Key Takeaways From Journey of Souls: Unlocking the Secrets of Past Lives and Soul Development

Yesterday, I started a new book called Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, PhD. I have not been able to put it down. It has most certainly pulled me out of the reading rut I felt myself in, as I leapt from book to book, unsure what was worthy of my attention. This book most certainly is. I am flying through it, chapters away from finishing – and absolutely ecstatic about starting his next books after this one. It is taking everything in me to restrain from emailing or texting all my spiritual friends about this book, so I’m writing about it here instead.

More likely than not, you’ve seen this cover. I had seen this cover. Or maybe the cover was familiar because I was being pulled into reading it from a soul memory. Irregardless, this book ties in perfectly into my post about Past Lives and Energy Themes from yesterday (can you see a theme in my interests, as of late?).

Newton, a psychotherapist who uses past life regression therapy, has compiled such an immensely powerful book of his clients sharing details and information about the transitionary stage following between lives. I find myself reading with a sense of inner knowing where not an ounce of doubt or disbelief make me unsure of the words I am reading. Newton knows the benefit of accessing past life memories when we are feeling stuck, saying, “My client knew something was hindering her growth and wanted it revealed. The superconscious identity of the soul houses our continuous memory, including goals. When the time in our lives is appropriate, we must harmonize human material needs with our soul’s purpose for being here. I try to take a common sense approach in bringing past and present experiences into alignment.”

I have highlighted so much in this book, that I don’t even know where to begin when singing its praises and sharing its wisdom. So, let me just give you some notable nuggets.

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Who Greets Us

While reincarnation is not something we can put on pause while we wait for someone from our earth life to die, this book states, “A curious phenomenon about the spirit world is that important people in our lives are always able to greet us, even though they may already be living another life.” That being said, even though you love Nana Jane or Uncle Frank so much, in more instances than not, she isn’t your guide, and your encounter with her will be brief for acclimation relief as you transition — then they’re off to do their own thing.

Your Soul Has a Favourite Gender

I’ve really been trying to figure out what mine is, after reading this. My birth chart says I have dominant male qualities so I wonder if that’s intentional. That being said, I do adore being female and nothing compares to being able to create life and be a mother. Nurturing qualities come natural to me, and I know my life (lives) in Atlantis were predominantly female, so perhaps my soul leans towards female. I really can’t be sure! The book says, “The soul itself is androgynous, and yet, in the same breath, clients declare sex is not an important factor. I have learned all souls can and do assume male and female mental impressions toward other entities as a form of identity preference.“

We Choose Our Gender (and Sexual Preference) in Each Incarnation With Intention – and For Personal Advancement

Newton writes, “You can have masculine energy, if you want to call it that, and still be feminine. Before finishing this case, I should touch on the issue of homosexuality. Most of my subjects select the bodies of one gender over another 75 percent of the time. This pattern is true of all but the advanced souls, who maintain more of a balance in choosing to be men and women. A gender preference by a majority of earthbound souls does not mean they are unhappy the other 25 percent of the time as males or females. Hester [a client who came as a very masculine woman in this lifetime while she is usually more comfortable as a man] is not necessarily gay or bi-sexual because of her body choice. Homosexuals may or may not be comfortable with their anatomy as humans. When I do have a client who is gay, they often ask if their homosexuality is the result of choosing to be “the wrong sex” in this life. When their sessions are over this inquiry is usually answered. Regardless of the circumstances which lead souls to make gender choices, this decision was made before arriving on Earth. Sometimes I find that gay people have chosen in advance of their current lives to experiment with a sex that was seldom used in former lives. Being gay carries a sexual stigma in our society which presents a more difficult road in life. When this road is chosen by one of my clients, it can usually be traced to a karmic need to accelerate personal understanding of the complex differences in gender identity as related to certain events in their past. Case 13 chose to be a woman in this life to try and get over the stumbling blocks experienced as [a dominant man in her past lives]“

Emotional Disorders Inhibit Soul Development

While emotional and mental disorders, often the result of personal trauma, obviously inhibit our human lives, we don’t often reflect on the impact it will have on our Soul’s essence. Newton says, “The destructive impulses of emotional disorders, if left untreated, inhibit soul development. Those of us who have experienced unresolved personal trauma in our lives carry the seeds of our own destruction. This anguish affects our soul in such a way that it seems we are not whole. For instance, excessive craving and addictive behavior, which is the outgrowth of personal pain, inhibits the expression of a healthy soul and may even hold a soul in bondage to its host body.”

Our World is Populated by Low Level Souls

Did anyone doubt this? It’s evident by looking at the chaotic state our world is in. Newton confirms that there are Levels to soul advancement and that our world likely has a large distribution of low-level (I and II) souls, since they make up 47% of his client base. But he does acknowledge that it is difficult to get a reading on how many higher-level souls there are on earth right now (IV and V) because they’re not likely to need to access their past lives and learn from them as a way to understand their present life cycle.

Newton writes, “THERE are two types of beginner souls: souls who are truly young in terms of exposure to an existence out of the spirit world, and souls who have been reincarnating on Earth for a long period of relative time, but still remain immature. I find beginner souls of both types in Levels I and II. […] I believe almost three-quarters of all souls who inhabit human bodies on Earth today are still in the early stages of development. […] I have had many cases where a client has been incarnating for up to 30,000 years on Earth and is still in the lower levels of I and II. […] Less developed souls are inclined to surrender their will to the controlling aspects of human society, with a socio-economic structure which causes a large proportion of people to be subordinate to others. The inexperienced soul tends to be stifled by a lack of independent thinking. They also lean towards being self-centered and don’t easily accept others for who they are.”

Excessive Knowledge of Past Lives is Detrimental to Present Soul Growth

While Newton does understand the benefit of knowing and understanding our past lives, there is a reason we arrive on earth with this “soul amnesia”—to ensure we focus on the present incarnation and do and choose right for the sake of doing and choosing right. If our choices in our past life didn’t work for us before, perhaps we are being asked to navigate them this time a little differently (something I teach my clients in our past life sessions together). His client says (while present in the aether), “Learning from a blank slate is better than knowing in advance what could happen to you because of what you did before. Dr. N: But wouldn’t knowing about your past life mistakes be valuable in avoiding the same pitfalls in this life? S: If people knew all about their past, many might pay too much attention to it rather than trying out new approaches to the same problem. The new life must be … taken seriously. Without having old memories, our advisors say there is less preoccupation for … trying to … avenge the past … to get even for the wrongs done to you. We have … the capacity to know when it is necessary. I was ready for change when I heard about you. Clodees [their guide] allowed me to see the past with you because it was to my benefit.”

You Are Held Accountable for Evil

Souls who have done inexplicable evil on earth will require isolation in the afterlife to learn from their errored ways, and may even go through some sort of “reprogramming” of the soul if this is repeated in numerous lifetimes. In addition, these souls will often enter worlds where they are the victims of injustice as a way to learn from the mistakes and cruelties they impacted on others. Newton writes, “Although souls who are involved with truly evil acts should generally be considered at a low level of development, soul immaturity does not automatically invite malevolent behavior from a damaged human personality. The evolution of souls involves a transition from imperfection to perfection based upon overcoming many difficult body assignments during their task-oriented lives. Souls may also have a predisposition for selecting environments where they consistently don’t work well, or are subverted. Thus, souls may have their identity damaged by poor life choices. However, all souls are held accountable for their conduct in the bodies they occupy.”

We Have Primary Guides

As I have said to my own clients, we have primary guides (one or two) who have been with us since our soul’s conception, and some make way for other guides to take over as we advance. Sometimes these guides incarnate in our earth lives just to add to their own knowledge and experience as teachers, as well as to give us direction directly. Oddly enough, despite incarnating, they are also present in the aether (parallel timelines). Newton writes, “Guides are figures of grace in our existence because they are part of the fulfillment of our destiny.” In conversation with a client regressed to the aether, he writes, “Dr. N: Then define for me why souls are selected as guides. Take a typical guide and tell me what qualities that advanced soul possesses. S: They must be compassionate without being too easy on you. They aren’t judgmental. You don’t have to do things their way. They don’t restrain by imposing their values on you. Dr. N: Okay, those are things guides don’t do. If they don’t over-direct souls, what are the important things they do, as you see it? S: Uh … they build morale in their sections and instill confidence— we all know they have been through a lot themselves. We are accepted for who we are as individuals with the right to make our own mistakes.”

Sometimes I wonder where my primary guide has gone, as I haven’t felt him since pregnancy. I do wonder if he no longer needs to work with me and if I have been passed onto new guides.

Suicide is Not Punished but Frowned Upon

There is no “punishment” in the afterlife, but suicide is seen as the not following through on plans and agreements you made with your guide before entering the timeline you chose. This makes me exceptionally curious on meeting with Hemingway (who I think would greet me in the aether on arrival) to hear what he went through following his decision. Newton’s client, in hypnosis, stated, “No, no, there is no such thing here as punishment—that’s an Earth condition. Clodees [the name of their guide] will be disappointed that I bailed out early and didn’t have the courage to face my difficulties. By choosing to die as I did means I have to come back later and deal with the same thing all over again in a different life. I just wasted a lot of time by checking out early.”

Love and Light Spiritualists are BS

I always tell my clairaudient mediumship clients that I am not a Love&Light practitioner; I will often be blunt because the reality is that we came into this world for a very blunt experience. Not everything is peace and love and kumbaya. We are here for a reason and it includes mastering ourselves when we encounter negative emotions and experiences. Newton writes, “Both positive and negative emotions are mixed between soul and host for their mutual benefit. If a soul only knew love and peace, it would gain no insight and never truly appreciate the value of these positive feelings. The test of reincarnation for a soul coming to Earth is the conquering of fear in a human body. For some, it takes quite a few lives to get used to the earth body.”

You Don’t Need Hundreds of Earth Lives to Advance

Despite the “old soul” label that is often attached to people with wisdom, a soul can advance without experiencing a multitude of earth lives. Newton writes of advanced souls, “Despite their high standards of morality and conduct, entities who have reached the intermediate levels of maturity are modest about their achievements. Naturally, each case is different, but I notice more composure with clients in this stage and above. I see trust rather than suspicion toward the motives of others on both a conscious and subconscious level. These people demonstrate a forward-looking attitude of faith and confidence for the future of humanity, which encourages those around them. My questions to the more mature soul are directed to esoteric ideas of purpose and creation. […] It is not an absolute prerequisite that souls have hundreds of physical lives in order to advance. I once had a client who entered into a Level III state of awareness after only 4,000 years—an outstanding performance.”

You Can Exist in a Parallel Life

This is where the information got a little wild, and it’s worth reading the book to truly understand it. Essentially, some souls make choose to “divide” into two bodies (though all souls are one – it’s best thought of with an example of the Trinity in Christianity) with two different life experiences as the exact same time as a way to advance and learn a little faster. This also allows them to have a greater “rest period” between lives because there are two lives to review rather than one. Newton’s says to his client, while regressed into the aether, “Dr. N: Did Idis [the client’s guide] encourage or discourage your wanting to accelerate development by living parallel lives? S: Life combinations can be tiring and divisive. The effort may become counter-productive with diminished returns for both lives. Dr. N: I have the impression you think the average soul is better off living one life at a time. S: I would say yes, in most instances, but there are other motivations to cause us to speed up incarnations.”

It is rather difficult to wrap your head around without reading the text, but Newton says, “Most of my colleagues who work with past life clients have listened to overlapping time chronologies from people living on Earth in two places at once. Occasionally, there are three or more parallel lives. Souls in almost any stage of development are capable of living multiple physical lives, but I really don’t see much of this in my cases.”

The most fascinating part of all this is that your guide from the aether might be incarnated on earth, experiencing regular life just like you – and you know them in real life, too! There is no conflict with concentration and effectiveness of living these two lives, once the soul has gotten used to it. I am sure my spiritual advisor in this life, Carol, is one of my aether guides as well.

Your Soul has an Ego Identity

Our souls are created in specific “groups” where our lifetimes will be focused on a theme – as I mentioned in my post yesterday. This theme is usually essential to combating a specific ego quality. We, even if we may not like who we are at the essence of it all (eg. a narcissist who continues to be a narcissist in every incarnation) must accept and do our best to be our best.

Newton, while speaking to a regressed client, asks, “Dr. N: Are the ego-identities passed out at random, or is there a choice for beginner souls? S: The new soul is not capable of choice. You acquire your character based upon the way your energy is … combined … put together for you. Dr. N: Is there some sort of spiritual inventory of characteristics that are assigned to souls—so much of one type, so much of another? S: (long pause) I think many factors are considered in the allocations of that which makes us who we are. What I do know is, once given, ego becomes a covenant between oneself and the givers. Dr. N: What does that mean? S: To do the best I can with who I am.”

Earth is in a Severe State – Hence the Collective Effort to Help It Ascend

Our world is Ascending and we have likely transitioned out of 3D at this point in time, but that does not stop Earth from being a difficult – likely the most difficult – planet to incarnate on. Souls incarnate here for very intense learning. It is like a military school experience. Newton, while speaking to a regressed client, hears them state, “S: Then I was offered service on this severe planet. Dr. N: Earth is considered severe? S: Yes. On some worlds you must overcome physical discomforts— even suffering. Others lean toward mental contests. Earth has both.”

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And that is where I am at, now. I am 65% through the book and truly can’t wait to digest it all and then move into his other texts which speak less about the journey and more about the wisdom from Source. I won’t spoil anymore of this book and truly encourage you to read it yourself. It’s definitely made me want to, perhaps, dive into another regression session!

What gem stood out to you the most? What piece piqued your curiosity?

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xx C