About the Author
Ted Andrews was a full-time author, student, and teacher in the metaphysical and spiritual fields. He conducted seminars, symposiums, workshops, and lectures throughout the country on many facets of ancient mysticism. Ted worked with past-life analysis, auric interpretation, numerology, the tarot, and the qabala as methods of developing and enhancing inner potential. He was a clairvoyant and certified in spiritual mediumship, basic hypnosis, and acupressure. Ted was also involved in the study and use of herbs as an alternative path. In addition to writing several books, he was a contributing author to various metaphysical magazines. He passed from this world in 2009.
Llewellyn Publications
Woodbury, Minnesota
Copyright Information
How To Uncover Your Past Lives 1992 and 2006 by Ted Andrews.
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First e-book edition 2011
E-book ISBN: 9780738716398
Book design by Donna Burch
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Cover design by Gavin Dayton Duffy
Interior art by Llewellyn art department
The Wheel of Fortune card from the Universal Tarot by Roberto de Angelis 2000 by Lo Scarabeo and reprinted with permission from Lo Scarabeo
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Llewellyn Publications
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For my family, friends, and students
particularly my special Columbus family
for their support, friendship, and
loving humor!
Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderat.
Contents
Understanding Reincarnation
Awakening Ancient Knowledge of Past Lives
Understanding the Role of Karma
Karmic Connections, Soul Mates, and Twin Souls
Understanding and Aiding Past-Life Meditation .
Past-Life Therapy through the Tree of Life
Self-Hypnosis and Past-Life Awareness
Dowsing Your Past Lives
Rites of Passage
Proving Your Past Lives
One
Understanding Reincarnation
W e may never be able to prove that we have lived before. Even if we are able to produce names, dates, and places, it still does not prove that we lived in that time and place. So why write a book on uncovering past lives? Because even without conclusive proof, the benefits for personal empowerment, healing, and enlightenment are tremendous.
Reincarnation means different things to different people. It is a theory, a philosophy, a belief system, and a way of life. It explains many of the unexplained occurrences of life. It provides a rationale for the inequalities and the suffering of life. It gives us insight into our many individual differences.
More importantly, reincarnation provides a model for behavior and living based on personal responsibility. This book will help show that you are the master of your own destiny. It will teach you that what you are today is the result of your past and that what you will become tomorrow is determined by how you live today.
To many people, this can be very frightening. It eliminates those devils, demons, and other scapegoats for the conditions of our lives. At the same time it is very exciting, for it helps us realize that we truly can write the scripts of our lives.
This book will help you explore your past lives and examine how they have helped shape and mold you into who you are right now. You will begin to see that you are a synthesis of all that has gone before. As this realization increases through the uncovering of your past lives, your ability to control and reshape your life will also increase. You will become more active within all of lifes processes. Instead of sitting back and allowing events to simply play upon you, you will be able to see them from a new and proper perspective and, thus, act accordingly. No longer will you have to bang your head against the wall and cry, Why is this always happening to me? Why do I always run into these same kinds of people and situations? This book will help you see the larger patterns of life within your own individual circumstances.
Literally, reincarnation means the return to the physical body. It is the belief that the soul, upon death, exits one body and begins to prepare to come back into life within another physical form. The circumstances of that returnthe environment and suchare determined by the growth and progress achieved in the previous lives. Each life personality is a synthesis of what has gone before, and the souls rebirth occurs in an environment that can best unfold for its greater benefit. Thus, the better we live our lives, the more beneficial our rebirth circumstances will be.
Some areas of the world have taught that the soul may come back as anything within the physicalfrom a tree to an insect to another human being, but often as an animal. One such example comes through the African Zulu tradition, as is reported by Sylvia Cranston and Carey Williams in their book Reincarnation: A New Horizon in Science, Religion, and Society, page 166:
Within the body is a soul; within the soul is a spark of the Itongo, the Universal Spirit. After the death of the body, Idhlozi (the soul) hovers for awhile near the body, and then departs to Esilweni, the Place of Beasts.... In Esilweni, the soul assumes [temporarily] a shape, part beast and part human, before it rises higher.... [A]ccording to the strength of the animal nature, the soul throws aside its beast-like shape, and moves onward to a place of rest. There it sleeps, till a time comes when it dreams that something to do and learn awaits it on earth; then it awakes, and returns to the earth, and is born again as a child. Again and again does the soul travel thus, till... [the] soul... becomes one with the Itongo...
This assuming of a shape part beast is different from entering the body of a beast, and it is actually similar to eastern teachings of the bardo and even some teachings of purgatory, where the animal nature must be thrown off before the purified soul can ascend to heaven. Seers have claimed to have seen newly departed humans wearing the garments of animals that corresponds to their earthly nature. This could have been misconstrued into a belief that humans incarnate into animals.
This book will approach the theory of reincarnation only from the human level; i.e., the soul clothing itself in another human body. What will be provided is merely a skeletal framework. It will enable you to begin your own exploration process. It is not within the scope of this work to explore the full philosophic and theoretical implications of the reincarnation process.
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