Is Reincarnation Real?

A weathered paperback that fell off my friend's bed introduced me to the "sleeping prophet" known as Edgar Cayce. That book was There is a River. After devouring it in 2 days I was off to the library to research...I had to know more about this idea and about Edgar Cayce himself. That started me on a radically different spiritual journey than the one I had been on growing up, and there was no going back, ever.

You see, I had experienced other worldly creatures all my life, so I was open to the idea that someone could reach them. And the idea just resonated with me that we live on somehow, and not in some heaven or hell paradigm. But I wanted proof, so I had to reasearch, a journey that has taken me many years and is not over.

In my readings, and in my networking, I had come across many references to "Past life regression hypnosis" as a method to remember prior life experiences. One of my dear and trusted friends suggested we try it together and I guess the strength of knowing I had a friend there convinced me it would be okay, so I began classes with her, 4 unforgettable weeks in 1984.

Each week the instructor would slightly darken the room, play soft music, and begin with a prayer and low chanting, asking for clear energy to allow us access to the universal akashic records. Then she would count backwards from 10 to 1 and by then we would be in a trance. It was quite unlike anything I remember before or since (and no, I was not under the influence of any kind of mind altering substances !) I was awake and aware enough to realize I was in that room and that there were others there, and yet I was transported in my mind to some other place, some time long ago, and the names of the people in my dream state were very consistant with the time period I found myself in. Moreover, I recognized some of them as identical spirits to people I know in this life!

It was quite unsettling actually, not the events in the other place, just the idea that I felt I had been somewhere else and that I had actually lived in that place. It was too strong in experience and memory to be made up, and not anything I would have imagined, nor wanted! And yet, I remember that whole dream trance experience as well as any other experience I've had in this lifetime. It might as well have happened yesterday as it is still very clear in my memory.

After a time, the instructor would count backwards and bring us back to this time and place and if we wanted to share we could. I did not share my experience, but several others also said they had gone someplace else and experienced themselves as someone else.

We had 2 more weekly sessions and each time I went somewhere else and was someone else. In 2 of those lifetimes I experienced myself as a man. And no, I was not Nefertiti or some queen or anyone you would have ever heard of, just normal people mostly. But the most interesting session by far was the last one of the series.

For our last class, our instructor announced we would be trying for a death experience. Her intention was to help us experience this so that we would not fear it any more. She cautioned us that not everyone would achieve this and not to worry if we did not, just go with the flow of the quiet group energy and meditate.
So she did her usual countdown and I found myself as a 14th or 15th century monk (not sure ) when she did some other guided imagery and I was next lying on a table in the infirmary with a bunch of other monks praying over me. I was very old and close to death but not in pain. They closed their eyes in a group prayer and I began to float to the top of the room...completely free of my body, my spirit was free. I knew that I had just left my body for good, a physical death.

As I reached the ceiling I could see myself lying there with my eyes closed and the faces of the other monks. Turning towards the sky, I floated through the ceiling with ease and continued to gain momentum as I flew towards the edge of our atmosphere. There at the edge I turned around to gaze at what I was leaving behind and then blasted into the galaxy free at last from this world's constraints.

I flew with complete abandon around countless beautiful stars, and no body was around me, just my spirit itself doing somersaults and vaulting over beams of light and swirls of stardust in a joyous flying dance with trails of light flowing out behind me in shimmering colors...I had a feeling of pure unadulterated freedom and nothing else. It seemed like eons of time and I was no longer in that room. I was gone and not returning. But at some point out there in that flying star field of galaxies I began to feel the urge to slow down a little...and still years passed.

Until one day I felt a voice inside my being say "It's time to go back." I was not really ready but the urge kept feeling stronger until a day came when I stopped still in the universe and started floating downward towards earth, back and forth slowly like a feather floating down, down, down forever, down to the edge of the earth's atmosphere, down through clouds of rain and blue skies and sunlight, down through fog till I rested inside my Mother's body. At that point I heard my instructor counting down to bring us back to this reality, and so I woke up, never to be the same again.

As she always did, our instructor asked us if anyone had any experiences we wanted to share. A couple of people said they had a death experience and went on to share the experience I had always heard: seeing a light at the end of a tunnel, etc. Since I thought theirs sounded more like what I had read and mine was nothing like that, I thought mine was just a dream and could not possibly be a real experience. We were about to leave when the teacher asked me to talk about mine. I still did not think mine was real and told her so. But her eyes lit up when I began to tell my story. She said that after listening to thousands of death experiences, mine was a very common one. Wow. She was sure it was real and was happy to have another experience to recount for her book she was writing. But for me it offered profound relief!

For one, I was no longer afraid of death. Fly around in the universe? Sign me up when it's time! For another, I found the answer to that lifelong question. I am sure that I have reincarnated...and that my spirit stays alive after life ends here.