QUOTES & VOICES

The reason why Homer is to me like a dewy morning is because I too lived while Troy was, and sailed in the hollow ships of the Grecians to sack the devoted town. The rosy-fingered dawn as it crimsoned the tops of Ida, the broad seashore covered with tents, the Trojan hosts in their painted armor and the rushing chariots of Diomede and Idomeneus, – all these I too saw: my ghost animated the frame of some nameless Argive…We forget that we have been drugged by the sleepy bowl of the present. But when a lively chord in the soul is struck, when the windows for a moment unbarred, the long and varied past is recovered. We recognize it all; we are not mere brief, ignoble creatures; we seize our immortality and bind together the related parts of our secular beings…Something there is in the spirit which changes not, neither is weary, but ever returns into itself, and partakes of the eternity of God.

Well, I feel that soon I shall have done with my earthly life. Now, since I am convinced that nothing existing in nature can be annihilated, so I know for certainty, that for this reason, the more noble part of me will not cease to live. Though I may not be a king in my future life, so much the better. I shall nevertheless live an active life and, on top of it, earn less ingratitude.

We must recognize that we have already lived before being what we now are, and that many other lives await us, some in this world, and the rest in a higher sphere, with a finer body and more delicate senses.

Finding the Celts to be valiant warriors without fear of death, Julius Caesar sought an explanation and wrote: They wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets, that souls do not become extinct, but pass after death from one body to another, and they think that men by this tenet are in a great degree excited to valor, the fear of death being disregarded.

I held that when a person dies His soul returns again to earth; Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise, Another mother gives him birth. With sturdier limbs and brighter brain The old soul takes the road again. Such was my belief and trust; This hand, this hand that holds the pen, Has many a hundred times been dust And turned, as dust, to dust again; These eyes of mind have blinked and shone In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon…

It is absolutely necessary that the soul should be healed and purified, and if this does not take place during its life on earth, it must be accomplished in future lives.

Each other life that comes to us, however brief or fragmentary, is a piece of another self. The personality is not single, it is multiple—not in the psychiatric sense of multiple personality, but in that there are many levels to the self like many skins to an onion. We peel off these selves as we look into our past lives or as we look into our own dreams.

Is spirit possession a fantasy? Or is it the prevalent and potentially disastrous condition that has been described in The Unquiet Dead? After all the years that I have worked with spirits, often “wrestling” with ones who are stubborn, confused, hostile, and terrified, I'm still not one hundred percent convinced that they are not figments of the imagination. As a therapist, the question is moot—the therapy works.

This mind-body connection is especially evident in past-life therapy. Most physiological events are shown to have not only a biological history but also a psychological history whose roots may extend well into the past. Their manifestation may be direct or indirect.

In Judaism, a fundamental belief in reincarnation, or gilgul, has existed for thousands of years. This belief had been a basic cornerstone of the Jewish faith until approximately 1800–1850, when the urge to “modernize” and to be accepted by the more scientific Western establishment transformed the Eastern European Jewish communities. However, the belief in reincarnation had been fundamental and mainstream until this time, less than two centuries ago.

Moreover, because our being is multidimensional, existing outside Space-Time, what appears as our “past” from the current personality's perspective may not yet have been added to our soul's repertoire. Similarly, the “future” we now perceive may have already been lived before. If Einstein is right, that's how it would appear to an Alpha Centaurian! This is why all comparisons of the soul's spiritual “progress” along strictly linear Time line are merely superficial. The underlying All That Is reality exists in a Timeless present, accessible only to the deepest levels of our minds, but it is the natural home of our souls.

As I took some pains to explain earlier, past-life therapy, as a rule, does not set out to prove anything. Proof or disproof of reincarnation is strictly the province of parapsychology and research. Nor does past life therapy necessarily subscribe to any religious, spiritualist, or “metaphysical” doctrine about reincarnation.

We are all teachers and students; we are all patients and healers. The journey through time into the mind, soul, and feelings is one that we all share.

What light does this study shed on the question of abortion? One impression that emerges from these 750 cases is that birth–and indeed living another lifetime–is perceived as a duty and not a pleasure. The soul apparently has a choice of which fetus to enter. If one fetus is aborted, apparently it is possible to choose another. In some cases, the soul who will occupy the fetus is in contact with the soul of the mother and can influence her decision regarding abortion. My data also indicates that souls can elect to leave the fetus or the infant’s body and return to the between-life state. Perhaps the sudden death syndrome in infants may be the result of a soul’s decision not to go ahead with a life plan.

Could we have race memories locked away in our minds somewhere? After all, our ancestors in a tiny speck of human seed determined the color of our hair, the rate at which we would blink our eyes, and settled on us aspects of behavior called “instincts.” Could some memory of the traumas they faced in their own lives have also been transmitted in that micro-coded specification for the construction of a present-day human being.

On a personal level, my experience with past-lives has changed my belief system. No longer do I consider these experiences “oddities.” Now I consider them normal events that can happen to almost anyone who can be hypnotized. At their least, they are deep revelations from the subconscious. At their most, they are evidence of life before life.

Personally, I do not feel that I have been “converted” to a belief in reincarnation; I do not think such a conversion is possible. But I have examined the “evidence” in as straightforward and objective a manner as is possible when dealing with such esoteric phenomena. Based on that evidence and in lieu of any other acceptable explanation for the results of this research, I must conclude that reincarnation does exist.

I can read reincarnation into the Bible—and you can read it right out, again.

We, as a society, have much to gain from research into the mysteries of the mind, the soul, the continuation of life after death, and the influence of our past-life experiences on our present behavior. Obviously, the ramifications are limitless, particularly in the fields of medicine, psychiatry, theology, and philosophy. However, scientifically rigorous research into this area is in its infancy. Strides are being made to uncover this information, but the process is slow and is met with much resistance by scientists and lay people alike. Throughout history, humankind has been resistant to change and to the acceptance of new ideas...So it is now with psychiatrists and other therapists, who refuse to examine and evaluate the considerable evidence being gathered about survival after bodily death and about past-life memories. Their eyes stay tightly shut.

I look upon death to be as necessary to the constitution as sleep. We shall arise refreshed in the morning.

I have been in many shapes before I attained congenial form... There is nothing in which I have not been... I was with my Lord in the highest sphere On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell; I have borne a banner before Alexander... I am a wonder whose origin is not known. I have been in Asia with Noah in the ark, I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I have been in India when Rome was built... I shall be until the doom on the face of the earth. I was originally little Gwion, and at length I am Taliesin. Knowest thou what thou art In the hour of sleep- A mere body, a mere soul- Or a secret retreat of light? I marvel that in their books They know not with certainty The properties of the soul; Or what form are its members; In what part, and when, it takes up its abode, Or by what wind or stream it is supplied.

As long as you are not aware of the continual law of Die and Be Again, you are merely a vague guest on a dark earth.

As far back as I can remember I have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of existence.

It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some strange new disguise. Jesus is not dead; he is very well alive: nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet, nor Aristotle; at times we believe we have seen them all, and could easily tell the names under which they go.

A newly born child is striking by its expression of immense old age and omniscience; whereas the face of a man engaged in dying peacefully is remarkable for its serenity and the smiling tolerance of the human activities he still dimly sees. There is a mystic link between the margins of life, a cool majesty in which some secret is shared, a secret far removed from the high summer of love, sex, ambition and fretful jockeying for position. I am in what is known as the flower of middle age, and over the noise of traffic and ticker tapes, of canned music and prattle, I am endlessly jealous of this secret.

Death and birth are the vesper and matin bells that summon mankind to sleep and to rise refreshed for new advancement.

When we die, we throw off our individuality like a worn-out garment, and rejoice because we are about to receive a new and better one...Were an Asiatic to ask me for a definition of Europe, I would be forced to answer him: It is that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible delusion that man was created out of nothing, and that his present birth is his first entrance into life.

The doctrine of metempsychosis is, above all, neither absurd nor useless...it is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.

I don’t experience, as you do, this feeling of a life which is beginning, the stupefaction of a newly commenced existence. It seems to me, on the contrary, that I have always lived! And I possess memories which go back to the Pharaohs. I see myself very clearly at different stages of history, practising different professions and in many parts of fortune. My present personality is the result of my lost personalities...Many things would be explained if we could know our true genealogy.

The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others – existences which the spirit alone remembers, for matter has no memory for spiritual things. Thought alone holds the tradition of the bygone life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.

I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was twenty-six...it was as if I had found a universal plan. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives...The discovery of reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men’s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.

I ceased attempting to prove the reality of past lives many years ago. Whether past-life recall may in some instances be the actual memory of a prior existence and in other cases pure fantasy, I have now observed hundreds of men and women who have obtained profound release from a present pain or phobia by reliving in an altered state of consciousness the ostensible origin of that problem in some real or imagined former existence.

As Einstein used to say, it is rare that people let themselves be convinced by new ideas. What happens is that the people with the old ideas eventually die and those who follow them find the new ideas very natural and adopt them. Once a sufficient proportion of the population has gone through the type of flashbacks that occur during regressions, it seems quite probable that past-life experiences will become as common and accepted as dreams.

To-day my whole belief in the science of the stars stands or falls with Karma and Reincarnation, and without these ancient teachings, natal astrology has no permanent value.

No one understands that man is not a unit of life. He is as dead as granite. The unit of 4fe is composed of swarms of billions of highly charged entities which live in the cells. I believe that when a man dies, this swarm deserts the body and goes out into space, but keeps on and enters another cycle of life and is immortal.

I have been in many shapes before I attained congenial form; There is nothing in which I have not been. I was with my Lord in the highest sphere On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell; I have borne a banner before Alexander. I am a wonder whose origin is not known. I have been in Asia with Noah in the ark, I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I have been in India when Rome was built, I shall be until the doom on the face of the earth. I was originally little Gwion, And at length I am Taliesin. Knowest thou what thou art In the hour of sleep - A mere body, a mere soul - Or a secret retreat of light? I marvel that in their books They know not with certainty The properties of the soul, Or what form are its members; In what part, and when, it takes up its abode, Or by what wind or stream it is supplied.

Every soul…comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life. Its place in this world as a vessel appointed to honor or dishonor is determined by its previous merits or demerits. Its work in this world determines its place in the world which is to follow this.

Forget not that I shall come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me

Your words are wise, Arjuna, but your sorrow is for nothing. The truly wise mourn neither for the living nor for the dead. There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor any of these kings. Nor is there any future in which we shall cease to be. Just as the dweller in his body passes through childhood, youth, and old age, so at death he merely passes into another kind of body. The wise are not deceived by that.

Each time we die we gain more of life. Souls pass from one sphere to another without loss of personality, become more and more bright...I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. The whole creation is a perpetual ascension, from brute to man, from man to God. To divest ourselves more and more of matter, to be clothed more and more with spirit, such is the law.

Our Souls, having already existed, have preserved traces of the impressions they received during such existences. They have lost, it is true, the memory of actions done during their first incarnations, but the abstract principal of causality must endure in the soul at its second incarnation. Natural aptitudes, special faculties and vocations, are traces of impressions received long before, of knowledge already acquired, and which, betraying itself from the cradle, can be accounted for only on the hypothesis of a former life. The soul of man remains the same, notwithstanding its numerous peregrinations.

You are asking me about the Buddhist idea of “Karma.” Now our whole life, from birth unto death, with all its dreams, is it not in its turn also a dream, which we take as real l(fe, the reality of which we do not doubt only because we do not know of the other more real life? The dreams of our present life are the environment in which we work out the impressions, thoughts, feelings of a former life. As we live through thousands of dreams in our present life, so is our present life only one of many thousands of such lives which we enter from the other, more real life - -. and then return after death. Our life is but one of the dreams of that more real life, and so it is endlessly, until the very last one, the lift of God I wish you would understand me; I am not playing, not inventing this: I believe it, I see it without doubt.

(Savvy): I believe the new people are the old people reincarnated, Frank. I suspect I am Eve. I am very fond of apples, and they always disagree with me.

All my life I have had an awareness of other times and places. I have been aware of other persons in me. I, like any man, am a growth. I did not begin when I was born nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing through incalculable myriads of millenniums. All these experiences of all these lives have gone into the making of my soul-stuff of the spirit-stuff that is I. I am all of my past...All my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me. I am man born of woman. My days are few, but the stuff of me is indestructible. I have been woman born of woman, and borne my children. And I shall be born again. Oh, incalculable times shall I be born.

Let us return to reincarnation...for there never was a more beautiful, a juster, purer, a more moral, fruitful and consoling, nor to a certain point, a more probable creed. It alone, with its doctrine of successive expiations and purifications, accounts for all the physical and intellectual inequalities, all the social iniquities, all the hideous injustices of fate.   

There is One who ever reappears, at certain intervals, in the course of human history. He is like a rider taming a wild horse in the arena. Again and yet again it throws him. A moment, and he is in the saddle again, each time more secure and more expert; but oof the has to go, in all his varying incarnations, until his day. Who knows how often he has wandered among us when none have recognized him?

I have held and hold souls to be mortal. Speaking as a Catholic, they do not pass from body to body, but go to Paradise, Purgatory, or Hell. But I have reasoned deeply, and, speaking as a philosopher, since the soul is not without body and yet is not body, it may be in one body or another, and pass from body to body. From Spirit, the Life of the Universe, proceeds the life and soul of everything that has soul and life.

In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahmanical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand, the means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the Cosmos to man. None but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine of evolution itself, that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality.

The soul can never be infected by the corruption of the body, but acts in the body like the wind which causes the sound of the organ, wherein if one of the pipes is spoiled, the wind cannot produce a good result in that pipe... ...Read me, O Reader, if your find delight in me, because very seldom shall I come back into this world.