Customer Reviews:
 THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE November 19, 2008
At a bookstore, I casually picked this book off the shelf and looked it over. The premise fascinated me, so I bought it and began reading it. I nearly read it all in one sitting and quickly ordered the sequel, Destiny of Souls. When I began reading this book, I immediately recognized its truth; on a spiritual level, I could feel it. Its hard to explain. I am generally a cynic by nature, but this book answered the questions of my soul, so to speak. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this, really.... For me, it is a work that goes far beyond the spoken word. It has become my favorite book of all time, and it is required reading for anyone who is ready to think beyond what conventional religion teaches about the soul.
Journey of Souls September 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've never read anything about where we go between lives. Now the question is answered and it is astounding!!! This book will give you answers, hope, and will make you really think about how you are doing in your life. Read the next one too.
Thought Provoking and Life Changing September 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Perhaps more than any other book I have read in the spiritual/self help genre, Journey of The Souls has made me stop and ponder each chapter. This book was recommended by a dear friend of mine who told me it would take a lot longer than usual to read and he was right.
The most powerful effect the book has had with me is to remind me of those passing moments and relationships that seemed "ordinary" but were anything but. For example, the topic of soul mates is rather interesting and really makes you re-consider every relationship in your life.
If you take the time to read this book and really digest what it has to say, I believe it will help you see your everyday experiences not only clearer but with more purpose that you otherwise thought.
This is what it did for me. This is perhaps the greatest gift of this book: to give one a better understanding and alternative perspective of what we consider ordinary moments. You learn as Dan Millman wrote: there are no ordinary moments. I would add, there are no ordinary relationships.
If you`ve been thinking, "There has to be more..." consider reading this book. There is more! Discover it for yourself in this book. That "hunch" you had to read this review... thats your soul speaking... listen to it. Peace.
We Are Not Alone August 25, 2008
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.
Best book I ever read... August 14, 2008
I've read hundreds of spiritual books and this one is "by far" my favorite. My second favorite book is Destiny of Souls... there are a lot of good spiritual books on the market but there are not a lot of great ones. These books are GREAT! I've purchased and given away hundreds of these books over the years... Don't miss this one... this book answers many questions left unanswered by organized religion and it will help you live a rich and meaningful life.
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