PSYCHICBABBLE^SM

     Introduction

     Greetings loyal readers! It has been a slow and delightful summer for me here in New York. The job market is asleep and people are on vacation. I am writing this while enjoying the last leisurely days of the summer season, because after Labor Day (when this column is published) everyone will wake up and go back to work. Then someone will hire me and bring my delightful summer vacation to a precipitous end.

     It is interesting to note that during this last cycle two different psychics have advised me to write a book on soul development. The truly odd thing is that I did not consult either one of these psychics – they consulted me! After receiving the information they sought from me, they rewarded me with information they were receiving on my behalf. I suppose this proves the truth of the old adage that what you seek in life you should give to another. Thus this month's column will consist of some brain farting on this fascinating and important topic.

     Reincarnation

     In US culture the concept of reincarnation is considered bizarre. We are raised to believe in “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” which is another way of saying this world is all there is, and when you die there is nothing left. Nothing could be further from the truth. In Spain and throughout Latin America it is widely assumed that spirits live on, and that the living can communicate with the dead. In fact, communication with dead spirits is a common theme in many great works of Spanish and Latin American literature.

A personal anecdote is in order here. Many years ago I had a Dominican landlady named Juana. Juana spoke very little English and I speak very little Spanish, but Juana was extremely psychic and so we communicated without words most of the time. When we needed to discuss mundane topics (such as did I want to come over for dinner) we used her children to translate. After I moved out of Juana's house I continued to stay in touch with Juana and her family.

Juana had a friend named Anna. Anna had been a foster child of Juana's when Anna was young. When I lived in Juana's house, Juana babysat for Anna's young daughter Vanessa. (Although Vanessa was only three, she recognized that Juana and I had been her mothers in previous lives, and told her mother so - much to her mother's surprise!) After I had moved out of Juana's house, Anna had another daughter. Juana's oldest daughter Jackie called me up and told me to come over and see the new baby, so I did.

I looked into the baby's eyes and exclaimed "This child is ANCIENT!" Juana's younger daughter Jenny, who was ten years old at the time, stamped her foot and said "THAT DOES IT!" I asked Jenny what was the matter and she explained to me that all the old Spanish ladies in the neighborhood referred to this baby as "the old lady." She just thought this was something weird that the old Spanish ladies did. But when I came over and referred to the child as ancient, Jenny lost it. "She's just a little baby!" Jenny said. "What are you all talking about?"

I then explained to Jenny that yes, the child was a baby, but the soul that was incarnate in the child had lived many, many lives and was very wise. "Oh," Jenny said as I saw the light of understanding cross her countenance.

     Likewise in India and Japan the notion of continuation of spiritual life is taken for granted, as it is in many African cultures. Many Native American cultures had land use policies that require planning seven (7) generations into the future. In other words, people could not do anything to the land without considering how that use would affect seven future generations. This land use policy was based on a realization that we continue to reincarnate on this earth in the future, so if we spoil the land now we will be harming not only our descendants, but our future selves as well.

     But believing in an afterlife is not simply a matter of faith or watching John Edward's show on the Science Fiction Channel. The concept of continuity of consciousness is grounded in western science. Unless you are a victim of the total failure of public education in this country, you should have learned back in elementary school (or junior high, at the very least) a prime tenet of Newtonian physics which says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Most, if not all, skeptics indoctrinated by western science accept this principle as easily as they accept the fact that gravity exists, or that the sun will rise tomorrow.

     What is the difference between a dead body and a live one? If you said energy, then go to the head of the class. The human nervous system is an electro-chemical system that transmits energy. So if energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and if the only difference between a dead body and a live one is energy, then the energy has to go somewhere. Indeed, this life energy survives as spiritual consciousness and goes to a dimension we refer to as “the other side.” (Actually, there are many different physical and metaphysical dimensions, but that discussion is beyond the scope of this column.) Human beings have the capacity to travel between the dimensions, but few of us realize. In fact, we go traveling to other dimensions regularly when we dream, but since we are not conscious while dreaming we do not realize the extent to which we have control. There is such a thing as “lucid dreaming,” whereby an individual takes conscious control of a dream while in it and directs the action and events to her or his own design.

     Hypnosis is another way of traveling to different dimensions. However, hypnosis has the same limitations of ordinary dreaming in that the individual is not conscious during the experience. Shamanic journeying is a technique that allows an individual to visit other dimensions while conscious. Human beings have these capabilities and far more. However, people in US culture are not socialized to believe we have these powers. We are programmed to believe in our own powerlessness and to love our servitude.

     Soul Evolution

     The purpose of reincarnation is development of the soul. Each lifetime's experiences are stored in our soul's memory. We carry the knowledge, wisdom and experience of past lives with us, along with skills we have acquired. Did you ever wonder where child prodigies come from? These children have a facility to recall and use skills developed in prior lives. They can pull this knowledge out of their souls. Likewise, when you look into a stranger's eyes and have the feeling that you've known them all your life, this is called soul recognition. Your soul is remembering the other person's soul from a previous life.

     Deepak Chopra says that each soul is unique, and that each person brings their own unique gifts to each lifetime. Each and every soul incarnate on this Earth right now has at least one special soul gift that no one else has. Some people have more than one special soul gift. During each lifetime we meet and interact with new souls, and with souls we have known before. People have different soul ages, just as they have different physical ages. Younger souls have different lessons to achieve in this life than older souls do. Each person's soul path is unique, depending on what lessons they have chosen for themselves.

     That's right – we each choose our own soul lessons for each lifetime. Sometimes we have missed our lessons in prior lives, and return to try and learn them the next time around. We usually learn difficult lessons by having difficulty and struggle in our lives. It is important to remember that people with easy lives generally do not accomplish much either materially or spiritually. This cannot be emphasized enough. Why is this so? Because it is through struggle and difficulty that we grow and evolve. Resistance makes us stronger. Surviving difficult life experiences makes us both stronger and wiser. Very often people with the most difficult lives are achieving the greatest soul evolution, and are thus receiving the greatest rewards. The value of spiritual rewards always outweighs the value of physical ones.

     Recently someone asked me the following question: Why does evil flourish? There are many answers to this question. The first answer is that evil flourishes because good people do nothing. But those who acquire material wealth through oppression of others may appear to be having the “good” life, due to their power, comfort and ease of living. However, karmically they are suffering immensely – they just don't know. Why? Because denial is a luxury of the physical form – that's why. Once these souls pass over to the spiritual realm, they are confronted with the wrongfulness of their own arrogance, greed and exploitation. They recognize the karmic debts that have created through exploiting others. Such souls may choose to reincarnate as poor people in order to learn the compassion that was so sadly lacking in their previous lives.

     So a second answer to the question “Why does evil flourish?” has to do with soul development. Sometimes folks have to learn what is wrong first in order to learn what is right. Take magical practice as an example. The only difference between so-called “white” magic and so-called “black” magic is the intention with which the power is used. Spiritual power, like money, is neither inherently good nor bad. The quality of the power depends on how it is used. Practitioners of white magic will only use the power for healing – they will never use spiritual power to interfere with another person's will. Black magic practitioners, on the other hand, care only about power and manipulation. They have no compunctions about interfering with another person's will. Another way to describe this distinction is to speak in terms of “service to self” (black magic practitioners) and “service to others” (white magic practitioners).

     The vast majority of white magic practitioners I have met in this life (myself included) have been black magic practitioners in prior lives. I suppose the best way to explain this by saying that one can't truly know what it is to resist temptation until one has succumbed to it. Like most white magic practitioners who experience recall of prior lives spent as black magic practitioners, when I first got in touch with my black magic past I experienced tremendous guilt. Finally I realized that I would not be such a powerful white healer today had I not been such a powerful black manipulator in the past. Furthermore, because I have succumbed to these temptations already, they hold no attraction for me in this life. I no longer fear seduction by the dark side, because I know that my soul remembers how black practitioners work, and that I can beat them at their own game. In fact, I can now reframe my black magic past as working undercover for the white forces in this life and in future lives.

     Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

     So many people want to know why bad things happen to them. This can be explained in terms of soul development. When something bad happens (e.g., losing a job, having a home destroyed by fire, finding out your lover is being unfaithful to you, etc.) it means that your soul is demanding that you grow and evolve. The challenge is to recognize that there is always good to come out of negative life experiences. For example, I always advise people who have lost a job that their time of unemployment has been given to them as a blessing, not as a punishment. When we're unemployed we have time to read the books we want to read, to see movies, to take walks, clean and/or redecorate our apartments, work on our gardens, visit our friends, meet new people, go to museums and generally enjoy our lives. It also gives us time to meditate and focus on what we want next. If your job has ended, it could be you really needed a rest period. It can also mean that there is a better job coming for you, or maybe a career change. Perhaps you want to relocate to a new place, or use your time out of work to travel.

     The challenge for us as spiritual beings is to realize and remember that, as Ralph Blum says, when seen in its true light, everything is a gift. It is important to give thanks regularly for everything in our lives, even the difficult and unpleasant things, because each experience is showing us something about ourselves and is giving us an opportunity to grow and evolve on a soul level. So welcome the difficulty and embrace the shadow, for the dark times show us how to truly appreciate the light!

Copyright 2001 Marcy J. Gordon. All rights reserved. The author wants you to know you are free to copy and distribute this article for noncommercial purposes, provided you reproduce it in its entirety and credit the author. For quotation permission, please contact the author at mgordon@pipeline.com.