“SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT”

Each living soul has a Book of Life. Each moment of that life is recorded from birth to death by the Ancient of Days. Each “story” in Something to Think About is actually an excerpt from the Books of Life of the characters presented. They follow the earth journeys of a family unit comprised of five individuals and cover many centuries, though not consecutively. It portrays how soul memories, addictions, habits, attitudes, and such impact each journey. The age-old question “why me Lord?” is explained.

In the first chapter, the two who will form the nucleus of the family meet here in the ____ century and forge a bond of love whose threads extend through many centuries. All the mayhem, plotted murder, greed, jealousy, religious and physical passion, sorrow, tears and regrets unfold in an ancient Persian city at the edge of the desert.

In another lifetime, during the Holy Wars, Mahmuud has embodied as an Italian named Vincente; Reza’s beloved Jada is an Italian Catholic novice named Sister Celeste, and the love child of Reza and Laila, now of Nordic birth, is Gregory.

Something to Think About continues to follow its characters through other journeys, culminating with their current lives in the 20th century, including the matriarch, the author of this book. It is because of my strong love for each member of this family that the excerpts from our very private Books of Life were permitted to be opened to me.

After all the struggles and emotional storms each life endures, it is what we take back to the Heart Center of Creation that confirms whether our soul has made any progress. Nothing but Truth is accepted there! Something to think about. . .

From the computer we learn that a past life CAN survive in Nature’s backup, probably with a life and awareness of its own. If we find the key to invading a past file, we should be able to open it.My past life got through to me. She identified herself as the child of a mother hung as a witch. I later learned she had existed, and suffered a blighted childhood. Our cartoons, recapturing in this life the lost years of that previous life, exhibit the normalcy of the paranormal.

The author is a decorated Korean War veteran and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, having earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. He has devoted his career to the insurance industry, serving in administration, marketing, and sales, and is now retired and living on the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia.

Renaissance II represents a synthesis of Christianity; the philosophy of Plato; deism, which holds that God allows us to determine our own destiny without his interference (except for our access to grace), a belief held by Founding Fathers Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin, and also by Lincoln; and certain discoveries in quantum physics – all of which tend to suggest a rational explanation of human existence and, to a degree, what the spiritual goal of mankind might be.

The author had not seriously explored Plato’s philosophy until it was mentioned by a speaker at a business seminar. Because of the intriguing manner in which his teachings on reincarnation had been presented, the author made an effort to determine what the Bible may have revealed regarding this particular subject. The most startling disclosure he found was an emphatic, unqualified, and unambiguous statement by Jesus that John the Baptist was the Old Testament prophet Elijah. In addition, there appeared to be many other indications that tended to support reincarnation – Jesus’ prolonged discussion with Nicodemus regarding rebirth, for example. On the other hand, there appeared to be only one contrary indication: the statement that “it is appointed for men to die once,” and it is primarily this statement on which Christianity’s opposition to reincarnation has been established. (Curiously, however, the first humans were not appointed to die, rather they were endowed with immortality.) Another unusual result was to emerge from this scriptural investigation: the author had convinced himself of the essential principles of seventeenth-century deism, a concept of which he had no prior knowledge.

Surprises were to continue, with further research establishing that Christian theology had not been based on the revelations of Jesus, or otherwise on Scripture, but primarily on the teachings of Plato – with one significant omission: Plato’s central principle, reincarnation, had been ignored. Strangely, however, early Christian history illustrated that a belief in reincarnation had been openly accepted and disseminated by virtually all of the Greek Christian Church Fathers, including the illustrious Origen, by several bishops, and even by some saints – and we must wonder how their canonization processes overlooked their having embraced this pagan belief. In addition, reincarnation was being taught essentially as doctrine in prominent Christian schools located in Athens and Alexandria.

Also of significance is St. Augustine’s prediction that Platonism would “unlock the treasures of the faith,” and we must wonder why Augustine believed that certain Christian truths remained locked up? In fact, it now appears that reincarnation may have been locked out of Christian doctrine – not because of the determinations of religious authorities, but by Roman Emperor Justinian, who held no ecclesiastical powers and who, by historical evaluations, was a personal disgrace by Christian standards. His initial hostile action regarding reincarnation was to close the two schools that had been promoting the belief. Also, it has been established that he opposed a group called Origenists; however, at that point the record becomes unclear. The final irony is that religious scholars cannot determine that reincarnation has ever been officially condemned by a Church Council, even though two such councils, having met in 1274 and 1439, apparently had assumed that reincarnation had previously been condemned!

Coincidentally, about the time that the author had undertaken this research, several prominent physicists had begun publishing books, obviously intended for lay consumption, which described in simple terms the incredible discoveries being made in the fields of relativity and quantum physics. It appeared that a synergy of sorts may have existed between the new science and certain philosophical/religious concepts, including reincarnation, implying that if God was the source of all knowledge such knowledge is derived from truths that must be related. As intriguing as this realization was, it became obvious that Christianity, in spite of the revelations of Scripture, seemed not to have made as much of an advance in understanding and explaining the spiritual origin and destiny of mankind as science had established – obviously without the advantage of revelation – regarding the makeup and functioning of the physical universe. For example, Christian theology is still unable to explain or justify the obvious injustices which appear to be inherent in human life, particularly the vast differences in human abilities and characteristics, or the length and circumstances attending individual lives. The best that can be offered is an assumption that those who obviously were “short-changed” in these respects will ultimately be compensated and that a greater good eventually will emerge from undeserved suffering.

A way out of this philosophical quandary was suggested by the momentous accomplishments of Isaac Newton, who established three simple formulas of motion and one of gravity, which together explained how the solar system and, by implication, the entire physical universe functioned in unassisted perfection. As Newton had established, once the universe had been created, it performed independently of God, but in accordance with his pre-established laws, and it continued to do so without any further involvement, impetus, or corrections being required on the part of the creator. Two oddities are involved with Newton’s accomplishments. First, although Newton himself was a devout Christian, he apparently did not attempt to extend the implications of his physical discoveries into the spiritual realm in order to resolve the problems that necessarily represented mysteries for Christianity. Second, he failed to make this connection in spite of the fact that such a resolution had been theorized in philosophical/religious terms and published in book form 18 years before Newton was born.

As previously indicated, this theory is known as deism, from the Latin word for God, Deus, and it held that if mankind were to make meaningful spiritual progress it likewise must determine its own spiritual destiny without interference by God. Obviously, this concept was given an enormous support by Newton having established essentially the same basis for the functioning of the physical universe, and many thinking people were then convinced that God reasonably would not have established different basic concepts for the purposes of the spiritual and physical aspects of his creation. Finally, it was realized that humans may have been something more than puppets that were being directed and manipulated by God. With the latitude allowed by this belief, particularly with the availability of multiple lifetimes, it seemed possible that humans were able to fulfill Jesus’ command that we must become as perfect as God – an accomplishment that is rendered hopelessly impossible by Christianity’s single lifetime restriction.

Along with this bold development came certain qualifications which also differed from traditional Christian doctrine. For example, if God had chosen not to interfere with human development, supposed revelations by God obviously would contradict such an intention. Although this assumption of deism shocked many Christian leaders, anyone reading Judeo-Christian Scripture objectively can readily determine whether or not it represents direct revelations by God. Indeed, proof of the inadequacy of presumed r

The author is a decorated Korean War veteran and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, having earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. He has devoted his career to the insurance industry, serving in administration, marketing, and sales, and is now retired and living on the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia.

Renaissance II represents a synthesis of Christianity; the philosophy of Plato; deism, which holds that God allows us to determine our own destiny without his interference (except for our access to grace), a belief held by Founding Fathers Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin, and also by Lincoln; and certain discoveries in quantum physics – all of which tend to suggest a rational explanation of human existence and, to a degree, what the spiritual goal of mankind might be.

The author had not seriously explored Plato’s philosophy until it was mentioned by a speaker at a business seminar. Because of the intriguing manner in which his teachings on reincarnation had been presented, the author made an effort to determine what the Bible may have revealed regarding this particular subject. The most startling disclosure he found was an emphatic, unqualified, and unambiguous statement by Jesus that John the Baptist was the Old Testament prophet Elijah. In addition, there appeared to be many other indications that tended to support reincarnation – Jesus’ prolonged discussion with Nicodemus regarding rebirth, for example. On the other hand, there appeared to be only one contrary indication: the statement that “it is appointed for men to die once,” and it is primarily this statement on which Christianity’s opposition to reincarnation has been established. (Curiously, however, the first humans were not appointed to die, rather they were endowed with immortality.) Another unusual result was to emerge from this scriptural investigation: the author had convinced himself of the essential principles of seventeenth-century deism, a concept of which he had no prior knowledge.

Surprises were to continue, with further research establishing that Christian theology had not been based on the revelations of Jesus, or otherwise on Scripture, but primarily on the teachings of Plato – with one significant omission: Plato’s central principle, reincarnation, had been ignored. Strangely, however, early Christian history illustrated that a belief in reincarnation had been openly accepted and disseminated by virtually all of the Greek Christian Church Fathers, including the illustrious Origen, by several bishops, and even by some saints – and we must wonder how their canonization processes overlooked their having embraced this pagan belief. In addition, reincarnation was being taught essentially as doctrine in prominent Christian schools located in Athens and Alexandria.

Also of significance is St. Augustine’s prediction that Platonism would “unlock the treasures of the faith,” and we must wonder why Augustine believed that certain Christian truths remained locked up? In fact, it now appears that reincarnation may have been locked out of Christian doctrine – not because of the determinations of religious authorities, but by Roman Emperor Justinian, who held no ecclesiastical powers and who, by historical evaluations, was a personal disgrace by Christian standards. His initial hostile action regarding reincarnation was to close the two schools that had been promoting the belief. Also, it has been established that he opposed a group called Origenists; however, at that point the record becomes unclear. The final irony is that religious scholars cannot determine that reincarnation has ever been officially condemned by a Church Council, even though two such councils, having met in 1274 and 1439, apparently had assumed that reincarnation had previously been condemned!

Coincidentally, about the time that the author had undertaken this research, several prominent physicists had begun publishing books, obviously intended for lay consumption, which described in simple terms the incredible discoveries being made in the fields of relativity and quantum physics. It appeared that a synergy of sorts may have existed between the new science and certain philosophical/religious concepts, including reincarnation, implying that if God was the source of all knowledge such knowledge is derived from truths that must be related. As intriguing as this realization was, it became obvious that Christianity, in spite of the revelations of Scripture, seemed not to have made as much of an advance in understanding and explaining the spiritual origin and destiny of mankind as science had established – obviously without the advantage of revelation – regarding the makeup and functioning of the physical universe. For example, Christian theology is still unable to explain or justify the obvious injustices which appear to be inherent in human life, particularly the vast differences in human abilities and characteristics, or the length and circumstances attending individual lives. The best that can be offered is an assumption that those who obviously were “short-changed” in these respects will ultimately be compensated and that a greater good eventually will emerge from undeserved suffering.

A way out of this philosophical quandary was suggested by the momentous accomplishments of Isaac Newton, who established three simple formulas of motion and one of gravity, which together explained how the solar system and, by implication, the entire physical universe functioned in unassisted perfection. As Newton had established, once the universe had been created, it performed independently of God, but in accordance with his pre-established laws, and it continued to do so without any further involvement, impetus, or corrections being required on the part of the creator. Two oddities are involved with Newton’s accomplishments. First, although Newton himself was a devout Christian, he apparently did not attempt to extend the implications of his physical discoveries into the spiritual realm in order to resolve the problems that necessarily represented mysteries for Christianity. Second, he failed to make this connection in spite of the fact that such a resolution had been theorized in philosophical/religious terms and published in book form 18 years before Newton was born.

As previously indicated, this theory is known as deism, from the Latin word for God, Deus, and it held that if mankind were to make meaningful spiritual progress it likewise must determine its own spiritual destiny without interference by God. Obviously, this concept was given an enormous support by Newton having established essentially the same basis for the functioning of the physical universe, and many thinking people were then convinced that God reasonably would not have established different basic concepts for the purposes of the spiritual and physical aspects of his creation. Finally, it was realized that humans may have been something more than puppets that were being directed and manipulated by God. With the latitude allowed by this belief, particularly with the availability of multiple lifetimes, it seemed possible that humans were able to fulfill Jesus’ command that we must become as perfect as God – an accomplishment that is rendered hopelessly impossible by Christianity’s single lifetime restriction.

Along with this bold development came certain qualifications which also differed from traditional Christian doctrine. For example, if God had chosen not to interfere with human development, supposed revelations by God obviously would contradict such an intention. Although this assumption of deism shocked many Christian leaders, anyone reading Judeo-Christian Scripture objectively can readily determine whether or not it represents direct revelations by God. Indeed, proof of the inadequacy of presumed r