Journey of Souls, book review

This is likely not the best review, in terms of organization of thoughts. I am reflecting not just on the book, but on some of the youtube video’s where the author, Michael Newton, discusses the book and the concepts inside. If you’re not familiar with the book, the premise is that Newton, as a hypnotherapist, was confronted with evidence of reincarnation, future lives, and lives between lives. I will also state, so you know my bias, that I favor esoteric and metaphysical belief systems in general. I believe there is an afterlife; my confidence due to personal experience would push that beyond belief, and would call it a ‘knowing.’ I am not going to expound on that here.

This book came out in 94. Raymond Moody’s book, ‘Life after Life,’ came out in 1975. P.M.H Atwater’s ‘Future Memory’ was 1996. I am a huge fan of Atwater’s books, and especially like the comprehensive feel to ‘The Big Book of Near Death Experiences.” In terms of compelling writing, there is nothing necessarily striking about ‘Journey of Souls.’ The hook that intrigues me is the dialogue between soul and therapist. I am actually turned off by the speculative discourse and filler proposed by the author. To add to that, the author spends a great deal of time reinforcing that he basically was dragged kicking and screaming into this ‘paradigm,’ wanting to remain true to the academic and scientific position that there is no afterlife, and stated several times he was an atheist. He states in the book, and his most recent youtube videos, he was an atheist, he did not believe, and that as a therapist he was asking non leading, open ended questions.

He may have been an atheist. There is evidence in the book, which he alludes to, that he was at least knowledgeable about religious themes, as evidence of addressing a painting in his office that held religious motifs at minimum, or from Jungian perspective- archetypal information. This is not a criticism. This should be a given. Any therapist worth his salt should have some knowledge about spiritual and religious beliefs, especially when you consider that the majority of people hold some form of spiritual belief and to better relate- it is reasonable to have enough knowledge to ask a client to educate you more about their beliefs, to help avoid personal bias in the counseling setting. The greater evidence that he is a believer is that the majority of the dialogue captured from soul and author suggest he has formed a fairly solid after life architecture.

Maybe one can’t write a book without articulating an idea of architecture. The structure he paints and reinforces deal with the hierarchy of souls, as represented by aura color schemes, hierarchy based on his assigning levels to how they rate in terms of advancement, and the actual ‘structure’ of the place and social protocols. He states in the book, and his videos interviews, he asks open ended questions. Even a casual glance at the book will reveal very few open ended questions, but rather there are questions which limit the scope through scaffolding the author’s beliefs, and then there are statements that are so well structured I would suspect a person/soul would respond in a way to give the author exactly what he wanted. This alone is enough to raise skepticism. When you couple that the arguments he makes for life between lives is predicated on the consistency of statements between clients, and the only evidence is the excerpts he has provided, the only way out would be a complete transcript of the interview with multiple clients so we can track the degree of author bias informing direction of conversation. Further evidence of bias is the fact that more than one soul told him he got it wrong, that he didn’t understand. Some of it the author states he was doing it as a form of challenge, in an effort to solicit, in a manipulative way, more details. Confronting clients is a time honored way of getting clients to be more self introspective, or at least emotional enough they reveal something hidden. There is no need for such subterfuge under hypnosis. An open ended question will go where it goes. A leading a question will almost always go where the hypnotist wants it to go. Newton says it himself, you can’t hallucinate under hypnosis. I would take that statement further- you can’t lie under hypnosis. That does not mean people under hypnosis don’t fabricate artifacts- confabulation is not necessarily lying. For example, if you could interview people that are in the REM state, and you might ask them where they are; if they say they’re on a beach- well, they’re not on a beach in any real sense of the word- but they are on a beach, from their perspective. Anything you ask them about that beach is truth. It’s their truth. If you bring their attention to a person on the beach, the brain, or the subconscious, or whatever it is that directs the background architecture of experience will provide history on demand. We don’t create anything in isolation. No matter what I ask a subject under hypnosis, every artifact comes with it’s own history and connections; the personality will always have an explanation for artifacts, readily accessible on demand. That is also true with any questions I might hold, as they come with a plethora of my own beliefs, emotional and real life connections, and it is why it is incredibly difficult to tailor questions in a purely academic, open ended way that doesn’t lead. Even at my best, if all my questions are open and not bias, the mere fact you’re in my office, whether you have any direct knowledge that I am interested in exploring past life, future life, between life, or alien abductions, or childhood trauma- stating I am capable of hypnotizing you will likely result in us finding something, whether those things are real or not. So any evidence that Newton presents would have been ideal when coming from the atheist, skeptical Newton, when not looking for any between life artifacts. Seeing dialogue from him where he is trying to avoid those disclosure would raise my esteem for his process. The two cases he referenced as being the milestone, game changing artifacts for him would likely result in the evidence with the highest validity.

Saying that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in an after life or the efficacy of hypnosis in general, or regression as a tool for improving lives. There are too many anecdotes that the revelation of a past life has resulted in remission of illness. It doesn’t matter to me whether that past life is a valid, tangible, veridical experience. As far as I am concerned, it could be a complete fantasy- and if it results in a remission of illness, may we all have such dreams. Milton Erickson’s exploration of hypnosis reveals we are much more complicated than our ‘conscious’ experiences allow for.

Newton’s determination to scaffold and understand the architecture gets in the way of information collection. I use evidence of his statement that he wants to avoid viewing ‘future lives’ as evidence of this. Though he has entertained it to some degree, because some clients have offered this information, his preference for not wanting to influence his clients as a way of avoiding influencing their present evolution suggests two things. First, not wanting to examine it when client offers it might interfere with personal growth is predicated on the belief that all earth life is based on amnesia of soul lives- and that we need the absence of information to sort karmic interactions and complete soul missions without getting the answers to the test in advance. This is likely a common thought, if you’re in the mindset of a strict karmic economic life outcome. The souls he interviewed consistently said this was not true, and yet- Newton continues to endorse this concept, which is reflected in his questioning. If he really believe that interference in their evolution is problematic, the moment he accepted his premise that life between life is possible, he should have ceased doing hypnotherapy. His argument seems a bit disingenuous; he is simply more interested in cultivating evidence that supports his theme, and not interested in a complete representation of possible experiences. Second, and this seem to me the most crucial idea in context to projecting the author’s bias, which again is endorsed by artifacts revealed by souls in dialogue with him- there is no ‘time’ in the between incarnation lives. Multiple souls told them of reviewing future lives, even if it was only the most immediate next life. They viewed their next life, or the options, and they used that information to weigh which choice would be most ideal. Further, it was clear in dialogue ensuing from multiple interview- time as humans know it is irrelevant, and so having access to future lives is ‘normal’ from soul perspective. Knowing some details to a future life doesn’t derail present life. Could it hinder? Yeah, maybe. But it could also be the very carrot that promotes soul into doubling down on accomplishing the lessons it needs to learn. Seriously, if I had evidence of being on a Starship in my next life- I am likely to work harder on being saint in this one- and then hope being a saint was actually my life’s mission.

It seems to me that our life missions, in general, is rather muddied by Newton’s question, as opposed to being clarified. There is no evidence that there is an ultimate right-wrong to our choices here, as much as each choice results in consequences that provide opportunities from which to learn. Many of his souls actually stated as much, that this rebirth is not about retribution. Still, i wonder about karma a lot. If we were scheduled to be less kind to someone because of a debt, do we rob them if we don’t sometimes exert ourselves in a more selfish fashion? Is our growth enhanced if we have the moment in our life and we choose kindness and forgiveness of all debt? I can see how that might benefit me, from a biased perspective that all kindness and compassion should be cultivated, but if the goal was actually to collect a debt- how does that effect the person who wanted to pay from a soul level? This is the most difficult part of karmic economic exchange that bothers me. Collecting a debt seems likely to keep a soul locked in continued exchange. And, if every time I incarnate I accrue debt, which is human because it is unlikely that I as a soul incarnate living even just ten years won’t step on someone’s toes. Maybe it’s not about stepping on toes, but it’s the bigger acts of selfishness which we must account for. I am 52 years old; I am aware of quite a few interactions where I could have been more kind. The balance between appropriate assertiveness and appropriate kindness is ambiguous. I would like greater clarity here, but I don’t think Newton’s questions or bias will allow for better insight. He is too busy looking for a scaffolding system that explains reality- and his bias reflects a human norm, not a soul norm. If souls can bounce species- human norm is irrelevant.

There is one other item that I would like clarity on. Newton touches on it, and in one interview he is more aggressive in his questioning. I am actually happy that this particular set of questioning was a little more intense, and wish he had pursued it further. The artifact I would like to see expounded on concerns the relationships between soul and human body. This could be a whole book in and of itself. There is an argument to be made that humans bodies are being co-opted by an invading, alien, inter-dimensional species. Again, in this line of inquiry, Newton reveals a bias by projecting that humans without spirits would be unruly, emotional animals. And maybe we are. Maybe we need spirits the way pets need good house keepers. But this also begs the question, do we live beyond our physical bodies, or does the spirit? That is a distinction that really needs addressing. His thesis suggests humans are mortal, and soul is simply riding us for experiences. I would like to think the relationship is more profound than what we have identified. Also, who gets the credit for good or bad? The soul? The body/person? Is it actually a gestalt? Does it matter what the ‘body/person’ does since it clearly dies and the soul moves on. The soul is apparently not punished, but fortunately there was no evidence that soul was left off the hook by blaming human/body for the corruption. It is interesting that souls could be reformed, or have lives deleted if the life they experience was seriously dysfunctional, or not helpful in terms of generating expected maturation events. What’s the relationship here? The soul seems to benefit from the interaction, but it also appears harmed by the interaction. Maybe shaped is a different word. This is a rabbit hole of speculative discourse that could result in fear, conspiracy theories, and explain religious ideas such as ‘Scientology’ and the Archons. The description of the spirits in terms of appearance seem to explain our stereotypical projective ideas of ‘ghosts,’ is what Newton states. In the description he offers, I see Grays- yes, the little grey aliens that abduct people. Of course, we can’t rule out aliens- as several of the souls interviewed were very clear- souls can incarnate into non human bodies, and live lives on other planets. They also state, there are humans on other planets even now.

The final point of criticism for this book is the absence of alternative speculative ways to explain the information. I shared at the beginning of this that I am biased towards metaphysical explanations of the world and consciousness. That said, I see an other perspective that incorporates all of this and it baffles me how someone who was so dedicated to the academic, atheistic paradigm that he didn’t at least lead with other explanation. Carl Jung actually gave us an explanation with his ideas on collective unconscious and archetypal thinking, reinforced by Joseph Campbell. Let me be very clear on this, I believe Jung endorsed an idea of collective unconscious which suggests we are connected through a medium that can’t be readily identified or accepted by a materialistic framework. My argument for an alternative explanation to the soul experiences as presented here will fit on a lesser, more materialistic framework than what I believe is pure Jungian in nature- but that the general framework of collective unconsciousness is a necessary idea.

We are social creatures. We internalize everything about our cultures. We do not live in isolation. We have relationships with everyone and everything, regardless of how much credit we give things or people. Even the ideas shared here require a history of inquiry and discourse that scaffold and direct the conversations. Assume for the sake of argument, your brain is a computer. In the collection of information, a personality is formed. For all practical purposes, your personality is your soul- or more attuned to the analogy- it is the program that interacts with others and reality. This program, the personality, can not operate in a vacuum. If I were to invoke your name, I bring to light everything about you- your personal history, a social context, a history of social contexts and evolution of thought, a biological history, and universal history. Some of these are simply understood; when I ask about your history, you don’t go back to the star that exploded that accounts for all the atoms that reside in your body. Further, you also don’t even get to claim ownership on the atoms presently incorporated into you being. You’re a river in motion, and the whirlwind of you also informs your reality. Incorporate enough of the wrong elements, you could cease to exist.

From a psychological perspective, you hold within you the entire universe in a holistic way. You are, for all intents and purposes, the brain inside the vat. You do not experience reality first hand, but your body does and it uploads this information after sorting through filters. You reconstruct reality in a virtual way. Inside you reside all the personalities that you’ve encountered, in life, in media, or in books. Sometimes you have created people in your mind through dialogues with others that assumed a personification of attributes, which could be a person you know and you assumed motifs that were not actually what person is feeling, or the monster in the closet. From a purely academic perspective, the monster in the closet is real. The brain does not distinguish between reality and fiction: it simply responds to information.

If you ever recalled a dream in which you interacted with other personalities, maybe even people you don’t know- it’s because they actually exist in your head. If I hypnotize you to examine your dream, you would be able to identify person, context, history, project the course of development that led to the particular mood or emotional expressive range of said person. If we examine people you know in your dreams, they very rarely interact out of character. They can, but usually they are as we believe them to be. You do not have to have read history to have speculative personalities that relate to past eras of humanity. If epigenetics is valid, we may all carry our ancestors with us. We share ancestors.

Humans are complicated. I suspect other animals are equally complicated, as there is solid evidence the Coco the Gorilla had more going on in her head than we usually attribute to animals. The fact that our ape cousin have been seen in the wild spear fishing, whether that’s from mimicking us or through degradation of environment forcing them to meet a need in interesting new ways is yet to be answered, but clearly shows they have more going on. Any therapist worth their salt can say there is at least a trinity inside of us, including the ego, the id, and the super ego. I would say there is more a plethora of actualized beings inside of us, which is very evident in the study of people experiencing Dissociative Identity Disorder. Maybe the disorder should be flipped, and that people who can’t identify the other ‘persons’ in their head have the problem. I can’t count how many times a person in my office has said, “I am not the same person,’ or in explanation of behavior, ‘that wasn’t me.’ Our idea of personality needs updating, as I suspect we are more fluid than we imagine. Regressing people to earlier events to heal the inner child would not be effective if that child didn’t still exist within us. Every age of us exists in us. Every life altering event results in a bifurcation of personality path and deviation.

So, even if my potential, undeveloped idea of personality has some merit, my question would be to Newton- why didn’t the academic mind, the atheistic mind go here- instead of to where he went. I suspect he was never as atheistic as he would want us to believe. Most of us aren’t. we say we are and we hold the endorsed paradigm that is most generally accepted due to social influences, but these are simply masks we wear. This is not to say I don’t agree with the general conclusion Newton makes in the book, but again, I am biased. He does reveal a lack of physical science knowledge, as he states in the book a belief that the universe expands and contracts, but at the time that his book was written, science was very clear- expansion of the universe is speeding up exponentially and ‘the big crunch’ was already out of favor. I am in favor of souls influencing physical life. There are anecdotes of studies with people that have DID having a change in physiology with a change in personality. This is something that has been measured and verified. So, hypothetically, if you come to me with a pain and I hypnotize you and you have an experience, real or perceived, that changes your personality- that experience could result in a physiological change. Changes in personality, even minor, could also explain the placebo effect. Beliefs effect us. Unconscious beliefs effect us even more than our conscious beliefs. I suspect there are a whole bunch of unconscious beliefs influencing the presentation of Newton’s book ‘Journey of Souls,’ and that much of the substance that would help the individual arrive at their own conclusions were not included. This book seems to reflects someone who wanted to cash in on the perceived success of the other authors mentioned in this review by responding to what seemed like an absence in the literature. I am intrigued by the lives between lives concept, and it does need exploration from a context where past lives and future lives exist- but this books just makes me want more.