The very nature of past life beliefs welcomes all sorts of escapism from present life disillusionment to a wide range of emotional explanations for unhealthy and undisciplined present behavior. Setting aside what you think you know regarding the subject, and the assorted characters you believe you have been in past lives, here are some facts you might contemplate upon…

The Self does not carry from lifetime to lifetime body awareness. The Self only retains an aggregate of its own incomplete Self Awareness as it enters a new infant form. That panoramic view of this life’s memories that people speak of in near death experiences is the Self shedding itself of the body’s consciousness. The Self’s awareness is placed into the new brain and sits there dormant until the Self begins the awakening process. Before that process is set into motion, the Self is subject to body consciousness alone, as it is asleep subjectively living the body’s beliefs. When the awakening process kicks in the Self becomes mostly guided by its own awareness.

Any past life memories that are based upon a life where the Self was still asleep in the dream is either complete emotional fantasy or the influence of a parasitic entity or spirit. You were asleep in the former life, and the dormant aggregate Self Awareness is the only awareness that passes to the present life. The body’s inherited awareness passes only through DNA. If you are not awake then you are not operating from Self Awareness – you are conscious primarily of the body’s awareness. Unless your former bodies are an ancestor of your present body then they are unrelated and awareness of past bodies incarnated within would not be passed down to the present body. DNA passes only from parent to child. Body consciousness is shed at death. The math is there…figure it out for your Self.

The ‘study’ and pseudoscience of past life regressions invite all sorts of charlatans, and financial gains for experts and therapists whose knowledge does not stand up to any knowledgeable scrutiny. As noted above, there is simply no way a Self would retain a former body’s consciousness. Nature does not allow for it. Awareness is not memories of past experiences – awareness is the measure of ability to perceive, discern and sense. It is the measure of how open your eyes and ears are to truth. It is not the experiences that led to that truth. Memories are located in a brain, by a brain, and for a brain. You are not your body, and its memories are not your’s to take lifetime to lifetime. The Self has only one very long lifetime with many dreams called lives. The Self only knows the ‘now’, whether it is sleeping through it or not.

So then what are past life memories? There are three possibilities for these memories. The first is spirit, or body consciousness that sill lingers here on earth. As someone who has worked as a medium for many years I can tell you it is not hard to pick up on the memories of spirits. They are essentially memory of a lifetime left behind after that lifetime has expired. People with any degree of psychic or telepathic ability – in other words everyone – could easily pick up on these ethereal memories floating around. If the person picking up the spirit’s memories were not aware of their metaphysical ability they might believe these memories were their own, and not perceive them as external information.

The second possible source for past life memories is parasitic entities. A parasitic entity is the Self that has not gone on to the light and remains earthbound for whatever reason. Since they did not shed their lifetime memories, just as with spirits anyone with any amount of clairsentient skills could easily pick up on their personalities and assume they were an internal memory. Worst case scenario is the entity is a parasite of the person’s body, and thus its memories are side by side in the brain with the person’s sense of self. This is where I believe the most highly  touted reincarnation evidence falls into – a parasitic entity sharing a body and its personality with the presently incarnated. The ‘memories’ of this parasitic entity’s life would seem like additional life memories to the host.

The third possible source for past life memories is of course the vivid imagination of gullible, unaware and emotionally needy people. This is the category where most past life believers most likely fall under. It is mysterious with the ‘wow’ factor turned up to the maximum to find out or recall that you have had other lives which can be dialed up on demand. If this life is lackluster and not fulfilling enough, then open up your imagination and create all sorts of wonderful alternative lives to read like a good romance novel.

To give a great personal experience, I was once invited to a New Age cookout and gathering. There was a wild-eyed woman making the rounds telling everyone she had been Jessie James in a past life. She had a few birth marks on her body which she showed as evidence where the bullet holes were when he had been shot to death. A while later she was making the rounds again telling everyone very matter of factly that she had been Sitting Bull, the great Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man and tribal chief. Everyone ‘oohed and ahhed’ her as she went table to table and recounted her lifetime as the great Native American – until she got to the table where I was. As she began her story I interrupted her and said, ‘you probably did not realise Jesse James and Sitting Bull were alive at the same time…so you are either telling everyone you were two different people in past lives at the same time, or you are full of shit.’ Needless to say, I ruined her day

Marks on your body, aches and pains within your body, or unexplained physical or emotional phenomena do note lead in a straight line to a past life experience. Again as stated above, memories of past bodies can only pass through DNA, not the Self’s awareness. There are most likely more medically inclined explanations, or psychological ones that can be properly addressed. The fact that sometimes past life regressions remove pain and illness are less a sign of validity of past life memories stored in present life bodies, than the mind’s ability to heal the body if it believes it can be healed.

Regardless of your beliefs regarding past lives there is one fact that should be staring you in the face…evolution moves in one direction, so this life is your most advanced one, and the only one you can be absolutely sure of. A little critical thinking regarding the silliness surrounding the billion dollar belief system that is today’s New Age spiritual movement might get you back on track to finding your Self in this lifetime.

~ DC Vision