2013-01-01. Woman’s Sacrifice.
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Revolt of the Rebel Angels: The Future of The Multiverse – Book 2; Chapter 6 ~by Timothy Wyllie
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An Invasion Collapses, The Purpose of Cults, Reincarnates, and Lemurian Influences.
I wasn’t altogether surprised when I finally managed to tear myself away from the action and see if there were any Seraphic Transport available, only to find I’d missed my friendly seraph. She’d just transported out empty to another planet in the Local System. It’s possible I might have been able to persuade her to drop me off on Earth on her way, but the fact was I’d found myself drawn by that magical sound to stay, which in turn caused me to realize that it was my cowardice that was making me to want to leave. Cowardice? I didn’t recognize it at first as a personal feeling. I didn’t know what it was. It was new to me, the feeling of it; although I’d previously observed the results of cowardice in others, it was invariably without experiencing the associated shame and guilt that accompany cowardice in the mortal psyche.
This was different. It was almost too much. The feelings were as dreadful as they were new to me. After hearing the news from the Transport Center I felt even worse, since now I felt trapped. I moved morosely back to the flat boulder overlooking the coast from which I could watch the fleet as it neared the shore. As I stared out over the fleet with boats filling my visual field, it came to me that my cowardice had to be one of the possible consequences of my actually initiating an idea–a concept significant enough to potentially alter the course of Zandana’s history. This isn’t something watchers ever do. It isn’t our function.
We observe. That’s why we “rebel angels” are called watchers. In the time before the rebellion when I was a simple seraph, I was permitted to intervene in human affairs to an extremely limited extent and generally only in an emergency. You may recall some of the ways I was able to help smooth the way for young Onya on her dangerous journey to the city of Dalamatia, back on Earth in the balmy millennia before the uprising changed everything. After the rebellion, those of us seconded to the Prince’s mission and who aligned ourselves with Lucifer and chose to follow the Prince, were renamed watchers, reflecting the instruction we’d all received not to take any action which would influence or affect mortals in any way. And, here, on Zandana, I had done just that! I knew what fear was, of course, but empathically picking up fear from mortals and thus experiencing something of theirs was turning out to be a pale shadow of the intensity of the terror I found myself feeling as a result of my own action.
After a while I moved slowly back along the cliff path towards the city: I’d given myself a lot to think about. I knew I’d become inextricably woven into the fabric of the planet whatever was going to happen when these two would-be antagonists actually engaged with one another. I recall thinking; ‘so this is what is meant by having a will!’ Every act, it suddenly struck me, really does have its consequences. Being prepared to take responsibility for the outcome, whatever it turned out to be, was part of what it meant to be mortal–to be a “will creature.” It also allowed me to realize, perhaps for the first time, how hopelessly illequipped so many of us celestials were to really understand the choice with which Lucifer was presenting us at the time of the revolution. I admit I was carried away by all the wonderful prospects he was promising. Yet, I can’t recall giving any thought as to whether there might be any negative consequences of the uprising. Was it my excitement, I wondered, that blocked my vision?
The revolution was such an unexpected event and, for many of us, it was the first major choice with which we’d ever been presented. Speaking for myself, I’m now sure I was wholly unprepared emotionally to take such a serious decision–one with so many possible outcomes. It’s fundamental to the celestial psychology to trust our superiors and it was this dilemma that most of us found so troubling at the time. You see, Lucifer was our direct superior, so this introduced another layer of complication to the issue. By taking the stand Lucifer did, he was openly expressing his distrust of his superiors. What were we to think? Who were we to believe? M A maintained we should place our trust in the time-honored traditions; yet those were the very traditions our superior was calling into question. I’m not trying to excuse myself, I still feel our decision to follow Lucifer was a courageous one, however misguided it may be turn out to have been. I merely want to mark this moment on Zandana as the first occasion I found myself impelled by my emotional body to gain some real insight into the consequence of my choices.
This might well sound simple-minded to you, patient reader, since you will have likely been raised to be aware that you are responsible for all your acts and choices. And perhaps, if you missed that class, you will have discovered over the course of your lives, both the blessings and the pain of taking personal responsibility. But for a watcher, the intensity of the feelings were new. I hadn’t felt anything of this severity before. My fear, mixed with an unexpected frisson of excited anticipation, all flavored with a sense that I’d really blown it this time, became such a rich emotional concoction it almost overwhelmed me with its raw power. I needed to stop moving again, this time with my back against one of the majestic Zandana trees growing on the promontory. I could catch a glimpse of the ships through the undergrowth, now within a mile or so of the coast. Through the haze it appeared to me they were dropping anchor.
The chanting had ceased leaving only the pulsating beat of a thousand drums. Still high enough on the promontory to overlook the city, I could see flashes of movement in some of the gardens as women made last minute adjustments to their clothes. The city itself, with its lush parks and superb public sculptures, had been spruced up; the gleaming white administrative buildings were now looking from a distance like elegantly carved blocks of snow. The wide avenues–a series of concentric circles girdling the city–were cleared of the blanket of purple leaves which dropped from the massive trees at this time of year. Zandan had been made to appear like a city that was utterly indifferent to a threat from the outside: a citizenry so confident of themselves, so comfortable in the life they had developed for themselves, that surely any outsider would prefer to live like them.
They’d been living in a bubble of their own superiority; secure in the belief, or so they thought, that the political intrigues they’d sewn on the other islands would have kept them subservient and undeveloped. Now they were going to find out the results of their strategy. I wondered if they hadn’t reckoned for the resentment they’d be bound to have stirred up. The barbarian soldiers were by now in small boats rowing hard for the shore. A new chant had started. The insistent rhythm of the oars slapping the water wove yet another cross-beat into the pulsating rhythm of the drummers who’d remained back on the larger ships. Quite what all the drumming and chanting was about was a mystery to me. Was it a way of working up their bloodlust? A subterfuge to confuse the enemy? A way of softening up the opposition? An ingenious disinformation tactic? Frankly, I had no idea. Had they somehow heard about the Zandana Princes’ novel strategy and were trying to outsmart us?
Despite their long lances they didn’t appear all that aggressive from where I was viewing. When the nearest small boats were a few hundred yards off the shore I heard the ringing of bells drifting up to me from the city, which was followed immediately by women emerging from their houses and gardens and threading their way through the cobbled streets to the shoreline. At one moment the city appeared completely empty; the next, the streets were alive with flashes of every tint and hue, moving like columns of brightly-colored army ants through the narrow alleys of the domestic quarter. The women were all dressed in their finest and most colorful clothing. Slim or plump, tall and willowy, small but well-formed, some nervous and others striding with a lusty confidence, the women laughed and chattered as they joined up with their friends and neighbors making their way through the streets.
I could see from my perch that Unava must have choreographed the encounter so as to permit the barbarians to land before the women were to make themselves known. And that’s what I could now see occurring: men jumping into the surf and splashing ashore. Even from where I was watching I could see their bewilderment as they milled around on the beaches. Not quite sure what to do in the lack of any opposition the front ranks, suspecting a trap, hung back while more and more warriors crowded in behind them. I could faintly hear the piping sounds of the officer’s whistles as they struggled to organize the increasing chaos. It was obvious, even from here, that the men were completely discombobulated.
Trained to fight, they’d been effectively thrown into a collective state of mild cognitive dissonance. Some were trying to push forward but were finding themselves hemmed in by the volcanic cliffs; while their companions were spreading out laterally along the beaches, clearly hoping to find simpler routes to scale the cliffs. Frankly, I was encouraged by their evident lack of good intelligence. I didn’t know it at the time but Unava had instructed all access to the beaches to be blocked off save a selected half-dozen. These were chosen because they were exceptionally steep, narrow, tracks, so the invaders would be tired after clambering to the top of the cliffs– and they would be in single file. Moving a little closer, I could see what Unava had in mind. He reasoned that if they could break the invading army down to individuals, the bonding instilled in them by their training would dissolve in the face of the promise of pleasure.
Now, this was interesting! They’d been fine-tuning my idea. For the first time I felt this could work! It really could work. I’d moved lower now, with the top of the cliffs blocking my view of the beaches, although I could still see over the trees in the lush park that separated the coast from the city. This was where the women were gathering to support one another before threading their way through the stands of magnificent redwoods to greet the barbarians. Throughout this whole operation, I saw no men present. I was so emotionally involved by this time that I next found myself on the dunes watching the first of the barbarians to climb, one by one, out of the clefts in the rock face that Unava had left open. The men clearly had no idea what was waiting for them. Already confused and exhausted by the stiff climb, they emerged blinking in the sun and before they had a chance to gather their wits, two young, scantily-clad, Zandan beauties, stepped gracefully up, one to offer water from a crystal bowl, the other to hang a lei of local flowers around their necks.
Even a watcher could appreciate it was an irresistible display by the most gorgeous and seductive young women. I realized Unava must have instructed the cream of Zandan female pulchritude to step forward to greet the first of the warriors. That had to be made to work if the strategy was going to be successful. If the poor men had been bewildered on the beaches, they appeared baffled by the loving attention they were receiving and willingly surrendered their resistance. There were, of course, a few men (a very few) who attempted to push the women away; who refused their water and leis; and who showed every sign of trying to be the warriors they believed themselves to be. But that became a signal for three or four more young beauties to surround the man in a swaying and provocative dance. The men seemed completely flummoxed. No longer proud warriors, they couldn’t bring themselves to use their weapons on the women. When they saw their buddies willingly throwing down their swords and lances and accepting wine and fruit, they quickly followed suit and surrendered to the women’s’ amorous advances.
If some of the men might have thought they’d been poisoned by the water they showed no sign of it as they were led away into the park by the women. I’d already noticed picnic tables and colorful rugs had been set up in the many groves and forest clearings throughout the park. Unava’s people had been busy! Above and beyond anything I’d suggested. It soon became a remarkably fluid process as exhausted warriors emerged one after another. Any remaining belligerence left in them after the climb I could see turning to astonishment, as beautiful young women threw their arms around them, before leading them away into the woods. As the afternoon passed this process became progressively easier as the men came into view expecting to be pitched into the battle of their lives only to find no battle and no army. Just Zandan women who seemed to want to have their way with them. What’s a healthy red-blooded warrior to do about it?!
When the barbarian ranking officers finally made it up the cliff and saw the situation for themselves they must have realized their invasion plans were going severely awry. No information about the women, apparently, had gone back down the line, for reasons they would soon be appreciating. Emerging out into the evening light there was some peremptory use of whistles from the officers, which struck me as more habitual than anything else–since there was no one around to whistle at, or to obey their orders. I assumed the officers must have lost control of their men in the chaos down of the beaches and never fully reclaimed it. In fact, I heard later, that when they saw some of their more intrepid troops locating the routes up the cliffs and beckoning their fellows to follow them up, the officers were forced to make the best of it, by trying to bully their men into orderly lines, and then by urging them up the steep cliff paths.
They’d heard no sound of the battle they supposed was being fought on top of the cliffs, and must have dismissed the silence as an optimistic sign, believing their warriors were successfully pushing their way inland. The last of the invaders were finally off the beaches by the late afternoon and the empty rowboats were slowly making their way back to the ships. Each was paddled by a man standing high on the stern who, as I watched them leave the bay for the ocean, seemed to be battling a powerful unexpected crosscurrent with a single long oar. Beyond them I could see the fleet; the great wooden ships, their sails furled and standing light in the water, were straining at their anchors’ chains. Some of the small boats had already been forced off-course by the current when the last of the officers, a corpulent man who I presumed to be in charge, managed to haul himself to the top of the cliff. The officers who preceded him had proved every bit as amenable to the approaches of the women as had the ranks. So when he clambered out and found no one there; no battle, no warriors, none of his loyal officers; just smiling young women in diaphanous gowns, offering tender ministrations after the long climb, I could see he felt he had no choice but submit with as much grace as he could muster.
As night fell I could see the women, some in small groups, some paired off with “their” barbarian visitors, making their way through the woods towards the city. I knew the city’s plan was to for everyone to open their homes to the visitors; to greet them as old friends and offer them the best of everything. The park, which stretched for many miles and curved halfway around the city, was reserved for the recreation of the citizens. All building was forbidden. In fact, to the casual gaze, the park appeared a natural marvel with forested hills, waterfalls, and streams which snaked through meadows rich with wildlife; small animals which would look surprisingly familiar to a visitor from Earth. Trees which you would recognize as being close to weeping willows hung low over the placid water of the lakes; birds, not dissimilar to the birds you know on your world, flapped freely between the branches of what might have been elm trees, except for the deep violet sheen on their trunks.
The extensive stands of old-growth trees–the only feature which may have been natural–wound along the coast and covered the promontory from which I’d originally spotted all those aquatic hedgehogs poised for invasion earlier in the day. Yet, the place did appear entirely natural, a swathe of Zandana’s wilderness preserved for posterity, and which the citizens could be justifiably proud to pass down to their grandchildren. Of course it wasn’t natural at all, but the result of the cunning foresight on the part of a particularly harsh dictator some two millennia earlier. Ruling at a time in the Zandana’s history when a number of the elite families were struggling for dominance, his methods of dealing with troublemakers were, for Zandana, exceptionally cruel, and yet effective enough to keep him in power until he was driven into exile as an old man. In the account I’d heard on an earlier trip, this dictator had a change of heart late in his life and wanting to be remembered for some great act of public generosity rather than for his brutality, he’d created the park.
It was no surprise to his subjects when he ended up so draining the city’s resources that by the time his designers and contractors had finished the task of molding the landscape to his satisfaction, he was remembered for the park, but not at all for the reasons he’d originally hoped. So, no, the park could never be considered a natural wilderness and once a few generations of Zandanans had come and gone, all that remained was a ironical monument to a foolish and profligate dictator. And, of course, an appropriately self-effacing story with which to regale visitors to the city illustrating how far the citizens of Zandan have come politically from those bad old days.
On Zandana, the crisis caused by the invasion started to dissipate after the third day. It became clear that being greeted with a rich combination of sexual pleasure and the ecstatic and aphrodisiacal properties of the sacred plants and herbs–cunningly administered to the barbarians when required by their Zandan lovers–were having the intended effect. Since the invaders boosted their confidence with fermented drinks and knew nothing of the entheogenic class of plants that grew so profusely on the balmy southern continent, and yet rarely on the other islands, they were particularly open to revelatory insights provided by the entheogens. And when fear or paranoia would arise in the warriors there were always beautiful women around him to mop his brow and comfort him.
Prince Zanda had advised Unava to proclaim the following month a Festival of Reunionification, cleverly suggesting by this that it was no invasion, merely the joyful reunion of a planetary family separated by oceans. After five days of celebration in the city, and with no sign of their warriors, the captains of the ships standing five miles offshore also having received no information, the few remaining commanders found themselves facing a completely unanticipated situation. Of course, they sent further small boats to investigate, but when they too failed to return–the captains stopped permitting this after the seventh boat disappeared with all occupants–the dilemma assumed improbable proportions. I couldn’t resist taking a quick swing through their ships since I knew what I observed would be of some value to Zanda. His midwayers were no more able to break through the astral veils of the opposition midwayers who’d remained protecting the ships, than the far fewer midwayers with the invasion fleet were capable of penetrating Prince Zanda’s subspace shielding.
In short, neither side possessed any good intelligence about the intentions of the leadership of the other. I heard the frustration building up aboard the bridge of the main commander’s vessel as the final boat, together with another eight of his most loyal adjutants, failed to reappear. Their angry discussions were too confused to report in detail but the unavoidable conclusion reached was always the same. The large troop ships with their oceangoing keels were unable to approach closer to the shore than two miles because of the many coral banks in the warm waters surrounding the continent. And how many boats and men were they prepared to continue sending into a completely unknown situation? And never see them again? “Sir, we can try trimming the keels off perhaps we’d” said a junior officer, blurting it out before he’d thought it through. “And how’d we return, idiot!?” “Well, perhaps just one, Sir one boat” “And you? You’ll take her in, will you?”
The commander’s voice softened somewhat as he realized he had to try everything to find out what had happened, or he didn’t hold out much hope of avoiding certain death upon his return. “To be honest,” I heard him confide to a trusted junior colleague, “after this debacle I doubt if they’re going to let any of us live!” “Regardless?” “I’ll give him a chance one boat. That’s all. After this” the commander swept his hand around at the nearly 200 boats anchored in a great flotilla stretching as far as he could see, “ what is it? A farce? A tragedy? Have we won or lost? Is it some kind of magic we know nothing of?” “No harm in trying one, then, Sir.” The junior officer clearly wasn’t going to attempt to address the unanswerable. “We have to be able to show we tried everything. D’you see: We have to well, do everything” “Wouldn’t be right otherwise, Sir.” Setting about sawing off the keel of a large sailing ship while at sea should never be taken on lightly. Even in an age of underwater breathing devices it would be a rash decision. In this case it took two weeks, at the loss of thirteen men, to hack away a substantial section of the large hardwood slab of timber. They’d had to sacrifice the ship’s close-woven fabric sails.
These they then cut into pieces and sewed together into large cones. Covering them in a coating of pitch and allowing them to dry out for a few days, they attached ropes to the top the cones and lowered then into the water with a diver inside each one. Needless to say, the cones were only marginally effective. When seawater wasn’t leaking in, the devices allowed divers a few more minutes of breathable air. Due to their shape, however, they made work on the keel almost impossible. They had to be scrapped after the third man had drowned in the one of them. All of which slowed the laborious process down to a crawl. By this time the fleet was having to deal with another pressing problem–they were fast running out of food and fresh drinking water. Fish could be found plentifully around the coral banks but weren’t easy to catch and at best barely provided a starvation diet. The real problem was water. It rained briefly on a couple of evenings. On the first they barely caught a drop on any of the ships while they all struggled to arrange their sails to collect the rainwater.
The second storm was more prolonged and they were prepared for it, but of course it stopped work on the keel. Another mystery entered the picture as the ship with its considerably stunted keel was readied for action. Now dangerously top-heavy, it was wallowing around in the heavy swell, when one of the small boats sent in to within half-a-mile of the coast reported hearing the faint sound of music and gaiety echoing over the water. The sounds hadn’t lasted long since the wind had soon changed direction, and the gaiety seemed so improbable the men believed they must be hallucinating and were shy to tell the captain what they’d heard. By next morning they’d relented and in spite of the scornful response they received they insisted they were telling the truth. They’d both heard the music. So how could they have been imagining it? Under any conditions, the report of music drifting over the sea from a city under siege would seem improbable at best; under the tense conditions in the captain’s cabin it was taken in a rather different way.
It had to be magic! How could all those noble warriors simply disappear off the face of the Earth? This belief had been rejected by the leadership when it first came up among the deckhands as a rumor which passed from ship to ship with appropriately magical speed. With the disappearance of the party they’d sent aboard the keel-less ship–now wallowing on its side in the shallows close to the shore–even the more rational among them were starting to become convinced some dark sorcery was afoot. It was the only explanation–and it had the additional attraction of being the only reason which might save their lives if and when the ships returned back home to the waiting crowds. When I reported back to Janda-Chi and told the Princes and the council what I’d seen of the mood on board the ships, they broke into roars of laughter. Apparently it was one of the outcomes that hadn’t been anticipated. Yet, as the laughter suggested, being thought of as sorcerers served their purposes perfectly. “After this, they won’t try it again in a hurry!” Unava squeezed out between laughs. “We’ve got them where we want them, right? Right?”
When the laughter died down more serious issues needed to be addressed. The immediate impact of the invasion had been effectively muted but the next stages would have to be handled extremely carefully. “The strategy worked beautifully,” I heard Prince Zanda tell the council telepathically, “but the women can’t be expected to keep up the charade for very much longer” “They might get to like it too much!” This from one of the younger council members to some rueful laughter. “What’s important is the truth must not get back to the barbs whatever happens, whatever we have to do to stop it. Agreed?” Unava talked over the laughter, reasserting his position in the chamber. “Agreed, everybody? If killing needs to be done, we’re going to have to do it. Someone will have to” The laughter ceased at Unava’s flat statement of reality. They were proud of the lack of violence on Zandana and had dispensed with military and police over two hundred years ago. Even when they still required a police force, they had long since dispensed with the death penalty.
Murder had become unheard of for at least five hundred years. So, Unava’s words were heavily freighted with all the memories of the long struggle to put killing behind them. They’d been proud of their achievement. No one wanted to kill anybody. Yet, this quandary had to be faced. Part of the strategy that had been successful so far had included the death of those barbarians unwilling to become absorbed into the nation’s culture. Perhaps the council had acquiesced to this in the excitement of the moment without really absorbing what they were agreeing. “First, we’ll need to get the work on the island finished. How’s that moving along?” Unava asked, cutting into the silence. There were some puzzled looks on some of the council members. “Island?” “Should be ready for them, sir” some scrabbling with papers on the table, “ I’d say within a week, sir.” “Are the women going to hang on that long? It’s been five weeks already” Unava looked around the table trying to catch the eye of the four women on the council. Unlike the men present, all of whom, it seemed to me, were still suffering from shock at the thought of all the killing that will have to take place, the women appeared to have no problem with murder.
They’d made that clear when the tactic was originally discussed. “What island? What are you taking about island?” One of the members had missed some of the planning meetings while he was taking the town-hall meetings prior to the invasion. “We won’t have any difficulty with the women, sir perhaps a few a very few” Sephira, the senior woman on the council, arched her eyebrows. “We can take care of it leave it to us, sir.” “Will someone please tell me about this island?” Louder and more insistent this time. “Ah! yes, of course. You weren’t here for this.” Unava’s mind was elsewhere, I could tell from his tone. “Things have changed a bit, you’ll probably be pleased to hear it. It’s to minimize the killing. You know Gibram Island?” “Off the south coast the uninhabited one?” “Gibram, yes. That’s where we’ll be putting most of the barbs the ones we can’t absorb immediately into the work force. Of course there’ll always be a few who’ll be sure to resist and those we’ll have to deal with.” Unava looked meaningfully at Sephira. All four women were nodding in agreement. “There’ll be some sir, who might even enjoy it.” Laughter from the women; while the men around the table seemed to be busily fussing with paperwork. “We’ve been boring wells for water and clearing some of land for buildings.
The barbs will be moved there as soon as the wells are dug. There’s plenty of small game on the island, so they won’t starve. We’ll provide them with simple tools and they can build their own dwellings” “Sir, how far’s it from the mainland? Gibram never been there, myself.” “Far enough a couple of hundred miles a little more perhaps. Quite far enough and there’s a strong current running through the straits. We’ll get them there on fishing boats; they know the waters down there. Then we’ll leave ‘em to it.” “It’s the kindest way,” Janda-Chi chimed in telepathically. “The midwayers will keep an eye on them and report back to us. If they’re showing signs of wanting to join us work with us then we’ll bring ‘em back over.” “And if there some who refuse to go?” “Those are the ones we’ll be dealing with .” Sephira was smiling an odd smile as she left the statement hanging in the air.
I’d been expounding earlier on what I’ve come to learn about mortal reincarnation. This is clearly an area in which many of the great religions disagree, with fundamental misunderstandings on both sides of the issue. Where we find the belief in reincarnation is most firmly held is in those religions which still contain some small traces of influence. After the first cataclysm to affect the Islands of Mu, a number of survivors traveled widely to create settlements in China and Japan; up the Indus Valley to Tibet: and along much of the western coastline of Central and South America. There are some detailed variations, for example, between the Indian religious tradition of the transmigration of souls, and the Buddhist rejection of a singular soul in favor of the concept of an individual stream of consciousness, which expresses itself in a series of lifetimes.
Interestingly, there is an aspect of Buddhist cosmology which comes closest to the truth when they maintain that rebirth can occur across a number of realms of existence. Since I have no doubt that anyone drawn to be reading these words is almost certain to be a reincarnate, whether you are aware of it or not, you will likely appreciate the delicacy of a reincarnate’s place in the world. And, if you’ve had a sufficient need-to-know to have been made aware of a previous life, you will also know there will be a good reason within the context of your current lifetime, for possessing this information. You see, reincarnation should never be promoted as a general doctrine–since it’s not a general phenomenon. It’s an aspect of life which is far more important for each individual to discover for themselves. When reincarnation becomes doctrinaire in any belief system it will lead inevitably to confusion and intellectual dispute, since being a reincarnate will not feel intuitively true to the vast majority of people.
In this way reincarnation is likely to continue to be subject to disagreement. A Western religionist, for instance, might suggest that Indian society has suffered from the consequences of their belief in reincarnation; that it leads to a rigid social order, in which each person can be scornful of those lower in the hierarchy as karmically deserving of their position. A thoughtful Indian might then reply by asking how can anyone think it’s possible to perfect oneself in only one lifetime? There is some truth in both views; and as much mutual misapprehension. As is now generally known, Greek influence on the birth of Christianity supported personal reincarnation, as did a number of Gnostic sects, until Christian dogma settled on ‘Salvation through Grace’ and rejected all belief in previous lives. Reincarnation flowered again briefly in the Christian West between the 11th and 13th centuries, as one of the fundamental doctrines of the Cathars, who believed in salvation through progressive self-perfection. Christianity’s traditional grip over much of critical thought in the West–which seems to be continuing in some quarters to this day– has, with few exceptions, discouraged any serious interest in reincarnation.
Consequently, the times in which cases have been subjected to impartial scrutiny and have demonstrated an authentic correlation with a past life, have been cavalierly dismissed for lack of further definitive evidence; or simply rejected out-of-hand as impossible. I suspect if it could be established for certain that reincarnation exists, after an initial surge of excitement over all the claims and counterclaims, it would make no difference whatsoever to the lives of the vast majority of people. Perhaps there is a clue to the mystery in this probable response, since the vast majority of people will be first-timers who won’t have had any previous lifetimes. There will also be reincarnates who have no current access to memories of their previous lives, and yet have a profound intuitive sense of having lived before–and this needs be an authentic self-realization, not the impression of a high street clairvoyant.
For you, I suggest patience, because unless there are other pressing reasons, you will be unlikely to recall a particular lifetime if there isn’t a real need to do so. Life is complex enough and unless the quality of a reincarnate’s spiritual or emotional life is improved by this knowledge, it will have little value and could even retard normal spiritual progress. It should be clear by now that the Multiverse functions on a need-to-know basis and I’ve come to believe it’s much to everyone’s benefit that it should continue to do so. ‘A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing’ is one of those clichés which holds true for all sentient species. However, if there has been a serious trauma or an unresolved issue in a previous life, then echoes of this will likely appear in subsequent incarnations, until the imprint in the subtle energy body has been released.
In Mein Host’s case one of these imprints– produced as a result of brutal and humiliating torture in a prior lifetime–was only released when he defied arbitrary authority as a schoolboy and regained his “personal power.” If there isn’t good reason for you to know about previous lives, Mein Host assures me, you can count yourself fortunate. It means you have come into this incarnation free and fresh, with no long-term karmic overtones. What you’ve learned in your previous incarnations contributes to the wisdom you bring to the choices you make in this lifetime. You have, in short, no need to know. Be happy for it.
I am a Watcher Angel and my name is Georgia.
