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Hi mac, great post.
Like yourself, I have had lorry-loads of evidence from various sources all pointing to Life living through and beyond the separating from the physical body at 'death', indeed experiencing it during surgery.
I am completely convinced that, like so many of Earth's illusions, death is another of them.
Our everyday consciousness however, does not provide a smooth complete bridge across the 'great divide' as it was known, leaving us - or those whose minds wish to explore here, to probe a little further still.
As I understand it, our 'Higher Mind' - the auto part where our intuitive self with it's ability to grasp that which is just out of reach abides, will eventually supply a satisfactory personal 'bridge' for those who do seek.

"My understanding has always been that whatever our animating spirit may be, it leaves the etheric world to enter and remain in this domain until our death"

We differ here mac, I'd come to the understanding that this was a very-much-in-the-background loving Soul who took on this task, but could not interfere in our evolutionary choices, although prompts to consider other related views do come, though from whom I know not. They could come from many sources and individuals, but they certainly occur.

"But recently there's talk that only a fragment of our 'higher self' animates our physical bodies, this higher self remaining in the etheric"

SB (Silver Birch the renowned guide) speaks of us being-not quite who we might think, but as being a Personality of an Individual, which leads to fertile possibilities. It's taken many years and much puzzling over, but I have no dissenting argument. Life, on all fronts, does seem to hold more than meets the eye or the mind, vastly so.

Aliens and/or other conscious, intelligent Life forms must wait until another time for me.
As SB quietly reminds us, Life in all it's manifestations, is designed and sustained by Perfect Love and 'All Things work Wisely and Well.

What if the people on the other side are still deluded in their belief in separation, Mac? I'm speculating here, of course.

My considerations are influenced by a number of things I have read.  There is Michael Newton, for example, who, if I recall correctly (and maybe it was Brian Weiss or another such researcher into apparent reincarnation) suggested that souls would "leave behind" differing amounts of their essence upon incarnating, with older souls often choosing to leave more of themselves behind. Perhaps this somehow plays into your inquiry.

Currently, I'm exploring A Course in Miracles which appears to suggest that human beings incarnate in an imperfect world of their own creation.  It argues that we, the Christ consciousness, were and remain an extension of God's consciousness and perfectly free to create.  The "Fall" was a fleeting thought of separation from God, which, though actually impossible, created guilt and a split consciousness that led to this dualistic world and the false belief that God would actually banish us while, in reality, we never left but only fell into a kind of nightmare.  The human condition is explained as insanity because we are said to have created fear.  If you read about adventures in the afterlife by people such as Robert Monroe, Bruce Moen and Jurgen Ziewe, it seems that union with God never actually occurs.  Instead, souls seem to draw to levels that match their emotional and mental "vibrations". Few seem to acquire the total enlightenment, which in ACIM's terms would involve total forgiveness and love for self and others and a genuine understanding of our perfect innocence and the unreality of this life. Perhaps then, the Higher aspect is not attained even in the after life.  If ACIM is genuinely what it claims to be, perhaps people on the other side do experience separation when loved ones return to earth because they cannot access that part that never leaves.


My thinking is also influenced by Kurt Leland, who draws on Theosophical notions of our multidimensional nature.  He is an oneironaut and mystic whose own experiences have led him to believe that as we develop spiritually we become increasing competent in different and more advanced energy bodies: astral, mental, causal, etc.  Perhaps most people are not very developed and, therefore, have less access to/awareness of those higher levels of self or other, so that they experience a sense of sadness as a spirit is perceived to leave as it reincarnates.

I'm not wedded to these beliefs but they represent my current best guess.