The Evolving Soul, by Dr. Linda Backman

The conventional idea that individual minds are limited to single bodies and will perish forever with physical death is fading within science and psychology. A new concept is taking its place, in which certain aspects of consciousness are nonlocal—not localized to specific points in time such as the present, nor to specific places such as the brain and body.

There is urgency in this trend in human thought, because the realization of our oneness with one another and the larger world may be our best hope—perhaps our only hope—of surviving the challenges we face as a species. That is why it is crucial that Dr. Linda Backman’s The Evolving Soul be widely read.

—Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters From her years of research as a clinical psychologist, past life therapist, and healer, Dr. Linda Backman offers a comprehensive view of the evolution of our souls. She presents an understandable cosmology of our development through lifetimes, with evidence that each life is planned before we are born to further not only our own development, but for the benefit of our planet and universe. This is an uplifting book that will change the way you see yourself and your relationship to the cosmos.

—Carol Bowman, author of Children’s Past Lives and Return From Heaven Based on actual cases, The Evolving Soul offers a new cosmology of serial lifetimes, shared souls, interdimensional consciousness, and realms beyond the mundane.

More than any other book on the market, its twelve elements elucidate the role of reincarnation in the conscious evolution of our species. They serve as a roadmap for individuals who are seeking to overcome internal blocks and realize their soul potential.

Whether you have explored past lives or are just thinking about it, the book will expand self-awareness and speed up your self-actualization.

Backman’s professional skills, along with her transparency about her

own life, give it authenticity and practical advice for anyone seeking to know who they really are.

—Paul Von Ward, author The Soul Genome: Science and Reincarnation With great skill and wisdom, Linda Backman pulls back the curtain from the Earth stage to reveal what’s really happening behind the scenes.

If you’ve ever wondered what your life is truly about, this book is a wondrous place to look.

—Robert Schwartz, author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born The Evolving Soul is an extraordinary fount of wisdom and deep thought.

In it, Dr. Backman shows the type of guidance an individual can gain if a fully trained hypnotherapist leads them through past-life regression therapy—and I want to emphasize therapy, as far too many hypnotists are unprepared for in-depth work. Her case histories and how she enables clients to “wake up” to the underlying patterns of their soul’s mission fascinate as well as instruct. The soul has a mind of its own. This truth emerges from reports of near-death and spiritually transformative experiences, from the heart of mysticism, and from modern techniques of soul work that recognize life as a continuum … What you can learn about yourself in The Evolving Soul makes every page worth its read.

—P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D., author of Near-Death Experiences: The Rest of the Story This book gets to the heart of the very reason for our existence, offering remarkable new insights into the evolution of consciousness, our souls, God, and even history. The implications are profound (and liberating) to see ourselves through the lens of many lifetimes of soul evolution. Bravo!

—Stephen Dinan, CEO of the Shift Network and author of Radical Spirit

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About the Author Dr. Linda Backman, EdD, licensed psychologist, has been in private practice since 1978. Dr. Backman is the author of Bringing Your Soul to Light: Healing Through Past Lives and the Time Between (Llewellyn Publications, 2009). She also has graduate education and training in the fields of speech pathology, audiology, and special education. After experiencing the premature birth and death of her second child, Dr. Backman discovered the great need for more psychotherapists who are trained and devoted to working with those in grief. She cofounded an agency in Charlotte, North Carolina, dedicated to serving individuals and families who have experienced the death of children.

In line with this work, she was asked to provide the commentary for the book I Never Held You by Ellen M. DuBois (DLSIJ Press, 2006).

Dr. Backman began her private psychotherapy practice in 1978. Since 1993, she has guided innumerable individuals in regression hypnotherapy to access their past and between lives. In this way, she helps people to more fully recognize who we are as a soul throughout our many lifetimes and during the time that we are not incarnate. Regression hypnotherapy allows the client to understand their soul mission, soul progress, soul relationships, and much more. Dr. Backman’s work today includes guiding regressions, as well as speaking, writing, spiritual mentoring, and training others in the benefits of soul regression hypnotherapy both in the United States and abroad.

Dr. Backman studied and co-taught with Dr. Michael Newton, author of the seminal books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, and co-created and served on the founding board of the Society for Spiritual Regression (now the Newton Institute) as membership chair and president. In 1997, Dr. Backman and her husband, Dr. Earl Backman, established the Ravenheart Center, a Mystery School in Boulder, Colorado, dedicated to guiding individuals to discover their path as a soul. In addition, Dr. Backman cofounded the International Between Lives Regression Network in 2005, a network for regression therapists and for the promotion of awareness among the general public, in the United States and abroad, of the benefits and purpose of regression hypnotherapy.

The Backmans have been married for forty-seven years and have two married children and three grandchildren.

For further information, please visit www.RavenHeartCenter.com or contact Dr. Backman at Linda@RavenHeartCenter.com.

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Spiritual Healing Through Past Life Exploration

Dr. Linda Backman

Llewellyn Publications Woodbury, Minnesota

The Evolving Soul: Spiritual Healing Through Past Life Exploration © 2014 by Dr. Linda Backman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Edition First Printing, 2014 Cover design by Ellen Lawson Cover image: iStockphoto.com/11432814/© Dan Barnes, iStockphoto.com/ 000011099202/ © chris_lemmens Interior chart by Llewellyn Art Department Llewellyn Publishing is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Backman, Linda, 1946– The evolving soul : spiritual healing through past life exploration /

by Dr. Linda Backman. — First Edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7387-3932-8 1. Spirituality. 2. Spiritual healing. 3. Reincarnation. 4.

Regression (Psychology) I. Title.

BL624.B295 2014 133.901'35—dc23 2014016186 Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public.

All mail addressed to the author is forwarded but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number.

Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific location will continue to be maintained.

Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to authors’ websites and other sources.

Llewellyn Publications A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.llewellyn.com Printed in the United States of America

Other Books by Dr. Linda Backman Bringing Your Soul to Light: Healing Through Past Lives and the Time Between (Llewellyn Publications, 2009)

I dedicate this book to each of you who is committed as a soul, and in your embodiment, to attain coexistence with the earth and with humanity, achieving the dream of evolution, unity, and oneness.

Contents Foreword xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 Chapter One: Tripping Over Your Soul Self 5 Chapter Two: Soul Ascension for You and for Humanity 21 Chapter Three: You Are Intuitive 39 Chapter Four: Progressing from One Life to the Next 57 Chapter Five: Communicating with Your Spirit Guides 75 Chapter Six: Seven Soul Archetypes and Your Soul Ray 97 Chapter Seven: Your Pre-Birth Blueprint 109 Chapter Eight: Evolving through Relationships 125 Chapter Nine: Simultaneous Incarnations 143 Chapter Ten: Lives on Earth and Elsewhere 155 Chapter Eleven: Attachment and Detachment 169 Chapter Twelve: Choices to Master Divine Power 185 Chapter Thirteen: Resolving Past Lives through Self-Care 199 Chapter Fourteen: Bringing Spiritual Evolution to Light 215 Appendix A: Practitioner Notes 223 Appendix B: Soul Regression Hypnotherapy 225 Glossary 227 Index 237

Foreword

With our current transition into a new cycle of ages, there is a major spiritual reawakening going on among a growing and important segment of the population of North America and Europe. This is especially important because it includes well-educated and well-read people who are in social and professional positions from which it is possible to influence the cultural mainstream’s ideas and trends. Within this group, several distinct belief systems are being molded into a new spiritual complex—ones that are based upon mystical insights that differ markedly from the religious dogmas so familiar to the general public. Dr. Linda Backman’s book The Evolving Soul reveals core aspects of the shape and the nature of the spiritual upgrade that is taking place in our time.

Dr. Backman begins by inviting us to remember that we are all embodied souls who come into life with a soul purpose and a life blueprint that serve as our guiding “map.” She introduces us to who and what our spirit guides really are, revealing them to be among the higher organizing intelligences—those who are familiar with our soul path, providing unwavering support and dedicated to guiding and enhancing our ever-growing soul matrix.

In this extraordinary book, Dr. Backman explores the reality of our soul’s evolution in our long walkabout across eternity, as well as our relationship with the celestial realms. She reveals that our ongoing advancement as souls, as well as the organization and the coordination of our destiny as souls, is democratic, just, and rational. In her words: “Many may not believe or comprehend that there is an overriding management

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of souls and consciousness. With the current world order in chaos—as exemplified by conflict, mass shootings, and war; economic instability; natural disasters; and lack of respect for the environment—our human lifestyle is truly a mess.”

Yet she and many others in the transformational community know that redemption can only happen when we become aware of the true nature of “the sacred.” And when we come to that awareness, we may then function in the impartial, respectful manner that is constantly mirrored to us from the celestial realms by the advanced master guides in spirit who work through us and with us to contribute to the greater good of all. In her words, “We are the boots on the ground of the masters.”

In this book, Dr. Backman explores our soul’s genius as it creates an intricate pre-birth design for our progress through our embodied lives, as well as how this design contributes to the overall benefit of humanity. She reveals how the specifics of our life plan may be complex or quite simple, in response to how our soul’s intention for our current embodied incarnation may be focused. She discusses how evolution (which simply means “change”) requires each of us to live as a soul in the now, while acknowledging, learning from, and releasing our past, so that we may create positive outcomes in the future.

This book examines the manner in which the creation of our life blueprint takes place between lives with the help of our spirit guides and teachers as facilitators. In addition, it describes how details tied to relationships, health, loss, and other such facets forge the elements of our life blueprint and provide us with “the chance of a lifetime” for current advancement.

Upon completion of each incarnation, as described by Dr. Backman, an in-depth life review occurs in the afterlife with our council of wise spiritual elders to evaluate the progress gained in our most recent embodiment. We also discover that this is not (nor has it ever been) a judg-

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mental or punitive system; we are given as much time as it takes to learn our life lessons and to graduate from one soul stage to the next.

In addition, Dr. Backman shares information from her voluminous client case studies about our impact on our planet’s cultural progress that intensifies during specific eras of time (such as this one), and how this may enhance the creation of a harmonious civilization.

Her research also reveals that only we, as incarnate souls, can lead humanity forward. The physical world is a level of action, but the spirit world on the whole is not; and thus we, as embodied souls in service to the masters of wisdom, have a formidable responsibility. In support, each of us owns an underlying foundation, one that is in alignment with our pre-birth contract and our expanded intentions for this life—one that can result in our own personal advancement as well as the evolution of society at large.

At the baseline, this book reveals that there is a plan for our life, for the earth, and for the universe. In this regard, Dr. Backman is a modern medicine woman whose teachings reflect those of the higher spiritual guardians who, in turn, reaffirm that our duty on Earth is to foster planetary well-being and to value all people, at all levels of society, both here and abroad, revealing that our human and soul relationships are far more important than material gain.

Personally, I would like to add that Linda Backman’s work reaffirms my own awareness that as people move into and discover their own spirituality, a change occurs in the world. And as the world becomes a better, safer place to live in response, the unity of all people will come to pass, and peace will break out and become the dominant reality paradigm.

I also hold strongly that a real change in attitudes, and consequently in the directions of world history, can be achieved through this mystical awareness as it spreads throughout the world’s population, moving from the personal, through the familial and societal, to the global. As these insights take hold, they will assist humanity in achieving our transformation into a more expanded and more aware life form.

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This is not a small thing—so great gratitude to you, Dr. Linda Backman, and to your teachers for your insights and your work in the world.

Hank Wesselman, PhD Honaunau, Hawaii, 2013 www.SharedWisdom.com Author of numerous books, including The Bowl of Light, Awakening to the Spirit World, and Spiritwalker: Messages from the Future

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments are a funny thing. How do I remember to thank everyone who’s ever had an impact on the writing of this book? With that said, my choice is to be a minimalist. I’d never be able to offer my gratitude to all of the special people, on this side and the other, who have contributed to the creation of this book.

To every client and every regression training participant, I say more than thank you—you are the true authors of this book.

To those friends of mine (you know who you are) who’ve opened your past-life stories, and your intuitive ability, to provide a foundation of soul evolution understanding that never would’ve come into my life without you.

To my children and grandchildren, who I realize do not necessarily comprehend me or my mission in life; I love you so much for agreeing to walk this life with me.

To my beloved Earl, my partner of significance; life would be empty without you.

To Gayle and David, your grief and bond with a partner of significance serves as “high” teaching of spiritual evolution, endings and beginnings through embodiment.

To Larry W. Bryant, author of the reincarnation-themed novella Conjoined: The Story of Rex and Roxanne and the book-length essay Conjuring Gretchen, there are truly no words of thanks that suffice.

Your willingness to copyedit this book is a gift from the Gods.

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To Hank Wesselman, anthropologist, shaman, teacher, author, and wise one. As newfound friends in this life, we are truly birds of a feather. Your support of this book is priceless to me.

To Angela Wix, Llewellyn acquisitions editor, the combination of your deep interest in the subject of this book and your responsiveness is a great blessing.

May this book sail into the hands of all of you whose soul has committed to be of service on Earth to create balance and unity.

Introduction

My first book, Bringing Your Soul to Light: Healing Through Past Lives and the Time Between (BYSTL), was conceived in the early years of my soul regression work. The germinal, embryonic, and fetal stages that birthed BYSTL came into reality over a period of fourteen years. Early on, my mind and heart spoke to me, begging for the creation of a book to share with as many who would choose to read it. The expanding knowledge of soul evolution, provided by my clients, required years to reach fruition.

BYSTL elucidates individual soul evolution, along with the value and benefits of soul regression. To use a developmental analogy, the writing of “Book One” demonstrated that I’d attained competency in the knowledge of soul evolution, similar to an adult’s reaching thirty years of age.

The Evolving Soul: Spiritual Healing Through Past Life Exploration, written six years after BYSTL, presents my personal and professional expansion, and that of my clients. Perhaps you might consider my proficiency now as if I were fifty years old. “What’s different?” you might ask. In this book, I’ve shared content with a dual intent. First, in these pages you’ll discover more in-depth detail concerning individual soul evolution. Of equal importance, this book gives you a perspective on essential advancement for our human society—at best to salve, or at least to lessen, the ongoing detrimental effects of our cultural habits of today. As each of us evolves, humanity, in turn, progresses to a place of balance and unification.

Each client’s past-life and between-lives account offers you food for thought and introspection about the purpose of your pivotal circumstances in life. I invite you to share my ever-magnifying paradigm 1

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of soul evolution by absorbing the understanding that one soul archetype, or energy, remains constant throughout all your purposeful incarnations. Your knowing how to accept and utilize your intuitive ability will augment your spiritual guidance and ease the balancing of past-life karma. The continuity of your soul consciousness is exquisite with the intention to mend the past and evolve from one life to the next. This book provides a foundation to assist you in journeying forward in life today.

At the end of each chapter, you’ll discover three questions to assist your personal digging and ongoing soul progress. Find your favorite journal, with pen in hand, in preparation to deepen your soul-searching.

Soul Mending, Reincarnation, and Evolution Writing this book has been a labor of love—and a labor of pain—for many reasons.

Each life we undergo has an objective. As advancing souls, we’ve known embodiment for hundreds, if not thousands, of encores. Like the tides of a calm or a stormy sea, some incarnations are framed with pleasantry, through agreeable relationships, work, and health, including the quality of where and how we live. In contrast, all of us have dealt with lives easily described as “prickly,” intended for rapid and intense progress.

Lives of challenge contain examples of our behavior both as the victim and the victimizer. The abused, sadly, often becomes the abuser. Our current-life details reveal themselves through our memory, as well as through family members who can offer insight. Without the big picture of our string of past lives, it is impossible to fully comprehend why we must cope with a father who is an alcoholic or care for a child with a chronic illness. The soul of our father may have been the servant girl we abused, and our child may have been our child of the past whom we left to be raised by grandparents.

Yes, I bet you’ve heard the saying “What goes around, comes around.”

The truth is, the explanation I’ve spelled out thus far to elucidate why we need to uncover past lives is far too simple. Try this on: If I

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was a Catholic priest in times gone by who persecuted those who were non-Christian, then the laws of karma scream loudly that I must balance my heinous actions. To gain equilibrium, perhaps I’ll script the next life as a lesbian, living in Middle America, with devout Christian parents who deny my existence.

When we “mend” our soul through reincarnation, the “seam” of our ongoing soul evolution will be tightly sewn through the knowledge and release of who we’ve been, along with our actions. Through an ongoing process of balancing and healing what has come before, we evolve as a soul. By no means have I detailed a painless process. The darkness of our past becomes illumined through the light of knowing and feeling our throbbing angst within. Knowing is not enough; the pain of our misdeeds, as specified by the details, must be suffered. In other words, during soul regression, when we delve into exactly what happened and with whom, we can arrive at the place of debriding our soul wound.

Only then are we likely to avoid future behavior of a similar nature.

The pathway I’ve described I’ve lived, even to the point of facing the soul (in their current body) whom I abused in the past. Though it is not essential to actually know someone in your life today who was the past-life victim, the power of literal, truthful sharing and apology goes a long way to assist both of you in releasing past scars.

Your next question might be, “How will I know what I need to clean up in my life today?” Your pre-birth blueprint, designed with your spirit guides, serves as your this-life recipes for the mixing and baking of the cake called achieving your life purpose to delete the past and to continue evolution. Remember that the more complex the recipe of your life circumstances—like a three-layer cake with fruit filling and chocolate ganache icing rather than a box mix—the more ready you are, at the soul level, to accomplish dramatic soul cleansing.

Only when we evolve as individual souls and embrace the oneness perspective that all living things must live in unity, lacking discrimination, will humanity mend. I’d suggest “me for you, and you for me” to define how we care for the earth, as the earth supports us. Mutual respect for all living beings breeds a healthy planet. Adopt the attitude

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that “me” and “you” are “we”; then the people of the earth will evolve to live as individuals in a unified collective.

I invite you to take this journey with me now as you read. Your openness is requested, no matter what beliefs or convictions you hold dear or are questioning. The book you hold in your hands contains basic knowledge of soul evolution. In the pages of this tome, you’ll also discover details of soul evolution that wouldn’t have crossed my mind, much less my lips, twenty years ago. Apparently, old dogs can be taught new tricks, as clients and my personal process of life have brought me face to face with learning that encompasses extraplanetary lives, concurrent lives in more than one body, soul archetypes, ascended masters, and much more.

As you read, think of your progression of lives and that of your soul as similar to the parable of Dostoyevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor, which relates to Jesus coming back to Earth in Spain at the time of the Inquisition and performing miracles. Before I continue on, let me pause to inform you that my commentary is not religious in nature but rather is a metaphor.

In this parable, Jesus is arrested by leaders of the Inquisition and sentenced to burn to death. The Inquisitor blames Jesus for teaching humanity to use free will in life’s decisions. We have the ability and the right to exercise decision-making based on what we believe is best, combining our mind-brain-personality thinking with intuitive knowing.

The road we are to travel will be shown to us by way of experiences placed on our path and by our passions, leading us to live our soul purpose. Come travel with me through the pages of this book to understand your soul purpose, reincarnation, mending, and evolution.

Chapter One

Tripping Over Your Soul Self

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures.

—Henry Ward Beecher

What Is Soul? Where Does It Originate?

As a little girl, I had moments of wondering who I really was. When I died, for example, would I just go away forever? I struggled with this thought over and over. The idea that the “me” I knew as an eight-yearold would just go away made no sense at all. Unbeknownst to me, I had begun the process of “tripping over myself.” The soul self part of me had begun to seep into my conscious mind, though I clearly had no understanding of why I was so sure that death is not the end. Perhaps you’ve had a similar experience—as a child like me, or while grappling with some tragic experience in your life, or even just while lying awake in the stillness of the wee hours.

Many years later, I came to find out much more about what happens to “us” before we’re born and when we die. In 1993, a dear colleague’s transition into spirit resulted in my pivotal spiritual experience of sensing his soul energy and recalling shared past lives. Suddenly my career as a licensed psychologist took a profound turn. I began to delve into the past lives and the time between lives of clients as a trained hypnotic regression therapist. Over the past twenty years, I have studied thousands

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of cases and guided innumerable clients. Let me explain a few basic notions that have been confirmed time and time again as clients share their unique experiences with me.

You are more than your physical body and human personality. At your very core, and from your very first breath, you are a spark of the divine, an aspect of the purest, highest energy, come into physical existence once again. You are a living, incarnate soul.

Your soul has a mind of its own. By this I mean that you incarnate with divine intelligence and divine intent, coming in with a life plan and higher guidance. Not only that, but you also have the ability to discover the details of your soul archetype and life plan, and you have free will to carry it out or not.

Life is a continuous cycle—beginning at birth, ending upon death, and reviewed between lives in the spiritual realm. It starts anew with each next incarnation, propelled by the soul’s innate desire and inclination to progress in wisdom from one lifetime to the next. Your incarnate soul is a fragment, a sliver, of the totality of your divine energy or higher self. The aspect of soul that is “you” comes from—and remains connected to—the celestial realm during your life on Earth.

Upon your physical death, the holographic portion of your soul that arrived before birth takes its leave and returns to the spiritual realm.

Incarnations come and go, while soul consciousness is eternal.

Even if you’re unsure what to believe, I would ask you to continue the journey through this book, allowing me to share the steps of my personal and professional life along the way.

To continue the tripping process, examine your first steps of stubbing your toe on the awareness that you are a soul having a human experience. Spiritual people usually come in two flavors. Were you a young child who woke in the morning to the realization that you had been with a guardian angel in your sleep? Or were you an adult, as I was, painfully missing a loved one who had gone to the other side?

The unmistakable experience happened for me when I knew that the soul of my friend was “speaking” to me.

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From its Latin roots, the word reincarnate literally means “to enter the flesh again.” But eons before Roman times, many ancient cultures, both Eastern and in the West, had already enshrined reincarnation as the cornerstone of their belief systems. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, mystical subsets of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, as well as many indigenous cultures of the world, not only recognize the existence of the soul but also seek to aid and abet its sacred journey from one life to the next.

And beyond religion, science and spirituality have begun to find common ground: quantum physics now posits that energy exists that is infinitesimally small and moving so rapidly that it is nearly impossible to measure, let alone view. Is it so hard to extrapolate from there that soul energy is real, that it exists even though it is too physically small to measure?

Numerous research studies show how praying for others, requesting the help of a higher source on their behalf, can statistically improve their health and well-being. I would take it a step further by suggesting that a person’s unseen soul energy field is accessible through various intuitive, energetic practices such as prayer or meditation. Why? Because the soul is the energy of highest consciousness, which is all-pervasive.

Who Are You as an Individual, Evolving Soul?

You come into body to progress as a soul. Originally, your soul is “spun out of the Tao,” or born as a spark of the primordial essence of the universe. This divine energy has been given many different names, such as Great Spirit, Tao, God, Source, Elohim, and Christ Consciousness. No matter what term you prefer, your soul stems from this highest vibrational energy of wisdom and truth. Strong nurturance and intense schooling from within the spiritual realm are essential before your very first incarnation so that you can withstand the impact.

Just as a baby needs to eat, sleep, and be held, you as a soul have an innate impetus to reach higher levels of spiritual learning. Advanced souls residing in the celestial realm are your “classroom teachers” as you begin the equivalent of preschool-level training to prepare your

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soul for incarnation. Think about the critical job of a parent who initially cares for each and every need of the newborn and toddler.

After your newborn and toddler education in the celestial realm, you are sufficiently prepared as a soul to begin the Earth school of evolution from one lifetime to the next. At approximately age five, a child is ready to take that first step toward independence by beginning school, independent of parents. This is similar to your birth into physical embodiment and the subsequent steps through life on Earth, providing the dense and challenging “laboratory of learning” targeted at soul evolution.

The elements of incarnational learning include relationships, health, and loss, to mention a few common areas. Take a moment to think about and examine their impact on your life. What experiences have challenged you, yet been the most effective teaching tools? Embrace the seemingly problematic issues in your life as divinely inspired opportunities to broaden and expand your learning. How you deal with the notso-easy circumstances in life often correlates with the number of rungs you climb up that proverbial ladder of soul development and the speed with which you do it.

You incarnate to advance both your individual wisdom and the collective wisdom. Moving through your lifetimes from denser to greater light, you advance from incarnations primarily centered on your own soul progress to lives that serve the progress of humanity.

The knowledge that you achieve through each lifetime benefits not only you as an individual soul; your trials and tribulations also enhance the greater whole of humanity and the universe. Your intrinsic reason for incarnating gradually becomes easier and easier to discern.

You discover that you are here to be of service. Eventually, you reach a level of development where you serve as a teacher or guide for other souls. This is sometimes referred to as “ascension.”

Please remember that there is nothing better or worse about your current degree of soul evolution. You are where you are on the path, be it the equivalent of grade two, grade twelve, or approaching graduate school. Life on Earth presents the challenges you must face in

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order to acquire the ability to operate in human life from the vantage point of your soul versus your human-egoic self. It is the crucible where you learn to overcome the soul-deadening grip of human fear and worry and to trust instead that you are always loved and supported from the higher realm. Each ingredient of your life, no matter how simple or complex, serves as a prospect for progress.

So no matter what choices you make in life, all is well, because you are repeatedly given another opportunity to learn. Each life event is a course in your earthly classroom that is set in motion by the soul agreements you’ve put in place. Your awareness of “why you are here now” will expand when you accept that what needs to happen simply happens. Or, to put it in a slightly different way, when you accept that the events and people in your life are put in place to enhance the evolution of your soul and that of others, then you know such life lessons stem from the wisdom of your soul and your guides’ prodding.

Every lifetime has a soul-designed curriculum for enhancing and expanding your soul awareness and capability. When you accept that all experiences in life serve the purpose of moving to a higher grade in the school of soul development, life becomes manageable. All the events in your life offer you a window to know who you are, why you are here, and how you can continue to advance as a soul. Benevolent spiritual guidance is available to you at all times to support your onward journey. The very best advice I can offer is to trust and accept fear as a signal that you are facing an opportunity to grow.

Unity, Soul Mending, and Ego Our planet, our world culture, is in crisis. Every single day we learn of natural disasters, wasteful exploitation of natural resources, judgment of lifestyle or religious choices, economic downturn, partisan politics, and civil war to gain equality. Is this how we express mutual respect to reach the acceptance that all people of the world are the same at the core soul level?

Soul mending leads to evolution. You are a soul living one life to the next in order to mend negative past-life experiences and gain

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higher wisdom as an individual and as a collective of divine soul energy. Without soul mending, the higher awareness of unity, where each of us is equal in value, is unattainable.

The ego, as a collection of our past experiences, is continually offering miserable lines of thought. It’s as if there were a stream with little fish swimming by, and when we hook one of them there is a judgment. The ego is constantly judging everybody and everything. It has its constant little chit chat about things that can happen in the future, things about the past, too, and these are the little fish that swim by. And what we learn to do— this is why it takes work—is to not reach out and grab a fish.

—Hugh Prather Ego, or an “I versus we” mentality, will lead our world down a path of destruction of the tightly woven fabric of all people. Each of our incarnations is designed to afford us the opportunity to evolve to a higher perspective, as an individual and as a collective.

Samsara in Buddhism means continuous flow in the ongoing cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Physicist Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) formulated a law stating that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In parallel, the natural law of karma tells us that our intentional, conscious, and willful actions in life result in either soul progress or the lack thereof. Selfish desire, ill will, and willful ignorance can lead us to choose behavior contrary to the pre-birth life agreement intended to assist in our soul progress toward global advancement.

Not only must we trip over the truth that we are a soul, but at the same time we must not trip over our ego self, causing us to ignore the needs of others. Our karma-based actions toward individual evolution serve when we lead without self-aggrandizement, knowing all along that we stand shoulder to shoulder with all incarnate souls.

Your Life Blueprint In each incarnation, you are a composite of three aspects. Your soul archetype is the perpetual foundation that remains unchanged from

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life to life. Your life blueprint, on the other hand, does change from life to life to further your soul progress. Attached to, and supportive of, your life blueprint is a particular body with a particular human personality designed intentionally to help you achieve the agreed-upon goals of your life blueprint this time around.

Here is the simple yet complex truth about soul evolution: your soul has an overarching intention that carries over from one lifetime to the next. Each life has a separate blueprint that expands and enhances your soul evolution. The farther up the ladder of soul development you climb, the more say you have in the creation of your life blueprint. At the same time, each incarnation becomes more complex and challenging, just as when you’re a sixth-grader versus a secondgrader you have greater ability to work independently on increasingly complicated projects.

The Between-Lives Evaluation My soul regression clients often describe the celestial setting, and how their life blueprint was created during the time between lives. Imagine that you have a front-row seat and can observe the planning for an upcoming lifetime. Here is what you might see.

In the celestial realm, a meeting takes place in what is often called the “selection theater.” There, more than one movie screen portrays options for the next incarnation. Often there are three or four such screens depicting possible bodies and life circumstances. One might show a tall, shy Scandinavian man; another could have a short Chinese woman who was abused as a child; a third might portray you as a Caucasian woman of average height with cerebral palsy. Spirit guides are always close at hand to lend support and advice where needed.

The less evolved the soul, the more input is given by the guides, and vice versa.

A supportive yet serious setting is arranged where you meet with one or more of your spirit guides. These benevolent teachers and advisors are here to help you design the life blueprint for your upcoming incarnation.

The discussion begins, led by your senior guide, and together you create

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the script for your next life. You decide the set of intentions you’ll take with you that are best suited to help you progress as a soul. You decide what opportunities for soul progress will be in place.

Just remember that you are loved, sustained, and guided at all times.

Each step you take, each decision you make, is viewed with unconditional love, yet there is a push by your guidance team to confront obstacles for the purpose of your ongoing evolution. You are never off-track.

In life, you will be offered repeated forks in the road as challenges to continue your soul evolution. Take a moment to consider one or two such points in your own life where you had the opportunity to take on more stimulating tests of your body-mind-spirit abilities. I remember well my trepidation when I opted to leave behind my traditional psychotherapy practice to soldier forward into my passion of guiding soul regression, expanding the client’s view of this life to all lives.

During the pre-birth planning conference, you pick through unresolved issues that stem from your past lives. From their vantage point of greater wisdom, your guides might remind you of a life during the American Civil War when you were a plantation owner. In that lifetime, you had an extended family of slaves who cared for your home, children, and livestock, and one of those slaves saved the life of your three-year-old, who had fallen into a nearby creek. Riddled with guilt and shame that you yourself had not been there to protect your child, you never acknowledged or even thanked that slave for the rescue. The karmic debt was left unpaid, and an imbalance arose.

In this hypothetical case study, your spiritual team of guides might strongly recommend that in your current life blueprint, you are the older sister whose younger sister (the slave’s soul) is hearing-impaired and painfully needs your love and compassion. The life lesson is to unlock your heart and care take of your sister in the hope that she will open to you. Your selfish pride and inflexibility has blocked deep relationship bonds in many lives. Your sister’s soul has carried great pain that has also tainted many lifetimes. She never forgave you for not acknowledging her. In many of your sister’s relationships, she has turned a deaf ear, feeling unworthy and unrecognized. Together as siblings,

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the past-life baggage can be mutually healed through the powerful union of acceptance you share.

Similarly, your karmic baggage through a number of lives has been to avoid having children for fear of losing them, either emotionally or literally. In life today, you may feel intense and unexplained trepidation when your romantic partner expresses a strong desire to become parents. Through discovering the foundation of your reticence, a spiritual code activates itself to unlock your “steel door.”

Let’s now examine the principle that unsettled past-life circumstances are held energetically within our soul memory code. We carry these traumas and related emotions until we reach a point in our current life when we’re ready to release and delete the energy that is stuck in our soul consciousness.

My soul regression clients frequently uncover a past-life pattern whereby, for example, they have repeatedly been abandoned by a parent, either physically or emotionally. In our soul memory code, we may be clinging to the feeling of victimization that has ensued. If we can release and delete the bound-up hurt and anger, we can let go of the emotional distress and balance out the painful energy. We then enable our soul evolution to achieve the intentions of our life blueprint in this round.

During this process, our free will is never impinged upon. With each lifetime, we can choose to move quickly or slowly through our soul evolution. The advanced disincarnate beings who’re always at our side give us the leeway to move along two steps at a time or slowly and gradually, one by one. As incarnate souls, we often place undue pressure on ourselves because we feel we’re not evolving fast enough, that we’re imperfect. Our guides are kinder, all the while encouraging us to step into the laboratory of learning “with both feet.”

Soul Regression Case Example Your life blueprint serves both your own soul development and that of others around you. You never begin a life without having a plan intended to benefit you, others, and all of humanity. Begin now to consider who

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you are, from your basic framework to the minute details. Read and absorb the experience of one of my clients whose soul regression session will provide powerful food for spiritual digestion.

This first client account concerns a middle-aged woman we’ll call Patricia. Her regression uncovered an enriching, indigenous past life and led into the time between lives where two guides arrived to discuss the reality of a higher power.

Allow your thoughts and feelings to expand as you read, and consider your own soul archetype, life blueprint, and how you’re progressing in life today. Please continue to be open to noticing each event in your life that is a pointer in the direction of what you came into life to do and to be.

Patricia: an earth-based life and higher power I am outside on a hot day in my village. My feet are bare, and I am wearing a red and black swirly print skirt that wraps. I have on a white square-neck top, with bare shoulders and arms. I’m about eleven years old, and I have long, dark, matted hair. My eyes and skin are dark brown. I am kind of smiling.

I pick up long things that fell from the trees. They are dried and leafy, and I make a path of them to walk on. It’s fun to make a path to my house in the village where I live. It’s a very little house where I sleep, but I eat in another house. I go into my house, where my mother and younger siblings are sitting on the same leaves on top of the sand.

We have lots of fruit to eat, but I do not want to sit while I eat.

I have lots of energy. The wind blows in the afternoon. It becomes quiet, and we all sleep.

Now it is later, and I am with my elderly parents. I’m about seventeen years old, and it is very pleasant here. There is a man here, too, that I care about. We’re outside eating and drinking near water and some palm trees. There’s no furniture.

I am older now, with two beautiful children. They sleep under trees in the shade as I wave off any bugs. My husband is fishing.

Tripping Over Your Soul Self

We eat only fish and fruit. My parents are alive and live close by.

Life is fine. My husband is nice, kind, and calm. I like to be a mother and to prepare our food. We have no books.

Now it is the very last day of my life and I am lying down in my house. I am very old. My husband has died. My children and grandchildren are here, and they sit outside. Others come to speak to my family. This is normal and natural. I’ve seen many die. This has been a quiet life. I have raised and taught my children. We have no book knowledge. We make things from trees, flowers, and bones.

Now I have died, and I am above the trees. I see the Pacific Ocean. One of the best things about this life has been the colors of nature all around me. They were vivid, bright, and beautiful. The other best thing was my family.

I am moving away from the earth. As I go higher, the space around me gets lighter. Now there are two male figures in front of me. They have beards and blue eyes. One stands more in front and has on a blue satin robe. The other wears a white robe. The blue-robed one says, “I am here for you.� He takes me to a building that has a dome-shaped top of glass and a gold ball at the very top. We go inside and sit on chairs. He holds my hand. He shows me a tall pole with a round blue top to remind me that there is always a higher power at the top.

We have come into this building to feel the power of all that is.

I can feel the expansion in my chest that tells me I am feeling the power of the divine. I have come here for my soul to be fed. It is humid in here, making my soul soft and more absorbent to take in the power.

I am with my senior guide, who reminds me that he is always with me. I always remember his blue eyes, which are loving, compassionate, and protective. He does not want me to forget that I am moving higher and higher in my journey as a soul. All is well.

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Patricia’s soul regression is a striking example that our soul evolution can progress significantly during a life tied to nature, simplicity, and family. Our earth-based ego often assumes that adequate soul advancement must include literal achievement through a socially valued vocation. The all-pervading presence, love, and support of our guides are also featured in this regression.

Soul Memory Code Before Patricia reexperienced this past life in an indigenous culture, I guided her into the time in her mother’s womb not long before her birth into her present life. She described having a skinny, weak body that presented certain challenges she would have to overcome during this incarnation. Nonetheless, her “good” brain and the smooth integration of her soul energy with her body in the womb would allow her to function well. Her loving parents in her current life would remain by her side.

An understanding of the time in the mother’s womb before birth often proves to be of fundamental importance to the client, not only in terms of the particular body and its capabilities chosen before birth, but also as a means to comprehend the current life in a manner never before grasped. Whether the client was eager or not to reincarnate often opens a window onto his or her approach to life today. He or she may become aware of a relationship with Mom that was imbedded, for better or worse, before birth. Some discover a love felt from their mother in utero that they’ve never perceived in life today. The degree to which we are impacted by our mother’s feelings during pregnancy is often crucial in our approach to life. Soul regression reveals and remediates the comfort or lack thereof with the soul who births us. In addition, the time in the womb may shed light on your soul memory code that encompasses unresolved, broad-based past-life issues, such as the lack of desire to incarnate again.

The soul memory code is an energetic repository you carry that is imprinted with the experiences of each of your past lives. Quite sim-

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ply, you are a product of your most significant past-life experiences.

Each experience defines you in a variety of ways, such as: • M ale lives versus female lives (your balance of living as both genders) • L ives of poverty versus lives of aristocracy or other forms of privilege • Lives lived as clergy • Lives lived primarily in two geographic locations and climates • Lives dying young • Lives without a romantic partner Unresolved elements of one or more past lives that are imbedded in your soul memory code can lead to anxiety, avoidance, physical symptoms, and more. For example, I’ve worked with numerous clients who are fearful of, and who steer clear of, becoming committed to a romantic relationship. During their past-life regression sessions, traumatic details often are described where either the client had a spouse die or the client died young, leaving behind a partner to care for several young children. The soul memory code contains the energetic, emotional, and physical leftovers of our past lives that can block our ability to make untarnished decisions in today’s life.

By the same token, the discovery of what has come before in past lives can be like a broom that sweeps the floor clean. In other words, releasing and deleting a past-life circumstance that has been obstructive in your current life often creates a sense of freedom and openness previously unfelt. Living your life blueprint comes with greater ease.

Often we have more than one past life where related circumstances constrict our life today. Here, a pattern from one life to the next develops where we make faulty assumptions about our own capabilities or how others will treat us. You may have had a lifetime fifteen hundred years ago that is tied to your unexamined, puzzling, or undermining beliefs of today. Perhaps your mindset was much too advanced for others at the time. In your life today, you may be shying away from

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being open about what is deeply meaningful to you for fear you’ll be ostracized. Consider what apprehension might remain within you that is tied to past-life experience.

Your Soul Purpose and the Seven Archetypes Two robust and respected wisdom traditions provide seven archetypes, or character styles, one of which defines your central soul purpose. Theosophy and the Michael Teachings both describe a structure or construct of seven possible roles to reveal the overriding purpose or intention of the soul. These can be of use to you in figuring out the core theme of your own soul intention.

Theosophy, which literally means “God’s wisdom,” presents a metaphysical perspective on how the higher realms create order. It explains our very existence as we climb the ladder of spiritual development.

(Alice A. Bailey began publishing prominent writings on Theosophy in 1919.) The Michael Teachings provide a structure and understanding of the universe and the eternal evolution of all souls. (José Stevens’s numerous books describe the Michael Teachings material.)

Both cosmological frameworks stem from respected, channeled material gathered for more than 150 years with a focus on the science, art, and mystery of soul evolution.

Both approaches have described the same seven soul-purpose possibilities as the pivotal component of who and what you are. In chapter 6, you’ll be able to try on each of the seven options explained in detail to begin considering who you are at the core. You will contemplate and walk through each of the seven roles while listening deeply to your inner self. The discovery and acceptance of your soul style will allow you to continue the process of soul mending throughout all your lives.

In Summary Your eternal soul is magnificent in its radiance, carrying as it does the power of the light of divine consciousness. As a soul, we step into a human vessel at birth and leave the body upon death as we travel the

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ceaseless journey from density into light. Your soul evolves through each challenge of this life. Upon death, between your lives, the soul energy that animated your body returns to spirit to reconstitute the greater whole of your soul, that element we label as your higher self or superconscious.

Your soul, and each and every soul, is designated by a keynote role that is unchanging throughout all incarnations. Said in a different way, the innermost hub of who you are is a distinct imprint of the special abilities and interests you possess and how you interact in the world. Your role as a soul remains the predominant characteristic of you, or your archetype, that is embodied from one life to the next, never changing.

We share a power and beauty when we grasp and accept who we are at the deepest level. Alas, our world culture generally seeks to denigrate, to pathologize, or to inflict some abnormality upon our core nature if who we are doesn’t fit within a prescribed paradigm. Instead, who you are at the deepest level carries both purpose and meaning.

Windows open each day that provide opportune moments for you to be the unique soul that you are, allowing your radiance to shine through and supporting others to advance upon the path. As you travel with me through this book, your soul purpose will become clearer.

Now, please open your journal, as you’ll have the opportunity to answer questions at the completion of each chapter. Or perhaps you’ve already jotted journal notes to yourself, having read to this point.

Ask yourself: 1. What personal experience have I had this week that directs me to a step I must take to move forward with my soul evolution? Did a friend or family member invite me to an event, but I’m hesitant to go? Did the opportunity for a new job come up this week that is a bit of a stretch, a new area of responsibility?

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2. What current national and international events tell me that equality of humanity has not been achieved?

3. How old was I when I first began to suspect that I had lived before? This is a golden opportunity for you to recall when that window of soul awareness opened in this life.

Chapter Two

Soul Ascension for You and for Humanity

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

—The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

A Sacred Planet A sacred planet upholds the commitment to oneness, togetherness, love, and peace. Unity means that all people are valued and treated accordingly. Respect for and equality of all beings are critical on a sacred planet.

The earth’s people have yet to operate in a fully egalitarian manner; hence, our planet fails to merit being labeled “sacred.” World news every day reflects a disconnect within and between countries lacking acceptance and compassion for all people. Soul regression clients explain, “It is important that you see all living matter on planet Earth as related—and it is all related through energy.” This means that humanity and the plant, mineral, and animal kingdoms are all living matter.

Because our population has the general view that our physical planet needs no assistance and can sustain itself, this attitude leads to overconsumption, pollution, and destruction. When we honor and take care of all living organisms, then we treat all beings with impartiality.

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In coordination with your guides, a pre-birth agreement shapes your life today. The premise of our life intention is based on the dual track for individual soul evolution to flow directly into the elevation of humanity, leading to greater respect for all. Said a different way, when daily life includes the ongoing commitment to discover and adhere to your soul intentions, then a light is shone on the essential thread of humanity that you are.

Twelve Elements of Spiritual Evolution Consider how you can fulfill the twelve elements that steer evolution presented in-depth, chapter by chapter, in this book. Each element holds equal importance in the process of soul mending to reach higher levels of enlightenment. Each can be briefly defined by a word or phrase: • Intuition • Soul evolution lifetime to lifetime • Higher guidance • Seven soul ray archetypes • Pre-birth life agreement • Evolving through relationship • Simultaneous reincarnation through soul splits • Lives on Earth and in other dimensions • Learning through attachment-detachment • Purposeful choice of gender, color, and sexuality • Caring for your body, mind, and spirit • Stepping up now with commitment

Intuition In the French language, intuition is described by the word clairvoyance, which means you have the “clear” ability of “vision” outside your immediate surroundings without using known human senses. We often

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call this extrasensory perception, or ESP. You certainly do have ESP; you are intuitive. All you need to confirm that trait is practice and trust. Nature created an impeccable design of our brains with the capacity to perceive spiritual communication. Tuning in to learn the key details of our past lives or the content of our pre-birth contract, or to communicate with loved ones or guides in spirit, is done by using our divinely inspired intuitive receptors. Your intuitive capability will serve you well during regression or when utilizing a spiritual practice to uncover elements of past lives needing release.

We say, “You have a third eye” or “Use your sixth sense.” Confusion reigns with the notion that our sixth sense of perception operates separately from our five other capabilities of taste, touch, hearing, sight, and smell in our immediate location. Through our “clair” abilities, which encompass intuitive vision, audience, olfaction, sentience (emotion/touch), cognition, and gustation, we discover that our instinctive senses can be triggered by the past-life memory of the aroma of a hay wagon passing by or the odor of cigar smoke tied to Uncle Norman, who died thirty-five years ago. Our sixth sense merely means we have receptors that recognize input outside of time and space.

Chapter 3 provides an in-depth, focused discussion on how to accept, honor, and strengthen the muscle of your perceptive awareness prompted by your spirit guides and your highest soul knowledge. Intuition combined with literal decisions and steps forward in everyday life places us in alignment with our progressive soul intentions.

Soul Evolution Lifetime to Lifetime A bold yet valid statement serves, quite simply, to explain life: The singular purpose of your birth is to embody resolutely toward unwavering soul evolution. Enlightened soul experiences, such as the graceful acceptance of the passing of our beloved forty-two-year-old parent, suggests progress toward attainment of a level of wisdom affording the opportunity to serve as a spiritual guide. You and I advance as an individual soul and as a collective of souls, called humanity, when our life is lived with intended purpose. (The psychic readings of the late

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reincarnationist/channel Edgar Cayce refer to this state of mind as possessing an ideal.) Take what has just been said on face value, and the “why” of life will become easier to wrap your heart and mind around.

Chapter 4 presents the core meta-wisdom that actual events in daily life, along with our intuition, point the way forward as we climb our soul ladder of ascension. Your soul path will become obvious if you take notice of the everyday happenings in your life, large and small. Early in 2006, my thoughts told me that it was time to write my first book, which I did. In October 2006, I received an unsolicited email message from a reputable publisher asking if I would consider authoring a book. The tangible birth of Bringing Your Soul to Light happened in 2009.

Envision your soul’s journey as if it were a camera with three lenses.

One lens is trained in a retrospective position on your significant past lives. The viewfinder of the middle lens shows exactly what’s happening in the moment of “now.” You have a third lens that must be described as flexible. Events in our life today weave together our past-life history that includes karmic elements in need of balance, our pre-birth soul agreement, and the free-will choices we make daily. This tapestry illuminates the lens that presents future “this life” details and subsequent incarnation options. My foremost message is that each of us has the power to affect what happens from this moment onward.

Here, a soul regression client explains.

I am being told that my commitment to care for my ninety-twoyear-old mother and walk alongside her until she completes this lifetime is for the soul evolution of us both. In a past life she was my ten-year-old daughter that I abandoned because I’d died of a broken heart when my husband, her father, left me. Now we are balancing the karmic remnants of the past incarnation by ending the conflict we’ve had in our present life. I am voluntarily caring for her in peace while she is open to receiving my nurturance.

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In each life, we are brought face to face with mending opportunities. What comes of our future is inextricably tied to using awareness of our past in order to heal in the present and step boldly forward in our ongoing ascent to higher wisdom through soul evolution.

Higher Guidance Just as a newborn baby depends on receiving caretaking from one or more adults, a new soul fragment of divine energy requires nurturance and preparation in the celestial realm before entering into incarnation.

Experienced souls acting as guides have unique skills and assignments in the spiritual realm, such as working in the pre-incarnation, educational area in spirit. Beginning a first lifetime on Earth can be tricky at best. The human child walks through numerous stages before he or she is ready to go to first grade, leaving the escorting parent at the school’s front door. In the same manner, new souls, before undergoing incarnation, are supported and trained in the complex elements of functioning within a body.

Here, a soul regression client describes the work being done in the “soul nursery.”

In the soul nursery, I work with the preparation of new souls that have never incarnated on Earth. First, the new soul meets and becomes familiar with their initial soul guide. I am told that souls like me who work in the nursery are still incarnating, but between lives we volunteer to serve as assistants in the prep of these new souls.

I help with the instruction of new souls about choices they will make when they plan their first Earth lives—such as decisions about their body structure, where they will live, whom they will choose as parents, and more. Also, I talk about soul intentions that are realistic for initial lives. Early lives are not ones where the soul is to be of service. New souls have no past-life history to draw upon. Pre-birth life agreements relate to survival, socialization, and communication. I help teach new souls about planet Earth,

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the environment, and the animal, mineral, and plant kingdoms.

These young souls are given geography, sociology, and physiology lessons. Basically the purpose of the soul nursery is to provide as much preparation as is possible to enable them to survive as a soul in a new body on Earth. I very much enjoy my assignment in the nursery.

The assignment of a guide to each new soul happens through decisions made by experienced guides who coordinate the activities of the spiritual realm. It is important that each of us knows we’re never alone, because our primary guide is a constant. Think of your soul guide as being the healthiest teacher who loves you, requires you to learn, and holds your advancement as their only cause.

Chapter 5 details the specifics of how we become a spirit guide.

This chapter expands into the composition of the spiritual realm to explain the levels of guideship. Some might be surprised to learn that the spiritual realm is similar to the government of a democracy, where order and structure are necessary to manage decision-making as smoothly as possible. Advice on how to become aware of your guide’s communication begins in chapter 3 and expands in chapter 5.

Seven Soul Archetypes In your soulhood before you plan an initial life on Earth, your soul guide assists you in selecting a soul signature, or archetype of your soul, that is unchanging throughout all your lives. There must be a balance of each of these seven styles of soul energy on Earth. Your soul guide will offer advice to make this determination.

The seven energies are equal to one another. Ideally, in a family, important yet different roles are played to create a productive balance.

When two people attempt to play the same role, conflict can arise.

First, someone must carry out perhaps the most difficult role of leading the charge of progress with new ideas when necessary. Often the “change agent” is unpopular, but essential. This intensely essential power we’ll call ray one. Two additional roles solidify the presentation

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of new ideas. One is the philosophical, love-wisdom teacher, who cautions the leader of change that appropriate presentation is essential in order to gain buy-in from others. Rounding out the coordination triad is the knowledgeable individual who melds information into a new paradigm. Four additional energies are critical, including harmony, strategy, and caretaking. Finally, what many label as the violet flame serves as the alchemical sage to wrap this septenary container of divine power into one.

Chapter 6 elucidates the beauty and purpose of your soul archetype that can be determined through the knowledge of your past lives and the underlying direction of each life. The four roles of change, philosophy, strategy, and nurturance expand into seven by adding creative intelligence, harmony-beauty, and the alchemical melding of all elements.

In all lives, we lead with our soul archetype. In addition, we select a different archetype per life as our personality for just that incarnation.

Ultimately, we must balance all seven energies through repetitive embodiment before achieving capability as a spirit guide.

Pre-Birth Life Agreement Here, a recently widowed soul regression client in her fifties recounts her discovery of a past life in Mesopotamia in a ruling family and leaves the scene of her death behind.

My husband, the ruler of Mesopotamia, was always gone, and I had to do everything. Now I don’t have to live a life in a ruling family. Our time of ruling is over. No longer do I have to do so much for our children and other family members. What was important in our family is that we stuck together.

The client, whom we’ll call Adelaide, and her husband are highly skilled in a musical craft. Yet the client is painfully bereaved, as her beloved husband, internationally known for his work, has died from a serious illness. Adelaide set aside her creative competence for many

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years to raise their children because of her spouse’s travel all over the world.

The intertwining of Adelaide’s pre-birth contract with that of her husband is illuminated during her soul regression. Leaving the past life behind and traveling into the spiritual realm, Adelaide finds her spirit guide telling her: All the things you think are important on Earth are not important at all. Much is just busy work. What is important is consciousness and love. Many on Earth have so much fear and preoccupation. Your husband was so worried about time and his accomplishments. At the end of his life, because of his illness he no longer could worry about time or his work. Then, and only then, did he discover the true meaning of love—love with his wife, and the love of his family.

Everyone is able to choose his or her destiny. Your husband had to leave his body to learn that love takes precedence over achievement. He missed out on many of the years of your children’s growing up. Now you must become whole again. You are to work with your hands to further your musical abilities—play and write. You have used your hands only in your domestic responsibilities. Your husband achieved his fame in the first half of your lives together. It is your turn now to shine with your gifts.

Do not let doubt slow you down. Your children are older now, and the focus is your work. You still will continue to be close to your children, and your family will stay together. The soul of your dear husband will be your teacher.

Chapter 7 invites you to grasp how your pre-birth blueprint melds past-life elements with current-life intentions and the need for enhanced learning. Time and again, our soul evolution progresses through interrelationship with other people, frequently souls we’ve known in past incarnations. Evolution is guided through the greatest of our challenges and the height of our joys. Our soul’s pathway to advancement moves from a strong focus on “me” to an overriding

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sense of humility and understanding of humanity’s needs. Each of our lives has a plan created with our spirit guides before our birth. Then we can opt to follow and expand the value of our plan or cast the blueprint aside and live a more self-involved life. The choice is ours.

Evolving through Relationship Chapter 8 is a tributary flowing into the wide river described in chapter 7. Our pre-birth plan guides the river of our soul advancement as it spells out such broad choices as body, health, intelligence, relationships, and more. The tributary of interrelationship in life brings surface and ground water, or essential aspects of learning through affiliation, to expand the river’s flow of knowledge into the sea of soul evolution. In 1943, Abraham Maslow defined a hierarchy of needs leading to self-actualization. Maslow’s paradigm adapted to a spiritual framework delineates soul advancement as explained in chapter 4.

One of Maslow’s four required elements is defined as love/belonging, or relationship with one another.

Take a moment to consider who in your life, if anyone, has been willing to be a true partner on your soul’s journey. A true partner is someone—spouse, sibling, child, or anyone—who has your back at all times. Of equal importance, your significant partner holds up a mirror with love, illuminating your beauty and foibles. You can trust this person to be totally honest and to provide unwavering support.

Here, a middle-aged female client in grief over the passing of her young adult son learns of her past-life and long-standing soul bond with her son’s soul.

In this native tribe, my husband is the chief. [Dr. Backman asks if the client recognizes the soul of her husband as anyone in her present life.] The chief is the same soul as my son who died recently. I deeply loved my husband. There was a strong love between us. My husband never ignored his duty as the chief, yet he was always there for our children and me.

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I know that I’ve shared many lives with this soul, who was my son in my life today. Now I understand the depth of my grief and the reason I feel my son around me all the time. We will never truly be separated.

Each of us has at least one other soul with whom we’ve shared many lives. Frequently, this soul shares our current life and could be called our partner of significance. At times, we may have a partner of significance who dies, or for numerous other reasons the relationship may end. Often someone else steps into the role of accountable relationship to aid our soul’s ongoing journey.

Simultaneous Reincarnation through Soul Splits Each of our pre-birth plans takes shape through choices that meld into the total picture of an ensuing lifetime. One of the decisions centers on the fixed percentage of our total soul energy we bring into body at birth. Here’s how it works: Before our birth, and with the advice and counsel of our guides, we settle on the proportion of soul energy that constitutes being alive and viable. The extent of bifurcation depends on the intentions of our life and our current soul development. Our remaining soul energy in spirit, not brought into body, is called our higher self, or superconscious.

Chapter 9 presents another energetic element to consider prior to each life. As a soul, are we capable of managing more than one simultaneous lifetime for an important purpose? Though not common, a highly experienced soul can split its energy to be “alive” in more than one body at a time. The overlap of time for both people, or both aspects of the same soul, can be brief or nearly the same.

Think about the circus performer who rides into the ring with a foot on the backs of two horses. Holding carefully to the reins of each horse, the entertainer must maintain balance. The rider requires significant practice, just as a soul in more than one body cannot manage at top form when in its youth. The choice of simultaneous lives, called

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a “split incarnation,” embraces our objective to achieve twofold goals: the advancement of our soul and that of humanity.

Lives on Earth and in Other Dimensions Chapter 10 may challenge the understanding of some who believe life exists only on Earth, while other readers will discover written validation of their long-held convictions. Listen to a male client we’ll call Dean describe his soul regression experience.

Between my lives, I go to a place in the spiritual realm where we all look alike; we all have the same nationality. Where we come from, we do not talk; we just know what the other means. Our style is to be very peaceful. My head shape is different on my home base.

We decided to be spread out as a group to go to different places for our lives on Earth. I have a husband where I come from. He wanted to come into body with me, but he could not fit into a body because he is mostly light and cannot be contained in a dense Earth body.

I had to have a life on Earth to experience the flow of pain and happiness. Also, I bring my gifts of spiritual knowledge to Earth to help others know they are in body for very important reasons.

It would seem rather self-serving for us to decide that life exists nowhere other than on Earth. Consider the possibility that the increased labeling of adults and children on the autistic spectrum can be explained by souls coming into Earth incarnation equipped with special skills and abilities they gained elsewhere. At the same time, these experienced, extraplanetary souls have difficulty adapting to the everyday environment of Earth and exhibit social, communication, and cognitive uniqueness.

Learning through Attachment-Detachment We cannot progress in our life today and continue to evolve as a soul without embracing life’s ups and downs. In contrast, it is essential in

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our innate soul commitment to the expansion of soul wisdom to let go of the trials and tribulations of embodiment. Just as we attach to those we call beloved in our lives, we must detach from their earthly selves when physical death comes to pass.

The concept of attachment-detachment requires us first to seize what ultimately we must release. In order to know lack of suffering, we must embrace a time of suffering. Take a moment to remember a time in your life when you dearly hoped an event would happen a certain way but did not. Now look for the silver lining in the cloud you’ve just remembered. What was the benefit of the resulting gift that began with initial disappointment and pain?

Past lives that we discover come in a variety of packages. To simplify, soul regression clients attach to past lives of two general varieties: some of our lives have been powerfully challenging, with what humans may label as trauma, while other past lives are meant to uncover fulfillment. At times our guides want us to accept that we have had experiences in past lives that may not exist in life today, such as children, happy romantic involvement, comfortable finances, health, and the like. By embracing what we have accomplished in previous embodiment, we are to discontinue being self-critical in life today.

Chapter 11 asks you to trust that each past life and each noteworthy event in present life is intended by your guides to serve as a toehold in your ascent to soul progress. At times, we are to place our foot on the solid support of particular experiences with the acceptance of skills and beneficial happenings that have come before. In other circumstances, we are to know we’ve been affected in many ways by a challenging occurrence. The next step is to delete and heal the trauma within us. Our soul memory code carries the imprint of the past, but our human self does not have to hang on to distress.

Purposeful Choice of Gender, Color, and Sexuality With clear purpose to benefit our soul’s evolution, the evolution of other souls, and the evolution of humanity, we predetermine our gen-

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der, the color of our skin, our sexuality, and other pertinent details of each upcoming life. None of the key building blocks of embodiment occur without consideration and meaning. The more demanding and complex the aspects of our life, the more expansive the opportunity we have for our growth and that of others.

Anytime a new client describes his or her life today as a thorny scenario of death/grief, serious illness, abuse, and the like, I know this is not a soul just beginning its incarnation cycle. Highly complex lives could not be managed well by a young soul. The next time you notice a street person, consider that he is a soul, no different from any other soul, and ponder the intent of his pre-birth life choice. As a soul, we may choose to boost our development and that of others through teaching others and gaining compassion and humility along a highly challenging life path.

Chapter 12 brings us front and center with pre-birth selections made for the upward climb of our soul and for the evolution of humanity. Absorb the past-life account and the intricate pre-birth plan of a middle-aged female soul regression client we’ll call Lisa. In life today, she is in a same-sex partnership and is a nurse.

My parents have decided I will marry a man of their choosing because he has money and I am the oldest child. I’m in a wagon, all dressed up in a fancy dress. I’m taken to a party for him and me to announce our engagement. My mother tells me I am to be a good wife and take care of him, but I don’t want to get married.

It feels like I live in Italy or Spain in a big house with beautiful gardens, and I don’t want to leave here.

Once I am married, we have children but I am not happy. I don’t like it when he comes home. He’s not gentle and often forces himself on me. Later, I am ill and old. My husband has died. My oldest son, whom I love very much, is caring for me. I recognize him as my son of today. We have always been close.

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I die and sense my soul flowing easily out of my body. Several beings meet me and encourage me to come toward their light.

They give me time to rest. I sense beautiful creatures like butterflies. Archangels Gabriel and Uriel are here and tell me that I have fear of my own power.

I have had six Earth lives and am not from Earth. I have many guides who support me. One of them, whose name is Nallah, is like a lion. Nallah reminds me that we do not eat the meat of an animal where I come from; this is why I am a vegetarian in life today.

Also, I have a group of guides who are like elder women, called crones or queens. They take care of me both in the spiritual realm and when I am in body on Earth. They are maternal and mentor me to help my egoic mind to quiet. My life purpose today is to take care of somebody else in need. Finally, they tell me I must remain incarnate on Earth, though it is difficult here. The place I truly come from is peaceful, loving, and without gender. I must help to raise the consciousness of Earth.

Lisa’s soul regression aids her immensely in understanding the following aspects of her life today: • Sexual orientation • Work as a nurse/caregiver • Deep focus as a parent • Being a vegetarian • Dislike of chaos and mistreatment of others • Love of animals • Dis-ease with many aspects of life on Earth Lisa’s struggles in current life are soothed through the awareness she gains during her soul regression. She is now able to move forward in her life with deep understanding of her pre-birth preferences.

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Caring for Your Body, Mind, and Spirit Chapter 13 begins with the overarching perspective that when we step into embodiment, we are tripartite: we have a physical body and a physical mind-brain-personality combined with our soul energy. Each lifetime, we select a body and a mind. You could be light- or dark-skinned, highly intelligent or mentally challenged, and the like. The package that you are at birth also includes your soul memory code, comprising your eternal archetype and the imprint of all lives. This chapter explores how to release judgment and care for your physical self, perfectly designed with your life agreements. Intuition must play a role, front and center, taking each preferred step to greater soul evolution.

Soul regression examples shed light on your soul plans that may include purposeful yet taxing health issues in past lives and now.

When a window opens to reveal the purpose for which you or people you know intimately are wading through complex health challenges, then an appreciation of “why� becomes clear. Such food for thought will aid you in examining your own body-mind experiences. Through illness, whether major or minor, each of us has the opportunity to advance as a soul. Whether you have a cold virus, suggesting you’re cleansing toxins from your body, or you have an autoimmune disorder, potentially indicating that a past-life memory needs to be deleted, your mind-body health holds meaning and direction.

Stepping Up Now with Commitment It is time for each of us to choose. Will we forge ahead in the knowledge that it is our responsibility to attain unity of all people on our planet? Do we understand that care of the animal, mineral, and plant kingdoms is as important as care of people? Will we nourish love, hope, compassion, understanding, and acceptance of all living energy, including our self? Each of us can make a difference when our life is in keeping with our pre-birth blueprint and soul intentions.

Life in body on Earth is not easy. All of us have past incarnations and current lives that present opportunities for soul evolution through

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an uphill climb. If we live from solely our human egoic, self-centered feelings—such as “I’m afraid,” “I need more money,” “I can’t handle anymore,” “Where’s my perfect partner?” or “Why me?”—they can drag us into depression and cause us to give up.

Or we can accept that we are souls living a human existence with purpose—and that we have a mutual stake in the outcome of soul evolution. New thoughts and feelings from the “half-full not half-empty” perspective will come forward, such as: “I want to know and live my life purpose.” “What lives have come before that feature my gifts I must embrace as well as the traumas I must release?” “How can I take steps for myself and support others to treat all people with dignity?”

We are mending as we go when we know we are a soul in body for a reason. Every experience we face is important, as we hold fast to the knowledge that our archetype is the essential role we play in our daily life. Review your life and examine your contribution to your own soul evolution and to that of humanity.

Chapter 14 concludes this book with soul regression snapshots of past lives and the time between our lives to deepen our acute awareness of who we are today—what we came to be and to do in this life.

Intuitive practice brings us to realize the purpose of every element in life today.

In Summary At this particular point in history, our sun and planet have moved into alignment with the galactic center, completing a 26,000-year cycle.

Many observers, both in ancient times and now, have opined that we currently occupy an age of spiritual enlightenment. The blending of these twelve elements gives rise to soul mending in our lifetime. We are at a pivotal “choice point” of how life is lived on the Earth, seeking soul evolution and peace.

Please be sure to use your spiritual practice and open to your intuition to probe deeply for answers to the questions at the completion of each chapter.

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Ask yourself: 1. The last time I felt unwell or physically ill, what did I need to release in order to help fulfill my life agreement? Consider that each and every physical malady you experience is designed as a road sign for you to examine your life and what is asking to be altered.

2. When I was between eighteen and twenty-five years old, what significant experience did I have that likely is an aspect of my pre-birth agreement? (Note: I completely believe that the premature birth and death of my second baby was destiny to release past-life trauma and lead to the work I offer today.)

3. What relationship do I have in my life that is serving neither the other person nor me? If you choose to end a particular relationship, please be sure to project love and acceptance to this person. Using prayer or meditation is a helpful means to send energy to someone.