There is so much I want to talk about this book. And my small narrow review does not do justice to the awesomeness of it. Among all the "pros" of this book, there are some "cons" as well. I will talk more about the cons in section 2. First, the pros: This is no doubt the best book I have read so far of any books. It is written so simply but the implications are overwhelmingly deep. I am actually having a scheduled session with a hypnotherapist next month to validate the work of this book even further. This book elegantly unifies long sought enigmas on souls, life after death, out of body experiences, reincarnation, and karma. I have read Buddha's teaching. And I can see that every aspect of this book either enhance my understanding of Buddha's teaching or give a clear and concrete example of what he was talking about. For example, Buddha said we have no self, but we do reincarnate. this book really explains what that means - it means we have a soul but that soul is not our body or mind. As the matter of fact, it is described as an energy which can multiply and be at different places at the same time. So the traditional one-person self is no longer valid. And another example is how this book goes into explaining the purpose of reincarnations and what is the ultimate goal of it. This completely aligned with Buddha's explanation about how we keep being reborn until we are completely "enlightened" from which point we no longer need to be reborn.
While Buddha's teaching is cryptic and often hard to visualize (it has been said to for monks to mediate a long time to understand what Buddha means), Michael reveals in plain English what it means and it only takes you a duration to read this book to understand a lot of it.
In summary, Michael's work on this book is amazingly revolutionary and the fact that it is aligned at near perfection with the most well-known ancient religious beliefs makes this book a more credible material to the believers.
Now the cons:
I do love this book. But in the back of my mind, I still have that tiny doubt about the truth behind - not the book but - the sessions. These people may have truly experienced those visions, but it does not prove they are real. All could be a work of their own mind's imagination. A guided session could provide a framework for all of these well-groomed sessions. Several questions remain in my mind. For example, if souls live forever, how do they sustain themselves? The herarchical society that the souls live in is too similar to a human's society. I feel like reading the description of the soul's place as a large university in which souls are placed in certain groups and work out their "courses" in order to "graduate". Also the souls emotions are exactly human's emotions (minus the negative emotions which seemed to be non-existent). There are some conflicting information as well, for example: All souls mind are transparent and all can read each-others mind but some sould can "block" what can be read. Also the selection of reincarnation is said to be volunteered but described a cohearsed. There are times, I feel like this is a work of fiction as well.
Regarless of what one believes or not believes. No one can deny that this book is a writing masterpiece in its clarity, content, and meaningfullness.
Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars | 12,512 ratings
Price: 15.42
Last update: 12-23-2024
About this item
Now considered a classic in the field, this remarkable book was the first to fully explore the mystery of life between lives. Journey of Souls presents the first-hand accounts of 29 people placed in a "superconscious" state of awareness using Dr. Michael Newton's groundbreaking techniques. This unique approach allows Dr. Newton to reach his subjects' hidden memories of life in the spirit world after physical death. While in deep hypnosis, the subjects movingly describe what happened to them between lives. They reveal graphic details about what the spirit world is really like, where we go and what we do as souls, and why we come back in certain bodies. Through the extraordinary stories in this book, you will learn the specifics about:
- How it feels to die
- What you see and feel right after death
- When and where you learn to recognize soul mates on earth
- Different levels of soul: beginning, intermediate, and advanced
- What happens to "disturbed" souls
- The purpose of life and manifestation of a "creator"
Top reviews from the United States
Nick N5.0 out of 5 stars Love it 99.999%
James G. Dickinson5.0 out of 5 stars We Are Not Alone
The most comforting message from this remarkable book may be its convincing evidence that we are not alone. First published in 1994 and now with the astonishingly small number of 300,000 copies sold, Journey of Souls probes the previous lives of 29 people who underwent regression hypnotherapy by Michael Newton, PhD, a certified master hypnotherapist.
These disclosures riveted my attention, because 15 years ago I was transported in a near-death asthmatic crisis to the edge of the realm Newton and his 29 subjects describe. See The Soul Factory on [...], for a description of what two churchmen have since told me was probably a "revelation."
That experience showed me, in fragments, what Newton has skillfully sewn together in Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives -- proof that we are not alone in the universe, that we all have souls, that we return again and again to chaotic Earth and to other worlds in an infinite scheme of evolving Creation, the elusive purpose of which is to build perfection. Even plants and animals have souls in this common, eternal quest, Newton reports -- albeit souls of a less-developed nature than ours.
This work is not anti-Christian or anti-religion. Indeed, it reinforces most of the main themes found in the main religions. But it does depart sharply from beliefs many live with, such as the coming of a Day of Judgment, and Eternal Hellfire and Damnation as punishment.
These are not true, Newton tells us. In the evolving eternity of time and space, our souls grow and develop, and are not judged or damned. Most of the Bible should not be read literally as a truthful record of actual events, but as a profoundly meaningful collection of moral, ethical and spiritual messages wrapped in stories or parables as their vehicles.
For an excellent, short, lay-language overview of Newton's discoveries and a portal to diverse other sites and experiences in the timeless realm of souls he discovered, visit [...]. It could take you a lifetime to explore everything that has been experienced and retold about this subject; indeed, it took Newton 10 years to produce his book.
Which leads me to an intriguing question: Why have only 300,000 copies been sold in five editions since 1994?
One answer may be Newton's choice of publisher -- Woodbury, Minnesota-based Llewellyn Publications, which its Website [...] reveals to be heavily invested in works about witchcraft, astrology, tarot, paganism, the paranormal and the like.
Mainstream publishers, fed on celebrity and "how-to" blockbuster titles, may have found Journey of Souls an unlikely candidate for mass appeal, thus pushing Newton into a smaller but friendlier, alternative publishing niche.
Another answer may be that not many people are open to "new" ideas, however well authenticated, to the question: "What happens to us when we die?" Since infancy, most have been satisfied with the comforting answers parents for centuries have given: "you go to Heaven to live with Jesus forever" -- an answer that every church reinforces in greater and lesser measure throughout our lives. It's repeated in every religious funeral service.
Newton's book doesn't debunk this idea, either -- rather, it gives a much more "scientific" and to me, believable version of it.
Since the first Sputnik and views of distant heavenly bodies and galaxies began appearing in every child's schoolbooks, the idea of Heaven as a place in the clouds populated by white-robed angels behind the Pearly Gates has long been unbelievable to modern minds.
And from that simple disillusionment to its grimmer next step -- that God is not seated on a throne there with Jesus at his right hand and the Holy Ghost at his left -- may seem a quantum leap to many.
So we shrink from it. This is something we don't spend a lot of time wondering about as we go about our daily lives and habits, including the rituals and liturgy of church on Sundays.
"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come ..." We believe this prayer, even as we know the greater reality that there is no Heaven and no Kingdom -- at least, not above the clouds or anywhere else our telescopes can see. Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer before there were any telescopes.
Although speculation persists, some Bible scholars even insisting they have found heaven physically located within our Solar System ([...]), the modern church does not teach us where Heaven and the Kingdom of God are located. Instead, it invites us to imagine them in a spiritual context, open to a vast array of future possibilities, including their joint establishment here on Planet Earth after Judgment Day -- to which I can only wonder: If we have to wait until then to see it, where is it now and where has it been since God, in the Book of Genesis, created Heaven and Earth?
These are difficult theological questions to which organized religion has no satisfactory answers. And since it has no satisfactory answers, most of us don't think about it. We either have faith in the unknowable, or we don't -- and increasingly large numbers of us don't.
That's where Newton's descriptions can fill a void, if you can be bothered looking for the answers to theological questions that you may have for so long given up asking in your faith. If you're like me, you have been "treading water" in this area for long time.
Michael Newton began his research as a self-admitted atheist. His research, he says, made him a believer in an infinitely evolving universal Creation and in its single Creator, who, he admits, might well be God.
Reading Journey of Souls reminded me not only of my own still-vivid encounter 15 years ago and the indelible impressions that left in me, but also of so many of the eternal themes of the Bible, and of the fundamental teaching of other religions.
The spirit world where souls eternally learn and strive to improve, revisiting Earth and joining new human lives in their quest as part of continuing Creation, is based on love, according to Newton and others whose own observations and experiences support his narratives. Vengeance, hatred, envy, greed, lust and other vices are -- like punishment and retribution -- all human deficiencies not found in the realm of souls that Newton and others describe.
Although Christianity and other religions do not directly address this, their positive teachings and the universal rules for living a good life in harmony with each other here on Earth, all broadly comport with what is found in the Journey of Souls.
These disclosures riveted my attention, because 15 years ago I was transported in a near-death asthmatic crisis to the edge of the realm Newton and his 29 subjects describe. See The Soul Factory on [...], for a description of what two churchmen have since told me was probably a "revelation."
That experience showed me, in fragments, what Newton has skillfully sewn together in Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives -- proof that we are not alone in the universe, that we all have souls, that we return again and again to chaotic Earth and to other worlds in an infinite scheme of evolving Creation, the elusive purpose of which is to build perfection. Even plants and animals have souls in this common, eternal quest, Newton reports -- albeit souls of a less-developed nature than ours.
This work is not anti-Christian or anti-religion. Indeed, it reinforces most of the main themes found in the main religions. But it does depart sharply from beliefs many live with, such as the coming of a Day of Judgment, and Eternal Hellfire and Damnation as punishment.
These are not true, Newton tells us. In the evolving eternity of time and space, our souls grow and develop, and are not judged or damned. Most of the Bible should not be read literally as a truthful record of actual events, but as a profoundly meaningful collection of moral, ethical and spiritual messages wrapped in stories or parables as their vehicles.
For an excellent, short, lay-language overview of Newton's discoveries and a portal to diverse other sites and experiences in the timeless realm of souls he discovered, visit [...]. It could take you a lifetime to explore everything that has been experienced and retold about this subject; indeed, it took Newton 10 years to produce his book.
Which leads me to an intriguing question: Why have only 300,000 copies been sold in five editions since 1994?
One answer may be Newton's choice of publisher -- Woodbury, Minnesota-based Llewellyn Publications, which its Website [...] reveals to be heavily invested in works about witchcraft, astrology, tarot, paganism, the paranormal and the like.
Mainstream publishers, fed on celebrity and "how-to" blockbuster titles, may have found Journey of Souls an unlikely candidate for mass appeal, thus pushing Newton into a smaller but friendlier, alternative publishing niche.
Another answer may be that not many people are open to "new" ideas, however well authenticated, to the question: "What happens to us when we die?" Since infancy, most have been satisfied with the comforting answers parents for centuries have given: "you go to Heaven to live with Jesus forever" -- an answer that every church reinforces in greater and lesser measure throughout our lives. It's repeated in every religious funeral service.
Newton's book doesn't debunk this idea, either -- rather, it gives a much more "scientific" and to me, believable version of it.
Since the first Sputnik and views of distant heavenly bodies and galaxies began appearing in every child's schoolbooks, the idea of Heaven as a place in the clouds populated by white-robed angels behind the Pearly Gates has long been unbelievable to modern minds.
And from that simple disillusionment to its grimmer next step -- that God is not seated on a throne there with Jesus at his right hand and the Holy Ghost at his left -- may seem a quantum leap to many.
So we shrink from it. This is something we don't spend a lot of time wondering about as we go about our daily lives and habits, including the rituals and liturgy of church on Sundays.
"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come ..." We believe this prayer, even as we know the greater reality that there is no Heaven and no Kingdom -- at least, not above the clouds or anywhere else our telescopes can see. Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer before there were any telescopes.
Although speculation persists, some Bible scholars even insisting they have found heaven physically located within our Solar System ([...]), the modern church does not teach us where Heaven and the Kingdom of God are located. Instead, it invites us to imagine them in a spiritual context, open to a vast array of future possibilities, including their joint establishment here on Planet Earth after Judgment Day -- to which I can only wonder: If we have to wait until then to see it, where is it now and where has it been since God, in the Book of Genesis, created Heaven and Earth?
These are difficult theological questions to which organized religion has no satisfactory answers. And since it has no satisfactory answers, most of us don't think about it. We either have faith in the unknowable, or we don't -- and increasingly large numbers of us don't.
That's where Newton's descriptions can fill a void, if you can be bothered looking for the answers to theological questions that you may have for so long given up asking in your faith. If you're like me, you have been "treading water" in this area for long time.
Michael Newton began his research as a self-admitted atheist. His research, he says, made him a believer in an infinitely evolving universal Creation and in its single Creator, who, he admits, might well be God.
Reading Journey of Souls reminded me not only of my own still-vivid encounter 15 years ago and the indelible impressions that left in me, but also of so many of the eternal themes of the Bible, and of the fundamental teaching of other religions.
The spirit world where souls eternally learn and strive to improve, revisiting Earth and joining new human lives in their quest as part of continuing Creation, is based on love, according to Newton and others whose own observations and experiences support his narratives. Vengeance, hatred, envy, greed, lust and other vices are -- like punishment and retribution -- all human deficiencies not found in the realm of souls that Newton and others describe.
Although Christianity and other religions do not directly address this, their positive teachings and the universal rules for living a good life in harmony with each other here on Earth, all broadly comport with what is found in the Journey of Souls.