Journey of Souls (4 page)

Dr. N: Well, then, do you see the spirit world at this moment in linear dimensions of lines and angles as you move across?

S: (pause) For me it is … mostly sweeping, non-material energy which is broken into layers by light and dark color variations. I think something is … pulling me into my proper level of travel and trying to relax me, too …

Dr. N: In what way?

S: I’m hearing sounds.

Dr. N: What sounds?

S: An … echo … of music … musical tingling … wind chimes … vibrating with my movements … so relaxing.

Dr. N: Other people have defined these sounds as vibrational in nature, similar to riding on the resonance from the twang of a tuning fork. Do you agree or disagree with this description?

S: (nods in assent) Yes, that’s what this is … and I have a memory of scent and taste, too.

Dr. N: Does this mean our physical senses stay with us after death?

S: Yes, the memory of them … the waves of musical notes here are so beautiful … bells … strings. such tranquility.

Many spirit world travelers report back to me about the relaxing sensations of musical vibrations. Noise sensations start quite early after death. Some subjects tell me they hear humming or buzzing sounds right after leaving their physical bodies. This is similar to the noise one hears standing near telephone wires and may vary in volume before souls pull away from what I believe to be the Earth’s astral plane. People have said they hear these same sounds when under general anesthesia. These flat, ringing sounds become more musical when we leave the tunnel. This music has been appropriately called energy of the universe because it revitalizes the soul.

With subjects who speak about spiritual layering, I mention the possibility that they could be seeing astral planes. In metaphysical writing, we read a lot about planes above the Earth. Beginning with ancient Indian scriptures called the Vedas, followed by later Eastern texts, astral planes have historically represented a series of rising dimensions above the physical or tangible world, which blend into the spiritual. These invisible regions have been experienced by people over thousands of years through meditative, out-of-body observations of the mind. Astral planes also have been described as being less dense as one moves farther away from the heavy influences of Earth.

The next case represents a soul who is still troubled after passing through the spiritual tunnel. This is a man who, at age thirty-six, died of a heart attack on a Chicago street in 1902. He left behind a large family of young children and a wife who was deeply loved. They were very poor.

Case 5

Dr. N: Can you see clearly yet as you travel beyond the tunnel?

S: I’m still passing through these… foamy clouds around me.

Dr. N: I want you to move all the way through this and tell me what you see now.

S: (pause) Oh … I’m out of it … my God, this place is big! It’s so bright and clean-it even smells good. I am looking at a beautiful ice palace.

Dr. N: Tell me more.

S: (with amazement) It’s enormous … it looks like bright, sparkling crystal … colored stones shining all around me.

Dr. N: When you say crystalline, I think of a clear color.

S: Well, there are mostly grays and white … but as I float along I do see other colors … mosaics … all glittery.

Dr. N: Look into the distance from within this ice palace-do you see any boundaries anywhere?

S: No, this space is infinite … so majestic … and peaceful.

Dr. N: What are you feeling right now?

S: I… can’t fully enjoy it … I don’t want to go further … Maggie (subject’s widow)

Dr. N: I can see you are still disturbed about the Chicago life, but does this inhibit your progress into the spirit world?

S: (subject jerks upright in my office chair) Good! I see my guide coming towards me-she knows what I need.

Dr. N: Tell me what transpires between you and your guide.

S: I say to her I can’t go on… that I need to know Maggie and the children are going to be okay.

Dr. N: And how does your guide respond?

S: She is comforting me-but I’m too loaded down.

Dr. N: What do you say to her?

S: (shouting) I tell her, “Why did you allow this to happen? How could you do this to me? You made me go through such pain and hardship with Maggie and now you cut off our life together.”

Dr. N: What does your guide do?

S: She is trying to soothe me. Telling me I did a good job and that I will see my life ran its intended course.

Dr. N: Do you accept what she says?

S: (pause) In my mind… information comes to me … of the future on Earth … that the family is getting on without me … accepting that I am gone … they are going to make it … and we will all see each other again.

Dr. N: And how does this make you feel?

S: I feel … peace … (with a sigh) .. I am ready to go on now.

Before touching on the significance of Case 5 meeting his guide here, I want to mention this man’s interpretation of the spirit world appearing as an ice palace. Further into the spirit world, my subjects will talk about seeing buildings and being in furnished rooms. The state of hypnosis by itself does not create these images. Logically, people should not be recalling such physical structures in a non-material world unless we consider these scenes of Earth’s natural environment are intended to aid in the soul’s transition and adjustment from a physical death. These sights have individual meaning for every soul communicating with me, all of whom are affected by their Earth experiences.

When the soul sees images in the spirit world which relate to places they have lived or visited on Earth, there is a reason. An unforgotten home, school, garden, mountain, or seashore are seen by souls because a benevolent spiritual force allows for terrestrial mirages to comfort us by their familiarity. Our planetary memories never die-they whisper forever into the soulmind on the winds of mythical dreams just as images of the spirit world do so within the human mind.

I enjoy hearing from subjects about their first images of the spirit world. People may see fields of wildflowers, castle towers rising in the distance, or rainbows under an open sky when returning to this place of adoration after an absence. These first ethereal Earth scenes of the spirit world don’t seem to change a great deal over a span of lives for the returning soul, although there is variety between client descriptions. I find that once a subject in trance continues further into the spirit world to describe the functional aspects of spiritual life, their comments become more uniform.

The case I have just reviewed could be described as a fairly unsettled spirit bonded closely to his soulmate, Maggie, who was left behind. There is no question that some souls do carry the negative baggage of a difficult past life longer than others, despite the calming influences of the spirit world. People tend to think all souls become omniscient at death. This is not completely true because adjustment periods vary. The time of soul adjustment depends upon the circumstances of death, attachments of each soul to the memories of the life just ended, and level of advancement.

I frequently hear anger during age-regression when a young life ends suddenly. Souls reentering the spirit world under these conditions are often bewildered and confused over leaving people they love without much warning. They are unprepared for death and some feel sad and deprived right after leaving their bodies.

If a soul has been traumatized by unfinished business, usually the first entity it sees right after death is its guide. These highly developed spiritual teachers are prepared to take the initial brunt of a soul’s frustration following an untimely death. Case 5 will eventually make a healthy adjustment to the spirit world by allowing his guide to assist him during the balance of his incoming trip.

However, I have found our guides do not encourage the complete working out of thought disorders at the spiritual gateway. There are more appropriate times and places for detailed reviews about karmic learning lessons involving life and death, which I will describe later. The guide in Case 5 offered a brief visualization of accelerated Earth time as a means of soothing this man about the future of his wife and children so he could continue on his journey with more acceptance.

Regardless of their state of mind right after death, my subjects are full of exclamations about rediscovered marvels of the spirit world. Usually, this feeling is combined with euphoria that all their worldly cares have been left behind, especially physical pain. Above all else, the spirit world represents a place of supreme quiescence to the traveling soul. Although it may at first appear we are alone immediately following death, we are not isolated or unaided. Unseen intelligent energy forces guide each of us through the gate.

New arrivals in the spirit world have little time to float around wondering where they are or what is going to happen to them next. Our guides and a number of soulmates and friends wait for us close to the gateway to provide recognition, affection, and the assurance we are all right. Actually, we feel their presence from the moment of death because much of our initial readjustment depends upon the influence of these kindly entities toward our returning soul.

SINCE encountering friendly spirits who meet us after death is so important, how do we recognize them? I find a general consensus of opinion among subjects in hypnosis about how souls look to each other in the spirit world. A soul may appear as a mass of energy, but apparently it is also possible for non-organic soul energy to display human characteristics. Souls often use their capacity to project former life forms when communicating with each other. Projecting a human life form is only one of an incalculable number of appearances which can be assumed by souls from their basic energy substance. Later on, in Chapter Six, I will discuss another feature of soul identity-the possession of a particular color aura.

Most of my subjects report the first person they see in the spirit world is their personal guide. However, after any life we can be met by a soulmate. Guides and soulmates are not the same. If a former relative or close friend appears to the incoming soul, their regular guide might be absent from the scene. I find that usually guides are somewhere in close proximity, monitoring the incomer’s arrival in their own way. The soul in my next case has just come through the spiritual gateway and is met by an advanced entity who obviously has had close connections with the subject over a prolonged series of past lives. Although this soulmate entity is not my client’s primary guide, he is there to welcome and provide loving encouragement for her.

Case 6

Dr. N: What do you see around you?

S: It’s as if … I’m drifting along on … pure white sand … which is shifting around me … and I’m under a giant beach umbrella-with brightly colored panels-all vaporized, but banded together, too …

Dr. N: Is anyone here to meet you?

S: (pause) I … thought I was alone … but … (a long hesitation) in the distance … uh … light … moving fast towards me … oh, my gosh!

Dr. N: What is it?

S: (excitedly) Uncle Charlie! (loudly) Uncle Charlie, I’m over here!

Dr. N: Why does this particular person come to meet you first?

S: (in a preoccupied far-off voice) Uncle Charlie, I’ve missed you so much.

Dr. N: (I repeat my question)

S: Because, of all my relatives, I loved him more than anybody. He died when I was a child and I never got over it. (on a Nebraska farm in this subject’s most immediate past life)

Dr. N: How do you know it’s Uncle Charlie? Does he have features you recognize?

S: (subject is squirming with excitement in her chair) Sure, sure-just as I remember him-jolly, kind, lovable-he is next to me. (chuckles)

Dr. N: What is so funny?

S: Uncle Charlie is just as fat as he used to be.

Dr. N: And what does he do next?

S: He is smiling and holding out his hand to me

Dr. N: Does this mean he has a body of some sort with hands?

S: (laughs) Well, yes and no. I’m floating around and so is he. It’s … in my mind … he is showing all of himself to me … and what I am most aware of … is his hand stretched out to me.

Dr. N: Why is he holding out his hand to you in a materialized way?

S: (pause) To … comfort me … to lead me … further into the light.

Dr. N: And what do you do?

S: I’m going with him and we are thinking about the good times we spent together playing in the hay on the farm.

Dr. N: And he is letting you see all this in your mind so you will know who he is?

S: Yes … as I knew him in my last life … so I won’t be afraid. He knows I am still a little shocked over my death. (subject had died suddenly in an automobile accident)

Dr. N: Then, right after death, no matter how many deaths we may have experienced in other lives, it is possible to be a little fearful until we get used to the spirit world again?

S: It’s not really fear-that’s wrong-more like I’m apprehensive, maybe. It varies for me each time. The car crash caught me unprepared. I’m still a little mixed up.

Dr. N: All right, let’s go forward a bit more. What is Uncle Charlie doing now?

S: He is taking me to the … place I should go …

Dr. N: On the count of three, let’s go there. One-two-three! Tell me what is happening.

S: (long pause) There… are … other people around … and they look… friendly… as I approach … they seem to want me to join them…

Dr. N: Continue to move towards them. Do you get the impression they might be waiting for you?

S: (recognition) Yes! In fact, I realize I have been with them before (pause) No, don’t go!

Dr. N: What’s happening now?

S: (very upset) Uncle Charlie is leaving me. Why is he going away?

Dr. N: (I stop the dialogue to use standard calming techniques in these circumstances, and then we continue.) Look deeply with your inner mind. You must realize why Uncle Charlie is leaving you at this point?

S: (more relaxed but with regret) Yes … he stays in a … different place than I do … he just came to meet me .. to bring me here.