I've had things happen to me that I couldn't otherwise explain, so I sought explanations. It turns out that knowledge about our life when we aren't in a human body is readily available, it's just that few people want to know it. Without further ado, here is a reading list if you'd like to learn about this topic.

Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind
by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer

Materialism is the conviction that the universe consists only of dead matter as our current physics knows it, and that our consciousness inexplicably emerges from this. This book will prepare you gently for the possibility that materialism is not merely an unproven jump to a conclusion, but has actually been shown false with experiments. The science being done on this is rigorous, but isn't being taken seriously because materialism is a faith: an unproven belief that people adhere to in defense against the unknown. Trying to disprove it evokes fear and discomfort, but the science is there, and is thought-provoking.

Glimpsing Heaven: The Stories and Science of Life After Death
by Judy Bachrach

This book will open your mind to the possibility that a significant number of convincing death experiences have in fact been reported by people who returned to life, and that these experiences aren't explained by dying brain activity or hypoxia. The book prudently stops short of speculating on the afterlife, its main purpose is to crack the door open, and show that something is beyond it that we should not ignore.

Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
Destiny of Souls: New Case Studies of Life Between Lives
by Michael Newton

This is the life's work of Michael Newton, who claims to have recorded thousands of sessions of hypnotic regression with clients from a variety of cultures and religious backgrounds. Newton performed deep regressions that led clients not merely into memories of past lives, but into what happens in the spiritual realm when we are between lives. Not all regressions were successful, but thousands were, and they revealed memories of a spiritual world that were consistent among clients, even if they were in conflict with clients' own beliefs before the regression. Newton approaches the issue methodically and systematically, and builds a detailed picture of the spirit world, and what happens between reincarnations.

In his later years, after being inundated with interest, Newton founded The Newton Institute, which teaches hypnotherapists to perform the same type of regression. I've talked to such a therapist, who confirmed that her clients' regression experiences are consistent with Newton's work, and are that way regardless of their religious background, including clients who had not been exposed to Newton.

Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives
by Brian L. Weiss

Weiss's books are popular and moving, but a skeptical reader will want to read them after Newton's. Weiss's work supports Newton's, but is less systematic and more anecdotal.

Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot
by Andrea Leininger, Bruce Leininger, and Ken Gross

I haven't read this book, I don't have a craving to, but maybe you'll want to. A child gave a detailed account of his previous life as a WWII fighter pilot, which his parents were able to corroborate. This is not the only such account; past life memories and spiritual awareness, such as contact with dead people, appear to be frequent in children up to ages 3-5, but tend to be dismissed by parents who have their own beliefs, and/or no one to share this with. It seems that 3-5 are the ages when our built-in memory blocks start to set in, but prior to that, many children remember.

Several books and articles, such as this one, reporting on reincarnation research
by Jim B. Tucker, continuing work from Ian Stevenson, at University of Virginia

Tucker, and previously Stevenson, have compiled reports of previous life memories from many children, and found compelling corroborating evidence in a large number of cases. As with Soul Survivor, I've read about this work, rather than read it directly.


Non-Novice-Friendly


Resources above this are suitable for novice readers. Resources below are not; I find it unlikely that a novice reader will be able to welcome this material.

Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul
by Jane Roberts

Seth shares information liberally and with aplomb. He expresses complex ideas, worthy of volumes themselves, in single paragraphs which not infrequently bewilder the reader with implications. This is only the first book of many; yet in it, he loses no time to explain not only reincarnation, but bewildering concepts such as probable pasts and futures, infinite parallel realities, states of consciousness that may allow a person to access them, and so on and so forth.

Seth's is the only work I've found so far that just might provide an explanation for the many reports of people who believe they have "jumped realities" - sometimes people with an unfolding awareness of a parallel existence, but mostly people with memories of dying prematurely in an alternate universe, and resuming awareness in ours.

You may want to start with this introduction to Seth - I found it a good one.

The Law of One, or The Ra Material
by James Allen McCarty, Don Elkins and Carla Rueckert

Once you've read much of the other work above, and satisfied yourself that evidence for reincarnation is plentiful, you may find yourself ready to suspend disbelief and read what a sixth-density social memory complex has to tell us about the purpose of incarnation in our density (acquiring polarization for either service-to-self, or service-to-others), veiling (why we forget when we incarnate, and how the experience was different for other creatures before there was the veil), sexual energy transfers, and other topics.


Edit history

Nov 1, 2014    Original version
Apr 10, 2015Added The Law of One and the work of Jim B. Tucker
Jul 10, 2015Added Seth Speaks