Magical Thinking, Reincarnation and How to be an Impartial Witness

First things first.

Photo by Russ Titelman

With regard to this NBC report on Dr. Jim Tucker's work at UVA on reincarnation:



Dr. Tucker and Carol Bowman have been working diligently on reincarnation topics since they were students of Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia.

I posted a link to this report, and some wag on the book of faces suggested that any discussion of reincarnation was "Magical thinking."

To which I replied:

"Ian Stevenson spent 30 years at UVA doing peer reviewed studies in reincarnation. Dr. Jim Tucker has continued his work at UVA, along with Carol Bowman have presented dozens of verifiable cases of reincarnation. Dr. Greyson (UVA)'s talk "Is Consciousness Produced by the Brain?" (YouTube) cites the medical evidence showing that it's not. 





Ed Kelly PhD's "Irreducible Mind" shows that what we believe to be logic regarding consciousness is inaccurate. Magical thinking appears to be a prerequisite to addressing the nature of existence. 

I've filmed 50 cases of people recalling previous lifetimes, examined thousands from Dr. Helen Wambach and Michael Newton. People consistently say the same things about the process of incarnation. It's not a theory, belief or opinion we've all had previous journeys here: just reporting what is consistently claimed. 

The belief that life ends with the chrysalis stage is the part that is magical. The point being; if we choose to return, doesn't it make sense to have fresh air, earth and water for our return? 

The magical thinking is believing that life ends when it can be demonstrated that it does not.

To which the wag replied:

"Are these verifiable cases?"

Indeed they are verifiable cases.  I recommend doing a little research on the topic. Ian Stevenson. Dr. Jim Tucker. UVA. Iands.org 

The question is why did you choose to come back? Who are you here to teach? What are you here to learn? If this concept is beyond one's scope at the moment, it will eventually be addressed. 

Or not. It's your/our choice. Not everyone signs up to learn how the play ends. That's fine. Just enjoy the show. I respect your opinion that life ends. It's just not in the research."  

Another face of the book wrote: 

Sorry. Dead is dead.

My reply: "Indeed. I've heard the same argument from caterpillars looking at a chysalis. 

First we have to define dead. If we look it up, we find that "lack of oxygen to the brain" is considered medically dead. If you look at the cases - and I do mean LOOK at the cases, you'll find in Dr. Sam Parnia's work that there are many cases of people who died (no oxygen to the brain) and returned to talk about it. 

If you examine Mario Beauregard's "Brain Wars" you'll find clinical cases of death and consciousness continuing to exist - or examine the thousands of cases at the International Association for Near Death Studies (iands.org) where people were dead dead dead but yet - not dead. 

David Bennett's experience; a navy scientist drowned for 12 minutes - twelve minutes under water, no oxygen - he saw and experienced many things that he reports in his book "Voyage of Purpose" - I've interviewed him and others who've had near death events. Dead... but not dead. 

And the truth is, you'll continue to consider this to be fact until you meet someone who has had the experience or experience it yourself. Dead, but not dead. 

I'm sorry if that's what you think happens - that's what you believe happens - but all I can tell you is that's not what the research shows happens. And by research I'm talking about thousands of cases where people claim that's "not what happens." "I was startled because I could see my body, and everyone saw that I was dead... but I was not dead." 

I've been filming people under deep hypnosis for ten years talking about these events - skeptics, scientists, atheists, agents, producers, attorneys - it doesn't matter. Once they witness a death of their own (from a previous lifetime in these cases, not NDEs) they say the same things the NDE people say. "I realized I WAS NOT DEAD." 

When asked "Where do you got after that?" they consistently say "I went home." Not heaven. Not purgatory. Not hell. "Home." It's what people consistently say. If we took the time to look at what they say, we'd see they don't claim any religion is accurate. None. Zero. Not a single solitary one. 

They do say "all roads lead to home" and that "it doesn't matter what one believes while they're here, they all experience the same things when they are not." I'm sorry if this upsets the paradigm of the simple sentence: "Sorry, but when you're dead you're dead." It's just... not... in... the... research. Sorry."

What's the magical thinking we're talking about here? 

Are we looking at data that is in front of us and choosing to ignore it? That's fine, that's allowed - but that is belief, that is opinion, or that is following what isn't in the research.

What is magical thinking?

Magical thinking is how Einstein discovered that he was able to see "the speed of light" in his mind, prior to putting it on the page, it allowed Nikola Tesla to construct complete mechanical objects in his mind without putting them on paper and "seeing them work" - it's the same magical thinking that Beethoven described when he "went into the ethers" to find the source of his inspiration.  "Beyond the spheres."

I understand the complaint is that magic is not real, that there is logic to every "trick of the mind" - but that does not negate the fact that thousands of people have said the same things under deep hypnosis about the journey, that what they say is consistent and reproducible. In the 45 sessions I've filmed, and the 5 I've filmed myself experience, I can tell you that when you "see something" that is in your mind's eye and learn "new information from people no longer on the planet" - you do feel as if you're experiencing something "magical."

What's wrong with magical thinking?  It is the source of every poem ever written, every movie ever scripted, every novel, play or story that has been ever crafted.  Because we are hard-wired to create stories - even if we are creating stories that are echoes of our previous lifetimes, or our between lifetime experiences.  

What people claim about reincarnation under deep hypnosis dovetails with what people who remember their previous incarnations have to say on the topic.  We tend to think we can't ask people questions about their journey, that somehow our asking the questions interferes with their memory of it - but when you have thousands of people say the exact same things about a journey, and it's CONTRARY to every known religious definition of reincarnation, then it begs the question; "How could all these people be saying the contrary thing to what people claim reincarnation is, or how could they all be understanding something that science does not understand?"

Then we have proof of concept to point to.



This past weekend I was invited by my pal Jennifer Shaffer (jennifershaffer.com) to participate in a "proof of concept" event in Manhattan Beach.  She had gathered together about 25 people who expressed an interest in mediumship.

Jennifer has an extensive background in helping people in missing person cases. She's helped with some high and low profile cases.  She reports what she sees, experiences, hears, senses as part of her pro bono work for families who have suffered these kinds of traumas, but one day she thought "wouldn't it be great if I could get together a group of like minded people and see what kind of details we can all come up with?"

For those familiar with the history of this kind of research with the government, ("Men Who Stare At Goats") there was some formal training in the 70's with regard to "remote viewing." Using mediums or psychics to try to pry into Soviet secrets.  Like any government project, the military was trying to use science to further the ability to "see" into what the Soviets were up to (as the Soviets had their own programs in the same field.)

The remote viewing program was abandoned, some papers were written; most point to the results being "slightly better" than flipping a coin, but still - a better percentage of "guessing" or seeing people objects and things that they were asked to look for.  Unfortunately what they were tasked to find were coordinates where Soviet agents would be vacationing in their dacha - and like many projects aimed at using people to assist in govt secrets, didn't exactly pay off.

But in this case, Jennifer has already been tasked with helping to solve crimes, or find people - and she brought together a group of like minded folks, to see what the results would be.

The results, from my chair in the room, were astounding.  Strangers that have no formal training in mediumship, aren't professional mediums but were people who have spiritual backgrounds, came together to see what they could come up with. And they came up with consistent results.

Jennifer presented three case studies - in one instance, a criminal already in prison for what he'd done, in the second case, a person who is currently missing, and in the third, a child who had died under mysterious circumstances.

In each case, the four groups came up with the exact same information - age range, looks, what the person liked to do, what their background was. In the case of the missing person, they had detailed maps, detailed sounds or visuals that were in line with what law enforcement had already discovered (yet had not been revealed) in the case of the person who had died, one of their parents stood in front of the group and detailed the many details of what these people had already know.  Names, dates, places... all right on the money.

The program is called "Impartial Witness" and as outlined, some people from silicon valley have assisted in coming up with how to use AI to help in these cases, there are former government officials involved from a variety of law enforcement backgrounds, and then, there's these anonymous people who will be assisting in helping to find, discover, learn or solve any number of issues.

Almost like having a live think tank on the flipside.

I can imagine all of the possible applications - from corporations looking to solve a mystery (an airliner that has disappeared for example) to discovering why their corporate secrets are being stolen, and how, to parents who are in need of their help, or siblings trying to find their long lost parent. But at the moment, this group is assisting law enforcement on "cold cases" as well as missing person cases.

Of course it can't or doesn't always work. My research into this arena points out that "not everyone wants to be cured" (i.e., they signed up to learn from this lifetime and it's not up to anyone to solve the problem before they experience it) "some people learn more from a tragedy than it being solved" (i.e., "You can learn more from one day of tragedy on planet Earth than you can from 500 years on some boring planet" (that's a direct quote in "Flipside") - so there may be any number of reasons why something isn't solved or understood, even on a group level.

But for those who are looking for an edge, a leg up, a way to help solve real time problems, this is an excellent tool in the algorithmic bag.  If you have endless amounts of money to throw at an issue, and will leave no stone unturned to find the solution, it's certainly an excellent way to help law enforcement that is open to working with them (and in those applications yet to be discovered.)

Yes, it could be reminiscent of Phillip K. Dick's crime solving fantasy "Minority Report" which shows the problems occur when someone in a position of authority abuses the system - however, the people involved have thought out how to make sure there's no security issues that can't be addressed. The people who report are anonymized, vetted by Jennifer so that people with the right intent are involved, as well as ensuring that the law enforcement is not being asked questions, but are observing what the results are through multiple filters.

But I saw that this kind of think tank could also be tasked to help save the planet.

There's no reason this kind of application can't be tasked to helping the environment "What are the best ways to explore how we can change salt water to fresh water for pennies?" or "How can we solve the problem of fossil fuel energy issues?"

Whatever answers that come forth - it won't matter whether it comes from someone's subconscious, from a scientist no longer on the planet, or a group of people exploring the answers from the flipside - the solution will have the same result; helping humanity. There is no question that cannot be asked to the flipside, it's just a matter of understanding and translating what those answers might be.

Stay tuned.

Photo by Russ Titelman

"Interview with Rich Martini afterlife research, life between lives, and...

You find the oddest things on YouTube. From four years ago, talking the Flipside with Kevin Moore.

Socrates, Hemlock and the Wave We're Surfing

When I was at Boston University, I was part of a program called DGE.  It was known as the "Division of General Education" but was considered a prelaw program, that was taught by some of the brightest at the University.  Classroom size was small compared to rest of the 26K students, and each student signed up for a two year program.


Julian Baird was the professor who taught Humanities. As I've mentioned here before, I was a huge fan of Julian's; he had a profound effect on my world view.  He passed away not too long ago, but I was able to spend some time with him and my camera.  I got a chance to speak to the maestro before he checked off the planet.

For those who are fans of "Backstage Pass to the Flipside" - he gets his own chapter.  And here's a link to Part One of his two part story.




I mention Julian and DGA because it had three basic disciplines for four semesters; Humanities, Social Studies, and Science.  So freshman year we began with the Greek's story - how they viewed the arts, how they viewed society and how they influenced science. 

But what DGE's program alluded to - is that throughout human history, movements can be charted in terms of their influence on society.  So when the Greeks were discovering democracy, the politics of the day was exploring what that meant, the science of the day was exploring how the planet worked, and the arts - plays, sculpture, mosaics - were mirroring each other's advancements.

The same is true for the Renaissance - the invention of the public library by the Medici family changed the dynamic of what people could read or study. They started reading Plato and Socrates, and learning about how the world viewed itself prior to the Christian Church taking hold of information - and science had its own resurgence in people like Galileo (until the Church showed him the tools of torture).

But the Renaissance affected societies in how they treated their individuals (in the Florentine Senate, they had a voting system where each Senator would offer a white or black marble (yes or no vote) and at the end of the voting, they'd discover whether a law had passed or not.)  (One of their lesser known laws was putting yellow stars on the Jewish money lenders in a particular part of the city - ostensibly a required "permit" - but we all know how that turned out.)

Simonetta Vespucci

Most aren't aware that the Pope's reaction to all of this liberalism was to send an assassin to Florence to kill both Medici brothers who were ruling the city - they successfully killed one (Giuliano, the popular athlete who appears in "Primavera") but only succeeded in wounding Lorenzo, who not only outlived the Pope, but appointed his son, and his brother's bastard son as Popes (Leo X the "humanist Pope" and Clement VII - both hired Michelangelo, who had lived in their home with them in Florence).

Lorenzo De Medici survived the Pope's attempted assassination.

One hundred years ago, artists and scientists took a new tack - perhaps based upon the invention of the camera, perhaps because history books had come into fashion.  But writers began to deconstruct words, and looked at the art of writing in a new fashion (James Joyce is considered the pillar of this style of exploration.)  

Musicians began to deconstruct music - the time signatures, scores, eventually became atonal, painters began to deconstruct space on a canvas; out of it came the Impressionists, the Cubists, the Dadaists, etc.  In like form, people started exploring the mind (William James psychologist, Freud and Jung via hypnosis), the microscope and the origin of illness came into focus, and on a sociological level, upheavel was the coin of the realm; 17 world leaders were assassinated around the turn of the century.  The new was overturning the old in all areas and in a grand sense deconstructing what had been handed to them.

So what's going on now?
Computers and the internet have caused the most recent trends on the planet.  We have apps influencing how we behave with others (who uses a telephone any more? People prefer to text than speak, communication is changing on all levels.)  In terms of music we have electronic or digital film scores (like Hans Zimmer deconstructing "La Vie En Rose" for the score of Inception) that use digital expression in a new way, people's ability to use libraries online have made information easily accessible, governments and all manner of sociological issues are based on algorithmic data that dictates how the government relate to humanity, writing has become something that combines multiple expressions of reality - from links to other articles, to podcasts where people speak about their experience and anyone can create or listen in.  

The democratization of expression is making it so anyone can create anything anywhere at any time.  There is no one telling them what they can or can't sell, think, write or create.  They can use the internet to meet their audience directly, and whether they charge money for that access, or just do it for the betterment of the planet (open source patents like Tesla) people are altering how they share intelligence.

Picasso and his pal the musician who shot himself over
the beauty next to him. Picasso took care of her financially
for years "in memory of my best friend who died
for her beauty."

Doesn't mean that the old ways aren't clinging on for dear life - the idea of combatting climate change, or trying to parse human behavior into some kind of myopic box that relates to hundreds of years ago - is all part of the mix. As noted, the Pope's reaction to the liberalness of the Florentines was to "excommunicate the entire city" in a fatwa ("the Dissentio") and it was Lorenzo De Medici who used the newly lifted printing press to disseminate his version of events ("The Pazzi Conspiracy" written by Lorenzo's pal and poet Poliziano) which had a direct reaction from Martin Luther who read and reacted to what the Church was up to. It was one of the first cases where the flipside of the story got out at the same time as the powers that be put out their story. 

The Vatican distributed only 11 handwritten copies in Latin (I've examined two of them, one at Yale, the other in Claremont) but Lorenzo's version of events was sent to every capital city in the world.  "The Pazzi Conspiracy" was a revelation in its day, as it had a complete confession of the assassin, and detailed the events that led to the Pope signing his "pardon" that was supposed to save him from the executioner's ax. (Hint: It did not.)  

One of the first examples of "social media" influencing world events (Obviously, Lorenzo didn't get Papal permission to changing the course of history - Lorenzo published the account using a purloined German printing press (the Italians were claiming they had their own); the Vatican's reaction (The City of Florentine executed the entire Pazzi family which included an archbishop) was to excommunicate the entire city and send an army to burn "the den of iniquity" to the ground.  Lucky for us, thwarted by Lorenzo.)

Taj Martini

So we're going through another one of those phases. The same kind of rebirth that occurred in Athens (democratization of humanity, rather than just males), the Renaissance where artists, writers, poets and scientists began to study the human element of their work; the tearing apart of art and science and history that began 100 years ago has culminated into what we're experiencing now. People can express themselves in ways never thought imaginable - whether it's the virtual reality experience of being an immigrant led over the wall by coyotes in Mexico ("Carne Y Arena" by Inarittu) or it's the virtual Westworld of Red Dead Redemption 2, or it's the gender smashing, mind bending reality that we all choose our avatars in life, the way we choose avatars in "Jumanji."

Will there be blowback?  If history is a guide; indeed, there will be. 

Will it cause stress and difficulties?  Again, history offers that all of these revolutions in the consciousness of the planet has its own particular changes that occur.  

Will the effects of this era have on the planet 100, 500 years from now? Well, if we're smart enough to reverse the devastation we've caused, it's possible that we ourselves will choose to come back and participate in the rebuilding of whatever happens now.

But I digress.

What does this have to do with Socrates and hemlock?

The other day I was filming an interview with someone on the flipside, and that person "on the other side" (courtesy of Jennifer Shaffer) said "It's not like what happened to Socrates."  And I said, "Hang on a second, let me ask a question about that. Can we speak to Socrates? Is he available?" Jennifer paused for a few seconds, and said "He's here."

I said "So what was that comment about Socrates? Everyone tells your story as recounted by Plato - that you were this great orator, and that when you were forced to make the choice, chose to drink hemlock, chose to commit suicide rather than succumb to the prevailing powers that be.  The story has been passed along for centuries, and has cemented your reputation as a powerful voice of resistance."  

Giordano Bruno, burned at the
stake for recalling his out of body experience
where he saw the earth went around the sun.

He said "Plato made it up."  

I asked "Why?"  He replied "Why do you think? The powers that be didn't like me, thought I was a pain in the ass, so they had me poisoned.  Plato invented all that because it made a better story."

I thought that was pretty provacative for a number of reasons.  Who knew that Socrates would be available? (Why not? We are "outside of time" when we're off the planet, and I've often heard in my 45 cases that I've filmed, or the thousands that I've examined, that 25 years or 2500 years feels like "not that long ago.") Who knew that Socrates thought Plato was an errant student? (It's possible. We heard none other than G. Washington refer to Jefferson as "that %^shole").  We think history is in stone, when it's never in stone - nothing is stone, even stone - which shifts, adjust, gets worn down and turns into... pebbles. Or sand.

Magnified sand. BBC foto.

People and events that occurred "back then" aren't felt that way on the flipside, and further, since people don't reincarnate fully (they only send back about 30% of their energy, according to these reports) then asking to speak to an individual "if it's possible" - is a matter of connecting with their "higher self" or the portion left behind.

Flipside Painting by Bosch

We've had some people not come forward - for whatever reason "they aren't available right now."  I try not to judge why that is, and move on to the person who is available.

Just found that somewhat amusing to hear that the Hemlock story was in a writer's imagination - a good story to be sure, but according to our pal Socrates; "never happened."  So let's hope that we keep better records of what's happening in our era now, so that 500 years from now, or 2500 years, or even 5000 years, we can "go to the tape" and examine what really happened during this era. 

My two cents.

LATEST BOOKS ARE:

BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE: TALKING TO THE AFTERLIFE WITH JENNIFER SHAFFER BOOK ONE.

BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE FLIPSIDE: TALKING TO THE AFTERLIFE WITH JENNIFER SHAFFER BOOK TWO.

Available in print, ebook and Audible.

An Interview with Michael Newton

AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL NEWTON

excerpted from "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife"

Available online at all major outlets in kindle, ebook, audible etc.

(All Rights reserved, copyright 2011 Richard Martini)

Chapter 2

THE NEWTONIAN UNIVERSE

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Sir Isaac Newton

As a therapeutic tool, hypnosis has been around for millennia. The ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Hindus all used forms of “Sleep Temples” to help people with various mental afflictions, and in 1207  Persian physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina) studied altered states where people could be both awake and asleep.^[1]  In 1841 British physician James Braid studied Eastern religious practices, including trances and deep meditation, and coined the term hypnosis. It later became an accepted form of therapy as psychiatrists like Sigmund Freud popularized the concept by famously making it part of his practice and therapy.

Reports of “Past Life Memories” have been around for quite a bit as well. Mentioned in the Upanishads from ancient India, reincarnation is accepted in various forms by a number of religions from Hindus to Buddhists, the Taoists of China, American Native tribes, Aboriginal tribes of Australia to the Celts of England who all believed souls are immortal and after a fixed number of years after death, enter another human body. In the Middle Ages, there were a number or reincarnationist movements in Europe. The Cathars were considered such heretics by the Catholics that they sent them on to their next lives with great dispatch.

Over the centuries, a number of American thinkers embraced the concept, including Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, General George Patton and Henry Ford who said “I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was 26. Genius is experience; some seem to think it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of a long experience in many lives.”

According to the Pew Research Center survey, one out of four Americans believes in reincarnation.  But aside from being a belief system relegated to religious dogma, it didn’t begin to be examined by Western science until the 1950’s when hypnosis and past life regression became a form of therapy in the mental health field. It was new therapy, however, and during hypnosis a patient might be encouraged to remember things that didn’t actually occur, and for this reason, many considered the role of the psychiatrist’s leading questions the culprit in supposed past life memories.  That led the scientific community to believe these memories were the result of “Cryptomnesia,” narratives created by the subconscious mind, using imagination, forgotten information and suggestions from the therapist; in other words, entirely made up.

In terms of popular culture, the first widely reported case of a remembered past life in the U.S. was that of an American woman in the 1950’s who remembered details of a life lived in 19^th century Ireland by a woman named Bridey Murphy. Research at the time could not verify her story and eventually her saga fell into disrepute. Past life regression and hypnosis became a common joke on television shows, from Lucille Ball getting hypnotized into becoming a criminal on “I Love Lucy” to Albert Brooks’ “Defending Your Life” about a patient who has a peer life review with hilarious consequences. 

Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia took up the subject of reincarnation as a serious topic in the 1970’s and with the benefit of research, time and money, over 30 years was able to catalogue numerous cases that proved, from a scientific point of view, that reincarnation could at least be categorized and studied. Stevenson said he was skeptical of past life memories during hypnosis because like most critics, he feared the therapist could or would interject false memories via the questions.^[2] However, Dr. Brian Weiss, a Yale trained psychiatrist, encountered spontaneous past life regressions in his work and turned those revelations into his bestselling book “Many Lives, Many Masters.” 

Recently the New York Times noted that “Past life regression” has returned as an acceptable tool for many psychiatrists.^[3] A number of hypnotherapists, including those interviewed in this book, recount patients spontaneously going into a past life regression during a session, and being cured of their psychosomatic illness after examining the source of their illness or pain. There isn’t a known medical reason behind these spontaneous cures, other than “the placebo effect.” As we’ll learn in this book, there may be other verifiable origins involved.  

Dr. Michael Newton had a similar experience as Brian Weiss.  A patient spontaneously regressed into a previous life, and despite being skeptical about past life regression in general, Newton was able to verify that a British soldier had lived and died as described during his session.  As a result, Newton began doing past life regressions, and as he as put it “was dragged kicking and screaming into the movement.”

Over the following decade, Newton began quietly cataloguing his cases of patients who could remember past lives. One day his focus took a giant leap forward.  A client under hypnosis described the “life between lives,” where everyone reportedly goes after they die and, with the help of their soul mates, decide how and where they’ll return.  Newton began to research this new field more fully with his patients, and after 20 years of intense research, published his first of four books in 1994.   

Looking a bit like Charlton Heston, Newton, late 70’s, has an easy, laid back manner. Having retired from his practice as well as stepping aside from his full time duties with the "Newton Institute,” he’s weary of fighting the battles with those who feel his research attacks their belief systems. However his pale blue eyes still flash when he talks of debating critics.

INTERVIEW WITH DR. MICHAEL NEWTON

RM: Is hypnosis a valid scientific tool?

Dr. Michael Newton. A lot of people don't feel it is. Hypnosis is a study of human behavior, adequate scientific proof depends on your willingness to accept self-reports from the mind as data. When someone is in deep hypnosis, it’s not something that can be programmed. Under hypnosis, people are very aware of who they are and have great insight into what they're telling you. Over thousands of cases there was consistency of reporting; it didn't matter whether a client had a deep religious belief system or not; once we had them in deep hypnosis, they all told us the same things.

What was your first past life regression?

I began practicing in 1956, a traditional psychotherapist using hypnosis to try to uncover childhood emotional and physical trauma. It was the year of the famous Bridey Murphy case - the Colorado housewife who remembered a previous life in Ireland. I’d get calls, "May I come for a past life regression?"  I’d say "No, I’m traditional, not involved with “new age” thinking." I was very naive, really.

But then a client asked if I could see him about pain he was feeling in his side.  He'd been troubled since childhood, and doctors said it was psychosomatic - they'd done x-rays and could find no physical symptoms. They told him he should see a psychiatrist.  When he came, I couldn't find any earthly origins at all, so I gave him the command “Go to the origin of this pain.”

Well, he jumped into the life of a soldier in World War I, when he was a British Sergeant and was being bayoneted. I couldn't believe it; this fellow was lying on the couch groaning while I was more interested in verifying if it was real – asking him the British unit he claimed to be with and a number of other facts - instead of desensitizing this horrible trauma he was going through. Eventually I did do that. 

He called a few days later to say "There's no more pain, thank you.” Well that didn’t satisfy me, so I contacted the British war office and the Imperial Museum in London to find out if this British Sergeant ever existed and sure enough he died in 1916.  From that case, I began taking past life clients. So I came kicking and screaming into this movement. 

Sometime later, a woman came to me, depressed over having no friends and couldn't seem to connect with anybody. I reached a point of frustration when I couldn't seem to find any help, so I said "Go to the origin of your loneliness, especially if there's a group of people around you."  I didn't know it, but “group” was a trigger word, because we exist between lives in soul groups - “cluster groups” we call them.  Her face lit up. She got tears in her eyes and pointed to my office wall and said "I see them all."

I was thinking Is she seeing them in this life? In a past life? "Where are we?" I asked. "Oh," she said, "We're in the spirit world. I'm seeing all my soul companions, they're wonderful," and she began describing them. I probed more, took a lot of notes, and had a recording of the session. I found none of her soul companions in her life today and she was lonely because of it. After she left, I said to myself This can't be happening to me. 

I'm the world's worst cynic, skeptic, and past lives was enough of a jolt of cold water, and now this? I studied my notes and the tape for a long time, and then with other clients, I began exploring it more and more. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I closed my practice to all other forms of hypnotherapy and worked quietly and alone. I didn't go to hypnosis conferences, I didn't want to read metaphysical books, and I just wanted to do the research by myself. After twenty years I realized I should write a book, so I began collecting better case notes with an eye to writing "Journey of Souls."

What was the reaction from colleagues or your wife when you came home with this information?

Frankly I didn't go public until the first book was published. I had a lot of criticism from my colleagues; "How dare you keep this information from us, you didn't get our input.” I said “I did not want to be influenced by your thoughts; I didn't want to introduce bias into my work.”

My wife is a nurse trained in psychology, and she was, like myself; initially skeptical. I had to talk to somebody, and what better person than my soul mate, who didn't tell her friends, but quietly absorbed all this. Eventually she came to really believe in what I was doing.

A TYPICAL SESSION 

Can you walk us through a typical Life between Life session?

People come in because there may be a relative who recently died, or emotional trauma from losing a child. This work is not to supplant therapy they should receive from a licensed trained professional; it’s intended to provide them with answers about their inner being. One of the things clients don't understand until they experience it is that there is a dual nature to all of us. We have our brain ego if you will, and we have a soul ego, and when they are combined it creates one personality and one lifetime.

The first hour we pick a couple of childhood memories to get a sense of them recalling events earlier in this life, to prepare them to answer questions on a deeper level. Then we take them into their most immediate past life, because it's their most recent experience. It's very brief as it’s not intended to be a discourse on past lives. There are a number of past life therapists that don’t have a clue about Life between Lives therapies - they think it's grayish ‘limbo’ that has no significance. But we then cross from the death experience into the spirit world, into the afterlife; it's an interesting and exciting time for the client because they begin to really see their soul.

Friends, relatives or their spirit guide, usually both, come to greet them - when a client sees their immortal teacher for the first time they’re usually blown out of their minds. Some religious people think they see Jesus or Buddha or Mohammad coming towards them but they quickly realize, “Oh, no, no, no… this is my personal teacher who’s been with me since I was created as a soul.”

From there, we move to interesting aspects of the spirit world, perhaps soul groups which range from 3 to 25 souls, the average client has about 15. These are all friends, relatives, spouses, dear friends in this life and some clients are shocked by who’s there. There are other soul groups, nearby affiliated souls, that may play an important part in certain lives. There are reasons for that, and we try to explore it.

From there, they typically go in front of a group of wise beings - some call them “The Elders” or “The Wisdom Makers” - wise beings who are a step or two above their guides. These are non-incarnating beings, they’re about as close to God as we get, and there’s usually a very interesting discourse. They may ask the patient “How do you think you did in your last life?” They’re very gentle people.

An interesting thing happens when they’re ready to return in the next incarnation; there’s a life and body selection library where people choose different kinds of bodies and who they think they can work best with. Their elders and guides have a hand in their selection before they come forward into the next life. It’s a fascinating process. What’s key is there’s such order and discipline there and yet it’s a very compassionate loving relationship. It isn’t one that involves the kinds of things we see on Earth with a hierarchy of beings who lord over you and engender fear. There is infinite forgiveness and understanding there. We all make mistakes, some of them terrible, and that’s all forgiven once we cross over.

When the clients wake up after one of these long sessions, some of them are crying and some of them are laughing, some of them can’t talk - and generally there’s just this “Wow. I can’t believe it.”  Trying to process what’s happened.

From the film "Flipside"

AFTERLIFE CLASSROOMS AND THE COUNCIL OF ELDERS

I’ve spoken with a few people who’ve referred to their own recurring dreams of being in a classroom somewhere in the Universe, some working with or without energy. Also, I’d like to know more about “The Elders.”

We get flashbacks from time to time that break through that amnesiac block, folks who’ve had no LBL experiences, and just ordinary people that don’t know about our work. Suddenly they’re in a classroom in their dreams and they think “Hmm. That’s a strange image; where’s that coming from?” Most of us between lives spend time in a spiritual classroom. They are usually described as buildings, a library, or the place where they meet their council looks like a beautiful domed structure and in some cases a temple. Of course, there aren’t buildings in the ethereal space between lives, but people free-associate or have flashbacks of buildings; “I’m in a classroom, I have people around me that I know, there’s a teacher…”

Essentially we’re given instruction by a Specialist Soul in areas we may have a talent or affinity for.  They may be areas we’ll specialize in after our incarnations are over - when we will be helping others.  I often hear about an energy creating class where they’re working with raw energy to create certain things.^[4] I have the theory a lot of what we see on Earth in terms of plants and animals and geographics has been created by groups of advanced souls. 

When we visit the Elders, we talk about our lessons and what we might do differently in the future. We’re not standing before God or a Creator or a Source - But people describe feeling kind of a God like presence at these meetings. It’s hard for people to describe it; I need to speak to someone who’s not incarnating anymore to give me answers to that sort of thing. Once in a while I got a highly advanced client who was in their last series of incarnations, who’d open the door a little bit, and it’s beautiful to listen to.

What kinds of questions would you like to know the answers to from this work?

When I get an advanced client in my chair, I feel sorry for them because I’m a relentless inquisitor. I’ve asked the question “What does it all mean?” with certain advanced clients. One thing I’ve learned is that we are only one of many universes. I’ve been able to hear about nine or ten dimensions, either parallel universes or universes that overlap in timelines, through patients.  Once you leave Earth, of course, you’re not in linear time anymore, you’re in what we call ‘now time^[5]’ - which is past, present and future... that’s the best I can do on the question about creation - I wish I could tell you more.

QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THE AFTERLIFE

What do you think about the concept that photographs may be captured time?

It feeds into what we know about quantum physics - the Cherokee Indians believe no event in time is ever lost. I think from what I have discovered, nothing is ever lost; every moment of time represents particles of energy. It’s like a movie that’s being shown. That frame is there forever and can be recalled in the spirit world.  Souls are able to go back to any event in any past life and review it completely.

This is one of things we do that is so valuable. When they’re in the spirit world, in a library or a classroom, they’re able to recall everything from their past; nothing ever dies and when you have past, present and future all conjoined into “now time” think of the advantage that brings to studying and reviewing what you’ve done and how you can make it better. 

There are possibilities and probabilities in the time continuum and there have been wonderful books about parallel universes, the “Holographic Universe” by Michael Talbot for example. It’s very much in synch with reports we get from clients who’ve never read the books, so I feel the knowledge we’re gaining now is greater than it’s ever been about our inner being and the forces behind our creation.

Why hasn’t this information been available earlier in our history?

I think there are a couple of reasons.  We've never been so over-populated in history, with so many of us running in so many directions. Second, I think it's the pervasive use of drugs which has even reached our elementary schools - when someone is taking drugs to "escape from reality” it shuts down the soul. And maybe the powers that be decided it’s time to loosen up this amnesia bloc we all have when we come into this world so we're able to gain information that perhaps earlier was not really available.”

INTERVIEW WITH PEGGY NEWTON

I spoke with Dr. Newton’s wife, Peggy. Michael told me his entire life he’d had a vision of meeting a woman dressed in a white uniform named Peggy. After he came out of the service, he saw an ad in a magazine that reminded him of his lifelong vision. A poor grad student on the G.I. Bill, he caught a bus and asked the driver to “Let me know when we are near the largest hospital in Phoenix.”  The driver let him off next to a dormitory, which was fortuitous as he thought it was the main entrance. When he walked inside and asked “Do you have a nurse named Peggy?” a woman brought her out to meet him.  He knew the moment he saw her she was the woman in his dreams, and they’ve been together ever since.

RM: How did you meet Michael?

Peggy Newton: I was a student nurse and he was in graduate school. He had this feeling about a woman with dark hair dressed in white he was supposed to meet named Peggy. Off he went looking for a dark haired Peggy in a white uniform; he maintains from the moment we met he knew I was going to be with him for this life. And had probably been with him for many lives.

Can you remember that day?

He came to our dorm and we had a charming house mother on duty. He said "I can’t remember her last name but I’m looking for a Peggy with dark hair." Then he told me this rather crazy story I won’t repeat, because it made no sense to me at the time, when I asked him to sit down and clarify why he was there. We wound up talking for four hours; I went upstairs and told my roommates I’d met the man I was going to marry. We’ve been married almost 51 years.

What was it like when he first came home to tell you about a past life regression?

I thought it was too bizarre. "Past lives?"  I had my medical scientific brain and I tended to put that to one side. I did think he might be ‘over the bend’ though, and worried about his sanity.  But then he played me the tapes. His clients’ tapes are private, so anything I heard never left me, but I realized these people were all saying the same things about the spirit world. Seeing the same things, saying the same things, how could that be if it wasn’t true? You just can’t take strangers through an experience where they relate stories that are all the same. I became a real believer at that point, and then I became a true fan.”

I felt it key to hear from his wife that she’d been hearing the tapes of his sessions dating back to the beginning of his research. She confirmed the detail her husband had avoided metaphysical sections of bookstores during his research so he wasn’t be influenced by other’s work in the area. Newton said he’d had over 7000 patients who said the same things about the hereafter while under deep hypnosis. If true, then Michael Newton’s work may become one of the greatest discoveries in human history. 

My documentary on reincarnation took a turn after this interview.  I began to focus on the science behind reincarnation, as well as stories of people who either had a direct experience of remembering the life between lives, or those who’ve spontaneously gone there via near death experiences or other means.  I began with interviews with hypnotherapists trained by Newton as well as others who’d never heard of him.  I also filmed sessions with various patients, some friends of mine who were skeptical about the entire process, and finally, I was invited to have my own session which I would film as well.

As a matter of logic, either what these patients were saying about the afterlife was true, or it wasn’t.  If it was true, then others must be able to visit the same place without his help or guidance.  Also, if it was true, then there must be cases of others who’ve traveled this same route, without the direct guidance of Michael Newton.  I was invited to film a session conducted by a Newton trained hypnotherapist, Paul Aurand.  I was about to head down the rabbit hole.

Walt Whitman: M. Brady

"I know I am deathless. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time."

Walt Whitman

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[1] Wikipedia; Hypnosis, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna

[2] "A large part of what emerges under hypnosis is pure fantasy. Some of these "previous lives" have been traced back to historical novels."  Interview with Omni Magazine, 1988.

[3] “Interest In Reincarnation is Growing,” by Lisa Miller. NY Times 8-29-2010

[4] These energy classes are mentioned in a number of sessions in this book.

^[5] For those who watched the final episode of “Lost,” one of the characters refers to “Now time” as the reason they all had multiple time lines.