past lives

Sep 13

Review of Heaven’s Sweet Embrace

By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review | No Comments

Heaven’s Sweet Embrace by Sheri Kramer is a beautifully written novel about our journey as we wander through time and space learning through our experiences about wisdom, compassion and love.

In the Prologue the opening lines are:

“In a blink of an eye time can collapse and the curtain between lives blow open before settling back in place… Who are you? Where are you? Imagine your many selves in that moment all aware of you, as you are aware of them.”

The novel interweaves four different stories from different times periods and places. The main one is about Shin Seo in 13^th century Korea who has bought his freedom from the ruling class and is about to enter a new life. After sharing a meal at a tavern with two companions, he goes with them into the forest and finds a cave that is already inhabited by a family of runaway slaves.

The second story is of Rivka and Hannah, a Jewish mother and daughter who are trying to escape from the Ukraine to join Rivka’s husband in America.

The third and shortest story is about Mongke who is twelve and wants to join the troops in battle, but first has to pass tests to see if he is ready.

The fourth story is about two Korean comfort women, Shin Ae and Jinju, who are freed after the Russians drive off the defeated Japanese in Manchuria at the end of World War 2.

In each story the main characters are at a transition point in their life and their stories are told with such vivid details and poetic language that the reader is drawn into their world. The scenes are often told as the character wakes up and remembers bits of dreams that weave into the other stories being told. Gradually we come to realize the characters are the same set of souls reincarnated in other lives.

Here is an example: “Mongke wakes with a disturbing memory of enemy soldiers in strange uniforms, defeated and strewn about. And then it is gone. The dream is replaced with the excitement of the coming day.” P. 71

The scenes are often peaceful such as walking through the woods, swimming in the lake, eating a simple meal, learning to read, or a mother taking care of her baby. But underneath is tension: fear that the run away slaves will get caught, or the Jewish woman and daughter won’t be able to escape the Ukraine, and or that the two comfort woman will be rejected by their family when they return to Korea.

The book begins and end in the middle of these four stories just as life doesn’t have an abrupt beginning and end. Yet each of the four stories ends on a hopeful note that the characters will be able to make a good life for themselves.

I highly recommend this book for people who like visionary fiction and are interested in reincarnation. Or to those who just want to open their minds to possibilities.

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Mar 11

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One the way Home: Walking the Road to Personal Freedom by Robert Munster.
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review | No Comments

One the way Home: Walking the Road to Personal Freedom by Robert Munster.

In the dedication, Munster states the purpose of the book. “This piece of work is dedicated to all those souls who are trying to find their way through the myriad complexities of this life and become free to choose their own lives’ paths.”

In the forward, he elaborates. “Many wise souls have taught us over the centuries that it is our personal responsibility to find our own way home… it is still up to each and every one of us to discover our own journey homeward.”

Munster worked for thirty-five years as an occupational therapist in medically related settings. In this book he shares some of what he has learned.

The chapters in the book include such topics as Ancestral Chains; Change, the Only Constant; Facing our Fears; Power and Control and The Dance of Relationships.

Each chapter begins with Munster’s ideas on a topic then he tells a story to illustrate his premise. He ends the chapters with a summary of the important points he made.

For example in the chapter Change, the Only Constant Munster says everything changes: the weather, the seasons, our bodies, feelings, friends, our attitudes, and beliefs. Munster poses a question. “How can we remain open to change, yet integrate the results into a life of peace, comfort, and joy?” Munster gives an example of a couple who raises their family and saves for their retirement but then one of them has a severe stroke and their savings is drained. The security they’d saved for is gone.

“So, what do we do? Live in fear of destruction or the possibility that something bad is going to happen or do we create the kind of life we really want to live.” p. 36

Munster suggests that when we seek out opportunities to change and grow life becomes exciting.

Munster also suggests journaling and goal setting to promote awareness and change. At the end of the day you can write down what happened during the day: what you did, felt, thought, learned and know and then set goals for the next day. This is to put you in touch with different aspects of yourself. You can also document your experiences of the past week, then decide what you want to change.

Change gradually becomes normal. Instead of saying “’Why is this happening TO me?’… What would happen if we changed this to ‘Why is this happening FOR me?’” or ‘What is this experience teaching me?’ or ‘Why do I need this experience?’” p. 50. This shifts the way we look at life’s events.

Munster concludes the chapter with these thoughts. “Once we begin to accept the responsibility for our own situations and do something about those things that inhibit our growth, real changes start to unfold. When an individual takes an active role in creating more of what he/she wants out of life, the magic begins.” P. 52.

Another interesting chapter is Facing Our Fears. In this chapter Munster states that everyone is afraid of something whether physical, emotional, or mental. “Fear prevents us from being free.” P. 53.

Munster says that many of us have fears that we don’t understand. He suggests that the fears often come from past lives. How we perished in another life may carry over like a fear of spiders or snakes or heights. Fears serve to protect us, but they can also hold us back. At some point “a door of opportunity opens for us. We can choose to walk through and challenge that fear.” As we grow we are able to handle more difficult situations.

Munster eventually realized he was Soul and nothing could kill him as a spiritual being. He also realized nothing can withstand the power of love. “When we do face and conquer, or live with, a fear, we gain another step on our way home. We become freer.” P. 65.

The book ends with “What is Next?” in our search for freedom and trust—we simply need to be ourselves. Gratitude and humility are essential traits as we continue on the path and doors will continue to open to more freedom.

If you are a seeker of truth and want a more meaningful life, you’ll enjoy this short, easy to read book packed with spiritual ideas.
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May 28

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The Boy who Lived Before
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Past lives | One Comment

Do you believe we have more than one life? I recently ran across a YouTube about a Scottish boy named Cameron who, as a toddler, talked regularly about being a “Barra Boy”. Barra is a small island that is part of the British Islands and has a population of one thousand. Cameron remembered living in a one-story white house and knew his family name was Robertson. He kept insisting that his family missed him and that he needed to go back to Barra to see them.

Cameron told his mother that he used to be in Barra and then he “fell through to you.” He added that it was okay to die because you come back as someone else.

After three years of Cameron talking about his life on Barra, his mother Norma decided to bring him there. She was accompanied on the trip by a man who studies children’s past life memories.

I think you’ll enjoy the YouTube, which also shares the story of a young child named Gus who said he was his grandfather. His mother didn’t believe in reincarnation but Gus knew things about his grandfather that he had no way of knowing. Once she overheard him saying to a friend, “I used to be big and I got to come back. God gave me a ‘ticket’. I came through a porthole. I was big and came through the porthole and was small again.”

Do you have any experiences that could be past life memories? Have you ever heard a toddler talking about when he was big?

You can view the YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgOBfCrxS3U

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Oct 06

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Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review, Past lives | One Comment

Enemy Women

I recently read a book about the Civil War entitled Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles. The novel is about an aspect of the war I didn’t know about. In Missouri, southern guerilla fighters fought the Union. In response, the Union declared Missouri under martial law, sent in the Union militia and denied the citizens their constitutional rights. In Missouri martial law continued for two years after the war.

The militia used their authority to steal from local people and burn their houses. After three years of war almost the only people left in Missouri were women and children. Some women were accused of aiding guerilla soldiers and were arrested, then sent to prison or hung. Under martial law, the women weren’t entitled to a trial nor was any evidence needed to arrest them.

Each chapter in the book begins with an actual letter or newspaper article written at the time of the Civil War, relating what was happening in the story. This added an element of realism. The novel is well written with detailed descriptions and a spunky heroine who is imaginative and outspoken.

The story is about a brutal period of time and follows the experience of Adair, an eighteen-year-old Missouri woman. Her widowed father remains neutral during the war, but three years into it the militia comes to their farm. Adair’s brother, who has a crippled arm, sees them coming and hides. Adair’s father is beaten and arrested by the militia. The soldiers then steal the family horses, livestock, possessions and try to burn down their house.

After the militia leaves, Adair and her two younger sisters travel north on foot to find out what happened to their father.

When they arrive at a northern post, Adair is denounced as being a Confederate spy and sent to prison in St. Louis. While imprisoned, she’s interrogated by Major Neumann. He tries to get her to reveal information about the Confederation. Instead she writes about her life on the farm in Missouri, which doesn’t include anything about the war.

Over time Neumann falls in love with her, but she gets seriously ill and he is transferred to active duty. The story then follows both their adventures and is well worth the read.

The American Civil War took place in the 1860s. Some people who fought in the war have now reincarnated with memories of it. As children, they might have had nightmares of the suffering they experienced or caused others. They may remember injustices on a subconscious level and still feel anger and hatred toward the North or South.

Some people attend reenactments of the Civil War, visit Gettysburg, read books about Civil War battles or watch movies on it. They are drawn to the war because of their past lives, even if they don’t consciously remember them.

This world is a spiritual school and through experiences, such as war, we learn to become more loving, compassionate beings. All the lives we have lived are meant to polish us as Soul and help us reach greater levels of love and compassion until we eventually return home to God.

Do you have strong feelings about a particular place and a particular time? Can you see how this might connect to a past lifetime? Have you had especially vivid dreams about your possible role in that lifetime?

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Jul 30

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THE CAMINO A JOURNEY OF THE SPIRIT by Shirley MacLaine
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review, Past lives | 2 Comments

For my birthday one of my sister’s sent me the book THE CAMINO. She thought I’d enjoy it as I am close in age to MacLaine when she took the Camino journey and my sister knew I was interested in spiritual topics.

Years ago I had read and enjoyed MacLaine’s OUT ON A LIMB and so I was interested to see what this adventure was about. MacLaine has been courageous and instrumental in getting spiritual ideas into the world. She’s appeared in movies and on TV sharing her experiences with out-of-body travel, her past lives, and ideas on extraterrestrial beings. THE CAMINO also explores these ideas and her own spiritual journey.

The Santiago de Compostela Camino is a famous pilgrimage across northern Spain that has been taken by all kinds of people for thousands of years. The path lies directly under the Milky Way and reflects the energy of the stars above. MacLaine received two unsigned letters at two different times while in Brazil imploring her to do the Camino if she was serious about her esoteric writings. MacLaine asked her friend Anna Strong, a spiritual leader and counselor, if this was a journey she should make. Strong encouraged her to make the pilgrimage, which consisted of walking alone nearly 500 miles, carrying a seven-pound pack and sleeping most night in shelters.

Before starting the journey, MacLaine visited her friend Kathleen Tynan in London who was dying of cancer. MacLaine had a soul connection with this special friend and kept in touch with Tynan on her journey, sharing what she’d learned. MacLaine was sad her friend was dying, but also believed only the physical body dies. We start a new life in another world.

The story that follows was an intimate account of MacLaine’s pilgrimage. She met her friend Ann Strong in Spain. Strong started MacLaine on the pilgrimage by walking with her for a few days, then she was on her own. MacLaine took a tape recorder with her and recorded her thoughts and experiences as she went. Early on in her journey she dreamed about a past life as a gypsy during a lifetime when she lived along the Camino. Over the following days she learned more of this life during inner visits from a man named John the Scot. He told her that she was a gypsy during the time of Charlemagne. He was married and she was one of his mistresses.

As MacLaine walked along she had hours to contemplate the meaning of life. She was raised Christian, but came to believe that she was fundamentally soul choosing to have a physical experience. She felt that many of our problems come from a disassociation with our soul. (p. 101-102)

MacLaine also shared her ideas on the law of cause and effect and John the Scot visited her inwardly to talk to her about the law of karma.

In the last third of the book John the Scot taught MacLaine about the Lemurian and Atlantean civilizations. MacLaine remembered a past life during the end of Lemuria. While I believe these civilizations existed, I found this part of the book pretty far out there and yet I was interested to read about her remembrances. I was also impressed with her honesty to share her experiences. No one can prove or disprove someone else’s realizations and inner reality.

If you’re looking for a good book to read about a personal quest for spiritual understanding, I recommend this one. Maybe you’ll even be inspired to go on the Camino and trek across northern Spain.

Have you gone on a spiritual quest? Maybe an inner journey or an outer one. I’d love to hear about it, if you’d like to share it on this blog. Life is a gift and an rich, amazing adenture.

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Jan 20

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Atlantian Records Starfall by Cieladora
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review | 2 Comments

Is it possible that the Atlantean people kept detailed records of their lives and today some people have the ability to access those records? Author Cieladora believes this is so and has written about it. The story behind her book is intriguing.
One night Cieladora awoke and heard whispering. “The hushed voice spoke in oddly accented English punctuated with bird chirps, twitters, and clicks.” (p.iii)
Through the night the voice gave an eyewitness account of the last days of ancient Atlantis. The next night Cieladora again dreamed about the fall of Atlantis. “The dream was like a hologram of history played on a 3-D news channel.” (p. vi) When she awoke, Cieladora went to work and forgot the whole dream.
Two weeks later she spoke to her psychic friend Marie and a surge of memories from the dream came back. Marie immediately recognized the significance of the dream and urged Cieladora to write down notes about the story. Cieladora wrote as much as she could recall about the five days leading up to the destruction of the Second Atlantean Empire. This is the basic premise of her book, Atlantian Records Starfall: The Fall of the Second Atlantian Empire.
This story is told through four different people of the time: Teohi, a Matrix Master; Xoio, a Regent of the Atl’lactoi Settlement in North America; Potemki, a man who is the outcome of Xoio’s genetic engineering; and Triatl, a free man who was a native of South America.
During the time I was reading this book, my husband and I attended a New-Age Exposition. As I walked through the exhibits I saw the book Atlantian Records Starfall on one of the tables. The woman at the booth was Marie, Cieladora’s psychic friend who encouraged her to write the book. Marie explained in more detail about life in Atlantis and invited me to a workshop she was doing on the book.
A month earlier Harold Klemp, the spiritual leader of Eckankar, mentioned a book called Atlantis in the Amazon by Richard Wingate. Klemp said many people living today lived in Atlantis previously and that learning about Atlantis could help us understand our dreams. A few days before attending the Expo, I dreamed I was in a city and a wall of water rushed toward me and those I was with. We ran into a building that was a place of healing. When I awoke, I wondered if the dream was a past-life memory of Altantis.

I’d first heard about Atlantian Records: Starfall from a friend of my husband while attending a lecture by Frank Joseph. Joseph also wrote a book called The Destruction of Atlantis. In his book Joseph links the worldwide cultural phenomenon to the story of the lost Atlantean civilization that disappeared into the sea in a violent cataclysm.
Joseph provides compelling evidence from around the world that Atlantis existed based on archaeology, geology, astronomy and ancient lore, whereas Cieladora’s book looks into what it was actually like to live on this remarkable island. Her book shows the homes, ships, culture and technological advances of the age.

She also explains that originally Atlantians came from another planet where people had psychic abilities and were exceptionally tall. When building Atlantis, they set up a lattice (energy grid) called The Matrix Energy, which provided energy for cooking foods, lighting buildings and heating and cooling homes. “The Matrix Energy that powered the Atlantian Empire was a form of psychic energy generated by the minds of thousand of trained Matrix Workers.” (p. vii)
If you wonder if Atlantis existed, you might want to read Joseph’s book. If you want to read about life on Atlantis, I’d recommend Cieladora’s book. It’s fascinating to me that some people have the ability to tap into the records of Atlantis.
I attended Marie’s workshop on Atlantian Records: Starfall and met another woman who was able to hear these ancient Atlantean recordings. I wonder if there’s a reason the Atlanteans are contacting us now. Perhaps it is a warning since our country is making some of the same mistakes the ancient Atlanteans did. We can learn much by studying these people from the past.
What ancient cultures have you tapped into associated with your past lifetimes? Let us know if you’ve had similar dreams!share this:

Nov 04

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Past Lives: Ali and Heidi Interview
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Writing | 52 Comments

Recently Ali Wylie interviewed me on the theme of quests, past lives and about my book Red Willow’s Quest on her postcast program Into the Beyond. The interview includes such topics as how to remember your own past lives and what is the spiritual benefit is of remembering past lives. Enjoy this chat with Ali and me and be sure to leave your comments. Do you have a spiritual quest? Have you had a past life remembrance?

The following is a copy of a podcast from Ali Wylie podcast Into the Beyond. Ali’s website is astralwings.com where she give techniques to learn how to astral travel.

[gigya height=”80px” src=”http://soulwings.podomatic.com/swf/joeplayer_v18c.swf” flashvars=”minicast=false&jsonLocation=http%3A%2F%2Fsoulwings.podomatic.com%2Fentry%2Fembed_params%2F2011-10-19T02_05_27-07_00%26color%3Df8ae06%26autoPlay%3Dfalse%26width%3D440%26height%3D85″ allowFullScreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=’always’ ]share this:

Jul 20

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Joan Grant: Author of Winged Pharaoh
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review, Past lives | 21 Comments

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.

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Jun 26

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Carol Bowman Children’s Past Lives
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review, Past lives | 25 Comments

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

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Mar 21

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On the Then and Now
By heidi.skarie@gmail.com | Book Review, Past lives | No Comments

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.comshare this: