Swedenborg: The Father of Astral Projection

[Berserk]

VIII. SWEDENBORG ON SOUL RETRIEVALS:

One of the things that has bothered me about ES is his failure to mention the possibility of performing retrievals. His astral insight that new discarnates in the World of Spirits gradually ascend to a heaven or descend to a hell may already imply the use of retrievals. because ES describes the role of astral schools and makes it clear that astral progress is ultimately a matter of choice and of achieving the right energetic for ascent. But now I've found a passage in Ernst Benz that seem to imply that ES even retrieved some evil discarnates in Hell:

"The devils [= evil discarnate humans] he converts change before his eyes, lose their bestial form, and regain their human faces (Benz, "Emanuel Swedenberg," p. 327).

I hope to track down more references to ES's retrievals.

Don

Berserk,

I just wanted to say I love your posts and thank you for them.

CFT,

I read that very interesting book too, it's by Peter Novak called "The Lost Secret of Death". He talks about the binary soul doctrine. Well worth the read, if this stuff is really true, I would think there's not much more important than uniting the conscious and unconscious minds before death.

[CFTraveler]

Berserk,

I just wanted to say I love your posts and thank you for them.

CFT,

I read that very interesting book too, it's by Peter Novak called "The Lost Secret of Death". He talks about the binary soul doctrine. Well worth the read, if this stuff is really true, I would think there's not much more important than uniting the conscious and unconscious minds before death.

Thanks for mentioning it. For some reason, when I loaned the book out (to a friend that left town) the memory of the title and author flew right out of my brain. . I really find the theory compelling, and it makes sense on so many levels. (to me, anyway)

[Berserk]

CHRIST’S ROLE IN RETRIEVALS: A NEW TESTAMENT PERSPECTIVE

One of the most exciting aspects of astral exploration is the controversial possibliity of soul retrievals from Hell that Swedenborg defends, albeit almost reluctantly. I have the impression that posters here have a variety of different worldviews. So I thought I'd offer a brief survey of the treatment of retrievals in the Bible and the early church. Then, in a future post, I will explain why I find the treatment of retrievals by astral adepts Robert Monroe and Bruce Moen problematic.

The Bible challenges believers to satisfy the skeptic on the issue of divine justice: e. g. “Does God pervert justice (Job 8:3)?” The Fundamentalist view that non-Christians are eternally damned perverts divine justice and is unbiblical. The neglected doctrine of soul retrievals is one piece of this justice puzzle. The New Testament and early church provide the earliest literary evidence of the doctrine of retrievals in history.

When we think of the biblical Hell, we must bear in mind that this language is figurative. Jesus offers an alternative image of Hell that involves no fire (Luke 12:47-48). Fire is a common symbol of postmortem purgation in late antiquity. Jesus’ term “Gehenna” derives from the Valley of Hinnom, a garbage dump outside ancient Jerusalem where trash was burned. Thus, "Gehenna" can be construed as an image for the fate of wasted lives and Hell can be understood as a realm of separation from the experience of God’s love.

The ancient Apostles' Creed is routinely recited in liturgical worship. One of its affirmations hints at Jesus’ role in soul retrievals: “He descended into Hell.” This affirmation is rooted in two declarations in 1 Peter. In 3:19-20 Peter informs us that, after His crucifixion, Christ preached to the disobedient “spirits in prison.” In intertestamental Judaism, prison is a standard image for Hell. Christ’s preaching implies an opportunity for positive response and therefore amounts to an attempted retrieval. In 1 Peter 4:6 the beneficiaries of preaching to the dead include the unredeemed dead in general.

“The Gospel has for this purpose been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God .”

In this text, it is not even clear that Christ is the presumed preacher to the hellbound. Perhaps, the retrieval role of the righteous dead is implicit in this second postmortem preaching reference.

RETRIEVALS THROUGH PROXY BAPTISM AND POSTMORTEM BAPTISM

Two books in the Catholic Old Testament (1 and 2 Maccabees) record the history of the Jewish revolt (175-163 BC) to liberate themselves from their occupying Syrian Greek oppressors. Judas, the Maccabean leader, arranges for prayers and sacrifices to be offered for fallen Jewish soldiers (2 Maccabees 12:42-45). In the early church, such rituals for the dead develop into proxy baptism for the unredeemed dead (1 Corinthians 15:29). True, this practice seems limited to Corinth and is prohibited in the fourth century. But St. Paul clearly approves of this practice and identifies it as part of the process by which God will ultimately become “all in all (15:28).” Thus, proxy baptism functions as an apostolically sanctioned early Christan form of soul retrievals and implies that God’s love abandons no one, even after death. The hellbound find themselves in this plight as a result of their own choices based on Jesus’ principle: “By your own standard or measure it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2).” This is a more specific application of the principle embraced by many astral explorers that like attracts like in the afterlife. This perspective does not contradict biblical allusions to eternal punishment. In both Hebrew (“olam”) and Greek (“aionios”) the terms translated “eternal” simply mean “for an indefinitely long time,” not “eternal.”

There is another way the early church understands baptism for the dead. The early church borrows both the image of the Acherusian lake and the Elysian field from Greek mythology to illumine their portrait of Heaven. This imagery roughly corresponds to the Monroe description of Focus 27. Immersion in Heaven’s higher vibration is expressed in terms of baptismal immersion in Heaven’s Acherusia lake. This postmortem baptism finds expression in two texts from the next generation of apocalyptic texts after the Book of Revelation. The first text is found in the Apocalypse of Peter (125 AD):

[Jesus:] “I will grant to them [the unrighteous] God, if they call to me (in their torment) and I will give to them a precious baptism unto salvation from the Acherusian lake, which...is situated in the Elysian field, the portion of the righteous with the saints (14).”

Now baptism in Greek means "immersion." Perhaps this poetic image of postmortem baptism is a symbol for purification processes such as that experienced by Guenther Wagner during his NDE. The Being of Light performed the "baptism":

"I received the impression that I would have to take a bath, but by dipping the whole body. It was made plain to me that the process was going to be unpleasant, but I could stop it if it became too painful...I was willing to do what the Being of Light wanted me to do. I was lifted up and put into a red light...After some time, I realized that I was being tossed about rather vigorously. It was like being in a washing machine. I cried, `I think that is enough!' Immediately, I was lowered down and the love and the warmth were switched off (Guenther Wagner--quoted from "near-death.com")."

Our next apocalyptic text explicitly assigns a retrieval role to the saints:

“To the pious, when they ask eternal God, HE WILL GRANT THEM TO SAVE PEOPLE OUT OF THE DEVOURING FLAME AND FROM EVERLASTING TORMENTS. This also will He do. For having gathered them again from the unwearying flame, and set them elsewhere, He will send them for His people’s sake into another life, an eternal one with the immortals, in the Elysian plain, where are the long waves of the ever-flowing, deep-bosomed Acherusian lake (Sibylline Oracles II, 331-338--composed around 150 AD).”

These two apocalyptic texts shed light on neglected imagery from the New Testament’s Book of Revelation. In his vision of Heaven John learns that Heaven’s gates are eternally open (21:25). Heaven’s permanently open gates imply traffic coming and going. Coming and going on what missions? Four factors suggest that soul retrievals are implied by this visionary image:

(1) In this vision, the hellbound wicked dwell “outside” Heaven’s gates (22:15).
In an earlier vision John sees everyone in Hell worshiping and adoring God and Christ in Heaven (5:13). In the first century, the expression “under the earth” refers to Hell. This vision of universal worship implies the possibility, not the doctrine, of ultimate universal salvation. The future is not fixed for Judaeo-Christian prophets and the decision to make godly choices always remains a prerogative of Hell’s denizens.

(2) The Book of Revelation is a very angry book. John has been exiled to Patmos by the Romans and his churches in Asia Minor are being persecuted by both Jews and Romans. John longs for vindication. His anger must be kept in mind when we try to interpret visionary imagery that he may not understand or even want to understand. He is not in the mood to hear that his persecutors may ulimately be retrieved from Hell. Thus, he shrinks from the implication of the postmortem scheme revealed to him--first death followed by the “first resurrection (20:5)”, then “second death 20:14)” followed by the implied second resurrection.

John never identifies the second resurrection, perhaps because it offends his desire for revenge. Conservative Christian tradition has surmised that the Great White Throne judgment (21:11-14).is the image underlying the seocnd resurrection. This assumption can be called into question on two grounds: (a) John does not use the language of “ascent” or resurrection in discussing this Judgment; (b) John’s concept of “second death” seems to imply ultimate release from “the lake of fire” for the second resurrection. In that case, the second resurrection would represent the retrieval of hellbound souls through the eternally open gates of Heaven.

Don

[Berserk]

In my prior post, I quoted two ancient Christan texts on soul retrievals, both of which mention the Greek "Elysian field" as an apt image of Paradise. This image fits well with the old Persian meaning of "Paradise," that is, a heavenly "park" or "garden." Both texts also use the image of ritual immersion in a heavenly lake to symbolize the feeling of immersion in the higher vibration of that spirit plane. Well, Albert Pauchard independently channels a parallel description of his first impression of Paradise through a reputable medium:

"IT SEEMED TO ME THAT I HAD SPENT AT LEAST SEVERAL MONTHS IN THE ELYSIAN FIELDS...It was a state of serene bliss, of complete relaxation...It seemed to me as if all around me there were large and fresh fields covered with flowers. I was constantly surrounded by this golden haze....Gradually, I was overcome by weariness. I WANTED A REGENERATING BATH.”

Ir is a remarkable synchronicity that the discarnate Pauchard's allusions to both "the Elysian fields" and "a regenerating bath" mirror the allusions to the Elysian field and a baptismal immersion in both the ancient Apocalypse of Peter and the Christian Sibylline Oracles.

In my view, evidence from NDEs is more compelling than that from channeling. So I mention this channeling example only because it nively parallels Gunther Wagner's NDE longing for an analgous "bath," an apparent symbol of an immersion in a higher vibration.

Don

P.S. The quote from a discarnate Pauchard is drawn from Paul Beard's book, "Living On," p. 80.

[CFTraveler]

Berserk wrote:

"I received the impression that I would have to take a bath, but by dipping the whole body. It was made plain to me that the process was going to be unpleasant, but I could stop it if it became too painful...I was willing to do what the Being of Light wanted me to do. I was lifted up and put into a red light...After some time, I realized that I was being tossed about rather vigorously. It was like being in a washing machine. I cried, `I think that is enough!' Immediately, I was lowered down and the love and the warmth were switched off (Guenther Wagner--quoted from "near-death.com")."

I had a similar experience when I was 12, but it was not a nde (unless it was and I didn't know it). I was immersed in this lake of red water, but it was a blissful experience, in which I felt all the universe as vibration. From the vibration I knew what was around and underneath me. It was such a different experience that I never quite got over having to return to 'regular living', and prayed to experience it again, to no avail, even to this day. I also had beings of light helping me into the water, but they kind of had to make me come back because I didn't want to.
This is the only time that I've read about an experience that so resembled the one I had.

[Berserk]

One of the most convincing aspects of NDEs is the great frequency with which Jesus appears to hardened atheists. As one NDE researcher reports, a typical exchange between Jesus and atheists begins like this: "But Jesus, I don't even believe in you." [Jesus:] "But I DO believe in you." Also, compelling to me are cases in which Jesus' role in soul retrievals is manifested to New Age adepts who are hostle, indifferent, or just plain ignorant about Him.

Consider the cases of just two astral adepts, Robert Monroe and Bruce Moen. (1) For example, Christ's role in retrievals finds routine confirmation in one of Robert Monroe's frequent OBE experiences reported in "Journeys Out of the Body," 122-123. Christ's identify seems evident from the signature ♥♥♥♥♥et fanfare (1 Corinthians 15:52), the sense of His omnipotence, the sense that the astral realms are "His Kingdom," the universal reluctance to gaze on His brightness (Acts 9:3, and the universal reverent submission. Monroe's decription is strikingly paralleled in the life-changing "vision" experienced by William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, which is perhaps the most single-minded denomination in its devotion to helping the poor and down-and-out in practical ways. Quoting Monroe,

"It makes no difference where in Locale II, the [frequent] event is the same. In the midst of normal activity, whatever it may be, there is a distant signal, almost like the sound of heraldic ♥♥♥♥♥ets. Everyone takes the Signal calmly, and with it, everyone stops speaking or whatever he may be doing. It is the Signal that He...is coming through His Kingdom...It is an occurrence to which all are accustomed and to comply takes absolute precedence over everything. There are no exceptions."

"At the Signal, each living thing lies down--my impression is on their backs, bodies arched to expose the abdomen..., with head turned to one side so that one does not see Him as He passes by. The purpose seems to be to form a living road over which He can travel. I have gleaned that occasionally He will select someone from the living road and that person is never seen or heard from again. The purpose of the abdominal exposure is an expression of faith and complete submissiveness...There is no movement, not even thought, as He passes by..."

"In the several times that I have experienced this, I lay down with the others. At the time, the thought of doing otherwise was inconceivable. As He passes, there is a roaring musical sound and a feeling of radiant, irresistible living force of ultimate power that peaks overhead and fades in the distance...After His passing, everone gets up again and resumes their activities. There is no comment or mention of the incident...There is complete acceptance of the event as an ordinary part of their lives....Is this God? Or God's Son?"

Spirit retrievals have become an important focus of Monroe's TMI. So it is striking that his 3 books reveal no effort on his part to investigate the retrieval role and teaching of "God's Son." In my view, there are two reasons for this neglect: (1) Monroe discusses his new OBE gift with certain ministers who dismiss his talent as "dangerous and heretical ("Journeys," 34)." In Monroe's mind, these pastors thought he "should be exorcised." If Bob had asked me, I'd have given him both biblical and early Christian examples of astral exploration via OBE. In fact, I will provide such examples in my next planned post.

(2) In "Ultimate Journey," Monroe makes it clear that He dislikes words like "God" and "apiritual" and rejects the need to worship God (224-225). Unfortunately, Monroe seems to have a warped view of what true worship involves. If Pure Unconditional Love (PUL) is the most basic spiritual force, then "worship" is just another term for the process of refueling with PUL. from its Source through prayer and meditation. Monroe seems to overlook an obvious question: If PUL is a supreme spiritual value or energy, then how does Monroe know that PUL is not the key to intimate bonding with and empowerment by God?

(2) Like Robert Monroe's OBEs, Bruce Moen's astral explorations confirm that Jesus plays a prominent role in soul retrievals. Their witness is especially compelling precisely because both seem hostile towards conventional Christianity and create crude caricatures of it. Both astral explorers unintetionally confirm the biblical and early Christian witness to Jesus' role in retrievals.

In his online article, "Christianity," Bruce Moen shares the story of his astral encounter with a tour guide who helped perform retrievals from his base in “the House of God” in Focus 27. This man had been a preacher in a very legalistic and rather loveless Fundamentalist Hollow Heaven. He had expelled a couple from this Heaven for living together out of wedlock. The couple truly loved each other and invoked Jesus’ teaching that formal marriage was not required in Heaven (e. g. Mark 12:25). Jesus later appeared to this preacher a few times as a Being of Light and chided him for his distortion of Jesus’ love. The guilt-ridden preacher later confessed to his church that he had erred by expelling the couple from their Heaven. He began to preach a more tolerant and compassionate Gospel reflecting Jesus’ true message. This change made him more popular with many, but also got him expelled from this Heaven.

“Expecting to find himself in Hell, the preacher..was surprised when Jesus appeared in the inky blackness. After a tour of the real Heaven, Jesus explained that he’d been in a Hollow Heaven, what that meant, and some of his options for the future....The preacher decided to move to the House of God Center in Focus 27 and work at freeing others...As part of this work, Jesus and the preacher..had reentered his Hollow Heaven many times. They started appearing together to members of his former congregation he knew had legitimate doubts about the rules and beliefs. They appeared in private to people in their hiimes and on long walks along the road... Each time they answered questions and gave the message of Jesus’ loving forgiveness. This of course also broke the rules. Once someone had been cast out from this Hollow Heaven they were never supposed to be able to return from their sentence of eternity in Hell.”

“My tour guide esplained that things really got inreresting when he and Jesus began appearing before the congregation during Sunday church services. They loved to play a scene in which the teacher/ tour guide first appeared, hovering above the altar, surroundded by a cloud of angelic light. The Jesus would appear beside him and, addressing the congregation, say, `This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ That stopped when the old-time preachers came back on Sunday and ordered everybody out of this `House of Satan.’”

Don

[Tempestinateapot]

I won't get into an argument about "Jesus", but I would like to very simplistically address something from another point of view.

Jesus later appeared to this preacher a few times as a Being of Light

I've read all of Monroe's and Moen's works, as well as a large number of NDE researchers' books, and also a lot of books on the afterlife written by past life and spirit world regressionists. That doesn't include scores of books I've read about people's personal experiences, either through NDE's, astral projection, channelings...you name it.

The point of all that is that in all of my readings, the general consensus is that while people may "believe" they are seeing Jesus, they are actually seeing a "being of light". Many have reported that going deeper into the afterlife world, they learn that the "being" who acknowledged himself as Jesus, in fact, was a guide (helper) who had taken on the personna of Jesus to comfort the newly arrived who either expected to see Jesus, or knew of Jesus, thus making him an understandable being for those who are disoriented at death. In cases of other religions, rarely does someone who has an NDE see Jesus. They will see the leader of their own religion, i.e. Buddha, Krishna, etc.

This comes from well over a hundred books I've read on the subject. The almost unanimous conclusion is that people "see" either who or what they expect, or in the cases of disorientation, the closest thing to a "God" that will comfort them enough to keep them moving forward into the afterlife. This, in no way, takes away from the loving teachings of Jesus. IMO, he is an advanced being, but one of many.

Also, in my opinion, Monroe's discussion of a "radiant, irresistible living force of ultimate power" does not show proof of "Christ", or the "Son of God", but were speculations by Monroe. Perhaps this "force" was the creator of our universe, or to a lessor degree, what Moen called the creator of the "Earth Life System", the "Planning Intelligence".

With all the mystical experiences I've had, both as a Christian, and later as a "New Ager", I've yet to come upon a being who called himself "Jesus" or "Christ". To the contrary, anything I've experienced has been a completely generic (silly term, but I can't think of a better one) experience or being. Just another point of view.

[Berserk]

Tempest [Patty], you claim, “The almost unanimous conclusion is that people "see" either who or what they expect.” This consensus reflects New Age bias and is refuted by more careful research such as the massive cross-cultural research of Osis and Haraldsson on 1,000 NDEs from the USA and India:

“The phenomena within each culture OFTEN do not conform with religious afterlife beliefs. The patients saw something new, unexpected, and contrary to their beliefs....Several basic Hindu ideas of an afterlife were never portrayed in the visions of Indian patients. The various Hindu `loci’ of an afterlife--Hindu Heaven--were NEVER mentioned. Nor were
reincarnation or dissplutin into Brahma (“At the Hour of Death,” 192-93).”

[Tempest: ] “In cases of other religions, rarely does someone who has an NDE see Jesus. They will see the leader of their own religion, i.e. Buddha, Krishna, etc.”
__________________________________________________ _
This New Age cliche does not stand up very well under close scrutiny. I heard an NDE expert on “Coast to Coast” discuss research on over 3,000 Asian NDEs, including many Buddhists. Not a single case reported seeing Siddartha Gautama (the Buddha) during the NDE. Also, in Islamic
NDEs, the BL (= Being of Light) is rarely identified as Muhammad. True, there are a few minor exceptions that prove my point. P. W. Atwater points to a couple of Muslim children who claim to have seen Muhammad during their NDE. I am unable to discover a single case of an adult Muslim who identified the BL as Muhammad. Other NDE research may produce such examples. But obviously, many alleged NDEs are full of hallucinations. So it is the pattern of appearances of religious figures that is most relevant. Even here, there are striking exceptions. In my next,
planned post, I will recount the story af a Christian-hating Muslim who was converted to Christianity by his unexpected encounter with Christ during an NDE.

[Tempest:] “The point of all that is that in all of my readings, the general consensus is that while people may "believe" they are seeing Jesus, they are actually seeing a "being of light".
__________________________________________________ ___________You forget that in Bruce Moen’s case, it is his astral guide who reports on the real Jesus’ role in supporring retrievals. Why would a light being want to deceive a discarnate worker in “the House of God” in Focus 27? Monroe’s routine encounters with a Christ figure neatly fit the description of others (e. g. William Booth) to whom the BL’s identity as Jesus is made clear. Your comment begs the question and overlooks the menacing fact attested, among others, by Swedenborg and channeling research that spirit impersonation is a common malevalent phenomenon in astral
contacts. The BL may not disclose His identity to non-Christians, but I doubt a loving presence like the BL would tell a series of lies. In any case, it begs the question to assume that an NDE BL is normally the same person for everybody.

NDE researchers like Ray Moody often recklessly claim that the BL does not identify itself, but is instead subject to a projected identity from the dying. This generalization is routinely refuted by NDEs and is already refuted by the case of George Ritchie (now a psychiatrist) that inspired Moody’s first book “Life After Life” and, indeed, the whole modern NDE research movement. In his forward to Ritchie’s book “Return from
Tomorrow,” Moody celebrates this book as “the chronicle of one of the three or four most fantastic and well-documented `dying’ esperiences known to me.” In the presence of the BL, Ritchie recalls: “The words came from inside me, yet they had an authority my mere thoughts
never had. `You are in the presence of the Son of God.’ (49).” Any question about whether Ritchie projects this identity onto the BL is removed when he complains, “Why hadn’t someone told me?” The BL’s reply clearly implies that He is Jesus: “Idid tell you. I told you by the life I
lived. I told you by the death I died (55).”

Your generalization is also unwarranted for 3 other reasons:
(1) Communication from the BL is telepathic rather than the result of an auditory voice delivered through moving lips. This fact alone makes the distinction between the identity projected by the BL and the patient’s projection of a comforting identity methodologically elusive. Though your generalization no doubt applies to many cases, it also seriously begs the question.

(2) This ambiguity infuses non-Christian identifications of the BL as Jesus with particular relevance. Your generalization ignores the finding I reported of the NDE researcher on “Coast to Coast.” To repeat, he found that Jesus often identifies himself to atheists, who typically respond with a confession like “But I don’t even believe in you,” to which Jesus typically replies, “But I DO believe in you.” .

(3) Your generalization is often refuted by the most in depth NDEs. which last long enough for an extensive interchange in which the BL makes its identity as Jesus crystal clear. Dr. Ritchie’s NDE can be supplemented by several examples, but I will confine myself to 2 more. (a) Atheist
Howard Storm immiedately picks up the BL’s identify as Christ: “He was King of Kings, Lord of lords, Christ Jesus he Saviior (“My Descent into Death,” 26).” This identification is confirmed by Storm’s other communications in the presence of the BL: e. g. “In our progression toward God, we will meet the Divine Activity of God, who is known to Christians as Jesus Christ. People who are not Christains myst know the Christ as well (55).” “No one will go to God except through the Atonement of Christ, the love of Christ, and the way of Christ (67).”

(b) During her NDE, Betty Eadie realizes: “There was no question who he [the BL] was. I knew he was my Savior and friend and God. He was Jesus Christ...I knew I had known him from the beginning, from long
before my earth life, because my spirit remembered him (42).” Any ambiguity in this identication is soon removed: “I was told the he [Jesus] is the door through which we will all return. Whether we learn of Jesus Christ here or while in the spirit, we must eventually accept him and surrender to his love (85).”

These 2 NDEs independently illustrate Jesus’ role in postmortem retrievals and neither requires a formal profession of faith in Christ before death. This mutual support is particularly impressive because few Christians are aware of the basis for this postmortem access to Jesus in biblical and
early Christian tradition, which I have provided in this thread. Jesus in effect informs Storm that He communicates to people from non-Christian cultures under different symbols and mythologies. Tellingly, when Storm asks, “`Which is the best religion?’...They answered, `The religion that
brings you closest to God (73).’” That said, Swedenborg’s astral exploration independently confirms the NDE insights of Eadie and Storm that postrmortem instruction on Jesus’ redemptive role is a standard part of the transition of rightous non-Christians to the heavenly realms (HH
#512). In a murky and methodolgically sloppy field like NDE research, independent confirmation of unpredictable NDE insights is one the two best forms of evidence available.

Of course, the second valuable form of evidence is verification. Betty Eadie meets her unbornadopted daughter during her NDE. More impressively, angels (perhaps discarnate saints) save Storm from almost certain death after his NDE and a discarnate Thomas Merton hands both
Storm and an independent eyewitness a book of his poetry at the Gethsemane monastery. And no one has more impressively verified astral credientials than Swedenborg.

Don

[CFTraveler]

After reading this post, I have to ask

But obviously, many alleged NDEs are full of hallucinations. So it is the pattern of appearances of religious figures that is most relevant.

Why?

In any case, it begs the question to assume that an NDE BL is normally the same person for everybody.

Why? From what I read the BL identified as Jesus to one person and told him that he appeared to others under other names. Why is this person correct, and not the ones who claimed to see Mohammed, for example?
I'm not arguing whether it may be Jesus who directs us, but I don't see the necessity for all those ndes to be attributed to him when the experiences are so varied. To call the ones that don't match 'hallucinations' and the ones that match 'the most relevant' is bewildering to me.