Is Reality a Soul Trap, or a School?

2023-03-01 Cynthia

Is life a series of lessons we can learn and grow from, or a prison or soul trap?

Is the message from Plato's allegory of the cave true–are we stuck in a soul trap?

This past month, I received a question via email:
“Your friend and colleague Christopher Anatra did an interview with Howdie Mickoski, not sure you know of him or if you saw the interview but my question is basically;
What's your thought on this whole idea that we the people are being “farmed” for energy in this reality? Basically Plato's Cave with a layer of energy farming from the Arcons, that we're being held prisoners in this reality.
I hold you and your thoughts in high regard and i am very curious to what your take on this is, would absolutely love it if you made a video about it and if not, just for you just to give me your thoughts here.
I have a feeling that this idea of Howdie Mickoski can be a trap of its own, it certainly isn't asking how good can it get, more like the opposite.”

This is a terrific and timely question, especially since so many people recently have been feeling more stuck and trapped, due to a variety of events unfolding globally these days.

Soul Traps and Plato's Cave

Howdie Mickoski's idea that humanity is caught in a “Soul Trap” appears to be a valuable topic of discussion, since apparently so many different people have come to similar conclusions with a sense that this is some kind of prison planet (as David Icke describes), or a loosh factory (as Robert Monroe once mentioned), or that we're all in something akin to Plato's Allegory of the Cave–chained and restrained and only able to see shadows moving on the cave walls.

It seems there may be value in taking a look at the points Howdie is making, with regard to the “Soul Trap” idea. First of all, I like Howdie's observation very much that there seems something strange about the configuration of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in the sense that it seems weird that people are trapped inside a cave. Having pointed out this peculiarity, Howdie proceeds to advocate preparing to intentionally leave the existence we've come to accept in our lifetime, with an idea that there must be access to something beyond.

What lies beyond

Plato's notion that we can step outside Plato's cave, and Howdie's notion that we can step outside our current conceptualization of reality provide us with an invitation to rise above current limitations of sensing and knowing true reality. While it makes no logical sense that we can ever ‘escape' or leave the foundational reality we are part of, what does make sense is that there may exist levels of conscious awareness within the oneness of consciousness, reality, and All That Is.

The philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz wrote in New Essays on Human Understanding:

Conscious perception arises gradually “by degrees from [perceptions] that are too minute to be noticed.” (ie: unconscious perceptions)

With awareness of such levels of perception, we can envision how higher levels of consciousness steadily arise, as a natural part of how we see the outside world, and how our mind internally represents what we perceive. Leibniz is sometimes referred to as “the last universal genius,” making brilliant contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of religion, mathematics, physics, geology, jurisprudence, and history. Leibniz was one of the two people credited with the invention / discovery of Calculus, the other being Sir Isaac Newton, and Leibniz provides further clarity with a bit of a mathematical feel to this statement from Principles of Nature and Grace, clarifying how these perceptions arise:

“… it is good to make a distinction between ‘perception,' which is the internal state of the monad representing external things, and ‘apperception,' which is ‘consciousness' [conscience], or the reflective cognition of this internal state, which is not given to all souls, or at all times to the same soul.”

Leibniz has thus provided us with a sense of how consciousness provides both a first-order perception of ‘x' and a second order reflective perception of the original perception of ‘x.' And Leibniz posited a unified field of reality and consciousness. In about 1710, Leibniz wrote a letter in response to someone asking him what philosophical school he followed; Leibniz replied that he follows the school of the perennial philosophy, Philosophia Perennis.

School? Or Soul Trap?

The idea of the reality of humanity's existence being one of two things–either a School, or a Soul Trap–seems over-simplified to me.

I can appreciate how some might narrow down reality to life being a School, based on the idea of reincarnation and people getting a memory wipe so most of us don't remember past lives. I observe that the only things any of truly know are those things that we can never forget. It seems to me that we best learn those lessons that resonate for us emotionally in powerful ways–and these are the true lessons we actually know, and are the basis for us being able to transcend such things as the emotional drama of “playing the part” of: Victim; Rescuer; or Perpetrator in what Stephen Karpman described as a ‘drama triangle.' For people caught up in all the drama, it's easy to feel that the true nature of reality involves both an aspect of it being like a dream (or simulation), and also like there is no free will, and people are trapped and stuck, like the prisoners in Plato's allegory of the cave.

The ‘Drama Triangle' can feel like a kind of trap for people who live their lives mostly at the Egoic level of identity, without reaching a level of connection with higher self connecting to what Leibniz called Philosophia Perennis. For those feeling trapped in the drama triangle, roles are moved through such that many of us start off feeling like sad, helpless Victims; many of us then move out of that role and move on to becoming anxious Rescuers, concerned about the troubles in the world; and many then proceed on to righteous anger about what they know to be wrong, where they become Perpetrators. Escaping this unhappy merry-go-round can thus provide freedom from feeling imprisoned or trapped.

To the question, why do we need to suffer in order to learn more, we can see some kinds of what we take to be suffering can be for our benefit, because we are multi-layered conscious beings. We operate at multiple levels of conscious agency, and this is the biggest secret that's been right in front of us all along. We can learn that we ourselves have the ability to rise above the root source of suffering, and this knowledge is powerfully beneficial to us, not just as incarnate beings, but also as spiritual entities when we exist before we are born and after each life. There is a kind of wisdom known as the Perennial Philosophy, which acknowledges that there exists a sense of highest conscious identity operating outside of space and time. In this state of changeless infinite eternity, we can experience awareness that there is a Divine Spark within each and every one of us–and this powerful point-source of our being was forged from the pure state of infinite, eternal consciousness.

The Biggest Question

One of the biggest clues to what is really going on–Soul Trap? Or School?–lies in one of the biggest questions that usually goes unasked. It goes unasked by physicists, and it goes unasked by psychologists and philosophers. It goes unasked because it seems so simple and basic as to be obvious. Yet, if we really stop to think about it,we can start to realize the vastness of it, and the way it can provide us with a better appreciation about what life and reality is truly all about.

This question is: “Who am I?”

Awareness of levels of conscious agency–levels of self–provides us with the idea that we have both Free Will, and also Destiny. When we are living our lives from the Egoic (drama-filled) state of being. Some (high) level of ourselves have the Free Will, and we can operate with awareness that these higher levels of ourselves are who we really and truly are. When we own this truth, we gain the responsibility of living with Free Will–which lifts us above the feeling of being stuck in a deterministic, pre-planned storyline.

For those feeling trapped or imprisoned by reality, and wishing to escape boundaries and limitations, where do they imagine they will be, after breaking free? Might they arrive in nothingness itself? If so, they may be interested in contemplating the true nature of nothingness. Leibniz points out:

“It is true that as the empty voids and the dismal wilderness belong to zero, so the spirit of God and His light belong to the all-powerful One.”

Miracle-Mindedness at Higher Levels of Conscious Agency

I feel a sense of intrinsic freedom via my connection with God / Creator / Source of the Philosophia Perennis that was first named by Leibniz. For those with awareness of divine source, who are open to living in a state of mind of miracle-mindedness, we are operating outside the realm of manipulation by outside forces. This awareness of sovereignty of spirit arrives thanks to surrendering to living in accordance with our highest principles, ethics, and values. We can reform those beliefs and assumptions that had been instilled, due to the fact that beliefs can be reviewed and changed, and we can reprogram our beliefs (as I point out in my book, “Reality Shifts”) by noticing what beliefs are circulating in our thoughts and minds, and flipping around and reversing negative beliefs (those that feel sickening or weakening) to their positive opposites.

We can gain a finer sense of who we truly are and what level of conscious agency we are currently operating with by observing our thoughts and feelings, and becoming increasingly clearer that we are not our thoughts and feelings–we are the observer of those thoughts and feelings. We can gain this awareness through meditation, and these meditations can prepare us to retain a sense of higher conscious agency, even after being “memory-wiped,” as occurs sometimes when we dream, and when we move from this life to the afterlife.

We need not have any karma or shame when facing our full life review, thanks to training ourselves to rise above the drama of guilt, shame, and regret. Those emotions are so much a part of the Drama Triangle of Egoic self, yet we are capable of witnessing these emotions and feelings, and realizing while we are alive that we are not those feelings.

Practicing lucid dreaming and meditation into silence and nothingness are wonderful ways to train ourselves to access higher levels of our own conscious agency. From that state of consciousness, we have the ability to practice being in astral / out-of-body form, in order that our lives when we are in material bodies can be the fullest and richest possible.

With respect to an Allegory for reality that I feel best aligned with, I love the idea of Axiogenesis, described by philosopher Nicholas Rescher. Axiogenesis has been defined as: A form of metaphysical optimism in which the state of affairs which actually obtains is the one most favorable (of all possible states of affairs) to the development of intelligence and the interests of intelligent beings. Such a philosophy is more in keeping with life and reality providing us all with learning opportunities, rather than being a soul trap. And for those who are agnostics or atheists, such a positive philosophy can be most welcome.

I personally love the idea of the Holy Spirit; I love the idea of the Tao. There is a beauty in the silence of nothingness, and there is a fullness of experiencing the bliss of being an eternal, infinite spirit. When we come out of such meditations, we feel recharged, refreshed, and gain a sense of knowing who we truly are. And this sense of self identity (with associated level of conscious agency) provides us with much deeper and richer awareness of who we truly are, what reality actually is, what we genuinely are living for, and what has deepest meaning to us.

I find there is great value in sovereignty, which seems to be the great gift we can receive from adopting Howdie's “soul trap” / Plato's cave view of reality. I feel we can actually find our greatest sovereignty–and our greatest Free Will–when we live our lives from the highest level of conscious agency identity we can retain. We can learn through lucid dreaming and meditation how we are doing toward our goal of discovering what we retain even after “memory wipe.”

Some of the daily practices I follow on a daily basis is practicing the meditation of aching with the entirety of my being to experiencing living the answer to the question, “How good can it get?” By asking this question, we provide ourselves with the opportunity to feel strong emotions that motivate and inspire us, and give us a sense of self identity and meaning, while steadily gaining higher levels of conscious agency, and higher emotional vibrational levels of such feelings as: compassion, kindness, unconditional divine love, and reverence.

You can watch the companion video to this blog post on YouTube here:

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REFERENCES:

Anatra, Christopher and Howdie Minckowski. “Exposing the Matrix.” Symphony of Realities Podcast. Episode 15. 31 Jan 2023. https://youtu.be/WATYVAw10U8

Karpman, Stephen. “Fairy tales and script drama analysis.” Transactional analysis bulletin 7, no. 26 (1968): 39-43.

Larson, Cynthia Sue. Reality Shifts: When Consciousness Changes the Physical World. RealityShifters, 2011.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, and Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz. Leibniz: New essays on human understanding. Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. “Principles of Nature and Grace (1714).” (1992).

Rescher, Nicholas. Axiogenesis: An essay in metaphysical optimalism. Lexington Books, 2010.

Novak, Michael. The experience of nothingness. Transaction Publishers, 1970.

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Cynthia Sue Larson is the best-selling author of six books, including Quantum Jumps. Cynthia has a degree in physics from UC Berkeley, an MBA degree, a Doctor of Divinity, and a second degree black belt in Kuk Sool Won. Cynthia is the founder of RealityShifters, and first President of the International Mandela Effect Conference. Cynthia hosts “Living the Quantum Dream” on the DreamVisions7 radio network, and has been featured in numerous shows including Gaia, the History Channel, Coast to Coast AM, One World with Deepak Chopra, and BBC. Cynthia reminds us to ask in every situation, “How good can it get?” Subscribe to her free monthly ezine at:

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