Customer Reviews

Memories of the Afterlife: Life Between Lives Stories of Personal Transformation

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Do you want to know the truth about your life? Read this book. There are many works on the market about reincarnation, life after life, and the NDE phenomenon, but MEMORIES OF THE AFTERLIFE provides a very succinct catalyst for all of the information "out there" on these subjects. The true stories in this volume illustrate perfectly the reasons for our life journeys on earth, as well as the bases of our trials and tribulations. They leave no doubt as to our eventual return to "home" in the afterlife's loving reality. Chapters such as "Two Suicides" and "I am Home" are proof that hope, growth, true happiness, and freedom from fear are possible for all of us. Further, LBL hypnotherapy from trained, experienced professionals is available to anyone who wants it! I found MEMORIES OF THE AFTERLIFE months ago when perusing Michael Newton books, and advance-ordered it. When it arrived last week, I read it cover-to-cover overnight, and am buying copies for friends.

I have had many experiences in my life where I knew there was guidance from the beyond. For those who have never had experiences of being guided or picking up the subtle messages sent to us (a sixth sense, etc.) it might be hard to understand what is being explained in this book. Basically, earth and our incarnations here are for lack of a better term; on-going education. The experiences we have here in our human form develop our eternal souls and to do this we must live many lives over to develop. Those who have been indoctrinated with the doctrine and dogma of religion may have a very difficult time grasping the concept of many incarnations here on earth. Or you may have trouble just letting go because of religious teachings. Religion traps your thinking and your spiritual development and many, many people don't even realize it. Letting your spirituality spread its wings is the key. Earth is a school where we learn how to grow our soul's love and wisdom. We must understand our existence here is far beyond our human comprehension. Our existence is far deeper than worshiping via a religion and performing in a ritualistic fashion. Once I read the book, I realized religion as we know it is inconsequential and mired in human rules and restrictions. When I bought this book I had no knowledge of the Newton Institute or Michael Newton. I am one of those readers that had no preconceived notion of anything in the book. I just read it and was blown away. It connected all the dots for me.

In Michael Newton's first two books, Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives and Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life Between Lives, you get to witness his ground-breaking discovery of the existence we live between lives. Through many case studies, Dr. Newton paints a vivid picture of life between lives, shattering many commonly-held beliefs about the nature of God, the Universe and our reason for being.

As editor of Memories of the Afterlife: Life Between Lives Stories of Personal Transformation, he continues the journey but this time through the efforts of 32 experienced practitioners from all over the planet who completed their training at the Michael Newton Institute. Their stories are no less fascinating as they enhance the credibility of the earlier works by repeating and reinforcing this shared glimpse of the afterlife. The case studies represent a variety of life situations, all with the powerful life-changing insights that can only be gained by remembering who you truly are, why you came here and with whom you are sharing the ride.

Although certainly not a pre-requisite, if you haven't read Journey/Destiny of Souls I recommend you do so as these classics will explain things in a bit more organized and detailed fashion and will help fill in the blanks. MEMORIES OF THE AFTERLIFE is more unfettered and assumes at least a passing belief in life between lives rather than trying to prove it. I found it to be an excellent complement although it surely stands on its own as a fascinating read full of information and insight. I also found an interesting phenomenon absent in the earlier books - that you can get direct guidance about present situations from the LBL world while seemingly experiencing past events, showing that our concepts of past and present really don't extend beyond our limited physical reality.

If you are stuck in the belief that you have one life in which to get it right and then it's either heaven or hell for eternity, then this book probably isn't for you. If you are open to a belief in multiple lives (along with the majority of people on this planet), then I highly recommend this book as it will help shed some light on the age-old quest regarding the nature of our immortality.

I have read Michael Newton's other books: Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls. I found the first one fascinating. I found the second one interesting but it wasn't much different than the first one. So now that I've read the third, Memories of the Afterlife, I'm afraid I can't offer too much in the way of praise. Each vignette is short and they are written in varying formats (because they are written by different LBL practitioners). Some contain descriptive text only. Some contain dialogue taken from the actual LBL session. Each one ties up, in a neat and tidy package, a major life problem of the recipient of the LBL session. Of course, since they were the stories chosen for the book. Michael Newton wouldn't choose stories that left the recipient without a revelatory outcome. As I progressed through the stories, I ended up skimming several and skipping some outright. Most of them are just not very interesting (although I'm sure they are interesting to the recipients of the sessions and the LBL therapists). The problem I have with Newton's work (after giving fair consideration to all his books) is the great similarity of everyone's experiences. Now, one could say this is because the afterlife is in fact an actual "place" where everyone will have the same experience (ie meeting up with your "soul group", meeting your advisor, coming before the "council"). Hmmmm. Could it be that most people who go for LBL sessions have read Newton's books (this is verified for many of the people represented in this current book) and are already geared up to see the same things while under hypnosis? Could it be that LBL therapists are all trained and certified by Michael Newton, and thus are trained to lead people down a similar path of questions and revelations? It's something worth considering. Although I do think Newton's work is very interesting, the course of books may have played itself out. I'm giving this one 3 stars, because it's not a bad book, just not unique, not offering anything new. Journey of Souls, in my opinion, is the freshest piece of work and the one to read if you are new to Newton's books.

I loved Dr. Newton's first two books (Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls). Memories of the Afterlife continues in the same vein, with various accounts of people's journeys through the afterlife. While I found it to be an interesting read, I thought that it did rely quite a bit on the previous books for explanations about what goes on in the spirit world. As such, Memories of the Afterlife doesn't really stand on its own; I would recommend reading the other two books before reading this one.

A friend just gave me her copy of Memories of the Afterlife. After reading it, I realized it applies to everybody. The case studies of the people who solved problems through hypnosis describe some of the difficulties thousands of others face every day.

The problems were those that people have regardless of race, gender, religion, nationality, or being straight, gay, rich or poor. Also, when we reincarnate, we can "come back" as either a man or a woman, so the case studies have meaning to all of us.

The problems the people in the stories solved have made m see my own family's difficulties (and some of my friends' problems) in an entirely different light. I would recommend the book to anyone.

It's time, I think. to consider the question of the evidence of reincarnation. There are two main bodies of evidence, spontaneous memories and evoked memories (both well summarized in "Lifecycles: Reincarnation and the Web of Life" by Christopher M. Bache). Spontaneous memories are the accounts of young children who remember pieces of previous lives and are able to recognize people they have never met and and towns they have never visited. Ian Stevenson is the most prolific of the researchers in this field having documented hundreds of cases in numerous countries. A fascinating recent entry is "Soul Survivor" by Andrea & Bruce Leininger telling the story of their two year old son remembering his previous life as a World War II pilot shot down in the Pacific. Evoked memories are memories most frequently elicited by hypnotic regressions of the type described in "Memories of the Afterlife". By now there are thousands of mutually reinforcing case histories. Michael Newton's work is a major contribution to this evidentiary pillar.

If you examine all this evidence dispassionately, you might well wonder why reincarnation has not been embraced by the scientific community and society at large as accepted fact. The main reason seems to be that from early on, it was strongly suppressed by organized religions as a threat to their exclusive agency of the divine. As an example, Christianity excluded reincarnation from its orthodoxy at the Fifth Ecumenical Council in A.D. 553. It seems that this discouragement has cast a long shadow across the centuries.

Michael Newton has built his career concentrating on what happens after we die and before we are re-born, the Afterlife. In his newest book, he introduces us to some of the many therapists he has mentored, giving them an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and showcase some of the amazing cases they have encountered. The subtext of this book is that there are now competent LBL therapists in many parts of the world, whose competence is vouchsafed by the master. And that once again, as we saw in "Journey of Souls" and "Destiny of Souls", the range and depth of healing and growth facilitated by this modality are truly impressive and, not to mince words, astounding.

So Newton introduces us to his lineage of therapists who work with his imprimatur. They are an impressive group, but he has not cut them loose and abandoned them. One of the best features of this book is the footnotes that Newton has appended to each of the cases presented, which elaborate some of the themes and refer us to more extensive material in his previous works. Thus the current cases can be viewed as adding bricks onto an existing conceptual structure. This is an elegant touch.

Finally, I want to acknowledge Michael Newton for being a courageous pioneer in a field with a heavy religious and societal headwind and a most generous mentor, who has graciously introduced us to a talented new generation of LBL therapists.

I loved the stories contained within this book. However, I grew increasingly irritated by Dr. Newton's footnotes placed at the end of each. Repeatedly he devalues the input of those under hypnosis if they disagree with his views, at times stating that the subject had "conscious interference." Not being the facilitator at the sessions, he cannot base this on personal observation, but only on prejudice. I honestly felt he was interjecting too much, and it ruined the experience for me.

Who are we? What are we here for? How real and how important is this life, anyway? What happens after we die? Is there a hell or purgatory? What do we do in the afterlife? Is there reincarnation, and if so, what is its purpose? Why do we have amnesia of our life before this one? This book helps answer so many of these questions--much more than many mainstream religions do. It is a series of case studies by hypnotherapists that trained under Dr. Michael Newton, author of the books Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls--the best books ever written, in my opinion, to document what happens between incarnations. If you have read those, this is another in the series. If you haven't read those, get to it! You will never fear death or a judgmental god again. Dr. Newton himself never believed in the afterlife, but while asking patients to go back to the beginning of their problems, they would often revert to a different time period and identity--a previous incarnation!

In this book you will learn (if you didn't already know) many spiritual principles, such as the concept that the life on this earth is simply a kind of virtual reality game we play in order to test whether we have internalized certain lessons or not. We go to school between lives (for those of you who hate school, believe me, it's not like schools here!) and learn different lessons, but being in a limited body with no memory of your grander self is the real test to see if these lessons have been ingrained in the soul.

For anyone skeptical about hypnosis--the last case study reveals astounding proof. One woman experienced complete amnesia at the age of 17 and found herself roaming the streets in Canada, not having a clue about her name or anything! At age 60, one of the therapists hypnotized her and she recalled her father's name. She was able to track down her surviving family in the USA and proved with DNA tests that they were her siblings!

The only reason I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5 is that it is not as good as the first two books. (Maybe because I already know a lot of the material.)

This book is similar to Michael Newton's first two books only now with different therapists using the same technique as Mr. Newton to reveal individual's past lives and between lives experience. Unlike his first two books this one doesn't really add much information than has already been given previously on the between lives experience. It's emphasis is on each individual's problems and their personal revelation and transformation/improvement after therapy. It's still an interesting read and perhaps readers might see some of the various problems and solutions of the patients relevant in their own lives.