Hi everyone, this is Austin Bridges welcoming you to the L/L Research Podcast, In the Now, Episode #21. L/L Research is a nonprofit organization dedicated to freely sharing spiritually-oriented information and fostering community, and towards this end has two websites: the archive website, LLResearch.org, and the community website, Bring4th.org.

During each episode, those of us here at L/L Research form a panel to consider questions from spiritual seekers. Our panel consists of Jim McCarty, husband to the late Carla Rueckert, scribe for the Ra contact and president of L/L Research, along with Gary Bean and myself, who are working hard to keep the mission of L/L Research alive and well, each of us a devoted seeker and student of the Law of One.

We intend this podcast to be a platform of discussion as we consider questions from spiritual seekers that often challenge us to articulate our own perspective. Our replies to these questions are not final and authoritative; instead they are generally subjective interpretations stemming from our own studies and life experiences. We always ask each who listens to exercise their own discernment and to listen for their own resonance in determining what is true for them.

If you would like to submit a question for this show, please do so; our humble podcast relies on your questions. You may either send an email at or go to www.LLResearch.org/podcast for further instructions.

Again, I’m Austin, and we are embarking on a new episode of L/L Research’s weekly podcast, In the Now. Are you guys here and ready to go?

Both! Here and ready.

I think so, yes.

Think so? Okay, that will have to be good enough. Our first question today was sent in from Cory, via email, who writes, “I was recently reading an excerpt from the fifth book that talks about Jim and a period where he moved past some negative wisdom that had been part of his thinking for quite some time. It didn’t go into too much detail regarding what that was or what it looked like, and I am curious about what would be defined as negative wisdom. Aside from the general ideas that have been mentioned regarding wisdom that is spread with a lack of love as being oftentimes more hurtful than helpful, I was wondering what that negative wisdom could be and how negative versus positive wisdom can differ.”

I think Jim would be a perfect person to start with for that one.

[Laughing] Okay. Well, I’ll tell you, I’ve never really understood why Ra called it — I understand the negative part — the wisdom part is what I don’t understand, because I don’t think I was being particularly wise.

But what Ra is referring to in this particular instance is a situation where the three of us, Don, Carla, and I, were considering what to do about the future publications of the books that we were creating from the Ra contact. And at that point I think we had three done, the equivalent of three, over 75 sessions, plus a few extra sessions into what would become Book IV. And Don wanted to put all the books together into one book and have that available as kind of a tome, a large book. And I told him that, well, you know, that’s a good idea, but we can’t afford it. We can’t put them all together into one; we’re going to have to go with one at a time, because at that time we just didn’t have the funds to do the work.

And so we disagreed on that point of view, which, you know, is not a bad thing to do, is to disagree, but what was the unwise thing for me to do was to let that disagreement or that disharmony go on for a couple of days. Now, for most people that wouldn’t be a problem: you figure out, well, eventually you’ll come around; you’ll talk it over, and you’ll get it worked out.

But when you’re in a position like we were, a very privileged position of being able to stand close to the light, there was more expected from us. The Law of Responsibility suggested that we needed to get on top of our catalyst and to use it, especially when there was a disharmony between us, and that very seldom happened. So, what I did was, I didn’t let it, I didn’t get in there and work with Don and figure out a solution that very day. I let it go a couple of days, and I let the anger and the disharmony fester.

That was plenty of time for our friend in negative polarity to find an opening within my inharmonious vibrations and to lead a little wood spider in that very night, I believe — in my sleep, I got bitten three times by what Ra said was a common wood spider, which normally would not cause a problem for anybody. But our friend in negative polarity had the ability to intensify the potency of that bite until it was equal to a cottonmouth snake, a poisonous snake of some power.

So, what occurred for me was within two weeks, I gained 30 pounds of water weight because my kidneys, as a result of that bite, had ceased functioning the way they should function. I came down with a disease they call nephritis or minimal change syndrome, and I was a funny-looking creature at that time. You could push your finger down on any part of my body and there’d be a pockmark that would take 30 to 45 seconds to come back up level with the rest of the skin because it was all water weight there. The only thing that wasn’t swollen was my tongue, I think. So, the reason that this all occurred was that I allowed that disharmony to exist.

Now, like I say, I don’t know why Ra called it wisdom because what I was doing was presenting — the only wise or rational, logical thing I presented that was worth considering was the fact that we couldn’t afford it. But in the long run, the fact that we couldn’t afford it was far less important than the fact I let the disharmony exist for a couple of days, and I didn’t take care of it right away.

So, there may be some connection here. I mean, I didn’t have a history of making disharmonious situations exist between me and other people. In fact, throughout my life, the few times I’ve had disharmonies with people, I did go to them right away, even as a little kid in grade school, and solve it. It just felt like something I had to do. Now, why I didn’t do it with Don, at the remove at this time — I don’t know why I didn’t do it. Maybe I was just holding on to it and decided I wanted to be right. I was probably energized to do something stupid like that as well, but there had to be some inclination on my part to be stupid. So, I had a target on my back, and I let it be there.

The only other thing that I had done throughout my life that had anything of an anger about it was the way I treated myself when I would fail: I would look at myself as a failure, and I’d get angry at myself, and usually I took it out on whatever tool I was working with at the moment, and I had an angry episode like that. But, again, I see even less wisdom in that, so, again, I’m still puzzled as to why Ra would call it wisdom.

But, from that, Carla and I learned in our relationship never to allow any disharmony to go past the sun’s setting. Don’t go to sleep and don’t wake up with that disharmony. Figure it out before you go to bed. Get it cleared out; get the energies flowing clean and purely once again. So, I certainly learned from the lesson.

And I guess that’s about it for me. Gary, from your remove of time and space can you see any sense into what I did as being wisdom? (Laughing)

It just occurred to me when you said that you and Carla had a policy, so to speak, of not going to bed angry, that maybe that common expression comes from psychic greeting. Maybe people, when they say that, mean to say don’t go to bed angry because a negative fifth density entity could exacerbate your distortion and make the situation worse, which could lead to separation. Or maybe not; maybe I’m taking too much creative license with that. (Laughing)

As to your situation, Jim, I think you were exercising wisdom in analyzing the specifics of the situation and choosing a course, and, like you were saying, it became negative because it led to, even conceptually or emotionally, a sense of separation with Don.

In general, examining the difference between positive and negative wisdom, I think that examination of the two polarities will clarify the difference between the two. So far as my wisdom knows, wisdom along either path sees clearly. It discerns; it understands the human dynamics at play; it recognizes patterns; it asks questions of how and when and where to apply one’s energies and allocate one’s resources and focus one’s attention. Both positive and negative wisdom can make very fine discernments and can see the human landscape more clearly, including all of the many different and varied surface features. Caveat: Ra says that humans cannot understand anything. So, take my description of wisdom as you will.

I think that negative and positive wisdom split on the question of towards what end that wisdom is used. Positive entities will exercise discernment and wisdom to serve others, to bring unity to situations if possible, to honor the free will of others, to find ways to empower and encourage others. Negative entities will exercise wisdom and discernment in order to serve the self, naturally, to intentionally create separation between others, to divide and conquer, to manipulate, and, if possible, enslave.

So, I was trying to apply this to a real world context where you could see a manifestation of positive wisdom and negative wisdom, and I thought about the business world. It doesn’t necessarily have to be business; it could be, let’s say, two groups working together on a project. So, a positively-oriented team leader will skillfully use wisdom to wend their way through the complicated interpersonal dynamics of the situation to point the group towards unity and common purpose, towards a comradery that brings out the full potential of everyone on the team, that inspires and uplifts everyone. The positive wisdom knows how to bring clarity and truth through honesty. A negatively-oriented team leader will skillfully use wisdom as well, but to create separation: maybe to pit others against one another, to play off of people’s weaknesses, to remain on top of the hierarchy, to create a competitive environment where each person is in it for themselves, with alliances, of course, being a means towards that end. The negative wisdom knows when and how to lie or manipulate information. So both wisdoms are seeing clearly; they’re just using them very differently.

And finally, if you want to see some real world examples of negative wisdom, I would recommend looking to some — not all, but some — politicians, especially those who exploit their constituents’ shadow side for their own personal gain. For instance, politicians appealing to racism as a means to motivate their base: I would say that’s negative wisdom, and they’re wise enough to understand that they can achieve their ends by playing to people’s fears or people’s xenophobia and then using that to create separation and to further their own self-service ends.

That’s my thoughts on your good question, Cory.

Austin, how about you, what do you think about all this?

Yeah, my response is generally in line with Gary’s, and obviously we can’t speak to the specific situation between you and Don. I like Gary’s examples, and I have, I took a slightly different approach. My definitions of positive and negative wisdom are pretty similar.

Ra did say, in the passage where they talk about negative wisdom, they said when they said the term “Negative wisdom, by which we intend to signify expressions which effectually separate the self from the other-self…” (and that is in Session 101 and Question 2, if anybody wants more context). So, what I kind of took that to mean is that positive wisdom, wisdom being sort of a level of awareness and a level of knowledge and then an application of that awareness and knowledge to unify or to serve others, and negative wisdom having a level of awareness and knowledge and using that to separate and serve the self.

So, a sort of example I would use, a general example, would be in just a general disagreement. And when you have a disagreement with somebody, do you engage with this person in a way that you are intending to eventually find harmony so that you can find common ground and go on with this person in harmony, or are you engaging in the argument and the disagreement so that you can win the argument, so that you can have victory over this person, so that you can conquer the argument and sort of satisfy a part of your ego? Do you yield love or do you stick with your notion of correctness? Essentially, do you use sort of logical acrobatics to back the other person into a corner so that they are forced to agree with you, or do you attempt to see from their perspective and unify it with your own perspective and try to bring you and the other person closer together, instead of have the argument end in a way that you are placed above the other person? I think that those would be the dichotomy between positive and negative wisdom.

So, essentially if you view the application of wisdom as a victory over your environment or over other people, I think that’s negative wisdom, and if the application of wisdom instead increases your ability to share love and increases your ability to see love and brings you closer together with other people, I think that’s positive wisdom.

And other than that, I think you guys covered it pretty well. Do you have any more thoughts on Cory’s questions?

I had one thought as you were saying separation from other selves. One thing that had been a hallmark [of] my life previous to joining Don and Carla was I was solitary. I liked being alone. I was an only child, so I had a lot of alone time throughout school, and then I lived on the land for the six-and-a-half years before I met Don and Carla by myself, and being alone has always been a nurturing thing. I remember even my mom told me even when I was a baby, if I had gotten an injury or hurt somehow, I would go off by myself and basically heal myself, just hang out until everything was okay. (Laughing) So that might be part of what they were talking about is that I had allowed myself to separate, not so much in the physical sense, but in the mental, emotional, and spiritual sense: I had attempted to go off on my own with my own ideas, I guess, and not resolve the disharmony.

Any more thoughts from you, Gary?

No, none from me. Thanks to both of you.

All right. Our next question comes from Richard, who sent it in via email, and he asks, “Have you guys ever experienced astral travel? And since it is possible to meet other beings through astral travel, do you think we might be able to meet the beings of Ra in this manner?”

Gary, what do you think about astral travel?

Well, I had to speculate on this one. So, what I do know per the Law of One is that the astral plane is one of the inner planes of our third density experience. So, the astral plane is still part of our third density realm. Thusly, I presume that it would have similar limitations as those that we experience in the physical world when attempting to contact a sixth density social memory complex. In other words, the astral plane is still an environment that is removed from and at a distance to Ra’s environment. The astral environment is its own system of illusions that contains various bodies, according to Ra, and which is already populated by beings whose vibrations match the astral environment. So, I think it unlikely, I don’t know, but I think it unlikely that one could contact Ra through astral travel. Perhaps there actually, maybe there is a means for contact with Ra through astral mechanisms similar to the way that the group contacted Ra while in yellow-ray activated consciousness; I can’t say.

But, Ra does say that once the Maldekians, according to Ra, they blew up their planet and the entire populations of souls was stuck in what Ra called “a knot [or tangle] of fear.” And so, the Confederation, as Ra says, deploys a social memory complex that is able to reach this, [to] break through this knot of fear and help them to realize that they are conscious, and then these Maldekians were nurtured in the lower astral realms. Ra doesn’t say who nurtured them or how, but maybe that points to the possibility that some sort of interaction can happen between Confederation members and social memory complexes of higher density and third density beings within the astral realm.

Then again, none of those Maldekians were then incarnate; whereas, your question, Richard, is asking if the yellow-ray activated individual, a.k.a., the human, the incarnate human, can meet with Ra in the astral. So, my final answer is I think that is probably a “no,” but again, I can only conjecture.

Jim, do you have any experience with astral travel?

No, I don’t. I have not had any at all, so I would agree with Gary, that it’s not very likely you’d find Ra there. I don’t think they hang out in that particular level of experience for the planet. And I don’t think it would be a good idea to try to get in contact with them either; actually, you could try (laughing), but I think there has to be a certain set of preconditions. It’s not something that really is easy to set up.

So, you’d probably be more likely to be able to contact Ra in the sleep and dream state because that was the way they used for thousands of years to contact especially Wanderers to give them the feeling of inspiration and awakening to the purpose in their life to be of service to others. So, if you gave yourself a suggestion that when you went to sleep you wanted to say “hi” to Ra, you’d probably have a better chance of it than trying the astral level.

I’ve never astral traveled myself, but I have read plenty on the subject, and so my understandings are just a distillation from a couple books and some channelings that I’ve read on the matter. And from what I understand in the astral realm, there’s still a lot of subjective projection and perception, like we see a lot of our own mental images, our own distortions and various projections within this astral experience. So, the astral realm may be somewhat of an objective realm where we can have a shared experience, but it is more susceptible to our mental impressions. It’s not necessarily objective in the same way that our physical reality is. And this means even if it is possible to meet Ra or other beings in the astral realm, I think it’s probably better suited to other types of more personal learning, rather than direct learning like we got from the Ra contact.

But Ra did say (in Session 17, Question 37) that “The astral plane varies from thought forms in the lower extremities to enlightened beings who become dedicated to teach/learning in the higher astral planes.” And in other L/L Research channeling, the Confederation iterates that astral travel is a really useful to someone who is highly trained in magic. There’s a small bit about on it in the transcript from November 30, 1980. So, I think that the depth of training and discipline will correlate to a person’s ability to point their astral experience towards meeting a guide or learning from that guide, whether it might be Ra, if it’s possible, or any other guide.

With that said, I think that we should be careful about how we set our intentions or go about attempting to contact beings like Ra in astral travel. I imagine that opening yourself up to meet in such a way carries similar implications as opening up to channels; opening up to channel such beings, which as we know from the experience of the Ra trio — it can be a very precarious thing that must be done with great care. I personally see things like astral travel to be incredibly useful to personal working within one’s own mind and with one’s close personal guides.

And I would take this opportunity to iterate an opinion that I often express, which is that Ra is not necessarily an ideal to reach for in order to receive the best guidance and experience that is possible to us at the time of seeking. We can set our intentions to just that: to just experience and to meet a guide that is appropriate for me right now at my level of seeking. And if that’s Ra, then that’s great, but to ask for Ra, instead of our highest and best guidance possible: I think it’s a mistake. We all obviously hold the Ra material in a very high regard in terms of the quality of information, and it speaks to all of us on a very deep level, but to seek something so specific as Ra eliminates an entire universe of possibilities. Perhaps we’re not trained or tuned enough to interact with Ra or perhaps there are other beings or contacts which are much better suited to our particular level of learning or our vibration as it were. So I think that that is just as true in astral travel as in anything else, and I would attempt to dissuade anyone from exploring astral travel just for the sake of meeting Ra. I feel like this could lead possibly to some imbalanced experiences, but of course, that’s is just my opinion.

I concur wholeheartedly with that opinion.

Well, thank you. Any more thoughts from either of you on astral travel?

Not for me.

Nope.

All right. Looks like we have time for our last question of the day which is sent in from Mary via email. Mary, again, an amazing volunteer, has been transcribing In the Now at an incredibly consistent pace. Thank you, Mary, for everything that you’re doing.

And Mary writes, “I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Essene Gospel of Peace, but there is an interesting communion which says, ‘Angel of Love, descend on me and fill with love all my feelings.’ “ Mary continues, “What if, from a Ra perspective, it is possible to have the full gamut of emotions and still be filled with love? What if unconditional love is quite different from the love that we are used to thinking about and actually encompasses, like an umbrella, all of our feelings, both positive and negative? It is a concept I can’t quite get my mind around, but it feels right to my heart.”

Jim, how do you feel about that?

Well, if you look at the life we live as a long-term meditation, whenever in meditation we come across a thought that we rather would not have — we’d rather be peaceful and blank of mind — we just let it go by and ignore it. In the life, I think when we use this Essene principle of applying unconditional love towards any emotion at all, whether they’re positive or negative, that we are recognizing #1, that we are human, and #2, that we can do something about what we feel. Even though these emotions come through us as part of being human, we can consciously take unconditional love — that we feel is the most important of all the emotions and actually more than an emotion — we can take that and focus it at whatever emotion we’ve got and then view at that emotion with unconditional love, which basically says to ourselves that we accept ourselves for being human: it’s okay, and we don’t have to act upon those emotions. We can simply send love to them and try to become more of a loving person all the way around.

Gary, how about you?

I think that, well, I’ll start by looking at the green-ray chakra and saying that the heart center or green-ray chakra is the center of consciousness responsible for processing love, at least the beginning, at least what we call love. And when it’s fully opened and maximized, it has certain qualities that we describe with adjectives like universal, inclusive, and unconditional. So, from that standpoint, while certain emotions and experiences may block the lower chakras, and thus block or obscure love, I think that love is so big and so deep and so endless — “bottomless” is a word I like — and of such a high integrated order of energy that it can meet any and all emotions up and down the spectrum. Indeed, I think it is through contact with love that those emotions are processed and understood and integrated and transmuted into higher energy, namely, into love itself. So, while I cannot claim to understand love or what love is, I think your question definitely heads in the right direction in seeing love as of a greater order, so to speak, than the full range of human emotions, and it is, it can be seen as an umbrella, as your analogy puts it.

That’s my thoughts. Thanks, Mary.

Your turn.

Yes, I think that Mary’s question about what if unconditional love is quite different from the love that we are used to thinking about: I think that is basically true, but I feel like in third density we probably can’t fully grasp what that means, what unconditional love really is. And I think it is a good thing to see it as an umbrella that encompasses all things, all emotions, positive and negative.

But to respond more to the heart of Mary’s question: the goal of balancing and seeking universal love isn’t necessarily to eject or stamp out the emotions we feel are negative, but that might be a result of the process. So, I think Mary’s question is valid in that love isn’t replacing negative emotions with love; it’s greater than that. The process does require us to eventually view our full gamut of emotions in love and acceptance, and we can’t condemn our emotions; we can’t run from them; we can’t avoid them for the sake of our own comfort or ideals. And in that way I think Mary is very correct. It is possible for our entire spectrum of emotions to be filled with love, I think.

But if we are still experiencing these emotions, I think that that implies that they are still useful to us in our evolution. With love we can experience the full range of emotions with that underlying joy which permeates throughout all experiences once we grasp that joy and perceive it and recognize it, and perhaps at that point in our evolution simply experiencing the emotions from within that love is what we are meant to do; maybe that is the best thing for us to do.

I do believe though that emotions are sort of signposts for us to follow and help us reach further into our depths. Ra talked about (in Session 42, Question 2) emotionally-charged responses, and what they said was, “…if there is seen in the being a response, even if it simply observed, the entity is still using the catalyst for learn/teaching. The end result is that the catalyst is no longer needed. Thus this density is no longer needed. This is not indifference or objectivity but a finely tuned compassion and love which sees all things as love. This seeing elicits no response due to catalytic reactions. Thus the entity is now able to become a co-Creator of experiential occurrences. This is the truer balance.”

So, with that in mind, I would ask why would we be experiencing these emotions if they were not still useful as a catalyst for us to use in our process of evolution? I do feel like at some point the emotions will fall away, and it’s not like the emotions are gone for eternity; the experiences remain with us for eternity. We will have the memory, and they’ll be a part of us forever, but the types of emotions that we experience and the contexts in which they arise and how we define love based on those experiences, I think, is a constantly evolving and changing thing.

So, I don’t think that Mary is wrong in any sense, but I do get the sense that there is probably more to the story, and what we consider positive and negative emotions might eventually no longer be part of our path as we get closer and closer to understanding what universal love really is.

And that’s what I have to say about that. You guys have any more thoughts?

Not for me.

Nope.

All right. Well, I think that we are at the end of our time here. So, Jim, you have any final thoughts for the listeners?

Yes, it’s been a great time talking to you guys today. We always have a lot of yeasty thoughts that pop up, and it’s because of people like our listeners who send us questions. We so appreciate that; we appreciate everything you’ve got to say, and we appreciate you listening to us with your hearts and your minds, and please know that we love every single one of you. I hope we all have a really good week. Cheerio.

You have been listening to L/L Research’s weekly podcast, In the Now. If you’ve enjoyed the show, please visit our websites, LLResearch.org and Bring4th.org. Thanks so much for listening, and a special thank you to those of you who submitted questions. If you’d like to send us a question before the next show, please read the instructions on our page at www.LLResearch.org/podcast. New episodes are published to the archive website every Wednesday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Have a wonderful week, and we’ll talk with you then.

Thanks to Mary A. for transcribing this episode, and Kristin Y. for editing!