Read the Entire Series – Journey To Knowing
Choices Before Birth
I reckon it was at least forty years ago when I first started seeing references in past life regression books to groups of guides that the recently deceased would consult in reviewing their recent performance on earth. Although I had discovered, or would discover, obscure books of past lives and regression work going back to at least the 1920’s (Alexander Cannon and Joan Grant), the field had not really come alive until the 1970’s with Helen Wambach’s first two books. Of course entities like Seth spoke freely and illuminatingly about the purpose of many lives, and many of us were aware that both Buddhist and Hindu teachings spoke of the phenomenon without apology. And there is no underestimating the effect of Shirley MacLaine’s autobiographical books like Out On A Limb and subsequent tv adaptations, which, with their ufo sightings and live channeling by Kevin Ryerson, bravely broke new ground for network television, and I might add, stand up well even today in 2021.
Then there seemed to be a period, at least for the new age community, when past lives and their access through regression work became the new normal and one could speak about them freely, along with spirit communication and out of body travel. In the 90’s of course, after Raymond Moody’s best seller Life After Life, the near death experience quickly became the new gold standard, with many studies appearing in a few years. That little flood inspired my own first book, Eternal Life And How To Enjoy It, which detailed my own lucid dream recall and guided tour of the afterlife realms, as I sensed there was a whole new audience for such detailed knowledge.
The life-between-life information started coming through sometime after that. From various sources as I recall, including casual conversation and emails from other practitioners like myself. It had been found that if the facilitators took the client backwards through ‘time’ to before a birth, they appeared in spirit, interacting with other spirits, living lives in families and communities, and if the right questions were asked, preparing for an upcoming incarnation.
This preparation involved discussion with close spirit friends and guides about relationships, cultures, careers and religions; incarnational challenges and issues to be faced, and perhaps re-faced if previous efforts had been deemed unsuccessful.
We also began to hear about levels of soul energy that were brought into incarnation, as the full measure would somehow overwhelm the physical ego character if employed. Figures between 20% and 70% were invoked, depending on the maturity of the soul, stages being offered as ‘young’, ‘mature’ and ‘old’.
While I would not say all of this is common knowledge, I imagine a good deal of it will be prologue to you all, and perhaps who are, like myself, pondering how we incorporate it into our ever widening vision of who we are and what is possible.
It seems to be generally accepted that major life decisions and turning points are set up carefully, with the full knowledge of guides, who can nudge us along at the appropriate ‘times’ if the excitement of life somehow strips us of the inner poise necessary.
Exit strategies are sometimes several in number, lending us flexibility in our crisis reactions. Clients have reported,… Oh, I could have died then…and then…and then, but chose to tough it out this time. It seems to be generally accepted that major life decisions and turning points are set up carefully, with the full knowledge of guides, who can nudge us along at the appropriate ‘times’ if the excitement of life somehow strips us of the inner poise necessary. Exit strategies are sometimes several in number, lending us flexibility in our crisis reactions. Clients have reported,… Oh, I could have died then…and then…and then, but chose to tough it out this time.
Other choices seem to be around picking others to (a) be our children and parents, (b) business partners, (c) brothers in arms, (d) aggressive rivals, (e) abusers and exploiters, (f) soulmates and protectors. Also included are physical challenges such as disabilities and possibly terminal diseases, various severely limiting medical and mental conditions, all to challenge our souls even farther than the already limiting conditions of the three dimensional physical plane.
So, we ask ourselves, as we survey this expanded understanding, is there anything we did not in some way before birth, choose to undergo? It would surely be a lovely way to deny responsibility and continue the blame game. Sometimes it seems our major choices, say of parents and culture, involve accepting the society and religion they have accustomed themselves to: take one get three and maybe spend some time digging out from the second two. Or, say, agreeing to a marriage with a spouse that cheated and deceived you before, as they request second or third chance to, as they say in blues songs, quit their low down ways. Or, doing much the same yourself, promising to avoid the abuse you indulged in before. There are, as one can imagine, many variations on these themes.
‘Atheistic Communism’ was set up for a variety of reasons, one being an option for those souls seriously afflicted by previous religious repression and intolerance, and so-called ‘godless humanism’ for much the same reasons. My own study of history suggest that every type of society and societal response to social, psychological and cultural problems has been tried and test-driven at some time or other. Tolerance, intolerance, flexibility, rigidity, legislation lax and severe, punishment at all levels, all seeking some imagined perfection of society that effortlessly shifts as we evolve from tribes to nations, empires and back again.
We struggle and suffer on this plane and then joyfully play in spirit. Viewed from each the other seems like a dream. Clients during regressions and guided meditations report such to me over and over again. Near death experiencers tell much the same story and have done so for the last fifty year, as do spiritualist messages from the last one hundred and fifty. So why do we take on this insanity over and over? To smooth out the rough spots, to handle it better, to quit indulging in reactive anger, jealousy and anxiety, obsessions with shiny objects and money, suicide, murder and decades long depressions, soaked in alcohol and drugs? That would be my guess at this point in the game.
