Posted by Roberta Grimes • January 06, 2017 • 42 Comments
Afterlife Research, The Source, Thomas Jefferson
One of the most confounding things about studying the afterlife is getting our minds around the fact of reincarnation. And it is a fact. Much as I have tried not to think about it, given my traditional Christian background, the evidence is overwhelming and consistent that each of us lives many earth-lives. Jesus taught it, the dead affirm it, and those who are so inclined can undergo past-life regressions or future-life progressions and meet their own past or future selves.
The actual mechanics of reincarnation are impossible for us to get our minds around while we are in earth-bodies. This is partly because while we are here we can consciously access perhaps as little as ten percent of our vast and powerful eternal minds; and partly because we still lack a deep understanding of the non-material realities. We are left to try to put a sense of it together, while knowing that what we envision isn’t likely to be quite what happens. You will see what I mean!
Here are eight important elements to aid you in thinking about reincarnation:
* Our minds are part of the infinitely loving eternal Mind which is all that exists. We are of the very stuff of God! And since that is the case, our eternal minds are more complex and powerful than our limited earth-minds can imagine.
* Time is not objectively real. It exists only in this material universe, which is less than five percent of what even mainstream scientists know is real. Getting my mind around all that it means for time not actually to exist is for me the hardest part of this process.
* Since there is no time, in most of reality there is only Now. Effectively, everything is happening at once, including every one of our lives and all of human history. This is a concept that is nearly impossible for most of us on earth to grasp!
* After each earth-lifetime, we spend as much non-time as we like in what some call the Summerland. It is earthlike, beautiful, quite literally heavenly. We take courses and lessons there, travel, enjoy family and friends, and generally relax for what seems to be an eternity.
* Family groups generally gather in the Summerland before anyone decides to reincarnate. So in nearly all cases, your relatives going back for a couple of generations will still be there when you arrive. And even if we reincarnate early, in some manner that we cannot understand apparently we leave a presence there.
* Periodically for most of us the craving for further spiritual growth becomes unbearable. We then plan and undertake another earth-lifetime in conjunction with our chosen guides and with those who will be important in that new lifetime.
* What seems to us to be our next lifetime might be in earth’s future or in 
earth’s past! There truly is no time. We might surmise from the non-existence of time that past and future must be happening at once, but what is astonishing is that we can actually demonstrate this. Past-life regression therapists have found that it is just as easy to progress people to earth-lifetimes in this planet’s future as it is to take them into the past.
* Each of our lifetimes apparently is a separate existence that also is part of our vast eternal mind. It might be better to think of yourself as an enormous collective. And yes, each of those identities also is you! Each of your individual earth-lives contributes learning and attributes to the whole of your being. A very popular post-death activity is researching our most prominent past lives, although something that I don’t know is whether we also have access when in the Summerland to our lives that are being lived in the earth’s future.
All of our individual earth-lives seem to be recognizably related to one another, although we are not quite the same person in each lifetime. For example, my primary spirit guide, Thomas, once was Thomas Jefferson, and even before I ever met Thomas I knew the historical Jefferson pretty well. Thomas has a lot of Jefferson’s characteristics: both are intense and intellectually restless, profoundly honorable, and idealistic to a fault. But Jefferson had more of a soft side than Thomas seems to have. He was lighter and more optimistic. My Thomas, on the other hand, is a spiritual warrior more adamant and intractable than Jefferson ever was. He does not suffer fools! I can see that they are something like different aspects or views of the same person, and I find that really fascinating.
In 1960 Thomas Jefferson spoke through Leslie Flint, the great direct-voice
medium. At the time, my Thomas was guiding a 14-year-old girl and likely bored out of his mind. Thomas was able to assume his Jeffersonian demeanor, and he even talked as Jefferson did in his old age (I was in his life then as a young male protege, and I recognize the voice in the Flint recording – what an amazing experience!). Everything Jefferson said through Leslie Flint, including his wish not to talk about his presidency and his advice about loving everyone and finding a way to end the cold war, all was presented in Thomas Jefferson’s characteristic gentle style. But every bit of it was just what my Thomas would have said!
This having heavily researched Thomas Jefferson, and now coming to know my Thomas so well, has closed the reincarnation loop for me. Thomas says that he and I have shared seventeen lifetimes, and always in more or less the same roles: he was a warrior for truth, while I (nearly always a male, incidentally) variously assisted him in that effort. I still don’t really get reincarnation, but this much I know to my core to be true.
Each of us is one vast and powerful mind that takes on many earth-lifetimes with various aspects of ourselves as we learn and grow spiritually. Just as the little child grows and changes but is always an aspect of the adult that he becomes, so each of those lifetimes is loved by us and familiar to us but is seen by us once we graduate to be only one aspect of our glorious eternal selves!
Roberta, how did Jesus teach reincarnation?
This is a great question, D’Arcy! The Christian denominations are so adamant in teaching that reincarnation doesn’t happen that I’m sure that others also are surprised to hear that Jesus taught it. This is not an area of my own particular expertise, but you might read Elizabeth Clare Prophet’s Reincarnation – The Missing Link in Christianity if you are really interested. My own reasons for being confident that Jesus did indeed teach reincarnation are three:
1) Reincarnation happens. And there is so much Gospel evidence that Jesus truly knew what was going on that I assume that He would have known it and taught it.
2) The Council of Nicaea in 325 removed from the Gospels what references to reincarnation they could find. They tell us they did this, believe it or not – they actually edited the sacred Gospels! – and they say they did it so people would focus on being really-really good in this lifetime, and wouldn’t think they could expect more lives in which to get it right. This is also why Christianity is so adamantly against reincarnation: it is all about controlling the faithful. Appalling.
3) The Council didn’t manage to catch every Gospel reference to reincarnation. For example, Jesus says at one point that John the Baptist is the reincarnation of Elijah. And the whole “born again” passage is an obvious flat-out reference to reincarnation (JN 3:1-8). Among other things, the last sentence of it is “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” This is an allusion to the fact that we are spirits who move from body to body, while if the Christian notion of what this passage means were right then this sentence would be nonsensical.
I plan shortly to interview on Seek Reality Herb Puryear, who is probably the world’s leading living expert on the teachings of Jesus regarding reincarnation. I’ll be delighted to be able to share him with you!
Hi Roberta, This is a very compelling post for me, not because it is an argument for incarnations but because it prompts my favorite meditation, “What then must we do?” I can’t add much to the rationale. But if we are eternal spiritual beings having an incarnate experience, and if there is no objective time and space — if God’s creation is not some cosmic manufacturing operation in which souls are cranked out and inserted into bodies and placed somewhere for the purpose of testing their newfound will to “love and serve God,” as the Catholics say, it seems logical that such beings could choose various “moments” to stick our noses in, as it were. All at the same time, and all at no time at all. I think the problem for the Western aesthetic for the concept is the premise above — that God does create souls serially in a production line and then tries to figure out where they should “go” to prove themselves. The “re” in reincarnation is the deceiving part. Not the mention this odd interpretation that we “come back” as a fly if we’re not good enough.
Anyway, if we incarnate with a mission and our incarnations are various aspects of the mission, then, as I said, what do we do with this knowledge?
Hi Mike! As best we have been able to determine, our entire purpose in all our lives is to achieve more rapid spiritual growth. Our dim understanding from here equates spiritual growth with ever more perfect love of the sort that Jesus taught, but I suspect that it’s a lot more complicated; still, that gives us a simple track to run on.
And no, I have never seen an instance of someone coming back as a lesser creature! That is just religious dogma, fortunately ;-).
Your comment that the Council edited out reincarnation seems to be indispute. Others claim there are gospels in existence from before 325 and they confirm to post 325 versions
Hello Robert! Christian apologists say this, as they would have to say it, but in truth it doesn’t matter. Those that we used to think were dead tell us certain things consistently, and one of the things they tell us is that we all live many lives so we can grow spiritually. Now, if Jesus were silent on the topic, that would be fine. He hasn’t been quoted on every topic that the not-actually-dead address. If He were quoted in the Gospels as adamantly insisting that reincarnation never happens, that would be a problem for me since I would like ideally to know that the genuine words of Jesus are not in error at any point when they are compared with what the not-dead now tell us. But in fact, Jesus DOES mention reincarnation, and in a way that is subtle enough that the Council of Nicaea missed it.
“Jesus said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’
“Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?’
“Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, “You must be born again.” The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit’” (JN 3:3-8).
This “born again” notion was interpreted by the early church as meaning something else, but it plainly refers to spiritual growth (the Kingdom of Heaven is composed of spiritually evolved beings) and the fact that we must be born again of the Spirit (your mind is part of Spirit) and water (if you have ever seen a birth, you know what that means!) and between lives we exist as pure spirit (we come and go on the earth, and we can communicate with the living, but no earthly being can see us). If the standard Christian interpretation of “born again” were used, then “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” would make no sense at all.
Very interesting. Reincarnation is always so interesting and puzzling.
I was exploring a few points, though. It seems that there are people who, for some reason (probably many previous lives) have an easy time learning different skills. For others, it is obvious that they might never grasp certain things (probably new spirits). But I am really out of idea about dumb people. If we are all a part of God, it stands to be that we all have similar intellect. However, there are definitely slower, even really dumb people. How is that possible? I have one idea but I am not really sure how much sense it makes. Maybe intellect, smartness, fast learning skills etc are all connected with our phisical brains. Some brains are just not developed right and we see different levels of humans with different abilities and skills or the lack of same. I would love to hear some thoughts about this, from others. Cheers!
Hello, Neb.
I can actually answer your question due to something I read recently which was channeled information about what you mention regarding peoples’ different gifts or abilities. The channeled Guide said, “if someone grasps advanced mathematics, let’s say, and you don’t it is not because you are a new soul (there is no such thing as a “new soul”). It is simply that this person used mathematics as a profession in another incarnation (going on “simultaneously”) so has mastered it – that is all. Regarding “new soul”, really what is happening is that a soul may have been away from earth for a much, much longer time and when here, on earth, may actually explain awkwardness as in autism and other social disorders – they spent lifetimes in other dimensional universes and planets, etc. No soul dies; no beginning and no end, just transitioning into different energy bodies so there is no New Soul. But that New Age concepts based more on EGO (wow, I must be an Old Soul, therefore smarter, etc, etc) needs to die off as a concept.
EGO=Edging God Out
Wonderfully said and very clever, Lorinda! Thank you!!
I have thought about this too, Neb, and fortunately there is a lot of evidence that the issue is entirely brain-impairment. It’s as if you have a damaged TV that gets poor reception, although the signal that it’s receiving is still fine. There is lots of evidence that the minds of even severely intellectually impaired people still function perfectly. For example:
1) Terminal lucidity is a common aspect of the death event. Even people in deep comas and in end-stage Alzheimer’s disease, unable for months or years to communicate at all, will commonly become alert, even sit up, and will communicate easily with those around them in the minutes before they die, probably because the mind’s tie to that damaged brain is loosening as part of the death process.
2) While the brain is primarily a receiver and transmitter of the signal that is our eternal minds, it is a complex organ; and more than that, the heart and other organs seem also to perform functions for our minds that are still poorly understood because mainstream scientists are still unable to wrap their minds around anything that is not material. The aptitude differences that people show probably are all connected to the peculiarities of some aspect or another of our bodies.
3) Those who are born with a peculiar talent – for learning the piano, for example – may have learned the basics in another lifetime, but it is even more likely that they learned to play the piano or do something else well in the afterlife levels, where having access to our powerful eternal minds makes learning almost laughably easy.
It’s all good, Neb!
I enjoyed the post. Roberta. In regards to some long time Alzheimer patients who have been silent and practically inactive for a months or years suddenly sitting up lucid and articulate just before the body dies and they pass on, it would seem that a “miracle” has occurred. For the badly damaged brain and body would have almost instantaneously healed itself to the point where the mind of the person could use those organs again to communicate with the loved ones around the bedside.
Good to hear that you are going to have Herb Puryear on your web podcast. I’ve never read his books, but am familiar that he has done intensive studies into the teachings of Jesus and reincarnation. His wife, Anne, is actively involve with his work, as well. I’ll definitely be listening to that podcast!
Hello Michael! Actually, terminal lucidity is so common that it’s hard to think of it as anything miraculous. What seems to be the case is that once the mind has begun to disengage from the damaged brain, it is able to take over the body in some more direct fashion that will let it sit up, speak, etc. It seems to be a partially extra-physical phenomenon.
And yes, I love the Puryears! They are older now, and having Herb as our guest will be wonderful; it’s scheduled, and I’ll try to make it happen!
I’m always captivated by your well-researched, well-written and reassuring posts, Roberta. I am always most interested in hearing about Summerland which includes the reassurance that I will be fully reunited with my beautiful husband in Spirit when it is my turn to make my transition. Thanks again for providing that comfort.
PS The reason I am in alignment with your ideas is that they make logical sense. It makes sense that we are here to learn to lead loving, joyful lives that serve the expansion of the Universe, it makes sense that love is all there is, it makes sense that we co-create with others and with the Source of ALL that is, and it makes sense to appreciate EVERYTHING–and to see any perceived obstacles that pop up as opportunities to learn to love even more! Thanks, Roberta! xo
Thank you for your lovely words, Mary Beth! And I share your delight in discovering what complete sense all of this makes; indeed, it is that very fact that keeps me doing this research even now. Every new detail that I discover also fits! ALL of it fits! And that is beyond thrilling; it’s a natural high.
As you may know, our ready ability to learn all these details is not accidental, but rather those at the highest levels are giving us all this information now as part of their process of elevating the consciousness of this planet. We are the first people in all of human history who are privileged to know what we now know. What a glorious time this is to be alive!
You are most welcome, Roberta. You know I am a fan because your writing makes these concepts so accessible.
And YES! I agree, Roberta, that, when it comes to metaphysical revelations, the times they are a-changing! It seems that the information is coming at a fast and furious pace.
Since my Paul passed last February 2016, I have read about 100 books on this very topic (including yours), and I have over 200 more waiting for me in my Amazon WIshlist. I have noticed that many of the pubications are recent ones.
It’s exciting to me because the information is basically so consistent and seems to span all cultures and religions. I was always interested in this stuff, and had a basic understanding of these concepts, but I have learned so much more since Paul passed.
I also regularly listen to recordings and watch YouTube videos that present evidence that we do not die. These include reports of NDEs and ADCs, plus channeled information from nonphysical teachers, such as Abraham, as well as appearances by highly respected mediums, such as George Anderson, who conducts a FB Live session every Sunday, and James Van Praagh who can be heard weekly on two separate Internet radio stations.
All of this information has been helpful to me in soothing my grief over missing my sweet Paul. I have my wobbly moments, but the evidence cannot be ignored! (Plus, I think I told you that when Paul passed, I was holding his hand and sensed the energy WOOSH out of his crown chakra! I was startled, amazed and honored to witness that metaphysical miracle! Not quite an NDE or a SDE, but still incredible and evidential!)
All of the messages in these resources are the same the ones you deliver in your FABULOUS books, Roberta: God is love and because we are of God, we are eternal beings here on earth meant to experience people, places and circumstances (especially the contrasting ones) that cause us to reach for MORE—more learning, more discoveries, more creativity, more fun, more connections…more LOVE!
In these ways, we serve to expand the Universe in joy and love .
Thanks again, Roberta! Much love.
Mary Beth xo
Even Jesus was “born again!” See more information in this book by Lynn Sparrow:
Edgar Cayce and the Born Again Christian
(Re-edited as “Edgar Cayce and Christian Faith”)
Lynn Sparrow
“Edgar Cayce, the most documented psychic in modern history, has been called by some a Christian mystic. The psychic readings of this great clairvoyant have led countless people to a deeper vision of their Christian faith and a renewed commitment to their churches.
“Now, for the first time, Edgar Cayce and the Born Again Christianoffers a reconciliation of the Cayce material with the tenets of fundamental Christianity. Author Lynn Sparrow is an Evangelical Christian by persuasion and a graduate of an Evangelical Bible college. In Edgar Cayce and the Born Again Christian,she draws on more than 15 years’ study of the Cayce readings and the Bible to offer a clear and highly readable discussion of such key issues as:
•Can one be ‘born again’ and still accept the information in the Cayce readings?
•Does the Bible condemn all psychic phenomena or is there a place for psychic experiences in the Christian’s life?
•How does Edgar Cayce measure up against the Bible’s standards for prophets?
•What do the Cayce readings reallysay about Jesus Christ?
•Is it possible to believe in reincarnation and still uphold Jesus as the way of salvation?
•What did Edgar Cayce say about the Bible?
“If you have a personal interest in integrating the Cayce readings with your own Christian faith; if a Christian friend or family member is concerned about your interest in Edgar Cayce; or, if you are a committed fundamental Christian who believes that Edgar Cayce is anti-Christian, you owe it to yourself to read Edgar Cayce and the Born Again Christian.”
I love your message, Mary. I no longer find organized religion fits my life, however, many develop spiritual growth by adhering to the practice. I like the fact that you see the truth of Edgar Cayce’s mission on earth: As a Christian, he was trying to help people get out of the indoctrination and misinterpretations and judgmentalism (narrow-mindedness) a develop the Faith in the way Christ Consciousness (JESUS) would like, without the “worshiping” and stagnation of minds brought about due to church guilt and control for over two thousand years. He was a great teacher and an advanced, higher vibrational Being in his earth incarnation purpose. There is much to be learned from these great teachers that appear at various times to help us Open Up, minds, hearts and souls to the actual Truth of our Oneness as Beings. Cayce was one of many psychics who did not abuse his gift and in turn gave us so much to help launch us into our more enlightened age right now. Thank you for whatever you may be doing to take “baby” Christians to the next level of Christ Consciousness, for that is what we need to do now. We don’t have any excuses for ignorance any more. It is truly the dawn of the new age and we all need to develop our adult spirituality at the higher vibration, as much as we can.
I love it, dear Mary and Robin! Thank you for sharing your thoughts! My own mission seems to be to work and to teach at a more basic level, but we all arrive at the same place, don’t we?
Good stimulating post, Roberta. A couple of things you said have prompted me to some further reflections. You mentioned that Christianity’s removal of allusions to reincarnation is part of its “control of the faithful”… also that “periodically for most of us the craving for further spiritual growth becomes unbearable, we then plan and undertake another earth-lifetime…”
Now, this points to an idea that we come back into existence volitionally, presumably with some kind of purpose or plan in mind. That would suggest we are seeking out certain kinds of experiences or challenges.
Firstly, I can see that if reincarnation has been “deliberately” removed from the premises so to speak, then this religion’s other similar bids for consistent control will also make sense, if we allow for this as a kind of path that will appeal to certain souls, those who might want to “get it all done” in an exclusive frame of “one lifetime.” Self-discipline comes in many forms with corresponding paths and traditions to accommodate…
As someone who has practiced in Tibetan Buddhism, I fully subscribe to reincarnation, but also find I like what tradition has to offer in terms of limitations and structure, and recently reconciling with the Catholic Church (my baptism) after many years, I find a lot of beauty in its traditional rituals and the Latin service, although I know that I will never fully be a “traditional” Catholic… 😉
My other thought is, it seems there are a lot of hard choices that have been made by quite a few souls, if one looks across history. Although many examples abound, we could take the experience of all who perished in the Holocaust. Now, who would want to incarnate in order to go through something so extremely painful, or even to be on the side of the perpetrators? And yet, we may have to allow for that possibility it seems. Although Rudolf Steiner died in 1925, his clairvoyance saw the tragedy of what was coming ahead, and said there would be many souls who would go through terrible experiences, and by choice, although he also suggested that some souls do not always know what they are signing up for… This is something I am still contemplating, as I look over my own life and some of the difficulties I, and others I have known, have gone through.
In considering some of the other comments here about recurring talents or abilities from a previous life, I recall Steiner’s view that if we excelled at something in a previous life (say mathematics), and if we cultivated, or even exhausted its possibilities (according to that life’s circumstances), then we would find ourselves unable to re-engage with it in the next, and it would show up as a weakness instead.
Wonder what your take is on any of this, Roberta… many thanks!
Hello Peter! Yes, nearly all of us carefully plan our earth-lifetimes, and we work on tweaking them with our loved ones and guides throughout our lives.
And yes, apparently some of us will sign up eagerly for very difficult lives, much as those who are physically ambitious will use the toughest machines during their gym sessions. Always remember that for eternal beings an entire earth-lifetime is no more significant than a single afternoon in a gym! There is evidence that we will take classes beforehand to prepare ourselves, and we probably have guides expert in these matters on our teams while the worst things are happening. Great care is taken to keep us from choosing lessons that we don’t have the strength to surmount. But living through (or dying in) the Holocaust was a great opportunity for many people to learn and to grow spiritually!
Where religions are concerned, I probably should add that we are told that no religion has it right. It seems that, more and more, as we come to better understand what actually is going on, we seem to be getting past all religions. But if you find any religion comfortable, then go to it! The point is that we are here to achieve rapid spiritual growth, in whatever way works best for us.
Interesting thoughts. However I fail to see why studying the afterlife means acceptance of reincarnation and I’m a little surprised that it’s regarded a fact. Regardless of the amount of evidence to support a hypothesis or theory it always remains only a hypothesis or theory due to the possibility of further discoveries providing information to contradict previous evidence.
I understand how you feel, Chris. It took me a long time and a great deal of evidence from varied sources before I had to give in and accept that something like reincarnation really does happen. Actually, when you think about it, everything is just a hypothesis! I hypothesize that I am sitting here now writing this note to you, but I have that notion only because of the evidence that my eyes and my fingers give me as that information is processed by my brain. And I have learned by now based on overwhelming evidence that what my eyes and my fingers process through my brain is essentially an illusion: actually, this entire material universe is composed of consciousness energy. So, what even exists that we can say is real?
The evidence for the afterlife is every bit as compelling as is the evidence that we are human beings living in a material universe. Or it is even more compelling, and by now it is much better understood. And integral to that evidence is a great deal of evidence that all of us live many earth-lifetimes. You can ignore this evidence, of course – I ignored it for a long time! – but if you study very much of the afterlife evidence and you are intellectually honest eventually you have to accept that the weird version of reincarnation that I have tried to outline above is a part of the deal.
You said ” in some manner that we cannot understand apparently we leave a presence there.”
What are your thoughts on what is called the ‘higher self”?
From what I hear it is believed that our core self, our higher self, always resides in the heavenly realm, and only an aspect of that higher self is what reincarnates. It is also believed that the higher self can incarnate or re-incarnate multiple aspects of itself on many different planets, and in other realities, concurrently. Apparently we are much much more than we can possibly understand in this human form.
Hello Gary! What seems to be the case is that we leave as much as ninety percent of our accessible eternal minds behind in the higher aspects of reality when we come here for a brief earth-lifetime, so on that your understanding approximates my own.
Your question about simultaneous incarnations here and elsewhere is an interesting one. Elevated beings tell us that, in some manner that we cannot understand, since there is no objective time, all of our lifetimes (and therefore all of history, past and future) are happening simultaneously! And we understand from many sources that most of us do undertake at least a lifetime or two on other planets and/or in other dimensions. So your observation that we are much more than we can possibly understand while we are in human form is right-on, too ;-)!
Whatever is reality, if Western “theology” just get away from the concept of God manufacturing souls one at a time and then testing us by poking and prodding to see if we give, if we could just understand a little about divine nature, what a difference we could make.
I might be missing something here! In reference to an above comment “Although many examples abound, we could take the experience of all who perished in the Holocaust. Now, who would want to incarnate in order to go through something so extremely painful, or even to be on the side of the perpetrator”?
I understood in another podcast how we experience the after life is related to how we treat others here. For instance, a lady would do one random act of kindness everyday, anonymously and she was celebrated in heaven with a great parade.
Its not clicking for me that a soul would choose to come to earth to be a perpetrator and then have to suffer the consequences in the after life. If what we do here is directly correlated with our after life experience how on earth would a soul choose to be a jerk and end up in the lowest vibration akin to hell. I am confused as usual:)
This is such a great question, Laurel! Why would anyone choose to be a Nazi concentration-camp guard as part of his life-plan? The answer is that, of course, nobody chooses that. Instead, people will choose lives in which they will be tested or challenged to do what is wrong, and they will heroically choose to do what is right! Then of course they get here, they have no memory of their life-plan (or even of the fact that there is a life-plan), and they make the wrong choices. These people usually punish themselves severely after death, since they are so irritated not just to have done what was wrong, but also to have failed the challenge. And there is anecdotal evidence that it is their erstwhile victims who patiently rescue them and save them and help them eventually to heal.
Where the victims are concerned, I have seen evidence in afterlife communications that suggest that these people deliberately choose to come in and be part of a massacre or the Holocaust or some such horrible end, and they even take pre-birth classes to better prepare themselves to go through it. I’m less sure about why they would do this, but it seems that for some it helps with some aspect of their spiritual development. Indeed, perhaps we all choose that kind of terrible death a time or two during our many incarnations!
oh!!! 🙂 Thank you for answering so quickly and yes that makes so much more sense to me. I’m not sure if this was addressed before but is there any thought to whether or not we have a time stamped on our tush for each life time or its just random chance when we exit?
Heh – no, no time-stamps on tushes ;-).
Generally we plan two or three possible exit-points into our life-plans that our higher consciousness can choose to take if it reaches an exit point and there doesn’t seem to be more value to be gained from this lifetime. Typically, one will be youngish, one middle-aged, and one in old age.
We are altering our life-plans throughout our lives with the help of our spirit guides, so we might move our exit points as that seems to make sense. For example, Thomas Jefferson died at 83, and when I knew that he was my primary guide in this lifetime I insisted that I shouldn’t have to stay here beyond the age of 83, either! So we revamped the whole last phase of my life, and now I do have an exit point at 83… but apparently there also is a later one that they hope i will stay long enough to take ;-).
Thank you Roberta, I really think learning this is helping me become not so fearful. If a person cant heal their body then sounds like it may be possibly part of the plan. I can rest in that.
I have a question in regards to reincarnation that confuses me. If a soul decides to reincarnate and they are born into a new body, then they would become a new personality. What happens to the personality that they were in the previous life. When the new personality passes back to spirit are there now more than one of that particular soul. I’m not sure how to explain what I mean. But, I am wondering if each personality that you live goes on, or if they somehow join back together. For instance, if Thomas Jefferson reincarnated would you still be able to communicate with him if he had reincarnated as another personality. And what happens to the new personality when it returns back to the other side. Since you said you have many lifetimes working with him, does that mean there are multiples of you on the other side. I don’t think that I am being very clear, but it is confusing to me.
On the contrary, Shelly, you’re being very clear and this is an excellent question! In order to make sense of my answer – and it’s just my own answer, based on all that I have studied – you’ve got to internalize the following concepts:
1) Beyond this material reality, there really is no time.
2) So all our lives – past and future – are being lived at once! A very elevated being once told us that we should think of reincarnation not as linear, but more as something like a bucket out of which each lifetime is dipped and back into which each lifetime is poured.
3) We spend a period of non-time that apparently seems infinite to us just enjoying the Summerland and our loved ones after each earth-lifetime, while we also are reconnecting with loved ones and our personality from other lifetimes. This usually means retaining the look, gender, and overall details of our latest personality, but sometimes we will fairly quickly take on a different lifetime’s look. For example, I once read about a woman who had never liked her blond, blue-eyed face in the mirror and after transitioning realized that she had been an African princess in a prior lifetime. She resumed that identity and appearance and felt herself to be whole again. For my own part, I am virtually always male (Thomas and I were mostly comrades in those other lifetimes, not lovers), and as I enter old age I can feel my attitudes and general outlook shifting back toward a more male personality. I will likely assume a recent male persona pretty quickly after I transition, just as that woman chose to go back to being black royalty. That won’t much matter to my family from this lifetime, since apparently we recognize each other there by energy and not by appearance.
So with this background, I’ll tell you that Thomas now presents as a somewhat shorter, dark-haired farmer wearing farm work clothes, according to Susanne Wilson. (He is handsome, though; she says he’s a hunk.) We assume this is what he looked like in his last lifetime, when he was a farmer in Wales. He does, however, have recognizably the same sort of personality that Thomas Jefferson had: he is very bright, sharp, somewhat impatient, and idealistic and honorable to a fault. When Thomas Jefferson spoke through Leslie Flint in 1960, I was 14 years old so he had already lived and died in that last lifetime he was already my primary guide. But still, he was precisely Jefferson in the conversation that he had that day, right down to Jefferson’s voice (I was in his TJ lifetime when he was old as Richard Rush, his young male protege, and I recognized his voice at once. What an amazing experience!). I am curious enough now about our prior lifetimes together that I attempted a regression session last summer, but he broke in and announced that I am not to know any more about our prior lives together until after I graduate. And that was that!
So, does this help? We remain the same essential personality, probably changing and growing as we advance through lifetimes, much as children change as they grow older; and apparently we can take on prior personalities and express that way (even including appearance) if we choose to do that. Remember that we generally incarnate in soul groups, so – for example – your husband in this lifetime could have been your daughter in a prior lifetime, and your slave in yet another lifetime and so on. And we can together investigate these old relationships, which is apparently a common post-death pastime; but if we choose to re-experience those lives we will do it rather as you might put on a costume. In non-time, though, it may well seem to the eighteenth-century person that you once were that all the eighteenth-century post-death Summerland fun still goes on!
As someone once said, if you take time out of it, everything starts to make sense ;-).
Hi Roberta:
I’m wide open to all this but I have two problems:
1. Why are people always “related” to famous people?
2. Isn’t it possible your love for Jefferson led you to believe this, not an actual spiritual “reality”?
I’m not being smart. I’m sincerely wondering, because you had me. You really had me. And then the “OMG Here we go, another famous person past life” thing happened again and you lost me.
Hello Annie! First, to answer your numbered questions:
1) In my experience, almost no one who undergoes past-life regression finds anybody famous in his or her background. Susanne Wilson, who is in my view the greatest living spiritual medium, tells me that a few dead folks who have shown up in readings she has done for people have been famous – Walt Disney is one name she has mentioned, and Paul Newman is another – but in each case the appearance of the famous person was not a surprise to the person being read. They had known one another. To be frank, I have never heard of a case of a famous person who died almost two hundred years ago turning up in a reading or in a past-life regression session. Ever. So if having that happen seems common to you, then I would love to know your basis for that belief! Indeed, I would be eager to hear about even one well-documented “famous person past life.” I don’t know of any.
2) My prior interest in Thomas Jefferson wasn’t strong enough to generate any kind of fantasy that he was guiding me. Actually, the opposite is apparently what happened. I am told that part of the preparation with which I came into this lifetime was a strong predilection to eventually become interested in Thomas Jefferson, and I still recall the moment when it happened. I was browsing in a bookstore in the late eighties, at the age of maybe 43, and I spotted a copy of Alf Mapp’s Thomas Jefferson: A Strange Case of Mistaken Identity and felt an overwhelming urge to buy that book. What I didn’t learn until much later was that Thomas prompted me to notice and buy it that day because he had to do a book with me in order to prove to the beings around Jesus that I could do spirit-guided research and that I could channel a book. They needed to see that before they would choose me to prepare for and then to channel Liberating Jesus. The book that Thomas and I did together at the end of the eighties was My Thomas, a wonderful account of his ten-year marriage that spanned the Revolution. It was first published by Doubleday in 1993. It’s the most beautiful thing that I ever will write.
Whether or not my primary guide ever was Thomas Jefferson means nothing to me at this point. I will admit to a groupie infatuation with him when he first announced himself two years ago – and my feeling that way did irritate him! – but he has emphatically moved on. He is on a mission, working closely with the Unity in raising the consciousness of this planet, and being his avatar on earth in doing this work is something that I signed up for before I was born. Two years ago I was unable to communicate with him in the daytime – of course, we all meet with our guides at night – but little by little I have become more sensitive. Occasionally I even unexpectedly hear him. Then every couple of months or so he will arrange a meeting with me through Susanne Wilson and we’ll have an actual conversation. I now realize that just about everything I ever have done in my life has been guided by him as preparation for the work that we are doing now.
As I say, whether or not this being who is working with me so closely ever was Thomas Jefferson doesn’t matter to me at this point. I know him as a beloved colleague, not the historical Jefferson but uniquely himself. However, the genuine Thomas Jefferson did communicate in about 1960 through the extraordinary direct-voice medium, Leslie Flint. Susanne has said that my guide now looks and sounds nothing like Jefferson, and it was only when she heard that recording that she was certain it really was the same being. Repeatedly he said things that were surprising to those attending that seance, but were exactly what my Thomas was saying to us. For me, first hearing that recording was among the most emotional events of my life because Thomas had told us that one of the 17 lifetimes he and I have shared was in his old age as Jefferson, when I was his young protege, Richard Rush. I heard that voice, and I knew that voice! OMG, it was amazing. I was encountering someone I had loved long ago and altogether forgotten. That whole ancient time – the feel and sound and smell of it – all of it came flooding back! There was a lump in my throat and I had tears on my cheeks. Such a deep and gentle and wonderful old man he had been! I have listened to parts of that recording many times since, just to hear that unique voice again, that soft Virginia drawl, and be at once transported back to a long-ago morning at Monticello, sitting in his cabinet with the sunlight pouring in and sipping tea and talking about the Gospels.
I have had a primary guide all my life who broke into my daytime life two years ago and told us to call him Thomas. He is my precious, beloved friend, and I have joyously devoted the rest of my life to helping him with his work. Whether or not you want to believe that, Annie, is up to you entirely.
For a famous past life, see Barbro Karlen as Anne Frank (a writer cut short, and reborn as a writer again).
https://exemplore.com/paranormal/The-Reincarnation-Of-Anne-Frank-Barbro-Karlen-The-Amazing-Story-Of-Past-Life-Memories
Hello Rodney! Thank you for sharing this. Fascinating.
What about animals that you have been close to, do the go into the afterlife and will we know them.
Yes, Pat, every animal that we ever have loved is waiting for us there, now young and healthy, and absolutely delighted to see us! My blog post on this topic is here: http://robertagrimes.com/?s=pets+in+the+afterlife
There’s no easier way to say this, I lost my daughter to a fire accident, she died three days after the accident it was the worst day of my entire existence, she was so full of life and to die in that manner was terrible to say the least. I became very depressed to the point of taking my life. My family and friends were there for me during this trying times but i was never the same again. I was surfing the internet this faithful day, i came across a spiritualist, i shared my problems with him and he decided to help me at least give me comfort for losing my daughter. He said he can reincarnate her soul with another body meaning my daughter character and how she does things with be manifested in this new body.
He told me the particular date when i should have sex with my wife……….
after all the procedures which are not lengthy, my wife became pregnant and we had another baby this time a boy but i can feel the presence of my daughter, everything about my son reflects the behaviour of my daughter.
Before now i didn’t believe in such supernatural power but this experience my orientation/views have changed forever.
You can reach the spiritualist via email: nakodako@outlook.com
You will not regret your action.
I am so sorry for your loss! And I have left the spiritualist’s email address here, but I don’t urge anyone else to try this. My dear, it is common for a child who is lost to reincarnate in the same family. I know of two such situations in my family of friends. It’s common! BUT NO HUMAN BEING CAN “REINCARNATE” ANYONE! I state that as a fact. Without reservation. The “spiritualist” did not make this happen. My hunch is that your daughter was planning to return to you, and was planning to be a male this time, so to make sure you would recognize her, she prompted you to find and talk with this person. Otherwise, you might well not have believed this new baby was her mind come back to you. I am so happy for you, and I just want to reassure you that this does happen, and often, so it is not your imagination. Just enjoy your wonderful child!
Hi Roberta!
Just curious, is reincarnation optional? Also, how do you find yourself not getting overwhelmed? I have recently had a sort of awakening but instead of reaching the “bliss” part I am stuck in a state of anxiety that I have to suddenly buy all these books and implement so many practices (such as chakra healing, womb healing, healing generational trauma, etc) in order to spiritually develop as I really would not want to come back to Earth. This is interfering with my life. I find that I cannot even enjoy time with my family and friends as my brain will tell me that I am wasting my time and should be meditating or something. I find that I cannot enjoy for example, going to the pumpkin patch because my brain is telling me everyone will die anyways and it’ll all be gone and I should be focused on my spiritual growth. I also am starting to feel extremely guilty for eating meat sometimes (I am still at home so my parents prepare the food) or not a vegan diet as I have heard many gurus say this is best because of animals and so I’ve been avoiding but sometimes it’s the only option and I do not want to get in trouble. I am also suffering from intrusive thoughts and now that I know that God reads my mind, Im terrified that He is disappointed and I am inhibiting my spiritual growth. Also, how can we talk to Jesus? I’ve been calling out to Him but I’ve gotten no response and it only pushes me more into despair and makes me feel more rejected. Please help!