Reincarnation and Past Lives

O Sane and Sacred Death: First Person Accounts of Death As Received in Hypnotic Regressions

by Louise Ireland-Frey, MD

Dying and death are almost always peaceful. O Sane and Sacred Death was written to help people understand the inherent beauty of death. Understanding how dying "feels" and what happens afterward, relieves fear for those facing the transition and grief for the survivors left behind. Death is natural. Its only significance is the moving from one state of being to another. If you wish to prepare for your transition or that of a loved one, O Sane and Sacred Death sheds light, knowledge, and peace on this inevitable occurrence.

Publisher: Blue Dolphin Publishing, Inc | More reviews: amazon.com

Past Lives, Present Dreams

by Denise Linn

Average Rating:

"I am really glad that I discovered Denise Linn! I have been reading alot about reincarnation/past life regression lately - it's something that makes so much sense to me! I have read all of Brian Weiss after seeing him on the Howie Mandell show! I really like his books and I got a tape of his also. He's a very good read as well. But I've read them all and I still need help!Ms. Linn has a wonderfully different way to discribe her experiences and to suggest ways to relax and regress! I am a very hard nut to relax - I'm too "busy" and I need to get all the suggestions that I can! Ms. Linn has given me the "blue light" method which I think will help and she reaffirmed many others - in different words and emphases! I am not done yet with this book - but it's a fast read and I will be done soon so that I can try what she suggests and pass it on to my sister!"

Publisher: Wellspring/Ballantine | More reviews: amazon.com

Past Life Clues: Find Your Past Lives Without Hypnosis

by Karin Sue Hoppe Holloway

The author, a qualified hypnotherapist, noticed that the current lives of her clients, and indeed her own life, were filled with clues to their past lives. Everything from food preferences to clothing style can offer pointers to a previous existence. This book will lead you, the reader, through every area of your life to make your own past life clues obvious. Even better, it's fun!

Publisher: Experiencers Ebooks | More reviews: amazon.com

Eye of the Centaur: A Visionary Guide Into Past Lives (Mind Chronicles Trilogy)

by Barbara Hand Clow

Average Rating:

"After reading The Pleiadian Agenda by Clow, I bought the first book of her Mind Chronicles Trilogy. I intuitively believe the information that Clow shares with us is of paramount importance and should be read by all who want to improve their personal life in the most meaningful way. I look forward to the day where I can fully understand my present incarnation with the wisdom of past incarnations as Clow has. Clow's past lives as a priest of Enoch, a Minoan princess(Aspasia),a Druid priest and as an Egyptian priest known as Ichor, definetly indicates why she is one of the most incredible astrologers today. The aforementioned lifetimes also reveals why she is channelling the most significant information we need to know today for she has done so in her past lives. Her most prophetic past life that we are familiar with is Isaiah, who fortold of Jesus Christ 600 years before his coming. Clow relates of other past lives that are quite ordinary: a Roman capitalist, a depressed prostitute around 600 A.D., an unhappily married Victorian woman in early 1900, and a happily married court jester around 1590 A.D., etc. For each of these lives and others she relates their experiences to her present lifetime. In sharing her past life content, I felt an inner growth of awareness of myself and a passionate curiosity to want to learn more of my multidimensional self and the synchronous earthly happenings of those times. I look forward to reading the other two books of this trilogy. Clow's life is not only incredibly fascinating, but is also important for us to read for she is preparing us for the global and cosmic shift we are now experiencing by helping us to dwell on multidemensional therapies to equip us for our future."

Publisher: Bear & Company | More reviews: amazon.com

Reincarnation: A Critical Examination

by Paul Edwards

Average Rating:

"When I read this book, I understood why it took about three years for CSICOP to publish a favourable review of it. A typical case of tacit disowning...Edwards devotes to much space to irrelevant issues, or to irrelevant authors. For example, he talks a lot about Near-Death Experiences. But instead of performing a deep analysis of the works of highly respected authors in the field, like Kenneth Ring and Michael Sabom, he prefers to make lots of jokes and fun of the works of Kübler Ross and Moody Jr., who are considered very weak even by their own peers. Susan Blackmore, in "Dying to Live" (1993), did exactly the opposite, performing high quality skeptical analysis of the works of these authors. An update on that would be highly informative, but Mr. Edwards decided to give us only laughs instead.In fact, it seems that Edwards' phobia of analyzing empirical evidence is a long lasting illness. He was criticised by philosopher Robert Almeder for this in 1997, and had already received this very same criticism by Almeder in 1990. Another lingering disease of his is his "reluctance to engage primary source material" (that is, he doesn't read and cite scientific papers, but popular books mostly), as anthropologist James Matlock put it in 1997 and again back in 1990. Both these 1990 comments refer to Edwards' four-chapter article published in the "Free Inquirer" magazine, in 1986-87, on the reincarnation hypothesis. That is where his book came from, apparently with very few additions, and possibly with no improvements... (easy money, huh?).Edwards' analysis of the works of Ian Stevenson is a complete failure. Actually, his analysis "seems" to have some basis. The first time I read chapter 16 (on Stevenson), I thought: "Wow, that's devastating!". By the fourth time I read it, I would be saying: "This man (i.e. Edwards) is a fake!". If you read it really carefully, you will notice that he doesn't actually analyze the cases, or their empirical content, or the arguments for and against them. Strangely enough, he does make some deeper analysis of the weakest case reports, which led me to the conclusion that his problem is not incompetence, but unwillingness.Some specific points are especially revealing. On page 140, he makes some unrespectful and uninformed comments about Stevenson's research on birthmarks. If Edwards were really a scholar (or even a decent popular writer), he would have made a review of the bibliography instead, and would have found an introductory article on this issue by Stevenson (Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1993). There, he would really have spotted a very serious statistical mistake that Stevenson commited, and that seems to have remained uncriticized by skeptics until 2002 !!! (by Leonard Angel). Again, looking for information about reincarnation "researcher" Banerjee, I could only find jokes, laughs, and gossip in Edwards' book. But when I read Matlock's (supposedly a "believer") bibliography review of Past Life Memory Case Studies (1990), I found the following comment about Banerjee: "Banerjee...was caught tampering with experimental data, (and) must be considered unreliable...(and) he has been written out of serious parapsychology.". Wow! So, who is the "skeptic" and who is the "believer" after all?And what has Edwards to say about the so called "best cases" studied by Stevenson and colaborators? Are they really good? What are their weaknesses and strengths? Did he read them? The "answer" is on page 277. There, Edwards says: "Better perhaps; but not good enough.". So that is all our "Awesome Scholar" (as Martin Gardner labelled him) has to say? "Perhaps"!!?? The man simply didn't even read the cases! Again, on page 256, where he comments on Leonard Angel's critique of the Imad Elawar case, he only says that he "does not have the space to comment much on it". Of course he does not. He used up all his space with gossips and jokes about Kübler Ross and etc! Even the apparently stronger arguments that he seems to have (from "insiders who have dissented", Barker and Ransom) turned out to be very weak and even imprecise in light of my further readings on the subject.Edwards' main theoretical and logical objection to reincarnation is the "modus operandi" problem. "How could reincarnation possibly happen?" The answer is given by Edwards himself, when he confortably decides to throw away any "modi operandi" concerns when talking about his own philosophical persuasion, that is, materialism: "How could the brain create counsciousness?" "Why not?" he answers!!! (page 294). Possible "modi operandi" constraints is an intellectually stimulating and most relevant issue. But it has to be approached in an informed, coherent manner, and not a là "Jimmy Swaggert on the Pulpit".To me, the most revealing (and shocking) passage in this book is when, on page 134, Edwards brutally disrespects Scott Rogo, in a rude comment about his murder in 1991, still unsolved then, saying how Rogo might solve it by calling the police station himself! Rogo was almost an informant of Edwards. Many of the gossips Edwards used in his book he learned from Rogo. And Rogo still had relatives alive that might feel hurt by these crude comments from Edwards. That is basically the mistake many skeptics-materialists commit. They get so desperate to wipe out the very idea of life after death that they end up forgetting that there is indeed life "before" death. And also, there are feelings and hearts that deserve to be respected and cared for.This book, therefore, is very good if you want material for criticizing the pathological phenomenon of pseudo-skepticism. It is also of some value for giving a frame for criticism on reincarnation research, but then you will have to read much further if you really want to have a good idea of what are the strengths and weaknesses in the empirical evidence for reincarnation. I have done this. And I have concluded that the evidence seems to be weak. But it is certainly there!"

Publisher: Prometheus Books | More reviews: amazon.com

Arthur Conan Doyle's Book of the Beyond

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Publisher: White Eagle Publishing Trust | More reviews: amazon.com

New Clothes for Old Souls: Worldwide Evidence for Reincarnation

by Guy Lyon Playfair

A detailed study of the subject of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, and the memories some souls return with to the living world. Cases from different countries and communities are examined, and others relating to the Druze community in Lebanon and elsewhere are considered in a special appendix. New Clothes for Old Souls: Worldwide Evidence for Reincarnation presents a thorough investigation of the fascinating subject of reincarnation and the memories some souls return with. Guy Lyon Playfair draws on an in-depth range of research and brings to the attention of the reader the work of other leaders in the field, notably the late Hernani Guimares Andrade in Brazil, and Erlendur Haraldsson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of Iceland, who has also contributed the Appendix to this work. The book examines cases from several countries and communities where there is a belief in reincarnation, and also relates the histories of some cases that emerged where such a belief may be held privately but is not usually openly discussed or acknowledged. The research and investigations into each possible reincarnation case are thorough and objective, yet retain a no nonsense common sense approach.

Publisher: Druze Heritage Foundation | More reviews: amazon.com

Ghosts of War: Restless Spirits of Soldiers, Spies, And Saboteurs

by Jeff Belanger

Average Rating:

"Jeff Belanger has an excellent ghostly web site and has written some very good ghost books but I'm afraid that this is not his best effort. His books are usually filled with first person eyewitness accounts and stories of ghost sightings that have occurred in the last few years that send cold chills up the reader's spine. There are stories like that in this book and those stories are excellent but all too often the author has decided to include stories that are just old legends and folk tales and in some cases where the ghost or ghosts have been sighted recently there are no first person accounts but instead just a passing and very vague note about ghostly sightings. This book would have in fact been much better if some of the chapters were left out altogether and among those are the chapters about the Gempei War, the Ottoman Wars, Edgehill Battlefield, Biggin Hill and Cassionbury Park. Unfortunately there are also other chapters that leave a lot to be desired but these five are among the worst.

Belanger usually does a superb job of imparting the history of the haunt without overdoing the history and forgetting the ghost and that balance between history and haunt is one of the things that normally make his books so good. Once again, there are stories in this book on which the author does a wonderful job of providing this balance but in too many instances he has let the history overwhelm the haunt. I realize that when one is dealing with locations as steeped in history as the locations chosen for this book it would be very hard to limit oneself when trying to write about what happened there but in one instance the story was all history with no ghost whatsoever and that is just uncalled for.

There are certainly good stories to be found in this book and many of the chapters are written with this author's usual talent for this kind of book. The stories about Fort Zachary Taylor, Andersonville and the Battle of Franklin for example are as well written as any ghost stories that I have ever come across. There is a reasonable amount of history and some very good recent eyewitness accounts in all three of these stories and that is the kind of documentation that I am used to finding in books from Jeff Belanger.

Despite its flaws this is still an above average ghost book. There are to be sure several really bad chapters but the really good chapters go a long way toward making up for the bad ones. This is not the work that I have come to expect from Mr. Belanger but then again I have come to expect near perfection from him and I don't suppose that that is fair. I have read ghost books that were far better than this one but then again I have read a lot of ghost books that were much worse. "

Publisher: New Page Books | More reviews: amazon.com

Your Reincarnating Child: Welcoming a Soul to the World

by Gilbert Childs

The primary contention of this book is that, as spiritual beings, we all live beyond death and eventually return to earth in new human bodies. With this in mind, the authors give sound practical advice as to how parents—or anyone who spends time with children—can welcome souls into the world and help them grow into healthy, responsible human beings. Mainstream educational policies and practices can cause children to be pushed prematurely into adulthood before they have a chance to truly experience childhood. The authors demonstrate that a true understanding of the human being as body, soul, and spirit leads to the knowledge that every child should be allowed to grow gradually into the world. "One of the main purposes of this book," write the authors, "is to demonstrate that human beings are primarily of spiritual nature, and only secondarily of bodily nature." They explain how these two natures complement each other in the processes of maturation and development, from the period before birth and incarnation into maturity. With a firm philosophical grounding, the authors discuss key questions related to prenatal and antenatal phases, including those connected with clothing, food, play, work, technology, and discipline.

Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press | More reviews: amazon.com

Song of the Phoenix: Voices of Comfort and Healing from the Afterlife

by Lily Fairchilde

Average Rating:

"Having dealt with the loss of my mother about two years ago, I have questioned the existence of life after death. On a lark, I purchased Lily Fairchilde's book and was amazed by how much it affected me. Ms. Fairchilde's contacts with the dead are informative, fascinating and completely absorbing. She has converted a non-believer into a believer."

Publisher: St Martins Pr | More reviews: amazon.com