Jeff Russell

I shared many of your concerns with the "problem of evil" as applied to Abrahamic monotheism, and I agree that reincarnation neatly solves that and other ethical/conceptual issues, as well as being consistent with the reported experiences of folks from around the globe and throughout time, as far as we can tell. All of that is much of why it's my current working hypothesis (that and I'm meditating my way through courses of study that ask me to consider it as part of a philosophical system, but then "to train the mind, not inform it" and all that).

That being said, I also take seriously JMG's idea that humans just aren't that smart, and making sense to us is not a requirement for how things necessarily work in the cosmos. That's the main thing that keeps me from feeling (for now) like "yup, reincarnation is definitely how it works". But I'm still pretty early on this journey!

As for collectives and the like, I'm currently grappling with what the Dolmen Arch calls the "One Life" - the thought that all of being is a manifestation of a unified life/consciousness. It teaches that each bit (like us) is differentiated, but also fundamentally linked, and that spiritual enlightenment consists mostly of experiencing and understanding that link. If this is right, then it implies that boundaries of "individualness" might be perceived very differently by beings farther along their spiritual path.

I haven't gotten very far with this particular line of thinking, but one crude way to put it might be that if "Thor" is a job title, with a collective of spiritual beings who all fulfill its functions as a group, maybe the reason they're all doing so is that they share a certain amount of "Thorness", which is a more fundamental kind of similarity than just "have similar strengths and tendencies" the way a group of humans in a team effort would be described as sharing traits.

But again, I don't know! I'm sucking up occult philosophy a lot faster than my meditation and experiences can keep up, so I'm pretty firmly in the "let's pull out a map and speculate wildly" phase of things.

Very much appreciate the discussion, by the way.