From one of the authors

I just found this on a blog at the website for Soul Survivor. Thought the skeptics might enjoy it.

“Confessions of a Skeptic”
By Ken Gross

How shall I put this? I do not believe in reincarnation. Not in this lifetime. I think Fitzgerald got it right; there are no second acts. One day I will die and that will be that.
Thus stands like a rock my unflinching opinion on the subject.
So, when my agent – who believes in everything except me – asked me to write a book about reincarnation, I, said, “Sure.”
Why pick a hard-core skeptic, a journalist, (for God’s sake!), a Cassandra marinated in the smoky cynicism of H.L. Mencken to write a book about something as gauzy and hopeful as faith. It would be like turning the rationalist fox (no relation to the irrational media Fox) loose in the paranormal henhouse?
Obviously, he needed a doubting Thomas, a disbeliever, a cranky cynic to demonstrate that the fix wasn’t in. Who better to vouch for the integrity of Disneyworld than a certified grouch?
And then there’s this interesting other question: why would I take such a job?
The answer is simple. I don’t know. I do like to look into forbidden rooms, I watch Hannity (just to scream at the set), I poke at a sore tooth. I once told Ed Koch how I thought he was doing; (he didn’t appreciate the opinion, but as I always say, don’t ask and I won’t tell.)
Who should ghost the book? Bridey Murphy? Some gullible slave to the outré opinions of the occult?
No, me, a reliable nay-sayer. I saw my duty and backward into the past I marched.
There was, of course, a catch. In order to do this book, I would have to sort of “pass over,” in a manner of speaking. That is, the child who is the subject of this book lived in Lafayette, Louisiana – the Deep South – a part of the country in which I have had more than one near-death experience.
In 1971, when I was a reporter for Newsday on Long Island, I rode with Charlie Evers (the brother of the slain NAACP civil rights leader, Medgar Evers,) as he campaigned for governor of Mississippi. We rode all over the Mississippi Delta and as we drove across the exposed highway, I heard the sound of bullets whizzing past our windshield. Snipers in the trees. Charlie kept a loaded pistol on the seat of the car in case we got a flat. A spare tire in that part of Mississippi in the early ‘70’s was not enough.
So that’s how I remembered the south. With fear and disbelief.
* * *
But this was 2007 and James Leininger lived in the quiet coastal plain of Louisiana – a town called Lafayette. There were no Obama posters, but there were storefront poker palaces and fast-food stretches and a decent hotel. (At one chicken restaurant, as I waited in line for lunch, the manager loudly fired the entire staff, then came out and asked if anyone on the line wanted a job. I went to find a McDonald’s.)
* * *
Bruce and Andrea Leininger were a handsome couple. Not unsophisticated. She had been a ballet dancer in New York and he studied political science at Columbia University under Zbigniew Brzezinski. Now he was working in human relations in the oil industry.
When I got down there, and we started to work on the book, they did not have a clear idea of how this story unfolded – just that something miraculous had taken place to their son James under their roof. It was a painful and awkward process – putting it all together, getting the sequences right, checking out the details, finding the right structure. Together, we drew up timelines and made charts and put it down on paper:
In the year 2000, when James had just turned two, he began to shout in his sleep – not always coherent – but it seemed to be about a World War II pilot killed in the battle of Iwo Jima. At first, it was just a kid having nightmares. But slowly, over a period of time, the child, James Leininger, began to deliver incredible accurate details, speak coherently, add uncanny facts – minutiae about the pilot – James Huston – his life and history. The information he divulged was of such breadth and diversity that it became impossible to dismiss, and even now, even as I still do not believe in reincarnation, I have no reasonable explanation for that unwinding story.
I’ve heard people say, oh, he must have been coached, or influenced by watching TV. But this was a child in his diapers, still sucking on a bottle. How could he be coached to know the flight characteristics of World War II era fighter planes? How could he know the names of the ships and the sailors who had taken part in a certain battle at a certain time?
James Leininger had been examined and tested by Carol Bowman, an authority on the subject of children who have supposedly experienced “past lives. She vouched for his authenticity. James had already appeared on television (a media vetting that has popular, if not scientific standing), and was recognized by the paranormal community as the most authentic case of an American “past life”. Children experiencing “Past Lives” is a well-established (albeit controversial) field of paranormal studies. Several universities have departments devoted solely to its study.
It was always Bruce’s intention to debunk his son’s story. He was an evangelical Christian and thought that proof of reincarnation would damage his faith – one life, one soul, everlasting. Andrea accepted her son’s claims and didn’t attach any particular religious significance to the whole thing. But Bruce was dogged. Over time, he found that there was an annual reunion of members of the ship that his son had named as his own in his sleep. If he could prove that there were no Corsairs (the plane that James insisted he had flown in the war), he would have made his case that the story was not true and his faith was safe. Bruce began to attend the reunions of surviving crew members of Natoma Bay – an escort carrier that took part in the battle. He gathered up facts, all confirming the data fed by his son James, all also confirming that there were no Corsairs on Natoma Bay. He held onto that discrepancy as a holy chalice.
But something odd happened. During the course of his quest to debunk the story, Andrea tracked down the families of the dead crew members and eventually found James Huston’s sister, Ann. The sister had never had any contact with the ship or with the reunions. Still, she was curious about James Leininger, and, finally, sympathetic to his claims to be her brother. She was old and it was hard for her to travel from California, however, so she sent a batch of photographs of her brother taken during the war. And in a couple of the photographs, there was James Huston standing in front of a Corsair.
There were other odd things – when she sent James Leininger a drawing that her mother made of James Huston – the child asked where was the other picture? The other picture – buried up in the attic for sixty years – was a drawing of Ann. Her mother had made two drawings when they were children. How could James Leininger have known that? Ann was stunned. No one knew about that other picture. Except her dead brother.
* * *
As I say, I don’t believe in reincarnation. I hardly believe in carnation.. I am a secular, rationalist skeptic. But I have no reasonable explanation for James Leininger/Huston.
(“SOUL SURVIVOR: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot” by Bruce and Andrea Leininger with Ken Gross will be published by Grand Central Publishing in June of 2009.)

Soul Survivor

I have shared some of my views about reincarnation and past lives in my earlier posts here. There is a new book out that was featured on Good Morning America on Monday, June 8, 2009. This was actually their second appearance on the program. Here is what I found on the GMA website about the book.

"Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot" is the story of James Leininger, who -- a little more than two weeks after his second birthday -- began having blood-curdling nightmares that just would not stop. When James began screaming out recurring phrases like, "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" the Leiningers finally admitted that they truly had to take notice.

When details of planes and war tragedies no two-year-old boy could know continued -- even in stark daylight -- Bruce and Andrea Leininger began to realize that this was an incredible situation. "Soul Survivor" is the story of how the Leiningers pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that he was reliving the past life of World War II fighter pilot James Huston. As Bruce Leininger struggled to understand what was happening to his son, he also uncovered details of James Huston's life -- and death -- as a pilot that will fascinate military buffs everywhere.

I bought a copy of the book and couldn’t stop reading it. The father, Bruce Leininger, describes himself as a conservative Christian whose faith prevents him from believing that his son is the same entity who incarnated as James Huston. The boy’s mother, Andrea, intuitively knows the connection that her son has to the pilot. Getting to the bottom of the “mystery” becomes somewhat of an obsession for Bruce. He looks up surviving members of the ship’s crew and attends their reunions. He copies their personal memoirs. He collects all sorts of declassified documents from government agencies. His house is literally stacked with documents.

Why? Because he needs to prove that this can’t be true. He needs to prove that what he believes in, his faith, is the only truth. He takes his son and his wife to a crew reunion. His wife meets people that she has only spoken to over the phone. His son meets men for the first time and calls them by their names. These where the men he fought the second world war with. They share stories together. Many of them don’t know what to think about the younger James. In the end, Bruce finally has to surrender to the new truth.

There is much more to the story. I suggest you get a copy of the book yourself and weigh the evidence if you are still skeptical. This is a book for skeptics. Dr. Brian Weiss, author of “Many Lives, Many Masters” and several other books on past lives believes that reincarnation can be scientifically verified. Why is it taking so long for people in the West to open to this centuries long accepted Eastern belief? I don’t know why, but thought you might find it interesting that it is getting prime time exposure.

Past LIfe Recall Technique

Typically, hypnosis is used for past life regression. We use a different method that may be easier for some people to feel comfortable with. We use guided journeying. While a guided journey may seem very similiar to hypnosis to most people, it has an element to it that we feel is very important. During the guided journey, the client is guided by the facilitator and his/her higher self. The client is totally in control of the session. The facilitator only needs to pay attention to the guidance that is being given to undersand if the client is ready to go deeper. When the client is ready to begin the viewing process, both the client and the facilitator can trust that only the most appropriate information is going to be reviewed.

Share your past life healing experiences

In his book, Messages From the Masters, Brian Weiss makes the following statement, "Psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapies are in their death throes. Techniques are outmoded, slow, and ineffective. Language has become encrusted, formalized, impenetrable. There is no lifeblood in psychotherapy these days, just arid and monolithic structure, just dust." This quote comes from page 174. Do you agree with him?

I'd like to start a dialogue about healing experiences people have had with past life techniques. Would you like to share your healing story that involves past life healing techniques?

Reincarnation

Reincarnation. What are your thoughts about it? I was skeptical for quite some time. Then I read a book, Many Lives, Many Masters , and my thinking changed. The author of the book, Brian Weiss, MD, is a graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School, and is also Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. In subsequent books he documented his case studies and came to the conclusion that reincarnation is scientifically verifiable.

Reincarnation is scientifically verifiable. Then why don’t more people believe in it? Perhaps because the message of past lives goes against traditional Christian religion, or perhaps because this is a really big claim and there is something blocking most people from accepting it. How would your life change if you were to accept the belief in reincarnation? There have even been books written by other scientists such as Michael Newton, PH.D. who has taken the process further and documented lives between lives. His first book is entitled Journey of Souls.

What does reincarnation have to do with wellness?
As Dr. Weiss found out, many of his patients experienced reductions in and elimination of clinically diagnosed medical conditions while working with him. He can only attribute these healings to his client’s connections to their past lives. When they experience the connection to an appropriate past life, a shift in perspective occurs that initiates a healing process. They no longer see themselves as victims of a disease or medical condition. They see themselves empowered to move beyond the current situation.