by Michael Newton

While in trance, my subjects describe many visual images of the spirit world in earthly symbolisms. They may create structural images from their own planetary experiences or have these images created for them by guides seeking to raise their comfort level with familiar surroundings. After discussing this aspect of unconscious memory at lectures, I have had people say that, regardless of the consistency of these observations, they strain credibility. How could schoolrooms, libraries and temples exist in the spirit world?

I address these questions by explaining that past observational memory is metaphoric as a current perspective. Original scenes from all our lives never leave our memory as souls. In the spirit world, seeing a temple is not a literal record of stone blocks but rather a visualization of the meaning the temple has to that soul. Back on Earth, memories of past events in our soul life are reconstructions of circumstances and events based upon interpretations and conscious knowledge. All client memory retrieval is based upon observations of the soul mind processing information through a human mind. Regardless of the visual structures of spiritual settings, I always look to the functional aspects of what a subject is doing in them.

Once the new souls leave their protective cocoons they enter into community life. As they begin their incarnations, descriptions of the places and structures they see between lives take on the same flavor as that of older souls who go to Earth. Sometimes these descriptions are not so earthly. I hear reports of cathedral-like structures of glass, great halls of crystals, geometric buildings with many angles and smooth, domed enclosures without lines. Then, too, my subjects might say their surroundings have no structures, only fields of flowers and countryside scenes with forests and lakes. People in hypnosis display a sense of awe as they report floating toward their destinations in the spirit world. Many are so overcome they cannot adequately describe what they see.

I hear many accounts about the sheer movement of souls in transition going from place to place. The following account is from a subject who uses geometric shapes to describe the properties of the various settings he sees:

“I do a lot of traveling around in the spirit world. The geometric shapes I see represent certain functions to me. Each structure has its own energy system. The pyramids are for solitude, meditation and healing. The rectangular shapes are for past life reviews and study. The spheroids are used to examine future lives and the cylinder portals are for traveling to other worlds to gain perspective. Sometimes I pass great hubs of soul activity—like an airport—with people being paged telepathically. The hubs are huge prismatic wheels with directional spoke-lines which curve away from you. It’s busy but well-organized. (laughs) You can’t rush in too fast or you might overshoot the particular line you want out of these great hubs. These centers are ports of call with host souls directing traffic and looking out for inquiries from travelers. Everything moves with a soft, comfortable floating motion and there are beautiful harmonic tones upon which souls can vibrationally lock onto, keeping them on track to their destinations.”

There is a statement from the Upanishads of India about our senses being carried in memory after death. I believe this old philosophical text is correct in the assumption that the senses, emotions and human ego are a path to infinite experience, which provides a physical consciousness to the immortal Self. These sentiments were expressed by a client of mine in a cogent way:

“We can create anything we want in the spirit world to remind us of places and things we enjoyed on Earth. Our physical simulations are almost perfect—to many they are perfect. But without a body, well … to me they have the flavor of imitations. I love oranges. I can create an orange here and even come close to reproducing its pithy, sweet taste. Still, it is not quite the same as biting into an orange on Earth. This is one reason why I relish my physical reincarnations.”

Despite this client’s comments, I have had subjects tell me they see the spirit world as true reality and Earth as an illusion created to teach us. There may be no contradiction here. People from Earth have keen taste buds. Oranges and human beings are therefore in harmony with each other in one existence. There are degrees of reality. Simply because our universe is a training ground does not make it unreal, only impermanent. What may be a temporary illusion in the span of human surroundings does not take away from the fact that an orange on Earth eaten by an earthling does taste better than one created in the spirit world and eaten by a soul. By the same token, the reality of an interdimensional spirit world with its lack of absolutes allows the soul a magnitude of experience far beyond physical conceptions.

When my subjects describe seeing their spiritual centers, it is a wondrous image for them. All cultural stereotypes mixed with aspects of metaphoric symbolism recalled by the human mind are in play, to be sure, but these dramatic reenactments in a person’s spiritual life are no less real. When the soul returns to Earth with the shroud of forgetfulness, it must adjust to a new brain without conscious memory. The new baby has no past experiences yet. The reverse is true right after death. For the spiritual hypnotherapist there are two forces operating in regression. On the one hand, we have the soul mind at work with its great storehouse of past life and spiritual life memories. On the other side, we also have the conscious memories of a current body engaged in descriptive imagery while the subject is in hypnosis. The conscious mind is not unconscious during hypnosis. If it were, the subject would be unable to speak to the facilitator coherently.

Community Centers

My next case illustrates the visual associations subjects bring to descriptive memories of arriving back home. It involves an identification with classical Greece, which is not unusual. I have listened to visualizations so futuristic and surreal as to allow for few comparisons with Earth. People do say to me that words cannot adequately describe the images of what they see at this junction. Once I take a client past the gateway to spaces where they begin to make contact with other spirits they become exhilarated.

In Case 27 a subject, whose spiritual name is Ariani, will associate a Greek temple with her experience after death from her most immediate past life. Perhaps this is not surprising since so many of my subjects had incarnations during the time when ancient Greece brought the light of a high civilization into a dark world. In art, philosophy and government they left a legacy and a challenge for those who followed. This society sought to unite the rational with the spiritual mind, which is remembered by those clients who were part of this Golden Age. Ariani had her final life in ancient Greece during the second century B.C., just before Rome began its occupation.

Case 27

Dr. N: When you approach your spiritual center, Ariani, what do you see there?

S: A beautiful Greek temple with bright white marble columns.

Dr. N: Are you creating this image of a temple yourself or is someone else placing it in your mind for you?

S: It’s really there in front of me! -just as I remember it… but… someone else could be helping me … my guide … I’m not sure.

Dr. N: Is this temple familiar to you?

S: (smiling) I know it so well. It represents the culmination of a series of meaningful lives that I was not to know again for a long time on Earth.

Dr. N: Why is that? What is it about this temple that means so much to you?

S: It is a temple to Athena, goddess of wisdom. I was a priestess—with three others. Our job was to tend the flame of knowledge. The flame was on a flat, smooth rock in the center of the temple with writing etched around it.

Dr. N: What does the writing mean?

S: (pause) Ah … essentially … to seek truth above all things. And the way to seek truth is to look for harmony and beauty in that which surrounds us in life.

Dr. N: (deliberately obtuse) Well, is that all you did—just making sure the flame didn’t go out?

S: (with some exasperation) No, this was a place of learning where a woman could participate. The flame symbolized a sacred flame in our hearts for knowing truth. We held the belief in the holiness of a single god with lesser deities representing parts of that central power.

Dr. N: Are you telling me that you and the other women had monotheistic beliefs?

S: (smiling) Yes, and our sect went beyond the temple. We were seen by the authorities as being pure in heart and not as an intellectual caste. Most of them did not realize what we were about. They saw Athena in one light while we saw her in another. To us, the flame meant that reason and feeling were not opposed to one another. To us, the temple placed the mind above superstition. We also believed in equality between the sexes.

Dr. N: This kind of radical thinking could get you into a lot of trouble with a patriarchal establishment, I suppose?

S: It did, eventually. Their tolerance eroded and we had deceit and intrigue within our own ranks and then betrayal. Our motives were mistrusted. We were disbanded by a sexist state which was losing power and felt our sect was contributing to corruption within the state.

Dr. N: And after this series of lives in Greece, you wanted your temple with you in the spirit world?

S: That’s one way of putting it. To my friends and me, this life and a few earlier ones in Greece represented the high point of reason, wisdom and spirituality. I had to wait a long time before openly being able to express these feelings again in a female body.

Once I took Ariani into her temple she saw a huge rectangular gallery without a ceiling, filled with approximately 1,000 souls. These souls were a large secondary group whom she saw bunched into smaller clusters, called primary groups, made up of souls numbering from three to twenty-five. Her own cluster was midway back on the right side. As she made her way back, Ariani was accompanied by her guide. She then described how this entrance appears to a returning soul. This scene is one I hear repeated over and over again involving large numbers of soul groups, regardless of the structural setting. In the superconscious minds of people, these gatherings could just as well be in an amphitheater, palace courtyard, or school auditorium as in a temple.

Dr. N: Ariani, give me a sense of what it feels like to make your way through this crowd of souls to your cluster.

S: (with excitement) It’s uplifting and awesome at the same time. With my guide leading, we start to weave our way left and right between the clusters, some of whom are seated in a circle and others are standing, talking. In the early stages most people pay no attention to me because we are strangers. Souls who are near by my path might nod their heads in polite acknowledgment of my arrival. Then, about midway through, people who see me become more animated. A man who was my lover two lives ago stands up and gives me a kiss and asks how I am doing. More people in other clusters begin now to smile and wave at me. Some whom I have known in lives only slightly give me a thumbs-up greeting. Then—as I get to a group next to my own cluster—I see my parents. They stop what they are doing and drift over the short space between our two clusters to embrace me and whisper encouragement. Finally, I reach my own group and everyone is welcoming me back.

About half of all my clients see large groups of souls upon their return. The other half report that after their arrival they see just their own cluster. The visual images of either large or small gatherings of souls can vary with the same soul after different lives. The primary group of souls, with whom we are most closely bonded, may also appear to these same subjects as people milling about in outdoor scenes of recreation, such as a countryside field of flowers.

Those subjects who report going directly into a classroom setting upon returning from a past life have a clear picture in their minds of hallways that connect a series of spaces for study. Unerringly, they seem to know in which space they belong. In these cases, cluster groups commonly stop their activities to welcome any new arrival. Only a very small percentage of my subjects say that their initial meeting with groups of souls involve just floating in air with nothing around. The absence of landscape scenes or physical structures does not last long, even in the minds of these people.

Classrooms

Any gathering of souls outside a classroom setting, including the large assembly halls, indicates it is a time of general socializing and recreation. This doesn’t mean serious discussions are not taking place in these areas, only that soul activities are not directed as in study areas. Here is a typical description from a subject who is moving into a classroom setting:

“My guide takes me into a star-shaped structure and I know this is my place of learning. There is a round domed central chamber which is empty now. I see corridors going off in opposite directions and we move down one of these halls where the classrooms are located. They are offset in such a way that no two classrooms face each other. This is so we will not bother another room of souls. My room is the third cubicle on the left. I never see more than six rooms to a hallway. Each room has an average of eight to fifteen souls working at desks. I know this sounds ridiculous, but that’s what I see. As I pass down the hall with my guide, I notice in some rooms souls are studying quietly by themselves while others are working in groups of two to five. A different room has the students watching an instructor lecturing at a blackboard. When I enter my room everyone stops what they were doing and gives me a big smile. Some wave and a few cheer as if they were expecting me. The ones nearest the doorway escort me to a seat and I get ready to participate in the lesson. The whole time I have been gone seems like a brief trip down to the corner grocery store to buy a carton of milk.”

Most of my subjects visualize the structures of their spiritual classrooms as being single story, although there are exceptions, such as the next case, with an intermediate level soul called Rudalph.

Case 28

Dr. N: After your last station stop, Rudalph, describe to me what you see as you approach your destination—the place where you belong in the spirit world.

S: As I come near my pod, there is a park-like atmosphere where the countryside is so quiet and peaceful. I see clusters of bubbles that are smooth and transparent with souls inside.

Dr. N: And do you recognize your own pod?

S: Oh … yes … although my… references … take some getting used to again. I’m doing fine. I could have done this myself but my guide Tahama (who appears as an American Indian) came to escort me on this trip because she knew I was tired after a long, hard life, (subject died at age eighty-three in 1937) She is so considerate.

Dr. N: All right, describe your pod for me.

S: I see my pod as a large bubble—which is a school building— divided into four floors. Inside the bubbles there are many bright, colorful points of soul energy.

Dr. N: And all this is transparent from the outside to you?

S: Semi-transparent… milky.

Dr. N: Okay, now go inside and describe how you see these four floors and what they mean to you.

S: The four floors are transparent and look like glass. Each level is connected by a stairway with a compartment for study at one end. On each floor there are groups undergoing instruction. I enter on the first floor where a beginning level group of eighteen souls is listening to a visiting lecturer called Bion. I know her—she is very aware of the pitfalls of young people. She is strong but tender.

Dr. N: Do you know all the teachers in this school?

S: Oh, sure. I’m one of them—just starting, of course. Please don’t think I’m bragging, I’m just a student teacher, but I’m very proud.

Dr. N: As well you should be, Rudalph. Tell me, does each floor have one primary cluster group?

S: (hesitates) Well, the first two do—there are twelve working on the second level. The upper floors have souls from other groups working on their individual specialties.

Dr. N: Rudalph, is this the same thing as an independent studies program?

S: That would be accurate.

Dr. N: All right, what happens next to you?

S: Tahama tells me where I need to be—reminding me that I belong on the third level but to take as much time as I want. Then she leaves me.

Dr. N: Why does she do that?

S: Oh, you know … our guides maintain a teacher-student relationship with us in this center. They try not to be real familiar with us … in a social way, because of their … professional status. I don’t mean for this to sound as though they act like some pompous professors on Earth. This is different. The master teachers, such as my other guide, Relon, keep a little distance from the students when not engaged in teaching to give them space and allow for individual expression among themselves. They feel it is important for the student’s growth not to be hovering around them all the time.

Dr. N: That’s most interesting. Please continue, Rudalph.

S: Well, Tahama says she will see me later. To be honest, I’m not completely tuned into this place yet. It’s just the way I am when I come back. It always takes me awhile to acclimatize, so I’m going to relax and enjoy the children on the ground floor.

Dr. N: Children? You call these first level souls children?

S: (laughing) Well, now I’m sounding a bit pompous myself. It’s just how we describe the beginners, who can be rather childlike in their development. This group is really just starting. They acknowledge me, because I have been active with them. I know the ones who are repeating the same mistakes because of a lack of self-discipline. They are not making much effort to move up in development. I don’t stay too long because I don’t want them to be distracted from Bion’s lesson.

Dr. N: What is the teacher’s attitude about the slow ones?

S: Frankly, the teachers of the first level do get tired of certain students who almost refuse to progress, so they leave them alone a lot.

Dr. N: Are you saying the teachers stop pushing those students who are difficult?

S: You have to understand that teachers have infinite patience because time is meaningless. They are content to wait until the student is disgusted with treading water and offers to work harder.

Dr. N: I see. Please continue with your tour of this school.

S: I am looking up through the glass ceiling to the second level. That’s where I’m headed next. These souls have a fleecy, gauze appearance from here. I don’t really need a stairway but it represents a means of passage in my mind. As I climb to the second floor I see the adolescents. They are like super-active teenagers… full of restless energy… sponges absorbing a lot of information fast and trying to act on that knowledge. They are learning to get a grip on themselves but many don’t know yet how to give back to others in effective ways.

Dr. N: As a teacher, would you say that these souls are self-absorbed?

S: (laughs) That’s normal, along with a constant need for outer stimulation, (more seriously) I am not yet qualified to teach on this level. Enit is in charge here—a disciplinarian with a big heart. Right now they are on a break. I find them fun to be around because they all pump me for information about the manner in which I have learned to accomplish things on Earth. Soon it’s time for me to go to the third level.

Dr. N: What would happen if one of these students followed you up into the third level?

S: (smiles) Once in a while a curious one will wander into more advanced areas. It’s similar to a third grader walking down the hall into a sixth-grade class. The kid would be lost. They might be teased a little on Earth but someone would quietly take them back to their own classroom. It’s the same here.

Dr. N: Well, I guess you are ready to take me up to the third level. May I have your impressions of this place?

S: (brightly) This is my area and we are like young adults. Many of us are training to be teachers. The mental challenges here are more constant. Now we are working on resourcefulness, not just reacting to situations. We are learning to protect and inform, to keep our eyes open, and to see the spirit of others through the light in their eyes on our earthly rotations.

Dr. N: Do you recognize people you know?

S: Oh, I see Elan, (husband in both past and current life, a primary soulmate). He appears to me as we were in our last life. Elan sparks up my tired energy with his love—like lighting a fire in a cold stove. I was a widow for a long time, (tearfully). We are sucked up into a pool of happiness together for a few moments.

Dr. N: (after a pause) Anyone else?

S: Everybody! There is Esent (mother in current life) and Blay (a best girlfriend in her current life), (subject is suddenly distracted) I want to go up briefly to the fourth level to see my daughter Anna, (also in current life).

Dr. N: Tell me what you can about the fourth level.

S: There are only three souls there and from below they appear as shapeless shadows of goldish and silver blue. There is such warmth and love with these souls growing into full adulthood. They are becoming very wise in helping souls really make use of their human bodies. I sense they feel more touched by a divine essence. They are in tune with their existence. When they come back from a physical life they don’t need adjusting as I do.

Dr. N: Where are the older adults, such as the senior guides, the Elders and others like them?

S: They are not in this bubble, but we see them elsewhere.

The Library of Life Books

Many of my clients speak about being in research library settings soon after rejoining their soul groups. I have come to accept the idea that it is a standard learning imperative that we begin to study our past lives in depth right away. After I wrote about the place where our life records are stored in my first book, people asked if I was able to supply them with more details.

The people who describe earthly structures in their spiritual home also include the library, and descriptions of this setting are quite consistent. On Earth, a library represents a systematic collection of books arranged by subjects and names which provide information. The titles of spiritual Life Books have my client’s names on them. This may seem odd, but if I were working with an intelligent aquatic being from Planet X who had never been to Earth and whose place of study was an ocean tide pool, I’m sure that is what this entity would report seeing in the spirit world.

I have reported on spiritual classrooms and smaller adjacent cubicles where primary groups interact, including even smaller isolated rooms where souls can be completely alone for quiet study. There is nothing small about the library. Everyone tells me the location of the Life Books is seen as a huge study hall, in a rectangular structure, with books lined along the walls and many souls studying at desks who do not seem to know each other.

Once inside this space, librarian-guides are the Archivist Souls in charge of the books. They are quiet, almost monastic beings who assist both guides and students from many primary clusters in locating information. These spiritual libraries serve souls in different ways depending upon their level of attainment. Souls may be assisted either by their own guides, the Archivists, or both. Some of my clients go to the library alone upon returning to the spirit world, while others have guides who routinely accompany them into this space. A guide might get his student started and then leave the room. Many elements come into play here, including the complexity of the research and the timeline to be reviewed by the student soul. When students are in these study halls they sometimes work in pairs but mostly they do their research alone after being assisted by the Archivists in finding the proper Life Books.

Eastern philosophy holds that every thought, word and deed from every lifetime in our past, along with every event in which we participated, is recorded in the Akashic Record. Possibilities of future events can also be seen with the help of scribes. The word “Akasha” essentially means the essence of all universal memory that is recording every energy vibration of existence, rather like an audio/visual magnetic tape. I have discussed the connections of divine, immortal and conscious memory. Our human conceptualization of spiritual libraries, timeless places where we study missed opportunities and our accountability for past actions, is an example of those memory connections. People of the East have conceived that the substance of all events past, present and future is preserved by containment within energy particles and then recovered in a sacred spiritual setting through vibrational alignments. I feel the whole concept of personal spiritual records for each of us did not originate in India or anywhere else on Earth. It began with our spiritual minds already having knowledge of these records between lives.

Excerpt from Destiny Of Souls