@raincloud These discussions have made me remember "The Education of Oversoul 7" and I know I still have it somewhere....might be time to revisit those ideas from my youth and see how they resonate today. I do remember it was very "mind-opening" but I had/have a hard time holding on to the premise of non-linear time. I think it's possible....but it sure twists my brain into knots!
That s interesting. I started reading Seth Speaks awhile ago but stopped about 75 pages in. In fact, I had just forgotten about it until you reminded me -- perhaps this is my sign to return to it. I don't think I've yet encountered the Oversoul yet, but maybe I will happen upon it soon. No such thing as a coincidence, and all that :)
That s interesting. I started reading Seth Speaks awhile ago but stopped about 75 pages in.
I've read, or attempted to read, several of Jane Robert's books and stopped because they gave me bad vibes. That was just my experience, others' "mileage may vary".
@ana I find that to be true of almost anyone claiming to "channel" a "higher being". Most of the time, they're written in almost archaic English that just sounds like a high-school kid trying to sound important and lofty. I've also noticed that these "higher beings" seem to share a lot of personal/political/spiritual views with the "channel". Funny how that works...
Yes, suspicion is warranted in all cases. Jane Roberts always questioned herself and avoided being set up as a guru. Moreover, even if it is a spirit/personality or whatever, it doesn’t mean that they are worth listening to. Still, I found a lot of interest in the Seth writings, in the earlier books anyway and when I followed his suggestions on how to use dreams, I had some amazing experiences.
I've done more reading and personal research into Near Death Experiences and After Death Communication than on past lives. Accounts from both these fields would seem to corroborate the existence of reincarnation and past lives. Even many folks with deeply religious convictions about only having one life (and then we all go to Heaven) have come back from near death experiences with tales of how the soul lives many lives.
As for the possibility that past life memories are just genetic memories, it seems possible. This idea certainly makes many people feel comfortable having a rational, scientific explanation for such memories.
I have three problems with the genetic memory explanation.
1) Genetic memories would be limited to those memories of the parents (and their ancestors) at and before the moment of conception. That's when genetic codes are passed from the parents to the children. So no memories would be available after that point. At least some folks with past life memories have memories about their later lives and even deaths. Death memories especially shouldn't be available since no one conceives a child (and passes along their genetic codes) after their death.
2) I'm assuming there are at least some past life memories where the person in the past life didn't have children.
3) The point that someone else made here that some folks have past life memories outside their own genetic line -- other cultures, nationalities, races, and so forth that don't match their ancestry.
I think you have misunderstood me. When I spoke about genetic memories, I was saying this is one of many possible theories and not the single explanation/theory for why we remember past lives. I also did speak about alternative theories if you read my post as well.
I wouldn't say what I have shared is trying to make "many people feel comfortable having a rational, scientific explanation for such memories" - especially when you delve into the further insights shared in Geoff Cutler's book.
As I have already said, I like to keep an open mind to look at all possibilities and not rule anything out definitively. You say you have done your research and seem sure of your conclusions. I am saying here is what I have found as interesting theories/explanations but I am now more personally skeptical and less certain of past life memories and reincarnation being an absolute certain thing that we experience/happens to us - especially in what appears to be accepted without question by many in spirituality.
I did warn that what I would share may offend some people, and I acknowledge what I have said would be seen as an unpopular view on reincarnation and past lives, especially when many people have held onto these beliefs for a very long time and have invested much of their spirituality into it as part of their belief system.
I have an explanation that is rational, shows we can see, feel, and experience lives in the past that are not our own. We can even speak ancient languages and see their families, and feel emotions that those people felt, and still it doesn't mean these were our own past lives.
Being a highly empathic person, I can read people in such a way that I feel the way they do. It's as if both of us are inside me. I have even had people come into me energetically. This happens part of the time when I read people. Sometimes it's more intense or concentrated than other times. But there is this unity that happens where I feel their feelings and ideas.
Also I know from reading the future, that I can be in the future and feel the way people in the future are feeling. I feel their feelings so strongly sometimes that it's as if they are within me. I saw years back the insurrectionists who think they are Robin Hoods, men with bows and arrows, fighting a corrupt government for the good of all. I felt them. I even cheered for them, because I was feeling them within myself.
[The physics of quantum entanglement is one explanation that we can really connect with other's feelings past, present and future. Quantum entanglement has been shown in the lab with small particles. And experiments with bonded people have shown similar entanglement of their nervous systems.]
I've noticed that I can tune into people in the past and feel how they feel. Once when I was trying to figure out what happened to a missing Freshman college student, I concentrated on going backwards in time and then suddenly I saw the boy walking somewhere the night he disappeared.
I was looking down at a dorm where he had last been seen, and I saw him leaving the dorm and walking around to the back where he stopped for a while. I knew without a doubt that I was really seeing him and months later when the snow melted and they finally got bloodhounds to track him, my vision matched the bloodhounds' trail.
This experience, of course, is just remote viewing, not channeling. But as I was remotely viewing him walking around that night, I also felt his heart quickening, and felt he was hoping to score with a girl he liked.
That information also came out months later after the police released interviews with that girl who reported that he'd flirted with her and after she rebuffed him, he left and went around to the back of the dorm and called her from there.
She didn't pick up the phone that night, but I had seen and felt him just by going in my mind back in time. It was as if for an instant I had his life inside me. I also later felt an attachment to him and his family from the connection, that I can imagine that people who connect with people from the past could also feel attachments, and it wouldn't have to mean it was their past life.
I'm not trying to disprove past life theories, just providing another explanation that could make it seem like we were there when we are just psychically tuning into it.
Another time, I meditated backwards in time and in my mind I ended up looking down at my own feet and they were suddenly in sandals and I was standing on a sandy hard dry surface that felt like the Middle East. I can't prove it but I knew it was in the past. I felt that girl's feelings inside me. People told me that was definitely my past life I was seeing. Maybe it was. But maybe it wasn't.
Maybe it's just that all consciousness is available to us.
I was reading her the way I have read people so many times, where I have brought them into my psyche and body. I have done this with living people too. A woman asked me to read her husband and so in my mind, I just brought him in to me and, bam, I felt all these machismo feelings, and I told her his thoughts and she agreed that it felt exactly like him. Can't know for absolute sure since I could have been reading her impressions of him, but I sure felt like I was in a man's body.
If I can channel people in the past, just like we can channel people in the present and future, and pick up all kinds of information about them, then it doesn't mean these lives were my lives. It just means that consciousness is everywhere, past present and future, and we can pick it up and bring it into us.
I would love to believe that I, Jeanne Mayell, have lived before and will live again. And part of me wants to believe that it might occur. But it's an act of faith, not proof.
The big question is what happens to our ego, the part of us that is uniquely us, when we die? I think it is likely that it remains intact for a while because there are so many incidents where people were technically dead, but they came back and spoke about their near death experience. Unless those examples merely mean that we the living are not able to fully detect when someone is truly gone from their body.
But I also wonder if when we leave our bodies after a period of time, we disperse with the wind. Perhaps we merge with the trees, the earth, the animals, the seas. I'm open to all possibilities including past lives.
I don't think we, the living, are happy about the possibility of losing our ego, our Selves, though. So it's not surprising that so many people believe in past lives. It's too painful to believe otherwise.
But what if, just what if, death is a big expansion? Perhaps when we die, we expand and become one with the whole world.
I once had a vivid vision that I will never forget that would indicate that souls remain intact but not necessarily go into new bodies. During a guided meditation I saw souls flying around the earth like the wind. They provided a great glow, an aura for the whole earth. It was quite beautiful to see. They also looked like they were having fun flying around the earth.
Please tell me where I'm missing something about past lives here. Some proof or evidence I've missed. I am open to all of your thoughts.
Everything you have said is in the book I keep mentioning by Geoff Cutler and he goes into great depth about those things.
I have not gone into great depth because I don't feel comfortable copy and pasting the contents of his book to explain these things in further detail, hence why I prefer to recommend the book for people to read and see that information for themselves.
My understanding is everyone's life on Earth is special and precious, and I believe one of our main purposes here is to help evolve the human race into a higher more enlightened species, and this has been happening over many thousands of years - so that we are more in more alignment with the light and spirit of God. Each life that comes here is a volunteer to help both progress their soul and the human race. We have one lifetime here to do it. That is why life is so precious. There are many souls lining up to come here. Many are queuing to come here and have the human experience and will take any incarnation here they can get. Not every soul does though. There are some souls who do not choose to incarnate here. Some might want to just live in the Spirit world and some might choose other planets with different lessons and experiences. Earth is unique because it allows souls to put into practice what they have learnt in the Spirit world which cannot be experienced the same way there. It is like learning your theory test to drive but not actually driving the car itself!
Beyond our physical experience, we continue to evolve in spirit after we are done with our physical life here. The vastness of the spiritual realms is beyond contemplation, and there is so much more to learn and do there than we can ever understand just here on Earth. But we come to the Earth for experiences we cannot have in Spirit and to test ourselves.
We all contribute as different parts to the body of spirit - each having a specific role in the the world to contribute something and to experience it. Whether that be a doctor, soldier, teacher or writer - we are all equally important serving a puprose. No-one is more important than the other and we are all blessed with the help of previous souls who have come before us in specific roles we are here to experience during our lifetime here on Earth - and these souls can be our spiritual guides too. We then take these experiences that we each have had on Earth into spirit where they are taken and absorbed into the light - the ultimate conciousness that is God/The Creator. There is no need for us to repeat anything. God is experiencing Godself through us experientially.
@luminous I will get his book and read it when the time is right. While I was writing my post and thinking it through, I kept thinking in the background that we are just trying to evolve, and that's the spiral we are on. I'm so in love with nature that I can imagine dispersing to the wind. But then there are those I love here who I want to remain to witness and send love and healing to. I don't want to abandon anyone. When we do the Circle of Light, I feel such joy being able to love this earth and all her beings and send them healing. But then when engaged in political battles with people I see as harmful, I know I've got work to do, and I can imagine that we need to stay in bodies to evolve further.