This post is a very detailed look at the makeup of Heaven. It is a complete study of the in’s and out’s of Heaven, Souls and humans. It is, by far, the most comprehensive and realistic study of what Heaven is outside of religious dogma. It is also free of pseudo scientific understandings enveloped in strange scientific jargon.

This is part two of a two part post. The first is…

• Journey of Souls (1 of 1)

As Dr. Newton described this work; it is the “kitchen sink”. It is everything all thrown into one singular book before he died. As such it is an amazing accomplishment. This is part two…

• Destiny of Souls (1 of 3)

Further, due to the size of this second work, it MUST out of necessity, be divided into three posts. Thus this is the first part of three parts of the second post in this series.

Introduction

There are all kinds of books out there that will describe “Heaven” in all sorts of ways and in terms that may, or may not be familiar. Most are terribly inaccurate, at best.

They do NOT describe what I have experienced.

• Some are nothing more than a single persons interpretation of what Heaven is like by reading the Bible (or other spiritual book).
• Some are nothing more than “nonsense” and “insight” provided by “channeled” entities.
• Some are custom-made tomes designed to fit within one of the many “spiritual” or “New Age” faddists. (It’s nothing less than a way to profit off the gullible and weak.)
• Some are just ‘copy-cat books of other more profitable literature.
• Some are interpretations of what Heaven must be like based upon the latest “scientific findings”.

Now, I have written about my experiences and my role within MAJestic. As such, I have provided some insight of the glimpses that I have had outside of our world-lines. Not much, just some.

I never studied this aspect of my role and involvement. It’s just that I was often too overwhelmed by the state of the world-line that I found myself in.

You know, when you get into a car accident, the last thing in the world that you will do is to check to see if the tires are scuffed up. Nope. The condition of the car tires is the last thing on your mind.

It’s sort of like that.

Never the less, the idea that our soul and consciousness is so intertwined with Heaven is strange to most people. They like to think in dualities. We are on earth in the Physical, and when we die we become spirit in Heaven. And that’s it.

Ah It’s a very simplistic narrative.

Well, Doctor Newton has compiled, what I consider to be, the most accurate description of what Heaven is based on my experiences in MAJestic.

And as such, his writings have a strong role here and deserve all the attention that I can provide. He studied this issue for many decades and wrote two books. Both of which are reprinted in Metallicman. This is the first book.

Quick Introduction to Dr. Newton.

Dr. Newton has made it his life’s goal to map out what the non-physical realm is like.

You see, way back in the 1960’s, he was very interested in stories about “regression therapy”. Which was basically, hypnotism of a person where you regressed them back to a past event, and then you walk the person through that event to try to sole emotional, mental or physical problems.

He would get patients that were suffering from PTSD from the war (either Korean, or Vietnam). He would regress them to a time where they would relive the events, in a calm and secure environment, and work with the patient to overcome their problems at what ever level was necessary.

He, like other clinical hypnotists, discovered that his patients would sometimes be regressed to other lives.

They would suddenly be talking in a strange language, or talking about events and experiences that the actual person would have absolutely no knowledge of. They would describe to him a life that they had in another place, and in another time.

This fascinated Dr, Newton. As it did many other researchers.

It also spawned a complete avalanche of related books about past-life regression. (Another subject for another time.)

But while interesting, it often wasn’t really what the patient needed to solve their problems and deal with their distress. That is, until one day. By accident, the doctor regressed a patient back to a time before they were born…

…and the patient described being in “Heaven”.

…

…

After a while, Dr. Newton decided to work with a number of patients to “map out” Heaven and see if there were any kind of commonality between the various patients.

And low and behold! There was!

He started with 25 patients in his first batch of studies, and then expanded it to thousands.

Indeed, many of the descriptions were identical. And using the similarities as the “glue” or “linkage” between people are different ages, races, societies, cultures and social-economic backgrounds, he was able to successfully map out what Heaven is actually like.

He wrote two books;

• Journey of Souls
• Destiny of Souls

This is a reprint of his second work; “Destiny of Souls”.

I strongly recommend that both books be read and studied. As it described what it is actually like, or at least what I have experienced as part of MAJestic. This is what the “Heaven” was like when I was between realities. It is explained brilliantly by Doctor Newton.

If you all want to know about part of you that is hidden from view, now is your chance…

Destiny of Souls (Part 1 of 3)

Contents

• Introduction … xi
• 1: The Spirit World… 1
• 2: Death, Grief and Comfort… 11
  • Denial and Acceptance, 11
  • Therapeutic Techniques of Souls, 13
  • Ways Spirits Connect with the Living, 16
  • Somatic Touch, 16
  • Personification with Objects, 19
  • Dream Recognition, 22
  • Transference Through Children, 31
  • Contact in Familiar Settings, 33
  • Strangers as Messengers, 37
  • Angels or Other Heavenly Hosts, 38
  • Emotional Recovery of Souls and Survivors, 42
  • Reuniting with Those We Love, 48
• 3: Earthly Spirits … 51
  • Astral Planes, 51
  • Nature Spirits, 53
  • Ghosts, 54
  • The Abandoned Soul, 56
  • Spiritual Duality, 62

• Souls in Seclusion, 64
  • Discarnates Who Visit Earth, 69
  • Demons or Devas, 74
• 4: Spiritual Energy Restoration … 85
  • Soul Energy, 85
  • Standard Treatment at the Gateway, 86
  • Emergency Treatment at the Gateway, 87
  • Recovery Areas for the Less Damaged Soul, 90
  • Regenerating Severely Damaged Souls, 93
  • Souls of Solitude, 104
  • Energy Healing on Earth, 109
  • Healers of the Human Body, 109
  • Healers of the Environment, 113
  • Soul Division and Reunification, 116
  • The Three Stations, 120
• 5: Soul Group Systems … 125
  • Soul Birthing, 125
  • Spiritual Settings, 134
  • Memory, 136
  • Community Centers, 138
  • Classrooms, 144
  • The Library of Life Books, 150
  • Colors of Spirits, 170
  • The Mixture of Colors in Soul Groups, 170
  • Colors of Visitors in Groups, 179
  • Human versus Soul Color Auras, 180
  • Spiritual Meditation Using Color, 182
  • Forms of Energy Color, 184
  • Sounds and Spiritual Names, 188
  • Soul Study Groups, 190
• 6: The Council of Elders … 201
  • Human Fear of Judgment and Punishment, 201
  • The Setting for Soul Evaluation, 204
  • Appearance and Composition of the Council, 212
  • Signs and Symbols, 224 The Presence, 243
  • The Chain of Divine Influence, 249
  • Processing Council Meetings, 251
• 7: Community Dynamics… 259
  • Soulmates, 259

• Primary Soulmates, 263
  • Companion Soulmates, 264
  • Aliated Souls, 265
  • Linkages Between Spiritual and Human Families, 274
  • Reuniting with Souls Who Have Hurt Us, 279
  • Interaction Between Soul Groups, 287
  • Recreational Activities in the Spirit World, 290
  • Leisure Time, 290
  • Recess Breaks, 291
  • Quiet Solitude as, 292
  • Going to Earth for R&R, 293
  • Creation of Earthly Settlements, 295
  • Animal Souls, 296
  • The Space of Transformation, 302
  • Dancing, Music and Games, 304
  • Four General Types of Souls, 315
• 8: The Advancing Soul… 317
  • Graduation, 317
  • Movement to the Intermediate Levels, 320
  • Specializations, 323
  • Nursery Teachers, 323
  • Harmonizer Souls, 330
  • Masters of Design, 334
  • Explorers, 344
• 9: The Ring of Destiny… 355
  • The Screening Room of Future Lives, 355
  • Time lines and Body Choices, 360
  • Time masters, 365
  • Free Will, 370
  • Souls of the Young, 381
  • The Loss of a Child, 381
  • New Body-Soul Partnerships, 384
• 10: Our Spiritual Path … 395
• Index… 403

Introduction

Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? I endeavored to answer these age-old questions with my first book, Journey of Souls, published  in  1994  by  Llewellyn. Many  people  told  me  the  book provided a spiritual awakening of their inner selves because they had never before been able to read in such detail about what life is like in the spirit world. They also said the information validated deep-seated feelings about their soul living on after physical death and the purpose of returning to Earth.

Once the book was in print, and later translated into other languages, I received enquiries from readers around the world asking me if there was going to be a second book. For a long while I resisted these suggestions. All my years of original research had been difficult to collect, organize and finally write as a comprehensive study of our immortal life. I felt I had done enough.

In the introduction to Journey of Souls I explained my background as a traditional hypnotherapist and how skeptical I had been about the use of hypnosis for metaphysical regression. In 1947, at age fifteen, I  placed my first subject in hypnosis, so I was definitely old school and nota New Ager. Thus, when I unintentionally opened the gateway to the spirit world with a client, I was stunned. It seemed to me that most past life regressionists thought our life between lives was just a hazy limbo that only served as a bridge from one past life to the next. It was soon evident I had to find out for myself the steps necessary to reach and unlock a subject’s memory of their existence in this mysterious place. After more years of quiet research, I was finally able to construct a working model of spirit world structure and realized how therapeutic this process could be for a client. I also found that it did not matter if a person was an atheist, deeply religious, or believed in any philosophical persuasion in between once they were in the proper super conscious state of hypnosis, all were consistent in their reports. It was for this reason that I became what I have come to call a spiritual regressionist. This is a hypnotherapist specializing in life after death.

I wrote Journey of Souls to give the public a foundation of information, presented in a tight, orderly progression of events, of what it is like to die and cross over who meets us, where we go, and what we do as souls in the spirit world before choosing our next body for reincarnation. This format was designed as a travelogue through time using actual case histories from clients who told me of their past experiences between former lives. Thus, Journey of Souls was not another past life book about reincarnation but rather broke new ground in metaphysical research which had been virtually unexplored by the use of hypnosis.

During the decade of the 1980s, while I was formulating a working model of the world between lives, I closed my practice to all other types of hypnotherapy. I became obsessed with unraveling the secrets of the spirit world as I built up a high volume of cases. This made me more comfortable with the validity and reliability of my earlier findings. While these years of specialized research into the spirit world rolled on, I worked practically in seclusion with only my clients knowing about this work and only as it pertained to them and their friends. I even stayed out of metaphysical bookstores because I wanted absolute freedom from outside bias. Today, I still believe my self-imposed isolation and not speaking out publicly was the right decision.

When I left Los Angeles to retire in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and write Journey of Souls I expected to slip into quiet anonymity. This proved to be a delusion. Most of the material presented in the book had never been published before and I began receiving a great deal of mail through my publisher. I owe Llewellyn a debt of gratitude for having the insight and courage to introduce my research to the public. Soon after publication I was sent out on road trips to give lectures   and engage in radio and TV interviews.

People wanted more details of the spirit world and continued to ask if I had additional research material. I had to answer, yes. Actually, I still had a wide variety of unreported information that I assumed would be too much for the public to accept from an unknown author. Despite the fact people found Journey of Souls very inspirational, I resisted  the idea of writing a sequel. I decided on a compromise. With the printing of the fifth edition, an index was added to Journey of Souls along with a new cover and some added paragraphs to meet requests for greater clarification about specific issues. This was not enough. The volume  of  mail  I  was  receiving  each  week  continued  to  increase dramatically with queries about life after death.

People now began to seek me out and I decided to practice again on a limited basis. I noticed a higher percentage of more developed souls. Clients must wait a long time to see me due to my semi-retirement and greatly reduced client load. As a result, I have fewer young souls in psychological crises and more cases with clients who are able to be patient. These people wish to unlock the meaning behind certain issues by tapping into their spiritual memories in order to fine-tune specific goals in life. Many are healers and teachers themselves who feel comfortable entrusting me with added information about their soul life between lives. In turn, I hope I have helped them on their paths.

During all this time the public perception remained that I had not let go of all my secrets. Eventually, my mind began to turn on how I should approach a second book. The effect of all I have described has brought about the birth of Destiny of Souls. I consider my first book to have been a pilgrimage through the spirit world on a great river of eternity. The voyage began at the mouth of the river with the moment of physical death and ended at the place where we return into a new body. I had gone upriver toward the Source as far as I was able in Journey of Souls.   

This has not changed.   Although the memory of making this trip countless times is in the mind of every person, no one who is still incarnating seems to have the capacity to take me further.

Destiny of Souls is intended to convey travelers on a second expedition along the river with side trips up major tributaries for more detailed exploration. During our travels together on this second trip, I want to uncover more of the hidden aspects of the route to give people a greater perspective of the whole. I have designed this book by topical categories rather than by progressive time and location. Thus, I have overlapped the time frames of normal soul movement between spiritual locations to fully analyze these experiences. I have also tried to offer readers a look at the same elements of soul life from different case perspectives. Destiny of Souls is intended to expand our understanding of the incredible sense of order and planning which exists for the benefit of human beings.

At the same time, it is my intention that this second tour into the wonders of the spirit world be fresh and enjoyable for the unseasoned traveler as well. For first-time readers of my work, the opening chapter will give a condensed overview of what I have discovered about our life between lives. I hope this summary will add to your understanding of what follows and perhaps encourage you to eventually read my foundational book.

So, as we begin this second journey together, I want to thank all of you who have given me so much support for the hard work necessary to unlock the spiritual doorways of the mind. These associations,  combined with the indulgence of many guides, particularly my own, have given me the energy to continue the task. I feel truly blessed to have been chosen as one of the  messengers for this significant work.

The Spirit World

At the moment of death, our soul rises out of its host body.

If the soul is older and has experience from many former lives, it knows immediately it has been set free and is going home.

These advanced souls need no one to greet them. However, most souls I work with are met by guides just outside Earth’s astral plane. A young soul, or a child who has died, may be a little disoriented until someone comes closer to ground level for them. There are souls who choose to remain at the scene of their death for a while. Most wish to leave at once. Time has no meaning in the spirit world. Discarnates  who choose to comfort someone who is grieving, or have other reasons to stay near the place of their death for a while, experience no sense of time loss. This becomes now time for the soul as opposed to linear time.

As they move further away from Earth, souls experience an increasingly brilliant light around them. Some will briefly see a grayish darkness  and will sense passing through a tunnel or portal. The differences between these two phenomena depends upon the exit speed of the soul, which in turn relates to their experience. The pulling sensation from  our guides may be gentle or forceful depending upon the soul’s maturity and capacity for rapid change. In the early stages of their exit all souls encounter a “wispy cloudiness” around them that soon becomes clear, enabling them to look off into a vast distance. This is the moment when the average soul sees a ghostly form of energy coming toward them. This figure may be a loving soulmate or two, but more often than not it is our guide. In circumstances where we are met by a spouse or friend who has passed on before us, our guide is also close  by so they can take over the transition process. In all my years of research, I have never had a single subject who was met by a major religious figure such as Jesus or Buddha. Still, the loving essence of the great teachers from Earth is within the personal guides who are assigned to us.

By the time souls become reoriented again to the place they call home, their earthliness has changed. They are no longer quite human in the way we think of a human being with a particular emotional, temperamental and physical makeup. For instance, they don’t grieve about their recent physical death in the way their loved ones will. It is our souls that make us human on Earth, but without our bodies we are no longer Homo sapiens. The soul has such majesty that it is beyond description. I tend to think of souls as intelligent light forms of energy. Right after death, souls suddenly feel different because they are no longer encumbered by a temporary host body with a brain and central nervous system. Some take longer to adjust than others.

The energy of the soul is able to divide into identical parts similar to a hologram. It may live parallel lives in other bodies although this is much less common than we read about. However, because of the dual capability of all souls, part of our light energy always remains behind in the spirit world. Thus, it is possible to see your mother upon returning from a life even though she may have died thirty Earth years before and reincarnated again.

Orientation periods with our guides which take place before joining our cluster group, vary between souls and between different lives for the same soul. This is a quiet time for counseling, with the opportunity to vent any frustrations we have about the life just ended. Orientation is The Spirit World intended to be an initial debriefing session with gentle probing by perceptive, caring teacher-guides.

The meeting may be long or short depending upon the circumstances of what we did or did not accomplish with regard to our life contract.

Special karmic issues are also reviewed, although they will be  discussed later in minute detail within our soul cluster group. The returning energy of some souls will not be sent back into their soul group right away. These are the souls who were contaminated by their physical bodies and became involved with evil acts. There is a difference between wrongdoing with no premeditated desire to hurt someone and intentional evil. The degrees of harm to others from mischief to malevolence are carefully evaluated.

Those souls who have been associated with evil are taken to special centers which some clients call “intensive care units.” Here, I am told, their energy is remodeled to make it whole again. Depending upon the nature of their transgressions, these souls could be rather quickly returned to Earth. They might well choose to serve as the victims of other’s evil acts in the next life. Still, if their actions were prolonged and especially cruel over a number of lives, this would denote a pattern of wrongful behavior. Such souls could spend a long while in a solitary spiritual existence, possibly over a thousand Earth years. A guiding principle in the spirit world is that wrongdoing, intentional or unintentional, on the part of all souls will need to be redressed in some form in a future life. This is not considered punishment or even penance as much as an opportunity for karmic growth.

There is no hell for souls, except perhaps on Earth.

Some lives are so difficult that the soul arrives home very tired. Despite the energy rejuvenation process initiated by our guides who combine their energy with ours at the gateway, we may still have a depleted energy flow. In these cases, more rest and solitude may be called for rather than celebrations. Indeed, many souls who desire rest receive it before reunification with their groups. Our soul groups may be boisterous or subdued, but they are respectful of what we have gone through during an incarnation.          All groups welcome back their friends in their own way with deep love and camaraderie.

Homecoming is a joyous interlude, especially following a physical life where  there  might  not  have  been  much  karmic  contact  with  our intimate soulmates. Most of my subjects tell me they are welcomed back with hugs, laughter and much humor, which I find to be a hallmark of

life in the spirit world. The really effusive groups who have planned elaborate celebrations for the returning soul may suspend all their other activities. One subject of mine had this to say about his homecoming welcome:

After my last life, my group organized one hell of a party with music, wine, dancing and singing. They arranged everything to look like a classical Roman festival with marble halls, togas and all the exotic furnishings prevalent in our many lives together in the ancient world. Melissa (a primary soulmate) was waiting for me right  up front, re-creating the age that I remember her best and looking as radiant as ever.

Soul groups range between three and twenty-five members, with the average having about fifteen. There are times when souls from nearby cluster groups may want to connect with each other. Often this activity involves older souls who have made many friends from other groups with whom they have been associated over hundreds of past lives. Some ten million viewers in the U.S. saw the TV show Sightings, produced by Paramount in 1995, which aired a segment about my work. Those who watched this show about life after death may remember one of my clients, by the name of Colleen, who spoke about a session we had together. She described returning to the spirit world after a former life to find a spectacular seventeenth-century full dress ball in progress. My subject saw over a hundred people who came to celebrate her return. A time and place she had loved was lavishly reproduced so Colleen could begin the process of renewal in style.

Thus, homecoming can take place in two types of settings. A few souls might briefly meet a returning soul at the gateway and then leave in favor of a guide who takes them through some preliminary orientation. More commonly, the welcoming committee waits until the soul actually returns to their spirit group. This group may be isolated in a classroom,

gathered around the steps of a temple, sitting in a garden, or the returning soul could encounter many groups in a study hall atmosphere. Souls who pass by other clusters on the way to their own berth often remark that other souls with whom they have been associated in past lives will look up and acknowledge their return with a smile or wave.

How a subject views their group cluster setting is based upon the soul’s state of advancement, although memories of a schoolroom atmos- phere are always very clear. In the spirit world, educational placement depends on the level of soul development. Simply because a soul has been incarnating on Earth since the Stone Age is no guarantee of high attainment. In my lectures I often remark about a client who took 4,000 years of past lives finally to conquer jealousy. I can report he is not a jeal- ous person today, yet he has made little progress with fighting his own intolerance. It takes some students longer to get through certain lessons, just as in earthly classrooms. On the other hand, all highly advanced souls are old souls in terms of both knowledge and experience. In Journey of Souls y I broadly classified souls as beginner, intermediate and advanced and gave case examples of each while explaining there are fine nuances of development among these categories. Generally, the composition of a group of souls is made up of beings at about the same level of advancement, although they have their individual strengths and shortcomings. These attributes give the group balance. Souls assist one another with the cognitive aspects of absorbing information from life experiences as well as reviewing the way they handled the feelings and emotions of their host bodies directly related to those experiences.  Every aspect of a life is dissected, even to the extent of reverse role play- ing in the group, to bring greater awareness. By the time souls reach the intermediate levels they begin to specialize in those major areas of interest where certain skills have been demonstrated. I will discuss these in more depth as we get further along in other chapters.

One very meaningful aspect of my research has been the discovery of energy colors displayed by souls in the spirit world. These colors relate1 to a soul’s state of advancement. This information, gathered slowly over many years, has been one indicator of progress during client assess- ments and also serves to identify other souls my subjects see around them while in a trance state. I found that typically, pure white denotes a younger soul and with advancement soul energy becomes more dense, moving into orange, yellow, green and finally the blue ranges. In addi- tion to these center core auras, there are subtle mixtures of halo colors within every group that relate to the character aspects of each soul.

For want of a better system, I have classified soul development as moving from a level I beginner through various learning stages to that of a master at level VI. These greatly advanced souls are seen as having a deep indigo color. I have no doubt even higher levels exist, but my knowledge of them is restricted because I only receive reports from people who are still incarnating. Frankly, I am not fond of the term “level” to identify soul placement because this label clouds the diversity of development attained by souls at any particular stage. Despite these misgivings, it is my subjects who use “level” to describe where they are on the ladder of learning. They are also quite modest about accom- plishments. Regardless of my assessment, no client is inclined to state they are an advanced soul. Once out of hypnosis, with a fully conscious self-gratifying mind in control, they are less reticent. While in a superconscious state during deep hypnosis, my subjects tell me that in the spirit world no soul is looked down upon as having less value than any other soul. We are all in a process of transformation to something greater than our current state of enlightenment. Each of us is considered uniquely qualified to make some contribution toward the whole, no matter how hard we are struggling with our lessons. If this were not true we would not have been created in the first place. In my discussions of colors of advancement, levels of development, classrooms, teachers and students it would be easy to assume the ambiance of the spirit world is one of hierarchy. This conclusion would be quite wrong, according to all my clients. If anything, the spirit world is hierarchical  in mental awareness. We tend to think of organizational authority on Earth as represented by power struggles, turf wars and the controlling use of a rigid set of rules within structure. There certainly is structure  in the spirit world, but it exists within a sublime matrix of compassion, harmony, ethics and morality far beyond what we practice on Earth. In my experience the spirit world also has a far-reaching centralized personnel department for soul assignments. Yet there is a value system here of overwhelming kindness, tolerance, patience and absolute love. When reporting to me about such things, my subjects are humbled by the process.

I have an old college friend in Tucson who is an iconoclast and has resisted authority all his life, which is an attitude I can empathize with myself. My friend suspects the souls of my clients have been “brain- washed” into believing they have control over their destiny. He believes authority of any kind—even spiritual authority—cannot exist without corruption and the abuse of privilege. My research reveals too much order upstairs, which is not to his liking.

Nevertheless, all my subjects believe they have had a multitude of choices in their past and that this will continue into the future. Advancement through the taking of personal responsibility does not involve dominance or status ranking but rather a recognition of potential. They see integrity and personal freedom everywhere in their life between lives.

In the spirit world we are not forced to reincarnate or participate in group projects. If souls want solitude they can have it. If they don’t  want to advance in their assignments, this too is honored. One subject told me, “I have skated through many easy lives and I like it that way because I haven’t really wanted to work hard. Now that’s going to change. My guide says, ‘we are ready when you are.'” In fact, there is so much free will that if we are not ready to leave Earth’s astral plane  after death, for a variety of personal reasons, our guides will allow us to stay around until such time as we are prepared to go home.

I hope this book will show that we have many choices both in and out of the spirit world. What is very evident to me about these choices is the intense desire of most souls to prove themselves worthy of the trust placed in them. We are expected to make mistakes in this process. The effort of moving toward a greater goodness and a conjunction with the Source that created us is the prime motivator of souls. Souls have feelings of humility at having been given the opportunity to incarnate in physical form.

I have been asked many times if my subjects see the Source of Cre- ation during their sessions. In my introduction I said I could go only so far upriver toward the Source because of the limitations of working with people who are still incarnating. Advanced subjects talk about the time of conjunction when they will join the “Most Sacred Ones.” In this sphere of dense purple light there is an all-knowing Presence. What all this means I cannot say, but I do know a Presence is felt when we go before our council of Elders. Once or twice between lives we visit this group of higher beings who are a step or two above our teacher-guides. In my first book, I gave a couple of case examples of these meetings.

With this book, I will go into greater detail about our visitations with these masters who are as close as I can come to the Creator. This is because it is here where an even higher source of divine knowledge is experienced by the soul. My clients call this energy force “the Presence.” The council is not a tribunal of judges nor a courtroom where souls appear to be tried and sentenced for wrongdoing, although I must admit that once in a while someone will tell me they feel going in front of the council is like being sent to the principal’s office in school. Mem- bers of the council want to talk to us about our mistakes and what we can do to correct negative behavior in the next life.

This is the place where considerations for the right body in our next life begin. As the time approaches for rebirth, we go to a space where a number of bodies are reviewed that might meet our goals. We have a chance to look into the future here and actually test out different bodies before making a choice. Souls voluntarily select less than perfect bodies and difficult lives to address karmic debts or to work on different aspects of a lesson they have had trouble with in the past. Most souls accept the bodies offered to them in the selection room but a soul can reject what is offered and even delay reincarnating. Then, too, a soul might ask to go to a physical planet other than Earth for awhile. If we accept the new assignment, we are often sent to a preparation class to remind us of certain signposts and clues in the life to come, especially at those moments when primary Soulmates come into our lives. Finally, when the time comes for our return, we say a temporary goodbye to our friends and are escorted to the space of embarkation for the trip to Earth. Souls join their assigned hosts in the womb of the baby’s mother sometime after the third month of pregnancy so they will have a sufficiently evolved brain to work with before term. As part of the fetal state they are still able to think as immortal souls while they get used to brain circuitry and the alter ego of their host. After birth, an amnesiac memory block sets in and souls meld their immortal character with the temporary human mind to produce a combination of traits for a new personality.

I use a systematic approach to reach the soul mind by employing a series of exercises for people in the early stages of hypnotic regression. This procedure is designed to gradually sharpen my subject’s  memories of their past and prepare them to analyze critically the images they will see of life in the spirit world. After the usual intake interview, I place the client in hypnosis very quickly. It is the deepening that is my secret. Over long periods of experimentation, I have come to realize that having a client in the normal alpha state of hypnosis is not adequate enough to reach the superconscious state of the soul mind.  For this I must take the subject into the deeper theta ranges of hypnosis. In terms of methodology, I may spend up to an hour with long visualizations of forest or seashore images, then I take the subject into their childhood years. I ask detailed questions about such things as the furniture in their house at age twelve, their favorite article of clothing at age ten, the toy they loved most at age seven and their earliest memories as a child between ages three and two. We do all this before I take the client down into their mother’s womb for more questions and then into the most immediate past life for a short review. By the time the client has passed through the death scene of that life and reached the gateway to the spirit world, my bridge is complete. Continual hypnosis, deepening over the first hour, enhances the subject’s disengagement from their earthly environment. They have also been conditioned to respond in detail to an intensive question and answer interview of their spiritual life. This will take us another two hours. Subjects who come out of trance after mentally returning home

have a look of awe on their faces that is far more profound than if they had just experienced a straight past life regression. For example, a client told me, “The spirit has a diversity and complex fluid quality beyond my ability adequately to interpret.” Many former clients write me  about how viewing their immortality changed their lives. Here is a sample of one letter:

I have gained an indescribable sense of joy and freedom from learning my true identity. The amazing thing is that this knowledge was in my mind all the time. Seeing my nonjudgmental master teachers left me in a glowing state. The insight that came to me was that the only thing of true importance in this material life is the way we live and how we treat other people. The circumstances of our life mean nothing compared to our compassion and acceptance of others. I now have a knowing rather than a feeling about why I am here and where I am going after death.

I present my findings involving the sixty-seven cases and numerous quotes in this book as a reporter and a messenger. Before I begin every lecture to the public, I explain to my audiences that what I have to say are my truths about our spiritual life. There are many doorways to the truth. My truths come from a cumulation of great wisdom from multitudes of people who have graced my life as clients over many years. If I make statements that go against your preconceptions, faith, or personal philosophy, please take what fits well for you and discard the rest.

Death, Grief and Comfort Denial and Acceptance

Surviving the loss of a love is one of life’s hardest trials. It is well known that the process of grief survival involves going through the initial shock, then coping with denial, anger, depression and finally arriving at some sort of acceptance. Each one of these stages of emotional turmoil varies in length of time and intensity from months up to years. Losing someone with whom we had a deep bond can bring such despair that it feels as though we are in a bottomless pit where escape is impossible because death seems so final.

In Western society, the belief in the finality of death is an obstacle to healing. We have a dynamic culture where the possibility of our loss of personhood is unthinkable. The dynamics of death in a loving family is akin to a successful stage play that is thrown into disarray due to the loss of one of its stars. The supporting cast flounders around over the need for script changes. Dealing with this huge hole in the story left by the departed affects the future roles of the remaining players.

There is a dichotomy here because when souls are in the spirit world preparing for a new life, they laugh about being in rehearsals for their next big stage play on Earth. They know all roles are temporary.

In our culture, we do not prepare properly for death during life because it is something we cannot fix or change. The apprehension about death begins to gnaw at us as we get older. It is always there, lurk- ing in the shadows, regardless of our beliefs about what happens after death. In discussing life after death on my lecture tours, I was surprised to find that many people who held very traditional religious views seemed to be the most fearful of death.

The fear for most of us comes from the unknown. Unless we have had a near-death experience or undergone a past life regression where we remember what death felt like in a former life, death is a mystery. When we must face death either as a participant or as an observer it can be  painful, sad and frightening. The healthy don’t want to talk about it and frequently neither do the seriously ill. Thus, our culture views death as an abhorrence.

In the twentieth century there were many changes in public attitudes about life after death. During the early decades of the century most people held traditional views that they had only one life to live. In the last third of the twentieth century in the U.S. it was estimated some 40 percent believed in reincarnation. This change in attitude has made acceptance of death a little easier for those people who have become more spiritual and are pulling away from a belief in oblivion after life.

One of the most meaningful aspects of my work in the spirit world is learning from the perspective of the departed soul what it feels like to die and how souls try to reach back and comfort those left behind. In this chapter I hope to validate that what you sense deep inside after a loss is not just wishful thinking. The person you love is not really gone. Consider, too, what I said in the last chapter about soul duality. Part of your energy was left behind in the spirit world at the time of incarna- tion. When your love arrives back home again, you will already be there waiting with that portion of your energy which was left behind. This same energy is held in reserve for unification with the returning soul. One of the significant revelations of my research was to learn that soul- mates are never truly apart from each other.

The sections that follow illustrate certain methods used by souls to communicate with those they love. These techniques may begin right after physical death and can be very intense. Nevertheless, the departing soul is anxious to get moving on their way home, as the density of Earth does drain energy. In death, suddenly the soul is released and given freedom. Yet if we have the need, souls are able to contact us on a regular basis from the spirit world.

Quiet contemplation and meditation should bring a greater receptivity to the departed and provide your consciousness with a heightened sense of awareness. No verbal messages from the other side are necessary. lust removing the blocks of self-doubt and opening your mind to even the possible presence of someone you love will assist the process of grief recovery.

Therapeutic Techniques of Souls

My opening case is that of an advanced soul named Tammano who is in training to be a student guide. He said to me, “I have been incarnating and dying on Earth for thousands of years and only in the last few centuries am I really getting the hang of how to alter negative thought patterns and calm people.” This case begins at the point in our session where Tammano is describing the moments following his sudden death after a former life.

Case 1

S (Subject): My wife is not feeling my presence. I’m just not getting through to her at all right now.

Dr. N: What is the matter?

S: Too much grief. It is so overpowering. Alice is in such a state of shock over my being killed that she is too numb to feel my energy.

Dr. N: Tammano, has this been a recurring problem for you after your former lives, or is it just Alice?

S: Right after death the people who love you are either very agitated or completely numb. In either situation their minds can shut down. My task is to attempt a balancing of mind and body.

Dr. N: Where is your soul at this moment? S: On the ceiling of our bedroom.

Dr. N: What do you want her to do?

S: Stop crying and focus her thoughts. She doesn’t believe I could still be alive so all her energy patterns are in a terrible tangled mass. It’s so frustrating. I’m right next to her and she doesn’t know it!

Dr. N: Are you going to give up for the moment and leave for the spirit world because her mind is closed down?

S: That would be the easy way for me but not for her. I care for her too much to give up now. I won’t go until she at least senses that someone is in this room with her. That is my first step. Then I will be able to do more.

Dr. N: How long has it been since your death?

S: A couple of days. The funeral is over and that is when I settle down to try and comfort Alice.

Dr. N: I suppose your own guide is waiting to escort you home?

S: (laughs) I have informed my guide Eaan that she would have to wait for me a while … which was unnecessary. She knows about all this—Eaan was the one who taught me!

This case demonstrates a common complaint I hear from newly released souls. Many are not as proficient or determined as Tammano. Even so, most souls who are anxious to depart for the spirit world will not leave Earth’s astral plane until they take some sort of action to com- fort those in distress who care about them. I have condensed this client’s narrative of how he assisted Alice in her grief recovery in order to focus on the soothing effects of soul energy patterns on disrupted human energy.

Dr. N: Tammano, I would appreciate your taking me through the techniques you use to help your wife Alice with her grief.

S: Well, I’ll start by telling you Alice has not lost me. (takes a deep breath) 1 began by throwing out a shower of my energy as an umbrella from Alice’s waist to her head.

Dr. N: If I were a spirit standing next to you, what would this look like?

S: (smiles) A cloud of cotton candy. Dr. N: What does this do?

S: It gives Alice a blanket of mental warmth which is calming. I must tell you I’m not fully proficient with this cloaking yet, but I have placed a protective cloud of energy over Alice the past three days since my death to make her more receptive.

Dr. N: Oh, I see, you have already begun your work with Alice.

Okay, Tammano, what do you do now?

S: I begin to filter certain aspects of myself through the cloud of energy around her until I can feel the point where there is the least amount of blockage, (pause) I find it on the left side of her head behind her ear.

Dr. N: Does this spot have some significance?

S: Alice used to love to have me kiss her ears, (memories of caressing points are meaningful) WTien I see the opening on the left side of her head I convert my energy to a solid beam and train it on that place.

Dr. N: Does your wife feel this right away?

S: Alice is aware of a gentle touch in the beginning but the awareness is fragmented by grief. Then I increase the power of my beam— sending her thoughts of love.

Dr. N: Do you see this working?

S: (happily) Yes, 1 detect new energy patterns that are no longer dark coming from .Mice. There are shifts in her emotions … her crying stops … she is looking around … sensing me. She smiles. Now, I’ve got her.

Dr. N: Are you finished?

S: She is going to be all right. It’s time for me to go. I’ll watch over her, but I know she is going to make it through this—and that’s good because I’m going to be busy myself for a while.

Dr. N: Does this mean you won’t contact Alice further?

S: (offended) Certainly not! I will remain in contact whenever she needs me. She is my love.

The average soul is much less skillful than even the most junior of student guides. I will discuss these elements further in chapter 4 under the sections of energy rehabilitation. Still, most souls I work with per- form rather well from the spirit world on a physical body. Typically, they choose to work in concentrated areas using the beam effect described by Tammano. These loving energy projections can be very potent, even from the inexperienced soul, to people who have sustained emotional and physical trauma.

Eastern practices of yoga and meditation include the use of chakra body points in ways that resemble how souls partition the human body with healing energy. People who practice the art of chakra healing say that since we have an etheric body that exists in conjunction with the physical, healing must take into account both these elements. Chakra work includes unblocking our emotional and spiritual energy through various points of the body from the spine, heart, throat, forehead and so forth, to open and harmonize the body.

Ways Spirits Connect with the Living

Somatic Touch

I have taken the clinical terms of “somatic bridging” and “therapeutic touch” and combined them to describe the method by which discarnate souls use directed energy beams to touch various parts of an incarnated body. Healing is not limited to the chakra body points I spoke about earlier. Souls who are reaching back to comfort the living look for areas that are most receptive to their energy. We saw this in case 1 (behind the left ear). The energy pattern becomes therapeutic when bridges are established to connect the two minds of the sender and receiver in telepathic transmission.

Bridging by thought transmissions to a body which is hurting is somatic when the methods are physiological. It involves the subtle touching of body organs while eliciting certain emotional reactions which can include the use of the senses. Skillfully applied energy beams can evoke recognition by sight, sound, taste and smell. The whole idea with recognition is to convince the person grieving that the individual they love is still alive. The purpose of somatic touch is to allow the grief- stricken person to come to terms with their loss by acquiring an awareness that absence is only a change of reality and not final. Hope- fully, this will allow the bereaved to move on and complete their own  life constructively.

Souls are also quite capable of falling into habit patterns with somatic touch. The next case is an example of a forty-nine-year-old man who had died of cancer. While the soul of this man does not  demonstrate much skill, his intentions are good.

Case 2

Dr. N: What technique do you use to reach out to your wife? S: Oh, my old standby—the center of the chest.

Dr. N: Where exactly on the chest?

S: I direct my energy beam right at the heart. If I’m a little off, it doesn’t matter.

Dr. N: And why is this method successful for you?

S: I am on the ceiling and she is bent over, crying. My first shot causes her to straighten up. She sighs deeply and senses something and looks upward. Then 1 use my scatter technique.

Dr. N: What is that?

S: (smiles) Oh, you know, throwing energy in all directions from a central point on the ceiling. Usually one of those bolts reaches the right place—the head—anywhere.

Dr. N: But what determines the right place?

S: That which is not blocked by negative energy, of course.

Compare the difference between case 2 and the next client who care- fully spreads her energy in a focused area as if she was applying icing on a cake.

Case 3

Dr. N: Please describe the manner in which you are going to help your husband with your energy.

S: I’m going to work the base of the head just above the spine. God, Kevin is suffering so much. I just won’t leave until he feels better.

Dr. N: Why this particular spot?

S: Because I know he enjoyed having the back of his neck rubbed by me, so it is an area where he is more receptive to my vibrational imprint. Then I play this area as if I was doing body massage— which I am, actually.

Dr. N: Play the area?

S: (my subject giggles and holds her hand out in front of her, open- ing up five fingers wide) Yes, I spread my energy and resonate myself by touch. Then, I use both hands cupped around each side of Kevin’s head for maximum effect.

Dr. N: Does he know it is you?

S: (with a wicked smile) Oh, he realizes it must be me all right. No one else can do what I do to him and it only takes me a minute.

Dr. N: Isn’t he going to miss this after you return to the spirit world?

S: I thought you knew about such things. I can come back whenever he really gets down in the dumps and yearns for me.

Dr. N: Just asking. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but what if Kevin eventually meets another woman in this life?

S: I’ll be delighted if he finds happiness again. That is a testimony as to how good we were together. Our life with each other—every scene—is never lost, and can be recaptured and played again in the spirit world.

Just about the time I think I am getting a complete grasp of soul capabilities and their limitations, a client will come along to dispel these faulty notions. For a long while I told people that all souls seemed to have difficulties getting past the uncontrolled sobs of the grieving  before they could go to work with healing energy. Here is a short quote from a level III whose tactical approach during the peak of the grief process proved me wrong:

I am not delayed by people who are crying hard. My technique is to coordinate my vibrational resonance with the tonal variations of their vocal chords and then springboard to the brain. In this way I can align my energy to effect a more rapid melding of my essence with their body. Quite soon they stop crying without knowing why.

Personification with Objects

I have heard some fascinating stories about the use of familiar objects, such as with the man in my next case. Since husbands usually die ahead of their wives I do hear more about energy techniques from their perspective. This does not mean male-oriented souls are more proficient with healing because they get more practice at comforting. The soul in case 4 has been just as effective in former lives—as a woman who pre- ceded her husband in death—as a husband in this life.

Case 4

Dr. N: What do you do if your efforts right after death are not having the desired results anywhere on the body?

S: When I found that my wife, Helen, was not receiving me by a direct approach, I finally resorted to working with a household familiar.

Dr. N: You mean with an animal—a cat or dog?

S: I have used them before, but no … not this time. I decided to pick out some object of value to me that my wife would know was very personal I chose my ring.

At this point my subject explained to me that during this past life he always wore a large ring of Indian design with a raised turquoise stone in the center. He and his wife often sat by the fire talking about their day. He had a habit of rubbing the stone while talking to Helen. His  wife often kidded him about polishing the turquoise down to the metal base of the ring. Helen had once reminded him that she had noticed this nervous mannerism the night they met.

Dr. N: I think I understand about the ring, so what did you do with it as a spirit?

S: When I work with objects and people I have to wait until the scene is very tranquil. Three weeks after my death, Helen lit a fire and was looking into it with tears in her eyes. I began by wrap-

ping my energy within the fire itself, using the fire as a conduit of warmth and elasticity.

Dr. N: Excuse my interruption, but what does “elasticity” mean?

S: It took me centuries to learn this. Elastic energy is fluid. To make my soul energy fluid requires intense concentration and practice because it must be thin and fleecy. The fire serves as a catalyst in this maneuver.

Dr. N: Which is just the opposite from a strong, narrow beam of energy?

S: Exactly. I can be very effective by rapidly shirting my energy from a fluid to a solid state and back again. The shifting  is subtle but it awakens the human mind. Note: Others have also told me this technique of energy shape shifting “tickles the human brain.”

Dr. N: Interesting, please continue.

S: Helen was connecting with the fire and thus with me. For a moment the grief was less oppressive, and I moved straight into the top of her head. She felt my presence … slightly. It was not enough. Then I began shifting my energy as I told you, from hard to soft in fork fashion.

Dr. N: What do you do when you “fork” energy?

S: I split it. While keeping a soft fluid energy on Helen’s head to maintain contact, I fork a hard beam at the box which holds my ring in a table drawer. My intent is to open up a smooth pathway from her mind to the ring. This is why I am using a hard steady beam, to direct her to the ring.

Dr. N: What does Helen do next?

S: With my guidance, she slowly gets up without knowing why. She moves, as if sleepwalking, to the table and hesitates. Then she opens the drawer. Since my ring is in the box I continue to shift back and forth from her mind to the lid of the box. Helen opens it and takes out my ring, holding it in her left hand, (with a deep sigh) Then I know I have her!

Dr. N: Because … ?

S: Because the ring still retains some of my energy. Don’t you see? She is feeling my energy on both ends of the fork. This is a two- directional signal. Very effective.

Dr. N: Oh, I do see—then what do you do with Helen?

S: Now, I move into overdrive with a full-power bridge between myself standing on her right side and the ring on the left. She turns in my direction and smiles. Helen then kisses my ring and says, “Thanks, darling, I know you are with me now. I’ll try and be more brave.”

I want to encourage anyone who is in a terrible state of grief over the loss of a love to do what the gifted psychics do when they want to find missing persons. Take a piece of jewelry, an article of clothing—any- thing that belonged to the departed person—and hold it for a while in a mutually familiar place and quietly open your mind, while blanking out all other irrelevant thoughts.

Before leaving this section, I want to relate my favorite story about energy contact through objects from a discarnate being.

My wife, Peggy, is an oncology nurse with a graduate degree in coun- seling, so she involves herself a great deal with grieving cancer patients and their families. Because she administers chemotherapy at a hospital, this puts her in touch with hospice personnel. A few of these women and my wife are close friends who meet regularly as a support group. One of the members of the group is a recent widow whose husband, Clay, died of cancer. Clay loved big band dancing and he and his wife would often go on road trips to where the best bands were playing.

One night after Clay’s death, his widow, my wife and the rest of the support group were in a circle in the middle of this lady’s living room floor talking about my theories of how souls reach back to comfort the people they love. The widow exclaimed in frustration, “Why hasn’t Clay made himself known in a way that would comfort me?” There was a moment of silence and suddenly a music box on top of a book shelf began to play Glenn Miller’s song In the Mood. From what I under- stand, there was a stunned silence followed by nervous laughter from the group. All the widow could say was, “That music box hasn’t been touched in two years!” It didn’t matter. I think she got Clay’s message.

Light energy has some properties of electromagnetic force, and thus can work in mysterious ways with objects. JoAnn and Jim are two for- mer clients of mine whose marriage is a very close one. After their ses- sions, we got into a discussion of the use of energy beams by the living. Sheepishly, they told me they combine their energy on the California freeways to push cars out of the fast lane in front of them when they are in a hurry. When 1 asked if they tailgate, they said, “No, we just direct a combined beam to the back of the driver’s head and then fork the beam to the right (middle lane) and back again.” They claim that over 50 percent of the time they are successful. 1 told JoAnn and Jim, half seriously, that pushing cars out of their way was clearly a misuse  of power and they had better mend their ways. I think they both know that using their gift more constructively will be much better received upstairs, although it will be a hard habit to break.

Dream Recognition

One of the primary ways the newly departed soul uses to reach people who love them is through the dream state. The grief that has over- whelmed the conscious mind is temporarily pushed out of a frontal position in our thoughts when we are asleep. Even if we are in a fitful state of sleep, the unconscious mind is now more open for reception. Unfortunately, the person who is grieving will all too often wake up from a dream that could have contained a message and allow it to slip away from memory without writing anything down. Either the images and symbols they saw while asleep didn’t mean anything at the time, or the dream sequence was chalked off as wishful thinking if, for example, the dreamer saw themselves with the deceased.

Before proceeding further, I want to offer an assessment about the general nature of dreams. My professional experience with dreams stems from listening to subjects in hypnosis explain how—as discarnates—they use the dream state to reach the living. Spirits are very selective in their use of our dream sequences. I have come to the conclusion that most dreams are not profound. In reviewing various texts about dreaming, I find even specialists in the field believe many dreams during the night are simply jumbled up absurdities caused by our circuits being on overload throughout the day. If the mind is venting during certain sleep cycles, then the nerve transmissions across our synaptic clefts are letting off steam to relax the brain.

I classify dreams in three ways and one of them is the cleaning house state. At times in the night many stray thoughts from the day are scrambled and swept out of the mind as gobbledygook. We can’t make sense of it because there is none. On the other hand, we all know there   is a more cognitive side to dreaming. I divide this state into two parts, problem solving and spiritual, with only a fine line between them. There are people who have been given a premonition about some future event as an outgrowth of dreams. Our state of mind may be altered by dreams.

One of the most stressful periods of our lives occurs during the period of mourning when the affections of someone we love are taken away from us—we think forever. About the only relief we get from oppressive grief is during sleep. We go to bed with anguish and wake up with the pain still there, yet there is enigma in between. Some mornings bring us a better idea of the initial steps to take toward coping with our loss. Problem solving through dream sequences is a process of mental incubation which has been called procedural because images appear that teach us ways to move forward. Does this insight come from somewhere other than ourselves? If the dream spills over into the spirit mode, then the Dreamweavers have probably paid us a call as prompters to assist us through our emotional distress.

Spiritual dreams involve our guides, teaching souls and soulmates who come as messengers to assist us with solutions. We do not need to be grieving to receive help in this way. Into this spiritual dream  mixture we also have memory recall of our experiences on other physical and mental worlds, including the spirit world. How many of you have dreamed you could fly or swim easily underwater? I have found with some clients that these mythic memories contain information about the lives they led as intelligent flying or water creatures on other planets. Frequently, these kinds of dream sequences provide us with metaphoric clues which open the door to comparisons of former lives with our current one. Our immortal soul character does not change much between host bodies, so these comparisons are not all that bizarre. Some of our greatest revelations come from the episodic dreams of events, places and behavior patterns emanating from experiences before we acquired our present body.

In chapter 1,1 briefly touched on the preparation class we attend in the spirit world before returning to a new life. This soul exercise is covered more thoroughly in my first book, but I mention it here because this experience is relevant to our dreams. The class is designed for recognition of future people and events. While we prepare to incarnate, a teacher reinforces the important aspects of our new lite contract. Meeting and interacting with souls from our group and other clusters who are to share parts of our new life form an integral part of the class.

Memories of this prep class might well be triggered in our dreams to light a lamp in the darkness of despair, particularly when a primary soulmate is lost in life. Jung said, “Dreams embody suppressed wishes and fears but may also give expression to inescapable truths which are not illusions or wild fantasies.” Sometimes these truths are couched in metaphoric puzzles and represented as archetypal images during our dreams. Dream symbols are culturally generalized and dream  glossaries are not immune to this prejudice. Each person should use their own intuition to delineate the meaning of a dream.

The Australian Aborigines, a culture with over 10,000 years of unbroken history, believe that dream time is actually real time in terms of objective reality. A dream perception is often as real as an awake experience. To souls in the spirit world time is always in the present, so regardless of how long they have been physically gone from your life, the person you love wants you to be aware they are still in now reality. How does a loving spirit go about helping you gain insight and accept- ance of these things in your dreams?

Case 5

My subject in this case has just died of pneumonia in New York City in 1935. She was a young woman in her early thirties who came to New York after growing up in a small midwestern town. Sylvia’s death was sudden and she wanted to provide some comfort to her widowed mother.

Dr. N: Do you leave immediately for the spirit world after death?

S: No, I do not. I must say goodbye to my mother so I want to stay around Earth for a while until she gets the news.

Dr. N: Is there anyone else you care to see before going to your mother?

S: (with hesitation, then in a husky voice) Yes … I have an old boyfriend … his name is Phil. . . I go to his house first…

Dr. N: (gently) I see; were you in love with Phil?

S: (pause) Yes, but we never married … I… just want to touch him once more. I don’t really make contact with him because he is sound asleep and not dreaming. I can’t stay long because I want to reach my mother before she hears the news about me.

Dr. N: Aren’t you being a little too rushed with Phil? Why don’t you wait for a proper dream cycle and leave a message?

S: (firmly) Phil hasn’t been part of my life for years. I gave myself to him when we were both young. He hardly thinks about me any- more … and … well… to pick up on me through a dream … he could miss the message anyway. My leaving traces of my energy is enough for now because we will be together again in the spirit world.

Dr. N: After leaving Phil, do you go to your mother?

S: Yes. I begin with more conventional thought communication while she is awake but I am getting nowhere. She is so sad. My mother’s grief at not being at my bedside is overpowering  her.

Dr. *N: What methods have you tried so far?

S: I project my thoughts with an orange-yellow light, like the flame of  a candle, and place my light around her head, sending loving thoughts. I’m not effective. She doesn’t realize I am with her. I am going for a dream.

Dr. N: All right, Sylvia, take me through this slowly. Please start by telling me if you pick out one of your mother’s dreams or if you can create one of your own.

S: I don’t create dreams well yet. It is much easier for me to take one of hers so I can enter the dream to effect a more natural contact and then participate. I want her to know it is clearly me in the dream.

Dr. N: Fine, now take me through this process with you.

S: The first couple of dreams are unsuitable. One is a muddle of absurdity. Another is a past life fragment, but without me in it. Finally, she has a dream where she is walking alone in the fields around my house. You should know she has no grief in this dream. I am not dead yet.

Dr. N: What good is this dream, Sylvia, if you are not in it?

S: (laughing at me) Listen, aren’t you seeing I’m going to smoothly place myself in the dream.

Dr. N: You can alter the sequence of the dream to include yourself? S: Sure, I enter the dream from the other end of the field by matching my energy patterns to my mother’s thoughts. I project an image of myself as I was the last time she saw me. I come slowly across the field to let her get used to my presence. I wave and smile and then come to her. We hug each other and now I send waves of rejuvenating energy into her sleeping body.

Dr. N: And what will this do for your mother?

S: This picture is raised to a higher level of consciousness for my mother.

I want to insure the dream will stay with her after she wakes up.

Dr. *N: How can you be sure she won’t think this is all a projection of her desire for you and discount the dream as not being real?

S: The influence of a vivid dream like this is very great When my mother wakes up, her mind has a vivid impression of this landscape with me and suspects I am with her. In time the memory is so real she is sure of it.

Dr. N: Sylvia, does the image of the dream move from the unconscious to a conscious reality because of your energy transfer?

S: Yes, it is a filtering process where I continue to send waves of energy into her over the next few days until she begins to accept my passing. I want her to believe I am still part of her and always will be.

Turning back to Phil’s sleep state, it was evident Sylvia did not intend to stay long to manifest her feelings within his unconscious mind. Dreams do not appear to occur in the deep delta stages of brain-wave activity where there is no rapid eye movement. REM sleep, also known as paradoxical sleep, is a much lighter and therefore more active dream state occurring mostly in the early and late stages of sleep. In my next case, the dreamer will be reached between dreams presumably because he is still in REM sleep.

The Dream weaver souls I have come in contact with all engage in dream implanting, with two prominent differences.

1. Dream Alteration. Here a skillful *discarnate enters the mind of a sleeper and partially alters an existing dream already in progress. This technique I would call one of interlineation, where spirits place themselves as actors between the lines of an unfolding play so the dreamer is not aware of script tampering with the sequences. This is what Sylvia was doing with her mother. She was waiting for the right sort of ongoing dream to enter and initiate a smooth fit. As difficult as this approach seems, it is evident to me the second procedure is more complex.
2. Dream Origination. In these cases the soul must create and fully implant a new dream from scratch and weave the tapestry of these images into a meaningful presentation to suit their purpose. Creating or altering scenes in the mind of a dreamer is intended to convey a message. I see as this an act of service and love. If the dream implantation is not performed skillfully to make the dream meaningful, the sleeper moves on and wakes up in the morning remembering only disjointed fragments or nothing at all about the dream.

To illustrate the therapeutic use of Dream Origination, I will cite the case of a level V subject whose name was Bud in his last life. Bud was killed in a 1942 battle during World War II. The case involves a dreamer called Walt, who was Bud’s surviving brother. Bud is adept at dream- weaving, so after his battlefield death he returned home to the spirit world and made preparations for an effective method to comfort Walt. This is one of those cases that gave me greater perspective of the subtle integration methods Dreamweaver Souls are able to use with sleeping people. During this condensed case, my subject will describe the dream techniques taught to him by his guide, Axinar.

Case 6

Dr. N: How do you plan to alleviate your brother’s grief after returning to the spirit world?

S: Axinar has been working with me on an effective strategy. It’s very delicate because we are with Walt’s duplicate.

Dr. N: You mean that dual part of Walt’s energy mass that remained behind during his incarnation to Earth?

S: Yes, Walt and I are in the same soul group. 1 begin by connecting myself to his divided nature here to more closely communicate with Walt’s light on Earth.

Dr. N: Please explain this procedure.

S: I float next to the cache where his remaining energy is anchored and meld with it briefly. This allows for a perfect recording of Walt’s energy imprint. There is already a telepathic bonding between us but I want to have a tighter vibrational alliance when I reach his bedside.

Dr. N: Why do you wish to carry an absolutely accurate print of Walt’s energy pattern with you on your return to Earth?

S: For a stronger connection to the dreams I will create.

Dr. N: But why can’t Walt’s other half communicate with himself on Earth instead of you?

S: (sharply) This does not work well. It is nothing more than talking to oneself. There is no impact, especially during sleep. It’s a washout.

Dr. N: All right, since Walt’s exact energy print is with you, what happens when you go to his sleeping body?

S: He is tossing and turning at night and really suffering a lot over my being killed. Axinar trained me to work between dreams because he does these energy transfers so well himself.

Dr. N: You work between dreams?

S: Yes, so I can leave messages on either side of two different dreams and then link them for greater receptivity. Because I have Walt’s exact energy imprint, I slip into his mind quite easily to deploy my energy. After my visit, a third dream about the first two unfolds as

a delayed reaction and Walt sees us together again in an out-of- body setting, which he won’t recognize as the spirit world but the activation of these inviting memories will sustain him.

Note: Some cultures, such as the Tibetan mystics, believe they do recognize the spirit world as an almost physical paradise to be a natural part of dreaming.

Dr. N: What were the dreams you created?

S: Walt was three years older, yet we played a lot together as boys.

This changed when he was thirteen, not because we weren’t still close as brothers, he just became attached to guys his own age and I was excluded. One day Walt and his friends were swinging on a rope tied over the branch of a big tree high above a pond near our farm. I was nearby, watching. The other boys went first and were engaged in a water fight when Walt swung too high and hit his head hard on another branch and was almost knocked out as he fell into the water. They did not see him fall. I dove into the pond and held up his head screaming for help. Later, on the bank, Walt looked up at me with a dazed expression and said, “Thanks for saving me, Buddy.” I thought this act would admit me to their club but a few weeks afterwards Walt and his friends would not let me play a game of softball with them. I felt betrayed that Walt would not stand up for us. During the game the ball was hit into some bushes and they couldn’t locate it. That evening T found their ball and hid it inside our barn. We were poor kids and this ruined their game for a while until one of the boys got another ball on his birthday.

Dr. N: Tell me the message you wanted to convey to Walt?

S: To show two things. I wanted my brother to see me crying and holding his bleeding head in my lap on the bank of the pond and remember what we said to each other after he stopped choking. The second dream about the softball game ended when I added a trailer to the dream and took him to the barn where the softball was still hidden. I told Walt I forgave him for every slight in our lives together. I want him to know I am always with him and the devotion we have for each other can’t die. He will know this when he returns to the old barn to look for the ball.

Dr. N: Does Walt need to dream again about all this after your visit?

S: (laughs) It’s not necessary as long as he recalled the location of the ball after he woke. Walt did remember what 1 had implanted. Going back to our old barn and finding the ball made the mes- sage come together. This gave Walt some serenity about my death.

Dream symbolism moves on many levels in the mind, some of which are abstract while others are emotional. The dreams of this case, involving experiential imagery, reinforced poignant memories of two brothers in a slice of recorded time. Future unification was pictured for Walt in a third, rather wispy dream of both souls happily together once again in the spirit world.

It took me quite a long while before I found an advanced subject apprenticed to a Dreammaster, a title 1 feel is appropriate for Axinar in case 6. As with any spiritual technique, some souls show more inclination than others toward acquiring advanced skills. In case 6, Bud not only originated a sequence of dreams in Walt’s mind but then engaged in the more complex technique of linking them into a central theme of love and support for his brother. Finally, Bud provided physical evidence that he was there through the use of a hidden baseball. I take nothing away from Sylvia in case 5, because she was very effective entering her mother’s dream to give her peace without disruption to the dreamer. It’s just that case 6 demonstrated more spiritual artistry.

Transference Through Children

When souls have difficulty reaching the mind of a troubled adult they might resort to using children as conduits for their messages. Children are more receptive to spirits because they have not been conditioned to doubt or resist the supernatural. Frequently the young person chosen as a conduit is a family member of the departed. This situation is helpful to the spirit who is trying to reach a surviving relative, especially in the same household. The next case is that of a man who died of a heart attack in his back yard at age forty-two.

Case 7

Dr. N: What do you do to comfort your wife at the moment of death?

S: At first I try to hug Irene with my energy but I don’t have the hang of it yet. (subject is a level II) I can relate to her sorrow but nothing I’m doing is working. I’m worried because I don’t want to leave without saying goodbye.

Dr. N: lust relax now and move slowly forward. I want you to explain to me how you work through this dilemma.

S: I soon realize that 1 ought to be able to console Irene a little by reaching her through Sarah, our ten-year-old.

Dr. N: Why do you think Sarah might be receptive to you?

S: My daughter and I have a special bond. She also has great sorrow over my passing but much of this is mixed with fear over what happened to me so suddenly. Sarah doesn’t comprehend it all yet. There are too many neighbors crowding around trying to sustain my wife. No one is paying much attention to Sarah, sitting alone in our bedroom.

Dr. N: Do you look upon this as an opportunity?

S: Yes, I do, in fact Sarah senses I am still alive and so she is more open to accepting my vibrations as I move into the bedroom.

Dr. N: Good—what happens next between you and your daughter?

S: (takes a deep breath) I’ve got it! Sarah is holding a set of her mothers knitting needles. I send warmth through them into her hands and she feels this right away. Then I use the needles as a springboard to reach her spine at the base of the neck and work around to her chin, (subject stops and begins laughing)

Dr. N: What is making you happy?

S: Sarah is giggling because I’m tickling her chin like I did before she went to sleep every night.

Dr. N: Now what do you do?

S: The crowd is breaking up and leaving because I have been taken out to the street and placed into an ambulance. Irene comes alone into the bedroom to get ready for a neighbor who will drive her to the hospital. She also wants to check on our daughter. Sarah looks up at my wife and says, “Mommy, you don’t have to leave, Daddy is here with me—I know ’cause I can feel him tickling my chin!”

Dr. N: And then what does your wife do?

S: Irene is tearful but not crying as hard as before because she doesn’t want to scare Sarah. So she hugs our daughter.

Dr. N: Irene does not want to indulge in what she believes to be Sarah’s fantasy about your being with her?

S: Not yet—but I’m ready for Irene now. As soon as my wife holds our daughter I jump the gap between them, sending energy flow- ing over both. Irene feels me too, although not as much as Sarah. They sit down on the bed and hold on to each other with their eyes closed. For a while all three of us are alone together.

Dr. N: Do you feel you have accomplished what you set out to do on this day?

S: Yes, it’s enough. It is time for me to leave and I pull back away from them and float out of the house. Then I am high over the countryside and sucked up into the sky. Soon I move into bright light, where my guide comes to meet me.

Contact in Familiar Settings

It may seem from the last case that once the departing soul has reached out and touched those who care about them, they go off to the spirit world without bothering to be near us again. There are people who don’t feel a soul’s presence right after death but will in the future. Sur- vivors who have reached the acceptance stage in their grief process would find solace in knowing those they have loved are still watching over them. Yet there are those who never pick up anything.

Souls don’t give up easily on us. Another way spirits touch people is through environmental settings associated with their memory. These contacts are effective to minds which may be closed to all other forms of spiritual communication. The following case illustrates this method. My subject, a woman called Nancy in her last life, died of a sudden stroke after thirty-eight years of marriage to Charles. Her husband was stuck between the denial and anger stages of grief and his emotions were so pent up that he could not accept help from their friends or seek outside professional counseling. As an engineer, his predominately analytical mind rejected any spiritual approach to his loss as being unscientific.

Nancy’s soul had tried reaching her husband in several ways for months after the funeral. His stoic nature created such a wall around himself that Charles had not really cried since his wife’s death. To over- come this obstacle, Nancy decided she could reach his inner mind through his sense of smell by connecting with an environmental setting familiar to both of them. The use of sense organs by souls complements communication with the subconscious mind. Nancy decided to use her garden, specifically a rose bush, to reach Charles.

Case 8

Dr. N: Why do you think Charles is going to react to your presence through a garden?

S: Because he knows I loved my garden. For him my plants were a take it or leave it situation. He knew it gave me pleasure but to Charles gardening was just a lot of hard work. Frankly, he helped very little in our  yard. He was too  busy with  his mechanical projects.

Dr. N: He paid no attention, then, to your yard work?

S: Not unless I drew his attention to something. I had a favorite white rose  bush bv our front door and whenever I cut these flowers I would wave them in front of his nose and tell Charles that if this sweet scent did not affect him, then he had no romance

in his soul. We used to laugh about this a lot because Charles was actually a tender lover but outwardly you would never know it. To avoid the issue, he would tease me by saying gruffly, “These are white roses, I like red.”

Dr. N: So, how did you implement a plan with roses to let Charles know you are still alive and with him?

S: My rose bush died from lack of attention after my death. In fact, my whole yard was in bad shape because Charles was not functioning well at all. One weekend he was walking around the garden in a daze and came near some roses belonging to our next- door neighbor. He caught the smell. This is what I was waiting for and I moved quickly into his mind. He thought of me and looked at my dead rose bush.

Dr. N: You created an image of your rose bush in his mind?

S: (sighs) No, he would have missed that in the beginning. Charles understands tools. I started out by getting him to picture a shovel in his mind and digging. Then we made the transition to my rose bush and the garden center in town where it could be purchased. Charles pulled out his car keys.

Dr. N: You got him to walk to the car and then drive over to this nursery?

S: (grinning) It took persistence, but yes, I did. Dr. N: Then what did you do?

S: At the nursery Charles wandered around for a bit until I was able to draw him to the roses. They were only red varieties, and that suited him. I was projecting a white color in his mind so he asked a clerk why there were no white roses. He was told red was all they had left in stock. Charles overrode my thoughts and bought a big pot of red roses, telling the clerk to deliver them to our house because he didn’t want to get his car dirty.

Dr. N: What do “overriding thoughts” mean to you?

S: People under stress get impatient and fall back on established thought patterns. To Charles, the standard rose is red. That’s his mindset. Since the store didn’t have white roses at the moment, my husband would not deal with it further.

Dr. N: So, in a sense, Charles was blocking the conflicting images between his conscious thoughts and what you were projecting in his unconscious mind?

S: Yes, and also my husband is very mentally tired from my death. Dr. N: Wouldn’t red roses suit your purpose just as well?

S: (flatly) No. It was then I switched my energy to Sabine, the woman I knew who ran the store. She was at my funeral and was aware I loved white roses.

Dr. N: I don’t think I know where this is going, Nancy. There were no white roses. Charles bought the red roses and then left for home. Wasn’t this enough for you?

S: (laughing at me) You men! The white rose is me. The next morn- ing Sabine personally drove to my house and delivered a big pot of white roses. She  told my husband that she got them from another nursery and this is what I would have wanted. Then she left Charles standing bewildered in our driveway. He  carried them over to the hole he had dug where my old rose bush had been and stopped. The roses were in his face. He smelled their fragrance—but what was more important, the wash of white was combined with the scent, (my subject pauses tearfully as she re- creates this moment)

Dr. N: (in a low voice) You are making all this very clear—please go on.

S: Charles was … feeling my presence at last. . . I now spread my energy around his torso to include the roses in a symmetrical envelopment. 1 wanted him to smell the white roses and my essence filtering through the energy field together.

Dr. N: Was this effective?

S: (softly) Finally, he knelt down next to the hole, pressing the roses to his face. Charles broke down and sobbed for a long time while I held him. When it was over he knew I was with him still.

While the spirits of husbands might use cars or sporting equipment, I find that wives often utilize garden settings to reach their mates. Another client told me about his wife applying the planting of an oak tree to make her connection. Before this widower saw me he wrote:

Even if what happened to me was not from my wife, does it matter? The main thing is that in some way I am using the emotional energy generated by my feeling she was with me to tap into my inner resources, which previously were not available. I am no longer in an abyss without a glimmer of light.

In talking with people about such experiences, which some call mystical, it is important to consider the possibility of a spiritual source. If we can feed into a highly charged state of emotion during our grief, we can both heal and learn more about our inner selves. Spirits may prefer to communicate with us in the form of ideas. Here is a quote from a letter I received from a former client about his departed wife, Gwen. I believe our session together assisted in his discovery of the best way to receive his wife’s thoughts:

I have learned we don't all have equal abilities as souls to communicate with each other. Sending and receiving messages is a skill that needs to be refined with practice. I finally recognized the imprint of Gwen's thoughts after getting nothing during my meditations. She was a literary person who used word thoughts rather than pictures to generate feeling in me. I had to learn to integrate word flashes from her into my own manner of speaking— which she knows—in order to decipher what she was telling me. I see more clearly now how I can touch Gwen with my mind.

Strangers as Messengers Case 9

Derek was a man in his sixties who came to see me from Canada to evaluate his life and try and resolve his greatest sadness. When he was a young man, he lost his beautiful four-year-old daughter, Julia. Her death was sudden, unexpected and so devastating that he and his wife decided to have no more children.

I placed Derek in deep hypnosis and took him to a scene following his last life where he appeared in front of his council. We then discov- ered that one of his major current life lessons was learning to cope with tragedy. Derek had been deficient in this area during his past two lives by falling apart and making life more difficult for family survivors who depended upon him. He is doing much better in his current life. What was especially interesting for me about this case was a single incident that happened to Derek some twenty years after Julia’s death.

Derek had recently lost his wife to cancer and was in mourning. One day, feeling very despondent, he walked to a nearby amusement park.

After a while he sat down on a bench near a carousel. Listening to the music, Derek watched the children happily going around in circles on colorful wooden animals. He saw from a distance one little girl who looked like Julia and tears flooded his eyes. Just then a young woman of about twenty appeared and asked if she could sit down next to him. It was a warm day. She was dressed in white muslin, holding a cold drink in her hand. Derek nodded but said nothing while the woman enjoyed her drink and talked about growing up in England and coming to Canada because she was particularly attracted to Vancouver. She introduced herself as Heather and Derek noticed a glow of sunlight around her that gave the young woman a shining, angelic quality.

Time seemed to be suspended for Derek as the conversation turned to family and what Heather was going to do with her new life in Canada. Derek found himself talking to her as a father and the more they conversed, the more he felt he knew her. Finally, Heather stood up and placed her hand tenderly on Derek’s shoulder. She smiled at him and said, “I know you are worried about me—please don’t be. I’m all right and it’s going to be a wonderful life. We will see each other again some day, I know.”

Derek told me that as Heather walked away and gave him a final wave he saw his daughter and felt at peace. During our session, Derek recognized that the reincarnated soul of Julia had come to him and provided the assurance he had not really lost her. When we suffer the absence of people we love they may come to us in mysterious ways, often when our minds are detached in a shallow alpha state. Take these moments as messages from the other side and allow them to bring sustenance to you.

Angels or Other Heavenly Hosts

In recent years there has been a resurgence in the popularity of angels. The Roman Catholic Church defines angels as spiritual, intelligent, noncorporeal beings who are servants and messengers of God. The position of the Christian church is that these beings have never incar- nated on Earth. We think of angels as white-robed figures with wings and a halo—theological images which have come down to us from the Middle Ages.

Many clients initially think they see angels when I regress them into the spirit world, especially those with strong religious convictions. This reaction is similar to the devotional responses of some people who have had near-death experiences. However, regardless of prior religious con- ditioning, my subjects soon realize the etheric beings they are visualizing in hypnosis represent their guides and soul companions who have come to meet them. These spiritual beings are surrounded by white light and may appear in robes.

In my work, guides are sometimes described as guardian angels, although our personal teachers are beings who have incarnated in physical form long before graduating to the level of guides. An intimate soul- mate in discarnate form can also come to the gate to comfort us in times of need. I feel believing in angels emanates from an inner desire for personal protection on the part of many people. In making this observation, it is not my intention to set aside the faith of millions of religious people in angels. For many years I lacked faith in anything beyond my own existence. I know the importance of believing in something greater than yourself. Our faith is what sustains us in life and this applies to believing that there are superior beings who watch over us. My case presentations are intended to give weight to the concept of benevolent spirits in our lives.

Our spiritual teachers have different styles and techniques, just as teachers on Earth. Their immortal character has been matched to our own essence in a variety of ways. The next two abbreviated cases illus- trate my contention that personal guides and soulmates, however they are represented, contact us from the other side if we require consolation.

Case 10

The following statements come from Rene, a forty-year-old widow who lost her husband, Harry, three months before our appointment. I waited until after our session before asking her the series of questions that follow. My intent was to have Rene contrast the conscious versus superconscious imagery she had of her guide, Niath.

Dr. N: Before our session today, have you had any contact with the being you saw in hypnosis as Niath?

S: Yes, since Harry’s death Niath has come to me during my dark hours.

Dr. N: Did Niath appear to be the same to you before and after this hypnosis session?

S: No, I didn’t see her quite the same way. I… thought she was an angel before and now I see Niath is my teacher.

Dr. N: Were her face and demeanor different to you while you were under hypnosis, compared to what you saw when awake?

S: (laughs) Today there were no wings or a halo, but bright light— that was the same—and her face and gentle manner were the same too. I also see that in our spirit group she can be… sharply instructive.

Dr. N: More of a teacher and less of a grief counselor, you mean?

S: Yes, perhaps that’s it. Right after Harry’s death she was so sweet and understanding when she came to me … (rushing on) that doesn’t mean she isn’t nice in the spirit world, just more … exacting.

Dr. N: Did you do anything to summon Niath right after Harry’s death?

S: I was crying for help after the funeral. I found out that I needed to be alone and very still… to listen …

Dr. N: Does this mean you heard Niath rather than actually saw her?

S: No, in the beginning I saw her floating over my head in my bed- room. 1 had my arms wrapped around a pillow pretending it was Harry, but I had stopped crying. She became fuzzy after 1 first saw her and I realized then 1 had to listen carefully for her voice. In the days that followed I heard Niath more than I saw her… but I had to listen.

Dr. N: Does that mean concentrate?

S: Yes … well, no … more allowing my mind to go free from my body.

Dr. N: What happens when you don’t listen properly but you want her messages?

S: Then she communicates with me through my feelings. Dr. N: In what wav?

S: Oh, I might be driving alone or out walking by myself, wondering about doing something—taking a certain action. She will make me feel good about it if I am supposed to do it—if it is right.

Dr. N: And what if the action you are considering would be wrong for you, then what?

S: Niath will make me feel uneasy about doing it. I will know in my gut it is a wrong move.

My next case excerpt involves a young man who died in a car crash in 1942 at age thirty-six. He gives us another perspective on the mythology of angels from a soul reaching back to Earth.

Case 11

Dr. N: Tell me what you did for your wife after the crash?

S: I stayed around for three days with Betty to lessen her heaviness. I positioned myself over her head so our energy fields crossed in such a way that I could soothe her by matching our vibrations.

Dr. N: Did you employ any other techniques?

S: Yes, I projected my likeness in front of her face. Dr. N: Was this effective?

S: (playfully) Initially, she thought I was Jesus. The second day she was confused and the third day Betty was convinced I was an angel. My wife is very religious.

Dr. N: Are you bothered that she didn’t recognize you because of her religious convictions?

S: Not at all. (then, after some hesitation) Oh … I suppose it would please me if Betty realized it was me but her feeling better is my main concern. Betty is convinced I am a heavenly deity—and that is okay because I do represent spiritual help for her.

Dr. N: Would she feel even better knowing it was you?

S: Look, Betty thinks I’m in heaven and can’t help her. Her angel is able to do so because it’s really me. So, I’m in disguise—what’s the difference as long as my goal to help her is accomplished?

Dr. N: Well, since Betty has not connected you with your disguise, is there any other way you can communicate on a more personal level?

S: (smiles) Through my best friend, Ted. He consoles her and gives her advice with day-to-day details. Later I hover over the both of them sending … permissive messages, (subject then laughs)

Dr. N: What do you find humorous?

S: Ted is not married. He has been in love with Betty for a long time, but she doesn’t realize it yet.

Dr. N: Is this all right with you?

S: (cheerfully, yet with nostalgia) Sure. I’m relieved he can do what I can’t anymore for her … at least until she returns home to me.

Finally, there are those angel like spirits who regularly come to Earth between lives simply to help people they don’t know who are in dis- tress. They may be healers in training, as was true with the client who said to me:

My guide and I assisted a boy in India who was drowning and consumed by fear. His parents pulled him from the river and were trying to resuscitate him, but he was not responding well. 1 placed my hands on his head to quiet his fear, sent a spike of energy into his heart to bring warmth into his body and superimposed his essence with mine for a moment to help him cough up the water and start breathing again. We were able to help a total of twenty-four people on that trip to Earth.

Emotional Recovery of Souls and Survivors

The last remarks from case 11 about his wife, Betty, and those of case 3 who talked about her husband, Kevin, touch upon the issue of later relationships by the survivor. Falling in love again after the death of a spouse sometimes causes feelings of guilt and even betrayal. In both these cases we saw that the departing spouses only wanted their surviving mates to be happy and loved. However, just because spirits want this for us does not mean that we can easily compartmentalize our expressions of intimacy to past and present loves.

People who have had long, happy first marriages and then lose a spouse make excellent candidates for a successful second marriage. This is a tribute to the first relationship. Having other relationships neither lessens nor dishonors our first love, it only validates that love,  providing a state of healthy acceptance has been reached in between. I know placing aside feelings of guilt is easier said than done. I have received letters from widows and widowers asking me if their departed spouses could actually be watching them in the bedroom with someone else.

In my summary of the spirit world, I indicated that souls lose most of their negative emotional baggage when they shed their bodies. Although it is true we may carry the imprint of some emotional trauma from a past life into the next one, this condition is in a state of abeyance until we return to a new body. Also, a great deal of negative energy is expelled during the early stages of our return to the spirit world, especially after deprogramming during orientation.

When a soul once again returns to a pure energy state in the spirit world, it no longer feels hate, anger, envy, jealousy and the like. It has come to Earth to experience these sorts of emotions and learn from them. But after departing from Earth, do souls feel any sadness for what they have left behind? Certainly, souls carry nostalgia for the good times in all their past physical lives. This is tempered by a state of blissful omniscience and such a heightened sense of well-being that souls feel more alive than when they were on Earth.

Nevertheless, I have found two sorts of negative emotions that exist within souls, both of which involve a form of sadness. One of them I would call karmic guilt for making very poor choices, especially when others were hurt by these actions. I will treat these aspects later under karma. The other form of sadness for souls is not melancholy, dejection, or a mournful unhappiness in the way life has gone on without them since their departure. Rather, sadness in souls comes from a longing to reunite with the Source of their existence. I believe all souls, regardless of their level of development, have this longing to seek perfection for the same reason. The motivating factor for those souls who come to Earth is growth. Thus, the trace of sadness I discern in souls is the absence of ele- ments in their immortal character that they must find to make their energy complete. And so it is a soul’s destiny to search for truth in their experiences in order to gain wisdom. It is important for the survivor to know that longing does not compromise a soul’s feelings of empathy, sympathy and compassion for those who grieve for them.

Since the immortal character of the soul is no longer encumbered by individual temperament and the chemistry of its last body, it is at peace. Souls have much better things to do than interfere with people on  Earth. In rare cases, certain souls are so disturbed by an act of injustice against them in life that they won’t leave Earth’s astral plane after death until they gain some sort of resolution. I will discuss more of this phenomenon under the subject of ghosts. The spiritual conflict with these souls does not include sadness over you finding happiness with someone else, unless, of course, you did something like murder your lover to be with another. The one great advantage the departed soul  has over a survivor is knowing it is still alive and will be seeing everyone who is meaningful to them again. The integrity of souls involves an all- consuming desire that those they love have the free choice to finish their lives in any way they want. If you wish a soul to come to you it probably will, otherwise your privacy is respected. Besides, a part of your energy which you left behind in the spirit world is always there for them.

Since souls lose so many negative emotions upon reentering the spirit world, it follows that their positive affections also undergo alterations. For instance, souls feel great love but this love places no conditions upon others for reciprocity because it is given freely. Souls display a universal coherence with each other that is so absolute it is incomprehensible on Earth. This is one reason why souls appear to be both abstract and empathetic to us at the same time.

I have heard of some cultural traditions which advise that survivors must let the deceased go and not try to communicate with them  because souls have more important work to do. Indeed, souls do not want you to become dependent upon communication with them to the detriment of independent decision-making. Yet many survivors   require not only solace but also some sort of approval in the forming of a new relationship. I hope my next case will help dispel the idea that  the departed are uninterested in your future. Your privacy is respected by the spirit of your love when you are content. Still, if a prospective course of action, particularly bonding with someone else, leaves you unsettled, they might try to make their opinions known. Because of the nature of soul duality they are quite capable of performing many tasks at once. This includes a soul’s quiet time in solitude where they focus energy on people they have left behind. Souls do this to bring us greater peace even when we are not calling on them for help.

Case 12

George came to me in a state of some distress over feelings of guilt about a new love in his life. He had been a widower for two vears after a long and happy marriage to Frances. George wondered if she was look- ing down on him with displeasure over his developing relationship with Dorothy. I was told Dorothy and her deceased husband, Frank, had been close friends of George and Frances. Nonetheless, George felt his increased attraction to Dorothy might be considered an act of betrayal. I begin this case at the point in our session when George sees Frances after a former life together.

Dr. N: Now that you have entered the circle of your Soulmates, who comes forward first?

S: (cries out) Oh God, it’s Frances—it’s her. I’ve missed you so much, dear. She is so beautiful. . . we have been together … from the beginning.

Dr. N: You see that you never really lost her in your current life, don’t you, and that she will be waiting for you when it is your time to go?

S: Yes … I alwavs felt it… but now I know …

Note: George now breaks down and we are unable to continue for a while. During this time I want my subject to get used to hugging his wife again and talking to her through his superconscious mind. He strongly believes that his guide and my own conspired to bring him to this junc- ture. I explain that the information he will gain should help him move on in his life with Dorothy. The catalyst for this awareness is evident when we start to identify other members of George’s soul group.

Dr. N: I want you now to identify the figures standing near Frances.

S: (brightens) Oh, really… I can’t believe … but, of course … it makes sense now.

Dr. N: What makes sense?

S: It’s Dorothy and … (becomes very emotional) … and Frank, they are standing together next to Frances, smiling at me … don’t you see?

Dr. N: What should I see?

S: That they have brought us … closer together, Dorothy and me. Dr. N: Explain why you think this is so?

S: (impatient with me) They are happy that we have found each other in … an intimate way. Dorothy has grieved a long time herself over Frank and the grief we both feel is being dispelled by having the company of each other.

Dr. N: And you see that all four of you are in the same soul group? S: Yes … but I had no idea this was true …

Dr. N: How are Frances and Dorothy different as souls?

S: Frances is a very strong teaching soul while Dorothy is more artis- tic and creative … gentle. Dorothy is a peaceful spirit and able to adapt more easily to existing conditions than the rest of us.

Dr. N: Now that you have the approval of Frances and Frank, what will Dorothy gain from associating with you as your second wife in this life?

S: Comfort, understanding, love … I can provide her with more protection because 1 am goal oriented. I challenge things Dorothy takes for granted. She is very accepting. We have a good balance.

Dr. N: Is Dorothy your primary soulmate?

S: (emphatically) No, it’s Frances. Dorothy usually matches with Frank in their lives, but we are all very close.

Dr. N: Have you and Dorothy worked together before in other lives?

S: Yes, but in different situations. She often takes the role of my sister, a niece, or close friend.

Dr. N: Why are you usually matched with Frances as a mate?

S: Frances and I have been with each other from the beginning. We are so close because we have struggled together, helping each other … she was always able to make me laugh at my serious nature—at my foolishness.

When I closed this segment of our session I felt that George had gained much insight. He was overjoyed at learning that it was no accident he and Dorothy were drawn together. All four souls knew their current timelines in advance.

I have had similar information come to me from clients who were not in the same soul group as their new love interest, but were con- nected as affiliated souls from nearby groups. I find most people know if the person they live with is not a significant soulmate. This does not mean they can’t have good relationships with souls out of their group. I will quote the statement from a client who died before his wife in their previous life together:

When I reach out to comfort my wife after my death, I do so as a friend and partner. We were not really in love. She was not an intimate soulmate for me, nor was 1 to her. I have a great deal of respect for her. We needed this relationship to work on those things which played to our individual strengths and weaknesses. So, I don't say, "I love you" into her mind because she would know it isn't true. She might then confuse my spirit with her soulmate. Our life contract is done and if she wishes, I want her to take another person into her heart.

Reuniting with Those We Love

It is fitting that I close this chapter on death with a case illustrating what it is like for soulmates who reunite on the other side. The case involves a widow who meets her husband at the gateway following a long separation.

Case 13

Dr. N: Who meets you right after death?

S: IT’S HIM! Eric … oh … at last… at last… my love …

Dr. N: (after calming my client) This man is your husband?

S: Yes, we are coming together right after I cross over—before I see our guide.

Dr. N: Tell me how everything unfolds, including the way feelings of endearment are transmitted between you and Eric.

S: We start with the eyes … from a little distance away… looking deep into each other . . . the knowing of everything flowing between our minds … of all that we have meant to each other… our energy gets sucked up into a magnetic pool of indescribable joy blending the two of us together.

Dr. N: At this moment have you both assumed the physical form you had in the last life?

S: (laughing) Yes, very rapidly we start with the first time we met— how we looked to each other—and move through the phases of body changes during our long marriage. It’s not definitive because we don’t settle on just one year of our life together. It’s more … swirling energy patterns right now. We even pick up on other bodies we had together in previous lives, too.

Dr. N: Were you usually female in those lives?

S: Mostly, yes. Later, we will revert to a mixed gender pattern because there were good times in our past lives when he was female and I was male, (pause) But it is just fun right now to be the people we were in our last life.

Note: My client asks me to please not ask her any more questions for a few minutes. She and Eric embrace and when she speaks to me again it is to describe how their energy flowed together.

S: It is an ecstasy of coalescing.

Dr. N: This spiritual passion sounds almost erotic to me.

S: Of course, but it is so much more. I can’t really describe it, but the rapture we feel for each other comes from all our contact together in hundreds of lives combined with memories of the blissful state we spend reunited between lives.

Dr. N: And how does the blending of your energy with your husband make you feel afterward?

S: (bursts out laughing) Like really wonderful sex, only better, (then more seriously) You must understand that I died as an eighty- three-year-old, sick woman. I was tired. It was a long life and I was a cold stove that needed warming up.

Dr. N: Cold stove?

S: Yes, I need energy rejuvenation. There is always a transfer of positive energy when we are met by our guides or by someone we love. Eric sparks up my tired energy. He lights a fire inside me to make me whole again.

Dr. N: When this meeting is over, what do the two of you do?

S: Our teacher comes to welcome me back and I am escorted through the mist to our center.

When a subject tells me that reentering the spirit world has the  effect of being made whole again, this requires qualification. We receive an infusion of new energy from soulmates and guides who may also transfer part of the energy we left behind back into us as well. However, as I said when discussing spiritual longing, complete wholeness will not take place until our work is done. Despite this, being restored to what  we were before the life began is like feeling whole once again. A subject put it this way: “Death is like waking up after a long sleep where you had just a muddled awareness. The release you feel is one that comes after crying, only here you are not crying.”

I have tried to show death from the perspective of the soul in order  to ease the pain of those left behind. As Plato said, “Once free of the body, the soul is able to see truth clearly because it is more pure than before and recalls the pure ideas which it knew before.” Survivors must learn to function again without the physical presence of the person they

loved by trusting the departed soul is still with them. Acceptance of loss comes one day at a time. Healing is a progression of mental steps that begins with having faith you are not truly alone.

In order to complete the life contract you made in advance with the departed, it is necessary to rejoin the rest of humanity as an active par- ticipant. You will see your love again soon enough. I am hopeful my years of research into the life we lead as souls may assist survivors in recognizing that death only exchanges one reality for another in the long continuum of existence.

Earthly Spirits

Astral Planes

When my hypnosis subjects describe their ascent into the spirit world as “rising through misty layers of translucent light,” I am reminded of the astral planes we read about in Eastern texts. I must confess that I am not at all attracted to the rigid stair-step quality of exactly seven planes of existence, from low to high, which come from Eastern spiritual philosophy. This is due to the fact that my clients see no evidence of all these planes. It is a human failing to label concepts as a means of codification. In my descriptions about the spirit world I am as guilty of this practice as everyone else. Perhaps it is best that we simply take  those precepts which make spiritual  sense to us and reject the rest, regardless of the age of certain ideas or who tells us they are true.

The reason for my objections to a rigid formula of specific planes of existence from Earth to a Godhead is that these states are unnecessary inhibitors. All my research with subjects in a higher state of consciousness indicates to me that upon death we go directly from one astral plane around Earth through the gateway into the spirit world. It does not matter if my subject is a young soul or a highly advanced older soul, right after death they all tell me their soul passes through a dense atmosphere of light around the astral plane of Earth. This light has patches of darkish gray but no impenetrable black zones. Many describe a tunnel effect. All souls from Earth then quickly move into the bright light of the spirit world. This is a single ethereal space with- out zones or barriers around it.

In the spirit world itself, all the so-called spaces or places available to the reincarnating soul are congruent. For instance, the Akashic Record traditions of Eastern thought don’t appear to my subjects as being on some fourth causal plane separate from other functional areas. My sub- jects call these records Life Books, which are stored in symbolic libraries that are seen adjacent to other spiritual places.

I acknowledge there is much beyond the spiritual experience of the reincarnating soul and therefore out of my range of inquiry. Perhaps the whole idea of cosmic planes is basically an attempt to conceptualize stages of ethereal awareness as opposed to movement prevented by barriers. Historically, specific demarcations of planes that enclose the “underworld”—designed for certain unworthy souls—have been more prevalent in human thinking. I will discuss this further in chapter 6.

When my subjects tell of traveling interdimensionally, I suppose one could interpret this as soul movement through planes. The term “plane” is not used nearly as much as the words levels, edges, borders and divisions, except when a client refers to Earth. People in hypnosis

report that within the astral plane surrounding Earth, alternate or coexistent realities are part of our physical world. Apparently, within these realities, non-material beings can be seen by some people in our physical reality. I have been told of multitudes of interdimensional spheres that are used by souls for training and recreation from the spirit world.

Spiritual boundaries can be as small as the “glasslike” divisions between cluster groups, or as large as the zones between universes. I am told all spatial zones have vibrational properties that allow for soul pas- sage only when their energy waves are attuned to the proper frequency. The more developed souls explain that absolute time as we know it does not seem to exist in these areas. Does the physical world of Earth have similar characteristics that are unseen by most of us? I had a thoughtful client who wrote me the following after his session:

Working with you has made me realize that our reality is like a movie projector showing us images on a three- dimensional screen of sky, mountains, and seas. If a sec- ond projector, with its own imprint of alternating light frequencies and space-time sequences, was synchronized with the first, both realities could exist simultaneously with material and non-material entities in the same zone.

If what people in a trance state tell me about this system has validity, etheric beings would be capable of existing in different realities within the same astral plane surrounding Earth—indeed on Earth itself. The vibrational energy forces around Earth are in constant flux. It seems to me that if these magnetic fields change density, they would produce cyclic variations over centuries of human time. Therefore, we may be more or less receptive to viewing spirits on Earth in any given century.

Perhaps the ancients really could see more than we do in the modern world.

Nature Spirits

On a national TV show, a woman reported that she had seen elves in her vineyard. She said that in the beginning she only heard them and was a little concerned about her sanity. In time she was able to talk to them and a few became visible to her. She described them as being about two feet high with pointed ears and wearing baggy pants. Of course, many people in her area thought she was crazy when this news got out. The advice she received from these beings about what to use in her soil to increase the quantity and quality of grape production over that of the neighboring farms soon caused many of them to take her more seriously. When the story was released, this woman was invited to have her brainwaves tested. When her senses were stimulated it was found that portions of her brain were capable of a much higher energy output than normal.

I had a client who also claimed to have such abilities. She was an old soul and in a deep trance state said, “Fairy folk were here long before the rise of our civilizations and have never left. Most of us do not see them today, as in ancient times, because they are so old their density has become very light, while our Earth bodies still have heavy energy.” I questioned her further and she added, “While a rock has a 1-D (den- sity), a tree would be a 2-D and our bodies are at the 3-D level. Thus,   the beings of nature would be invisible with a transparency registering between 4-D and 6-D.”

When I think of the woman who saw elves in her vineyard, I see a picture in my mind. If we could look at Earth with x-ray vision it might resemble a series of overlaid, clear plastic topographical sheets. These

vibrational energy layers vary in density and denote alternate realities to me. Certain gifted people might be able to see within these layers, but most of us are unable to do so.

It is also my belief that much of our folklore comes from the memo- ries souls have of their experiences on other physical and mental worlds. What they have to say about these experiences while under hypnosis conforms in some respects to the myths and legends of Earth. These soul associations include spirits in trees and plants as well as connections to the elements of air, water and fire. Folklore and soul memory will be explored further in later chapters.

Ghosts

Many researchers into the paranormal have written about ghosts. I do not consider myself proficient in this field, although I have had some exposure with souls as ghosts. At my lectures I am often asked how benevolent spirit guides can allow these beings to wander around lost, unhappy and alone. My contribution to the study of ghosts will be to review what I feel are some misconceptions and to explain this phe- nomenon from the perspective of the ghost rather than from those who see them on Earth.

When I began to devote my hypnotherapy practice exclusively to the study of life between lives, it took years before a client came to me who had been a ghost for an appreciable amount of time after a former life. I don’t consider short-timers ghosts in the traditional sense. For instance, I had a client who died young in a schoolhouse fire while saving the children. This teacher stayed around town for some months afterward just checking on the kids and other people who were grieving at her untimely death. When I asked what prompted her to finally leave she said, “Oh, eventually 1 got bored.” I have come to the conclusion that only a small fraction of souls have ever been ghosts, beyond the normal amount of time it takes for the new discarnate to adjust before leaving Earth. I don’t believe we are being haunted by that many ghosts around the world.

The cases which follow will demonstrate that our guides do not compel or coerce us to move into the spirit world if our unfinished business is so overpowering that we do not want to leave Earth’s astral plane. I find this is especially true if the soul has a permissive guide. Some guides have much more of a hands-off approach. Then, too, our guides typically don’t make personal appearances next to us at the moment of death at ground zero.

For most souls, the pulling sensation right after death is gentle and only grows more deliberate as we leave Earth’s astral plane. There is no question that higher beings are instantly aware of our death. Yet the wishes of the deceased are respected. Keep in mind that time means nothing in the spirit world. Discarnates don’t have a linear clock in their heads so staying behind for days, months, or years doesn’t have the same relevance as with incarnates. A ghost who has haunted an English castle for four hundred years and finally returns to the spirit world may feel in spirit time this amounted to forty days, or even forty hours.

Some people have the misconception that ghosts don’t know they are dead or how to escape their situation. Yes, in a sense, they are trapped but this is a condition of mental obstruction rather than any material hindrance. Souls are not lost in some confined astral plane and they do know they have made a transition out of life on Earth. The ghost’s confusion lies in the obsessive attachment they have to places, people and events where they can’t let go. These actions of self-displacement are voluntary but special guides, called Redeemer Masters, constantly watch for signs that the known disturbed spirits are ready to exit. We have the right to self-determination, even with our death experience. Spiritual guides will honor poor decision-making.

From what I have been able to observe, ghosts are less mature spirits who have trouble freeing themselves from earthly contaminations. This is particularly true if their stay in limbo is for prolonged periods in Earth years. The reasons for staying behind are varied. Perhaps the life ended in an unexpected manner, which caused a deviation from a major path. These souls may feel their free will has been thwarted in some  way. Quite often there was a terrible trauma connected to the ghost’s death. Perhaps they want to try and protect a person they care about from danger.

In 1994, a young woman driving at night on a road not far from my house in the Sierra Nevada Mountains tumbled down a steep embank- ment and was killed. No one had seen the accident or noticed the wreck fifty feet down the hill where for five days her three-year-old son clung to life. This accident attracted national attention when it was reported that a passing motorist saw a ghostly apparition of a nude young woman lying on the highway directly above the wreckage. This was a dramatic way for this ghost to be noticed and it worked because her child was found just in time to save his life.

I find the underlying cause behind disturbed spirits to be a sudden change in their planned karmic direction that they perceive to be not only unexpected but unjust. The most common cases of ghosts appear to involve souls who were murdered or wronged by another person in life. My next case begins as a typical ghost story but then reveals how these matters are resolved constructively for the ghost.

The Abandoned Soul

Belinda came to see me because of an overwhelming sense of sadness she was unable to comprehend based upon her current life experience. During my intake interview I learned she was forty-seven and had never been married. She moved to California from the East Coast after a stormy breakup with a man called Stuart some twenty years before. Belinda cared for Stuart but she had broken off their engagement after making a decision to change her life and come west to pursue a new career. She asked Stuart to come with her but he did not want to leave his job and his family. Stuart pleaded with Belinda to marry him and stay in the area where they had both grown up but she refused. Belinda told me that Stuart was devastated by her leaving him but he wouldn’t follow her. Eventually, Stuart married someone else.

Some years later, Belinda said she met Burt and they had an intensely passionate relationship for a while but eventually he left her for another woman. I wondered if this was the source of Belinda’s unexplained sad- ness but she told me no, she had been hurt, but that it was a good thing she hadn’t married Burt. Belinda now realized that besides his being an unfaithful lover, she and Burt were temperamentally unsuited. Belinda added that, for some reason, long before her relationships with men began she had these strange feelings of abandonment and loss.

Case 14

It is my custom to move subjects into their most immediate past life before we enter the spirit world. This hypnosis technique allows for a more natural mental passage following a death scene. I asked Belinda to pick a critical scene to open our discussion about her former life. She chose one of great mental anguish. She said she was a young woman by the name of Elizabeth living on a large farm near Bath, England, in the year 1897. Elizabeth was on her knees holding the coattails of her husband, Stanley, who was dragging her through the front doorway of their manor house. After five years of marriage, Stanley was leaving her.

Dr. N: What is Stanley saying to you at this moment?

S: (now begins to sob) He says, “I’m sorry about this but I need to get away from this farm and go out to see the rest of the world.”

Dr. N: How do you respond, Elizabeth?

S: I am imploring—begging Stanley not to leave because I love him so much and that I will try harder to make him happy here. My arms are aching from holding his coat and being dragged down the hall to the front steps.

Dr, N: What does your husband say?

S: (still crying) Stanley says, “It’s not you, really. I’m just sick of this place. I’ll be back.”

Dr. N: Do you think he means it?

S: Oh … I know a part of him loves me in some way but his need to escape this life and all he has known since he was a boy is too overpowering, (after this statement my subject’s body begins to shake uncontrollably)

Dr. N: (after soothing her a bit) Tell me what is happening now, Elizabeth.

S: It’s about over. I can’t hold him any longer … my arms are not strong enough—they hurt, (subject rubs her arms) I fall down the rest of the steps in front of the servants—I don’t care. Stanley gets on his horse and rides away while I watch helplessly.

Dr. N: Do you ever see him again?  S: No, I only know he went to Africa.

Dr. N: How do you maintain yourself, Elizabeth?

S: He left me the estate but I do not manage it well. I let most of the staff and workers go. In time we have almost no livestock and I am barely subsisting but I cannot leave the farm. I must wait for him should he finally decide to come back to me.

Dr. N: Elizabeth, I now want you to go to the last day your life. Give me the year and the circumstances leading up to this day.

S: It is 1919 (subject is fifty-two) and I am dying of influenza. I haven’t put up much resistance in the last few weeks because I have just been existing. My loneliness and sorrow… the struggle to keep the farm going … my heart is broken.

I now take Elizabeth through her death scene and attempt to bring her into the light. It is no use because she remains grounded to the farm. I soon discover this rather young soul is about to become a ghost.

Dr. N: Why are you resisting moving up away from Earth’s astral plane?

S: I won’t go—I can’t leave yet. Dr. N: Why not?

S: I must wait longer at the farm for Stanley.

Dr. N: But you have waited for twenty-two years already and he has not returned.

S: Yes, I know. Still, I just can’t bring myself to go.

Dr. N: What do you do now?

S: I hover as a spirit.

I talk to Elizabeth about her ghostly appearance and behavior around the farm. She does not zero in on Stanley’s energy vibrations to locate him anywhere in the world, as an experienced soul would do. Further questioning indicates that Elizabeth has the idea that if she can scare away any potential buyers the estate might remain in the family. Indeed, the property does sit idle with no new occupants because everyone in the district knows it is haunted. Elizabeth tells me she flies around the manor house crying over her abandonment.

Dr. N: How long do you wait for Stanley in Earth years? S: Uh, four years.

Dr. N: Does this seem like a long time for you? What do you do?

S: It is nothing—a few weeks. I cry… and moan over my sadness, I can’t help it. I know this scares people, especially when I knock things over.

Dr. N: Why do you want to scare people who have done you no harm?

S: To express my displeasure at what was done to me. Dr. N: Please explain to me how all this comes to an end. S: I am … called.

Dr. N: Oh, you have asked for a release from this sad situation.

S: (long pause) Well… not actually… sort of… but he knows I am about ready. He comes and says to me, “Don’t you think this is enough?”

Dr. N: Who says this to you, and what happens?

S: The Redeemer of Lost Souls calls to me and I move further away from Earth with him and we talk while waiting.

Dr. N: Just a minute—is this your spirit guide?

S: (smiles for the first time) No, we are waiting for my guide. This spirit is Doni. He rescues souls like me. That’s his job.

Dr. N: What does Doni look like and what does he say to you?

S: (laughs) He looks like a little gnome, with a wrinkled face and a top hat which is all beat up—his whiskers shake when he talks to me. He tells me if I want to stay longer 1 can but wouldn’t it be more fun to go home and see Stanley there. He is very comical and makes me laugh but he is so gentle and wise. He takes me by the hand and we move to a beautiful place to talk more.

Dr. N: Tell me about this place and what happens to you next.

S: Well, this is a place for grieving souls like me and it looks like a beautiful meadow with flowers. Doni tells me to be joyful and he infuses my energy with love and happiness and purifies my mind. He lets me play like a child again among the flowers and tells me to chase the butterflies while he rests in the sun.

Dr. N: It sounds wonderful. How long does all this go on? S: (rather put off by my question) For as long as I want!

Dr. N: During this time, does Doni talk to you about Stanley and your behavior as a ghost?

S: (reacts with distaste) He absolutely does not do that! The Redeemer is not Tishin (subject’s guide). Those questions will come later. This is my time to rest. Doni’s old face is so full of kindness and love, he never scolds. He just encourages me to play.

His job is to bring my soul back to health by helping me cleanse my mind.

After Elizabeth’s energy is rejuvenated, Doni escorts her to Tishin and kisses her goodbye. Then the preliminary evaluations begin as with a normal orientation for someone returning to the spirit world. I was able to access this conference with Elizabeth-Belinda and it was instructive. In the beginning she stated that her life as an abandoned wife was wasted. Certainly, Elizabeth pined away much of her life in suffering without making adjustments or accepting change. Under Tishin’s guidance she saw that this lesson was not wasted. Belinda today is a very independent and productive woman who has weathered many emotional storms.

By now, I am sure the reader has figured out that Stanley is Stuart today. When I relate this part of the story to people, some say to me, “Oh, good, she was able to turn the tables on that bastard with the same treatment to get revenge for what he did to her.” This thinking shows how we misunderstand karmic lessons. The souls of Elizabeth and Stanley volunteered to assume their roles today as Belinda and Stuart. Stuart needed to feel the emotional pain of what he had wrought on Elizabeth. As Stanley, he had made a commitment of marriage in a culture and time when women were quite dependent upon their husbands. Because his action to leave her was swift and uncompromising, it was particularly brutal. This does not excuse Elizabeth, who took no responsibility for making changes in her life. Her suffering and nonacceptance of the situation was so extreme she ultimately became a ghost.

By assuming Stanley’s role in her current life, the soul of Belinda had to learn what motivated Stanley’s feelings of entrapment in an undesirable location. Belinda was not Stuart’s wife when she left the East Coast so the commitment was not quite the same as Stuart had with her in their former life when he was Stanley. Yet in this life they were lovers again and Stuart felt forsaken by Belinda’s desire to leave their town, friends and family to seek adventure and opportunity elsewhere. Because she had the courage to do this alone, Belinda’s soul has now acquired the insight that Stanley did not leave her out of a malicious desire to inflict emotional pain. Stanley wanted freedom and so did Belinda.

Belinda has carried the mental imprint of this past life into her life today. From a karmic standpoint, Belinda has a dose of residual sorrow as Elizabeth which she was unable to comprehend until our session. Belinda told me she still thinks about Stuart and he probably cannot forget her since she was his first love. They are soulmates in the same group and I think it is likely the two of them will assume a new role together in their next life, balancing what they have learned in the last two lives.

For those of you who are curious why Belinda had to endure the brief unrequited love affair with Burt, this was a test. Burt is another member of the same soul group and he volunteered to trigger Belinda’s soul memories of being Elizabeth to see if she had learned to stand up to the emotional pain of a broken heart. Burt’s actions also served as a wake-up call for Belinda to realize in her current life how Stuart felt when she left him. The blade of karma cuts both ways.

Spiritual Duality

Some years ago a magazine article recounted the travels of an American woman who was driving through the English countryside and felt inex- plicably drawn to a small side road away from her intended destination. Soon she came to a deserted old manor house (not Stanley’s). The woman was told by the caretaker the house was haunted by a ghost who looked very much like her. Walking around the grounds she felt an eerie connection to something. Presumably she was there to help release her- self. The two portions of her soul could have been drawn to each other  in the same mysterious way that two people living parallel lives with one soul might be if there was a compelling purpose.

In chapter 1,1 touched upon the duality of souls and how they are able to divide their energy to live more than one life at a time. A portion of the energy of most souls never leaves the spirit world during their incarnations. I’ll discuss soul division further in the next chapter, but splitting soul energy is particularly relevant to the study of ghosts. In  my last case, even though Elizabeth was in limbo for a while as a ghost, another part of her energy remained in the spirit world working on lessons and interacting with other souls. That other portion may also incarnate again and move on to a new life, which is what I believe happened with the woman who found the haunted house.

I disagree with some ghost authorities who state that ghostly forms only represent an earthly shell without a soul’s core of consciousness. There are life cycles when souls choose to take less energy than they should into a human body. However, even if they become ghosts, such souls are far more than an empty shell of energy. One would think that the balance of a ghost’s energy remaining in the spirit world ought to be more helpful to their disturbed alter ego still hanging around Earth. From what I hear, most immature souls who cross over are unable to perform this transfer and integration of energy by themselves. The following excerpt is a report I received from the soulmate of a ghost. This ghost is a young level I soul who was my subject’s first husband.

Case 15

Dr. N: You have told me that your first husband, Bob, was a ghost after his last life. Please explain the circumstances here.

S: Bob became a ghost because he was killed early in our marriage in that life. He was so overcome with despair and concern for me he wouldn’t leave.

Dr. N: I see. Can you tell me approximately how much of his total energy he carried with him into that life?

S: (nods her head in assent) Bob had only about a quarter of his energy and it was not enough for him in this mental crisis … he misjudged … (stops)

Dr. N: Do you think that if Bob had taken more of his energy to allow for this contingency he might not have become a ghost?

S: Oh, I can’t answer that, but I think it would have made him stronger … more resistant to sorrow.

Dr. N: Then why did he take so little energy to Earth?

S: Well, because he wanted to be more engaged with his work in the spirit world.

Dr. N: I’m confused about why Bob’s guide didn’t just make him take more energy to Earth.

S: (shakes her head negatively) No, no! We are not pushed around that way. We are free to make our choices. And Bob didn’t have to become a ghost, you know. Bob was advised to take more but he is stubborn and he was also considering another life at the same time, (a parallel life)

Dr. N: Let me make sure I understand. Bob underestimated his capacity to function more normally in a crisis with a body having only 25 percent of his energy capacity?

S: (sadly) I’m afraid so.

Dr. N: Even though in death that body was gone?

S: It didn’t matter. The effects were still with him and he didn’t have enough strength to combat the circumstances.

Dr. N: How long did Bob stay a ghost before the rest of his energy was restored to him in the spirit world?

S: Not long, about thirty years. He couldn’t seem to help himself… lack of experience … part of his lesson … then our teacher was called by… you know… those beings who patrol Earth watching over the disturbed ones . . . to go get the rest of him to come home…

Dr. N: They have been called the Redeemers of Lost Souls by some people.

S: That’s a good name for them, only Bob’s soul wasn’t lost exactly, only tormented.

Souls in Seclusion

My next case involves a more advanced subject who provided me with details about entities who are not ghosts but won’t go home after death. As the case unfolds we will see that there are two motivating factors that drive these types of souls into seclusion.

Case 16

Dr. N: Are there people who die who are not ready to return to the spirit world?

S: Yes, some souls who are released from their physical bodies don’t want to leave Earth.

Dr. N: I suppose they are all ghosts?

S: No, but they can be if that is their desire—most are not. They simply don’t want to be in contact with anyone.

Dr. N: And their spiritual energy does not go home right after death?

S: That’s right, except there is a part of their energy which never left the spirit world.

Dr. N: So I have heard. But let me ask if you consider these secluded souls as short-timers or do they stay in limbo for a long time in Earth years?

S: It varies. Some want to return as quickly as possible in a new body.

These souls don’t want to give up their physical form for any length of time. They are different from most of us who want to rest and go home to study. Many of this type have been real front-line warriors on Earth. They want to maintain a continuity with their physical life.

Dr. N: Well, it is my understanding that our guides won’t permit us to be in some kind of holding pattern near Earth and go right into a new life. Don’t these souls know they must go through the normal process of returning back to their groups, receiving counseling, studying their lessons and taking some part in the selection of a new body?

S: (laughs) You’re right, but the guides don’t force those in extreme distress to return home until they see the benefits of doing so.

Dr. N: Yes, but they won’t give them a new body right away until after some sort of period of readjustment.

S: (shrugs) Yes, that’s true.

Dr. N: Is it also true that other disturbed souls don’t want to go back to Earth and won’t go back where they belong in the spirit  world either?

S: That’s right—another type …

Dr. N: But if both soul types don’t prowl around Earth as discarnates bothering people as ghosts, should I be calling them disturbed when all they want is to be left alone?

S: They are divergent. Their actions are the result of something unfinished … traumatic … overwhelming. They are unwilling to let go and this conduct is not usual. They won’t talk to their teachers because of the extent of their unhappiness.

Dr. N: Why don’t their guides just take charge and pull them up deeper into the spirit world despite their resistance?

S: If souls were forced to do what is right for them they would learn nothing from getting into a funk and shutting themselves up from everyone.

Dr. N: Okay, but I still wonder why the souls who want to come back right away, with no stopovers in the spirit world, can’t just be given a new body immediately?

S: Can’t you see that placing a disturbed soul into a new body would be totally unfair to a baby just starting life? These souls have a right to be in seclusion, but they will eventually make the decision to ask for assistance. They must come to the conclusion they can’t progress alone. Being given a new body won’t help them.

Dr. N: Where do the souls go who don’t want to wander the Earth as ghosts but won’t go home?

S: (ruefully) It’s any space they want to create for themselves. They design their own reality with memories of a physical life. Some souls live in nice places like a garden setting. Others—those who have harmed people, for instance—design terrible spaces for themselves like a prison, a room with no windows. In these spaces they box themselves in so they can’t experience much light or make contact with anyone. It is self-imposed punishment.

Dr. N: I have heard that disturbed souls—the ones associated with evil—are taken into seclusion in the spirit world.

S: That’s correct, but at least they are ready to face the music and have their energy healed properly with love and care.

Dr. N: Can you give me some indication of how our guides deal with all types of souls in self-imposed exile?

S: They give them time to sweat it out. This is a challenge for teachers.

They know these souls are concerned about their evaluations and the reactions from their soul groups. They are full of negative energy and not thinking clearly. It may take many reassurances by those who wish to help them before these souls agree to give up their self- imposed places of confinement.

Dr. N: I assume there are as many techniques of persuasion as there are guides?

S: Sure … depending upon the range of skill. Some teachers will not go near a disturbed student until that soul is so sick of being in seclusion they voluntarily call for help. This can take quite a while, (pause, then continues) Other teachers drop in often for chats.

Dr. N: Eventually, will all these disturbed souls release themselves?

S: (pause) Let’s put it this way. Eventually, all will be released one way or another through different forms of encouragement… (laughs) or persuasion.

Those of you who are familiar with my work know that I have strong convictions about the influence soul memory has on human thought. The isolation and solitude of souls expressed in case 16 might well give one the impression of a Christian purgatory as a place of atonement. Could this religious concept have sprung from the fragmented soul memories of seclusion in the spirit world only to be subverted on Earth? There are similarities and great differences between my findings about soul seclusion and purgatory as defined by the church.

Christian doctrine has purgatory as a state of self-purification for those who must eliminate all traces of sin before proceeding on to heaven. I hear that some souls in seclusion undergo self-cleansing while others may require energy restoration. However, we don’t come out of seclusion totally purified or there would be no need  to reincarnate again. Also, soul confinement is not banishment. In recent years the less conservative elements of the Christian church do not stress hell as much as in the past. Nevertheless, the church still rejects universalism, the belief that everyone goes to heaven. To them, souls who die in a state of unrepentant mortal sin bypass purgatory and descend into hell where they suffer the punishments of “eternal fire.” To be eternally damned, according to the church, is a separation from God as opposed to those who are blessed. The Christian churches simply do not accept the concept that everything is forgivable in the afterlife. In my experience, all souls are repentant because they hold themselves accountable for their choices.

From all I have learned, soul energy cannot be destroyed or made nonfunctional but it can be reshaped and purified of earthly contamina- tion. Souls who demand to be left in solitude after death on Earth are not self-destructing, rather some feel isolation is necessary out of con- cern for contaminating other souls with negative energy. There are also souls who don’t feel contaminated but they are not ready to be consoled by anyone.

The important thing to keep in mind is that souls have the owner- ship of their energy and most ask their guides to be taken to the centers of healing and rejuvenation in the spirit world. These are therapeutic areas away from their soul groups where there is solitude and time for personal reflection. However, this is a form of directed therapy. The dis- turbed souls case 16 talked about had not yet chosen to receive help. All my case histories indicate to me that after death we have the right to refuse assistance from our spiritual masters for as long as we wish.

I have been asked at lectures if the places of self-imposed exile are “lower planes” or “lower worlds.” I can’t help but feel these ideas come from fear-based dogma. Perhaps it’s a question of semantics. I think a better translation of this state is a self-imposed space, a vacuum of sub- jective reality designed by the soul who wants to be alone. Separated space, away from the soul’s spiritual center, is one of its own making. I don’t see these souls as being lost in some realm divided from the spirit world where others reside. The disjunction is mental.

Souls of silence know they are immortal but they feel impotent. Consider what they do in solitude without help. They relive their acts over and over again, playing back all the karmic implications of what they have done to others and what has been done to them in their last life. They may have harmed others or been harmed by them. Quite often I hear they feel victimized by events over which they had little control. They are sad and mad at the same time. They have no inter- action with their soul groups. These souls suffer from self-recrimination and restricted insight. 1 must admit these conditions fall within some of the definitions of purgatory.

Sartre said, “We have an imaginary self of the world with tendencies and desires and a real self.” To this statement I would add that of William Blake, “Perception of our true self may threaten mergence with that self.” In their space, the souls of solitude have given up their imag- inary Self for a large dose of self-flagellation. Solitude and quiet self- analysis is an important and normal aspect of soul life within the spirit world. The difference here is that these disturbed souls are not yet ready to seek relief from their torment by asking for help, moving forward and making changes. It’s a good thing that these souls make up only a small fraction of the population of souls crossing over each day.

Discarnates Who Visit Earth

There are entities who travel to Earth as tourists and have never incar- nated on our planet. Some are quite advanced while others are mal- adapts. The character of these beings has been described to me as friendly, helpful and peaceful, or distant, aggravating and even con- tentious. For thousands of years I believe they have been considered in our folklore as beings with the capacity to create both fear and enchantment. Our mythology alludes to the differences between light beings who are airy and whimsical and darker beings who are heavy with ugly temperaments. Some of these pre-Christian legends have spilled over into current religious beliefs of a light or dark tableau of grace or violence in the afterlife.

Quite a number of my subjects have told me that between their lives on Earth they travel as discarnates to other worlds both in and out of our dimension. Some explain that they see other nonphysical entities on these trips. This is why it has been surprising to me that only occa- sionally do I receive small amounts of information from clients about encountering other light beings on Earth. My clients see them when they decide to visit Earth as discarnates themselves between lives. The reports are intriguing, as the next case illustrates.

Case 17

Dr. N: Since you have described to me how much you enjoy traveling to both physical and mental worlds between your lives, I am curious what you know about other beings you might see when you come to Earth?

S: They float through our reality here on Earth just as I do in other dimensions.

Dr. N: Do you know many souls who regularly incarnate on Earth that visit here like yourself?

S: No, as a matter of fact, it’s not all that common, but I like to come.

Many of my friends enjoy a change in scenery between lives and stay away from Earth. When I come here, sometimes I see strange beings I don’t know.

Dr. N: What do they look like?

S: Odd, strange shapes, wispy or dense … not human-looking.

Dr. N: Let’s talk about this. You have told me of the ability souls have in the spirit world to project a human form. What do you and your friends look like as spirits on Earth?

S: Oh … rather the same, but on a dense world such as Earth, we shift more on the physical side … to add flavor to what we once were here.

Dr. N: You mean you are in more of a corporeal state?

S: Um … ves … sort of. On worlds such as Earth we are more defined around the edges—the way we outline a human body in a transparent fashion as soft, diffused light. In the spirit world when we assume body features, say of a former life, we glow all over with full-strength energy.

Dr. N: Can a non-physical being, even in a diffused state, be visible to living inhabitants?

S: (chuckles) Oh, yes … but only certain people can see us as apparitions and then not always.

Dr. N: Why is that?

S: It has to do with their level of receptivity—of perception—at certain moments when we are in their area.

Dr. N: If you will, please put yourself in the position of a transparent light being on Earth and tell me what you do here. I want you to include any non-human spirits you see who have had no incarnation experiences on our planet.

S: (happily) As visitors, we soar through the mountains and valleys, the cities and small towns. For us, there is a vicarious picking up of the energy of Earth’s struggles. It’s always interesting to bump into different kinds of beings who are also on tour here. They know Earth’s inhabitants are afraid of us and most of these beings would like to dispel the fear … yet… those of us from Earth know we can’t afford to get entangled with people’s lives in any major way.

Dr. N:  Meaning that some beings  from other worlds  have no such reservations?

S: Yes.

Dr. N: I assume by “entangled” you mean interfering in someone’s karmic path?

S: Well… yes.

Dr. N: But why not help people if you can?

S: (abruptly,  and maybe with  some guilt)  Look, we are not  guides assigned to Earth. We are only visitors, as are the others we see here occasionally. It’s a vacation trip for all of us. If we come across a condition going bad we might take a moment to briefly … turn a head toward a better alternative path. We do get pleasure out of… nudging people … to act in their better interest rather than turning the wrong way.

Dr. N: If you happen to be in the right place at the right time?

S: Right, to give … a gentle push in a better direction at a crucial moment (raises voice)—no fixing of major trouble spots, you understand.

Dr. N: Then you would be considered as good s p i r i t s ? S: (laughs) As opposed to what?

Dr. N: (in an attempt to draw this subject out) To bad spirits who interfere with life forms for the pleasure of doing harm.

S: (abruptly) Who told you this? There are no evil spirits, only inept ones … and those who are careless … and indifferent…

Dr. N: How about sad spirits, or ones who are disoriented, or playful spirits—can’t they cause harm?

S: Oh, yes, but it is not premeditated evil, (pause, and then adds) Not all of us are in the same category … soaring around Earth on a lark.

Dr. N: That’s what I was getting at. I’m thinking of ghosts.

S: These are spirits grounded here by their own volition. Dr. N: How about the spirits who are strangers to Earth?

S: (pause) There are other spirits who travel interdimensionally who we consider to be maladapts. They do not seem to have any sensitivity to Earth. They are not knowledgeable about human beings.

Dr. N: (coaxing) And can they cause problems for the living?

S: (edgy) Yes, sometimes … although it might be unintentional. They are not bad or evil, just clumsy, mischievous children. The younger light beings can get lost between and within dimensions. Their amusements distract them. We consider them as naughty youngsters. These pranksters think Earth is their playground where they can engage in devilish behavior with susceptible, gullible people  and scare the hell out of them. They have a hilarious time before they are caught by one of the Rovers (tracker guides) sent to recapture these truants.

Dr. N: Is this a common occurrence?

S: Actually, I don’t think so. They are like children who escape from the watchful eyes of parents once in a while.

Dr. N: So you don’t see malevolent spirits directed here by some demonic force?

S: (promptly) Nooo—sometimes we might run into a dark, heavy entity who is disoriented by the Earth sphere. This place is dense but they come from places even more dense. Anyway, they want to cling to us because they don’t know what they are doing. We call them the “heavies” because of their lack of mobility.

Dr. N: What about the spirits you spoke of who are just indifferent to people on Earth?

S: (deep sigh) Yeah, they can scare people. This is because some of them have a disruptive nature. They are not considerate.

Dr. N: Bulls in a china shop?

S: Yeah—no adaption to local customs …

Dr. N: And, in these cases with different types of spirits who might be aggravating to the people here, do you try to intervene in some way?

S: Yes, if we come across them acting like rogues we put a stop to it and try and  push them away. This is very infrequent… most out-of- worlders are serious and respectful, (pause) I want to stress that we are not philanthropists. This is our recreation time and we want to be free of responsibility.

Dr. N: Okay then, why would an inept spirit of any sort come to Earth for whatever reason and be allowed to cause trouble, even inadvertently, for the people living here? Do their guides lack good parenting skills?

S: (unruffled) Well… too much monitoring makes for dull children.

If they were on a tight leash how would they learn? They are not going to be allowed to destroy or do great harm.

Dr. N: One last question. Do you think that all the kinds of spirits we have been talking about exist in large numbers swarming all over Earth?

S: Not at all. Compared to Earth’s population, only a tiny fraction.

Judging by my own experience here, there are times when only a few are around and I may not see them at all. It is not a constant thing … it’s more cyclic.

There is a mystery to that which is invisible to the living, when only our senses tell us something is there. I wonder if spiritual travelers don’t engender memories within us of recognition of what we once were and will be again.

Demons or Devas

I think it is fitting that I close this chapter with a summary of some misconceptions we have about the existence of evil spirits, good spirits and spiritual influences on Earth. If I step rather heavily on any pet   theories of the reader, please understand that my statements come from the reports of many hypnosis subjects in my practice. These subjects do not see the devil or demonic spirits floating around Earth. What they do feel when they are spirits is an abundance of negative human energy exuding the intense emotions of anger, hate and fear. These disruptive thought patterns are attracted to the consciousness of other negative thinkers who collect and disseminate even more disharmony. All this dark energy in the air works to the detriment of positive wisdom on Earth.

The ancients thought demons were flying beings who occupied the regions between heaven and Earth and were not particularly wicked. The early Christian church elevated demons to the status of “evil rulers of darkness.” As fallen angels, they were able to disguise themselves as messengers of God rather than Satan in order to deceive humans. I think it is fair to say that within the more liberal religious communities today, demons represent our own inner misguided passions that can get us into trouble.

In all my years of working with souls, never once have I had a subject who was possessed by another spirit, unfriendly or otherwise. When I made this statement at one lecture, a man raised his hand and said,

'That is all very well, O great guru, but until you have placed everyone in the world under hypnosis don't tell me about the absence of demonic forces!" Of course, this is a valid argument against my hypothesis that such things as soul possession, evil demons, the devil and hell don't exist. Nevertheless, I can come to no other conclusion when all of my subjects, even those who came to me with conscious beliefs in demonic forces, reject the existence of such beings when they see themselves as spirits.

Once in a while a client comes to me convinced they have been possessed by an alien entity or some sort of malevolent spirit. I have had other clients who believe an evil curse has been placed upon them from some past life behavior. As my hypnosis regression session moves into the superconscious mind of these people, typically we find one of three conditions:

1. Almost always the fear proves to be absolutely groundless.

• Occasionally, a friendly spirit, often a dead relative, has been trying to reach them. My distraught client has misinterpreted the intent of this spirit who only wished to bring comfort and love. There has been miscommunication between the sender and receiver. Souls have little trouble with telepathy between themselves, but this does not mean all souls are adept communicators with incarnated people.

• Very rarely, a disturbed, inept spirit has made contact because of some unresolved karmic issues they have on Earth. We saw this in case 14.

Researchers into the paranormal have come up with three more reasons which ought to be added to my own as to why certain people believe they have been possessed by a demon:

• Emotional and physical abuse as a child, which create feelings that the adult abuser represents an evil power who has total control.

• Multiple Personality Disorder.

• Periodic increases in the actions of electromagnetic fields around Earth which are sufficient enough to disrupt brain activity in a disturbed individual.

The possibility that people can be possessed by a satanic being comes right out of medieval belief systems. It is fear based and the result of theological superstition that has ruined countless lives over the last thousand years. Much of this nonsense has dissipated in the last two hundred years, but it lingers with the fundamentalists. The exorcism of demons is still practiced by some religious groups. Frequently, I find that clients who come to me with concerns about possession have lives which seem to be out of their control and filled with a variety of per- sonal obsessions and compulsions. People who hear voices commanding them to do bad things are likely to be schizophrenic—they are not possessed.

Our physical world may have unhappy or mischievous spirits floating round, but they do not lock in and inhabit the minds of people. The spirit world is much too ordered to allow for such muddled soul activ- ity. Being possessed by another being would not only abrogate our life contract but destroy free will. These factors form the foundation of reincarnation and cannot be compromised. The idea that satanic entities exist as outside forces to confuse and subvert people is a myth perpetuated by those who seek to control the minds of others for their own ends. Evil exists internally, initiated within the confines of the deranged human mind. Life can be cruel but it is of our making here on this planet.

Assuming that we are born evil, or that some external force has occupied the mind of an evil person, makes malevolence easier for some people to accept. It is a way of rationalizing premeditated cruelty, preserving our humanity, and absolving ourselves of responsibility individually and collectively as a race. When we see cases of serial killers, or those of children who kill other children, we might label these people as either “born killers” or under outside demonic influences. This saves us the trouble of finding out why these murderers enjoy inflicting pain by acting out their own pain.

There are no soul monsters. People are not born evil. Rather they are corrupted by the society in which they live, where practicing evil  satisfies the cravings of depraved personalities. This emanates from the human brain. Studies of the psychopath have shown that the excitement of inflicting pain on others without remorse satisfies an emptiness they feel within themselves. Practicing evil is a source of power, strength and control for inadequate people. Hate takes away the reality of a hateful life. The warped minds of these executioners tell them, “If life is not worth living for me, why not take it away from somebody else.”

Evil is not genetic, although if a family has a history of violence and cruelty to their children, these acts are often passed on from one gener- ation to the next as learned behavior. Violence and dysfunctional behavior from one adult member of a family is an internal emotional reaction that spills over to contaminate other younger members. This can lead to compulsive and destructive behavior from children of that family. How do these genetic and environmental disruptions to the body affect our soul?

What I have found in my practice is that a soul’s energy force may, during troubled times, dissociate from the body. There are those who feel they don’t even belong to their bodies. If conditions are severe enough, these souls are prone to thoughts of suicide—but usually not taking the life of another. 1 will have more to say about this condition in upcoming chapters. Part of this turmoil stems from conflicts between the soul’s immortal character meshed to the temperament of a host brain with all its genetic baggage. There may also be influences of abnormal brain chemistry and hormonal imbalances affecting the cen- tral nervous system that might contaminate the soul.

Another element I find is that immature souls often have difficulties handling the poor mental circuitry of disturbed human beings. There is a counteraction of the soul self versus the human self. A push-me pull- you force is struggling to present a single ego to the world and not doing very well in the process. These are internal, not external forces at work. A disturbed mind does not need an exorcist but a competent mental health therapist.

Souls don’t represent all that is pure and good about a body or they wouldn’t be incarnating for personal development. Souls come to Earth to work on their own shortcomings. In terms of self-discovery, a soul may choose to act in conjunction with, or in opposition to, its own character in the selection of a human body. As an example, a soul combating tendencies toward selfishness and indulgence might not mix well with a human ego whose emotional temperament is disposed to engag- ing in hostile acts for self-gratification.

Quite often, troubled people have suffered painful environmental trauma such as physical and emotional abuse as children. They have either internalized themselves, creating a shell to hide behind their pain, or externalized by mentally moving outside their bodies on a regular basis. These defense mechanisms are a means of survival to preserve our sanity. When a client tells me that they love to “tune out” and practice astral projection because the out-of-body experience makes them feel more alive, I look for disturbances. Indeed, I may not find anything other than curiosity, but an obsession with being away from the body indicates a desire to escape from current reality.

It is perhaps for this reason I am troubled by the walk-in theory as another escape mechanism. I believe the whole idea of walk-ins to be a false concept. According to the proponents of this theory, tens of thou- sands of souls now on this planet came directly into their physical body without going through the normal process of birth and childhood. We are told that these possessing souls are enlightened beings who are per- mitted to take over the adult body of a soul who wants to check out  early because life has become too difficult. Therefore, the walk-in soul is actually performing a humanitarian act, according to devotees of this theory. I call this possession by permission.

If this theory is true, then I must turn in my great-guru white robe and gold medallion. Not once, in all my years of working with subjects  in regression, have I ever had a walk-in soul. Also, these people have never heard of any other soul in the spirit world associated with such practices. In fact, they deny the existence of this act because it would abrogate a soul’s life contract. To give another soul permission to come in and take over your karmic life plan defeats the whole purpose of your coming to Earth in the first place! It is deluded reasoning to assume that the walk-in would wish to complete their own karmic cycle in a body originally selected and assigned to someone else. If I am a senior in a high school trigonometry class, would I leave my class and go down the hall to a freshman algebra class where a student is struggling with an exam and tell him I’ll finish the exam for him so he can leave early?

This is a lose-lose situation for both students—and what teacher would permit it?

The whole walk-in theory is like suicide, although it is supposed to combat suicide by allowing the walk-out soul to escape responsibility  for straightening out their life. The walk-out soul relinquishes owner- ship of its host body so a more advanced spirit who does not want to go to all the trouble of being in a child’s body can take over. This is one of the major flaws of possession by permission. From everything I have learned about body assignments, it takes years for a soul to fully meld  its energy vibrations with that of a host brain. The process begins when the baby is in a fetal state. All the essential elements of who we really  are come from the soul assigned to a specific body from the beginning. Consider first the three Is emanating from the soul: imagination, intuition and insight. Then add such components as conscience and cre- ativity. Do you think the adult human mind is not going to recognize the loss of its partner Self to a new presence? Now, that would drive a host body insane as opposed to healing it. I tell people not to worry about losing their soul—it’s with us for the duration because there are good reasons for having the particular body you occupy.

Souls take their responsibility very seriously, even to the extent of being inside nonfunctional bodies. They are not materially trapped. For instance, a soul may inhabit a comatose host body for many years and not abandon it until death. These souls are able to roam freely across  the land visiting other souls who might be making brief trips away from their bodies during normal sleep states. This is especially true of souls in the bodies of babies. Souls are very respectful of their host body assignments, even if they are bored. They leave a small portion of their energy so they can return quickly if needed. Their wavelengths are like homing beacons who have “fingerprinted” their human partners.

When a soul’s energy does leave the human body, this does not pro- vide an opportunity for some demonic being to rapidly move in and occupy a vacant mind. This is another superstition. Aside from the nonexistence of such demonic beings in the first place, the mind is never completely vacant of a traveling soul’s energy. A malevolent entity would be unable to squeeze in, even if it did exist.

Evidently, residents of the spirit world are quite aware of our enthrallment with dark and nefarious specters who pose a danger to the soul. I have a most unusual and defining case which brought this to my attention. The ironic engagement of demonology employed in case 18 by my subject’s teacher toward his hapless student is outrageous and unconventional but effective. This case illustrates how the almost brutal use of humor can be graphically applied in the spirit world to define  our shortcomings on Earth.

Case 18 concerns the death experience of an evangelical preacher of the 1920s. This man had spent a lifetime seeing the devil in every nook and cranny of his town in the deep South. During my review of this life with the client who carried these memories, I was told, “My parish- ioners were shaken to their bones with my fiery sermons of the hell awaiting all sinful transgressors.” I will begin this case with a scene as it unfolded right after my subject reaches the gateway.

Case 18

Dr. N: You say that although things are not too clear, you are floating in bright light and someone is coming toward you?

S: Yes, I am kind of disoriented. I haven’t gotten used to things around here yet.

Dr. N: That’s fine, just take your time and let the figure float toward you as you float toward it.

S: (long pause, and then with a loud horrified exclamation) OH, GOD. NO!

Dr. N: (startled by this outcry) What’s going on?

S:  (subject’s  body  begins  to  shake  uncontrollably)  OH  …  OH  …

LORD ALMIGHTY! IT’S THE DEVIL. I KNEW IT. I’VE GONE TO HELL!

Dr. N: (grasping subject by the shoulders) Now, take a deep breath and try to relax as we go through this together, (then, softly) You are not in hell…

S: (cuts in with a shrill tone of voice) OH, YEAH—THEN WHY DO 1 SEE THE DEVIL RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME?

Dr. N: (my subject’s face is now covered in sweat and I use a tissue to wipe some of it away while continuing to reassure) Try to calm yourself, there is some misinterpretation here and we will find it soon.

S: (paying no attention to me, the subject now begins to moan while rocking back and forth) Ohooo … it’s over for me … I’m in hell…

Dr. N: (I break in now more forcefully) Tell me exactly what you see.

S: (whispering at first and then loudly) A … being… demonic … reddish- green face … horns … wild-eyed … fangs… the facial skin is like charred wood … O SWEET JESUS, WHY ME OF ALL PEOPLE, WHO SPOKE SO MUCH IN YOUR NAME?

Dr. N: What else do you see?

S: (with loathing) WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SEE? CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND? I’M IN FRONT OF THE DEVIL!

Dr. N: (quickly) I meant the rest of the body. Look below the head and tell me what you see.

S: (with a violent shudder) Nothing … just a wispy ghostlike body.

Dr. N: Stay with me. Doesn’t this seem unusual to you—that the devil would appear with no body? Move forward in time rapidly now and tell me what this figure does.

S: (my subject’s body jerks up violently and then with a great sigh of relief he sags back into the chair) Oh … that bastard … I might have known … it’s SCANLON. He is taking his mask off and smiling wickedly at me …

Dr. N: (now I can relax) Who is Scanlon?

S: My guide. This is his crude idea of a joke. Dr. N: What does Scanlon really look like now?

S: Tall, aquiline features, gray hair … full of mischief-making, as usual, (laughs with bravado, but still not fully recovered) I should have known. He caught me unawares this time.

Dr. N: Does Scanlon make a habit of this sort of thing? Why frighten you just as you were coming into the spirit world a little disoriented?

S: (defensively) Listen, he is a great teacher. That’s his way. He has got our whole group using masks but he knows 1 don’t like them much.

Dr. N: Tell me why Scanlon used a devil’s mask to scare you right after this life? Talk to him now.

Note: I am quiet for a few moments while my subject mentally connects with Scanlon.

S: (after a period of silence) I had it coming. Oh, I know it! I spent a lifetime preaching about the devil, scaring good people … telling Scanlon gave me a dose of my own medicine.

Dr. N: And how do you feel now about his methods?

S: (chagrined) He made his point.

Dr. N: I want to ask you a blunt question. Did you really believe what you told your parishioners about seeing demonic forces everywhere, or were you motivated by something else?

S: (intensely) No, no—I believed what I was saying about evil being everywhere in every person. I was not a hypocrite.

Dr. N: Are you sure it wasn’t false piety? You did not pretend to feel and be what you were not?

S: No! I believed it. My undoing was my method of preaching and the love of the power over others that this ability gave me. Yes, I admit that failing… 1 made life miserable for some of my flock… not seeing the essential goodness in people. I was always suspicious because of my obsession with evil and this corrupted me.

Dr. N: Do you feel part of what you became was the result of the body you chose in this life?

S: (in a flat voice) Yes, I lacked restraint. I chose a body with a feisty mind and allowed myself to be swept away. I was too confrontational as a preacher.

Dr. N: And do you know why your soul mind chose to enter into this partnership in the body of a preacher who constantly intimidated people?

S: Oh, I… shit… I let it happen because it felt good to be in control … I was afraid of… not being taken seriously enough.

Dr. N: You were worried about the loss of control? S: (long pause) Yes, that… 1 would be … inadequate.

Dr. N: By his use of a devil’s mask, do you think Scanlon demeans what you stood for in the church?

S: No, that’s my teacher’s way. I chose the body of a minister and he helped me with all this. 1 took a wrong turn—it was not the wrong path. My faith was not a bad thing but I became misguided and I

people rather than reason with them. He wanted me to feel the same fear that I gave to others.

Note: I now move my subject into a group setting to learn more about how Scanlon teaches his students through the use of masks.

Dr. N: Who is the first person who comes to you?

S: (hesitates and is wary) It’s … an angel… soft glowing white … wings

…  (then,  with  recognition)  OKAY,  I’M  ON  TO  ALL  OF  YOU. ENOUGH!

Dr. N: Who is this angel?

S: My dear friend, Diane. She has removed her angel’s mask and is laughing and hugging me.

Dr. N: I’m a little confused. Souls can assume any shape or create any features they want. Why bother with masks?

S: The mask is similar to a figure of speech, a symbol one can hold in the hand to put on and pull off for effect. Diane is offsetting Scanlon’s huge joke by being a loving angel for me while the others are laughing at what happened to me.

Dr. N: What kind of individual is Diane?

S: Very loving and full of humor. She likes practical jokes, as does most of my group. They all know I take things too seriously. I don’t like the masks very much so they tease me.

Dr. N: During your lessons, are masks used as a means of teaching about right and wrong behavior?

S: Yes, they are a means of acknowledgment of good or poor think- ing, misconceptions … they identify aspects of our character which are positive and those which are undesirable and we can role play with each other.

Dr. N: Did Scanlon originate the use of this sort of prop for your group lessons?

S: (laughs) Yes, and what he does makes an impression.

This was a strange case and 111 admit Scanlon had me going for a few minutes when 1 thought this client was taking me to a place no other had before. The treatment this subject received at the gateway by the use of a devil mask is an anomaly. Moreover, I have never encountered a guide whose behavior had such extravagance and provocation.

In the chapters ahead we will see how drama plays an important part in soul group activity. The use of masks by Scanlon’s group as a symbolic gesture to embody a belief system is rather unique in my experience. Masks do have a long tradition in our cultural life, where personification of divine and demonic power has been used to mock spirits which are feared and honor those spirits that are venerated. The devil mask has a history of tribal exorcism toward a harmful spirit. Case 18 is one where mythic spiritual practices were taken from Earth by a soul group director to serve as a wake-up call for his students.

Continued…

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