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My past life story

KarenF

KarenF

Member
The first thing to know about me is that my parents were strict atheists. They felt that religion was indeed the opiate of the masses and responsible for much of humanity's suffering both past and present, and that anything spiritual was poppycock and either a refuge for weak minds or a money-making scheme. That was how I was raised.

However they were also members of a Unitarian church with a very secular approach -- no ministers, only guest speakers, while downstairs at Sunday School I was being taught about all the world's religions. I'm pretty sure I must have first heard about reincarnation there. And of the three theories I knew -- the other two were Heaven vs. Hell, which all my friends believed, and cessation of consciousness, which my parents believed -- reincarnation was the only one that made sense to me, for reasons I could not articulate. It seemed quite natural to believe in it, though as a child I never told anyone I did.

The other things about my childhood were that I always felt male in a female body, and I had a very strong sense of being damaged, as if something terrible had happened to me that I'd forgotten, as well of being certain there was something terribly wrong with me, so I deserved no rights and must never trust myself. My crime? Drawing violent pictures. My mother labelled me as bloodthirsty even though I never got into fights with other kids or hurt animals or anything like that. By the time my contiguous memories start (age 6) I wasn't doing it so much any more and had forgotten most of it, but I was certainly still being teased and ridiculed and dismissed. Apparently I'd been in the habit of drawing stick-man battles with swords and spears, that were realistically gruesome... so prolifically that my mother was happy that we had a fireplace, because they were too many to throw away. I do remember arguments with her because I wanted to keep every last one. And I had a vague sense that I had an epic story in me, but a lot of shame about it. "Something wrong with me" was a theme, maybe the main theme, of my life.

Several times I thought I'd grow out of feeling that epic, but I never did. I began writing about swords and spears and battles again at age 13 or so after reading a historical novel set in ancient Greece. I'd been interested in Greek mythology since I'd first discovered it, knew all the stories and, after explorations into other mythologies, was firmly of the opinion that it was by far the best mythology of any culture: the most sophisticated, clever, dramatic, moving, etc.

Learning that there was a genre of writing known as "fantasy," I began letting that epic, which was feelings more than anything else, come out in that context. I published three novels in the early nineties, but, unlike most authors, didn't move on to other stories. I stuck with it, in fact, for about 40 years, writing a good two million words, between the original and updated versions.

What it's about is a warrior-king type who conquers a great empire, never loses a battle, is bi and has multiple lovers in a kind of crazy personal life, loses his father to assassination by knife, becomes head of state at the age of 20, is a brilliant strategist and warrior, is very charismatic and deeply loved by his warriors, thinks outside the box, purposely spreads culture and technology, comes to be worshipped as a God by some, is very generous but can be wicked ruthless, gets in trouble with some of his own people for taking on the ways of the conquered empire too much, and dies young.

Another thing I explored in it was how different cultures have different degrees of suffering. Ever since my late teens when I came to a basic understanding of political and cultural structures, I'd been fascinated by the question of whether it was possible to socially engineer general happiness, i.e. create a "perfect" society.

Why did that story obsess me? I had no idea, but it just felt right so I went with it.

…2/
 
My past life story 02


Fast forward to Aug. 17, 2000. The day before, I'd visited a big old upscale but rustic cottage with a giant fireplace, giant dining room table, etc. I'd felt the place had some message for me, but couldn't tell what.


The next morning when I woke up, I felt with absolute certainty that I was a man, English, from a long time ago, who'd had my head chopped off by some king for sticking to my principles in some way, and it also had happened because I was prominent. I was holding my neck very pulled in, and also felt a bruised-type pain on my left eyebrow.


My then partner, who I'll call S, said, "Didn't that happen to Thomas More?"


I said, "Who's Thomas More?" I felt vaguely embarrassed as the name was familiar and I felt I should know who he was.


"The guy who wrote Utopia," she reminded me.


"Oh right," I said. Despite my interest in ideal societies, I had for some reason never read it. The Internet wasn't much yet then, so I looked him up in the encyclopedia. He'd been executed by beheading after refusing, on principle, to accede to Henry VIII breaking off from the Catholic Church and becoming supreme head of the newly-created Church of England. More research revealed that to avoid this fate he'd resigned from his positions and abandoned public life in the hope of going under the radar... but it didn't work. He was too well-known for Henry to ignore.


"Holy crap," I remember saying. "Was I him in a past life??"


We had a method of applied kinesiology--muscle-testing--that we used for emotional healing. Being asked that way, my body answered with a fairly forceful "Yes."


I did research, including self-regression, frantically over the next month or two. Note: being beheaded actually doesn’t hurt. It’s a kind of ultimate down-to-your-toes shock, but no pain per se. What hurt was when my head fell onto the ground below hitting on the left eyebrow. That’s why I had that pain.


By way of verification by elimination, I wondered, how many other Englishmen died in such a way? What I learned was that those few who refused to accede to Henry's will were generally given the "traitor's death," which is absolutely torturous and gruesome--that happened to Bishop John Fisher, with whom Thomas More was caught passing notes in the Tower of London--but was commuted to mere beheading for More due, no doubt, to his past friendship with the King. In fact beheading with the axe, as I remembered, was reserved for the upper classes (except royalty, whose heads were removed with a sword.)


I started to see similarities. He, like me, was a workhorse and a very prolific writer, including that one foray into, yes, science fiction/fantasy of the time. He, like me, was interested in things ancient Greek: he was a prominent member of the Humanist movement, which advocated for using the Greek and Latin languages plus classic texts in education. (And, in fact, succeeded, which is why these things were counted as standard in a good education until relatively recently.) He, like me, was interested in politics and law—social structures whose ultimate goal was happiness for the citizenry—and did much to improve the justice system of the time. He, like me, believed in women’s equality (though it was much more unusual then.) He, like me, was an idealist who had great concern for truth and right, but also a smart-*** and a punster.


There was just one horrific thing: his prosecution of heretics, which is to say Protestants, resulted in six people being burned at the stake. The idea that I had been responsible, even in a past life, for the deaths of six human beings was abhorrent to me.


(Okay, you can stop looking at the av and laughing.)


...3/
 
My past life story 03


Here I'd like to introduce the concept, if you haven't heard of it, of verification by aversion. In other words, just as interest or obsession about an era or place in the past can be an indicator of a related past life, so can an aversion to same, due to a trauma that is somehow related.


A month or so after that first memory, S said to me, "Do you know that every time you make fun of people with famous past lives, you always use the same example, 'People who think they were Alexander the Great in a past life?' And not only that, but you also keep denying that you were him, even though no one has accused you of it?"


I stared at her, kind of frozen inside. I'd been vaguely aware of the former, but not of the latter. My feelings about Alexander were that he was a psycho nutbar ancient Hitler who I wanted nothing to do with. In fact around that same time we wanted to research pre-firearms warfare for a book project, and one book she got out of the library was an Alexander biography, which I essentially refused to read. I'd read a thing or two about Alexander before, but they'd always felt... sort of too hot to handle, like they touched something in me I was very uncomfortable with. For one thing, it bothered me that a real historical figure seemed almost more like my own fantasy character than he did himself. I didn't like even thinking about it and so had shut it out.


We did the muscle-testing thing again, and my answer was such a forceful "Yes" it almost knocked her over. About the same time, something fell with a bang off a high cabinet in our house--my game of Risk, the "Game of World Conquest" it is called. I don't know if I believe in that kind of coincidence, but it was... weirdly simultaneous.


What I felt at the time was two things. The first was "No way, no how, not possible!" Somehow I could accept I was Thomas More, who is not a household name. But the guy who some say was the greatest general of all time, who'd caused such huge change in the ancient world, who would have been another character out of the mythology I loved except that he was born after writing was invented? I just felt too small.


The second was, "Well, of course I was him... wouldn't that be my luck?" In a horrible way, it just... fit. Made a bunch of things slam together in my mind.


Launched into research and regression again, I found myself much more inclined to write about this one. Millions of words, I'm sure, from regressions, dialogues with other people I found who'd been there in their own PLs, scholarly research. Much more difficult, as much more has been lost in the fog of time since there's been so much more time. (Alexander lived from 356 to 323 BCE.) Most of the similarities were to be found within my fictional work.


Which pointed me to an interesting line of investigation: if I subconsciously wrote things similar or related to Alexander in this life's fiction... might I have done the same in a past life in which I also wrote fiction?


My hands were shaking as I cracked open Utopia.


Well... they are few (not nearly as many as my this-life fiction) and they are subtle... but they are there. The most striking one is that the people of Utopia learn Greek so easily that the narrator character theorizes they are an ancient Greek colony. But their language also is said to resemble Persian, and the name of the main God they worship is Mithras, a Persian God.


In other words, they seem to be the result of a hybridizing of Greek and Persian culture. The only person to ever attempt to meld those two cultures in real life was Alexander. In fact Utopia is founded by a conqueror, Utopus, who names it after himself, as Alexander did many cities he captured or founded. Apparently I was doing in writing what I failed to do in the flesh.


...4/
 
My past life story 04


But the absolute best result--the most liberating, healing moment of all, in a life that has been very much devoted to healing, trying to cure this thing that was wrong with me--I got from learning about that life came about after reading Carol Bowman’s Children’s Past Lives (so I kind of hope she reads this.) I learned that artistically-inclined kids who remember past lives will often illustrate them in drawings.


I remember the day very well, though I've forgotten the date. I was in my home office, at my computer. I remember looking up from the screen as the realization hit me, and that it was green outside still (it was September), and sunny. Those gory stickman drawings... they were of memories. It wasn't because I was crazy or bad or bloodthirsty. I was just depicting what I remembered. Then came the full-bore gob-smacking mind-blowing flash, the revelation of a lifetime: There was nothing wrong with me.


That was 14 years ago. Those 14 years--the best in my life despite some awful things happening--have been very much devoted to fully accepting that revelation.


The drawings were all destroyed, though one or two survived into my adulthood only to be lost to me again. Their traces remain... for instance, S remembered my mother describing one of them, showing an island city. “It was vague,” she said. “But you could tell it was a city.” One of the toughest parts of Alexander’s campaign was the siege of Tyre—an island city.


Or there was one I saw years after the fact myself, a childish crayon drawing of a king on a chariot holding a girl, clearly carrying her somewhere. I couldn’t remember the idea at all, and my feminist instincts were offended: why had I been drawing this patriarchal crap as a child?


See here. It’s Hades kidnapping Persephone from her mother Demeter—an iconic image in ancient Greek mythology and culture.


From the moment the possibility was raised that I had been Alexander in a PL, the thought of not doing an autobiography hadn’t entered my head. I didn’t even think about why. I had already started it... with drawings as a very young child. No wonder I had argued with my mother so much about keeping them. I still wish I had every last one, because they were my record and I could use them as reference material doing the autobio. I also read in Carol’s book that kids forget around ages 6-8. Perhaps at some level I knew I would.


I never got such an autobiographical urge for Thomas More, though. When I wonder why, the answer came easily: I scratched the writing itch a lot in that life itself, and it’s all still extant. And history has a pretty good idea of who I was. Alexander... the 20 books that were written about that life by eyewitnesses are all lost, and everything else is a broken telephone line. So you’ll see two different historians presenting Alexander not just differently, but as complete and utter opposites.


I went through an intense period of regression/research/writing the autobio from late 2000 to late 2003, helped by four other people. Things went very sour when two of them turned out to be deceivers, causing my estrangement from a third, and the next two years were very difficult for me in other aspects of my life. I began hearing my spirit guides in 2004, and began recording all their words. But between this-life discouragements and distractions, a trip to Greece that was depressing due to how little is left, and constant self-doubt—“something wrong with you” was fighting back, hard—I got discouraged and put the whole thing on the back-burner, throwing myself instead into a revision of my fantasy epic. I decided I had evolved past past lives.


...5/
 
My past life story 05


Fast-forward to 2011. My spirit guides, who I’d started hearing and recording in 2004 after a relationship crisis only to let them fade out after three or four years, came back again, due to yet another relationship crisis. (I have not let them fade away since.) I also did a year-long personal growth course, which has making collages of past issues as one of its techniques, but doesn’t even mention reincarnation. Towards the end of the course, I was lying in bed having an awful attack of fear of self-expression when I realized the feeling was identical to what I’d felt in the Tower of London as Thomas More. The instincts of the course kicked in. “I’ve got to collage that!”


So I did... it was the most inspiring and scary and intense collage I’d done so far, and it had immediate good effects. It also brought past lives crashing back into my life. I had to face the fact that I was definitely not done with them. A little later I did another collage, based on a very vague memory I had: as a small child, not more than three, I’d been severely punished by my mother for saying something about my past lives. It had even more impact, a healing reaction so intense there were physical symptoms, and partial cure of a longstanding self-destructive habit I’d had as far back as I could remember that I’d counted as a healing benchmark, i.e. if it went away I’d know I was really getting somewhere. Two years later, in fact, I did a second collage on that incident, had all the same symptoms but on the other side of my body, and saw that habit almost completely cured.


These past three years I have been trying very hard to figure out what exactly did happen, and circling in on it. I had the impression that she shut me out of the house on a winter day for an abusively-long time from the start. The impression came to me a little later that it was after I saw a picture of my PL self in a kid’s history book, and, thrilled, showed it to her saying “That’s me! I was that man!” I’ve never had a sensory impression of that, but after decades, the title of the book came to me and I ordered a copy, so I now have the picture. I also got more impressions about what she did, that she possibly pulled my hair, or even beat me around the head with a broomstick or strangled me, before throwing me out (because I would not back down.) I am still working on getting a full memory of it.


Between all these things, I’ve seen all my mysteries completely explained, from my life-long fascination with swords, to why I drew what I drew and wrote what I wrote, to why I felt as if something terrible that I couldn’t remember had happened to me when I was very young (it had). Early this year I had a life-altering memory: being a small child and still half in the place between lives, so there was this constant sense of light and happiness and total security. It was absolutely solid, an addition to my contiguous memory of this life


...6/
 
My past life story 06


Meanwhile I began the autobiography in earnest, by which I mean, starting posting it regularly on a private website for select readers, with the plan to eventually try to sell it to a traditional publisher. I don't plan to declare that I'm writing it from PL memory, but instead present it as a historical novel series, so as not to prejudice readers. (Else I'd be posting here under my real name.)


I thought writing it was going to be easy, especially since I'd already written a lot of it ten-odd years before. I couldn't be more wrong. The whole thing put me in such a state of fear that it was like learning to write, and learning to have confidence in my writing, all over again.


Casting about desperately for support, I leaned on my friends like crazy, whining and bitching in a way I haven't for years. I created a small reincarnationist community inside the community around that course. I came back to the online reincarnation community, first Military Past Lives (where I fit well, of course) then here and finally on a forum I created myself only the day before yesterday, devoted purely to famous past lives and all their attendant problems. (It's invitation only; PM me if you want one. You have to either have lived an FPL, famous enough to be uncomfortable talking about it due to that fame, or be a friend/supporter of those who have.)


To do the book I'm also having to inventory my stock of memories... and holy ****. If the intensity of emotion you feel about a past life is confirmation that it's true, I should be convinced five or ten times over. I'm also getting new ones.


But something happened that I didn't expect, though with everything I know, I should have: the writing is having healing effects, from traumas in that life. Some nasty things happened to me that history does not know, and as I've written them I've seen one very major improvement and some minor ones.


That brings us up to date, as I sit here feeling the emotions from recounting the whole thing here... the headache, the tears in my eyes that won't quite come out, the restlessness, the inner roiling, all these things kind of chronic for the past couple of weeks. One principle I have learned: breakdown leads to breakthrough. So I am hoping I have a big one of those coming. Or maybe it'll be spread out over the writing of the book... I gather I'll get healed of each event as I write it. Right now I am just going for fluidity, for the words to come off my fingers easily as they do with the fiction.


My spirit guides say: "Stop trying to make it all happen; you've done too much of that in your lives. Just let it happen, trusting that it will." Let go and let God, in other words, or, as I might say, Father Zeus.


The hardest thing!


Thanks for reading. More as it happens.
 
Thank you so much for sharing, KarenF. I think remembering your process will help me as I continue to explore my lives. It's so encouraging to hear of your healing through this. I'm glad. Those books sound quite interesting. :D
 
That was fascinating, Karen! Have you thought of self publishing? It is easy to do with amazon and you get to retain control of your book. :)
 
@Mama2HRB


Yes, I have thought of self-publishing, and will likely attempt to do both, as I have read that authors with hybrid careers -- doing both -- do best. Thx :)
 
KarenF said:
...A little later I did another collage, based on a very vague memory I had: as a small child, not more than three, I’d been severely punished by my mother for saying something about my past lives....
These past three years I have been trying very hard to figure out what exactly did happen, and circling in on it. I had the impression that she shut me out of the house on a winter day for an abusively-long time from the start. The impression came to me a little later that it was after I saw a picture of my PL self in a kid’s history book, and, thrilled, showed it to her saying “That’s me! I was that man!” I’ve never had a sensory impression of that, but after decades, the title of the book came to me and I ordered a copy, so I now have the picture...
Click to expand...
Just a shocking way to treat a child at all Karen! Thank goodness we are more enlightened about these things now.


It's a great idea to do a 'collage' to express these complicated feelings.
 
KarenF said:
I remember looking up from the screen as the realization hit me, and that it was green outside still (it was September), and sunny. Those gory stickman drawings... they were of memories. It wasn't because I was crazy or bad or bloodthirsty. I was just depicting what I remembered. Then came the full-bore gob-smacking mind-blowing flash, the revelation of a lifetime: There was nothing wrong with me....
Click to expand...
Ha ha! I like this bit.


I have had many, many rather bloodthirsty and violent memories since childhood. I was quite used to it and it didn't really bother me when I was little. I thought everyone was the same. Then I found out they weren't and that it was really rather odd to have all these 'thoughts'. I'd often wondered if I was crazy. It was a very isolating feeling, you can imagine.


Once I realised (in my teens) that all this was probably just past life memories, it was a huge relief. I began to view it as less of a burden and more of an advantage. I also got better at controlling it and blocking out unwanted memories.
 
KarenF said:
Then came the full-bore gob-smacking mind-blowing flash, the revelation of a lifetime: There was nothing wrong with me!
...5/
Click to expand...
I had an experience like that about 4 years ago. My reaction was "I've been vindicated!"
 
@tanguerra

tanguerra said:
Just a shocking way to treat a child at all Karen! Thank goodness we are more enlightened about these things now.
Click to expand...
Yup. If she'd done something like that today, our version of the local Child Protective Agency would have been all over her so fast she wouldn't have known what hit her. Which I find comforting.

It's a great idea to do a 'collage' to express these complicated feelings.
Click to expand...
Yup! It works!
 
@tanguerra & argonne


This is what I love about the online reincarnation community. The very few other people I can tell this story to say "Hey, that's great, glad you felt better about yourself, congratulations." Here, it's "That happened to me, too!"


Thank you thank you thank you, you two, for sharing this with me! It's so good not to be alone.


Off to start a poll to find out how not-alone I am :D
 
Yup. There are very few people I can talk to about any of this in real life. Even then, although they're polite enough about it, they don't really believe me (not deep down) and they certainly have no idea how it feels. That's one of the great things about the forum.
 
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