12. Life Selection
THERE comes that time when the soul must once again leave the sanctuary of the spirit world for another trip to Earth. This decision is not an easy one. Souls must prepare to leave a world of total wisdom, where they exist in a blissful state of freedom, for the physical and mental demands of a human body.
We have seen how tired souls can be when reentering the spirit world. Many don’t want to think about returning to Earth again. This is especially true when we have not come close to our goals at the end of a physical life. Once back in the spirit world, souls have misgivings about even temporarily leaving a world of self- understanding, comradeship, and compassion to go to a planetary environment of uncertainty and fear brought about by aggressive, competing humans. Despite having family and friends on Earth, many incarnated souls feel lonely and anonymous among large impersonal populations. I hope my cases show the opposite is true in the spirit world, where our souls are involved in the most intimate sharing on an everlasting basis. Our spiritual identity is known and appreciated by a multitude of other entities, whose support is never ending.
The rejuvenation of our energy and personal assessment of one’s Self takes longer for some souls than others, but eventually the soul is motivated to start the process of incarnation. While our spiritual environment is hard to leave, as souls we also remember the physical pleasures of life on Earth with fondness and even nostalgia. When the wounds of a past life are healed and we are again totally at one with ourselves, we feel the pull of having a physical expression for our identity. Training sessions with our counselors and peer groups have provided a collaborative spiritual effort to prepare us for the next life. Our karma of past deeds towards humanity and our mistakes and achievements have all been evaluated with an eye toward the best course of future endeavors. The soul must now assimilate all this information and take purposeful action based upon three primary decisions:
- Am I ready for a new physical life?
- What specific lessons do I want to undertake to advance my learning and development?
- Where should I go, and who shall I be in my next life for the best opportunity to work on my goals?
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. Cycles of incarnation for the eternal soul seem to be regulated more by the internal desires of a particular soul, than by the urgency of host bodies evolving in a universe of planets.
Nevertheless, Earth certainly has an increasing need for souls. Today, we have over five billion people. Demographers vary in their calculations on how many individuals have lived on Earth in the last 200,000 years. The average estimate is some 50 billion people. This figure, which I think is low, does not signify the number of visitations by different souls. Bear in mind the same souls continue to reincarnate, and there are those who occupy more than one body at a time. There are reincarnationists who believe the number of people living on Earth today is close to the total number of souls who ever lived here. The frequency of incarnation on Earth by souls is uneven. Earth clearly has more need for souls today than in the past. Population estimates in 1 AD are around 200 million. By 1800, humans had quadrupled, and after only 170 more years, quadrupled again. Between 1970 and 2010, the world’s population is expected to double once more.
When I study the incarnation chronology of a client, I find there is usually a long span of hundreds, even thousands, of years between their lives in Paleolithic nomadic cultures. With the introduction of agriculture and domesticated animals in the Neolithic Age, from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, my subjects report living more frequent lives. Still, their lives are often spaced as much as 500 years apart. With the rise of cities, trade, and more available food, I see the incarnation schedules of souls increasing with a growing population. Between 1000 and 1500 AD, my clients live an average of once in two centuries. After 1700, this changes to once in a century. By the 1900s, living more than one life in a century is common among my cases.
It has been argued these increases in soul incarnations only appear to be so because past life recall improves as people in hypnosis get closer to their current lives. This may be true to some extent, but if a life is important it will be vividly remembered at any age in time. Without doubt, the enormous population increase on Earth is the basic cause for souls coming here more often. Is there a possibility that the inventory of souls slated for Earth could be strained by this surge in human reproduction?
When I ask clients about the inventory of available souls, they tell me I should worry more about our planet dying from over-population than exhausting the reserve of souls. There is the conviction that new souls are always available to fill any expanding population requirements. 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.
I have said souls do have the freedom to choose when, where, and who they want to be in their physical lives. Certain souls spend less time in the spirit world in order to accelerate development, while others are very reluctant to leave. There is no question but what our guides exert great influence in this matter. Just as we were given an intake interview in the orientation phase right after death, there are preparatory exit interviews by spiritual advisors to determine our readiness for rebirth. The case which follows illustrates a typical spiritual scene with a lower-level soul.
Case 24
Dr. N: When do you first realize that you might be returning to Earth?
S: A soft voice comes into my mind and says, “It’s about time, don’t you think?”
Dr. N: Who is this voice?
S: My instructor. Some of us have to be given a push when they think we are ready again.
Dr. N: Do you feel you are about ready to return to Earth?
S: Yes, I think so … I have prepared for it. But my studies are going to take such a long time in earth years before I’m done. It’s kind of overwhelming.
Dr. N: And do you think you will still be going to Earth when you near the end of your incarnations?
S: (long pause) Ah … maybe no … there is another world besides Earth … but with Earth people …
Dr. N: What does this mean?
S: Earth will have fewer people … less crowded … it’s not clear to me.
Dr. N: Where do you think you might be then?
S: I’m getting the impression there is colonization someplace else-it’s not clear to me.
Note: The opposite of past life regression is post life progression, which enables some subjects to see snatches of the future as incomplete scenes. For instance, 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 domed buildings. Details about the future are always rather limited, due, I suspect, to built-in amnesia from karmic constraints. I’ll have more to say about this with the next case.
Dr. N: Let’s go back to what you were saying about the instructors giving people a push to leave the spirit world. Would you prefer that they not do this?
S: Oh … I’d like to stay… but the instructors don’t want us hanging around here too long or we will get into a rut.
Dr. N: Could you insist on staying?
S: Well … yes … the instructors don’t force you to leave because they are so gentle. (laughs) But they have their ways of … encouraging you when the time comes.
Dr. N: Do you know of anyone who didn’t want to be reborn again on Earth for any reason?
S: Yes, my friend Mark. He said he had nothing to contribute anymore. He was sick of life on Earth and didn’t want to go back.
Dr. N: Had he lived many lives?
S: No, not really. But he wasn’t adjusting well in them.
Dr. N: What did the teachers do with him? Was he allowed to stay in the spirit world?
S: (reflectively) We choose to be reborn when it is decided we are ready. They don’t force you to do anything. Mark was shown he did benefit others around him.
Dr. N: What happened to Mark?
S: After some more … indoctrination … Mark realized he had been wrong about his abilities and finally he went back to Earth.
Dr. N: Indoctrination! This makes me think of coercion.
S: (disturbed by my remark) It’s not that way at all! Mark was just discouraged, and needed the confidence to keep trying.
Note: Case 10 in Chapter Four on displaced souls told us about how souls who had absorbed too much negative energy from Earth were “remodeled.” Case 22 also mentioned the need for restoration with some damaged souls. These are more extreme alterations than the basic reframing apparently used on Mark’s tired soul.
Dr. N: If the guides don’t force you, could a soul absolutely refuse to be reborn?
S: (pause) Yes … I guess you could stay here and never be reborn if you hated it that much. But the instructors told Mark that without life in a body, his studies would take longer. If you lose having direct experience, you miss a great deal.
Dr. N: How about the reverse situation where a soul insists on returning to Earth immediately, say after an untimely death?
S: I have seen that, too. It’s an impulsive reaction and does wear off after a while. The instructors get you to see that wanting to hurry back someplace as a new baby wouldn’t change the circumstances of your death. It might be different if you could be reborn as an adult right away in the same situation. Eventually, everyone realizes they must rest and reflect.
Dr. N: Well, give me your final thoughts about the prospect of living again.
S: I’m excited about it. I would have no satisfaction without my physical lives.
Dr. N: When you are ready for a new incarnation, what do you do?
S: I go to a special place.
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. Because of this spiritual practice, I have divided life selection and our final choice of a body into two chapters for ease of understanding.
The selection of a time and place for incarnation and who we want to be are not completely separate decisions. However, we start by having the opportunity of viewing how we might fit into certain environments in future time segments. Then our attention is directed to people living in these places. I was a little distracted by this procedure until I realized a soul is largely influenced by cultural conditions and events, as well as by the participants in these events, during a span of chronological time.
I have come to believe that the spirit world, as a whole, is not functionally uniform. All spiritual regions are seen by traveling souls as having the same ethereal properties, but with different applications. As an illustration, the space of orientation for incoming souls could be contrasted to the space of life selection for those who are leaving. Both involve life evaluations for souls in transit which include scenes from Earth, but there the resemblance ends. Orientation spaces are said to be small, intimate conference areas designed to make a newly arrived soul comfortable, but our mental attitude in this space can be somewhat defensive. This is because there is the feeling we might have done better with life. A guide is always directly interacting with us.
On the other hand, when we enter the space of life selection, we are full of hope, promise, and lofty expectations. Here souls are virtually alone, with their guides out of sight, while evaluating new life options. This hectic, stimulating place is described as being much larger than other spiritual study areas. Case 22 considered it a world unto itself, where transcendent energy alters time to allow for planetary study.
While some spiritual locales are difficult for my subjects to describe, most love to talk about the place of life selection, and they use remarkably similar descriptions. I am told it resembles a movie theater which allows souls to see themselves in the future, playing different roles in various settings. Before leaving, souls will have selected one scenario for themselves. Imagine being given a dress rehearsal before the actual performance of a new life. To tell us about it, I have picked a male subject who is well acquainted with the way his soul is assisted in making appropriate decisions.
Case 25
Dr. N: After you have made the decision you want to come back to Earth, what happens next?
S: Well, when my trainer and I agree the time is right to accomplish things, I send out thoughts …
Dr. N: Go on.
S: My messages are received by the coordinators.
Dr. N: Who are they? Doesn’t your trainer-guide handle all the arrangements for incarnation?
S: Not exactly. He talks to the coordinators, who actually assist us in previewing our life possibilities at the Ring.
Dr. N: What is the Ring?
S: That’s where I’m going. We call it the Ring of Destiny.
Dr. N: Is there just one place like it in the spirit world?
S: (pause) Oh, I think there must be many, but I don’t see them.
Dr. N: All right, let’s go to the Ring together on the count of three. When I am finished with my count you will have the capacity to remember all the details of this experience. Are you ready to go?
S: Yes.
Dr. N: One, two, three! Your soul is now moving toward the space of life selection.
Explain what you see.
S: (long pause) I … am floating towards the Ring … it’s circular … a monster bubble …
Dr. N: Keep going. What else can you tell me.
S: There is a … concentrated energy force … the light is so intense. I’m being sucked inward … through a funnel … it’s a little darker.
Dr. N: Are you afraid?
S: Hmm … no, I’ve been here before, after all. It’s going to be interesting. I’m excited at what’s in store for me.
Dr. N: Okay, as you float inside the Ring, what are your first impressions?
S: (voice lowers) I … am a little apprehensive … but the energy relaxes me. I have an awareness of concern for me … caring … I don’t feel alone … my trainer’s presence is with me, too.
Dr. N: Continue to report everything. What do you see next?
S: The Ring is surrounded by banks of screens-I am looking at them.
Dr. N: Screens on walls?
S: They appear as walls themselves, but nothing is really solid … it’s all … elastic … the screens curve around me … moving …
Dr. N: Tell me more about the screens.
S: They are blank … not reflecting anything yet … they shimmer as sheets of glass … mirrors.
Dr. N: What happens next?
S: (nervously) I feel a moment of quietness-it’s always like this-then it’s as if someone flipped a switch on the projector in a panorama movie theater. The screens come alive with images and there is color … action … full of light and sound.
Dr. N: Keep reporting to me. Where is your soul in relation to the screens?
S: I am hovering in the middle, watching the panorama of life all around me … places … people … (jauntily) I know this city!
Dr. N: What do you see?
S: New York.
Dr. N: Did you ask to see New York City?
S: We talked about my going back there … (absorbed) Gee-it’s changed-more buildings … and the cars … it’s as noisy as ever.
Dr. N: I’ll come back to New York in a few minutes. Right now I want you to tell me what is expected of you in the Ring.
S: I’m going to mentally operate the panel.
Dr. N: What’s that?
S: A scanning device in front of the screens. I see it as a mass of lights and buttons. It’s as if I’m in the cockpit of an airplane.
Dr. N: And you see these mechanical objects in a spiritual setting?
S: I know it sounds crazy, but this is what is coming through to me so I can explain to you what I am doing.
Dr. N: That’s fine, don’t worry about it. Just tell me what you are supposed to do with the panel.
S: I will help the controllers change the images on the screens by operating the scanner with my mind.
Dr. N: Oh, you are going to operate the projector as if you were working in a movie theater?
S: (laughs) Not the projector, the scanner. Anyway, they aren’t really movies. I am watching life actually going on in the streets of New York. My mind connects with the scanner to control the movement of the scenes I am watching.
Dr. N: Would you say this device resembles a computer?
S: Sort of … it works on a tracking system which … converts …
Dr. N: Converts what?
S: My commands … are registered on the panel so I can track the action.
Dr. N: Position yourself at the panel and become the operator while continuing to explain everything to me.
S: (pause) I have assumed control. I see … lines converging along various points in a series of scenes … I’m traveling through time now on the lines and watching the images on the screens change.
Dr. N: And the scenes are constantly moving around you?
S: Yes, then the points light up on the lines when I want the scene to stop.
Note: Lines of travel is a term we have heard before in other spiritual regions to describe soul transition (i.e., Case 14).
Dr. N: Why are you doing all this?
S: I’m scanning. The stops are major turning points on life’s pathways involving important decisions … possibilities … events which make it necessary to consider alternate choices in time.
Dr. N: So, the lines mark the pathways through a series of events in time and space? S: Yes, the track is controlled in the Ring and transmitted to me.
Dr. N: Do you create the scenes of life while you track?
S: Oh, no! I simply control their movement through time on the lines. Dr. N: What else can you tell me about the lines?
S: The lines of energy are … roads with points of colored light as guideposts which I can move forward, backward, or stop.
Dr. N: As if you were running a video tape with start, fast-forward, stop, and rewind buttons?
S: (laughs) That’s the idea.
Dr. N: All right, you are moving along the track, scanning scenes and you decide to stop. Tell me what you do then.
S: I suspend the scene on the screens so I can enter it.
Dr. N: What? Are you saying you become part of the scene yourself?
S: Yes, now I have direct access to the action.
Dr. N: In what way? Do you become a person in the scene, or does your soul hover overhead while people move around?
S: Both. I can experience what life is like with anyone in the scene, or just watch them from any vantage point.
Dr. N: How can you leave the panel and go into a scene on Earth while still monitoring the action in the Ring?
S: I know you probably won’t understand this, but part of me stays at the controls so I can start up the scene again and stop it anytime.
Dr. N: Perhaps I do understand. Can you divide your energy?
S: Yes, and I can send thoughts back to myself. Of course, the controllers are helping too, as I go in and out of the screens.
Dr. N: So, essentially you can move time forward, backward, and stop it while tracking?
S: Yes… in the Ring.
Dr. N: Outside the Ring, does time co-exist for you in the spirit world, or is it progressive?
S: It co-exists here, but we can still see it progress on Earth.
Dr. N: It seems to me when souls are in the Ring of Destiny they use time almost like a tool.
S: As spirits, we do use time … subjectively. Things and events are moved around … and become objects in time … but to us time is uniform.
Dr. N: The paradox I have with time travel is that what is going to happen has already happened, so you could meet your own soul in some human being as you come and go in life scenes from the future.
S: (smiles enigmatically) When making contact the soul in residence is put on hold for a moment. It’s relatively short. We don’t disturb life cycles when tracking through time.
Dr. N: Well, if past, present, and future are not really separate while you are tracking, why do you stop scenes to consider choices when you can already see into the future?
S: I’m afraid you don’t realize the real purpose of time use by the controllers of the Ring. Life is still conditional. Progressive time is created to test us. We are not shown all the possible endings to a scene. Parts of lives are obscured to us.
Dr. N: So, time is used as a catalyst for learning by viewing lives when you can’t see everything that is going to happen?
S: Yes, to test our ability to find solutions. We gauge our abilities against the difficulty of the events. The Ring sets up different experiments to choose from. On Earth we will try to solve them.
Dr. N: In the Ring, can you look at life on planets besides Earth?
S: I can’t because I’m programmed for tracking time on Earth.
Dr. N: Your being able to jump through time from the screens sounds like a ball!
S: (grins) Oh, it’s stimulating-that’s for sure-but we can’t frolic around, because there are serious decisions to be made for the next life. I’ll have to accept the consequences for any mistakes in my choices … if I am not able to handle a life well.
Dr. N: I still don’t see how you could make many serious mistakes in your choices when you actually experience part of the life in which you plan to live.
S: My choices of life environments are not unlimited. As I said, I probably Won’t be able to see all of a scene in one time segment. Because of what they don’t show you, there is risk attached to all body choices.
Dr. N: If one’s future destiny is not fully preordained, as you say, why call this space the Ring of Destiny?
S: Oh, there is destiny, all right. The life cycles are in place. It’s just that there are so many alternatives which are unclear.
When I take my subjects into the spatial area of life selection, they see a circle of past, present and future time-such as the Ring in this case. Sensing they are leaving spiritual Now time within the circle, souls apparently rotate back and forth on resonating waves during their observational runs. All aspects of time are presented to them as reoccurring realities ebbing and flowing together. Because parallel realities are superimposed upon one another, they too can be seen as possibilities for physical lives, especially by the more experienced souls.
I was puzzled why my subjects did not fully see the future under these conditions, as part of an all-knowing spiritual setting. In trying to sort this out, I finally came to the conclusion that the spirit world is designed to protect the interests of each soul. Generally, the people I work with are still-incarnating younger souls. They may not clearly see significant events too far into the future because the further away these souls get from present probabilities, the higher the incidence of possible alternative realities which cloud their images. Although the same properties hold true for time in the distant past, there is one exception. A soul’s own past lives are more easily identified. This is because a single reality, with a definite course of action, was previously established to train this soul, and thus is firmly imprinted on his memory.
In Chapter Five, Case 13 demonstrated how 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. The same condition holds true for souls examining future lives. Without knowing why, most people believe their life has a plan. Of course, they are right. Although amnesia does prevent having full conscious knowledge of this plan, the unconscious mind holds the key to spiritual memories of a general blueprint of each life. The vehicle of life selection provides a kind of time machine for souls, where they see some alternative routes to the main road. Although these paths are not fully exposed to us as souls, we carry some of the road map to Earth. A client once said to me, “Whenever I am confused about what to do in life, I quietly sit down and think about where I have been and compare this to where I might want to go in future. The answer to the next step just comes to me from inside myself.”
Accepting what befalls us on the road of life as “acts of God” does not mean our existence should be locked into spiritual determinism where we must submit to an unalterable fate. If everything was preordained, there would be no purpose or justice to our struggle. When adversity strikes, it is not intended that we sit back with a fatalistic attitude and not fight to improve the situation by making on-site changes. During our lives all of us will experience opportunities for change which involve risk. These occasions may come at inconvenient times. We may not act upon them, but the challenge is there for us. The purpose of reincarnation is the exercise of free will. Without this ability, we would be impotent creatures indeed.
Thus, karmic destiny means we are not just caught up in events over which we have no control. This also means we have karmic lessons and responsibilities. The law of cause and effect for our actions always exists, which is why this case did not want to make a mistake in choosing a life unsuited to him. But whatever happens to us in life, it is important we understand that our happiness or pain does not reflect either blessings or betrayal on the part of a God-oversoul, our guides, or life selection coordinators. We are the masters of our destiny.
As I conclude my conversation with Case 25, it may strike the reader that the musical goals of this individual toward his next life are rather self-serving. Certainly his desire to be an admired musical talent has elements of personal compensation which would be less evident in a more advanced soul. However, it will also be seen that this soul wants to give a lot of himself.
Dr. N: Now, I want to talk more about the scenes you are seeing of New York City. Prior to your coming into the Ring, were you given any preparation about selections based on geography?
S: Oh, to some extent. My trainer and I talked about the fact that I had died young in New York in my last life. I wanted to go back to this dynamic city and study music.
Dr. N: Did you also talk to your trainer about other souls-your friends, who might want to incarnate with you?
S: Sure, that’s part of it. Some of us begin staking out a new life by deciding what surroundings are best for all concerned. I made it known I wanted to start again in the same place where I was killed. My trainer and friends offered their suggestions.
Note: This subject came to America as a Russian immigrant in his past life. He was killed in a railway construction accident in New York at age twenty-two in 1898. His rebirth in the same city occurred in 1937.
Dr. N: What suggestions?
S: We talked about my wanting to be a classical pianist. I had played an accordion for extra pick-up change-you know, banquets, weddings-that kind of thing.
Dr. N: And this experience is motivating your interest in the piano?
S: Yes. When making ice deliveries on the streets of New York, I would pass by the concert hall. It was my goal to some day study music and make a name for myself in the big city. I hardly got started before I died.
Dr. N: Did you see your death as a young man in New York during your last visit to the Ring?
S: (sadly) Yes … and I accepted that … as a condition of the life. It was a good life- just short. Now I want to go back with a better start and make a name for myself in music.
Dr. N: Could you ask to go anywhere on Earth?
S: Hmm…… it’s fairly open. If we have preferences, they are weighed against what’s available.
Dr. N: You mean, against what bodies are available?
S: Yes, in certain places
Dr. N: When you said you wanted a better start in music, I assume this is another reason you want to go back to New York.
S: This city will give me the best opportunity to develop my desire to study the piano. I wanted a large, cosmopolitan city with music schools.
Dr. N: What’s wrong with a city like Paris?
S: I wasn’t offered a body in Paris.
Dr. N: I want to be clear on your selection options. When you start previewing life scenes in the Ring, are you primarily looking at people or locations?
S: We begin with locations.
Dr. N: Okay, and so you are looking at the streets of New York City at the moment?
S: Right, and it’s wonderful because I am doing more than looking. I’m floating around smelling the food in the restaurants … I hear the honking of cars … I’m following people walking past the shops on Fifth Avenue … getting the feel of the place again.
Dr. N: At this point have you actually entered the minds of the people walking along the streets?
S: No, not yet.
Dr. N: What do you do next? S: I go to other cities.
Dr. N: Oh, I guess I just assumed your body choices had to be in New York City.
S: I didn’t tell you that. I also could go to Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, or Oslo.
Dr. N: I’m going to count to five and when I reach five you will scan these cities while we continue talking … one … two… three … four … five! Report what you are doing.
S: I’m going to concert halls and music academies and watching the students practice.
Dr. N: Do you just observe the general surroundings while floating around these students?
S: I do more. I go inside the heads of some of them to see how they … translate the music.
Dr. N: Do you need to be in a special place like the Ring to examine the mental processes of people?
S: For past and future events I do. Making contact with someone in the present on Earth can be done anywhere (from the spirit world).
Dr. N: Could you describe the way your soul makes contact with someone?
S: (pause) As … a light brush stroke.
Note: Souls are quite capable of sending and receiving messages from each other between spiritual and temporal worlds, as many of us have personally experienced. However, these temporary connections are made and broken quickly. The joining of a soul to a soulless baby for a lifetime is more difficult, and will be described further in Case 29.
Dr. N: As you look at these prospective lives, what year is it on Earth?
S: (hesitates) It’s … 1956 now, and most of my prospects are in their teens. I’ll check them out before and after this year … as much as the Ring will let me.
Dr. N: So the Ring gives you the opportunity to actually be various people who, in relative time on Earth, are not yet born?
L
S: Uh-huh, to see if I would fit in well-to check out their talent and parents-that sort of thing. (decisively) I want New York.
Dr. N: Do you think you have looked at the other cities carefully enough?
S: (impatiently) Yes, I did that, but I don’t want them.
Dr. N: Wait a minute. What if you liked a music student in Oslo, but wanted to live in New York City?
S: (laughs) As a matter of fact, there is a promising girl in Los Angeles, but I still want New York.
Dr. N: All right, move forward. As your time in the Ring draws to a close, give me the details of your probable life selection.
S: I am going to New York to be a musician. I’m still trying to make up my mind between a couple of people, but I think I will choose (stops to laugh) a dumpy kid with a lot of talent. His body won’t have the stamina of my last one, but I’ll have the advantage of parents with some money who will encourage me to practice, practice, practice.
Dr. N: Money is important?
S: I know I sound … grasping … selfish … but there was no money in my last life. If I want to express the beauty of music and give pleasure to myself and others, I need proper training and supportive parents, otherwise I’ll get sidetracked … I know myself.
Dr. N: If you didn’t like any of the options presented to you in the Ring, could you ask for more places and people to look at?
S: It isn’t necessary, at least for me. I’m offered enough.
Dr. N: Let me be more blunt. If you are supposed to select a life from only the selections shown you in the Ring, how do you know the coordinators aren’t stacking the deck against you? Maybe they are programming you to make certain choices?
S: (pause) I don’t think so, considering all the times I have come to the Ring. We don’t go unless our minds are made up as to the type of life we want to live, and I’ve always had interesting choices based upon my own ideas.
Dr. N: Okay, after you are completely finished with reviewing lives in the Ring, what happens then?
S: The controllers … come into my mind to see if I am satisfied with what I have been shown.
Dr. N: Are they always the same entities?
S: I think so … as far back as I can remember.
Dr. N: Do they pressure you to make a decision before leaving the Ring?
S: Not at all. I float out and go back to talk to my companions before making up my mind.
Of course, theaters such as the Ring are not limited to viewing our planet. I have shown how some souls who come to Earth enjoy incarnating on other worlds as well. In Chapter Ten, I explained how the space of transformation within the spirit world allows souls to experiment with all sorts of shapes and forms for enlightenment and short-term recreation. However, for purposes of actual incarnation into our universe and other dimensions my subjects tell me there are space-time tunnels, or channels, available near their group centers. (Later, Case 29 will describe what it feels like to go through one of them at rebirth).
People say these portals are symbolized by a line of huge archways for passage similar to a large train station. One woman put it this way, “We see these openings as lighter or darker voids of space. To me, the lighter tunnels denote more interactive communities of beings. The darker fields lead to low-density mental colonies where I am going to be alone a lot more.” When I asked her for an example of the latter, she said, “On the world of Arnth, we are as balls of cotton candy moving on waves of gas where nothing is solid. The swirling around each other is very orgasmic.” Another subject, describing his entry into a lighter opening said, “Sometimes between human incarnations I go with groups of souls to the fire world of Jesta. In this volcanic atmosphere we can experience the physical and emotional stimulation of becoming intelligent molecules of flame. Now I know why I love to be in temperatures of over 100 degrees on Earth”
A soul’s physical anchorage is important. Case 25 told us his choice of locations was confined to four cities. The number of scenes souls preview before a new life is, of course, different for each visit. Individual life offerings are selective, which indicates to me that other spiritual entities have
been actively working on our behalf to set up location scenes before we arrive. The number of specialist spirits who assist souls at the space of life selection never seems to be large. They appear as rather vague apparitions to my subjects, although most believe members of their Council of Elders and personal guides are involved.
Early in human history, when the world was underpopulated, my clients recall lives where they were always born in sparse human settlements. In time, with the rise of villages and then larger centers of ancient civilizations, my cases report returning to the same areas. Life selections were geographically scattered again by the great migrations of people colonizing new lands, particularly in the last four hundred years. In this century of over-population, more souls are choosing to live in places where they have been before.
Does this tendency today mean souls want to return to the same countries because of race? Souls are not inclined toward life selections based on ethnicity or nationalism. These products of human separatism are taught in childhood. Aside from the comfortable familiarity of culture in a soul’s choice (which is different from racial bias), we must also factor in the affinity many spirits have for deserts, mountains, or the sea. Souls may also have a preference for rural or urban living.
Are souls drawn back to the same geographic areas because they want a new life with the same family they had in their past life? The tradition among certain cultures, such as Native Americans, is that souls choose to stay within family bloodlines. A dying man is expected to come back as his own unborn grandchild. In my practice I rarely see souls repeating the same genetic choices in past lives because this would inhibit growth and opportunity.
Once in awhile I hear about a soul returning to the body of a relative in a former life under unusual karmic circumstances. For example, if a brother and sister had a close affinity for each other, and one were to die suddenly while still young, the soul of the dead sibling might want to return in the surviving sibling’s child to restore this broken life connection to finish an important task.
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. They involve a maze of karmic issues. Not long ago, I had a case where my client had died from a birth defect early in his last life. I asked, “What was the purpose of your life ending when you were only a few days old?” He replied, “The lesson was for my parents, not me, and that’s why I elected to come back for them as a filler.” When souls return for a short life to help someone else rather than work on their own issues, because there isn’t time, some call this “a filler life.” In this case, the parents had abused and finally caused the death of another child when they were together in an earlier life. Although they were a loving young couple in the last life of my client, these parents evidently needed to experience the grief of having a child they desperately wanted taken away from them. Experiencing the anguish from this terrible loss gave the souls of these parents a deeper insight into the effects of severing a blood bond. I will have an example of this theme in Case 27.
Spirits do not routinely see their deaths in future lives. If souls choose a life where their death will be premature, they often see it in the place of life selection. 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. Souls who become involved in these tragedies are not caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with a capricious God looking the other way. Every soul has a motive for the events in which it chooses to participate. One client told me his last life was planned in advance to end at seven years of age as an American Indian boy. He said, “I was looking for a short-burst lesson in humility and this life as a mistreated starving half-breed was enough.” Another, more graphic example of a soul volunteering for a terrible assignment was that of one of my subjects who elected in her last life to join (with three others of her soul group) the bodies of Jewish women taken from Munich into the death camp at Dachau in 1941. All were assigned to the same barracks (also prearranged) where my client died in 1943 at age 18 comforting the children and trying to help them survive. Her mission was accomplished with courage.
While events, race, culture, and geographic location often appear to come first in the selection process, they are not the most significant choices for the soul’s next life. Aside from all other considerations, incarnation comes down to souls making that all-important decision of a specific body, and what can be learned by utilizing the brain of a certain human being. The next chapter is devoted to an analysis of why souls choose their bodies for various biological and psychological reasons.
