Dr. N: What was it like when you were first aware of your identity as a soul after being pushed out to the rim of this halo?
S: To be ... is the same as watching the first flower of spring open and the flower is you. And, as it opens more, you become aware of other flowers in a glorious field and there is ... unbounded joy.
Dr. N: If this explosive, multi-colored energy source collapses in on itself, will all the flowers eventually die?
S: Nothing is collapsing ... the source is endless. As souls we will never die-we know that, somehow. As we coalesce, our increasing wisdom makes the source stronger.
Dr. N: Is that the reason the source desires to perform this exercise?
S: Yes, to give life to us so we can arrive at a state of perfection.
Dr. N: Why does a source, who is ostensibly perfect already, need to create further intelligence which is less than perfect?
S: To help the creator create. In this way, by self-transformation and rising to higher plateaus of fulfillment, we add to the building blocks of life.
Dr. N: Were souls forced to break away from the source and come to places like Earth because of some sort of original sin or fall from grace in the spirit world?
S: That's nonsense. We came to be ... magnified ... in the beautiful variety of creation.
Dr. N: Thece, I want you to listen to me carefully. If the source needs to be made stronger, or more wise, by using a division of its divine energy to create lesser intelligence which it hopes will magnify-doesn't this suggest it lacks full perfection itself?
S: (pause) The source creates for fulfillment of itself.
Dr. N: That's my point. How can that which is absolute become more absolute unless something is lacking?
S: (hesitates) That which we see to be ... our source ... is all we can know, and we think what the creator desires is to express itself through us by ... birthing.
Dr. N: And do you think the source is actually made stronger by our existence as souls?
S: (long pause) I see the creator's perfection ... maintained and enriched ... by sharing the possibility of perfection with us and this is the ultimate extension of itself.
Dr. N: So the source starts out by deliberately creating imperfect souls and imperfect life forms for these souls and watches what happens in order to extend itself?
S: Yes, and we have to have faith in this decision and trust the process of returning to the origin of life. One has to be starving to appreciate food, to be cold to understand the blessings of warmth, and to be children to see the value of the parent. The transformation gives us purpose.
Dr. N: Do you want to be a parent of souls?
S: ... Participation in the conception of ourselves is ... a dream of mine.
Dr. N: If our spirits did not experience physical life, would we ever know of these things you are telling me about?
S: We would know of them, but not about them. It would be as if your spiritual energy were told to play piano scales with only one note.
Dr. N: And do you believe if the source didn't create souls to nurture and grow, its sublime energy would shrink from a lack of expression?
S: (sighs) Perhaps that is its purpose.
With this last prophetic statement by Thece, I ended the session. As I brought this subject out of her deep trance, it was as though she were returning to me from across time and space. As she sat quietly focusing her eyes around my office, I expressed my appreciation for the opportunity of working with her on such an advanced level. Smiling, the lady said if she had any idea of the grilling in store for her, she might well have refused to work with me.
As we said goodbye, I thought about her last statements concerning the source of life. In ancient Persia the Sufis had a saying that if the creator represents absolute good, and therefore absolute beauty, it is the nature of beauty to desire manifestation.
12
Life Selection
THERE comes that time when the soul must once again leave the sanctuary of the spirit world for another trip to Earth. This decision is not an easy one. Souls must prepare to leave a world of total wisdom, where they exist in a blissful state of freedom, for the physical and mental demands of a human body.
We have seen how tired souls can be when reentering the spirit world. Many don't want to think about returning to Earth again. This is especially true when we have not come close to our goals at the end of a physical life. Once back in the spirit world, souls have misgivings about even temporarily leaving a world of self-understanding, comradeship, and compassion to go to a planetary environment of uncertainty and fear brought about by aggressive, competing humans. Despite having family and friends on Earth, many incarnated souls feel lonely and anonymous among large impersonal populations. I hope my cases show the opposite is true in the spirit world, where our souls are involved in the most intimate sharing on an everlasting basis. Our spiritual identity is known and appreciated by a multitude of other entities, whose support is never ending.
The rejuvenation of our energy and personal assessment of one's Self takes longer for some souls than others, but eventually the soul is motivated to start the process of incarnation. While our spiritual environment is hard to leave, as souls we also remember the physical pleasures of life on Earth with fondness and even nostalgia. When the wounds of a past life are healed and we are again totally at one with ourselves, we feel the pull of having a physical expression for our identity. Training sessions with our counselors and peer groups have provided a collaborative spiritual effort to prepare us for the next life. Our karma of past deeds towards humanity and our mistakes and achievements have all been evaluated with an eye toward the best course of future endeavors. The soul must now assimilate all this information and take purposeful action based upon three primary decisions:
• Am I ready for a new physical life?
• What specific lessons do I want to undertake to advance my learning and development?
• Where should I go, and who shall I be in my next life for the best opportunity to work on my goals?
Older souls incarnate less, regardless of the population demands of their assigned planets. When a world dies, those entities with unfinished business move on to another world which has a suitable life form for the kind of work they have been doing. Cycles of incarnation for the eternal soul seem to be regulated more by the internal desires of a particular soul, than by the urgency of host bodies evolving in a universe of planets.
Nevertheless, Earth certainly has an increasing need for souls. Today, we have over five billion people. Demographers vary in their calculations on how many individuals have lived on Earth in the last 200,000 years. The average estimate is some 50 billion people. This figure, which I think is low, does not signify the number of visitations by different souls. Bear in mind the same souls continue to reincarnate, and there are those who occupy more than one body at a time. There are reincarnationists who believe the number of people living on Earth today is close to the total number of souls who ever lived here. The frequency of incarnation on Earth by souls is uneven. Earth clearly has more need for souls today than in the past. Population estimates in 1 AD are around 200 million. By 1800, humans had quadrupled, and after only 170 more years, quadrupled again. Between 1970 and 2010, the world's population is expected to double once more.
When I study the incarnation chronology of a client, I find there is usually a long span of hundreds, even thousands, of years between their lives in Paleolithic nomadic cultures. With the introduction of agriculture and domesticated animals in the Neolithic Age, from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, my subjects report living more frequent lives. Still, their lives are often spaced as much as 500 years apart. With the rise of cities, trade, and more available food, I see the incarnation schedules of souls increasing with a growing population. Between 1000 and 1500 AD, my clients live an average of once in two centuries. After 1700, this changes to once in a century. By the 1900s, living more than one life in a century is common among my cases.