They describe themselves as Ascended Masters, who just materialized on his couch at that point, purely to be helpful to him. They also explained that in prior lives they had been the apostles Thaddeus and Thomas respectively, but that they appeared with altered names but in the form they would have in Gary's next life. But wait a minute, it gets worse than that, for by the end of the book, they also explain that Gary will know Arten in this life, though in this life she will be a woman, but he does not know her yet at the time when they tell him this. Furthermore Pursah explains that Gary will be her in his next life, at the end of which she will marry Arten, who again is a man in that life, which is supposed to be Gary's last. Along the same lines they also explain that Gary himself thus was the apostle Thomas earlier.
There is a point to all this. This whole Gordian knot of intertwined lives and personalities, who are having their meetings in Gary's living room, taken together demonstrate the holographic nature of our time-space experience, which boils down to this: we do not incarnate in bodies, but rather "bodies"/"lives" are just like movies, projections in the mind, and the universe of time and space is just a virtual multiplex cinema, where you can potentially wander in and out of lives at will. It takes a while to digest all this, but once you do, it is a whole lot more sensible as an explanation for a wide range of phenomena, out-of-body experiences, re-incarnation included. So it is as Einstein surmised, all of time is simultaneous, and past and present are but a figment of our imagination.
In that context the concept of Ascended Masters also starts to make sense. In his book Gary adduces material from A Course in Miracles, which explains the concept, though the terminology is slightly different--here Ascended Masters are referred to as Teachers of Teachers, but the idea is clear:
There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly. These might be called the Teachers of teachers because, although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called upon. And they will appear when and where it is helpful for them to do so. To those to whom such appearances would be frightening, they give their ideas. No one can call on them in vain. Nor is there anyone of whom they are unaware. All needs are known to them, and all mistakes are recognized and overlooked by them. The time will come when this is understood. And meanwhile, they give all their gifts to the teachers of God who look to them for help, asking all things in their name and in no other. (ACIM:M-26.2)
These notions have turned up in many traditions, a.o. the Hindu/Buddhist/Theosophical notions of the Mahatmas, or the Rosicruscian notions of the Order of the Holy Cross, (Fama Fraternitatis), the Theosophical notions of the White Brotherhood, and the Chassidic notions of the unknown 36 Zaddikim who "hold up the world," and so on. Typically Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Quan Yin, etc. are thought included in this group. The notion is actually very simple and straigthforward, if this time space experience is a dream, or in modern psychological terms, a projection, then it is possible to wake up from the dream, courtesy of the process that is traditionally referred to as Enlightenment. It is as simple as realizing that the emperor has no clothes on, and not only is there not there there, but there is no here here either. There is only here and now. Or, as A Course in Miracles puts it, "It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed." (ACIM:T-8.VI.9:7) Fundamentally then, the logic is that we only experience this world because we believe in it, and as long as we believe in it, and that with the process of awakening, there comes a time when it serves no more purpose to be here. At that time however it becomes possible to be present in this dream merely to help others, and that presence can take many forms, it can be totally ethereal or it can take physical form as in the appearances of Arten and Pursah for Gary. In the Christian tradition of course the appearances of the resurrected Jesus to the apostles reflects the same notion.If you recall the story of the doubting Thomas, who wanted to touch the risen Jesus, in order to believe in him, it is kind of funny that Gary (who, as Pursah explained to him was himself Thomas in a prior life), in his book describes how he wanted to touch Pursah, to make sure she was "real." In the literature this mistake is repeated by the famous encounter of Dr. Samuel Johnson, with Bishop Berkeley, in which Johnson wants to refute the Bishop's point of view that the material is appearance not reality. Johnson kicks a stone and his toe hurts, and he famously exclaims "Thus I refute thee." It is however an example of circular reasoning, for the body is part of that same physical reality, and it is designed to operate in that reality, and the example is merely a case of the physical vouching for the would-be reality of the physical, and therefore it is circular and tautological, and proves nothing. The secret lies in the mind that devises the experiment: what is it looking to prove? If it wants to prove that it's projected reality is in fact "real" then Dr. Samuel Johnson was the perfect manservant to provide that demonstration, but the mind that orchestrates the experiment is not itself part of that reality, it is merely something it perceives, by reason of its vested interest in the reality of that reality, since the mind itself projected it.
In the end, this is why the Course asks: "Do you prefer that you be right or happy?" (ACIM:T-29.VII.1:9) So, if the ego is right then its puppet, Dr. Samuel Johnson has a point, but if Jesus is right, that his Kingdom is NOT of this world, or as he teaches in Logion 42 "Be passersby" then this is all a joke, and it hurts more if you take it seriously. Comedy is really the best relief.
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