Past-life research, exploration, and education have been my passion for many years. Even when I knew relatively little about this, on a subliminal level, I readily accepted the premise that my current life was merely the continuation of a long line of previous lifetimes.
When growing up, I considered myself a devout Roman Catholic and attended parochial school for twelve years. Nonetheless, I always had a problem with the idea that we only experience one life, and if we didn’t follow the rules, we would be doomed to eternal damnation. I could not reconcile the idea of a loving and just God with hell and brimstone preaching, so I readily questioned the logic of this dogma.
The priests and nuns at St. Barbara High School were not amused. One nun labeled me an atheist. A priest said I was looking for an emotional religion, but informed me that religion was “intellectual.” I could find all the answers I needed if I would just read the recommended texts.
I never received a detention throughout my school years until my senior year in high school, when I posed these questions with fervor. It was then that every time I raised my hand, I was never called upon, but was silently handed a detention slip. I learned to stop asking questions aloud, but that did not deter me from continuing to post the questions on my mind’s bulletin board in the hope they would be read by some passing angel.
During my teens, I began reading books by Ruth Montgomery and Jess Stearn, and it was then that I learned about Edgar Cayce. The first book I read on reincarnation, however, was The Search for Bridey Murphy by Morey Bernstein, which was originally published in 1956. The book mesmerized me, as did the philosophy of reincarnation. Finally, everything made sense in the context of a just God and a harmonious universe, where every deed — good, bad, and indifferent — was recorded and dealt with on a karmic scale. Karma made much more sense to me than sin.
My First Past Life Confirmation
I suspect each one of us has that one book that is the key to unlocking the door that connects us to the All That Is. Bridey Murphy did that for me. After that, I developed an insatiable appetite for metaphysical studies. While I was a casual student of reincarnation, I did not pursue it with passion until 1987, when I got my first confirmation of an eighteenth-century past life in Virginia.
Like most novice seekers of esoteric truths, I turned to others for answers. Being a member of the Edgar Cayce Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) Heartland Region core team at that time enabled me to meet some of the leading professionals in the field of past-life research. All were interested in my story and made suggestions on how to get to the core issues of that life, but no one gave me the tools I needed to find the answers I so desperately wanted.
Then by chance, in an effort to get help with something totally unrelated — my commercial writing — I ordered a writer’s subconscious programming tape from Dick Sutphen called “Start Writing Now.” Sutphen was a hypnotist, seminar leader, and author of more than 32 books who created more than 600 hypnosis, meditation, and regressive hypnosis audio programs. I had not worked with a hypnosis tape before, so I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, but the idea of writing in an altered state intrigued me. It never occurred to me that I would use it for past-life exploration.
As I listened to the tape, Sutphen suggested creating a mental movie in which I perceived myself already writing, to create a vivid fantasy in which I was successfully expressing myself in words. He suggested the movie was real and asked me to play the role, play the part, and experience every detail in my mind. If I did this, he said, my desires would be communicated to my subconscious mind, which would assist me by generating circumstances to create my programmed reality.
Mental movie? Play the role? The floodgates opened. When he said to begin the visualization, my mental movie began.
How To Access Your Past Life Records
All information about past lives is stored in the Akashic Records, which I liken to the universe’s supercomputer. Most people see it as a vast etheric library. Cayce called it “the book of life.” When you enter a state of transcendental meditation, you can enter the Hall of Records and read the sojourn of your soul. This is not something reserved for a gifted few. You can go to that library, pull down your book, and read in vivid detail the account of any lifetime you had, and then record what you learned.
Because we are the sum of all we were before, it stands to reason that somewhere within our souls is a record of each of our past lives. Therefore, if those memories remain within the soul, they can be recalled and provide you with memories of a life lived long ago.
What you are tapping into are memories — as real as those of your current life’s childhood or teen years, or of someone dear to you that you knew years ago. It is a way to enable people to awaken their soul’s memories and recall previous lifetimes so that they can see for themselves that the soul does not die, that there is a natural flow from one life to the next.
Imagine a world in which people did this. How different would our civilization be if people understood themselves better by seeing the road that led them to the here and now, a road on which they were every race, gender, religion, and nationality. There would be no sense of separation, for we would see that we are all linked, one to the other.
A soul’s existence does not start and stop in each lifetime. When you are born, you do not come into this world empty-handed. You come in with tools, talents, skills, attitudes, issues, etc., that you earned in previous lifetimes. Those abilities are stored in your soul’s bank account, to be withdrawn whenever needed.
Is it so strange, then, to know that by entering a state of meditation, connecting to the All That Is, you could ask a question about something in your life that makes no sense to you now, but when explained in the context of a previous life, makes all the sense in the world?
Ask a question about any aspect of your being. Why do you struggle with friendships? Why don’t you feel love when it is given to you? Why are you inclined to attract abusive people? Why does music come so naturally to you? Why do you have such a deep affection for your grandmother? Why do you feel you are unwanted? Why do people naturally gravitate to you?
The answers may be in another lifetime — one in which you were neglectful of your friends. You rejected love. You were abusive. You were a great singer or composer. You saved your grandmother’s life. You pushed people away. You helped others. Ask your soul why — and wait for the answer. It will come and, in so doing, answer many of those questions that have been gnawing away at you for years.
What a gift that is for any soul willing to connect to spirit; ask the question and then allow the answer to come forth through your own hand.
Reprinted with permission of the author from Soul Writing™: Conversing With Your Higher Self (Joanne DiMaggio, 2026)
Joanne DiMaggio, MA, CHt, is a respected expert on the topic of reincarnation and Soul Writing™. A member of Edgar Cayce’s Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) since 1987, she is the author of the newly revised Soul Writing™: Conversing With Your Higher Self, as well as numerous other books, articles, programs and podcasts.
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