The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife - What to Expect After Death

I just finished reading the book called The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife: Jordan's Message to the Living on What to Expect after Death by Matthew McKay. It is an extremely detailed book on the experience of death, the spirit realm, the purpose of life and why we incarnate. I recommend this book to everyone because we are all going to die and transition back to energy, and it's important to know what to expect.

Dr. Matthew McKay’s son, Jordan was shot and killed when he was attacked by a couple guys in the street at the age of twenty-three. This propelled Dr. McKay on a journey through after death communications, Michael Newton's hypnosis work, meeting with evidential mediums, and eventually becoming a channeler himself. Dr. McKay began channeling his son through automatic writing, and eventually Dr. McKay and Jordan agreed to write a book about Jordan's experiences at death and in the spirit world.

Let me share some key topics discussed in the book:

Jordan explains that he was attacked by a group of guys when he was on his bike and all of a sudden he finds himself out of his body. He is hovering over his physical body, confused, and feeling detached to his body. He thinks of his family members and ends up in their bedrooms immediately. Then he is pulled back to the scene of his body but realizes that he is ready to move on. He says that his surroundings just faded and disappeared. He found himself being pulled and moving with no sense of direction.

He then explains that he is suddenly in a realm called the "Landing Place" which is a gateway into the spirit world. He describes it as the following: "At some point, there was more light, as if the morning sun were just starting to penetrate a mist. In fact, I thought perhaps the sun was coming up. I died at night, and I had a strange moment of relief that day was dawning. Another day! Life, or some form of it. But the light ultimately became brighter than any dawn. And shapes that looked like tall, vertical shadows began to appear in the mist. There was a sense of ground, although I wasn't actually standing on anything. The shadows clarified, and I saw that they were souls...my father and mother, my sisters, but I couldn't figure out how they could be here because they weren't dead." At this point he explains in the book that he is struggling to focus, because when he would think of something, the images began to pop up for him. Eventually his spirit guides help him focus and he is in a beautiful meadow with his mom, dad and sisters even though they are still incarnated on Earth.

He explains that this Landing Place "lies at the gateway to the world of spirit". It is just a stop over to adjust to being in an energy body and no longer a physical body. He says that when you leave the landing place and travel to the spirit world, "your soul memories which include past lives and your life between lives in the spirit world, start to come back to you. You become, at that moment, fully yourself." This was a very helpful detail to me because I've been curious at what stage the amnesia wears off and we remember our past lives and prior experiences in the spirit world.

He says that his past lives came flooding back to him, "Then came the flood of other lives: each body I was given was anchored in a particular time and situation and arranged around a particular problem or lesson. I could see them all stretching across time, and I felt the sadness and pain of each life as well as the moments where I gave love." He also begins to remember that his focus in the spirit world is on figuring out where change is possible throughout history. He says, "I could suddenly see all this, both my incarnations and my learning in spirit, as one experience."

He is then drawn to a specific location for his life review. He says that he can see and feel the moments of his life from the perspective of himself and the people he interacted with. For example he says, "I moved forward to my relationship with my sister Bekah. I relived each cruelty I inflicted on her. Over and over, moment after moment of my anger. I felt it not as I experienced it, but as she hurt and took in the pain on the other side." He explains that during his life review, his spirit guides would pop in to give him a break and he would receive energy baths for healing and rest. He says the following about his life review, "There is great beauty in seeing the truth, knowing finally the laws of relationship that I sensed only dimly in my life as Jordan".

Jordan also very clearly states, "There is no judgement in the afterlife. When I saw things I did that were not effective, wise, or aligned with love, I didn't experience myself as bad or defective. I was just a soul learning, and sometimes failing to learn difficult lessons. In the afterlife, we see things with love."

After the life review, Jordan realizes that he's going to his home next where his soul group resides. "I knew I was heading for home, and my energy was so intense, it felt like it was splashing over the brim. Hallways leading to city-size collections of soul families flashed by, and sometimes I had brief curiosity about where they led. A passageway to my left, appearing exactly like the others, nonetheless had a familiar energy pattern."

He then goes on to say, "If you think of each soul as a point of light, the spirit world is a vast array of such lights. It has far more lights than the population of Earth because souls reincarnate to many other planets and dimensions. And there are souls who have never incarnated, souls who have completed their incarnations, and souls who cluster to create, who are the source, who turn knowledge into energy and matter. You might think of the spirit world as a gigantic brain, with each cell (soul) located in a particular place and performing a particular function. This brain contains all of consciousness, all of thought, all that has been learned, all creativity, and all love. This brain, the spirit world, is collective consciousness, all that is."

He explains that his soul group resides in a house, "My soul group, appears to live in an old Victorian house. This isn't a physical house, but energy we project by agreement to resemble a house. We create the image that is comforting to us, much the same as souls who incarnate as water creatures might project a quiet lake or bay."

He says that the 11 members of his soul group are waiting for him with anticipation, "Each soul, each with a signature and unique energy, looked at me, saw the true nature of who I am, and offered a love that can only come from such knowledge. All the loneliness of my life on Earth was suddenly gone. Elisa, with whom I've mated in many lives and my partner in the last year of Jordan's life, gave me a sort of kiss. Her energy entered me like a drug entering a physical body. Though Elisa was still incarnate, as were other souls in my group, some of their energy remained behind." This is what I've explained in other blog posts that even when we incarnate, a percentage of our energy stays in the spirit realm and we call it our higher self.

When he is with his soul group, Jordan says the following, "There was a celebration of return, of finally joining my divided soul energy back together after my life as Jordan. That pause to welcome me was like recess at school. Everyone was playing. Everyone was throwing love at me. But when recess was over and I was safely ensconced back in the group, our work resumed. Soul group work is learning. We learn in three ways: class work, where we learn from teachers; individual tutorials, where guides give us special training focused on our own past lives and past choices; and field trips, where we acquire special advanced skills to prepare for a spiritual career."

Jordan explains that souls have individual lesson plans and spirit guides help keep souls on track. He says that they acquire a lot of knowledge "through the study of the Akashic Record, the history of every life, every event, every choice made during incarnations, both as it happened and as it could have happened. Studying the Akashic Record, sometimes alone, sometimes with guides is the primary way we review and learn from each incarnation." Souls study every choice and how it affected others. They also review any choices that could have changed the path of the life and how the life would have been different.

Jordan also shares that his soul group focuses on the "laws of change" which is the conscious intervention that creates change in the course of human history. He says, "Masters of the laws of change often incarnate specifically to redirect damaging vectors of cause and effect. Souls like Lincoln, Gandhi, Gorbachev, and Christ gave a small push and forever changed the forces that shape human destiny and consciousness."

He also says the following, "To understand what it's like in the afterlife, you have to realize how much souls love learning. That is our purpose, our mission. We were created for this one reason...to absorb knowledge and experience, and give it to all. We incarnate into a physical universe to learn from that; we love each other and learn from that love and connection; we develop expertise at our spiritual careers. Everything we do fills us with an ever-increasing sense of truth. We never arrive at truth. No one does, not even the all (collective consciousness). We keep moving toward truth, holding more and more of it, but never arriving."

Jordan also explains that learning is a big part of the experience in spirit but there's also a lot of fun. He says that they never get bored. Below are more of the activities they do in the spirit world:

• Visiting and connecting to soul friends - "There's a lot of sharing, just like we do on Earth, of experiences and things we've learned."

• Connecting to embodied souls - "Communicating to loved ones who are still incarnate is a challenge. The vibrational levels, as noted before, are so different that direct communication is often impossible. Any time a soul on Earth thinks of me, it opens a channel, and if they are receptive, I can answer telepathically."

• Tourism - Jordan talks about visiting other worlds.

• Meditating on the love of all - "Part of my time is spent in a kind of meditative state, where I connect to collective consciousness."

• Creating - "Everything from music to energy sculptures to planets. A lot of souls work on developing new healing processes."

• Lectures and seminars with advanced souls

• Movies - "These are special 'videos' from the Akashic Record that form amazing travel logs. We can watch the Big Bang, we can see the formation and evolution of previous universes..."

In my blog post on After Death Communications, I brought up the fact that it may be challenging for a deceased loved one to communicate with us here in the 3rd dimension since our loved ones are in the 5th dimension and up. Per the bullet point above on connecting to embodied souls, Jordan does indeed confirm this. He also explains in the book that he needs to take classes on how to communicate with humans on Earth. In regards to how most communication works between the spirit realm and humans he says the following, "When discarnate souls visit with those on Earth, the most common way is through mere thought. They don't actually travel; their energy remains in the spirit world. But thoughts can easily move back and forth between incarnates and discarnates like a wireless phone. Far less frequent are visits in which discarnates bring their actual soul energy to Earth. These visits usually occur with physical manifestations; perhaps there are sounds, a voice, a visage, or an ethereal body. Such manifestations can't happen without soul energy; a discarnate has to 'travel' to the physical plane and skillfully use their energy to get your attention."

Below are also a couple important key points about the spirit world that Jordan clarifies in the book:

• "First, let go of all your pictures of God. God is us; God is everything. God's face is our face. God's body is our body. God's thoughts are our thoughts. Because God is all experience, all consciousness, there is no way to put a countenance on that. There is no way to hold a picture of all that is."

• "Next, let go of damnation and hell. There is no such place as hell in the afterlife." Jordan clearly states that there is no hell where souls are condemned. That is a human concept. He does explain that humans may be confused when they die because of human belief systems and those humans may stay confused until their guides can get them to wake up and realize they have died and need to transition to the spirit world.

• "One of the greatest mistakes mystics have made is the suggestion that there is a hierarchy of consciousness. While there are individual soul identities that form a part of the whole, there is no hierarchy where we climb, level after level, to higher and more valued forms of consciousness. Rather than distinct castes of soul consciousness, we are all on a continuum of growth and development." Jordan emphasizes in the book that all souls are considered equally special. "No soul is more valued than another. We are all just learning and evolving at our own pace."

One of the really cool topics Jordan covers in the book is the concept of Time. This is a concept I've been trying to figure out so I was really excited he explained it so clearly. I knew that time was different in the spirit world from our 3D world but I wasn't clear exactly how it was different. Let me share what he says: "Time exists both on the physical plane and in the spirit world. The sole function of time is to mark change. On Earth, time marks physical changes like the lines of age that form on the faces of loved ones. In the spirit world, time marks changes in consciousness, the growth of awareness, the before and after of a thought, and the birth of a creation. Time reflects both the personal development of each soul and the evolution of collective consciousness as it, too, continues to grow and create."

In regards to the evolution of the soul, Jordan says the following, "Souls who incarnate are likely to do so hundreds of times. Many lives are short and difficult, abbreviated by illness, injury or violence. But each life is chosen for what it can teach and for experiences that are aligned with the soul's karmic lesson plan. As souls evolve and advance in wisdom, their aura changes, and this too, is a way time marks us. In the same way the lined faces of people are reminders of their years of experience, auras of a darker, richer color bespeak soul wisdom."

He explains that in the spirit world they can choose to incarnate at any period of human history. He says that physical time is elliptical rather than linear from the perspective of the spirit world. I have actually heard it described as the shape of a spiral but I think both examples apply and make sense. He does say, "While it's possible to incarnate at any time, souls usually find it too disruptive. We generally prefer to let our own soul development run in parallel to Earth time. Most souls don't like to be thrust into an environment totally different from anything they've known." This was actually very interesting to me because I knew that we could incarnate into any period of time but I never heard that souls like to keep their incarnations in order of linear time. For example, incarnate in the 1500s, then in the 1700s, and then in the 1900s. This makes total sense to me that incarnating in the stone age and then in the 1900s would be too drastic of a change for a soul.

Jordan also explains the concept of souls living for eternity. I really like the details here because I've been very curious about this concept. He says the following, "Spirit (God, collective consciousness, all, the Divine) keeps creating new and more perfect universes for one reason: to learn. Consciousness is energy. And thought, a directed form of consciousness, is energy. Consciousness, through directed thought, turns energy into material dimensions with unique laws and forms. Consciousness creates these material dimensions and universes to play with and learn from." Essentially what he's saying is that we will always have new universes to play in and learn from, we won't ever get bored.

Jordan brings up incarnating on other planets a little bit in the book. Let me share what he says, "All the planets on which souls incarnate are elaborate schools. As on Earth, we can study the history of the incarnating species in each of these planetary training grounds. The biological differences among incarnating species and the hugely different physical conditions on these planets create a vast array of learning opportunities."Jordan also explains that in the spirit realm they tour other planets and can view the history of other planets using the Akashic Records.

Jordan details out the process around the decision to incarnate on Earth again. He says the following, "The spirit world is a place of peace. There is no pain, as we know it on Earth, coursing through the afterlife. But for many souls there is a hunger for the challenges and beauty of the physical world." The lure of physical life includes:

• Physical sensations not available in spirit.

• Experiences that please the senses.

• Sexual desire and release.

• Touching and holding.

• Curiosity and discovery.

• Physical science.

• Caretaking of children and those in need.

• Risk and adventure.

• Physical rhythms of day and night.

• Solving problems and inventing.

• Creating in a physical medium.

• Words, including the way they limit what we can say and think while we also strive to expand our expressions and make them more truthful.

• Weather and seasons.

He then explains the following about choosing the details of the incarnation: "We select families, cultures, historical eras, and physical bodies designed to push us toward our own evolution. The process of choosing a next life is done with the help of guides who open the Akashic Record to offer us a glimpse of several possible existences."

He then goes on to say: "When souls choose a body in which to incarnate, they are shown lines of probability....what is likely to happen based on the matrix of cause and effect at the moment of birth. They are given an idea of how long they will live and some of the physical, emotional, and environmental challenges they'll face. But from the moment of birth on, these lines of probability become less and less predictive. Each choice that souls make changes them and alters, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, the matrix of cause and effect on Earth."

He also explains that some souls can mistakenly choose lives that are too easy or hard, "Many souls, out of hubris and overconfidence, choose difficult lives with great opportunities for learning. But the challenges prove too great. The offered lives lead to more significant levels of pain and human desire than the soul's will, resources, and life experience equip them to deal with. The body they are given is too compromised or its cravings too strong. Or it may be that the family, the culture, or the moment in history creates conflicts and demands the soul isn't ready to face. Our growth as souls requires incarnations that are neither easy nor involve skydiving without a parachute. Choose a life that will ask much of you but not more than your soul has the resources to face." This is actually what my spirit guide was explaining in the post, Have We All Been A Bad Guy in A Past Life?. As I said in that post, souls don't go into a life with the intention to destroy but it can occur due to the human brain, emotions, and belief systems.

Jordan ends the book by explaining that he wrote this book so that when we die, there is less confusion. He says the following, "In this book of the dead, you have a star map, a navigation guide to the afterlife. It is meant to help you through the transition and some of the important moments of discarnate life. It can also be used to protect you from fear. Remember, you will be received, you will be cared for, and you will be loved. That is the absolute truth about the time after death. And it's the core of what you need to know."

This is just a summary of the book but you can see how wise and detailed it is. There are a lot of step-by-step details on what to expect and Jordan provides recommendations on how to go about the process of death and what happens soon after death. As I said in the beginning of the post, I recommend this book to everyone. It's definitely one of the most detailed books I've read on the process of death, the transition back to energy, and the spirit world.

Here is Dr. Matthew McKay's website: https://seekingjordan.com/

Below are podcasts where Dr. Matthew McKay has been interviewed:

We Don't Die podcast interview: https://youtu.be/Iv4js91oXkg?si=FgJtfKu8WSZ9e8DK

Suzanne Giesemann interview: https://youtu.be/tXoEhOFyJWg?si=-jBap2-K2rT1RY1U

New Thinking Allowed interview: https://youtu.be/bXuGrkthuDQ?si=zUbV6bFGAXRmn9DE