The Host of AuthorTalk Tells His Own Experience
Let me start out by saying that I think that reincarnation is a fact! I will tell you about the unusual experience that I had and why I now accept the reality of past lives.
I was 30 years old. I’d worked as a project architect for the 2nd largest architectural and engineering firm in the world (DMJM), and had just left my position to start my own firm. At the time of my experience I was designing a senior living community in Ojai, CA.
On one particular morning, I was up before anyone else in the family. I went into my den, closed the door and started to meditate. For the next 2 days, I fell back in time and relived portions of 7 past lives. Some of my most vivid memories from this experience were of commonplace lives. There was one where I was an old woman (more akin to a crone) living alone in the mountains above what appeared to me an alpine village in some northern European country. There I lived alone and raised goats for their wool and their milk. This is an image to the right of what I imagined I looked like in my mind’s eye. I didn’t like people, and they didn’t like me.
I was 30 years old. I’d worked as a project architect for the 2nd largest architectural and engineering firm in the world (DMJM), and had just left my position to start my own firm. At the time of my experience I was designing a senior living community in Ojai, CA.
On one particular morning, I was up before anyone else in the family. I went into my den, closed the door and started to meditate. For the next 2 days, I fell back in time and relived portions of 7 past lives. Some of my most vivid memories from this experience were of commonplace lives. There was one where I was an old woman (more akin to a crone) living alone in the mountains above what appeared to me an alpine village in some northern European country. There I lived alone and raised goats for their wool and their milk. This is an image to the right of what I imagined I looked like in my mind’s eye. I didn’t like people, and they didn’t like me.
In another—the most recent—I was again a woman, a native American woman. I was of the Húŋkpapȟa, at the head of the Seven Council Fires, living in what is now eastern Montana and western Dakotas. It was a time before many white men were known or seen on the plains, at least in the area that we lived. I personally had never seen one. I will write a separate blog about this life later, for it was because of this memory, I met my wife, Trudy.
Next was a life as a Greek general under Ptolemy, one of the four most important generals in Alexander the Great’s army. Ptolemy would eventually rule Egypt after Alexander’s empire was divided upon the Greek king’s death. This was a very disturbing life. I was a hardened soldier, immune to the suffering and pain of war. There was one episode where I gave the order to burn a city to the ground, killing all its inhabitants. I can still see it and feel it when I let myself dwell on it. I see myself watching (and tacitly approving) as my men tied a pregnant woman’s legs together as she started to give birth, undoubtedly brought on by stress. She and her child died a horrible death as my men laughed and jeered. It haunts me still.
There were also two Egyptian lives that I remember. In both I lived as men of some means, none of which were to my knowledge included in any historical record. In another, I was a young boy of 18 on the American frontier in Ohio in the 1790’s when war broke out between the settlers and the local tribe. I was shot by a young Indian friend of mine in a skirmish on our farm, and died in his arms after he realized that it was me that he had shot,
A few days after this amazing journey into the past, I found myself doubting the veracity of the experience. As the everyday world once again absorbed my time and consciousness, I thought more and more that the visions of the past that I had experienced really hadn’t happened, that perhaps I had become unhinged. But then a follow-on experience convinced me that what had happened was indeed a trip into my past, and I’ve never doubted since.
In my world as an architect, each week I traveled north of Los Angeles to the small town of Ojai where I met with a client for whom I was designing a complex of 30 single-family homes surrounding a senior care facility in the center. With light traffic, I arrived an hour early and decided to drop in on a bookstore that I had seen on the small town’s main street. As I entered the small shop I was aware of the tinkling of the little bell above my head when the screen door opened.
I paused at the door to let my eyes adjust to the dark interior when suddenly I gasped and literally slumped against the doorjamb. There before me (behind the counter) stood my sister from one of the Egyptian lives. She was identical with the woman in my vision.
As I entered the young cashier looked up, and a beautiful smile came across her face. “You’ve finally come,” she said. As two customers turned to see who had entered. I regained my composure and approached the counter. I know that I was stuttering, but my amazement knew no bounds. “I… I don’t know if you believe in reincarnation or anything like that, but I know that you were my...”
She dismissed my utterance with a wave of her hand by saying, “I know. I know all about that. You were my brother and you have come to help me, just like I knew you would. I’m in trouble and I need your help.”
I want to stop right here and tell you that I did not know this woman, who was roughly ten to twelve years younger than I. I had never in my life seen her before. I was in shock, right along with the two women at the cash register who, although they had completed their purchase, were in no hurry to leave and miss this unusual encounter.
She reached out and grabbed my hand and held it tightly as she repeated over and over, “I knew that you would come.” I tried again to explain my initial comment, and how the week before I had experienced a life with her as my sister. She would hear nothing of it, however, as she said, “I know. I know, but I can’t talk about that because I belong to and live in a Jesus commune, and they don’t believe in any of that.”
She then proceeded to tell me that she had been living in the commune with a young man. However, she had recently told him that she was pregnant with his child, and shortly thereafter, he had packed up and left. She didn’t know where he was, and was afraid that the Christian group that she belonged to would soon kick her out. She didn’t know what to do.
From that day forward, each week that I traveled to Ojai, I made sure to call her and arrange to meet her for lunch. We would each bring a sack lunch and eat it in the park across the street, and I would listen to her as her life continued to evolve. It wasn’t as if I could do anything to directly alter her life plan, but now she had a person that she could talk to and that she knew wouldn’t judge her. One of the last occasions that I saw her, she was at the park ahead of me. After sitting down next to her, she told me that she had a surprise for me, then she turned to the nearby hedgerow and said, “Come out.” Out from behind the bushes came a young man about her age, which she introduced me to, telling me that it was her boyfriend and the father of her child. He had come back and they had been married. She was so happy.
One day I was scheduled to go to Ojai but she hadn’t answered my phone call for meeting as usual, so when I arrived in town I went straight to the bookstore. There was a different salesperson there, and when I asked about the girl, she said that she had had her baby a few days before, and all was well. I went down the street to the local department store and bought her a baby gift. I gave the gift to the new salesperson and she told me that she would make sure that she got it.
A few weeks later I received a warm note from her thanking me for the baby gift and my friendship. I never heard from her again. I hope that all turned out as she desired. For me, it had been a validation of the experiences that I had been a part of. As it turned out, these experiences were but the first of many that would come to me during my life, but it was a most unique and amazing start.
A few days after this amazing journey into the past, I found myself doubting the veracity of the experience. As the everyday world once again absorbed my time and consciousness, I thought more and more that the visions of the past that I had experienced really hadn’t happened, that perhaps I had become unhinged. But then a follow-on experience convinced me that what had happened was indeed a trip into my past, and I’ve never doubted since.
In my world as an architect, each week I traveled north of Los Angeles to the small town of Ojai where I met with a client for whom I was designing a complex of 30 single-family homes surrounding a senior care facility in the center. With light traffic, I arrived an hour early and decided to drop in on a bookstore that I had seen on the small town’s main street. As I entered the small shop I was aware of the tinkling of the little bell above my head when the screen door opened.
I paused at the door to let my eyes adjust to the dark interior when suddenly I gasped and literally slumped against the doorjamb. There before me (behind the counter) stood my sister from one of the Egyptian lives. She was identical with the woman in my vision.
As I entered the young cashier looked up, and a beautiful smile came across her face. “You’ve finally come,” she said. As two customers turned to see who had entered. I regained my composure and approached the counter. I know that I was stuttering, but my amazement knew no bounds. “I… I don’t know if you believe in reincarnation or anything like that, but I know that you were my...”
She dismissed my utterance with a wave of her hand by saying, “I know. I know all about that. You were my brother and you have come to help me, just like I knew you would. I’m in trouble and I need your help.”
I want to stop right here and tell you that I did not know this woman, who was roughly ten to twelve years younger than I. I had never in my life seen her before. I was in shock, right along with the two women at the cash register who, although they had completed their purchase, were in no hurry to leave and miss this unusual encounter.
She reached out and grabbed my hand and held it tightly as she repeated over and over, “I knew that you would come.” I tried again to explain my initial comment, and how the week before I had experienced a life with her as my sister. She would hear nothing of it, however, as she said, “I know. I know, but I can’t talk about that because I belong to and live in a Jesus commune, and they don’t believe in any of that.”
She then proceeded to tell me that she had been living in the commune with a young man. However, she had recently told him that she was pregnant with his child, and shortly thereafter, he had packed up and left. She didn’t know where he was, and was afraid that the Christian group that she belonged to would soon kick her out. She didn’t know what to do.
From that day forward, each week that I traveled to Ojai, I made sure to call her and arrange to meet her for lunch. We would each bring a sack lunch and eat it in the park across the street, and I would listen to her as her life continued to evolve. It wasn’t as if I could do anything to directly alter her life plan, but now she had a person that she could talk to and that she knew wouldn’t judge her. One of the last occasions that I saw her, she was at the park ahead of me. After sitting down next to her, she told me that she had a surprise for me, then she turned to the nearby hedgerow and said, “Come out.” Out from behind the bushes came a young man about her age, which she introduced me to, telling me that it was her boyfriend and the father of her child. He had come back and they had been married. She was so happy.
One day I was scheduled to go to Ojai but she hadn’t answered my phone call for meeting as usual, so when I arrived in town I went straight to the bookstore. There was a different salesperson there, and when I asked about the girl, she said that she had had her baby a few days before, and all was well. I went down the street to the local department store and bought her a baby gift. I gave the gift to the new salesperson and she told me that she would make sure that she got it.
A few weeks later I received a warm note from her thanking me for the baby gift and my friendship. I never heard from her again. I hope that all turned out as she desired. For me, it had been a validation of the experiences that I had been a part of. As it turned out, these experiences were but the first of many that would come to me during my life, but it was a most unique and amazing start.
