The main characters in each of the four historical periods of this book are twins, a boy and a girl, and the story at the personal level is essentially their story which develops over time. This may lead some readers to assume that a thesis of this book is that reincarnation is “real” and that the main characters in each part are the reincarnated main characters from the preceding part. That is one way the book can be read and the experiences can be understood. But it is not my sense of exactly what is going on in the stories nor what I think in general occurs. Lela in chapter two, Lela’s Guide to After Death Experiences, and during other parts of the book does her best to clarify with Martyna what is happening and what choices there appear to be. But I wanted to share here my personal view.
My view is that each one of us is unique and changing over time. That is, I am not the same person I was yesterday, much less someone from another historical period. But we each “carry the stories” from various other persons who have preceded us and carry as well the scars and lessons-learned from earlier personal and collective events whether we are conscious of these connections or not. Even a casual observer of a family over generations is often astounded at how the themes and issues, the strengths and weaknesses, of one generation show up again in later generations of that family, even when there is no physical contact between generations. There is some kind of trans-generational mechanism at work. But that does not mean that “I am my grandfather.”
I am convinced by my experiences that in a similar way we are deeply influenced by – and may even be able to re-experience in some form – personal and collective events that are not a part of our biographically or even genetically determined experience, but are very present for us in special states of consciousness. And what is more, by opening to these experiences and integrating the insights we have from them we can ourselves step out of patterns of suffering and find new ways to live more joyfully with ourselves and others, step by step, individually and collectively.
For this healing and transformation to happen does not require that reincarnation is true. It may simply mean that I as a being have the ability to come into deep contact with other beings, across time and space, and that I am in the end not exactly who I thought I was.
Luckily we do not have to decide about this question in order to have our experiences or to enjoy a good story!
There is also a paradoxical element to the question of reincarnation. Wes Nisker, a Buddhist teacher and comic, was asked if he believed in reincarnation. “I used to believe in reincarnation,” he said. “But that was in another life.”
For those interested in the process by which unresolved or un-integrated elements from one period surface again in the lives of others, the following three books are recommended as very readable references:
Other Lives, Other Selves: A Jungian Psychotherapist Discovers Past Lives by Roger Woolger (1988). This is the classic and ground-breaking work by the psychotherapist Roger Woolger about his exploration of reports of past lives by his therapy clients and his development of a technique using hypnosis to support the exploration of those experiences, as well as Woolger’s ideas about the meanings of past life experiences and their utility for mental and physical health.
Lifecycles: Reincarnation and the Web of Life, by Christopher M. Bache (1998). This book about reincarnation experiences examines the nature of the issues that are repeatedly encountered in lives and how these are related to individual and collective development.
Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind by Christopher M. Bache (2000). More clearly than in any other book that I know of this masterwork examines the mechanisms by which collective and individual decisions, intentions, and actions create our suffering in historical time, and what the options are for our personal and collective transformation of and release from that accumulated suffering. Therefore this book is especially relevant to a deeper understanding of the themes found in this book: violent transition to patriarchy and the brutal subjugation of women, tribal conflicts in Africa, the persecution of persons as witches during the 16th and 17th centuries, National Socialism’s attempts to eradicate whole ethnic groups and to enslave others, the systematic suppression and exploitation of women and other identifiable “out groups” to this day.