Dr. N: Did you see your death as a young man in New York during your last visit to the Ring?
S: (sadly) Yes ... and I accepted that ... as a condition of the life. It was a good life-just short. Now I want to go back with a better start and make a name for myself in music.
Dr. N: Could you ask to go anywhere on Earth?
S: Hmm ... it's fairly open. If we have preferences, they are weighed against what's available.
Dr. N: You mean, against what bodies are available?
S: Yes, in certain places.
Dr. N: When you said you wanted a better start in music, I assume this is another reason you want to go back to New York.
S: This city will give me the best opportunity to develop my desire to study the piano. I wanted a large, cosmopolitan city with music schools.
Dr. N: What's wrong with a city like Paris?
S: I wasn't offered a body in Paris.
Dr. N: I want to be clear on your selection options. When you start previewing life scenes in the Ring, are you primarily looking at people or locations?
S: We begin with locations.
Dr. N: Okay, and so you are looking at the streets of New York City at the moment?
S: Right, and it's wonderful because I am doing more than looking. I'm floating around smelling the food in the restaurants ... I hear the honking of cars ... I'm following people walking past the shops on Fifth Avenue ... getting the feel of the place again.
Dr. N: At this point have you actually entered the minds of the people walking along the streets?
S: No, not yet.
Dr. N: What do you do next?
S: I go to other cities.
Dr. N: Oh, I guess I just assumed your body choices had to be in New York City.
S: I didn't tell you that. I also could go to Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, or Oslo.
Dr. N: I'm going to count to five and when I reach five you will scan these cities while we continue talking ... one ... two ... three ... four ... five! Report what you are doing.
S: I'm going to concert halls and music academies and watching the students practice.
Dr. N: Do you just observe the general surroundings while floating around these students?
S: I do more. I go inside the heads of some of them to see how they ... translate the music.
Dr. N: Do you need to be in a special place like the Ring to examine the mental processes of people?
S: For past and future events I do. Making contact with someone in the present on Earth can be done anywhere (from the spirit world).
Dr. N: Could you describe the way your soul makes contact with someone?
S: (pause) As ... a light brush stroke.
Note: Souls are quite capable of sending and receiving messages from each other between spiritual and temporal worlds, as many of us have personally experienced. However, these temporary connections are made and broken quickly. The joining of a soul to a soulless baby for a lifetime is more difficult, and will be described further in Case 29.
Dr. N: As you look at these prospective lives, what year is it on Earth?
S: (hesitates) It's ... 1956 now, and most of my prospects are in their teens. I'll check them out before and after this year ... as much as the Ring will let me.
Dr. N: So the Ring gives you the opportunity to actually be various people who, in relative time on Earth, are not yet born?
S: Uh-huh, to see if I would fit in well-to check out their talent and parents-that sort of thing. (decisively) I want New York.
Dr. N: Do you think you have looked at the other cities carefully enough?
S: (impatiently) Yes, I did that, but I don't want them.
Dr. N: Wait a minute. What if you liked a music student in Oslo, but wanted to live in New York City?
S: (laughs) As a matter of fact, there is a promising girl in Los Angeles, but I still want New York.
Dr. N: All right, move forward. As your time in the Ring draws to a close, give me the details of your probable life selection.
S: I am going to New York to be a musician. I'm still trying to make up my mind between a couple of people, but I think I will choose (stops to laugh) a dumpy kid with a lot of talent. His body won't have the stamina of my last one, but I'll have the advantage of parents with some money who will encourage me to practice, practice, practice.
Dr. N: Money is important?
S: I know I sound ... grasping ... selfish ... but there was no money in my last life. If I want to express the beauty of music and give pleasure to myself and others, I need proper training and supportive parents, otherwise I'll get sidetracked ... I know myself.
Dr. N: If you didn't like any of the options presented to you in the Ring, could you ask for more places and people to look at?
S: It isn't necessary, at least for me. I'm offered enough.
Dr. N: Let me be more blunt. If you are supposed to select a life from only the selections shown you in the Ring, how do you know the coordinators aren't stacking the deck against you? Maybe they are programming you to make certain choices?
S: (pause) I don't think so, considering all the times I have come to the Ring. We don't go unless our minds are made up as to the type of life we want to live, and I've always had interesting choices based upon my own ideas.
Dr. N: Okay, after you are completely finished with reviewing lives in the Ring, what happens then?
S: The controllers ... come into my mind to see if I am satisfied with what I have been shown.
Dr. N: Are they always the same entities?
S: I think so ... as far back as I can remember.
Dr. N: Do they pressure you to make a decision before leaving the Ring?
S: Not at all. I float out and go back to talk to my companions before making up my mind.
Of course, theaters such as the Ring are not limited to viewing our planet. I have shown how some souls who come to Earth enjoy incarnating on other worlds as well. In Chapter Ten, I explained how the space of transformation within the spirit world allows souls to experiment with all sorts of shapes and forms for enlightenment and short-term recreation. However, for purposes of actual incarnation into our universe and other dimensions my subjects tell me there are space-time tunnels, or channels, available near their group centers. (Later, Case 29 will describe what it feels like to go through one of them at rebirth).
People say these portals are symbolized by a line of huge archways for passage similar to a large train station. One woman put it this way, "We see these openings as lighter or darker voids of space. To me, the lighter tunnels denote more interactive communities of beings. The darker fields lead to low-density mental colonies where I am going to be alone a lot more." When I asked her for an example of the latter, she said, "On the world of Arnth, we are as balls of cotton candy moving on waves of gas where nothing is solid. The swirling around each other is very orgasmic." Another subject, describing his entry into a lighter opening said, "Sometimes between human incarnations I go with groups of souls to the fire world of Jesta. In this volcanic atmosphere we can experience the physical and emotional stimulation of becoming intelligent molecules of flame. Now I know why I love to be in temperatures of over 100 degrees on Earth"
A soul's physical anchorage is important. Case 25 told us his choice of locations was confined to four cities. The number of scenes souls preview before a new life is, of course, different for each visit. Individual life offerings are selective, which indicates to me that other spiritual entities have been actively working on our behalf to set up location scenes before we arrive. The number of specialist spirits who assist souls at the space of life selection never seems to be large. They appear as rather vague apparitions to my subjects, although most believe members of their Council of Elders and personal guides are involved.
Early in human history, when the world was underpopulated, my clients recall lives where they were always born in sparse human settlements. In time, with the rise of villages and then larger centers of ancient civilizations, my cases report returning to the same areas. Life selections were geographically scattered again by the great migrations of people colonizing new lands, particularly in the last four hundred years. In this century of over-population, more souls are choosing to live in places where they have been before.