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According to the author, there is more to life on Earth than meets the eye. We live on a tiny dot in space, unable to contact other dots or travel to see them in the vastness of the universe. In one sense, this can make it seem as though each of us is pretty unimportant. Yet we are here, Floodgate says, because we want to be here to learn and progress. The lessons will come from all our actions during each lifespan. Our teachers include everyone and everything we relate with, and there is no syllabus because each life begins as a blank slate. If this seems unfair, the author says, consider how little sense it would make merely to live out a totally pre-ordained path or to come to one’s existence loaded with pre-conceptions brought from an earlier incarnation.
The good news, which Floodgate stresses throughout this handbook, is that we have helpers. These helpers are advanced beings that have reached a point in their development where they can guide others, even occasionally directly affecting individual lives. In addition, we have a certain innate toolkit: our senses, our emotions, and our physical capabilities. From this perspective, we can begin to see that all lives offer a chance for learning if lived with full awareness. Also key to the overall picture is the abhorrence of suicide, which the author regards as a futile, always-negative choice no matter what the circumstances. Meditation, a natural diet, and positive thinking are recommended as a practical means to help us learn and progress through each lifespan.
Floodgate, who is a student of religion and an instructor of Energy Healing, is here describing a highly structured cosmology of his own devising that he commends to his readers, admirably managing this without proselytizing. In this conception, reincarnation is a fact and God, if indeed there is such a being, is far too remote to offer us any direct guidance. Using one of his many well-chosen metaphors, he compares God to the managing director of a multinational corporation who may have a direct relationship with folks in his home office, but the cleaner in a foreign outlet of the corporation would be unknown to him.
Floodgate's writing is clear and precise, and as noted above, he presents many metaphors and images to make his points. He says, for example, that one’s life is like a school day that never ends and posits that such mundane elements weather conditions can force us to change our plans and learn from that frustration. He presents his ideas in a rational manner, seeking to help his readers understand why we are on this Earth and how we can make the best use of our time here. His presentation is engaging, showing his proclivity as a teacher. Though his points are arguable, most are in the realm of the unprovable, as would be any contrary position. What he has constructed is a simple, orderly, internally consistent universal system that includes unseen realities minus the God factor. If his system as laid out in this very readable manual were accepted wholly, it could possibly serve to steady the minds and energize the perceptions of its practitioners.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review