|
Are We Our Past Lives?
Soul Patterns in Personalities and RelationshipsbyMarie Gates  I have been asked how I came to believe in reincarnation. During my youth nothing was further from my mind. I was an Agnostic. This was not pleasant for me; I secretly envied those who believed in God. I entered a car with apprehension knowing I must be very careful in traveling. What if I died in an accident? Would anything await me, or would I cease to exist? These were burning questions until the spring of 1978 when I uncovered past lives with the help of a hypnotist. Long before, I had an experience which no one could explain. Before I learned to talk, an unusual memory came to me. I saw myself as an old lady dying in a hospital bed. Women, who I later recognized as nuns in their habits, worked around me, and my daughter, wearing a scarf and a long coat, stood at my side. Born and raised in Michigan, I had moved to the south when my husband Nat started working for a textiles company in Alabama. We had not been married a year when, in the winter of 1975, Chrysler neared bankruptcy and let him go. A psychology instructor, I began teaching at a nearby university shortly after moving to Alabama. Marlene, one of my students, was an astrologer who knew a hypnotist specializing in past-life regressions. Mr. Taylor helped me uncover five past lives. One was that of Anna, a New England mother. While under hypnosis I gave her husband’s name as well as that of their medium-sized city in the 1940’s. This information intrigued me, but I was skeptical about reincarnation.When we returned to Michigan in 1979, Nat suggested I visit the city where I had supposedly lived until the mid-1940’s. Curious about the past, I flew to the east coast.  After I settled into my hotel, I walked to the public library seeking city directories. They awaited me on a shelf. I sat down with a 1943 edition, closed my eyes, and prayed for answers from a God I hoped existed. My prayer was answered when I found the husband’s name I had given under hypnosis, Jacob Randall, in the directory. (1) The finding was exciting, but it did not convince me I had found my past-life identity. Jacob’s wife’s name was listed as Amanda. While hypnotized I had given his wife’s name as Anna. Could I have been Amanda in the previous life?I had to know. The next day I took a bus to the neighborhood where the Randalls had lived. The area did not seem familiar, but I was surprised to find a liquor store at the address given in the directory. I later learned both a florist shop and a bakery had been located there in the past.A young African-American man at the store’s counter smiled when I approached. He had recently purchased the building, including the apartments above and behind the business. He gave me the name and phone number of the former owner.I called Mr. Lucini, and he revealed the married name of the Randalls’ daughter. She carried the same first name as her mother. When I phoned Amanda, I learned her mother had died due to a bleeding ulcer, in a Catholic hospital. This startled me, triggering my memory from infancy.“Were you with your mother when she died?” I asked Amanda.“I held her hand,” she replied. The younger Amanda had been visiting her mother before she went to work early that February morning.From that moment I could no longer doubt the existence of God or reincarnation. I now acknowledge a loving God within each of us, and I follow a spiritual path. This includes researching and writing about past lives. INTRODUCTION  A psychology of the spirit would explore the underlying causes of human behavior. One of these is past-life influences, which are the basis of this book. Before birth, energies from our former thoughts, feelings, and actions are downloaded into our current bodies, creating our personalities. Many in eastern societies are aware of this, but most members of western societies are not.Who are we, and why? Into our lives we bring positive as well as negative tendencies. We work with these energies to balance unresolved emotions in the unconscious, commonly known as karma. Our personalities are a composite of our experiences, both in our past and in our current lives. According to psychic Sylvia Browne, almost everything about us is rooted in a past life. (1) Energies relating to appearance, health, race, religion, values, habits, talents, handicaps, and many other qualities come through as soul patterns, creating our distinctive lives. A woman might retain artistic talent from an ancient Egyptian life and business ability from a recent incarnation as an accountant. This would enable her to succeed as an artist, both in creating and in selling her work.An example involving negative energy is my bird phobia.  My grandfather’s shooting of a hawk triggered it, but in a Native American life eagles had attacked me as I died. I learned about White Cloud’s death from a psychic, and this tragedy is discussed in my first book, Shadows on My Mind: A Psychologist Explores Reincarnation and PSI. (2) With spiritual therapy my phobia has become less intense, but some fear remains, showing a need to balance the karma connected with birds of prey.Negative karma is often expressed in mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression. They affect the majority of us at some time during our lives. (3) Psychoanalyst Roger Woolger believes most psychological illness is inherited at a psychic level; only a tiny portion can be accounted for in a present life. Traumas often provoke “reruns” of past-life experiences, and their accompanying emotions are part of this flow. (4)  Emotional challenges arise from who we are, and as we work with them we advance spiritually. Others help us. We learn to love, we grow, and we heal through relationships. Families are especially important. Before birth souls agree upon roles in the upcoming life, and there are many reversals across lifetimes. In one life we serve as the parent, in another the child. My son Colin was my step-father during the French Revolution, the duke in chapter six. We play our roles like actors on stage. Before our births I consented to mother Colin, and I knew our lives would be filled with drama. Colin has an anger issue, leading to outbursts and destruction. People with his brain malfunction are often impulsive. Fear and pain are immediately expressed as anger. Knowing this, I am able to love him despite his behavior. I have learned patience, and he has thrived with the support my husband and I have been able to provide.I suspected a past-life relationship with Colin prior to his birth. I had explored a number of incarnations in hypnotic regressions, and I sensed a connection between us. Later, I wondered what might have happened in a past life to cause Colin’s tantrums, which began in infancy. Despite conventional therapy, his anger became worse as he approached adolescence. Desperate, I searched for a solution. I met D’Ann, an energy healer, at a psychic fair and sought her help. D’Ann started Harmonic Vibrational Therapy ® (HVT) in August of 1987, when the entity Felix came to her as she worked with a quartz crystal. He informed her she would be able to help people by accessing the Akashic Records. He and other guides would intercede and aid her in revealing past lives and in healing the karma clients brought in from them. What are the Akashic Records? Edgar Cayce scholar Kevin Todeschi likens them to a computer system which contains every past, present, and possible future occurrence on Earth including our images, desires, thoughts, and actions. Edgar Cayce, the world’s most documented psychic, used the Akashic Records as his primary source. For over forty years he helped thousands of people with health and other concerns. (5) Cayce traced physical and mental maladies to past lives. Working with D’Ann and her associates, chiefly Anne and Selena, I learned to trust the guides. They seemed to know everything about me, including my thoughts. I do not share my journals with anyone, but the guides knew I wrote mostly about events in my life and advised me to express my feelings. I suspected the guides were spying on me until D’Ann revealed they obtain their information from the Akashic Records.HVT® healings, as well as suggestions for self help, have been effective. In one session the guides presented me a spiritual bowl of vapors. They instructed me to inhale them and then to give myself a compliment. This helped relieve sadness brought in from several incarnations. HVT® therapists have traced Colin’s anger to past lives, allowing me to understand it. My healing has given me peace and enabled me to teach him self control. I have faith in the HVT® guides in all matters including their accounts of former lives. They identify close relatives in the present as family members in past lives because these souls have a contract with the guides. Distant relatives, friends, and others usually do not have this agreement, and their roles in former lives are not disclosed. Nevertheless, I include some of these people in Are We Our Past Lives? as examples of meaningful relationships. In order to protect the privacy of siblings and others, names have been changed. I use the term soul patterns rather than karmic patterns for a fresher view of feelings, thoughts, and behavior occurring throughout a soul’s history. Karma, based on the principle of cause and effect, has many associations, mainly negative. It is important to recognize karma not only includes debts owed for harmful thoughts or actions but blessings received for loving thoughts and good deeds. I use the term soul patterns to describe the positive and neutral tendencies of a soul and name some negative karmic patterns in the soul’s memory soul scars. (6)We are a medley of values, beliefs, habits, abilities, and other characteristics drawn from our former lives.  Souls reincarnate to resolve karma, to fulfill purposes they have chosen, and to help others. In this book I detail how the process works by exploring the personalities and relationships across lifetimes revealed by spiritual healers. My chief goal in writing this book is to help readers understand themselves and others by exploring reincarnation. I illustrate its operation by giving examples from my own life and the lives of members of my family.As a psychologist, I include material from others in the field, as well as spiritual authors, to support my views.  Healers focus mainly on balancing energy, but I use the incarnations presented to me and others to help readers discover the reasons for their traits and the dynamics of their relationships. They will see themselves and their loved ones on the pages of Are We Our Past Lives? and gain insight. Readers interested in exploring their past lives may consult self-help books and other sources. Before scheduling sessions, I recommend asking practitioners, such as healers and hypnotists, for references. Explore regressiontherapists.org for information on hypnosis.
CONTENTS AUTHOR’S NOTEACKNOWLEDGMENTSPREFACEINTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE: LEAH OF FOURTH CENTURY PALESTINE A Single Mother Takes Her Life CHAPTER TWO: DMITRI OF BYZANTINE GREECE A Man’s Failure to Pursue His Heart’s Desire CHAPTER THREE: HOKAM, OF THE 11TH CENTURY SOUTHWEST An Athlete’s Passion Alienates His Family CHAPTER FOUR: BETA OF 16TH CENTURY SCOTLAND A Woman Blames Herself for Raiders Killing Her Family CHAPTER FIVE: KARL, 16TH CENTURY SCANDINAVIANThe Need for Proof and How Reincarnation Works CHAPTER SIX: HELENA BALMEAU OF LATE 18TH CENTURY FRANCEAn Isolated Girl is Sacrificed CHAPTER SEVEN: MARIA OF RUSSIA, DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR A Nurse Comforts Wounded Soldiers CHAPTER EIGHT: TIM COOPER, 19TH CENTURY GOLD MINER A Betrayed Young Man Suffocates in Rage CHAPTER NINE: REV. JACOB GRUBER, 19TH CENTURY CIRCUIT RIDER A Minister’s Frustration in Confronting People CHAPTER TEN: PAST-LIFE RESEARCH AND SOUL DEVELOPMENT EPILOGUECONTACT INFORMATIONNOTESBIBLIOGRAPHY AUTHOR’S NOTEThe symbols on the book’s cover represent my past-life personalities. In Are We Our Past Lives? I have used the actual names of some of these people. My HVT® healer Selena was able to provide these names: Beta, Helena Balmeau, and Tim Cooper. Tim changed his name from Wade or Wayne Reynolds. Healer Selena also gave the names of his parents as Oscar and Sarah Reynolds. Except in the case of Jacob Gruber, I have created names for the other personalities and their family members. HVT® founder D’Ann gave Rev. Gruber’s name as: “Grabner, or something similar.” In my research I discovered he was Jacob Gruber. With the exception of those in the Acknowledgments, I have changed the names of friends and family to protect their privacy.
Click Here to Download Chapter One (pdf)
|
