I’d like to say a big hi to all the members of the Walking the Shadowlands Facebook group. It is because of the members of the group that this podcast got started to begin with, so I would like to personally thank you all and acknowledge you for your ideas and your support. Thank you so much. This episode is dedicated to you all.

In this episode we are going to talk about reincarnation. This is an area of interest to so many people and something I personally have snippets of memories of. So, let’s begin. . .

Reincarnation

My story

Until I was in my early 30’s I had this absolute phobia about mud, or more precisely, of walking in mud, of having mud on my feet or legs. I would absolutely have an anxiety attack, and then I would get this fear, more actually, overwhelming and absolute terror, in fact, that I was going to sink into the mud completely and be suffocated by it. I could never actually understand where this irrational and unfounded fear came from.  So I simply learned over the years, to avoid situations where I would need to be walking in or through mud. It wasn’t until I was a young mum and we were visiting a friend’s dairy farm at the back of Cambridge, in the Waikato region of NZ, when my fear really came to a head and I realized I need to do something about it –at the very least find the root cause of this irrational thought and behaviour pattern.

My young son at that stage was perhaps three or four years old and my then husband and I were walking through their cattle run, to get to the milking shed as my friend was going to show my children how they milked the cows – which was pretty exciting for them. It was very muddy as most in New Zealand, or perhaps other countries who have been on a dairy farm one can imagine that a cattle run generally is. The combination of cattle kicking up dirt combined with their excretions, did not make for a pleasant walk to the shed. In the summer, this isn’t too much of an issue you just skirt the cow pats – but in the winter, following days of rain, as it was that particular day, it is muddy ­– generally smelly and not usually too pleasant, and always requiring the wearing of gumboots and / or other protective clothing.

The children were given a ride on the back of the 4 wheeler farm bike – (which was incredibly exciting for them), as the mud would have been to their knee height, so the gumboots they were wearing would likely have been lost from their feet anyway… I was absolutely bracing myself for the walk through the mud. I was trying so hard not to show the kiddies my fears, which they did not need to witness – and I really did not want their exciting experience to be tainted by my ‘irrationality’ over a little mud.

So I really held my fears in and very gingerly, testing every step to make sure the ground was solid – which was of the utmost importance to me, made my way through the mud to the shed.

I held it together really, well not showing any outward sign of the internal struggle I was dealing with – apart from my slowness walking, which could have been chalked to walking through the mud anyway, when my friend drove past with the kids only a few yards from me, and stopped. Then the kids climbed off the bike.  My son was just so excited that he started to try and run towards me, forgetting he was in the mud and he fell face first into the filth.

That was it for me. I absolutely panicked and ran as fast as I could through the mud disregarding my own fear of there being no solid ground beneath me, fearing my son was going to die, that he was going to be smothered to death, by this disgusting, thick, viscous soup of mud, and excreta. I couldn’t breathe as I struggled to get to him. But within seconds of his falling, my friend had scooped him up. His face and body was thickly coated in the muck. After catching his breath, from the smell as much as anything. He laughed and said that was fun can I do it again? He was fine, absolutely fine, I on the other hand, absolutely was not. I had genuinely thought he was going to suffocate in the mud and that I would lose him.

After my son was cleaned up my friend and my husband took the children to watch the cows being milked. I had to hide in her outdoor wash-house, under the pretence that I was cleaning the mud Michael had left deposited there, when we cleaned him up. I struggled for a few minutes to compose myself. I was physically shaking, crying my eyes out and just could not understand what was happening to me. That was the day, that I realized that this was a real issue, and that I had to find the root cause of this irrationality and deal with it. I didn’t want it to affect my children and their joy of playing in mud and simply having fun as kids do. I didn’t want my fears to hold them back.

Being a busy young mum, and with the net not yet as accessible as it is today, I did not have much chance to do any back research on my phobia…. And I sort of let it slide, until in the early 90’s Mt Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted – It was the second-largest volcanic eruption of that century, and by far the largest eruption to affect a densely populated area.

More than 350 people died during the eruption, most of them from collapsing roofs, with diseases that broke out in evacuation camps and with the continuing mud flows in the area caused additional deaths, bringing the total death toll to 722 people. Entire villages that were not destroyed in the initial eruption were decimated in the following lahars. For those of you who have never heard the term lahar, Wikipedia, gives this definition:

“A lahar is a violent type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley. Lahars are extremely destructive: they can flow tens of metres per second (22 mph or more), they have been known to be up to 140 metres (460 ft.) deep, and large flows tend to destroy any structures in their path. They have even been known to decimate entire settlements.” ¹ 

I remember being glued to the TV –  I could not, absolutely could not, take my eyes off the coverage – and then when I saw the lahar, I had an absolute melt down and a pile of memories came flooding into my mind mind – of being a child, in a small village – very similar to the ones that were destroyed in this catastrophe, and this lahar sweeping through my village, down the mountain, carrying me off, totally engulfing me, I remember a few seconds of utter fear and the inability to breathe as the mud surrounded and both compressed and filled my lungs. I died, completely covered in feet of mud and debris. It was at that very minute that I realized where this irrational fear I had held all my life came from. I realized that this fear was totally from a past life that I had experienced as a child somewhere and I had carried that fear into this life.

I had, of course, heard of reincarnation and the thought of past lives, but to be honest – at that stage in my life it was merely an eastern religious ideology and I had not given it much thought at all, and honestly, I wasn’t even really sure how I felt about it at that stage. BUT, it was in that very instant that the memories came flooding back while I was watching the disaster unfolding, that I realized, that the penny dropped, and I absolutely understood where my fear originated from and I totally understood why I felt that way towards mud, why it terrified me so very much. From that point forward in my life, with the understanding that this was then and not now, I was able to absolutely release that fear and move forward without it affecting my life anymore. Because, to that point I had not realized precisely how much it had affected me.

Following that personal epiphany, I went to the local library and I hunted out whatever books I could find on reincarnation, I needed to know more about it, now that it was a reality in my life. So that was the first of a number of past life experiences I have had in my life.

What is reincarnation? Is it the same as resurrection?

Until I had my personal awakening regarding reincarnation – I had only vaguely read whisperings of it being some exotic eastern tradition, so totally foreign to the western Christianity that was forced on me by family, as a child. But honestly, I was absolutely ignorant of others beliefs in this area. So I decided to educate myself.

In the decades since then the beliefs and tenets of reincarnation and past lives are now, for the most part mainstream, in all the media, and at the very least known of by most people’s world wide. In case you, are like I was back in the day, let my give a brief background on what reincarnation, soul transmigration, metempsychosis, or rebirth is.

In order to understand reincarnation, it is necessary to have at least the understanding or some would say belief, that this body we currently inhabit is not who we are. That we all are spiritual beings having a human experience. That this body we use, is a bit like a car we drive that takes us from one place to another, to experience something, to work on something, or to learn something. That once that car is all worn out and no longer functional for our needs, then that vehicle is discarded and we obtain another one, and another one. For most of us though, we don’t give that old car more than a passing thought, if indeed we remember it at all, because our current car has all of our focus and attention. It serves our current needs and purposes.

Reincarnation is like this. Once the body has worn out, or been destroyed in one way or another, then our spirit, the essence of who we are, is given another body in which we grow, and learn in and from. That is the very basic tenet of how reincarnation works. We go from one vehicle to another – some of these vehicles may be a lot flasher than others. Some of them may have issues that make the journey in them more challenging, and some of them may be absolutely top of the line with no issues whatsoever. But they belong to us and we utilise them for whatever time when, however short or long whilst we are here on this journey.

Another way of looking at reincarnation is like a being hand in a glove. The hand being who we are, our soul, our spiritual essence. The glove being the tool that we use for a specific purpose. Once that purpose has been served, we simply remove the glove and we move on, until we have the need to use one again. Just so there is no misunderstanding. Reincarnation, or rebirth is when your soul, your spirit, the essence of what makes you, you, is reborn into a brand new body. Resurrection is when the body you currently inhabit and your soul are risen from the dead together, so no rebirth, no new vehicle to use.

Who believes in reincarnation?

Reincarnation is a basic philosophical or religious concept of many of the worlds different religions – particularly eastern and , Indian religions, such as Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism, although there are some Hindu groups that don’t  believe in reincarnation, but do believe in an afterlife. These all hold the common belief in karma which comes from the word karman; “to act.” The term karma is now days very common in our current everyday language. Karma the law of cause and effect, which basically means that what one does in this present life will have its effect in the next life.

In Hinduism the process of birth and reincarnation —is endless until one achieves moksha, or liberation (literally “release”),  from that process. Moksha is achieved when one realizes that the eternal core of the individual (the atman) and the absolute reality (brahman) are one. Thus, one can escape from samsara, the reincarnation cycle. Each of these previously mentioned religions, have slightly different takes on what reincarnation is and how it works, but the basic tenants are the same. Having said all that, eastern religions aren’t the only ones to have this belief, it is part of many Asian belief systems as well. A belief in rebirth was held by such notable Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras (who was also a very well known mathematician),  Socrates, and Plato.

Pythagoras, who was born around the year 580 BC, stated that the soul was immortal, and after the death of the body, could own another body, sometimes an animal. Hence the Greek word metempsychosis, meaning transmigration. Other more contemporary, along with older world schools of thought such as Spiritism (not to be confused with modern spiritualism, which began in the USA in the 1800’s), Theosophy, Gnosticism, Rosicrucians, and Eckankar, believe in reincarnation, as also do some more esoteric streams of more orthodox Judaism. This was followed in more latter times by a large number of different belief systems, such as – Anthroposophy – a break away group from Theosophy, Seicho-no-ie in Japan, Hare Khrisna’s, Transendental Meditation, amongst many others. The ones from Anthroposophy, onwards along with more modern ones, tend to all be covered under umbrella of the New Age Movement – but really none of it is truly new, and these days the term New Age is very often used in a disparaging manner – so I generally tend to stay away from that terminology.

Many tribal societies from around the world also believe in this. Such as some in South America, and closer to home, across the ditch as we say here in New Zealand, with our neighbours in Australia. Many early Christians accepted the belief of reincarnation, particularly the Christian Gnostics. But it was around the year 500AD when the Christian bible was being put together from various teachings and their basic tenants were being formed that the belief in reincarnation was removed from it’s teachings. This is a very controversial belief amongst many who follow the Christian belief system.

Reincarnation was officially removed from Christian doctrine during the Fifth Ecumenical Council in the year 553 (also known as the Second Council of Constantinople). The council released a list of decrees, which sounded the death knell for the idea of reincarnation. The FIRST of these decrees read:

“If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema.” This literally meant that anyone believing in reincarnation was damned, and those who advocated reincarnation could be excommunicated from the Church.

So reincarnation was removed from the Christian belief system, except for the Gnostic Christians who would not renounce it and so were fiercely persecuted for their continued belief in it. This also explains why many Christians even today fiercely decry this belief. There are many mainstream Christians today who fiercely debate the truth of what was covered in the second council of Constantinople. It is not my intent to go into this at all, I am merely giving a background on beliefs in reincarnation so all of you have some understanding of different belief systems in the world before we discuss people’s own experiences with this.

On the morning of, the 12^th of September, in 2001 (September the 11^th in the other hemisphere of the world), I remember I was at work listening to the radio as we all worked. At that stage I was working a temporary job in a facility that made IUD (Inter-uterine devices – a form of contraceptive), for cattle, goats, and sheep. It was always a very busy and noisy, and very sterile environment. As soon as the news came of the attack on the twin towers, there was instant silence in the facility, apart from the sound of the machines in the background, I remember my heart sank and I immediately knew what would happen from there-on-in for those who lived in the USA. I just knew, without a doubt what was coming for you all over there. I was standing there with tears streaming down my face. For the families of those who were killed, maimed, or injured in the carnage of the explosions. I looked up and saw that the very staunch men I worked with had tears streaming down their faces as well. I will never forget what I felt that day. . .

Since that time 18 years ago, some things have never been the same – but life does go on, albeit in a different way than before this occurred. The cycle of life, death, and birth continues and with it come some stories of children who recall being a part of that episode in our recent history and are now reborn. I would like to share a couple of these with you now.

Thomas Nolan

In 2016 Thomas Nolan was then around 4 years old, living in England. At that stage he had been talking for about a year about what happened that day during the attacks at the World Trade Center, his mum Rachel said.

“He started out insisting that he doesn’t just want to be a firefighter that he is one…he would get up in the morning and put on his fire outfit (his big reward for being potty trained) and tell me he’s going to work. He would take his play ax and pretend to chop down the walls etc., because there was fire behind them. that’s how it started and the info just progressed… We were reading a Curious George book about him in the big city and he said very matter of factly “…Bad men knocked those buildings over”, pointing at the twin tower picture. I am a stay at home mum and he has never been exposed to 911 scenes.

Then he said planes broke in them and he couldn’t help. He also told me there were people jumping because they wouldn’t wait for him to get them. He told me he was stuck and and was trying to break thru the wall to get the people out because they were calling for them… He has also gone on extensively about the type of trucks he was in. The color bucket on the truck and how it feels to come down from up high in the bucket. Very detailed about firefighting and he has stated he’s not a firefighter he’s fire rescue. We have no firefighters in the family but the details I could go on with forever. He also talks about his friend Mike that is also a firefighter. It has opened my eyes to a whole new reality. My husband still doesn’t want to believe it but the details are far too much for a three-year-old to make up. He said people were falling from a building because they wouldn’t wait. He was on the floor with his breathing mask on and tried to get out a window but it was too small so he used his ax to break a hole so he could get the people out.

I’m pretty confident that what my son has been telling me is from a past life, there’s no way he would know all this at his age! Also the tone of his voice is completely different. I’m very aware not to ask him anything specific because he only tells me what he wants at that time, which is always before bed or after he wakes in the morning…

He said they got a new fire truck because their old one is wrecked. He has said this several times about a new fire truck with a TV in it and maps and a boat on top. Also he has tried to give me directions to his fire station, funny coming from a three-year-old actually. He says you take a left then a right and his station is on the left with another across the street on the right. He told me he trains the new guys coming thru and his friend mike is with the older guys. There’s so much in the last year I could go on forever. But there really has been less and less in the past few months, detail wise anyway, that maybe he his forgetting already. I have written it down somewhat but this is just what I’m thinking of right now.”

After Thomas’ mum heard all these, along with many more details that her son gave, she ultimately came to the conclusion that someone from that disaster had reincarnated as her son. Eventually, seeking answers she found a past-life forum where she posted her story. One of the members of that forum was a retired firefighter, this gentleman was able to corroborate information that her son had been speaking about, right down to the finest and smallest detail. Completely 100% accurate.

Lucia

Another woman, Lucia, phoned into a radio talk-back show with this story:  She said that her 4-year-old had also started describing what happened during that same event, but in this case his son claimed to be a worker who died in the tragedy. When shown a photo of the towers he was able to identify the window where he worked and told his mother, “That’s where I worked, Mama”, the child says he felt the building fall and even said: “Mom, I’m still buried there.”

Anon

And on that note here is a story from closer to home, just across the ditch in Australia – it is from a member of my FB group Walking the Shadowlands, who has requested to remain anonymous.

“My then 5-year-old had a friend over, as her mum was over for a reading. I had the Twin Towers on anyway for some reason I had to pause.  The two girls were talking about it saying how they had worked on the 56th floor together, how a bomb had gone off underneath them and there was an instant hole and fire, and how they died that day and their bodies were still at the site.”

So that is two people in different world hemispheres whose children basically said the same thing about their bodies still being at the site. How do you explain that?

Cade Curnette

In a 2016 documentary called The Ghost Inside My Child, Molly Curnutte was talking about her young son’s possible reincarnation from a death in 911.

“Cade was very good as a baby. He slept a lot, [he was] calm, quiet. Right about the time Cade was 3, he would wake up screaming about falling, and the Statue of Liberty, and about his leg being broken off,”

Curnutte said.

“It would start off with things like lightning, two buildings, a man falling off. In my head at the time, I did begin to think he was describing 9/11. As a mother, I was concerned that early on he was so concerned with death [and] dying. But he would always assure me that we don’t die. He would tell me that we don’t die and that he picked me. He would tell me that he chose me. He would tell me that he was older than I was.”

Cade also recalls his old name. He was Robert Pattison who had an office in the north tower. From his office, he could see The Statue of Liberty. Cade said, in his previous life, he was honorably discharged from the U.S. military. On the day of the attack, the ceiling above him collapsed and he could not reach the stairs.

It was found that there was a man named Robert Pattison who was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and worked at north tower. He was on the 110th floor on the day of the attack.

How can you know if its reincarnation or simply imagination?

Most reincarnation or past life researchers can agree that there some factors that really suggest cases of reincarnation, some of these are: When children or adults naturally and spontaneously (without hypnosis or prompting of any sort), claim to remember past lives. Some memories are so clear and vivid that they are able to remember who they were, where they lived and people and items that belonged to them. Very often these people will also have the same interests, desire, or emotions of the person in that past life. These memories can be full or simply snippets and often the emotions attached to that life also are felt by the person.

Some say that past lives can be accessed through hypnosis. Personally, I have very mixed feelings about using hypnosis to release past life memories. I feel it needs to be used very carefully and with someone who is very well trained in this field, so that the natural bias of the hypnotist doesn’t influence the person being hypnotized. However, it can be useful to get to the root of phobias people may be suffering in this life.

Sometimes there are physical signs that are from past lives, such as marks on the body where fatal wounds occurred.

Theories

There are two theories that some researchers might agree on, which might could explain these phenomena.  The first is that there is the theory that reincarnation doesn’t exist, but that people obtain their information on past lives by extrasensory methods, such as telepathy or clairvoyance. The second theory is that the past lives that children and others claim to remember, are in fact true, and that they are experiencing this memory.

Stories of reincarnation are not limited geographically or culturally. They occur in all corners of the planet and among people of all cultures as these previous stories of 911 reincarnations suggest. But, is there any scientific evidence that can back up the claims of reincarnation?

Certainly there are many scientists that have done intensive research on this subject, either to try and disprove or to try and prove reincarnation. Possibly in most recent times one of the most respected researchers was a Dr. Ian Stevenson. Dr. Stevenson, was a Canadian-born U.S. psychiatrist. He worked for the University of Virginia School of Medicine for fifty years, as chair of the department of psychiatry from 1957 to 1967, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and Research Professor of Psychiatry from 2002 until his death. in 2007 at the age of 88.

As founder and director of the university’s Division of Perceptual Studies, which investigates the paranormal, Stevenson became known internationally for his research into reincarnation. His particular field of interest was reincarnation memories of young children. By the time he passed on he had meticulously researched and documented over 3000 cases from all over the world, of children who recalled past lives. He wrote about 300 papers and over 14 books on reincarnation.

Carol Bowman, a woman who runs a website dedicated to past life therapy, has this to say about Dr. Stevenson. Quote: “The life work of Dr. Ian Stevenson is probably the best known and most respected collection of scientific data to provide scientific evidence for reincarnation.  Instead of relying on hypnosis to verify that an individual has had a previous life, he collected thousands of cases of children who spontaneously (without hypnosis) remember a past life.  The advantage to this approach is that spontaneous past life memories in children can be investigated using strict scientific protocols.” End quote.

The major difference between Dr. Stevenson and other past life researchers, is that his articles were only published for the academic and scientific communities, and in language, and using research parameters that they would understand. He was not seeking public recognition for his work, only academic and scientific acknowledgement.

The reason I am mentioning him in particular above many other researchers, is that he did a paper on “Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons” Published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 1993.

In his abstract at the beginning of the article he had this to say: Quote:

“About 35% of children who claim to remember previous lives have birthmarks and/or birth defects that they (or adult informants) attribute to wounds on a person whose life the child remembers. The cases of 210 such children have been investigated. The birthmarks were usually areas of hairless, puckered skin; some were areas of little or no pigmentation (hypo-pigmented macules); others were areas of increased pigmentation (hyper-pigmented nevi). The birth defects were nearly always of rare types. In cases in which a deceased person was identified the details of whose life unmistakably matched the child’s statements, a close correspondence was nearly always found between the birthmarks and/or birth defects on the child and the wounds on the deceased person. In 43 of 49 cases in which a medical document (usually a postmortem report) was obtained, it confirmed the correspondence between wounds: and birthmarks (or birth defects). There is little evidence that parents and other informants imposed a false identit-marks and birth defects on the child, in order to explain the child’s birthmark or birth defect. Some paranormal process seems required to account for at least some of the details of these cases.” .

In this article he also has a large number of photos of some of the subjects. I have included the entire article  on the Walking the Shadowlands podcast website, along with photos for those who would like to look at them and read the article for themselves.

It has long been suggested that some, but not all, people who are reincarnation cases actually have birthmarks on corresponding places on their skin where they had injuries or fatal wounds on their bodies. This actually was the case in another of my past life memories that actually involved another person, who did not even live in New Zealand, but in fact lived in North Carolina, in the USA. His name was Jay.  He and I went onto marry and lived together for 10 years.

I am not going to give too much detail about this past life, just pertinent details to this story.

Jay

Jay and I had originally met over my art – my sculptures actually and we immediately hit it off and had a very, very strong connection. I had at that stage been divorced from my children’s dad for a number of years. Not very long after Jay and I started talking and getting to know each other, I was sitting one day not thinking about anything in particular, when I had this waking vision in my mind. It was as clear as day. In this vision, Jay and I were to have been married, but on our wedding day he was shot in his chest, on the left side just below his nipple, piercing his heart and killing him almost immediately.

It took me some time to process this information, and even then I was finding it hard to actually accept it. So I felt that if in fact this was correct, that Jay would have some sort of birthmark or scar on his chest where the arrow had penetrated it. I don’t know why I felt this, but I just felt that, that would be true.

The next time I spoke with Jay, I just came straight out and asked him if he had a birth mark on his chest just below his left nipple, that was shaped perhaps like an old wound. He was shocked and said, “How did you possibly know that?” So I told him everything that I had seen. We got off the phone and as I was walking back into the house, I saw my niece who asked me what was wrong, apparently I was pretty pale looking. I was in shock actually, to have my vision verified in that way was kind of overwhelming, and yes indeed, he did have that mark on his chest.

When we got married we talked about it often. Jay passed away just last year –  and we were no longer together at that stage, I was back living in NZ from North Carolina. But we always remained very good friends. So I can verify from my personal experience what the good Doctor Stevenson was talking about in his article.

In this episode we’ve talked about reincarnation, a bit of the religions that believe in it, some theories about it, and I have shared both personal and experiences that some young children have had. It was so hard to keep this episode as short as I have as there were so many experiences that I wanted to share, but simply did not have the time to do so.

I would love to hear of any experiences you may have had in this area, you can email me at shadowlands@yahoo.com, and if you like this show, please consider supporting me and it on Patreon.com. Become a subscriber and for a few dollars a month you can support this show and help cover hosting, bandwidth and other expenses, like royalty fees for any music I may use in future episodes. As a subscriber, you will get access to back episodes of the show, and other extras. Also you will always get my absolute appreciation and love. Patreon.com , or check out the link on our website, walkingtheshadowlands.com.

Thank you so very much for listening, tonight, today, where-ever you are in this beautiful world of ours. And if you haven’t already, then please subscribe on iTunes and leave us a positive rating and review. Spread the word around about this podcast. Invite your friends, your family, and your workmates to subscribe and listen also. Thank you so much for tuning in and well see you this time next week, when our topic is Near Death Experiences.Thanks for listening.

So you don’t miss out on an episode, make sure you subscribe on your favourite podcasting platform. This podcast is available on all free, podcasting platforms, including iHEART radio and Pandora as well. Also, if you have Alexa, simply say these four words “Open Walking the Shadowlands’ and Alexa will play our latest episode for you.

Check out our FaceBook page ‘Walking the Shadowlands”. Our Instagram feed of the same name, and our Twitter feed @shadowlands10. TikTok under Walking_the_Shadowlands. Like and follow for teasers of our upcoming episodes.

If you don’t have a smartphone, then you can listen to the episodes from the podcast website www.walkingtheshadowlands.com. For those hearing-impaired, there is a full written transcript of each episode on the website. So you don’t miss out at all. Tell your friends! Tell your family! Tell your workmates about our show! Encourage them to listen, and to subscribe also – the more the merrier!