Heaven and Hell Unveiled: Updates from the World of Spirit

I don’t enjoyed this book and found it well researched. But the main reason was that I found it comforting.

“Most of us are addicted to earth’s immediate pleasures and unaware of our hidden depths and destiny,” author Stafford Betty begins this very interesting, informative, intriguing, and inspiring 190-page book. “We get a little help from our religious leaders, but we need much more.”This information set forth in this book does much to fill the void between what religion offers and what we need. Dr. Betty, a professor of religious studies at California State University, Bakersfield, is quick to admit that he is not a mystic, medium, or saint, and that he doesn’t have everything figured out relative to the afterlife. “I’m an aspiring seeker and a pretty good researcher,” he states in the Introduction. “And I can tell you this with some assurance: We are all about to enter a fascinating world. And the more we know about it, the less scary death will be – at least if we are basically decent people.”Betty is something of a maverick when it comes to academics, even those teaching religion. Unlike so many other academics, he doesn’t beat around the bush on topics that others find too risky, too unconventional, or too “unscientific” to discuss or even consider. He has done extensive research in such subjects as mediumship, past-life studies, near-death experiences, and death-bed visions, separating the wheat from the chaff in his efforts to reconcile these phenomena with religious doctrine and with accepted scientific truths. With the help of reputable spirit sources, he shows us a reality that makes far more sense than that offered to us by either orthodox religion or mainstream science.Betty begins with the dying process, as reported through some very credible mediums. “What is perhaps most interesting in these accounts is the reuniting with loved ones and the absence of a judging God,” Betty offers, adding that our two largest religions give no hint of such a passing. He goes on to point out that the process of dying is so natural that many souls do not immediately realize they have died and that the newly “dead” retain their personalities and habits in the initial stages. “Nothing miraculous happens to them when they pass,” he continues, explaining that the astral body is not a “resurrected” body, but that it was always present as the soul’s “inner envelope.”I found the chapter entitled “The Divine Source” especially interesting. The comment by the discarnate John Thomas to his son Drayton Thomas through the mediumship of Gladys Osborne Leonard, one of the most credible mediums in the annals of psychical research, is well worth pondering on. When the father told the son that he had never seen God, the son asked his father if we will ever be able to see God. “I do not think that, as you develop and progress, you will wish to see Him,” the father responded. “You will not wish to limit him in that way...you would have brought Him down, made Him into a Being only one-millionth part of that which He is.”Another very thought-provoking comment came from the discarnate Frederic Myers, when he communicated that “God does not love. For love is a human virtue that is like a flame that leaps up and down.” Myers went on to say that “if God possessed love, as man understands it, the history of the world would have been changed rather for evil than for good. God is greater than love. That is the phrase you should utter.”While the world’s major religions all tell us that we will be judged after death, the testimony collected by Betty indicates they are wrong in the details. “Nowhere is there mention of a God sitting on a throne with scepter in hand,” he writes. “Nowhere does it seem that some external being of any kind does the judging.” Rather, we our judged by our own spirit selves.Other topics include karma, suicide, prayer, progress through the stages, love & service, messiahs, worship, the dark side, and reincarnation to name just some. Besides Mrs. Leonard, Professor Betty calls upon a number of other tested and credible mediums, including Geraldine Cummins, Betty White, Maurice Barbanell, Stainton Moses, Cora Richmond, Elsa Barker, Helen Greaves, Jane Roberts, William Stead, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Robert Lees.As Betty explains in his concluding remarks, he lost his faith during his mid-twenties and despaired at the thought of a world without meaning followed by extinction. However, he overcame his despair when he discovered the riches of spirit literature. He found “a joyous, compassionate, loving, powerful, boundless, light-filled Reality at the hub of the universe with an outreach that extended to the epicenter of my soul, a Being that would resonate with a Buddhist as well as a Christian. A God roomy enough even for an atheist.”Betty is determined to help others find this same Reality – one that gives meaning to life and to eternity. His book has much to offer the serious seeker or truth.

I have rated this book a full 5 stars, but not necessarily for its accurate content. Its rating was given as a symbol of encouragement to those readers who have repeated their religious dogma incessantly without ever questioning its validity or why it was created in the first place. It may be time that you set aside these teachings and explore alternative reasonings for the world you see around you and the eternity that is yet to come. Myths, whether they are told today or 2000-4000 years ago are nothing more than that; Myths. They may be created as a primitive means of explaining the confusing world around themselves, may be used as a means of propaganda in order that a certain culture will see themselves as ‘exceptional’ or ‘favored’, or, lastly, simply used as a method by which to control the social masses such that they conform to a certain set of rules, morals and behavior.I have taken the same journey that this author has taken; I have spent nearly three decades researching, studying and experimenting with what some people call ‘our spiritual side’. While he and I agree on most of the basic concepts attained through mediumship, the details, however, are quite different. I will not defend my alternate view nor will I degrade the author’s findings for, in fact, we both may be correct or we may both be incorrect. Neither of us has experienced what truly is beyond the veil, if anything, and only have 3rd and 4th hand reports from which to develop our conclusions. The author has a tendency to have the deceased seek a higher level of atonement than I have deduced, sees a greater array of order and corporate structure present than I do, and, most importantly places a high value on some of the reports that I have discounted as questionable. He has done the same to my studies.So what is the world beyond the veil like? None of us will truly know for all of our readings and research must be first filtered through our own consciousness and, being so, becomes quickly laced with our own subjective thoughts and emotions. In other words, we interpret the writings in the manner that is best suited to our own perspective whether or not this matches actual reality or not. I, during a hospital stay, had a partial Near Death Experience which differed from other people’s reports of such because it was my consciousness that recorded it and it was strewn with all my own personal and subjective nuances. I congratulate the author for having the courage to write this summary book of mediumship. He must feel assured that what he is saying is fully accurate and objective or else such publication would not have taken place. I can only warn him and all others that simply because we read, see, feel and make a series of conclusions about a given matter does not necessarily mean that our conclusions are fully accurate. We can only conclude that they are accurate for ourselves, and ourselves alone...............

Having spent most of my life of nearly 70 years involved in some way or other with what people are pleased to describe generically as 'the occult' I can recommend this book to anyone that would like an 'in a nutshell' picture of what constitutes the process of soul progress. Having read it such people might possibly find themselves thinking again about the way they conduct themselves in the 'here and now' and the possible consequences of engaging themselves in destructive activities and condemnatory dogmas that stultify thinking and limit our capacity to create opportunities for overcoming self-destructive habits of thinking. As for Atheists..... we make our beds and so we must lie in them - even that state of mind is dealt with,... albeit in brief. Even the neglected subject of Boredom is also considered, both here, and the hereafter, as a springboard to further stages of development. That is something that a lot of 'spiritual' books do not consider in spite of its importance..

A superb follow up book from Stafford Betty to his excellent Afterlife Unveiled.Don't be put off by it's seemingly fundamentalist title as it really isn't bogged down in traditional dogmatic ideas & conceptsForget all the fire & brimstone and the bible bashing; The afterlife state, if real, is just another dimension or plane of existence and not just a reward for sunday evening brown nosers. It's a place we ALL go to but containing different levels , some that are more advanced than others, so we find our suitable destination based as much on our attitudes, thoughts and expectations as we do based on past misdeeds (mind is key as it can literally create over 'there'). Like also attracts like. There is no judgemental hierarchy; you are your own judge! Although very different authors and with differing approaches, its surprising how strongly the books of Jurgen Ziewe & William Buhlman lend weight to Stafford's work. Michael Tymn is very similar as well if you enjoy Stafford Betty's books so I'd recommend him as well. Its old fashioned but I'd also recommend The World Unseen by Anthony Borgia.

An excellent book for those interested in the after life. Stafford Betty gives a comprehensive summary of many of the mainly 20th century books written through mediums on this subject. Acknowledging that there are differences and variations that are reported in afterlife experiences, rather than rejecting them on these grounds, he accepts that a wide range of differing spiritual experiences could be perfectly possible. In summarising he draws a fair and balanced conclusion for himself whilst at the same time inviting us to do likewise.

An excellent book and follow up to 'The After Life Unveiled', who could not take what this guy has to say seriously?! He is a university professor who has researched the after life for years, primarily by studying Mediums and Channelers and what the spirits they have brought through have had to say on Life, Death and its meaning! I'm not talking about John Edward and Sylvia Browne, but mediums have become revered as the best, some of whom lived decades, even centuries ago. Stafford has gathered heaps of credible evidence in this further study. It's definately worth reading if your'e looking for a proper investigation in to Life after death.

I am quite new to after life research. This gives far reaching accounts of afterlife , more so than any other book I have read. I chose to miss out chapters about anything related to evil as not ready to handle anything like that and, also, because it does not accord with what other research sources have led me to believe/discover.Thoroughly enjoyed the book. I am always amazed at why this knowledge is largely unknown or unacknowledged in the world in general.