I believe we are guided to read certain books at just the right time for what we need. My last blog was on the book Beyond Knowing by Janis Amatuzio. After I finished reading it, her first book Forever Ours became available at the library.
In one of the stories her first patient was sick with pneumonia and she gave him antibiotics. He recovered from the pneumonia but then the doctors were able to detect that he had a cancerous tumor on his lung. He decided to not have treatment and to go home and enjoy the time remaining to him.
Dr. Amatuzio was devastated by the thought of losing a patient. She thought he was giving up and she wanted him to fight for his life. But over the years she came to realize he wasn’t giving up, he was letting go. He’d accepted that he was dying and wanted to be with his loving wife in his own home.
This past weekend my aunt was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor the size of a baseball in her lungs. She has also decided not to do chemotherapy or surgery. There is a chance she can be treated it with antibiotics since she wasn’t a smoker, but the parallel between having just read the story in the book and my aunt being diagnosed with lung cancer struck me a more than a coincidence. We are being guided all the time if we pay attention.
Letting go is hard but there are many things we have to let go of in life. The hardest is letting go of a loved one or letting go of life when it’s time to move on. But there are lots of other times we have to let go of smaller things like favorite possessions, or a lost or dying pet, or friends who move away, or past hurts. Learning to let go is part of life. Gradually as we grow in wisdom, like Amatuzio did, we begin to let go with grace.
In the book Forever Ours, the title refers to the love that we have with people. Janis Amatuzio concluded we will always have this love even when one of us moves to the other side.
When her mother was in the hospital with heart disease, she began to pray. Almost immediately her head filled with the following words. “Janis, I love you so. Don’t worry, your parents will be fine. At the moments of their deaths, I will wrap them up in my love and yours, and they will be forever ours. The comfort, amazement and relief I (Janis) felt were overwhelming. I knew the words were true and would last me a lifetime.” p. 200
The book ended with a beautiful poem.
Ascension
And if I go
While you’re still here. . .
Know that I live on
Vibrating to a different measure
Behind a veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait for the time when we can
soar together again
both aware of each other.
Until then, live life to its fullest!
When you need me, just whisper
my name in your heart. . .
I will be there.
-Colleen Cora Hitchcock p. 201
If you have any stories about letting go or dealing with death, I’d love to hear them. Post your comments on this blog.
Today I’m leaving on a Caribbean cruise. I’m looking forward to warm days, swimming in the ocean and seeing green trees and flowers instead of snow. I’ll post photos when I return. Embrace life. It’s a precious gift.
I recently went to a dinner party. After we ate, one of the men I’ll call Joe asked me if I believed in reincarnation. I replied that I did and Joe said that he did as well. This led into a sharing of stories. His wife said after her mother died she had a dream with her that was a “visitation.” Joe said he’d once been stopped at an intersection and was about to pull out when an inner voice told him to wait. He waited and a car came barreling by. Joe knew he would have been hit if he hadn’t listened to the inner voice.
Another woman in the room said that she believed that after you died you were dead. She had a dream of her mother who died as well, but for her this was just a dream created by the mind. Her husband didn’t know what to make of the stories. I asked him if he’d had dreams of his beloved dog Homer who had died recently. He had but he didn’t think that they were real.
The differences in how people related to their esoteric experiences led me to thinking about something Dr. Amatuzio said in her book Beyond Knowing. Dr. Amatuzio is a Minnesota pathologist and in her work the loved ones of the deceased occasionally told her extraordinary dreams, visions or synchronies. Gradually she had a shift in awareness from wondering if these extraordinary stories were true to a knowing they were. She said that something awakened inside her and she even had an awareness that she already knew these things. She thought these experiences are a trigger to wake up spiritually.
Dr. Amatuzio saw that the people who had these amazing experiences were profoundly changed. These experiences brought them joy, relief, reassurance, comfort, and sometimes healing. She began asking them. “How has this changed your life?” p. xvi
The answers were elegant in their simplicity and beauty. “It’s all about love. All is well. Be kind. Trust yourself. Don’t worry. Live each day to the fullest. Life is a phenomenal gift. There is nothing to fear. Everything is really all right.” p. xvi
“Perhaps these experiences are immortal gifts, ago-old portals through which we can reach into the realm of the masters and mystics, approach the threshold of the divine, and glean the wisdom of the ages. Could the magic and power in these familiar stories transform us as they have others?” p. xvi
Dr. Amatuzio tells about her own wake up process that started when she was a child. Once day she lay down for a nap and fell asleep. Her guardian, a being of light, appeared at her bedside. Together they left the room and rode horses above the earth. He told her without words that he would accompany her throughout her life and sent light streaming toward her. She had a feeling of love, joy and ecstasy.
The book is filled with amazing stories that were told to Dr. Amatuzio. One that stuck out for me took place in 1888 here in Minnesota. Harry and Walter Swenson were brothers who worked a dairy farm. One February day Walter drove to town with a team of horse and got caught in a blizzard on the way home. When he didn’t return home Harry became worried and searched for him. The storm lasted three days during which time there was no sign of Walter.
When the storm let up Harry went to the barn to milk the cows. Walter walked in. “Harry was overjoyed and surprised and said, ‘Walter, what took you so long? It’s about time you showed up!’ Walter looked at him and said, ‘Harry, I thought you had been looking long enough. Me and the team, we passed in the storm.’ Harry blinked, and his brother was gone.” P. 132. Walter and his horse were found down in a creek bed frozen solid a week later.
Another woman named Theresa told Dr. Amatuzio she had the gift of seeing. One night she dreamed of her friend Marge who wore a maroon dress and locket on a gold chain. They danced around each other in joy. Theresa awoke from the dream and noticed the time was midnight. The next day a friend came over and told her that Marge had died of a heart attack at midnight. When Therese went to the mortuary there was Marge’s body in the maroon dress with the locket around her neck.
Dr, Amaturio’s father, Don, shared a story from a time when he was critically ill in the hospital. Don had a sense of leaving his hospital room and flying across a vast space. He arrived a magnificent place with vivid colors and beautiful music. The light there glowed and felt familiar. Then Don came to a river. On the other side were all his family and friend who had died. They waved and beckoned to him; he was overjoyed and began to wade the river. They stopped waving the turned around. Don knew he wasn’t to cross over. When he awakened it was early evening and he felt peaceful. When the doctor came to visit, he found that Don was finally showing signs of recovery and would live. The doctor said, “You’re going to be okay!” p. 169.
Denise told of a dream of her dog Kizzie who had died six months earlier. In the dream Kizzie was running around like she did as a puppy “in the most beautiful place imaginable. “ p. 173. The dog looked her in the eyes and let her know that she was happy and in a good place. When Denise woke up she knew the dog was fine and her heart healed. Later Denise was watching What Dreams May Come and in a scene in the movie there was the same meadow she’d seen Kizzie in. “And then the peace and joy she had experienced reawakened in her heart, and her surprise faded to the calm, still place of deep knowing.” p. 173.
Dr. Amaturio asked Denise what had changed in her life since then. She said, “This experience has been so profound for me. Now I am certain: I know there is much more waiting for all of us after our brief visit here on earth. I have no fear.” P. 174.
Dr. Amaturio says that, “These beautiful experiences allow us to truly find ourselves again, to remember who we are, truly, and what we already know.” P.201. The wisdom of these stories is the truth that: “You are deeply loved and never alone. You will see your loved ones again and again; and just the power of your thought will draw them to you.” p. 201.
When I reflect back on the dinner party, I think that the people attending represent a typical cross section of people. Some don’t believe in an afterlife, others are wondering if these extraordinary events could be true, while yet others know they are true like Dr. Amatuzio who said she awakened to the truth.
Dr. Amatuzio says, “But please don’t take my experience as recorded in this book as “the truth.” Read the words on these pages and the stories that real people have shared with me. Then trust your own feelings, make your own decisions, and arrive at your own truth, about one of the greatest concerns of sentient humanity: Life and Death.” P. xi.
If you have an amazing story, I’d love to hear it. Please leave a comment.
Here is a YouTube of Dr. Amatuzio: This is an excellent lecture that Janis Amatuzio gave at the University of Minnesota. It’s long, but well worth listening to. Janis is funny and very personable. You’ll enjoy the talk.
I’ve been thinking about death. A friend of mine died of cancer recently. I got to know him when he was already in hospice so his death wasn’t unexpected. On the same day that I heard that he was failing, I talked to a friend whose mother had passed away and got an email from a friend whose beloved dog had just died of kidney failure.
Death is not easy to talk about. In our society people no longer die at home, but in a hospital setting so we’re separated from death. Moreover, many people fear death.
And yet death is a part of life. People and animals are always somewhere on that journey between birth and death.
I just finished reading Closer to the Light by Melvin Morse, M. D. with Paul Perry. The subtitle is Learning From the Near-Death Experiences of Children. Dr. Raymond Moody challenged the world to recognize near-death experiences (NDE) in his book Life After Life. Dr. Morse, a pediatrician, continued his work and by doing extensive research on NDE with children.
Dr. Morse first became interested in NDE when a nine-year old patient was in the intensive care unit. She had been found unconscious in a pool and had massive swelling of the brain. Three days later she made a full recovery. Afterward when the doctor questioned her about her experience he discovered that she remembered all the details of her hospital experience, including what the doctors did to save her even though she was unconscious.
She then told of going through a tunnel and meeting a woman named Elizabeth, a tall nice woman with golden hair. She also met her late grandfather and several other people including two boys waiting to be born. While out of her body she visited her home and saw her family. Elizabeth took her to meet the Heavenly Father and Jesus. The Heavenly Father asked her if she wanted to go home. She said she wanted to stay with him. Jesus asked if she wanted to see her mother again and she said yes and then awoke.
Here is Dr. Morse interviewing her.
Crystal who drowns in pool
This experience led Dr. Morse to doing research on children with NDE. He found that children have experiences that are very similar to adults. The main difference being that children don’t have a “life review” when out of their body, perhaps because their life has been so short.
The typical NDE experience begins with the person floating out of their body. They usually see their body below them and often see medical people trying to save them. They may also see family members. Then they go through a tunnel. Next they see a light or a being of light who they see as their guardian angle or a spiritual being. They may also see someone they know like a grandparent who passed away years ago. The person is then asked if they want to return to their body or told they have to since their life purpose isn’t over.
Here is an example of story from six-year-old Daniel who was hit by a car. “I was standing there watching the doctors load me into the ambulance, when I saw that I was outside my body. My mother was crying and everyone was in a hurry.
When I got to the hospital, I watched the doctors put tubes in me. I looked yucky because I was bloody and bruised.
“I then went down a tunnel that was dark. At the end of the tunnel was a bright light. I wasn’t sad and I wasn’t happy, but I did want to get to the light. When I got to it, I met three men. One was very tall and the other two were short. Behind them was a rainbow bridge that stretched across the sky. They seemed nice, but I was afraid of them anyway.
“All of a sudden I was back in my body. I looked down at my feet, and the men were there. Then they disappeared, and I was completely back.” P. 39-40
As I reflect on this story I remembered that my friend whose dog died said that Homer had crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Interesting that both of these people used this expression.
The chapter of the book that interested me the most was called The Pure Light. In this chapter Dr. Morse talked about the Light. He begins with a quote from Black Elk, a Native American Spiritual Leader. “Grown men may learn from little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.”
Light appears in nearly all of children’s NDE and in one out of four adult experiences. The light appears after the person has had an out-of-body experience or traveled through the tunnel. The Light wraps them in “warmth and caring.” For some the voice of God comes from the Light. Many say that seeing the Light changes them for life. The pure light is described as unconditional love, or “all-knowing or all-forgiving.” One five-year-old said “I will never forget that Light. It is with me all the time.” P. 116. Another child said, “It represented love peace and happiness and complete and utter joy.” P. 116. Dr. Morse says that the Light makes the NDE mystical.
While the Light is important I noticed that Dr. Morse didn’t say much about the sound. Yet some of the descriptions of the NDE did mention hearing a choir or music. I believe the Sound and the Light are both ways in which the Holy Spirit speaks to us. We hear the sound current in the wind, the song of a bird, in music, and laughter.
Dr. Morse ends his book with a few quotes from the children.
“I have a secret to tell you. I have been climbing a staircase to heaven.”
“I just wanted to get to that Light. Forget my body, forget everything. I just wanted to get to that Light.”
“I wasn’t afraid to live again because I knew that someday I would be with the Light.”
“You’ll see. Heaven is fun.” P. 181.
Reading the book was perfect timing for me. It was a reminder that death is nothing to fear. We are soul, not our body, and someday we will leave our body and go into the Light where joy and unconditional love and a loving being of light await us.
If any of you had a NDE or any other mystical experience, please share them with me on this
The following are two videos interviews with Dr. Morse.
Is it possible that the Atlantean people kept detailed records of their lives and today some people have the ability to access those records? Author Cieladora believes this is so and has written about it. The story behind her book is intriguing.
One night Cieladora awoke and heard whispering. “The hushed voice spoke in oddly accented English punctuated with bird chirps, twitters, and clicks.” (p.iii)
Through the night the voice gave an eyewitness account of the last days of ancient Atlantis. The next night Cieladora again dreamed about the fall of Atlantis. “The dream was like a hologram of history played on a 3-D news channel.” (p. vi) When she awoke, Cieladora went to work and forgot the whole dream.
Two weeks later she spoke to her psychic friend Marie and a surge of memories from the dream came back. Marie immediately recognized the significance of the dream and urged Cieladora to write down notes about the story. Cieladora wrote as much as she could recall about the five days leading up to the destruction of the Second Atlantean Empire. This is the basic premise of her book, Atlantian Records Starfall: The Fall of the Second Atlantian Empire.
This story is told through four different people of the time: Teohi, a Matrix Master; Xoio, a Regent of the Atl’lactoi Settlement in North America; Potemki, a man who is the outcome of Xoio’s genetic engineering; and Triatl, a free man who was a native of South America.
During the time I was reading this book, my husband and I attended a New-Age Exposition. As I walked through the exhibits I saw the book Atlantian Records Starfall on one of the tables. The woman at the booth was Marie, Cieladora’s psychic friend who encouraged her to write the book. Marie explained in more detail about life in Atlantis and invited me to a workshop she was doing on the book.
A month earlier Harold Klemp, the spiritual leader of Eckankar, mentioned a book called Atlantis in the Amazon by Richard Wingate. Klemp said many people living today lived in Atlantis previously and that learning about Atlantis could help us understand our dreams. A few days before attending the Expo, I dreamed I was in a city and a wall of water rushed toward me and those I was with. We ran into a building that was a place of healing. When I awoke, I wondered if the dream was a past-life memory of Altantis.
I’d first heard about Atlantian Records: Starfall from a friend of my husband while attending a lecture by Frank Joseph. Joseph also wrote a book called The Destruction of Atlantis. In his book Joseph links the worldwide cultural phenomenon to the story of the lost Atlantean civilization that disappeared into the sea in a violent cataclysm.
Joseph provides compelling evidence from around the world that Atlantis existed based on archaeology, geology, astronomy and ancient lore, whereas Cieladora’s book looks into what it was actually like to live on this remarkable island. Her book shows the homes, ships, culture and technological advances of the age.
She also explains that originally Atlantians came from another planet where people had psychic abilities and were exceptionally tall. When building Atlantis, they set up a lattice (energy grid) called The Matrix Energy, which provided energy for cooking foods, lighting buildings and heating and cooling homes. “The Matrix Energy that powered the Atlantian Empire was a form of psychic energy generated by the minds of thousand of trained Matrix Workers.” (p. vii)
If you wonder if Atlantis existed, you might want to read Joseph’s book. If you want to read about life on Atlantis, I’d recommend Cieladora’s book. It’s fascinating to me that some people have the ability to tap into the records of Atlantis.
I attended Marie’s workshop on Atlantian Records: Starfall and met another woman who was able to hear these ancient Atlantean recordings. I wonder if there’s a reason the Atlanteans are contacting us now. Perhaps it is a warning since our country is making some of the same mistakes the ancient Atlanteans did. We can learn much by studying these people from the past.
What ancient cultures have you tapped into associated with your past lifetimes? Let us know if you’ve had similar dreams!
For the new year I want to share two special videos. The first one is called Gratitude by Louie Schwartzberg. What better time than the beginning of the year to think about all we have to be grateful for. Schwarzberg talks about being present and celebrating life as he shares his amazing time lapse photography. He has captured some flowers unfolding, the movement of clouds in the sky, and butterflies. His talk and films are both inspiring.
The second part of the video is called “Happiness Revealed” and is from the point of view of a child and elderly man. One of the things the elderly man says is to look at the faces of the people you meet. Each one has an incredible stories behind their face.
The second video is for those of you who love dancing. This video is of a couple who dance with amazing grace and beauty.
Recently we rented Soul Surfer. I was especially interested in this movie because when I was on a beach in Oahu, Bethany Hamilton walked by with her surfboard. She may have been in Oahu for the making of the film. Bethany Hamilton is the person whose life the movie is based on. She isn’t in the movie, but she and her family were there daily for the filming. Bethany was easy to recognize because she has one arm. At the age of thirteen she was on her surfboard waiting for a good wave when a shark attacked her. The story isn’t a horror movie about a shark attack, but about a young girl who loved to surf and how she had the courage and determination to keep surfing even after losing one arm.
The title Soul Surfer is a term coined in the 1960’s to refer to someone who surfs purely for pleasure. This was Bethany Hamilton. She would surf all day long. Her family said she wouldn’t even come in to eat and they’d have to bring her food. The title has a double meaning as it also refers to Bethany’s faith in God that helped her recover. She realized she could serve God even more with her injury because she could reach more people world wide and tell them about God’s love.
AnnaSophia Robbs plays Bethany Hamilton in the movie. She spent a month with Bethany to get to know her and learn how to surf. When you rent the movie be sure to watch the special feature made about Bethany’s life after you see the movie.
Here is a photo on AnnaSophia Robbs and Bethany Hamiton. Bethany is on the left.
I loved the movie because it was about a real person who is courageous and spiritual. At the time I saw it I was still wearing a cast for my broken wrist and I could identify with her struggle to do things with one hand. I also counted my blessings that my cast would come off and I’d regain full use of my arm. Life is always giving us challenges that can help us grow into a more loving person if we accept them and learned from them.
The following is a video clip of the movie.
Here is Bethany’s story taken from her site.
Bethany’s Story
It came, literally, out of the blue. I had no warning at all; not even the slightest hint of danger on the horizon. The waves were small and inconsistent, and I was just kind of rolling along with them, relaxing on my board with my left arm dangling in the cool water. I remember thinking, “I hope the surf picks up soon…”
That’s all it took: a split second. I felt a lot of pressure and a couple of lightning fast tugs. Then I watched in shock as the water around me turned bright red. Somehow, I stayed calm. My left arm was gone almost to the armpit, along with a huge crescent-shaped chunk of my red, white and blue surfboard… I remember most clearly what the Kauai paramedic said to me in the ambulance: He spoke softly and held my hand as we were pulling out of the beach parking lot. He whispered in my ear, “God will never leave you or forsake you.” He was right. I believe in God. Nobody made me believe; I don’t think you can or should try to force someone to believe something. And even though my parents taught me stuff about God and read Bible stories to me from as early as I can remember… it was my choice to become a believer in Him. The way I see it, putting our faith in God is something that each person has to come to on his or her own. It’s your own personal relationship with Him; a bond that’s as unique as a fingerprint.
The following is a video Bethany made.
Bethany also wrote a book titled Soul Surfer about her experience.
My husband Jim’s Aunt Harriet died last week so we went to the visitation. While there Jim’s sister Sue told me an amazing story the woman in the flower store told Sue when she ordered flowers. The story was about two people who saw a serious car accident. They went over to one of the cars to help the people inside. One was a younger woman who was critically injured. The other was an older woman wearing purple. The older woman said to release the dying woman’s seatbelt. The people who had come over couldn’t release it so the older woman told them to cut it. As soon as they cut it the woman died and the older woman disappeared into thin air. The two people who came over were shocked. They had both seen and spoken to the older woman.
The two people went to the young woman’s funeral. While there they saw a photo of the older woman in a family album. They asked a member of the family who she was and were told that she was the grandmother of the woman who’d died. The grandmother always wore purple and had died many years ago. It astounded them that the grandmother had come to be with her granddaughter when she was dying.
The woman at the flower store said she had heard many remarkable stories over the years. Jim’s sister said all religions are one and said she believed miracles happen to people regularly.
The story was especially meaningful to me at the time because of Aunt Harriet’s death. It is comforting to have another reminder that there is life beyond this life and that Soul is immortal. Death is not something to be feared but a time when we simply move on to another more beautiful world and when we die someone we love will be there to greet us.
I listened to an interview today about a woman, Anita Moorjani, who had a near death experience and was also visited by a loved one. In this case, her father. Without the physical body and limitations of culture she and her father shared even more love than they had when he was alive. Her father explained to her that her mission on earth wasn’t over and that it wasn’t time for her to die. She knew she had a choice whether to come back or move on and chose coming back partly because of her love for her husband.
Anita had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and all her organs shut down. The doctor thought she was dead. She slipped into a coma and while out of her body had the most remarkable and beautiful near death experience I’ve ever heard. When she returned she had a miraculous recovery from cancer.
The video is below is long but well worth listening to. Anita has a book coming out this March titled Dying to Be Me.
Recently Ali Wylie interviewed me on the theme of quests, past lives and about my book Red Willow’s Quest on her postcast program Into the Beyond. The interview includes such topics as how to remember your own past lives and what is the spiritual benefit is of remembering past lives. Enjoy this chat with Ali and me and be sure to leave your comments. Do you have a spiritual quest? Have you had a past life remembrance?
The following is a copy of a podcast from Ali Wylie podcast Into the Beyond. Ali’s website is astralwings.com where she give techniques to learn how to astral travel.
I fell down last Saturday hiking near Lake Superior and broke my left wrist, making typing a challenge, so I am sharing some wonderful videos for this post. The first one is about an elephant that made me cry, though the video is the happy part of the story. The second is an amazing story about two unusual friends, a little black cat and an owl, that made me laugh. The third is a video my friend Ali made in Italy, a humorous video about out-of-body travel.
Above is my husband, Jim, and my son Paul on the trail we were hiking on.
I’m also sharing a story about Steve Jobs who died recently. He was a remarkable man and started Apple. I am grateful to Mr. Jobs. I’ve used Apples exclusively since the first came out.
The photos are from my hike (before I fell) showing fall color and photos of hawks, taken at Hawk Ridge in Duluth. The hawk are caught, tagged and released in the fall.
Sunrise on Lake Superior
Fall at Lake Superior
2 elephants reunited after nearly 25 years later. Just remarkable! And absolutely worth the watch….
Here is the video of the cat and owl. Very cute.
http://www.wimp.com/catowl/
Here is the video Alison Wylie made. Her website is www.astral wings.com
And last, the story about Steve Jobs sure to inspire you.
Steve Jobs gave this as his second story of his Commencement Address at Stanford University on June 12, 2005.Steve JovsLove and LossI was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started?Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT.I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple.It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.
Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.
Steve Jobs 1955-2011
“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being,” read a banner on the company’s website. “Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.” International Business Times
While exploring esoteric topics, sooner or later you’ll find the works of Edgar Cayce. Jeanne Dixon believed, “Edgar Cayce was clearly one of the most remarkable psychics who ever lived.”
Cayce is known for his work with healing people and for giving past-life readings. Gina Cerminara says the significance of Cayce’s work is two-fold. One, for the first time in the Western world, specific, well-defined accounts were given of the presumed past lives of many individuals. Second, these accounts were kept in record form available for anyone to read.
I would add that Cayce was ahead of his time. He did past-life readings at a time when reincarnation wasn’t talked about or accepted in the Western world. He pioneered all the research in this field that followed.
Many Mansions begins with the story of Edgar Cayce. Cayce was born in 1877 in Kentucky and went to school until ninth grade. When he was twenty-one, he was afflicted with laryngitis and lost his voice. All medications proved ineffective and none of the doctors he consulted could help. After a year a hypnotist named Layne suggested that Cayce describe the nature of his ailment under hypnosis. Cayce allowed himself to be hypnotized and was able to suggest a cure. The suggestion worked and his voice returned. Layne did a further experiment and asked Cayce for a cure to his (Layne’s) stomach ailment. Cayce described the condition of Layne’s body and suggested a treatment which worked once again.
This led to Cayce giving diagnoses to the townspeople in his spare time. He knew nothing of medicine, but his diagnoses were accurately and medically phrased. Many people were helped by what he told them. Cayce then began to be contacted by people long distance for readings based only on their name and their exact location at the time of the reading.
Cayce, a religious, Christian man, was filled with doubt about his abilities, but his doubts dissolved as he cured people who were considered incurable. He never charged for his services except sometimes for transportation to go to a patient.
For twenty years Cayce helped thousands of people before the next step in his career. In 1923, he was asked to do a horoscope and he ended the session with “he was once a monk.” (p. 26) This led to Cayce doing “life readings.” People wrote to him about a current problem and Cayce would connect it with several past lives that led to the problem or condition.
Cayce’s skill as a clairvoyant probably came from his own past life. “Life readings on Cayce himself revealed that he had been a high priest in Egypt, many centuries ago, who was possessed of great occult powers; but self-will and sensuality proved his undoing.” (p. 28) In this current life, Cayce had a chance to serve man selflessly and balance his flaws from the past.
Cayce struggled with the idea of reincarnation since it didn’t fit with his Christian background, but his friend pointed out passages in the Bible that referred to reincarnation. One such passage was where Christ told his disciples that John the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elias. (Matthew 17:12-13) (p.32)
The obvious question that arises from these readings was: “Where is this information coming from?” (p. 42) Cayce said, while in a hypnotic trance, that one source was the unconscious mind of each individual. The other source was the Akashic Records. Cayce, while in hypnotic trance, said, “Akasha is a Sanskrit word that refers to fundamental etheric substance of the universe, electro-spiritual in composition. Upon this Akasha there remains impressed an indelible record of every sound, light, movement, or thought since the beginning of the manifest universe. The existence of this record accounts for the ability of clairvoyants and seers literally to see the past . . .” (p. 42)
Cayce thought this idea was strange but suspended his judgment for a long time. “In any event, the life readings that Cayce gave, and their astonishing demonstrable validity, remain a fact, regardless of what their ultimate source may have been.” (p. 44)
Cayce gave 2,500 life readings in 22 years. While the readings revealed that their problems came from several past lives, it also showed what caused their disease or condition. This knowledge helped people transform their lives.
These reading explained the law of cause and effect that governs the physical world. “Human suffering, they make clear, is due not merely to materialistic mischance, but rather to errors of conduct and thinking . . . All pain and all limitation have an educative purpose.” (p. 46)
This law of cause and effect is called karma. Ultimately, we are responsible for our attitudes and conduct no matter what our circumstances.
An example of a life reading Cerminara gives in the book is of a college professor who was born blind. He contacted Cayce for a physical reading and gained some improvements in his health, including gaining ten percent vision in his left eye. His life reading outlined four previous incarnations: one in the Civil War period, one in France in the Crusades, one in Persia about 1000 BC and one in Atlantis. “It was in Persia that he had set in motion the spiritual law which resulted in his blindness in the present. He had been a member of a barbaric tribe whose custom it was to blind its enemies with red-hot irons, and it had been his office to do the blinding.” (p. 49) He had a cruelty within himself and that was what generated the karma.
Cerminara studied Cayce’s files for two years and analyzed her findings after interviewing many people who received readings. Some chapters you might find especially interesting are “Problems of Health,” “Parents and Children,” “Marriage and the Destiny of Women,” and “Past-Life Origin of Vocational Competence.” In these chapters we see how a person’s current life is created from their past lives. The people we know in this life are usually ones we have known before in another life, such as our spouses, children, siblings, parents, and friends. Sometimes we have karma to work off or a previous love bond may exist with them.
In the chapter on vocations, Cayce states that a person should strive to serve others in their vocational choice. “Service to others is the highest service to God.” (p. 223)
In the chapter called “Miscellaneous Aspects of Karma,” Cerminara says that life difficulties are always an opportunity for spiritual growth. “Karma is a precise law, to be sure; but its purpose is to give the soul an opportunity to bring itself back into alignment with the cosmic truth of being.” (p. 261)
Cayce sometimes used the phrase “You are meeting yourself” when he did a reading. He was referring to a mirror-like quality about karma. Everything we do comes back to us, whether it is an act of kindness or selfishness. Whatever state we are in is the effect of the causes we have set in motion and every experience is necessary for our spiritual growth. “Know that in whatever state you find yourself—of mind, of body, of physical condition—that is what you have built, and is necessary for your unfoldment.” (p. 277)
In his introduction to the book, Edgar Cayce’s son, Hugh Lynn Cayce states that Many Mansions is the best book in print on reincarnation and karma. People who reviewed the book online said such things as, “This book is still one of the foremost revelations of my life” or “I consider it (Many Mansions) to be the most important single work I have ever read.”
Cerminara summarizes: “To the person who can accept it, reincarnation offers a purpose of living, a pole-star by which to travel, and an assurance that he is not lost in a meaningless chaos of forces over which he has no ultimate control.” (p. 286)
If you’re interested in learning more about reincarnation and karma, you will find Many Mansions a fascinating study that may change the way you look at the meaning and purpose of life.
I believe we are guided to read certain books at just the right time for what we need. My last blog was on the book Beyond Knowing by Janis Amatuzio. After I finished reading it, her first book Forever Ours became available at the library. 
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