@lenor I've long been fascinated by Edgar Cayce. I love the history of that time period...where Cayce, Tesla, Ford, Einstein were so seemingly ahead of their time.
Another lesser know name of that time period was Ed Leedskalnin who built his "coral castle" in southern Florida all by himself using magnetism in ways we still don't understand. I ordered one of the books/pamphlets that he wrote about magnetism and I understood it about as well as I understood Einstein's theory of relativity. 😉
I say all of that to say that I really resonate with that time period, Victorian houses have always been my favorite....especially if they include a friendly ghost or two.
When my son was around 10 or 11 he told me he thought he'd been on the Titanic and that he was a teacher...and he was in second class and did not survive the shipwreck. We went to a Titanic exhibition tour and it really shook him up. I think I might look into that FB group.
There should be a reading list of books recommended to read in this forum and that should be one of them.
Our Top 6 Reincarnation Picks:
1) Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss M.D.
One of the foremost books on the topic. Dr. Weiss's explores the topic through case studies he uncovered during hypnotic therapy. The book primarily follows his initial past life recall patient and her journey to uncover the deeper meaning behind her memories.
2.) Same Soul, Many Bodies by Brian Weiss M.D.
Another great one by Brian Weiss, here he shares more case studies of past life recall as well as progression therapy .
3.) Journey of Souls by Michael Newton PhD
This book explores life between lives, which is quite fascinating. I've heard these concepts echoed across cultures. The fascinating thing is the people who recall these experiences typically know nothing of this material and are surprised at what they said during regression therapy. The coherence of experiences is noteworthy.
4.) Return To Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives by Jim Tucker M.D
Many children now are having vivid memories of past lives. Parents are often dumbfounded and scared about how to help them. This book explores case studies of really incredible child past life recall.
5.) Reincarnation The Missing Link in Christianity by Elizabeth Clare Prophet and Erin L. Prophet
Many Christians have a difficult time with past lives because they believe it eliminates the possibility of going to heaven and reuniting with loved ones. This book exposes how reincarnation was eliminated from biblical theology, and reveals passages and indications of its presence in early Christian texts.
6.) Reincarnation and Karma: Edgar Cayce Series by Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce was perhaps the worlds most famous psychic and his predictions and insights still impress even the staunchest skeptics today. PhD had great insight into the nature of reincarnation and karma and shares it in this series.
Six Must Read Reincarnation Books — Insightful Innovations
/insightfulinnovations.com/zykrblog/top-6-reincarnation-books
Also check out
8 books on reincarnation that will change your perspective
I have done a lot of introspection and re-evaluation of my own past life regression experience that I shared nearly a year ago.
I have read many NDE testimonies, read lots of different books with a lot of prayerful soul searching.
My understanding now is that what we call "Reincarnation/past lives" might be an illusion or a flawed understanding of what really happens.
One of the understandings I have come to, is that people have memories from past lives because some inherit memories or past residual energies from their ancestors and the generational line in their families that they incarnate into. Sort of like inherited DNA.
A person who has a past life memory, may be unable to see any discernable difference from a thought that is their own, because like with visions and other things we receive spiritually, it is hard to separate without our own biases and ego getting in the way. A good way to put this is to say these might be visions from the past, rather than just of the future.
I used to read many Dolores Cannon books/works after my own past life regression experience to better understand it, but I now believe retrospectively with more understanding that her work might be insincere, as well as many others.
Today spirituality has been commercialised way too much - with way too many people making claims and experiences about spiritual truth. I prefer to now read books which question spiritual truth/experiences and try to discern the information sincerely through research and investigation with an open mind. A lot of the researchers already mentioned have good works but even those contain flaws.
I am not trying to invalidate anyone's beliefs or to totally invalidate my own past life experience (you each have freewill to choose to believe whatever you want) but what I personally experienced might have been more like a past life vision from someone else's life through hypnosis from either generations back in my own family or another outside of that.
There is a great book that you should read that goes into more detail of the arguments I have described about reincarnation being an illusion and the idea that past life memories might instead be visions and residual energies and much more. It is called "Is Reincarnation an Illusion?" by Geoff Cutler. It is one of the most in-depth books I have read that goes into extensive investigation in answering this question - referring and looking at the work of many famous mediums and researchers who have worked with channelled messages, NDE experiences etc. I cannot explain it in better words than this book, so if you have an open mind and are interested, then you should check it out - it is available on Amazon both in paperback and kindle I believe.
@luminous I have had a few strong "impressions" in my life that I haven't known what to make of.
In one i could see the little cottage with apothecary bottles and herbs in jars and I felt deep contentment for the little herb/medicine garden that I could see out of the old wavy glass window. The little cottage was just outside the nearby village and many of the townspeople came there regularly for help. I hesitate to say "I" was the one who lived there...because while it FELT like me....I also felt like an "Observer" which more closely fits what you're talking about. I thought of it as genetic memories...but I really don't know.
While it was mostly a very good life...it didn't end well. The kind helpful woman who lived near the woods at the edge of the village ended up being hung by a group of self righteous religious fanatics.
In todays world...I am still very interested in herbal medicines...but don't talk about it very much. It doesn't feel "safe."
@pegesus yes that is what I am also trying to describe - an observer rather than necessarily the one who experienced and had that life - genetic memories - exactly what I am beginning to think of as well.
If you look at any medium readings, the communication from souls on the other side can give memories, sensations, and feelings to the medium to help the medium better understand who they are - I think sometimes some of us can experience this and not know that is what is happening.
I have been investigating this because my own past life experience was quite traumatic, and I think it is really not helpful for anyone to carry the burden of these experiences into the rest of their life - especially if they aren't even their own to carry!
I know some people might think I am choosing to deny my experience and not deal with it, but if you read my thread you will see I did try to deal with it and heal it with the past life regrsssion hypnotherapist I saw, but it did not work at all, and I am not alone in this type of experience either.
On the topic of safe discussion, I think anything like that will always upset some people because some people can become so engrained in their views/beliefs. Like even now, this subject - with the things I am saying, may still offend people...
I had a dream quite a few years ago that may (or may not) have been a past life memory, or something akin to one.
In the dream, I was a young child in what appeared to be a gypsy(?) camp. It felt like central or eastern Europe, and the people in the camp were being hunted by enemies. There was a tent with a woman inside who was either sick, or giving birth- I'm not sure which. There was a dark-haired man outside the tent who was angry and worried-- perhaps the woman's husband. Also there was a healer trying to help the woman. I was hiding in the bushes trying to steer clear of the chaos and the anger of the man. Then I was asked to find and bring the healer an egg membrane--- the thin-skin layer between the shell of an egg and the white. This was something she needed in her work. THat is all I remember, but it was very, very vivid, and I did not feel like an observer, but like I was actually there. Since I had the dream I've tried to find out whether an egg membrane is something that's used in folk medicine but I never found anything. I still wonder about that.
Could these visions be premonitions? Perhaps these are premonitions of your future lives as a spirit guide. After you pass, perhaps spirituality will harness your knowledge and good heart and sends you to the past to enlighten some souls. Perhaps spirituality likes efficiency and won't let all that you achieved go to waste and puts it to good use after you die. A new beginning as a guide, a new step towards a greater communion of love. Perhaps your future is in the past, time traveler, spirit guide.
AHeartBegins (ex The Beast), as contrarian as ever
@ana I have had another past life memory but in the form of a dream like yours. It was felt very real and vivid. The timeline I place my experience in would have been during the 80s during the Sri Lankan civil war based on the experience of what I saw and information I have from that dream, but it would seem to be actually impossible for me to have been alive then, since i was born during the 1980s - and this is one of many reasons why I question past memories being *our* past lives. In fact, this is one of the things the book I recommended examines.
If we all reincarnate again after each life after a little time in the Spirit world, then why are people still communicating to ancestors and old souls on the other side? Would they not have reincarnated on by now?
Here was my dream that I was referring to:
https://www.jeannemayell.com/community/postid/49626/
Anyway, I seriously need to go to bed now as it is 2am in the UK lol.
Night all.
I’ve done one past life regression: I was a woman on my deathbed, in a house in a Central European capital like Vienna or Prague in the early 19th century. My husband was a military officer and I had 6-8 grown or teenaged children. I had led a comfortable life, but it had been in entire service to others at the expense of my own life force. I felt acutely (me in my present life) how little space I/the dying woman had given myself/herself to exist as an individual human being.
These are themes I still struggle with in this lifetime.
Your question about time and reincarnation is really interesting to explain because first of all time is not linear and there is no such thing as time on the other side. So, thousands of years can pass on earth but no time passes in the Ultimate Reality. On other planets that have sentient life, time may not be counted or even recognized. Souls can choose to reincarnate into any “time” and it can be the future or past as we know it. Think of time as stacks of paper and each piece of paper is a moment in time. The soul can choose to reincarnate in any specific moment. We can also choose to return to other universes, planets or dimensions
@lenor I am open minded about that. That is one possible explanation for why it occurs, but there are others and some of them are quite dark - perhaps too dark for open discussion.
Like I said, I don't want to invalidate anyone's beleifs. I just like to investigate things and look at other possible meanings and interpretations because sometimes that can help give more understanding. But I also accept and understand that for some things we are not meant to fully understand everything either.
If we all reincarnate again after each life after a little time in the Spirit world, then why are people still communicating to ancestors and old souls on the other side? Would they not have reincarnated on by now?
I have heard the soul described as a pizza, or a pie. When we enter a life, the entire soul does not incarnate -- just a "slice" of it. The rest remains in the Place Between Lives, or the 5th (or 6th, or 7th, whatever) dimension, or wherever we are "really" from.
Thus, when we connect with our "higher self" we are quite literally connecting with the rest of our soul, the part that stays behind in the spiritual realm. And when a loved one reincarnates, a part of their soul is still "there" to be communicated with.
At least that's how I've heard it described, and it resonates with me.
One of the understandings I have come to, is that people have memories from past lives because some inherit memories or past residual energies from their ancestors and the generational line in their families that they incarnate into. Sort of like inherited DNA.
One issue I have with this understanding is that there have been case studies of children recalling past lives in great detail that were NOT from their family line.
For example here's this one of a boy that was a WW2 pilot: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1209795/Reincarnated-Our-son-World-War-II-pilot-come-life.html
The past life he recalled was NOT from his immediate family line.
But feel free to do some more research, you'll probably notice that the past lives people recalled are not related to their family line at all.
@practicalnihilist I am not saying every past life memory is definitely connected to their family, and equally a counter point to your argument is there are also many that are. Unless we investigate every single case, we cannot know for definite.
I have made some claims in this thread, which is just a sample of my own research and investigation. It is not for me to disprove or prove otherwise. I have given my views. Everything and more about the sample of arguments I have shared is in the book by Geoff Cutler. I would look there if you are curious about what I've said.
I am open minded, I don't definitively rule out past lives. But I am sceptical more than I once was. That is my stance.
@thebeast I have considered the possibility that Ellwood Babbitt, the man who gave me the past life reading, wasn’t seeing the past at all, but rather my future. It was fun to imagine that I had done all those things for 2000 years because I felt validated for doing what I do now.
But given how consciousness works in the mind when we are giving readings to people, he might have sensed my future and blended it with his own predisposition to seeing his clients living in older civilizations.
I'd spent a summer in London, a town that felt so intensely like home to me, and Babbit had seen me in London in a past life. Maybe it happened. Maybe not. I love that he saw me there and it fit how I felt about that place, and my special connection with English antiques.
I'm not a naysayer or hard line skeptic. I am very open to all these possibilities. When I personally have a vision about something that is powerful, I will stick by it as my truth. But I can't make Ellwood Babbit's vision my truth, only the experience and love of the work he said I did for millennia.
Or, as you suggested, perhaps we return to the past which is another dimension. There is no way to know. I don’t mind not knowing. I love that he got the essence of my life, whether past, present or future.
Nassim Taleb, an uncertainty specialist, postulated that we only know about 2 percent of what is true. I resonate with that thought. When I was a little girl of 9 or 10, I remember sitting on the front hall stairs and asking my parents existential questions that they couldn't answer. Who made us? And who made the maker? I am happy living with the metaphors, the stories, and the wonder of it all. I love reading these past life posts too, even if I don't feel as certain as others.
Yes, sounds similar to the Oversoul idea. Jane Roberts channeled an entity who called himself Seth in a series of books called the Seth Material, also the name of the first or second book. There are lots of interesting ideas and premises in those books the original transcripts of which are housed in the Sterling Library at Yale.
Based on my readings and personal experiences, I do believe we live other lives but perhaps concurrently, as lenor references since physicists tell us that linear time is an illusion.
I tend to agree with Taleb, so much is unknown. I believe that much of what happens great beyond is extremely complex and beyond the full grasp of our human minds, especially when one ventures into the idea of an infinite number of universes that coincide simultaneously and not in physical space as we understand it.
Like Jeanne, I started talking about these topics when I was a child (alarming my parents) and I so appreciate this forum as a place to discuss them.