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Reincarnation is a concept that has continued to intrigue humanity since the beginning of time. It remains a common belief among Eastern religions and philosophies, and was an integral part of Christian faith until it was removed by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD. Since that time it has never been officially accepted by the Catholic Church – or, indeed, any of the major Protestant churches – although there can be no doubt that many Christians continue to believe that reincarnation exists.

There is something both exciting and frightening about the idea that the soul of a person whose body has died may be born again into another body at another time. In some ways it represents a second chance. For some people it explains feelings, instincts or characteristics that they have, which don’t make sense in the context of their current lives.

Although not used on his tombstone, Benjamin Franklin’s epitaph for himself is an interesting example of the belief in reincarnation. Benjamin Franklin was a printer, and one of the founding fathers of the USA. He wrote:

The body of B. Franklin,

Printer,

Like the Cover of an Old Book,

Its Contents Torn Out

And

Stripped of its Lettering and Gilding.

Lies Here,

Food For Worms

But the Work shall not be Lost,

For it Will as He Believed

Appear Once More

In a New and more Elegant Edition

Revised and Corrected

By the Author

Benjamin Franklin seemed sure that he would be back.

Returning in the future

Perhaps it’s not surprising that when the subject of reincarnation comes up for discussion some people dismiss it on the basis that it boosts self-importance. Many people would probably feel rather grand if they believed they were kings or queens, or equally important people, in past lives.

Obviously, some people will have held important positions in past lives; however, those people may also have held servile positions in other lifetimes. My experience, through dealing with people and through what I’ve read about regressions (undergoing hypnosis in order to access information about past lives), there have been few instances of anything other than very ordinary existence. In truth, the only significance in finding out about previous lifetimes is their relevance to the present ones, for example, in helping people to be more tolerant in their dealings with others.

Margaret Anna and my other spirit guides state, without equivocation, that reincarnation exists. They present a picture of a soul evolving through a succession of physical lifetimes and, ideally, growing in awareness in each one. Of course, because our lives are dictated by our own free will, ideal growth may not be achieved in some lifetimes.

So what if reincarnation didn’t exist? What if a soul is created for each new body and continues to exist after the death of the body, waiting around for Judgment Day when it will be reunited with its miraculously resurrected body? Is this a point when ultimate fate is decided – eternal happiness with God or eternal punishment with the devil? This is largely what many people have been taught to believe, and it presents a rather different picture to the idea of the soul evolving through a series of lifetimes.

There is, of course, a third option – that there is nothing beyond the death of the physical body. When we die we simply stop existing. Many people hold this belief, but for me it’s a dispiriting one.

I have no doubt about the option of reincarnating as, ideally, a method of growth in awareness. I have been given many proofs of continuing life, some of which I have already outlined, and others that I’ll describe later. In any case, as the woman in the bus said to me, I’ll know soon enough.

If the prospect of being reincarnated is at all frightening, it’s worth remembering that we have options and choices. The spirit guides have reassured me constantly that free will is always exercised when our spirits leave our bodies. In fact, free will is sacrosanct. No soul is forced to do anything it doesn’t want to do, including reincarnating.

In fact, once any one of us accepts the fact that life continues, and in the way we wish it to, it seems nonsensical that we could be judged for eternity on the acts we undertake in one physical life. Our lifetime is merely the blink of an eye in ‘eternal’ terms. What’s more, there are huge inequalities in the conditions in which we are born and we live. How could people be fairly and equally judged unless those considerations are taken into account? So rather than being fearful of the idea that we go on – and live again after our physical life on earth – we can rejoice in the idea that there is no Judgment Day looming, that the mistakes we made can be rectified to the best of our ability, and will not come back to haunt us.

Remembering the past

So why can’t we remember our past lives, or even some of them? I have met people who remember whole swathes of earlier lives, and others who have odd memories that are clearly from a different lifetime. There are many recorded examples of cases where young children retain past-life memories. Over thirty years, Dr Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia has done extensive research into children’s spontaneous memories of past lives. His work provides details of about 100 stories of past-life reports from all over the world, which he followed up and found to be irrefutable. It seems that as children grow up the memories fade.

However, most people don’t remember anything at all. Why is this? It’s a question that I have put to my spirit guides on many occasions, and in particular the three guides with whom I speak regularly. They obviously don’t work exclusively with me. Their reach is far more global than that. But when I need them they are there, and they reliably present answers to my questions. In this case, they’ve made it very clear that we forget in order to be given a fresh start – without the burdens that each lifetime offers. We are able to start again without guilt, fears, worries, habits, responsibilities or anything else. It is a great mercy that we are spared the memory of some of the happenings of the present life, not to mention being reminded of events from previous lives over which we’d prefer to draw a veil.

A very important point to bear in mind about reincarnation is that, if we accept it as a possibility, it ought to be helpful for us to free ourselves from all aspects of discrimination, whether racial, religious, gender-based or otherwise. It would be foolish to discriminate against one group or another when there’s a chance that in a previous life or lives we could have been members of such groups.

Former life connections

Over the years, a number of different cases have come to my attention through individual consultations. All have served to open my mind to the possibilities that may transpire after we pass on.

Brenda came to see me after giving birth to a much-longed-for baby boy. She wondered if I could get information about any former life connections she and her husband might have had with their son.

The impressions I received from my guides were that Brenda’s son, whose name was Sean, had been her son in a former life. He had been taken from her for reasons of social stigma and placed in a type of orphanage run by nuns. The chaplain to the community took a special interest in the boy and established a loving relationship with him. In the present life he was the boy’s father. Brenda was delighted to hear that.

A few years later Brenda came to see me again. She told me that one day her son, then a little over 3 years old, turned to her suddenly and said, ‘I knew Dad before. I was in a big house and he minded me. I didn’t know you at all then, Mum – you weren’t there.’ He also said that Dad (as he was then) wore funny clothes.

I liked hearing Brenda’s story, partly because it confirmed the impressions I had originally received, but also because it showed how love breaks down the barriers of time. What must have been a horrendous experience for Brenda in her former life had been transformed into one of joy in her present life. I was very grateful to her for having returned to tell me what Sean had said.

One morning I happened to turn on a radio station and an item about a man named Nigel (his real name – he gave me permission to use it), whom I knew, caught my attention. Some years earlier Nigel had come to see me. During our session I had informed him that I was getting an impression from my guides that he had been a prolific artist in late nineteenth-century France. I suggested that if he took up painting he’d be likely to find that his talent would manifest itself again in his present life. When something like this had previously come up, I usually found that the people in question did have a particular leaning or talent in the direction suggested. In other words, they had ability to write, act, paint, nurse or whatever.

In this case, Nigel had never even remotely considered painting. He found it hard to believe that he might have any artistic talent. Nonetheless, through seeming coincidences, he got an opportunity to join an art class, where he struck up an immediate rapport with the teacher. He was surprised at how quickly his efforts took shape. Within a relatively short period of time he sold several paintings, and he graciously invited me to open an exhibition of his work.

At present there’s no way of proving that Nigel was a nineteenth-century French artist. What’s incontrovertible is that he opened up a rich vein of untapped creativity through trusting that his guides were communicating valuable information to him.

Brenda’s and Nigel’s experiences are very different, and yet, they illustrate how a little faith in the concept of reincarnation can reap rewards. Learning about where their spirit had been in previous lives had allowed them to make deeper connections and appreciate their lives in a different way. Brenda had to bear the acute pain of separation from her son in her earlier life, but if she had known then that she would have the possibility to reunite with him – again as her son – in a later life, that knowledge would surely have given her some consolation. For most of us, the pain of bereavement is softened by the knowledge that it is not the end.

Similarly, one of the things that Nigel’s case highlights is that it is all too easy to jog along in our lives in a state of resigned frustration (although this was not applicable to Nigel himself) – resigned because we can see no way of changing the direction of our lives, without causing huge upheavals of one kind or another. Yet perhaps it is easier than we think. Perhaps change is already within us, and waiting to be unfurled. Nigel’s case was simple, but in many ways incredibly moving. Even though he was completely sceptical of his potential, he did open himself to the possibilities, and discovered untapped creativity that had lain dormant for centuries.

We are here for a purpose

Here on earth, grief is unavoidable, and its potential causes too plentiful to mention. Loss of money, freedom, health, relationships, status, friends, sporting contests, prestige and power can all cause us to grieve, and the intensity with which we do so varies between different people. Separation is probably one of the most common and distressing causes of grief, and, as the most final separation, death causes the most grief of all. How death occurs – through illness, violence, accidents or even suicide – most definitely impacts upon our burden of grief, and so too does the confusion we feel about the tragedies we experience. We can’t help but wonder why there are such tragic happenings in the world, and why we are the recipients of such grief.

If we have an orthodox or traditional concept of God being a supreme being at the heavenly controls, we wonder how He could allow such awful things to happen in the world. If He is a loving Being, it simply doesn’t follow that He could tolerate events that are capable of causing such pain.

But it isn’t really as simple as that. Ultimately, it is our own free will – and how we use it – that affects the pattern of our lives. Margaret Anna has been very clear about this, and it is therefore possible to glean some understanding of why our lives unfold the way they do. I’ll look at that a little later. For now, however, I think the whole question of reincarnation is worth considering in helping us to broaden our minds and make it easier to see why certain things happen – even what we regard as being tragedies. It’s all part of the ways our souls evolve and learn.

I remember the case of a couple who were grief-stricken because of the loss of their young child. While I couldn’t take away their grief, I got information from my guides that the child deliberately chose to be born to them so that their grief would leave them more open to exploring different avenues of how to exist in the world in a more meaningful way. Their reaction to that information could have been sceptical, or even hostile, but it wasn’t. In fact they found it comforting, which is why I assumed the guides considered it important to pass it on to them.

Don’t wait till the future

I don’t mean to suggest that people should be resigned to continuing boring, restrictive or even desperately unhappy situations in the belief that they will have opportunities to find fulfilment in later lifetimes. My spirit guides, including Margaret Anna, have repeatedly made clear that we all deserve to be happy and that ultimately everybody will be.

Sometimes this is a difficult concept to accept, particularly in hugely difficult personal situations, and in global conditions where poverty, cruelty and all sorts of atrocities abound. But there are many people who work unobtrusively and often anonymously to create better conditions for those who are ill, poverty stricken, suffering from disabilities and generally underprivileged. That was what Margaret Anna set out to do in her last physical life and what she is still doing, along with millions of other souls. There’s always help available once we’re open to asking for, and receiving, it.

Why do some people have miserable lives? To answer that it would be necessary to have access to all the Akashic records of their evolution. Akashic is the title given to spirit (non-material) records of the evolutionary journeys of souls on their individual paths. Some light will be shone on this matter later in the book.

When Margaret Anna and I first discussed reincarnation, it was in the context of talking about proof of life after earth. She told me that many souls have returned – and continue to do so – as they are reincarnated. She also said that they don’t usually remember their previous existences.

When she was describing her reunion with Charles Holmes, her fiancé, she said that neither of them would reincarnate again. She added: ‘You might say that these communications are a sort of reincarnation!’

I said, ‘Many people don’t believe in reincarnation. And, of course, it’s not comprehended by the Christian tradition – at least since the sixth century. You obviously take it for granted.’

She replied, ‘Yes. When I was last on earth it wasn’t something that impinged on my consciousness. I was more concerned with existing conditions and how to fix them there and then. But it’s a fact of life. I know – I’ve done it many times.’

I didn’t ask her for any details of her past lives. I assumed that she’d have given them to me if she thought they were relevant to what we were doing. Anyway, I’d only have been asking out of idle curiosity.

I suggested to her that she may, over time, change her mind and return again, but she was adamant that her choice was absolute. She said, ‘I feel I can play a more significant part in helping to raise consciousness by staying put. I don’t mean that to be taken generally – I’m just speaking for myself.’

She explained that we all make our own decisions as our souls evolve. Sometimes we don’t progress in a particular incarnation and may choose to reincarnate. The key is to free ourselves from what we’ve been taught about God as a separate, remote being, and to develop as souls, over several lifetimes, until eventually we move into a place of complete and perfect harmony. In Margaret Anna’s case, she has nothing more to learn from earthly life and has progressed spiritually to a stage where she’s working as a spirit guide in a totally unconditionally loving way.