No, this is not going to be about Ghostbusters...
For quite some time a friend of mine has been encouraging me to read a book by Michael Newton called the Journey of Souls. My friend calls this reading a life-altering experience and was hoping it would have similar inspirational effect on me. Well, finally I got myself into it and with some effort, I finished the book.
The author is a certified master hypnotherapist, who is practicing a special brand of hypnosis where the client is somehow directed to recall, what is thought to be, past life experience. The practice is referred to as regression hypnosis. From his experience on hundreds of subjects Newton thinks he unveiled a whole new dimension of existence: a spirit world. This claim comes from conversations with his clients, who are in a superconscious state during the sessions. They report about their past lives and, more importantly, about the experience of their soul between death and rebirth. This latter is the real subject of the book. The 29 selected cases are meant to represent different aspects of “in-between life” from the reception of a newly arriving soul by certain committees to aberrant souls that do not want to leave their earthly capsule and to preparations for the next life experience.
I was trying really hard to read the book with an open mind, leaving behind any preconceived ideas I may have had about reincarnation. I was told by my friend that the book provides scientific evidence for the perpetuality of our soul that circles from earthly life to spirit life to reincarnated life in a never ending loop. Well, after the first 10 pages I had to conclude that there was no scientific evidence: one either believes in reincarnation and then the book makes sense or does not believe in rebirth and then… who knows what this book means to him/her.
Finally, I decided to finish the book as if I were reading the Bible. I do not believe that the spirit world exist but I found many passages that made me pause and think about general existential questions that was approached very differently in the book. Just like my reading of the Bible: nice fairy tale with good number of deep thoughts worth contemplating on.
Although the number of cases that Newton’s spirit world creation is based on is impressively high, the method he obtained his information is not scientifically verifiable. In fact the report of the clients about their in-between spirit life was eerily reminiscent of movies, sci-fi books, paintings, etc. that the clients were likely exposed to. It is plausible that subconsciously they may have incorporated this earthly experience into the description of their soul-journey.
Out of curiosity, I checked which medical schools incorporated regression hypnosis into their curriculum. It turns out that in the USA not a single university teaches this technique although other forms of hypnosis is among the accepted therapeutic modalities. My conclusion is that the neat spirit world that Newton created from the reports of his clients is simply question of faith and not a scientific truth.
It is not the least of my intention to turn God fearing believers into atheists since, strictly speaking, atheism is as much question of faith as any religion. There is no prove for or against religions since the very essence of all superior “Being” is that they are beyond our comprehension and our scrutiny. – I say this being aware that a few well-intending humans, e.g. Moses, and far more charlatans, Jim Jones for one, have claimed that they were in talking terms with God -.
Similar to the religious followers, I envy those who believe in reincarnation. I do not intent to falter their hope in a next life; a reassuring thought indeed. However, the book of Newton did not prove to me that reincarnation and the in-between soul-life are based on facts.
It is a pity, because my recent interest in Buddhism generated a great deal of excitement for me toward reincarnation and related subjects. During my recent trip to Bhutan I talked to people who claim to have reincarnated from certain, known historical characters. They provided information that apparently would not have been available to anyone, but the particular person they once were. In one instance, the reincarnated person described blue prints of a monastery that was not available to any contemporary individual but when they found the documents, they were accurately depicted by the reincarnated monk. In Buddhism the significant reincarnations, e.g. the Dalai Lama, are verified by certain procedures. These are fascinating facts! Would they stand scientific scrutiny??... I do not know.
I would not hesitate however to claim that Newton’s book has no scientific ground. For some, it could be a good, even a fascinating reading; for me, it felt programmatic, contrived, and mostly plain boring with a few sparks nonetheless.
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