How can the memories of others bring meaning to me?
It seems a long time ago now but in 1968 a practising hypnotherapist and member of the American Counselling Association, Dr Michael Newton PHD. During a quite normal therapy session with a client, he began to get responses that pointed to something quite unusual.
From 1923 there had been some early and isolated reports about past life regression. Through the ‘60s and 70s it was a pretty niche area but by the late 1980s Brian Weiss had made it very popular.
This was the environment Michael Newton was in when he happened upon a series of memories which seemed to be beyond the limited regression practices that had hitherto been the boundary of spiritual regression hypnosis.
If people can recount experiences of themselves as other people in former lives, then how does a person get from one life to another? For example, If I were to recount a life as a soldier in WW1, or a baker in 1915, or a nurse in 1936 (female) then what happened when that person died and how did I then become to be me, today? Not to mention a million other questions that also arise.
Something stirred in Michael Newton. Enough to stimulate a passion to find out the answers. From 1968 until 1994 Michael focussed on these questions, day after day, session after session and after 26 years and thousands of case studies he published Journey of Souls in 1994, followed by Destiny of Souls in 2000. The term for what happens between one life, and the next is now called Life Between Lives (LBL).
Conducting, sometimes, three sessions a day and writing them up for future reference imposed huge discipline. Michael Newton pursued this journey of exploration as his life’s work and ambition.
How it Began.
In 2005, I was already a practising hypnotherapist with an interest in damaging behaviour associated with alcohol and past life regression. My book The Sophisticated Alcoholic published by O-Books in 2011 was the culmination of that part of my work. Life According to the Soul, due for release on 30th June 2026 does the same for the LBL experiences revealed under deep hypnosis.
Around that time, I saw an article which for the first time begged the question, what happens between the lives? The article was associated with a forthcoming LBL course to be held in Bedford, England in 2005 and it was to be the last training course in which Michael Newton was to be an active participating teacher. I enrolled on the course which seemed to be the most important thing for me to do at that time.
A third book Memories of the Afterlife was published in 2009. Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls in 1994 and 2000 respectively and all have been hugely popular. Memories of the Afterlife was a cooperative venture with chapters written by the qualified therapists of the Newton Institute and edited by Michael Newton. I knew of it but didn’t register an interest in co-authoring because I thought there were so many more experienced therapists than me. You can imagine my surprise then, when Michael telephoned me personally to ask if I would contribute a chapter, to which I readily agreed. If you have the book, the chapter is ‘The Reluctant Soul Mate’ (chapter 22).
Michael Newtons Work.
There have been several books since Michael’s initial publications, many of them also written by therapists trained in his methodology. There’s only so much you can say about the same thing, so reproducing what Michael did doesn’t add anything. His work stands alone, but it is also very specific in purpose.
Michael wanted to document what happens. His work was specifically to build a map and a picture of a spiritual realm. What are souls, what do they do, how are new lives decided, how do souls grow, etc? To properly express that, his books are heavy on his narrative and explanation supported by examples from session transcripts. It’s important to realise that although he declares conclusions in his books, with one, or perhaps two examples from client transcripts, his conclusions are backed by hundreds of examples of the same thing being told to him by hundreds, sometimes thousands of different people. When he describes how the next life is chosen and supports that with an example of testimony from a session, that isn’t the only one. His conclusions and his explanations have hundreds of similar testimonies backing them.
Because his work was exploratory it had to be constructed this way. To be relevant, future writings must add something new as opposed to covering well-trodden ground.
I began LBL work in 2005 and ended it in 2012 when I retired, I say retired but I had been called to another task, to be my wife’s carer after her breast cancer diagnosis and the mental space wasn’t there anymore. I lost her in 2016 after 47 years of marriage.
So, I stopped actively practicing in 2012 and began writing Life According to the Soul.
Life According to the Soul from 6th Books
An obvious question is why so long? Why wait 14 years to write a book based on LBL transcripts that were undertaken between 2005 and 2012? In a sense I have already alluded to the reason.
I didn’t want to emulate something that has already been done as well as it could have been. In essence I wasn’t going to try and out Newton, Newton. So, what changed?
Life According to the Soul has a completely different set of objectives and is structured with those in mind. One morning I woke up, and I knew how to do it. This is not unusual for me; it’s happened before and in my world that really means I’ve been listening to advice.
I wanted to relate the memories and experiences of others in such a way as to connect them to modern everyday life and the traumas and troubles we all must cope with from time to time. In practical terms this means that Life According to the Soul is very light on narrative from me and very heavy on direct transcripts. In essence, I wanted people to tell my readers directly and I only interject to explain if something isn’t automatically clear or to aid the connection between the experience related and your own life.
It is structured to ease the reader into a different world. The process begins with real memories as a sort of rehearsal to spiritual memories and the switch from one to the other is a critical point in the process. It is also exciting and heart pounding as one moved gently from our physical plane to the extraordinary world beyond. It’s a guided journey to understanding yourself and your place in the greater scheme of things.
We truly do have a great deal to learn.
Article by David Allen
Hypnotherapist | Author
More to Life Elder
Life According to the Soul. in 2023/24 is currently available.
