Do We Survive Death To Live Again?
In Destiny of Souls, Newton examines 70 cases that are representative of the variety of 'between lives' experiences of most of his roughly 1000 cases. As an agnostic, I was not prepared for what these 70 clients revealed. I could accept an afterlife in which consciousness gradually faded into oblivion but what these clients revealed was far more sophisticated and far more demanding of us than I could have imagined.
As a lifelong student of whatever interests me I could accept that this life is a sort of school but in preparation for what? The answer revealed by Newton's clients seems to be a succession of lifetimes - many thousands in some cases - designed as challenges to gradually refine our consciousness to the point where we can participate in the ongoing work of... creating universes and populating them with younger consciousnesses who will eventually be re-absorbed into the massive consciousness which is all there is and the source of all that is! Preposterous? Whether you 'buy that' or not, the revelations coming from Dr. Newton's clients are remarkably consistent across cultures, generations, and genders in such numbers that we cannot write them off as co-incidence or mass fantasy. His clients were unknown to each other and him, came from all over the world, and most of them were atheist or agnostic or just plain uncommitted. The few who had religious convictions worked to reconcile what was revealed in their sessions with what they "believed". For some that proved impossible but their memories of the life between life experience re-assured them that there is a spiritual reality that underlies material life. Case after case revealed a bit more of the process that we apparently are all undergoing but the essential steps of the process apply across the board. That consistency of testimony found in people from wildly different cultures, different religions, no religion, different generations, and highly varied educational backgrounds, people who were appalled by what they reported as well people who were intrigued, suggests that there is a genuine phenomenon shared by them and possibly by all of us: the continuation of Consciousness after physical death and a common core of experiences that points to possible re-births throughout many lifetimes. My confidence in the aboluteness of death was seriously eroded by the accounts of these 70 people who are just a sample of the thousands who have reported similar information.
I found Destiny of Souls worthwhile reading. I can't explain away these cases. Dr. Newton's methods are fully transparent with no 'leading statements or leading questions' so I can't fault him there. He did not ask for this bizarre twist in his career but he could no longer dismiss it and finally wrote up the cases from transcriptions of thousands of hours of audio/video recordings.
As a lifelong student of whatever interests me I could accept that this life is a sort of school but in preparation for what? The answer revealed by Newton's clients seems to be a succession of lifetimes - many thousands in some cases - designed as challenges to gradually refine our consciousness to the point where we can participate in the ongoing work of... creating universes and populating them with younger consciousnesses who will eventually be re-absorbed into the massive consciousness which is all there is and the source of all that is! Preposterous? Whether you 'buy that' or not, the revelations coming from Dr. Newton's clients are remarkably consistent across cultures, generations, and genders in such numbers that we cannot write them off as co-incidence or mass fantasy. His clients were unknown to each other and him, came from all over the world, and most of them were atheist or agnostic or just plain uncommitted. The few who had religious convictions worked to reconcile what was revealed in their sessions with what they "believed". For some that proved impossible but their memories of the life between life experience re-assured them that there is a spiritual reality that underlies material life. Case after case revealed a bit more of the process that we apparently are all undergoing but the essential steps of the process apply across the board. That consistency of testimony found in people from wildly different cultures, different religions, no religion, different generations, and highly varied educational backgrounds, people who were appalled by what they reported as well people who were intrigued, suggests that there is a genuine phenomenon shared by them and possibly by all of us: the continuation of Consciousness after physical death and a common core of experiences that points to possible re-births throughout many lifetimes. My confidence in the aboluteness of death was seriously eroded by the accounts of these 70 people who are just a sample of the thousands who have reported similar information.
I found Destiny of Souls worthwhile reading. I can't explain away these cases. Dr. Newton's methods are fully transparent with no 'leading statements or leading questions' so I can't fault him there. He did not ask for this bizarre twist in his career but he could no longer dismiss it and finally wrote up the cases from transcriptions of thousands of hours of audio/video recordings.
Would I recommend it? Yes, especially to "sceptics". It is food for thought no matter your views on life after death.
© Delia O' Riordan 2012 - 2014
