much more material added to them in future; but they are complete as of now, or very nearly so.)
Empty pages which are mere placeholders for future use are not shown in bold, but are italicized and enclosed in parentheses.
And partly-done pages are shown in Roman, but not bold, and not in parentheses.
This applies also to higher-level pages which have no content in themselves beyond links to subsidiary pages. The status of these depends on the status of the most complete pages which appear one or more levels subsidiary to them.
I might add that at times when I am working on the web site, adding new pages and updating old ones, the current status of pages shown by such typesetting devices might be out of date on a temporary basis. At times when the exact pages which are complete, or even up, keep changing, it is too difficult to keep the appearance of links up to date on such an exact, short-term basis, and so when I change the links, this will reflect the status of pages I am aiming at on a short-term basis (a few hours or maybe days), not the continually changing status as the pages themselves change hour by hour. (Keeping the links continually and changingly up to date almost minute by minute at times when I am making big changes to the site would entail extra hours of work which does not seem justified.)

Finally, immediately after the Site Map, for your convenience, I provide a short list, with active links, of the most recent pages on this web site that I have either added or significantly updated, with the date of such addition or updating. (I don't list pages where only trivial alterations have been made, or new pages which are still substantially incomplete or still under construction.)
These links also appear again in their proper place in the Site Map immediately following.

Michael Edwards,
Victoria, Australia.

E-mail: m j e (no dots or spaces) at remove-spam-block foxall dot com dot au
Web site: http://www.foxall.com.au/users/mje
This Spirit dialogues web site:
http://www.foxall.com.au/users/mje/Spirit/Spirit.htm

NOTE:
Click here if you need an explanation for the strange appearance of the e-mail address which will appear when you click on the e-mail link, or if you don't know what you need to do to make the e-mail address work properly.

If you are interested to see what I look like, a photograph of me is available on a short page containing a 54-Kb. jpg photo.

[ Top - Foreword - Site Map - New Pages - Updated Pages ]

Site Map

At a glance - With summaries

Note: All the pages on this web site are arranged in a particular order, as shown below, and that order is recommended for reading all the material, although many of the items will stand by themselves quite satisfactorily. But there are occasions when a dialogue does refer to something discussed in an earlier dialogue, and expands that idea, or continues to discuss it, so if you intend to read all the material, it is suggested that you do so in order. If you start at the Introduction, the links at the top and bottom of each page will direct you to the preceding or following entry in that sequence.

A quick list of the contents appears immediately below, and a little lower down the page the items are relisted together with a brief summary of their contents (being added progressively).

Update on the future of this web site

Contents of web site (at a glance)


Front page (this page): Top - Foreword - Site Map
|--Photo of myself (short page with 54-Kb. jpg photo)
|--Update on the future of this web site
|--Introduction
|--Glossary (introductory page and links)
|  |--A - B   ( A   B )
|  |--C - G   ( C   D   E   F   G )
|  |--H - L   ( H   I   J   K   L )
|  +--M - Z   ( M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z )
|--Other pages of (possible) spiritual interest (on main web site)
|
+--Dialogues
   |--1990    Jan.    Tue.,  9
   |--1991    Jan.    Sun., 13
   |--1992
   |--1993
   |--Question asked of Sananda in Oct., 1993
   |--Letter from my Higher Self (Feb., 1994, and later)
   |--Prayer - Sample of prayer used before all dialogues from Jun., 1994 onwards.
   |--1994    Jun.    Mon., 13  Sat., 25
   |--1994    Aug.    Mon.,  8
   |--1994    Oct.    Sat., 15  Sun., 16  Mon., 24  Wed., 26
   |--1994    Nov.    Tue.,  1  Sat.,  5  Sun., 13  Sat., 26  Sun., 27  Wed., 30
   |--1995    Feb.    Tue., 28
   |--1995    Mar.    Wed.,  1  Mon.,  6  Wed., 29
   |--1995    Apr.    Mon.,  3  Sun.,  9
   |--1995    May     Fri.,  5
   |--1995    Jun.    Sat.,  3
   |--1995    Nov.    Thu.,  9
   |--1996    Feb.    Fri., 16  Sat., 17
   |--1997
   |--1998    Mar.    Fri., 13  Sat., 14
   |--1998    Apr.    Fri.,  3
   |--1998    May     Sat.,  2
   |--1998    Jul.    Tue., 14  Sun., 19
   |--1998    Sep.    Tue., 22  Thu., 24  Fri., 25  Sat., 26  Mon., 28
   |--1998    Dec.    Thu., 24
   |--1999
   |--2000    Dec.    Sat.,  9  Sat., 16
   |--2001    Oct.    Wed.,  3
   |--2001    Nov.    Fri.,  2
   |--2002
   |--2003
   +--2004

Contents of web site (with summaries)

(Summaries being added progressively) Up to quick list

Go to a particular year:

1990 - 1991 - 1992 - 1993 - 1994 - 1995 - 1996 - 1997 - 1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004

Front page (this page): Top - Foreword - Site Map (entire file, ca. 89 Kb.)
Photo of myself (short page with 54-Kb. jpg photo)
Introduction (ca. 21 Kb.)
Glossary (introductory page and links) (ca. 16 Kb.)
A - B (ca. 29 Kb.) ( A B )
C - G (ca. 43 Kb.) ( C D E F G )
H - L (ca. 39 Kb.) ( H I J K L )
M - Z (ca. 34 Kb.) ( M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z )
Other pages of (possible) spiritual interest (on main web site)

Dialogues

1990 January Tuesday, 9 (ca. 50 Kb.) [ down to 1991 - up to Top of Summaries ]
[Untitled foreword: discussion about who the participants in the dialogue are or might be - not so important whether counsellor is real or not; I might create him.
Afterword: Explanation of strange remarks at the end of preceding foreword: sticky-beaks illegitimately prying into journal; daylight-saving time - defensive attitude behind these comments.
The dialogue itself: Have Counsellor and I met before? - debate about whether he has a real name or not, and what that may imply - names are not fixed, spiritually - Counsellor appeared in earlier journals in other guises - he is never far from all that is dearest to me, will always be with me - his sentiments like my idea of a loving God, but I have doubts about their authenticity - writing this dialogue seems dull, and dialogues may not last long if this continues - this journal doesn't seem to have the dynamism of an earlier one - Counsellor tells me a different approach is needed now, and the old journal came to an end under its own weight - he suggests I take a more easy-going, spontaneous approach to this journal, and likens such an approach to automatic writing - as an example of just letting things go and being spontaneous, he suggests I ignore the mistakes caused by bad computer keyboard I'm using, and correct the mistakes afterwards - belief of some that journals should be written, not typed, is just a self-adopted limitation, and needn't apply.]

1991 January Sunday, 13 (ca. 67 Kb.) [ down to 1994 - up to 1990 ]
1992 (No dialogues for this year)
1993 (No dialogues for this year)

Question asked of Sananda in October, 1993 (ca. 26 Kb.)
[ I ask Sananda about my ascension, and about my spiritual doubts - he replies, describing my spiritual life with Hilarion in the Atlantean Temple of Truth, my escape to Greece with him and others, the recreation of the Temple of Truth there, my persecution for standing steadfastly for truth, which caused me in later incarnations to forget; but Sananda has come to call me and reawaken me to the truth I still stand for, for he will need me shortly; my doubts will pass and I will ascend in due course.]

Letter from my Higher Self (February, 1994, and later) (ca. 232 Kb.)
Prayer - Sample of prayer used before all dialogues from June, 1994 onwards. (ca. 10 Kb.)
1994 June Monday, 13 (ca. 70 Kb.) [ down to 1995 - up to 1991 ]
1994 June Saturday, 25 (ca. 55 Kb.)
1994 August Monday, 8 (ca. 56 Kb.)
1994 October Saturday, 15 (ca. 173 Kb.)
1994 October Sunday, 16 (ca. 25 Kb.)
1994 October Monday, 24 (ca. 49 Kb.)
1994 October Wednesday, 26 (ca. 45 Kb.)
1994 November Tuesday, 1 (ca. 31 Kb.)
1994 November Saturday, 5 (ca. 50 Kb.)
1994 November Sunday, 13 (ca. 117 Kb.)
1994 November Saturday, 26 (ca. 16 Kb.)
1994 November Sunday, 27 (ca. 38 Kb.)
1994 November Wednesday, 30 (ca. 22 Kb.)
1995 February Tuesday, 28 (ca. 17 Kb.) [ down to 1996 - up to 1994 ]
1995 March Wednesday, 1 (ca. 60 Kb.)
1995 March Monday, 6 (ca. 41 Kb.)
1995 March Wednesday, 29 (ca. 52 Kb.)
1995 April Monday, 3 (ca. 44 Kb.)
1995 April Sunday, 9 (ca. 40 Kb.)
1995 May Friday, 5 (ca. 71 Kb.)
1995 June Saturday, 3 (ca. 84 Kb.)
1995 November Thursday, 9 (ca. 78 Kb.)
1996 February Friday, 16 (ca. 23 Kb.) [ down to 1998 - up to 1995 ]
1996 February Saturday, 17 (ca. 61 Kb.)
1997 (No dialogues for this year)
1998 March Friday, 13 (ca. 90 Kb.) [ down to 2000 - up to 1996 ]
1998 March Saturday, 14 (ca. 94 Kb.)
1998 April Friday, 3 (ca. 156 Kb.)
1998 May Saturday, 2 (ca. 66 Kb.)
1998 July Tuesday, 14 (ca. 100 Kb.)
1998 July Sunday, 19 (ca. 75 Kb.)
1998 September Tuesday, 22 (ca. 144 Kb.)
[ Life seems dark, and this prompts this session - approaching death makes achievement and life itself seem pointless, so I'm losing spirituality and living just for the moment - Bivalia assures me that non-material accomplishments such as ones I want to make survive into the next world, so I should try to continue with them - 1st reason (of 2) for fear of death: it may be painful or preceded by horrible illness - because of this, I believe in euthanasia - this may not be usual of spiritual people, but Bivalia says not to worry about that, and to be honest about my own beliefs - Bivalia says Spirit is not so condemning, and draws analogy with anaesthesia, which religious people once condemned, but approve of now - even if karma decrees that people should have pain, it doesn't detract from one's right to avoid pain by any available means, although euthanasia or suicide could delay the spiritual projects you came to earth to work on - 2nd reason for fear of death: I don't know what, if anything, comes after death - Bivalia says inner spiritual awareness would remedy that; but meanwhile, until that can be acquired, it is necessary to somehow find a sense of purpose in life - conflict between inner awareness of spirituality and scientific attitude which demands evidence, which I often believe, although hate - post-modernism may come to the rescue, in saying that many views of life are possible, and the scientific one is only one of these - Bivalia agrees partly with post-modernism, but not to the extent of anything goes; but people have to decide for themselves what criteria to use for acceptability - my own spiritual outlook has a magic I prize, which the scientific view doesn't - Bivalia doesn't want to intellectually debate the matter, but leaves me with a thought: according to science, all life is essentially hugely complex chemical machinery, run by a biological computer (the brain) which is created by a biological computer program (the genes); this view leaves no room for consciousness or feelings, which are unaccountable for in this view of things - while this doesn't prove the reality of spirit, it does at least show it to be a credible hypothesis - I have another argument against the existence of Spirit: unlike science, which progresses, and wrong ideas get weeded out, religion and spirituality never progress, competing ideas remain just as chaotic as before - Bivalia says this is an argument against putting too much faith in mere dogma, and that my objection wrongly applies the scientific method to spiritual concepts - an alternative spiritual outlook to having, and defending, a series of dogmas, is to view spirituality as exploring various ideas open-mindedly - to my objection that maybe I do have some dogmas, Bivalia points out they are weak, because I'm not certain of them, and they are open to revision upon learning new information; and also, without having cosmic consciousness, it is not possible to be totally free of some degree of dogma except by having no thoughts on the subject at all - to my point that my view, one of thousands, still doesn't seem likely to be true, Bivalia points out that the nature of truth is that is filtered through our own coloured glasses, and appears different to everyone - following my own path is lonely, and I long for people with a similar outlook - Bivalia replies that following your own path is in the long run a shorter path to your destination - I see less now of people of similar outlook, but some say being part of a spiritual community is important - Bivalia says that some churches are too group-oriented and that this does not give individual experience its due - Shirley R.'s involvement in a group that claims to be the sole source of the best path to cosmic consciousness - this exclusive attitude rings warning bells - people in this group who suggested I ask Bivalia about what they're doing might have expected him to agree with their outlook, but he has reservations, not about what they're doing, but their exclusive claims - I started doing stuff with the group, but got hung up because I couldn't follow all the steps they prescribed in the right order, and it puts me off - the group claims their activities will spark off a mass change in consciousness, like the hundredth monkey effect - I'm less close to Shirley because of her preoccupation with the group's particular process; to me it is just another in a whole string of New-Age fads such as Ascension a few years before - Bivalia says to be open to changing trends, but not to be dependent on them - I see possibility that spirituality is a pretence to cover the reality of death - Bivalia says even if this is so, continue with it, because it might help me, and gives a parallel from a C. S. Lewis novel - Reading Beethoven concerto scores prompted thoughts related to life, death, and other deep matters - Dreams give me feel of Beethoven's great love; maybe it indicates past contact with him, but I'm sceptical of that - Bivalia says real truth is not threatened by scepticism - my scepticism as a "bullshit detector" - thoughts prompted by reading scores: memories of my Adelaide years in childhood, of my father; my father dead now, and I didn't get on well with him; my grandmother dead too, and my family gradually getting eaten up by death, and life feels emptier because of it - death still painful, in spite of assurances about the after-life - Bivalia is with my relatives, and they send their love - Dad's message to me through Bivalia: don't worry about quarrels, it's a stage we all go through; he was very touched by absent healing I gave him, and was helped by books about the after-life I lent him; appreciated my bringing classical music to him when I was a child; he wants to catch up with me in the next life - I plan to go to Adelaide to visit old friends, see old places - magic spots in or near Adelaide - places do have a spirit - nature is important spiritually - analogy with Aboriginal sacred sites - as Bivalia praises my spirituality, I worry about us becoming a nmutual admiration society, to which he replies one should feel good about one's higher self - magic places also in pictures in books; examples from childhood astronomy book, tying in with magic I've always seen in things in the sky - this doesn't spoil Bivalia's explanation that places have spirit, because making up a scene, as in a picture, creates it on the astral plane, and what you are feeling about it is therefore real on some higher level - Bivalia suggests I invoke Dad's presence when I visit Adelaide because of our shared memories there; may be very healing for both of us - longing for something maybe spiritual seems linked to old memories, family; is that longing related to closeness to others, which I mostly lack? - Bivalia's answer: yes to a degree, but it's not the be-all and end-all; the longing is also largely for that which is not in this world; don't marry just to satisfy it - I seem to lack love, motivation to start a family, probably because of my autism; Bivalia says I don't lack love, but express it differently, and it is not my role in this life to marry and have a family - I think maybe it hasn't been one of the best sessions, but Bivalia thinks I shouldn't judge it - Because I started the session a little half-heartedly, Bivalia suggests that over the next few days I do a short dialogue every day, and just say whatever comes; it will get me used to relating to him in a more everyday manner, and will help me relate to him as a close friend, as well as a counsellor - I'm not all that keen, but agree to try it - must go to sleep; should try to get less nocturnal so I can enjoy things like sunrise and dawn flowers in Adelaide; reference to Basho haiku about dawn flowers. ]

1998 September Thursday, 24 (ca. 32 Kb.)
[ Been watching film Jurassic Park - film music very noble, but dinosaurs aren't - moral in film about Man interfering with natural forces he doesn't understand - bringing back dinosaurs would drag earth down by flooding it with gross vibrations - lower astral entities would love to reincarnate as dinosaurs - another theme I saw in the film was overdependence on computers and automation, because it was the breakdown of automation that largely caused the trouble in Jurassic Park, the island where dinosaurs were recreated in the film - doubts about the success of this attempt through daily sessions to become friendly with my Higher Self in an everyday kind of way, because I'm not going about all day talking to my Higher Self - Bivalia replies that it is not unsuccessful at all: until you reach a sufficiently high level of consciousness, it would be quite unmanageable to go about your daily life constantly chatting with your Higher Self - in fact, he says the Higher Self has a duty not to interfere gratuitously in a person's daily life - I reflect that my dialogues may be little more than a way of keeping a diary - Bivalia says it's a very good way of keeping a diary - keeping a diary is a good way of reflecting on deeper matters in a society that allows little time or encouragement for slowing down and reflecting on things - doesn't matter if I'm not really channelling my Higher Self in the dialogues; if I'm just making it up, it's still drawing me closer to my Higher Self and to Spirit - Bivalia can't give me easy answers, but has to help me find them myself, and get inner awareness - the only other alternative is unquestioning acceptance from outside authorities - my asking the questions is more important than what answers I get - need before channelling to do a ritual to invoke protection conflicts with spontaneity Bivalia wants me to develop with him - Bivalia thinks I'm experienced enough at getting in touch with him that I could relax if I want to share something with him spontaneously, but a ritual is still good because it helps me focus on Spirit - he would advice more caution though for something new, such as channelling another being or doing astral travelling - the three ladies doing the process say you shouldn't ask for protection because it's acknowledging separateness, and there's nothing to fear if we're all one - Bivalia's reply: try telling that to people suffering greatly. ]

1998 September Friday, 25 (ca. 21 Kb.)
[ I'm starting to feel the strain of writing a dialogue every day - I stayed another night with my mother to finish repairing one of her books, and because I wanted to see another film on T.V. the following night - I saw The Blob a week ago, and seem to have a fascination for horror stories - the further film I wanted to see was The Secret Garden, about a girl sent to live with an uncle, who befriends a crippled boy and finds a walled garden that used to belong to her now-dead aunt - some critics disapprove of happy endings such as that in The Secret Garden, because it's not realistic; but I think they appeal precisely because it gives us vicariously what real life usually cannot - if I let myself, I might even cry at the movies or over a good book, but that's silly with fictional characters - Bivalia questions that, saying it's valid because the characters are archetypes for real-life people in similar roles, and you are crying for the tragedy in real life, or cheering for the good in the world - when I worry about running out of things to say in dialogues, Bivalia advises me not to worry, but to just let come what wants to. ]

1998 September Saturday, 26 (ca. 18 Kb.)
[ I repeat that daily sessions are becoming a strain - say this because I can't think of anything to say, and Bivalia says let's talk it through - I say it feels as if I'm making up the dialogue, not channelling, that it's a great big wank - Bivalia replies that if it is spiritual masturbation, that's not such a bad thing if it stimulates something useful in the dialogue - I laugh, he says that's a better response; anything to prod me out of my excessive self-criticism - Bivalia says make the sessions shorter if I think going on is a wank, but it might be better to work through it, and the purpose of a wank is to stimulate oneself, which is a good thing if one is at a low point - I find using a sexual metaphor for spiritual things strange, but Bivalia defends it, saying that sex can be spiritual, and one doesn't need to adopt the negative attitudes to it that some churches promote; and I agree with that - I'm playing at the Church of Antioch in the morning - don't feel fully committed because I find their attitude rigid and harsh in some ways - recent sessions getting shorter, and Bivalia makes light of it by joking about sessions of negative length. ]

1998 September Monday, 28 (ca. 15 Kb.)
[ A few odd comments about my day, including getting electioneering letters from politicians - gas plant explosion affecting availability of milk and bread - I noticed that today was the first summery day of the season - Bivalia thinks my tendency to notice the moods of nature keeps me in touch with Spirit - still have doubts about daily sessions, and a reluctance to clog up the files with ephemeral chit-chat - Bivalia suggests putting these dialogues in separate files. ]

1998 December Thursday, 24 (ca. 69 Kb.)
[ I don't like rituals of Christmas - Bivalia suggests that they may be an expression of love, in spite of the less desirable aspects - just as I recognize various spirits, especially natural ones, Bivalia says there is a Christmas spirit, which may not be all that different from what people mean by the colloquial phrase "Christmas spirit" - suggests I could focus on those parts of the Christmas spirit I find congenial, and consider them a "true" Christmas spirit; but I just don't have much feel for it at all - I've been feeling apart from Spirit, but close again the last few days, and this prompted 3 more haiku verses on 3 successive days about twilight, which I saw 3 times in a row - I describe the evenings which prompted the verses, how they evoked old memories when I was preoccupied with heavenly phenomena - even then, I sensed spirit in such things - the verses focus both on the similarity and the slight differences between those successive twilights, and suggested to me that truth itself evolves and changes - Bivalia agrees, suggests even God is still evolving - the twilights reminded me of two basic kinds of world-view, spiritually - 1st view is cyclic: things occur in eternal cycles, such as reincarnation; I resonate with parts of this, but dislike the inclusion of pain as part of the cycles - 2nd view is based on one-off events, singularities: like Christianity, with creation, final judgement, eternal destiny in heaven or hell; I dislike parts of this, too, and seek a happy medium between the cyclic and once-only views of spirit - Bivalia agrees that truth may exist in both views - this dichotomy prompted the 3rd haiku - Bivalia says the way higher realms of spirit are interwoven with cycles and things that happen only once means that fears some have that heaven would be boring are unfounded - things would conclude, and you'd have fulfilment, but you could always start new things - doubts about whether I'll see a 4th twilight on Christmas day, but Bivalia suggests things happen in threes - while it may be a fairy-tale idea, such things often have a foundation in truth - my haiku may not be authentic in style, but express Spirit - I quote several haiku from earlier in the year - I relate depressive episode that prompted one haiku about a moonlit sky I saw - Bivalia says natural beauty nourishes one spiritually even if one doesn't respond to it at the time - would like to have written the haiku in a more uplifting way, but couldn't - the thing we long for, which nature can suggest, will always be there; it's in God, or spirit, and there is no hurry - another haiku started to come to mind, but never got finished, and I quote the notes I wrote for it - I heard Sister Veronica Brady say on the radio that poetry is not self-expression, but seems to think it is spiritual, and Bivalia and I disagree with the first part, and believe that self-expression and spirituality are not mutually exclusive - also heard Michael Screech on the history of laughter in religion, often not nice laughter - he thought the idea of eternal damnation was terrible, even for someone like Hitler, and thought God was much kinder than he is sometimes depicted - Michael Screech thought that justice and good were so great that God himself fits in with them because he is just and good, and not merely defined as "whatever God does" - Bivalia and I inclined to agree with this, but it does lead to paradox, whereas the other view seems very arbitrary and unsatisfactory - Bivalia suggests the paradox is a mere word-game, and results from having too human-like an image of God - if we see God not merely as a human-like figure, but as the spirit of all that is good and just, the essence of it, it might resolve the paradox, and in a sense both views expressed by Screech might be true - Bivalia sees this as an example of the idea that with many of the old theological debates, both sides are true, and it's a matter of the perspective from which you see the matter - it's been a good dialogue, but Bivalia warns me against judging dialogues as good or bad. ]

1999 (No dialogues for this year)

2000 December Saturday, 9 (ca. 50 Kb.) [ down to 2001 - up to 1998 ]
[ Definition of millennium - not using "Bivalia" now, Higher-Self names generally, how to refer to one's Higher Self - talking with God vs. talking with one's Higher Self, not as different as it may seem - why I haven't had a dialogue recently, spiritual darkness as a reason - having completed move from Trumper St., feel freer now - inevitability or otherwise of spiritual growth with all humans - fear that if I had another dialogue, my Higher Self wouldn't perform up to scratch and I would be disillusioned; my Higher Self's response to this - Spirit doesn't judge channellings, and nor should I - something I want to mention which might challenge my Higher Self's ability to inspire me - don't regard my Higher Self's words as dogma or as infallible - just do dialogues as pretence if I can't really believe in my Higher Self.]

2000 December Saturday, 16 (ca. 23 Kb.)
[ Saying "Higher Self" feels funny - Beethoven's birthday, Beethoven still composing in higher dimensions - channelled information can always be flawed - went out to buy something, ate, and felt the spirit of summer - Higher Self assures me my spiritual awareness is not as poor as it sometimes seems - dialogues with myself as a way of keeping spiritual awareness alive - it might be better if more adults had child-like habits.]

2001 October Wednesday, 3 (ca. 92 Kb.) [ down to 2004 - up to 2000 ]
2001 November Friday, 2 (ca. 113 Kb.)

2002 (No dialogues for this year)
2003 (No dialogues for this year)
2004 ( No dialogues yet for this year ) [ up to 2001 ]

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by Michael Edwards