By Bruce and Andrea Leininger with Ken Gross
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Published on June 2009 (Hardcover) by Grand Central Publishing
More Info: Soul Survivor
I do, to answer my own question. And, if you don’t believe in past lives, you will have that doubt shredded by the evidence presented in Soul Survivor. It’s the story of a young boy who wakes up shrieking night after night, acting as if he is perishing in a burning WWII airplane. By day, young James Leininger knew obscure names of aircraft flown by WWII fighter pilot James Huston. His father, wedded to his Christian faith, thinks his toddler son is just having nightmares, until he digs up so much proof, he, too, has to believe that his son lived the life of another James more than a half-century before.
Young children often make references to their earlier lifetimes, and most cultures embrace the concept of reincarnation. If souls live forever, wouldn’t it make sense to facilitate soul growth by trying on various scenarios? For example, by choosing our parents and the bodies we inhabit.
In Soul Survivor, one day, when James was just three, he told his dad he was pleased with him, and that’s why he chose him as a father. At this point, Bruce wasn’t completely buying the past life premise, so he asked what his son meant. James said he chose his parents when they were in Hawaii. A few follow-up questions, and Bruce realized that James had chosen his parents on their honeymoon in Hawaii three weeks before Andrea would become pregnant.
Throughout the book, Bruce leads an exhausting search to disprove reincarnation, only to discover people who knew the former WWII pilot James Huston and find fact after fact prove out.
Over the years, I’ve had playful reminders of other lifetimes I’ve lived, but never an experience so frankly provable. There was the time when my sons were three and five, and we were all on the king-size bed hanging out. I was cold, and in a moment of exasperation, grabbed a blanket and demanded, “Why am I always so cold!” My older son quickly answered, “That’s because you died when you were in the cold, cold water, and we couldn’t get you out.” A decade later, I’m interviewing Dr Brian Weiss and, at my home, he hypnotized me back in time. I saw my then five-year old soul lifting out of a ship that was sinking, at a 45-degree angle, with half of it submerged. The Titanic?
It’s amusing to consider the lifetimes we might have led, but when experiences, dreams, abilities bleed over to now, it’s positively amazing. When I was a little girl, I would see other “costumes” appearing like a scrim over certain people. My stepfather, on his creative side, built me a teepee for the backyard of our home just outside New York City, and on his cruel side, raped me. I “saw” him as a member of Lewis and Clark’s party and I was captivated by stories of Sacajawea. I was around six years old when I sensed that he was carrying over our romantic relationship from the Pacific Northwest lifetime, that he “owned” me in some way – he was white, I was a young Native America teen.
When I was in my twenties, I felt drawn to Portland — just weeks before Mt St Helen’s began to stir. The next summer, something quite odd occurred. I was at the Oregon coast with some friends who were diving for crabs while I waited on shore. As I sat, I “saw” a beautiful white horse dance along the waves’ edge. It was “my” horse, but I had only been on horses a few times in my current life, each time, feeling in love and so at home. What happened next stunned me. My friends — fully-equipped with nutcrackers and cocktail forks — presented the crabs. I suddenly sat on my haunches — something I don’t do — pulled a flat rock in front of me, instinctively placing the crab on the rock and smashing it with another rock, eagerly eating the pieces of crab that showed through the splintered shell.
Everyone froze. They stared at me. We all realized what was happening. This native New Yorker had fallen into a past lifetime. No question.
While I can’t pull up a name from another lifetime, young James Leininger can, and does. It’s a remarkable story about the reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot. It’s also a reminder to listen intently to what your young children say. They may be showing you a doorway to another time.
Nina said,
July 7, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
I don’t find the premise of the book that exciting, but that’s probably because in summing-up it “tastes” a bit too much like a Hollywood-film. You can almost see Tom Hanks playing the grown-up James
But the way you talk about this book and how you share your own experiences, I found intriguing! Especially as a mother of a young son.
When asked if I believe in rebirth, I say no. And I mean it. But I get glimpses of two past lives. For more I have never pushed. One is so strong that I also get these “tactile memories”, like you breaking open the crab with the stones. It is eerie, isn’t it, when our hands remember perfectly well doing something? People who I hesitatingly try to tell about that say that we are just mirroring something we saw on tv. It is hopeless to try and explain that it rises from much deeper than some memory bank fed by too much television.
I find it very brave that you share these insights and memories so openly here – and on a page where you also link to your professional work. I am working towards such a courage (and posting this comment is one step in that
. But I know I am still too caught up in “Won’t people think I am nuts? Who would admit that she sees/feels/believes in …” To even care about that saps energy and probably hinders my growth to who I could be. I am just very glad I had the good luck to meet two people, one during university, one more recently, who approach spiritual questions with the same openness as you do. They are a great influence and give me a lot of strength. So we’ll see how I’d answer the title-question of your post in a few years …
Diana Page Jordan said,
July 8, 2009 @ 4:11 am
Nina,
It was exciting to read what you have written! Thanks for also stepping out. Over the years, it’s become obvious to me that to have peace in my heart, I have to speak my Truth. It’s probably a life lesson for me.
Thank you so much for commenting, and for telling your truth as well. As for the concern about sharing the personal with the professional, when I was a younger news anchor, I often felt like I was holding back when I should be sharing. It didn’t do me any good to hold back then, so now I might as well say what I know to be true.
All the best to you,
Diana