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The Cosmic Internet: Explanations From The Other Side by Frank DeMarco

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Reviewed by: Virginia Waldron

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧXI,  Spring 2012)

cosmicIn this book, Frank DeMarco uses his ability to channel, connect, and communicate with a body of guides or spiritual teachers in order to tackle questions that humans have been asking for thousands of years. Some of them were answered long ago, but the answers no longer fit our current way of thinking, so he asks them again. He does not do so without respect for the wisdom of the ages nor the experiences of current humanity. He does so with an honest desire to find a common thread, a truth that, while attached to the wisdom and experiences of our ancestors, holds a measure of reality for us in current times, looking for answers and/or definitions that have meaning in our world, today. It reminds me of when our children were very young – Kindergarten age maybe – and they asked about Death or where did they come from – what do you tell them? Only as much as they can handle at the time, in words and phrases that they can comprehend with a young and innocent mind. We, the human race, are the children. And now we are older, we have matured enough spiritually that when we ask those same questions, the answers are richer, fuller, more detailed and direct, and more complex. Frank’s channeled writing tells us that there is so much more to being human than we could ever have imagined.

Love From Both Sides by Stephanie Riseley

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Reviewed by: Virginia Waldron

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧX,  Spring 2011)

LoveThis book was an interesting and compelling journey of a woman who experienced deep and profound grief and loss, and who, as she went through that journey, experienced her own personal awakening. It is about after death communications, existence after death, the eternal aspects of love and of our true nature as Soul Beings, and the reality of being human with all our flaws and imperfections.

Something I tell my clients time and again, “We are human, we are meant to be flawed. It is our flaws that make us loveable. Without our flaws no one could stand to be in the same room with us!” Stephenie writes an excellent and brutally honest account of her journey and her pain and her truth.

Perhaps it is a bit longer than it truly needed to be and perhaps it could have been a little tighter in the editing. But, again, if it were perfect it would be hard to finish! It is worth reading and it is a good book to give someone who has recently suffered a great loss, who is grieving or who needs to see past the pain and into the hope.

 

Angel Babies: Messages from Miscarried and Other Lost Babies by Patricia Seaver McGivern

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(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧIX,  Fall 2009)

angelAngel Babies is a book that would never have been written if not for the efforts of a particular angel baby soul known as Dillon. It was through his determined efforts and pushing his mom, the author, that his story, and the stories of other angel baby souls, is told.

McGivern put it so eloquently in her book, “When signs of souls on the other side were close to me but too big for my mind to absorb or deal with, I questioned their authenticity. I pushed them away. Although I was being jolted awake, I’d been programmed not to believe. I realized that often the very phenomena I need to explore are the ones that challenge my belief system.”

The opening section, three chapters, tells the story of McGivern’s transition from one belief system to another. As I read her story I was reminded of the common path many of us have traveled; a path that started in ordinary life with our original belief system firmly in place and then transitioned through outside influence, often through much kicking and screaming on our part, to an expanded and sometimes totally different belief system.

Invisible Roots: How Healing Past Life Trauma Can Liberate Your Present by Barbara Stone

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(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧIX,  Fall 2009)

StoneAt 326 pages, Invisible Roots is loaded with tons of information on healing our lives both at the soul energy level and the physical. Throughout the book, Dr. Stone provides valuable and useful information on multiple healing levels and approaches. This book will appeal to both the lay person, who may be a beginner in learning of the real energetic nature of the human body, and the clinician looking for more ways to improve and complement their skill set.

This book is a delightful and interesting read starting with the stories of Dr. Bernie Siegel, whose foreword piece sets the stage for the rest of the book. His stories involve angels, near death experiences, spiritual healing, spirit guides, messages from the other side, synchronistic events, and past-life memory. What a great introduction for Dr. Stone’s work.

In the introduction to Invisible Roots, Dr. Stone provides her background, how she was led, kicking and screaming like so many others such as Dr. Brian Weiss and Dr. Michael Newton, into this new realm of thought, belief, and healing. Dr. Stone coined the phrase Soul Detective, which is a very apt name to the type of work she does and addresses here in Invisible Roots. Her protocols remind me of a keen detective at work, asking simple yet highly methodical questions to zero in on the root cause of her clients’ issues.

The Big Book of the Soul: Our Many Lives as Holographic Aspects of the Source by Ian Lawton

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Reviewed by Thelma Freedman, Ph.D.

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧIX,  Fall 2009)

lawton3This is a book focused on reincarnation itself rather than past-life therapy. Let me say at the outset that it is an excellent history of reincarnation beliefs as they emerge from a wide assortment of channelers, meditators, past-life therapists, and past-life “subjects” (Lawton’s word); some going back centuries. It should be a required text in any training program for past life therapists. It contains an excellent bibliography and reference list, and a thorough index. It also contains the best analysis of the work of Ian Stevenson that I have ever read, as well as examinations of the work of other “pioneers,” as Lawton rightly calls our founders.

But of course I have a complaint. Chapter 4 is titled “Past-Life Therapy: Background, research studies, emotional dynamics.” This has a good ring to it but as it turns out, the “research studies” are the stories told by various people reporting past lives or the stories told by channelers or other psychics. There is little real “research” in this book, unless you accept the past life stories told by clients or channelers or psychics as research. I find this a serious omission, as there has been a considerable amount of objective research done. For example: Lucas, who used an early brain scanner (the Mind Mirror) and found that the person reporting a past life was in an alpha state (as some of the therapist guides were, too); Cunningham, on people who have experienced an OBE (out-of-body experience); James, on the link between healthy adults and the ability to report a past life; Cladder, on incorporating past life reports into a larger and more conventional treatment for phobias; van der Maesen’s two studies, one on Tourette’s Syndrome and the other on hallucinated voices (Lawton does mention van der Maesen); or Freedman, on past-life reports and phobias. These studies were all true research – complete with a guiding hypothesis, a way of measuring results, and standards for selecting the participants (not “subjects” anymore, thanks to the APA and the US Government Standards for Research with Human Participants).

Exploring The Eternal Soul by Andy Tomlinson

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Reviewed by Virginia Waldron

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧVIII,  Spring 2008)

Andy2In this book Andy Tomlinson examines and discusses journeys into the interim state of existence for 15 clients to further explore our experiences when we are not incarnated in a physical body. Michael Newton’s previous work clearly set the ground stage for further study in Spiritual Regression, also known as Life Between Lives or as Andy calls it, interlife regression. In this book Andy builds on the shoulders of other authors and researchers in the field thus providing a stronger research foundation for the book case studies. Andy also brings his own style, his own insight and wisdom into this work and it is a very informative, intelligent, and highly readable piece of research. Exploring the Eternal Soul was written as Andy’s report or summary of the combined research project by himself and Ian Lawton. After the initial research project was completed, both authors wrote a book based on their own primary field of research and study. Ian Lawton’s book is The Wisdom of The Soul.

I think the format of this book is arranged very well. Each of the chapters and the information presented in each section is clear and concise. In the beginning he moves through the general information of what the interim life experience is, the healing process that occurs, and the different areas explored. Then he moves into more detailed material about the soul’s growth and how we progress through our own challenges and choices. Throughout he illustrates his ideas with quotes and commentaries from the subjects with whom he worked. His commentaries are quite insightful and articulate. I would suggest, however, that perhaps there could have been more information and material shared in the chapters, especially at the beginning. Maybe more explanations of the different areas that were explored and how they were encountered by each of the individual subjects. There were also times when I was a bit confused when he went back and forth between the different subjects and what they were saying. The flow from one subject to the next was at times awkward and a bit incomplete. But, these are minor points compared to the wonderful experience of just what this book teaches us about our souls!

Queen’s Gold, by Melissa Bowersock

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Reviewed by Thelma Freedman, Ph.D.

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧVIII,  Spring 2008)

BowersockMelissa Bowersock, a certified hypnotherapist and Jungian past-life therapist for 13 years, has gifted all of us with a gripping novel driven by an unexpected past-life recall. Her widowed reluctant hero, ordinary skeptical guy Hal Thompson, submits to his daughter’s request that he experience a past-life recall. Convinced at first that he is just “making it all up,” Hal regresses to a lifetime that starts in Spain and moves on to Hispaniola and from there into Cortez’s army and finally the Aztec lands.

It is here that Hal first encounters the Queen’s Gold with its history of murder and treachery – and its hiding place. Later, when his family is threatened, Hal reluctantly agrees to take the trip from New Mexico across the border into the old Aztec territory to find the Queen’s Gold that disappeared some 500 years ago. This not to “prove” the past-life’s reality or to enrich himself, but only to secure the safety of his family.

This is a tale of love, murder, revenge, treachery, and greed across five centuries, and it moves along at a fast pace that never fails to hold the attention of the reader. Bowersock brings her characters to life – they are very believable, warts and all, and her descriptions of the spectacular terrain of the Aztecs put the reader right there along with the characters. (In fact, I wondered if she herself had experienced a past life in this wild and untamed time and territory).

The Past Lives – Embracing the Wisdom and Healing Power of Your Soul by Jean Rita Linder

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Reviewed by Dorothy Neddermeyer, Ph.D.

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧVIII,  Spring 2008)

Linder“The Past Lives” by Jean Rita Linder is a pleasant surprise. The surprise for me was the author’s ability to draw the reader deeper into the message regarding past-life recall. Having conducted past-life regressions with hundreds of clients for over twelve years and attending numerous past-life regression workshops and talking with colleagues, I thought I would be bored after the second paragraph. However, since I had committed to writing this review, I knew I needed to read the book. After reading the second paragraph, it was obvious that Jean Linder had something to offer everyone, including an experienced past-life regression practitioner.

Linder reveals in great detail the miracle of healing throughout the interwoven sands of time. This book, whose time has come, is without question a must read for anyone—professional or layperson!

Another endearing and pleasant surprise is Linder’s ability to share her spiritual journey beginning in her teen years until later adulthood that intrigued and riveted my interest to know more.

Linder chose the title, The Past Lives, as a symbolic play on words. Linder explained, because of the quirkiness of the English language, the word “lives” can be pronounced two ways. It can rhyme with both “hives” and “gives.” “Hives” is a noun and “gives,” is a verb. This double usage subtly changes the meaning, “the past lives of Jean Linder,” (noun) versus “the past lives in the now moment” (verb). Linder embraces both meanings in her book.

Healing Research Vol. II: How Can I Heal What Hurts? by Daniel J. Benor, M.D.

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Reviewed by the Editor

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧVII,  Spring 2007)

BenorDr. Benor offers a four volume series on Healing Research. While this particular volume is not focused on regression research or therapies the focus is on our energetic nature and the many varied approaches to self healing. As such the material contained in this volume is related to our work as energy therapists of sorts.

This volume is loaded with lots of research information supporting the theory and belief of the subtle energies of our bodies and the many varied therapies available today to facilitate healing. Dr. Benor casts a wide net covering healing practices from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Astrology and Dowsing.

He discusses the influence environmental energies exert on our personal energy fields and suggests ways to personally explore, understand, and heal our physical problems that result from the disturbance of our subtle and spiritual energies.

The book is divided up into 5 chapters: Self-Healing, Wholistic Energy Medicine, The Human Energy Field, Geobiological Effects, and Self-Healing Approaches and Exercises. Chapter one, Self-Healing, covers such topics as Personality and Normality, Psychosomatic Disorders, Psychotherapy and Physical Symptoms, Body-Mind Therapies and Spiritual Healing, Biofeedback, Hypnosis, Self-Healing Programs and Spontaneous Healing.. He also includes a preview of an Energy Healing Model.

The Wisdom of the Soul by Ian Lawton

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Reviewed by the Editor

(as included in the The Journal of Regression Therapy Volume ΧVII,  Spring 2007)

Lawton2This is the second book written by the author; his previous work was reviewed in the last issue of the Journal. This new work is a collaborative one in which he was assisted by the very able Andy Tomlinson, whose book Healing the Eternal Soul is also reviewed in this issue.

Ian’s background in research is paired with Andy’s skill as a trained and very experienced Past Life and In Between Life Therapist. Together they submitted questions to a carefully picked group of subjects who, as Ian states: “would be chosen by Andy, and would not claim to have any special gifts or access to special channels of higher wisdom—they would be ordinary people with no pretensions, who happened to be best suited to enter the deeper states of trance required for this kind of work.” And also “we would be obtaining information from multiple subjects and comparing them for consistency, not relying on one particular source of channeled material which cold, even if broadly genuine, be highly subjectively influenced.”