Joan Grant: Author of Winged Pharaoh July 20, 2011
Posted by heidi skarie in Book Review, Past lives.Tags: book review, Joan Grant, New Age, past lives, Winged Pharaoh
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Recently I went to the “King Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” exhibit at the Science Museum of Minnesota. The beautiful wall designs, jewelry, statues and architecture of ancient Egyptian civilization (which lasted for 3,000 years—from 3050 BC to 337 AD) fascinated me and rekindled my interest in that time period.
Ancient Egypt has been studied for centuries but it wasn’t until 1799 AD (after the Rosetta Stone was found) that modern man had the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs. The decree on the stone occurred in three scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic script and Ancient Greek. This enabled scholars to decipher it. The Egyptian hieroglyphs gave us a glimpse into their culture.
We learned much from the tombs, ancient runes and temples, but it’s hard to imagine what it was actually like to live back then. What did the people believe, how did they live and what was important to them?
While I was wandering through the museum, my thoughts turned to Joan Grant who wrote three books about her past lives in ancient Egypt. Her first and most famous book, Winged Pharaoh, was published in 1937. Grant shot to fame upon its publication and it is still considered a classic. The New York Times hailed it as “a book of fine idealism, deep compassion and a spiritual quality pure and bright as flame.”
Joan went on to write a series of “historical” books. It wasn’t until almost twenty years later that Joan claimed to recall the events in the books while in a trancelike state and that the episodes were of her own past lives. Winged Pharaoh is about Sekhet-a-ra, the daughter of a Pharaoh, who with her brother (Neyah) becomes co-ruler of Kam (Egypt). As a young woman she is sent to study at a temple to become a “winged-pharaoh”—a ruler and priest because of her clairvoyant powers. Her initiation into the inner mysteries includes a four-day ordeal where she is enclosed in a tomblike place and her spirit leaves her earth-body in search of wisdom. It is in this place that initiates die (to an old state of consciousness) and are born again in wisdom.
Far Memory: The Autobiography of Joan Grant was published in 1956. It’s here that Joan tells about how she came to remember her past lives. What soon becomes clear is that she learned her clairvoyant skills in her life as a priest in Egypt and those skills carried forward into her current life as Joan Grant. One of her skills was what she called “psychometrise,” the ability to touch an object to get visions about the owner and its history.
Joan experimented with many objects, going into a trance and speaking of her visions while her husband wrote down what she saw. Once she used an ancient Egyptian scarab made of turquoise. The scarab beetle symbolized the rising sun and constant renewal of life to the Egyptians and it was used as an amulet. Joan wrote of this experience: “The moment it touched my forehead I know it was warm and lively.” (p. 253 Winged Pharaoh)
By touching the scarab, Joan had visions from Sekhet-a-ra’s ordeal of initiation. Fascinated by what she learned about Sekeeta, Joan continued to use the scarab to gain visions day after day. Eventually she realized that she was remembering her past life as Sekeeta and she didn’t need to touch the scarab to have visions. Sometimes she watched the scenes while at other times she seemed to be experiencing them. The scenes from this past life were in random order. Gradually Joan put them into chronological sequence from when she was a baby to when she died.
As a child Sekhet-a-ra traveled out of her earth-body to other lands to learn about them. Sekhet-a-ra’s mother tells her: “All upon Earth are travelling toward their freedom and must one day reach the great gate where the last shackle is struck from their feet. Then shall all be equal in the light of the last sunset and the first sunrise.” (p. 77 Winged Pharaoh)
Sekhet-a-ra looked at death as a joyful occasion of returning home. At the end of her life she says, “Far below me I saw Earth as a little cold room that had opened its doors and let me free. . . . Then like a sun-shaft breaking through a cloud I left the shadow-land of tears and pain, to walk with my dear companions in the Light.” (P. 322- 323 Winged Pharaoh)
Joan Grant’s current life was just as fascinating as her past life as a pharaoh. She was born in 1907 in London, England and describes her resentment at being trapped in a baby body. When she was a child she saw a “monk” ghost in the music room of her home, “Seacourt ” shown in the photo, and tried to get rid of it.
The First World War broke out when she was ten and she started having dreams of being on a battlefield as an adult in a Red Cross nurse uniform or as a stretcher-bearer. She was frightened by these “nightmares” and too young to understand that she was tuning into soldiers who were fighting in the war. In her war “dream” experiences she had to report to duty and get orders. Sometimes she explained to a soldier that he had been killed and was dead or she had to encourage a seriously wounded soldier to return to his body as he wasn’t due to die. In these experiences she got close to people and could feel and see what they felt and saw.
As a young adult Joan dreamed of a man for a year before she met him in her “earth” life. When they met they both recognized the other from their dreams. They were already deeply in love with each other.
After reading Winged Pharaoh, it was clear that Joan learned clairvoyant skills and some ways to help people inwardly in her life as an Egyptian priest.
She carried these skills over into her life as Joan, even when she was still a child. As Joan grew older she was able to bring back more of her skills and continued to help others.
Winged Pharaoh is a beautifully told story that gives a detailed picture of life in ancient Egypt from the point of view of a person who lived back then. It gives details about the dangers of lions, crocodiles and poisonous snakes, the climate, what people ate and wore, as well as insights about their religion and how they were governed. Reading Winged Pharaoh made the King Tut exhibit come alive to me on a whole new level.
Carol Bowman Children’s Past Lives June 26, 2011
Posted by heidi skarie in Book Review, Past lives.Tags: book review, Carol Bowman, children's past lives, past lives, reincarnation
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Some parents and preschool teachers have noticed that young children will occasionally talk about another lifetime. It’s as if the veil between their last life isn’t fully drawn. The glimpses these children get into the past allows them to remember a small piece of another life. At other times they’ll remember their most recent past life in vivid detail. The child may startle their parents by saying something like, “When I was big . . .” or “When I used to be a nurse or fireman . . . .”
At other times they have nightmares or fears connected to their past lives. My niece would wake up crying at night. In a past life her family died in a fire while she slept overnight at a friend’s house.
In Children’s Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child Carol Bowman researched different studies on children who remember past lives. She takes the field of healing from past lives a step further by teaching parents how to help their child get over phobias from another life.
Bowman’s journey into this study began when her young son Chase suddenly became afraid of fireworks. Soon after, a hypnotherapist friend of hers, Norman Inge, came for a visit and Bowman mentioned her son’s fears. In an impromptu therapy session, Inge asked Chase what caused his fear of loud noises. Chase began to describe himself as a soldier carrying a gun with a sword on the end of it in the midst of battle, surrounded by smoke and flames. Eventually, he was wounded. Unlike adults, Chase didn’t needed hypnotic induction to remember his former life. After recalling his life as a soldier, Chase’s chronic eczema and phobia of loud noises went away. Later Chase remembered more about this fateful day in battle.
After his wound was patched up, he was sent back to the battlefield to operate the cannon and was killed. He floated above the battle, glad he was done with that hard life. Then he floated over his house and said good-bye to his wife and children. “They don’t see me because I’m in spirit, but they know that I’m dead.” (p. 24)
Bowman previously had a memory of a past life when she was very ill in this lifetime. Like her son, the remembrance helped her heal. In the experience Bowman states the following:
“I understood—really understood—that I was a part of something greater than the finite me. In a flash I realized that this energy I felt within myself could never be destroy—it would always exit. Only the body dies, while this essence that was everywhere but somehow still centered in my body continues forever.” (p. 34)
Bowman wondered why she was healed and came to understand that it had something to do with “recognizing patterns from the past and understanding how they carried over from life to life.” (p. 48)
Bowman’s inner question about what reincarnation meant for her present life was finally answered—directly and practically. “Re-experiencing my past lives released the grip of the past and gave me a fresh start in the present.” (p. 49)
Her interest in Chase’s experience led her to do extensive research on reincarnation. She found books by Dr. Edith Fiore, Dr. Helen Wambach and Dr. Raymond Moody. Wambach did experiments to prove past lives are real after having a spontaneous past-life recall. Wambach hinted that “The healing effect of recalling past lives is both powerful and universal. Just by remembering past lives, people could heal themselves of phobias. They didn’t even have to know it was possible.” (p. 64)
Fiore’s book You Have Been Here Before focuses on the healing benefits of past-life regression. She discovered an emotionally traumatic death is often the cause of the patient’s problems. Once the forgotten trauma surfaces, the patient’s symptoms begin to clear up.
In Dr. Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life, he describes near-death experiences similar to Dr. Fiore’s reports of patient’s descriptions of their death experiences during regression.
“Everyone who remembered dying described a continuation of consciousness after death; their awareness didn’t cease when their heart stopped beating. Their perceptions remained viable. They could see, hear, sense what was happening to them and around them . . .
“At the moment of death, they felt themselves leaving their bodies, suddenly feeling lighter, floating like a feather, rising up into the air, looking down at the scenes they had left below. . . . Many entered a celestial realm of bright light and bathed in its warm, loving presence.” (p. 68)
Bowman’s study led her to Dr. Ian Stevenson who wrote Twenty Suggestive Cases of Reincarnation and Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation. The first book is full of cases where two- or three-year-old children recall, without prompting, enough details of a past life for his or her former identity to be established. Bowman realized that Stevenson was addressing the question:
“What survives bodily death? Thanks to his enormous lifelong effort, for the first time in the history of science we have objective evidence for proof of reincarnation—evidence that suggests strongly that something of our personality does survive bodily death.” (p. 110)
For thirty-five years Dr. Stevenson and his colleagues collected 2,600 cases in a range of culture and religions from around the world. (p. 112)
Bowman pursued training to do past-life regressions and began her work with children. Once when regressing her son Chase, she asked him “What happens after we die?” He explained:
“You can go back to a scene from the life you left and get any information you want to answer questions to finish up your life there. You can see what happens with the people you left behind. You can go back while you’re in spirit and say good-bye and see what happens to them in the future. If you see that all is well with them, this frees you to leave the Earth plane.” (p. 139)
Bowman decided to write a book on children’s past-life memories, so she placed an ad in a parenting magazine asking parents to share their children’s past-life memories. Colleen Hocken answered her ad.
Colleen’s three-year-old son remembered being hit by a truck and killed. This past-life memory was confusing because he couldn’t differentiate that life from his current one. Bowman gave Colleen techniques she could use to work with her son to “clarify” the painful events that happened in his past life. He needed to understand his current parents loved him and that he was hit by a truck while in another body. After having a conversation with his mother about his past life, the child’s face lit up. “You could just feel this incredible weight lift off him.” (p. 174) Colleen told Bowman. He became a happy, playful child again.
Colleen went on to say, “‘More people need to know that children can have troubling past-life memories and that their parents can help.’ She added, ‘I’m going to write to Oprah Winfrey to tell her about this.’” (p. 175)
This resulted in Bowman, her two children and Colleen Hocken appearing on Oprah to talk about past-life memories. People in the audience also shared some past-life memories from childhood. One woman shared the following (excerpted from Bowman’s book):
“When she was a little girl, she heard a single plane fly overhead, but had a vision of the sky filled with squadrons of planes coming to attack. She ran to her grandfather, screaming, “Run to the cellar, the bombers are coming!” (p. 187)
This story brought back my memories. Many times I’ll be peacefully gardening and hear a plane fly overhead. Instantly I have an urge to run into the house and hide in the basement. I suspect this stems from my own past life in World War II.
Bowman also shared her upset and unhappiness as a child at being sent away to camp. Upon further exploration, she discovered that her feelings came from her last life when she died in a concentration camp. This also lit up for me; when I was a child I had the same unexplained upset at being sent to camp.
Bowman states the following:
“Any child, anywhere in the world, can have a past-life memory, regardless of the cultural or religious beliefs of the parents. Most of those memories don’t cause problems. They are benign and are useful to help explain a child’s talents, temperament, behavioral quirks . . . they can forever change the most fundamental beliefs of the parents about death and life. For, by sharing their memories with us, small children teach what we adult have forgotten: that life continues after death.
“Sometimes, though, children have troubling memories from the past that create problems, such as phobias or physical ailments. These children may need help separating past from present—they may need to be told that the past life is over. Or if the memory is a sign that something from the past is unfinished, they may need help discovering what that unfinished business is in order to resolve it. They may need to examine their feelings and thoughts at the moment of death and be guided toward a resolution . . .
“For some children it’s even simpler than that . . . all the parent needs to do is simply acknowledge the truth of the memory and not deny it. Then the memory will run its course.” (p. 152)
The second and third parts of Bowman’s book are A Practical Guide to Children’s Past-Life Memories and Listen to the Children. These two sections give techniques parents can use to work with their children who have past-life memories. In the last section, Bowman explores the reasons people are afraid to publicly come out and say they believe in past lives. It may come from a past life where people were executed for having ideas outside church dogma.
If you have a child with a past-life memory you’d like more insight into or if you are fascinated by the topic, you’ll find Bowman’s book a well documented, thorough study that can transform your ideas about life after death.
Below is a You tube video interview with Carol Bowman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-MVcWEusW8
Interview with Alison Wylie March 22, 2011
Posted by heidi skarie in Past lives.Tags: Ali Wylie, Astral Travel, Astral Wings, out of body experiences
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This week I interviewed Alison Wylie about her book Astral Dancer true stories of healing and adventures from the beyond. The book is a fascinating account of her out-of-body adventures where she meets herself as a man in another life and helps him heal. In the second half of the book she shares her experiences helping people in the Astral world. Some have died and don’t know they are dead and Ali helps them meet their guide and move on to the next part of their spiritual journey. I think you’ll find Ali’s experiences it the Astral world quite amazing.
On the Then and Now March 21, 2011
Posted by heidi skarie in Book Review, Past lives.Tags: Jo Leonard, Native American, past lives, reincarnation
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Today’s blog is an article by Jo Leonard, author of The Would Be Saint.
Jo Leonard on the Then and Now
Heidi Skarie’s interest in Native Americans, and generally in past life recall, are two subjects that resonate deeply with me. I was looking at her website the other day and read this review from Colorado Libraries on her and her book entitled Red Willow’s Quest: “…and obviously has extensive knowledge about the life and customs of the Shoshoni tribe.”
I know that kind of authenticity doesn’t just come from an author doing research. Whether a writer is conscious of it or not, memories of the past are often sprung open from little cages stored within us as we write. Words then begin to appear as though by magic on the computer screen and even the author can be left to wonder: “Where did that come from?”
The sweat and toil of research aside, there is often a flow of what I have come to call superior knowledge (or knowingness) that surpasses what mere research can bring to a story. That superior knowledge often shows in the details; details that come about because one has known them first hand.
In the story below, I recalled “a gorgeous morning filled with bird song, the smells of impending summer, and the fluttering sound of curtains blowing in the open windows.” It was a memory from this lifetime. I also wrote, “I remember looking at a yellow sun hanging high in the sky just before I heard the pounding of horse’s hoofs and the screams of terror.” That was a memory from a past lifetime. Is one memory less valid than the other?
We each have a very long history extending across oceans upon oceans of time and space. How much you recall depends on how much you want to recall and accept. Learn to embrace your many lives, after all, you are the sum of all your parts and then some.
The story to follow is one of many Native American past life recalls.
Little Big Man
I was elated when I first heard the word reincarnation. It explained the inequity of life and the feelings of familiarity I had about certain people and places. But most of all, it eliminated my fear that a single lifetime precluded the possibility of any truly significant spiritual unfoldment.
Of all the past life recalls I have had since learning about reincarnation, one in particular stands apart from all the others. It was a lifetime in which I had been taken from everything I loved in an abrupt and horrid fashion.
In present time, I’d been hanging around with a group of like-minded Souls who met on weekends at a friends non-working farm. We’d gather as a group for spiritual conversations and meals, but we’d also spend time alone in various parts of the house or surrounding fields pursuing our own desire to read, paint, or meditate upon the mysteries of life.
The day of the past life recall was a gorgeous morning filled with bird song, the smells of impending summer, and the fluttering sound of curtains blowing in the open windows. I was sitting in the living room of the house wondering about some of the people who were currently in my life. These were people who were not present at these informal weekend convocations but were connected to me or to others in the group. Three people in particular paraded across my mind’s eye as I rested my head against the back of the sofa. I knew I knew them, knew them from before.
Was this a dream? A vision?
I saw myself as a Native American woman working in a field in the company of two of her three children, beautiful brown-skin children. My miserable, wizened, old mother-in-law was back in the teepee with my other child, the youngest of the three. The two children with me in the field, and the mother-in-law, were the three I knew in my current life.
It was a beautiful day. The men were out on a hunt while the women tended to the crops. I remember looking at a yellow sun hanging high in the sky just before I heard the pounding of horses’ hoofs and the screams of terror. I watched from the dreamer’s perspective as Custer’s men rode through the fields and slaughtered me, my two beautiful children, and all the other innocents in that field.
It might have been months or perhaps years later, that I saw the film Little Big Man. In this satirical recounting of how the West was won, there is a scene that mirrors my recall of that day in the field. I was strangely detached as I watched the movie. I had already come to terms with how that life had affected this one. It was no longer of any consequence.
So much of the now is colored by past events that exist like little film clips we carry along with us from life to life. How do we keep from replaying these clips and start afresh? It begins by waking up to the fact that these memories of other lifetimes do exist. Then, when you’re ready, you ask to see them. Just put the thought out there into the great unknown that you wish to know. Ask for insight and, more importantly, ask for guidance lest you become entrapped in the past.
Want to get started? Here’s a way to prime the pump of past life recall. First, you ask to see. Next, you watch your dreams and the events in your waking life. Let’s say, for example, that your son asks for help with his homework. His assignment is to write an essay on the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of the Roman city of Pompeii. Later that evening, you tune into the History Channel. What’s on? A documentary on the city of Pompeii! It starts you thinking about a trip to Mexico and how strongly you reacted, though in no danger, to seeing smoke rising from “El Popo,” the volcano that sits between the cities of Cuernavaca and Puebla.
Are you beginning to get it? When you connect the dots, a picture begins to form. Pursue that picture as far as you want to or need to. Simply let it go when you are done looking and learning. Then is then and now is now.
Excerpt from The Would Be Saint by Jo Leonard
The Would Be Saint by Jo Leonard is a collection of short anecdotes chronicling the spiritual experiences of a soul in search of God. Writing with simple authenticity, the author demonstrates that the mystical experiences of the saints are actually available to us all.
Jo Leonard has traveled the world presenting consciousness-provoking talks and workshops to other like-minded seekers. A published author, her writings, both non-fiction and fiction alike, are spiritually insightful, inspiring, and often laced with humor. She currently lives in Occoquan, Virginia (near Washington DC) with her husband and a Siamese cat.
The Would Be Saint
by Jo Leonard
ISBN 978-1439232859
Available at www.amazon.com
Website: www.jeleonard.com
Michael Newton on Life between Lives February 26, 2011
Posted by heidi skarie in Book Review, Past lives.Tags: book review, death, lives between lives, Michael Newton, near death, past lives
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Most of us have pondered the questions, “Why are we here?” and”What happens after we die?” We wonder why some people are born to a wealthy and/or loving family and why others are born into poverty and/or into an unloving family. We wonder why some people suffer from disease and die young while others live a long, healthy life.
We may come to conclusions based on our own personal religious beliefs or based on what we were taught in church. Most think you can’t actually know the answers to these questions until you die. Michael Newton’s book Journey of Souls Case Studies of Life Between Lives offers new insights into what happens between lives, why we are born, and why the physical world is such a hard place.
Dr. Michael Newton is a hypnotherapist who discovered that we, as soul, have a life in the spirit worlds between our lives here on earth. The first time he had a glimpse into this soul life was when he hypnotized a client and asked her why she was lonely. She replied, “I miss some friends in my group and that’s why I get so lonely on Earth.”
Over a period of ten years Dr. Newton worked with his clients carefully recording what they told him about their life in their “life between lives”. He discovered that helping people find their place in the spirit worlds was more meaningful to people than remembering former lives on earth.
Newton says, “Having a conscious knowledge of their soul life in the spirit world and a history of the physical existence on planets gives these people a strong sense of direction and energy for life.” (P. )
This remarkable book covers soul’s experience right after the body dies, and the journey to its spirit-world group of friends and what it learns there.
Many books discuss reincarnation, but this is the only one I’ve run across that goes into depth about what soul does between lives. One of the most important aspects of Newton’s finding is helping people to eliminate the fear of death. Newton says at the time of death, “All people report a euphoric sense of freedom and brightness around them. Some of my subjects see brilliant whiteness totally surrounding them at the moment of death, while others observe the brightness is farther away from an area of darker space through which they are being pulled. This is often referred to as the tunnel effect, and has become well know with the pubic.” (p. 9)
After this tunnel effect, soul is met by their relatives, close friends, and/or personal guide. More advanced soul isn’t met by anyone as they don’t require a support system.
Next, souls are taken to a “space of healing” to help soul recover from their last life. Here soul is debriefed by their guide about the life that just ended. Earth is a hard place compared to the love and wisdom of the place where soul was created, so soul often returns bruised and needs time to heal.
After healing, soul returns to its group of intimate old friends who are at about the same awareness level. This is “a small primary unit of entities who have direct and frequent contact, such as we would see in a human family.” (p. 8)
A guide, who is a more advanced soul, works with the group. “Guides only want the best for us and sometimes this means they must watch us endure much pain to reach a certain objective. Guides cannot assist in our progress until we are ready to make the necessary changes in order to take full advantage of life’s opportunities.” (p. 119)
With their group a soul will go over their last lifetime and review what they did well and what they could have done better.
Souls are on different levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced souls. Newton didn’t interview many advanced souls. He says, “The fact is, a person whose maturity is this high doesn’t seek out a regression therapist to resolve life-plan conflicts.” (p. 16)
An advance spirit shows more patience with society and has good coping skills. They show kindness and understanding towards others.
The next area Newton covers is the selection of soul’s next life. After the wounds of a past life are healed, soul feels the pull to reincarnate again on earth, though soul can reincarnate on other worlds a well. With their guide, soul decides where they want to live, what lessons they want to learn, and what parents they want to be born to.
Newton gave an example of a soul who wanted to study music. The soul wanted to live in New York with parents who were supportive and well off enough to pay for music lessons. This soul said, “If I want to express the beauty of music and give pleasure to myself and others, I need proper training and supportive parents, otherwise I’ll get sidetracked.” (p. 21)
Each person comes into a new life with lessons they have chosen to learn. They pick a family, friends and a mate to help them learn these lessons. One particularly interesting part of this plan is that we have triggers to help us remember the important people we will encounter in our life such as who we are suppose to marry. A piece of jewelry, a laugh, the eyes, or a fragrance can trigger the memory.
We have amnesia about our soul identity when the soul and human brain merge. The merging takes place in the womb early or late in the pregnancy. This amnesia allows soul to have a fresh start. But there is often a bleed through in young children who remember their past lives or in all of us when we meet someone we have an instant recognition of.
Once soul enters the body of a baby, it comes and goes while the baby is in the womb. After birth, soul continues to come and go when the body is sleeping or in deep meditation.
In conclusion, Newton says, “If you carry away nothing except the idea you may have a permanent identity worth finding, I will have accomplished a great deal.” (p. 274)
We live in an imperfect world by design. “We bear responsibility in the evolution of a higher consciousness for ourselves and others in life.” (p. 276) We learn that we have a loving place waiting for us where we belong. One day we will go there to finish this long journey and reach a state of enlightenment.
I’ve just touched on the essence of this fascinating book. You may not agree with all of Newton’s findings, but does open doors to possibilities. I believe he has just scratched the surface of the inner worlds and there is much beyond what he describes.
Michael Newton has written other books and has some You Tubes videos online. Here’s one you might find interesting.
Brian Weiss on Past Lives February 11, 2011
Posted by heidi skarie in Book Review, Past lives.Tags: book review, Brian Weiss, New Age, past lives, reincarnation
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Last winter when I visited friends in Hawaii, I came across a remarkable book on their
bookshelf: Many Lives Many Masters by Brian Weiss. It is a true story about a prominent psychiatrist and his patient who were both changed by the patient’s past-life memories. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested metaphysics. It is a thought-provoking, fascinating story that took courage to write.
Catherine came to see Dr. Weiss because she was plagued by fears, phobias and anxieties that were keeping her from living a happy, fulfilled life. After 18 months Dr. Weiss had still not made any significant progress treating her, so he tried regressing her to her childhood through hypnosis. She remembered some childhood trauma, but she didn’t get any better. So Dr. Weiss told her to go back to the time when her symptoms arose and she began telling him in great detail about a past life.
Neither Catherine or Dr. Weiss believed in reincarnation. Weiss was skeptical at first but as Catherine continued to remember past lives his doubts eroded. Catherine’s past-life recalls occurred in many time periods and she was both male and female. In all of them, she was an ordinary person: a servant, soldier or peasant. Many of her lives were hard and her deaths brutal, such as having her throat cut or drowning in a flood. However, it was remarkable that as she remembered these lives she started healing from her fears and anxieties.
Dr. Weiss began to research past lives and learned about Ian Stevenson who interviewed 2,000 children with past-life recall. Weiss also discovered references to past lives in the Old and New Testaments that were taken out in 325 A. D. by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Still it took him awhile to fully embrace the idea of past lives. He studied them as a scientist would, and kept detailed records of his sessions with Catherine.
Interestingly in one session Catherine told Weiss that he was her uncle and teacher in 1568 B.C. It became apparent that it wasn’t an accident that she and Weiss came together in this life.
In each lifetime, Weiss would take her to the moment of death and she would float out of her body, toward a light where guides or spiritual masters were always waiting for her. Even though her deaths experiences were similar, her religious beliefs about the afterlife were different in each lifetime.
As well as remembering past lives, Catherine began to talk about her in-between–lives state. In that state Catherine could channel guides or masters who spoke to Weiss. Once they gave her a message from Weiss’s father and son, both of who had died. The son had died as an infant from a heart defect and had come to show Dr. Weiss “that medicine could only go so far, that its scope is limited.” (p. 55)
From these inner guides Weiss learned that “we are all in school… (and) No one is greater than another.” (p. 210) We learn a “systematic body of spiritual knowledge. This knowledge spoke of love and hope, faith, and charity.” (p. 172)
From these past-life memories, Catherine got rid of her symptoms and became a much happier person. Meanwhile Weiss had a spiritual awakening and eventually felt guided to write this book about what he’d learned. He thought it would comfort people to know that we never die, that we have lived countess life times, and there are spirits that are guiding us.
Dr. Weiss has written many other books about his experiences with patients remembering past lives. You can check out his website at: http://www.brianweiss.com.
I also found an interesting You Tube video interview with Dr. Weiss Entreparentesis – Dr. Brian Weiss.
In this You Tube Weiss explains that consciousness survives death and that everything is about love. In each life we have to come back here to get it right, but eventually we move to a higher place.
Knowing that our loved ones never really die helps people find joy. In one of his past lives Dr. Weiss was killed for talking about past lives. But in this life he feels incredibly blessed to be able to share this information and in return he meets wonderful people all over this planet.
