Review: Journey Of Souls By Michael Newton
January 20, 2009 by akemi · 39 Comments
What happens when we die? Where do our souls go? What do we do before we come back?
Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
Fear of death cripples many people. Understanding that our souls live beyond the physical body’s death can help you overcome this fear and live more fully. So I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is afraid of death or people who may have lost their loved ones recently.
The sou’s life between lives
The book describes the process of in-between life in the spiritual world in the following chapters:
- Death and Departure
- Gateway to the Spirit World
- Homecoming
- Orientation
- Transition
- Placement
- Life Selection
- Choosing a New Body
- Preparation and Embarkation
- Rebirth
(the above numbers don’t relate to the book’s chapter numbers because there are several other chapters that discuss related issues.)
As Akashic Record Reading specialist, I have working knowledge about this process, but it was so interesting to hear the detailed accounts of each process.
The first part of going into the spirit world is often discussed in the near-death or out-of-body experiences as well. As soon as the soul is released from the body, there is no pain nor fear any more. The soul may feel a bit disoriented because of the sudden big change, but very soon it accepts what has happened and actually is delighted to come back to its real home world.
What Michael Newton calls Orientation is more about review of the life that just ended. We review if we have learned the life lessons we ourselves planned to learn in that life. There are special function Spirits who help us do this. My understanding is this is not about judgment – we review our progress against our own plan.
It’s also interesting that souls belong to a small cluster group. The members of this group are tightly knit together and help each other learn – kind of peer support group.
And isn’t it amazing that, although the spirit world is a wonderful place to be, souls eventually decide to take the challenge of incarnation again! This physical world is a beautiful world with all its problems.
Soul’s age and development level
These two critical concepts can be quite confusing so I want to share my understanding. In Journey of Souls, Michael Newton makes references to what I believe to be the accurate account, but sometimes the points are unclear or seemingly inconsistent.
In my practice, I make clear distinction between the soul’s age and its development level. In my definition, the soul’s age is the number of lifetimes the soul has incarnated in the physical body on Earth. Some of my clients are old souls who have incarnated more than a hundred times, and some are relatively new souls who has had only a few lifetimes on Earth.
The soul’s development level is another story. A new soul who has had only a few physical lifetimes may be a very advanced soul while an older soul may be behind in the development level.
The reason is one, souls don’t start at the same development level, and two, souls develop at varying pace.
Just like any school at Earth. Even in kindergarten, each kids start at different level with different personalities and learning styles. Treating them as if they are all at the same level is a fake equalitarian approach.
Large part of the reason why some souls start at higher level of development right from the start is because they are star travelers (sometimes called starseeds). They had lives elsewhere. I only count physical lifetimes on this Earth. (Michael Newton discuss about souls coming from other worlds in the chapter about advanced souls.)
And of course, we develop at different speeds. Otherwise, what is the point of making effort for personal and spiritual growth? If you develop at the same pace with the couch potato who just pass their time watching TV and drinking beer, why would you work on your development and read this blog?
The time between each incarnation can differ greatly, too, among souls, which further complicates the issue of soul “age”. Some souls come back within a few years, some take several hundred years. Sometime, I get clients whose last lifetime was millennium ago — it’s like the soul didn’t intend to incarnate again but changed its mind for some reason. So this is a very old soul in terms of historical time span, but with only a few physical incarnations, and it may be a very advanced soul.
My simple question about the methodology of this book
I just couldn’t help wondering one thing as I read Journey Of Souls. So Michael Newton gathered this amazing information about life between lives by conducting hypnotherapy to many people. He keeps saying like, “My case reports . . .” “Many clients support this view of . . .” Nice and objective approach, I guess.
But. If he is so enthusiastic about uncovering the mystery of in-between life of souls, why doesn’t he go there himself? He can certainly do this by having his trusted assistant therapist work on him. Doesn’t he want to go see it himself? Isn’t that a quick way to clarify some of the challenging questions? Is there a reason he doesn’t want to do this? Or did he do it but doesn’t want to disclose it?
When I read Dr Brian Weiss’ Many Lives, Many Masters, I felt his sincere compassion. This book by Dr Michael Newton felt very different to me.
Do you have questions about life between lives? Please share in the comments.
