The information contained in this book about the existence of souls after physical death represents the most meaningful explanation I have found in my life as to why we are here. All my years of searching to discover the purpose of life hardly prepared me for that moment when a subject in hypnosis finally opened the door to an eternal world. A major aspect of our mission on Earth as souls is to mentally survive being cut off from our real home. While in a human body, the soul is essentially alone.
This book, Journey of Souls, by Michael Newton is hands down one of the most fascinating, interesting, and spiritual books I have ever read. It offers a case study view of life between lives with Michael asking questions and souls describing their experiences. Below are my favorite excerpts from the book that I could not put down! The books begins by stating….Is it possible you have a spirit which came from somewhere else and will return there after your body dies, or is this just wishful thinking because you are afraid? The true answers to the mystery of life after death remain locked behind a spiritual door for most people. This is because we have built in amnesia about our soul identity. This book is an intimate journal about the spirit world.
In the early days of my practice, I resisted past life requests from people because of my orientation toward traditional therapy. While I used hypnosis and age-regression techniques to determine the origins of disturbing memories and childhood trauma, I felt any attempt to reach a former life was unorthodox and non-clinical. My interest in reincarnation and metaphysics was only intellectual curiosity until I worked with a young man on pain management. It didn’t take long before I realized our deep-seated memories offer a set of past experiences which are too real and connected to be ignored.
Then I stumbled on to a discovery of enormous proportions. I found it was possible to see into the spirit world through the mind’s eye of a hypnotized subject who could report back to me of life between lives on Earth. Finding their place in the spirit world was far more meaningful to people than recounting their former lives on Earth.
Theta is hypnosis- not sleep. When we sleep we go to the final Delta state where messages from the brain are dropped into the subconscious and vented through our dreams. In Theta, however, the conscious mind is not unconscious, so we are able to receive as well as send messages with all memory channels open.
The soul lives eternally.
Souls are quite capable of leaving and returning to their host bodies.
They can find themselves floating around their bodies in a strange way, trying to touch solid objects which dematerialize in front of them. They are frustrated in their attempts to talk to living people who don’t respond. They feel a pulling sensation away from the place where they died and experience relaxation and curiosity rather than fear. They all report a feeling of a euphoric sense of freedom and brightness around them.
Souls often leave their human hosts moments before actual death when their bodies are in great pain. Who can blame them? Nevertheless, they do stay close by the dying body.
Contrary to what some people believe, souls often have little interest in what happens to their bodies once they are physically dead. They have a desire to hurry on their way to the beauty of the spirit world. However, many other souls want to hover around the place where they died for a few Earth days, usually until after their funerals. Time is apparently accelerated for souls and days of Earth may be only minutes to them. The hovering soul syndrome is particularly true of deaths with young people.
We are capable of feeling the comforting presence of the souls of lost loved ones, especially during or right after funerals.
Occasionally, a disturbed spirit does not want to leave the Earth after physical death. This is due to some unresolved problem which has had a severe impact on its consciousness. In these abnormal cases, help is available from higher, caring entities who can assist in the adjustment process from the other side.
I believe dying people are given access to a supreme knowledge of eternal consciousness and this frequently shows in their faces.
People associate death as losing our life force, when actually the opposite is true. We forfeit our body in death, but our eternal life energy unites with the force of a divine oversoul. Death is not darkness, but light.
The tunnel effect they experience when leaving Earth is the portal into the spirit world. The location of the tunnel in relation to the Earth has some variations between the accounts of my subjects. Some newly dead people see it opening up next to them right over their bodies, while others say they move high above the Earth before they enter the tunnel.
Subject: “Well it’s hard to put into words. I feel…thoughts of love…companionship…empathy,..and it’s all combined with…anticipation…as if others are…waiting for me. It is strange, but there is also the understanding around me of just who I am and why I am here now. There is harmony of thought everywhere. In my mind Earth seems close…and I still feel connected to Earth…but I know I’m in another space”.
The most common type of reactions I hear is a relieved sigh followed by something on the order of, “Oh, Wonderful, I’m home in this beautiful place again. Returning to this place of adoration after an absence”.
Astral planes have historically represented a series of rising dimensions above the physical or tangible world, which blend into the spiritual.
An unforgotten home, school, garden, mountain, or seashore are seen by souls because a benevolent spiritual force allows for terrestrial mirages to comfort us by their familiarity. Our planetary memories never die.
Most of my subjects report the first person they see in the spirit world is their personal guide. However, after any life we can be met by a soulmate. Guides and soulmates are not the same.
A curious phenomenon about the spirit world is that important people in our lives are always able to greet us, even though they may already be living another life in a new body.
(When talking to a subject)- “Larry, Gunther, and Jean were all former husbands, but the same soulmate”.
Our reception committee is planned in advance for us as we enter the spirit world.
For the present, it is important we understand welcoming entities may NOT be part of our own particular learning group in the spirit world. This is because all the people who are close to us in our lives are not on the same developmental level. Simply because they choose to meet us right after death out of love and kindness does not mean they will all be part of our spiritual learning group when we arrive at the final destination of this journey.
Subject: “When you look into a certain person’s eyes on the ground- even people you have just met- and see a light you have known before…well, that tells you something about them. As a human you don’t know why- but your soul remembers”. Note: I have heard about the light of spiritual identity being reflected in the human eyes of a soulmate expressed in a variety of ways from many clients. As for myself, I have knowingly experienced this instant recognition only once in my life at the moment I first saw my own wife. The effect is startling, and a bit eerie as well”.
The second manner in which we are met right after death involves a quiet, meaningful encounter with one’s spiritual guide where no one else is revealed in the immediate vicinity.
The soul itself is androgynous. All souls can and do assume male and female mental impressions toward other entities as a form of identity preference.
In the spirit realm, no one speaks, we communicate by the mind. You see everyone as they truly are.
The essential purpose of reincarnation is self-improvement.
There are souls who have been so severely damaged they are detached from the mainstream of souls going back to a spiritual home base. What has happened to them on Earth is significant because of the serious effect they have on other incarnated souls. There are two types of displaced souls: those who do not accept the fact that their physical body is dead and fight returning to the spirit world for reasons of personal anguish, and those souls who have been subverted by or had complicity with criminal abnormalities in a human body. In the first instance, displacement is of the soul’s own choosing, while in the second case, spiritual guides deliberately remove these souls from further association with other entities for an indeterminate period.
The first type we call ghosts. These spirits refuse to go home after physical death and often have unpleasant influences on those of us who would like to finish out our human lives in peace. These displaced souls are sometimes falsely called “demonic spirits” because they are accused of invading the minds of people with harmful intent. These uncommon haunted spirits are tied to a particular geographic location. Those disturbed entities are caught in a no-man’s land between the lower astral planes of Earth and the spirit world. These are souls who have been involved with evil acts. There are mentally ill people who feel driven by opposing forces of good and evil over which they believe they have no control.
People not in harmony with their bodies feel detached from themselves in life.
Certain souls, whose hosts have a genetic predisposition to abnormal brain chemistry, are particularly at risk in a violent environment.
All souls are held accountable for their conduct in the bodies they occupy. Souls receive an initial review of their past life with guides before moving on to join their friends.
All my case work with the spirits of my subjects has convinced me there is no residence of terrible suffering for souls, except on Earth. I am told all souls go to one spirit world after death where everyone is treated with patience and love. I have learned that certain souls do undergo separation in the spirit world, and this happens at the time of their orientation with guides. Souls who influence those to do harm will go into seclusion upon reentering the spirit world.
The beginner souls who are habitually associated with intensely negative human conduct in their first series of lives must endure individual spiritual isolation. They are placed together in their own group to intensity learning under close supervision. This is not punishment, but rather a kind of purgatory for the restructuring of self-awareness with these souls.
The price we pay for our misdeeds and the rewards received for good conduct revolve around the laws of karma. Perpetrators of harm to others will do penance by setting themselves up as future victims in a karmic cycle of justice. Karma propels us forward by teaching lessons. The key to growth is understanding we are given the ability to make mid-course corrections in our life and having the courage to make necessary changes when what we are doing is not working for us.
Souls who continue to display negative attitudes through their human hosts must overcome these difficulties by continually making an effort to change.
After those entities who meet us during our Homecoming have dispersed, we are ready to be taken to a space of healing. People often call the areas chambers, travel berths, and interspace stopover zones, but the most common is “the place of healing”.
It is said that “my essence is being bathed…restoring me after my exposure to Earth”. I have heard this place is similar to taking a refreshing shower after a hard day’s work. It is said that the ravages of the physical body and the human mind leaves an emotional mark on the soul after death. Each body leaves an Imprint. Even though you are free of them you keep some of the outstanding memories of your bodies in certain lives.
After being restored, you leave and go to a quiet place to talk to your guide.
When a person kills themself on Earth does that mean they will receive some sort of punishment as a spirit? No, no, there is no such thing as punishment- that is an Earth thing. There may be disappointment of bailing out early and not having the courage to face the difficulties. By choosing to die as I did means that I have to come back later and deal with the same thing all over again in a different life. I just wasted a lot of time by checking out early.
Most of my subjects select the bodies of one gender over another 75% of the time. This pattern is true of all but the advanced souls, who maintain more of a balance in choosing to be men and women.
Do you think a total blackout from remembering our past of our eternal spiritual life on Earth is essential to progress? It’s not a total blackout, you do get flashes from dream…during times of crisis…people have an inner knowing of what direction to take when it is necessary.
When clients are unable to go into hypnosis at any given time, or if they have only sketchy memories in trance, there is a reason for this blockage. This does not mean these people have no past memories, just they they are not ready to have them exposed.
Souls are created in a positive matrix of such love and wisdom that when a soul starts to come to a planet like Earth and join the physical beings who have evolved from a primitive state, the violence is a shock.
If a soul only knew love and peace, it would gain no insight and never truly appreciate the value of these positive feelings. The rest of reincarnation for a soul coming to Earth is the conquering of fear in a human body. A soul grows by trying to overcome all negative emotions connected to fear through perseverance in may lifetimes, often returning to the spirit world bruised or hurt.
All soul evaluation conferences, be they with our guides, peers, or a panel of masters have one thing in common. The feedback and past life analysis we receive in terms of judgment is based upon the original intent of our choices as much as the actions of a lifetime. Our motivations are questioned and criticized, but not condemned in such a way as to make us suffer.
All souls, regardless of experience, eventually arrive at a central port in the spirit world which I call the staging area. Sometimes souls are escorted by their guides to this area. I find this practice is especially true for the younger souls. The staging area is not an encampment space. Spirits are brought in, collected, and then projected out to their proper final destinations.
I am told the most outstanding characteristic of the spirit world is a continuous feeling of a powerful mental force directing everything in uncanny harmony. People say this is a place of pure thought. Without exception, souls who wish to contact each other, especially when on the move, do so by just thinking of the entity they want. Suddenly, the individual called will appear in the soul mind of the traveler.
Peace. There is such peace you never want to leave again.
Everyone has a designated place in the spirit world. Group placement is determined by soul level. The souls represented in these cluster groups are intimate old friends who have about the same awareness level. When people are part of a soul cluster group, they are talking about a small primary unit of entities who have direct and frequent contact, such as we would see in a human family.
It is frequently our relations with spouses, brothers, sisters, and selected close friends over a whole lifetime that most influences personal growth.
We all help one another go over our mistakes during this cycle.
Each living person projects their own colored aura. A human aura reflects thoughts and emotions combined with the physical health of an individual. Every soul generates a specific color aura. The intensity aspect of our energy can make us less brilliant.
There are ones who precede all of us in knowledge and they give off a darker intensity of light. BLUE is deeper than yellow and yellow is more intense than white, depending on how far along you are. There are 3 basic lights of white, yellow, and blue. It represents that development stage of souls in the area. A neutral white or gray is the starting point of development.
If color density is a reflection of wisdom, then the lower wavelengths of white through yellow emanating from souls must represent lower concentrations of vibrational energy.
Souls in a high state of advancement are often found in humble circumstances on Earth. By the same token, people in the upper strata of influence in human society are by no means in a blissful state of soul maturity. Often, just the reverse is true.
I have never worked with a subject in trance who did not have a personal guide.
Ideas we claim as our own may be generated by a concerned guide. Guides do not appear to be assigned to us in the spirit world in an orderly fashion. I have come to believe their individual teaching styles and management techniques support and beautifully integrate with our permanent soul identity.
Every human being has at least one senior, or a higher master guide, assigned to their soul since the soul was first created. Many of us inherit a newer, secondary guide later in our existence.
What would you say is the most important attribute of any guide? The ability to motivate you and instill courage.
Souls who develop relatively fast are gifted, but so are the guides who assist them.
Do we get to choose our guides? No way. They choose you.
The embodiments of Native Americans who once lived in North America make powerful spiritual guides for those of us who have followed them to live in this land. The large number of Americans who report having such guides lends support to my belief that souls are attracted to geographical settings they have known during earlier incarnations.
Our personal guides help us cope with the separateness and isolation which every soul inherits at physical birth, regardless of the degree of love extended by our family. Guides give us an affirmation of Self in a crowded world.
The Beginner Soul
There are 2 types of beginner souls: souls who are truly young in terms of exposure to an existence out of the spirit world, and souls who have been reincarnating on Earth for a long period of relative time, but still remain immature. I believe almost 3/4 of all souls who inhabit human bodies on Earth today are still in the early stages of development. It means most of our human population is operating at the lower end of their training. When I consider a world population beset by so much negative cross-cultural misunderstanding and violence, I am not inclined to change my opinion about the high percentage of lower level souls on Earth.
{For those who are curious, the percentages by soul level of all my cases are as follows:
Level 1 42%
Level II 31%
Level III 17%
Level IV 9%
Level V 1%
Souls end their incarnations on Earth when they reach full maturity.
I have had many cases where a client has been incarnating for up to 30,000 years on Earth and is still in the lower levels of I and II. One of my clients has not been able to conquer envy for 850 years in numerous lives, but she did not have too much trouble overcoming bigotry by the end of this same period.
There seems to be a kind of spirit world maturity ward for newborn souls. One client told me, “This place is where infantile light is arranged in a honeycomb fashion as unhatched eggs, ready to be used”.
The first realization that they are part of a substantial group of spirits like themselves occurred by the end of a fifth life on Earth.
How dramatic it all is down there on Earth and how seriously we all take our lives. Should we not take it all so seriously? Earth is one big stage play- we all know that.
Is there any member of your soul group ever made to feel shame or guilt about a past life? Those are….human weapons…and too narrow for what we feel.
Do you look forward to a new life? (Zestfully) Oh yeah! Every time I leave for a new role on Earth, I say goodbye with, “See you all back here A.D. (after death)”.
When a primary group of 15-20 souls is formed, there are marked similarities in talent and interests. Typically, my subjects report a male-female oriented mixture of one or more of the following character types in their groups:
1) Courageous, resilient, a tenacious survivor
2) Gentle, quiet, devoted, and rather innocent
3) Fun-loving, humorous, a jokester and risk-tasker
4) Serious, dependable, cautious
5) Flamboyant, enthusiastic, frank
6) Patient, steady, perceptive
7) Thoughtful, calculating, determined
8) Innovative, resourceful, adaptable
THE INTERMEDIATE SOUL
The relationship we have with our guides now changes from teacher-student to one of colleagues working together.
THE ADVANCED SOUL
Sages- they are the true watchers of Earth. To be here and to keep watch over what is going on. What is the feeling you get when you meet a Sage on Earth? You feel a special presence. Their power of understanding and the advice they give you is so wise. They do live simply. Material things mean nothing to them.
As watchers in the stillness, we recognize the amount of turbulence. From the wake of troubled thought. Then we carefully merge with it and gently touch the mind. Watchers implant ideas- which people believe to be inspiration- to try and give them peace.
The Earth School is insecure. It is filled with resentment of many people over being led and antagonism of the leaders toward each other. There is so much fear to overcome here. It is a world in conflict because there is too much diversity among too many people. Other worlds have low population with more harmony. Earth’s population has outpaced its mental development.
Earth is a difficult school.
I have often wondered if the dreams we have at night about flying, breathing underwater, and performing other non-human physical feats relate to our earlier physical experiences in other environments.
There comes a time when the soul must once again leave the sanctuary of the spirit world for another trip to Earth.
Older souls incarnate less, regardless of the population demands of their assigned planets. When a world dies, those entities with unfinished business move on to another world which has a suitable life form for the kind of work they have been doing.
When I ask clients about the inventory of available souls, they tell me I should worry about our planet dying from over-population than exhausting the reserve of souls. If our planet is just one example among all other intelligent populations which exist in this universe, the inventory of souls must truly be astronomical. Some have told me Earth’s population will be greatly reduced by the end of the twenty-second century, partially due to adverse soil and atmospheric changes. They also see people living in odd-looking doomed buildings.
Once a soul has decided to incarnate again, the next stage in the return process is to be directed to the place of life selection. Souls consider when and where they want to go on Earth before making a decision on who they will be in their new life. We start by having the opportunity to viewing how we might fit into certain environments in future time segments.
I am told it resembles a movie theater which allows souls to see themselves in the future, playing different roles in various settings.
Amnesia is imposed upon us when we come into a current life. So that past life experiences will not inhibit self-discovery in the present.
If everything was preordained, there would be no purpose or justice to our struggle. During our lives all of us will experience opportunities for change which involve risk. These occasions may come at inconvenient times. The purpose of reincarnation is the exercise of free will.
When you start previewing life scenes are you primarily looking at people or locations? We begin with locations.
Making contact with someone in the present on Earth can be done anywhere (from the spirit world).
What is even more common in my experience, are the souls of young children who die soon after birth and then return to the same parents as the soul of their next baby. These plans are all made in advance by the souls participating in tragic family events.
I have found that souls essentially volunteer in advance for bodies who will have sudden fatal illnesses, are to be killed by someone, or come to an abrupt end of life with many others from a catastrophic event. Every soul has a motive for the events in which it chooses to participate.
Our spiritual advisors give us ample opportunity to reflect upon all we have seen in the future before making a final decision.
As souls, we choose our bodies for a reason. Living in a damaged body does not necessarily have to involve a karmic debt we are paying off because of past life responsibility for an injury to someone else. As my next case will demonstrate, when a soul is inside a damaged body, this choice can involve a learning path to another type of lesson. He or she has an opportunity to advance at a faster rate than those of us with healthy bodies and minds. This knowledge must come through self-discovery. The case histories of my clients convince me that the effort necessary to overcome a body impediment does accelerate advancement. Those of us whom society deems less-than-perfect suffer discrimination which makes the burden even heavier. Overcoming the obstacles of physical ailments and hurt makes us stronger for the ordeal.
It’s the same person…a different body…but she was my Mother back then too.
The idea that each of us voluntarily agreed to be the children of a given set of parents before we came into this life is a difficult concept for some people to accept.
When clients tell me how much they suffered from the actions of family members, my first question to their conscious mind is, “If you had not been exposed to this person as a child, what would you now lack in understanding?” There are spiritual reasons for our being raised as children around certain kinds of people.
One could not have a human ego which is jealous and also possess a soul which is not jealous.
I have mentioned how souls may become so buried by human emotion in bodies which are unstable, that by the time of death they are contaminated spirits.
It does seem a heavy burden that in every new life a soul must search all over again to find its true self in a different body. When it comes to finding soulmates on Earth and remembering aspects of the lives we saw in the place of life selection, there is an ingenious form of coaching which is given to souls just before the next life. The issue of how to find soulmates and other important people in their lives of the space souls go to for this in the spirit world is commonly called the place of recognition, or recognition class. I am told the activity here is like cramming for a final exam. As a result, my subjects also use the term prep-class to describe this aspect of spiritual reinforcement that occurs just before their souls embark on the passage back to Earth.
At the risk of oversimplifying a complex issue, our relationships can be divided into a few general categories. First, there is the kind of relationship involving love which is so deep that both partners genuinely don’t see how each could live without the other. This is a mental and physical attraction which is so strong neither partner doubts that they were meant for each other.
Second, there are relationships based upon companionship, friendship, and mutual respect. Finally, we have associations based largely upon more casual acquaintances which offer some purposeful ingredient to our life. Thus, a soulmate can take many forms.
Soulmates are designated companions to help you and themselves accomplish mutual goals which can best be achieved by supporting each other in various situations. Identity recognition of kindred spirits comes from our highest consciousness. It is a wonderful and mysterious experience, both physically and mentally. What is recognition class? It’s an observation meeting…with my companions…so I can recognize them later. The signs are placed in our mind now in order to jog our memories later as humans. I will call the signs memory triggers. Are you telling me there will be special triggers for each of these people with you? Yes, the signs are supposed to click in our memory right away and tell us, “Oh good, you are here now”. They may seem like insignificant little things, but the flags are turning points in our lives. Are you given more than one trigger sign for your soulmate? Yes. (What is supposed to trigger her recognition of you?)- My big ears, stepping on her toes dancing, what we feel when we first hold each other. No physical attribute has more impact when soulmates meet on Earth. Souls retain such memories as sounds and smells.
Do you already know most of the souls who will be meaningful people to you on Earth? Yes, and if I don’t, I’ll meet them in class.
Whatever the circumstances, relationships between people are the most vital part of our lives. It is coincidence, ESP, Deja Vu, or synchronicity when the right time and place come together and you meet someone for the first time who will bring meaning into your life? Was there a fleeting forgotten memory- something familiar tugging at the back of your mind? I would ask the reader to sort through those memories involving a distinctive first encounter with someone important in the past.
There is one main course of life we choose in advance, but alternatives always exist and we learn from them too.
My advice to people about meaningful encounters is not to intellectualize coming events too much. Some of our best decisions come from what we call instinct. Go with your guy feelings at the time. When a special moment is meant to happen in life, it usually does.
We are given additional time for adaptation while in our mother’s womb. At some point prior to birth, the soul will carefully touch and join more fully with the impressionable, developing brain of a baby. Depending upon the inclinations of the particular soul involved, the connection may be early or late in the mother’s pregnancy. My findings indicate even those souls who join the baby early seem to do a lot of traveling outside the mother’s womb during her term. Once birth has taken place, the union of spirit and flesh has been fully solidified into a partnership.
Besides leaving at the moment of death, souls may also come and go when the body is sleeping, in deep meditation, or under an anesthetic in surgery.
As a soul are you in distress if the baby is aborted from the mother’s womb for any reason before full term? We know if a baby is going to full term or not. Not being born comes as no surprise to us. We may be around to just comfort the child. If the child does not go to term, is your life assignment as a soul aborted as well? No, there was never was a full life assignment as far as that child was concerned.
How far along in age is the body by the time your soul stops leaving the child altogether? About 5-6 years old. Usually we get fully operational when the child starts school.
Every brain has a wave pattern- it’s like a fingerprint. We know immediately if the baby assigned to us is in trouble. We watch the parents. They might be having squabbles around the baby which sets up disturbing vibrations. We quiet the child as best we can. We reach out to the parents through the baby to calm them. Give me an example? We make the baby laugh in front of them by poking the parents faces with both hands. As a soul you can control motor movements of the baby? I can push a little on that part of the brain which controls movements. I can tickle a kid’s funny bone sometimes.
Blocking memories of all your past lives and your life in the spirit world is blocked by amnesia after birth. When the baby is born, does it have any conscious thoughts of who its soul is and the reasons for the attachment? The child mind is so undeveloped it does not reason out this information. It does have parts of this knowledge as a means of comfort, which then fades. By the time they can speak, this information is locked deep inside and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. In the first few years of life babies know more than they are given credit for.
Earth is one of countless worlds with intelligent beings.
Pain in life is especially insidious because it can block the healing power of our souls, especially if we have not accepted what is happening to us as a preordained trial.
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