A COUPLE OF YEARS ago I was rushed to the hospital late one evening. I had felt well all day, and my wife and I had enjoyed a barbecue dinner that evening. However, after dinner I noticed a slight discomfort on my left side. This gradually got worse, and after a few hours I started having problems with my breathing, so my wife called an ambulance. I was misdiagnosed twice before the doctors discovered I had two large blood clots in my lungs.
I remember nothing of the following two days. On the third evening I woke up in the middle of the night with tubes attached to both arms and a small box on my chest that transmitted information about me to a computer somewhere else in the building. Five doctors and nurses surrounded the bed. I stared at the five pairs of eyes gazing down on me and thought, I must be sick. I immediately fell back to sleep.
When I woke up the following morning, I was disappointed that I hadn’t seen any tunnels leading to the light or any other signs of a near-death experience. All the same, I was grateful to be alive. I also woke up with the title of this book in my mind, and the thought refused to go away. I spent another week in the hospital before being allowed to return home. It was a frustrating time, as all I wanted to do was leave the hospital and start writing.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. It took time to get my energy back, and then I had to finish the project I’d been working on before going to the hospital. Consequently, more than three months passed before I was able to start work on this book.
I also had time in the hospital to think about life and death. I was extremely fortunate. Apparently, sixty percent of the people who suffer from a pulmonary embolism are dead within twenty-four hours, and a large number of the survivors suffer from strokes and heart attacks.
I have no fear of death, as I don’t believe death is the end. It simply marks the end of one stage of existence and the start of the next. I came to this conclusion for five main reasons:
1. For many years I worked as a hypnotherapist and helped many people recover memories of their past lives. Some people’s lives were rather vague, but others provided detailed accounts of their previous incarnations. In a few cases the people were able to revisit the places where they had lived before, and instantly felt at home.
2. The research of Dr. Ian Stevenson, and many other researchers, into children who remember their past lives has produced convincing evidence of reincarnation. I have a small personal example of this, too. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a memory of being a small child, with a full stomach, lying in front of a huge fire with large red circles revolving around it. Years before becoming interested in reincarnation, I accidentally knocked a volume from a set of encyclopedias onto the floor. The book opened at a photograph of Russian peasant women dancing around an open fire. Although their skirts were black, the interior lining was red, and it must have been this that I remembered.
3. Although I haven’t had a near-death experience myself, I’ve read many books about people’s near-death experiences and am fascinated with what they saw, felt, and experienced on the “other side.” I also find it convincing that very similar near-death experiences have been recorded from all around the world.
4. There is ample evidence of life after death provided by mediums who have communicated with people on the other side. This may sound surprising, but for at least 2,500 years thousands of messages have been recorded, all around the world, by people who claim they have received messages from the other side.1 One of the most evidential of these was William Stainton Moses (1839–1892), an English clergyman who was unhappy with the un-Christian teachings that came through him in the form of automatic writing. Automatic writing occurs when the person’s mind is at ease, and the writing does not come from his or her conscious mind. William Stainton Moses wrote four books, including Spirit Teachings.2
5. Most major religions teach that life continues after death. Christians, for instance, teach that believers in God will go to heaven, but agnostics, atheists, and members of other religions will not. In Islam, the righteous will experience all the joys and pleasures of paradise, but everyone else will go to hell. Hindus also have a heaven and a hell. Reincarnation is an integral part of Buddhist belief, and everyone has to experience many lifetimes before they can return home. Judaism is the only major religion that is vague about what happens after death. However, it teaches that good people will be rewarded and evil people punished.
Obviously, we leave our body behind when we die. However, our soul carries on.
The soul is the immortal or divine aspect of our being. It is present in every cell of our body and continues to exist after the physical body dies. The soul could be described as the software that enables a computer to function. In this instance, the computer would be the physical body that is lifeless unless it contains a soul (software). Many religious people believe the soul is the presence of God inside each and every one of us.
People have been preoccupied with death, and the possibility of life after death, for thousands of years. Most early civilizations believed in life after death, and that belief is just as popular today as it ever was. When someone died, the ancient Neanderthals buried food and weapons with the body, as they believed the person’s soul would need those items in the next world.
The ancient Greeks believed that to be fully alive, you needed a soul. The Greek word psyche means both “alive” and “possessing a soul.”
The soul played an important role in Orphism, a Greek religion said to have been founded by the legendary musician, poet, and prophet Orpheus. Practitioners believed the physical body was dirty and corrupt, but the soul was perfect and part of the Divine. The soul became truly alive only after the death of the body. To achieve total freedom, the soul had to reincarnate many times. Depending on the quality of the person’s life, the soul would be reborn in either a higher or lower form of life.
Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 490 BCE) was a Greek philosopher, numerologist, and teacher who believed that the cosmos followed certain moral and numerological principles. He was best known for his teachings on the soul. According to Pythagoras, who claimed to remember his own past lives, the soul was immortal and underwent a series of reincarnations.
Xenophanes (c. 570–c. 480 BCE), the Greek poet and philosopher, wrote of an occasion when Pythagoras heard the yelping of a puppy who was being punished. He ordered the beating to cease, as he realized the dog possessed the soul of a deceased friend. This shows that Pythagoras believed human souls could be reincarnated into plants, animals, or humans, a belief called metempsychosis. Not surprisingly, Pythagoras was a vegetarian.
Herodotus (c. 485–425 BCE), the Greek historian, wrote that the ancient Egyptians believed the soul was reborn time and time again until it had lived a lifetime as every possible animal before returning to human form three thousand years later. However, there is no evidence, apart from his writings, to confirm this. Herodotus also wrote that the bodies of dead Athenians who were killed at the siege of Potidaea were committed to the ground, but their souls flew upward.3
Plato (c. 428–347 BCE) recorded and developed the teachings of his mentor, Socrates (469–399 BCE). Plato believed the soul was the person’s spiritual essence. It survived the person’s death and was reincarnated inside another body. Plato and Socrates both thought that no harm could come to someone who kept his or her integrity, as this person’s soul remained unharmed. Someone who deliberately hurt others damaged his or her soul. Consequently, it was better to be a victim of injustice than to commit an act of injustice.
In his dialogue Phaedo, Plato wrote that both the psyche (the life force) and the nous (the mind) were immortal. Together, the psyche and the nous formed the soul. In Phaedrus, another of his dialogues, the soul, released from the dead body, raced heavenward but failed to reach the home of the gods. It fell back to Earth and was reincarnated. The soul continued to do this until it was finally reunited with the Divine. This reveals Plato’s belief that everything possesses a strong desire to return home to the ultimate life force. Even the earth itself (the “world-soul”) longs to return home.
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) considered the soul to be the essential essence or nature of a person, but did not accept that it could continue to exist separate from the physical body. He believed the soul provided the person’s personality and intellect while he or she was alive, but did not carry on after the person had died. In his treatise De Anima (On the Soul), Aristotle argued that although the soul was the essential essence of a living organism and was necessary for life to exist, it did not possess a shape and consequently could not be measured or seen. Aristotle believed the soul took on the form of the body. However, by this he meant that the soul existed in every cell of the body.
Posidonius (c. 135–c. 51 BCE) was a Greek philosopher, historian, and Stoic. Most Stoics believed that the soul died with the body, but Posidonius had a different point of view. He believed that the soul continued to live in the air until the next major world calamity occurred. There was no hell in his system, but evil people did not fare as well as good people. Any sin affected the soul and discolored it, making it impossible for a sinful soul to rise as high as a pure soul. The souls of extremely evil people remained close to Earth and were reincarnated. Conversely, the souls of extremely virtuous people rose so high that they could watch the movements of the stars. From this position, they could help other souls.4
Plotinus (c. 205–270), the Greek philosopher and founder of Neoplatonism, developed a concept of “One” that he considered the essential underlying structure of all existence. As “One” was spiritual and nonmaterial, it could not be understood or fully explained. Plotinus claimed that “One” was both all things and nothing. Consequently, it could live both within and outside the world at the same time. “One” also provided humans with minds, intellects, and souls. The soul was, in effect, trapped inside the body, as it constantly sought union with the “One.” Although this was the soul’s true destiny, many people focused on their sensual desires, which caused the soul to descend, or move further away from the “One.” When this occurred, the soul did not return to the “One,” and entered another body. Plotinus had a strong influence on early Christian theology.
Avicenna (c. 980–1037), the Persian philosopher and physician, is best known today for his Canon of Medicine, which is arguably the most famous book in the history of medicine. However, in addition to this, he wrote more than two hundred works on a variety of topics, including philosophy and religion. He was deeply interested in Aristotle’s ideas, and introduced many of them to the Islamic world. He agreed with Aristotle that the soul originated from the heart. He believed that, although the soul was immortal, this was purely an aspect of its nature rather than its prime purpose.
Avicenna lived in difficult times and was imprisoned on at least two occasions. While in prison, Avicenna wrote about an experiment his readers could try for themselves. This has become known as the “flying man” experiment. Avicenna told his readers to imagine they were suspended in space, temporarily blind and totally isolated from any sensation, including their own bodies. In this instance, Avicenna wrote that the person would not be able to affirm the existence of his or her own body but would still possess consciousness. This, he concluded, demonstrated that the soul was an essential part of humankind’s nature, and everyone possessed it from birth.
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Italian philosopher and theologian, was a prolific author who tried to harmonize Aristotle’s philosophical rationalism with Christianity. He claimed that the soul was the first principle of life and that people possessed both a body and a soul. He argued that, because the soul was not composed of matter, it could continue to exist outside a human body.5 St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that the soul was present in every part of the body.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the German philosopher, believed that perfect good could exist only if the soul was immortal. He believed in unendlichen progressus, the unending progression of the soul through countless incarnations.
Sir Edward Tylor (1832–1917) was the first professor of anthropology at Oxford University. In his two-volume work Primitive Culture, he demonstrated that human culture constantly grows and develops, following specific laws of evolutionary development. He developed a theory of animism, which he described as “the doctrine of souls and other spiritual beings in general.” Animism is derived from the Latin word anima, which means “breath” or “soul.” Tylor described the soul as:
… a thin insubstantial image, in its nature a sort of vapour, film or shadow; the cause of life and thought in the individual it animates; independently possessing the personal consciousness and volition of its corporeal owner, past or present; capable of leaving the body far behind, to flash swiftly from place to place; mostly impalpable and invisible, yet also manifesting physical power, and especially appearing to man walking or asleep as a phantasm separate from the body of which it bears the likeness; continuing to exist and appear to man after the death of that body; able to enter into, possess, and act in the bodies of other men, of animals, and even of things.6
Carl Jung (1875–1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist, described the soul as “the greatest of all cosmic miracles.”7
Belief in the soul is probably more common in the East than in the West, and the concepts of reincarnation and karma are accepted more readily there than in the West. Reincarnation requires a soul, as it is the belief that the soul is eternal and is reborn into a new personality once the current life has ended. The soul learns from every incarnation as it progresses on its journey to oneness with God.
In chapter 1 we’ll look into the concept of reincarnation and learn three methods you can use to examine your past lives.