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INTRODUCTION
HOW THE QUEST BEGAN
REVOLUTIONARY WAR PERIOD
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR PERIOD
WORLD WAR II PERIOD
ENGLISH CIVIL WAR PERIOD
MEDIEVAL PERIOD
ANCIENT PERIOD
COMMENTS
THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY POEM




INTRODUCTION

My own story is not typical, but it does show how the use of various clues can help you identify possible past-lives and how you can use synchronicities (meaningful coincidences) to help determine their validity.  I don't claim that any of the following personalities were actually my past lives because I have no proof.  But I do show the process by which I identified the various possibilities. 

My story will likely strike most people as preposterous, which I'm inclined to agree with, or some kind of narcissistic ego-trip.  I can only say that I sympathize with that reaction.  But what I got is what I got during this investigation and I present it here with a caveat that you can take it for what you think it's worth.  I certainly won't mind.  

Some people identify their past-life personalities by a combination of emotional reactions, memories, dreams and commonalities.  I generally don't have such clues, so I tend to rely on what appear to be synchronicities for verification.  Of course, the difficulty comes with distinguishing a synchronicity from a coincidence.  

I should add that after I had been at my "hobby" (I call it "Soul Genealogy") of trying to identify my past-lives for a while,  I saw a medium at a metaphysical chapel.  Without prompting, the medium said that according to the spirits, I'm involved in a project having to do with discovery, and that information would bubble up so that everything would be revealed eventually.  I was surprised that the medium would zero in, it seems, on my present "hobby", and so that tended to validate what she was saying.  But it also led me to wonder why I should be given information on my past-lives.  After all, that isn't normally done.  The barrier between lives must be there for a reason.  So why me?

HOW THE QUEST BEGAN

I never particularly cared who I might have been in previous lives, assuming they were all just as obscure and pedestrian as anyone else's.  Every hypnotist will tell you that it is rare to encounter a client under regression who experiences being a famous person.  In all the hypnotic regressions I've done on other people, I've found two people who claimed to be someone that history has taken note of.  The first experienced being the Biblical Mary, brother of Lazarus.  It was the other one, however, who saw herself as someone historical that sparked my "hobby" to find out who I was in my past-lives.  That's because she saw me as someone not just historical, but quite famous.

The subject was a lovely young woman (who wishes to remain anonymous). While she was under hypnosis, I asked, as I typically do, if she knew me in a previous life.  She then regressed to what seemed to be the late 18th century or early 19th century and said she was watching the president give what she thought was an address in an outdoor venue. Then she exclaimed, “That’s you!”  "I'm the president?", I asked, surprised.  She affirmed it, so I asked who she was.  She couldn’t remember the name, so I then asked who the president was and she couldn’t remember that name either. (That’s not unusual under hypnosis.) I asked what kind of speech it was, and she said she thought it was an inaugural address.  So I asked what the president looked like, and she said he’s tall, lean, appears to be wearing a wig and from her description of his clothes, appeared to be dressed like they did back in the late 18th century.  I then asked her about herself in that lifetime and she said she was a woman and married to a man she didn’t love.  However, she was happy anyway because he was very rich,  though he worked somehow for the government. I asked if she knew the president personally and she said they had met through her husband. They had two young children and lived in a mansion that had a marble staircase.  She was so proud of the that marble staircase, she mentioned it several times.

It took a lot of research to find out that there was only one house in the United States around 1800 that had a marble staircase and that it belonged to William Bingham, the richest man in the country at the time and eventually a US senator. William married his business partner, Thomas Willing's, 16 year-old daughter, Anne, and they eventually had two children.  She was introduced to Thomas Jefferson in Paris, France, when she and William passed through while touring Europe and George Washington used to visit her house often.  That's because Anne Willing Bingham was the premier American socialite of the time and her salon in Philadelphia was the hub of government socializing, especially for the Federalists.  In addition to Washington, other founding fathers, such as Hamilton and Adams hung out there.  So, since the data points fit,  I figured this young lady had been Anne Willing Bingham and the president that she claimed was me fit the description of either Jefferson or Washington.  My initial reaction was that it had to be Jefferson.


 
Ann Willing Bingham
    1764-1801



REVOLUTIONARY WAR PERIOD

THOMAS JEFFERSON?

Thomas Jefferson was tall and lean, so my first thought is that it must have been him that the client saw.  I’ve always had an affinity for Thomas Jefferson.  From what I’ve read about him, our similarities go beyond a shared libertarian political philosophy. It turns out that virtually every aspect of Jefferson’s interests, capabilities, relationships, personality and character are similar if not identical to mine. However, that does not necessarily mean that I’m a reincarnation of his.  I might have been an admirer of his, for example, who wanted to emulate him. 

The reincarnation researcher Paul von Ward did a study on the characteristics of Jefferson and myself.  Initially, he said I had a strong case for being Jefferson.  However, Paul is a believer in physical appearance being passed from life to life (through what he calls psychoplasm) and eventually decided I don't look enough like Jefferson to have been him.

Seeking validation, I asked some psychics if I was Jefferson. All said yes, although one said I’m an aspect of his, claiming our soul can occupy nine different bodies and that one body can contain aspects of several different souls. That may explain why there are so many people claiming to be the reincarnation of Jefferson.  (Sri Chinmoy is one.)  Considering how many people claim to be the reincarnation of Jefferson, I'd say he's spreading himself a bit thin. 

In any case, psychics sometimes tell you what they think you want to hear, so that is not the most reliable method of confirmation.  While under self-hypnosis, I asked my higher self through idiopathic motor responses if I was Jefferson and received a yes. However, as I mentioned, we can easily delude ourselves if our ego is strong, so that isn’t necessarily conclusive either.  Presumably, down deep, I wanted to be Jefferson's reincarnation because he reminds me so much of myself.

.As an aside, the "sleeping prophet", Edgar Cayce said that Thomas Jefferson had previously incarnated as Alexander the Great.  It’s difficult to link characters as totally opposite as Alexander and Jefferson together, but I suppose things change over 2,000 years.  Jefferson didn't seem very enthused about world conquest.   Strangely, many years ago I acquired a key chain while visiting Greece that has the bust of Alexander the Great on it wearing the ram skin that represents the God Ammon.   I’ve used it ever since because I've always been fascinated with Alexander.  So, I asked for a sign that I was Jefferson and Alexander and the next day while going through a box of old Soviet Union military pins in a militaria antique store came upon a Thomas Jefferson commemorative coin.  Going to another antique store the next day, I came across a brass bowl that has a silver portrait of Alexander the Great in it that matches the one on my key chain.   Was that coincidence or synchronicity?


    
                Thomas Jefferson                             Me
                       1743-1826                                                  

However, further research indicates that Jefferson only made two public speeches and those were both indoors.  He also rarely wore a wig.  What's more, I've read three accounts regarding Anne Willing Bingham's demise.  One said she caught "lung fever" while in Europe and another said she caught some illness while out sleigh riding near her Philadelphia home.  Yet another account said she gave birth to a third child in 1800 and was so sick that she was put on a ship to go to Bermuda in hopes the climate would help her recover.  She died in Bermuda in May 1801 and is buried there.  In any case, what these indicate is that if she died two months after Jefferson was inaugurated in March 1801, she was probably too sick to have been at the ceremony even if she wasn't in Bermuda or on a boat. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON?

This leads me to believe that the president she said she saw as me had to be Washington, who did, indeed, make his inaugural speech on an outdoor balcony in New York in 1789 when Anne would have been well with two young children (they would have been grown in 1801 when Jefferson was inaugurated) and easily in New York with her well-connected husband.  Washington also rarely wore a wig, but his gray hair made it seem like he was wearing one.


                    George Washington's First Inaugural


So I'm left with the conundrum that by affinity and other indications, I was Jefferson, but the only observer I've encountered, even if under hypnosis, indicates I was Washington. Of course, saying you're the reincarnation of Jefferson or Washington may lead some to question the size of your ego, regardless.

What Washington actually looked like is open to question if you compare all the portraits that were done of him.  They differ wildly in appearances and sometimes look more like the artist than George.  However, a reconstruction of his face was performed by forensic experts and that image looks a lot more like me than do portraits of him, or for that matter, images of Jefferson.

   
        George Washington  
              1732 - 1799 

 

    
Taking another tack, I asked the universe for a sign that I was Washington and wondered how that would appear considering how many real signs there are around Washington, DC, where I lived at the time, with Washington on them.  But proving that the universe is resourceful, my wife and I were driving along while she was reading a book.  As I was literally wondering where a sign might appear, she said, "Did you know that Denzel is a quaker name?"  I immediately thought of the only person I know with that name, Denzel Washington.  Coincidence or synchronicity?  

In May, 2011, I still wondered if I was Washington in a previous life because it seems so improbable.  Before going to bed, I asked the universe to give me a dream about Washington if he was, indeed, me back then.  That night I dreamed about the name George Washington all night long.  (If someone shows up in my dreams, I usually experience the name but associate it with abstract things.)  That's highly unusual for me because I've asked for that kind of verification before and my brain just did its own thing anyway.  If a possible past-life shows up, it's spontaneous rather than my request.  Was it a sign?

I once had a dream, however, in which I was told that Washington reincarnated as General Ray Odierno, whom I used to brief at the Pentagon.  Could be.

  
Washington                    Odierno

JOHN LAURENS?

So, what if I weren't Washington?  In December 2011, a psychic said, off the bat, "You have a warrior mentality", and then said I was a member of Washington's army.  She said I was an aide to the general and a close friend, read maps and acted as a liaison with foreigners.  I believe that description could refer to John Laurens, from Charleston, South Carolina, who was born in 1758.  Laurens was the son of Henry Laurens, a wealthy planter, reluctant slave holder, and president of the Continental Congress.  Young Laurens was educated in Switzerland and England before returning to fight in the Revolutionary War.  He was ardent in his desire to go into combat, and equally ardent to enlist the slaves in his state into the Continental Army so that they could earn their freedom by fighting for the cause.  That pet project of his only irritated the South Carolina plantation owners who ran the colony.  Being fluent in French, Laurens was not only a liaison to the foreign officers in the Continental Army, he was eventually sent to France where he secured a large loan for the Americans.  Laurens was like Cutts in his sheer recklessness in combat, and after participating in such battles as Monmouth and Yorktown, Laurens was shot and killed in 1782 leading a meaningless charge against a British foraging party that outnumbered his men and were dug in as well.  Laurens was best friends with Alexander Hamilton and was close to not only Washington, but Kosciusko.

I asked for a sign regarding Laurens but have not received one.  It's also possible that Laurens reincarnated as Col. Robert Gould Shaw.

 
Laurens              Me

THADDEUS KOSCIUSZKO?

Another possibility is Kosciuszko.  I read a biography of Kosciuszko, and he reminded me of another of my possible incarnations, William Rosecrans (see below). Like Rosecrans, Thaddeus was a military engineer that helped the American army tremendously during the Revolutionary War. He was also a fearless commander who led from the front, especially after he returned to his native Poland and twice led an uprising against the occupying Prussians and Russians. Thaddeus was also quite artistic, going to an art academy in Paris when still young, and even wrote music. He had the same personality as Rosecrans and the others I might have been, being very egalitarian, affable, humorous and kind. He was a close friend of Thomas Jefferson and John Laurens, sharing their committment to republican principles. In his will he left his funds under the care of Jefferson to buy and free slaves as well as educate them. Rosecrans was the superintendent of a sunday school for black children when he was stationed in Washington, DC. When Kosciuszko was building the fortifications at West Point, he found a spot on a mountain top, planted it with flowers, and used to go there to meditate. Likewise, von Stauffenberg (see below), another possibility of mine, had a spot on a mountain top near his home that he used to go to for his meditations.

I went to a Kosciuszko elementary school as a child and after I moved to the Charlotte area, I had a black handyman helping me out who mentioned he was born in the same town as Oprah Winfrey, Kosciuszko, Mississippi. He was surprised that I knew who Thaddeus was. So, figuring this might be an indication that he was one of my past-lives, I asked for a sign. Nothing happened for a couple of weeks. Then one morning I had a picture of Thomas Jefferson on my computer screen, and calling over my wife to see it, I mentioned that the fur collar Jefferson was wearing was given to Kosciuszko by the Czar of Russia, who then gave it to his friend, Jefferson. My wife's eyes grew wide and she exclaimed, "I forgot to mention that when I woke up this morning, the name Kosciuszko was going through my mind. Wasn't he associated with some American war, like the Revolution or the Civil War?" I was amazed. Coincidence or synchronicity? By the way, my wife's Polish maiden name ended in ski. Most of my friends back in heavily Polish Detroit had a ski at the end of their names, too. Maybe my wife was Kosciuszko!

 
Kosciuszko
1746 - 1817


AMERICAN CIVIL WAR PERIOD

Since this was now a hobby, I decided to see who else I might have been after I came up with the Washington possibility.   Sometime after that, I attended a platform medium reading.  For some reason, no spirits showed up for me but the medium gave me what I presume was more of a psychic reading.  She looked at me and said, "Gettysburg," then asked if I'm a reenactor.  I'm not.  On two previous occasions, the first thing a psychic said to me was, "Gettysburg."  Could it be that most people only know the name of one battle in the Civil War and thus always come up with Gettysburg?  Or did I have something to do with that battle?  I've been to Gettysburg many times but never had any emotional feelings about it.

(The same medium said the words Curtis and Edward were coming to her, and then exclaimed "Edward Curtis!"  I had no idea who that is, and apparently, she didn't either.  Then a member of the audience said that Edward Curtis was a famous photographer who took pictures of American Indians.  I'm not sure what that would have to do with me.  I looked him up and I didn't see any correspondences, although I do enjoy making artistic photographs.  He also died four years after I was born.  Maybe Edward Curtis showed up for the session.)

ROBERT E. LEE?

Later, I asked another psychic who I might have been in the Civil War.  She said I was wearing blue and was a general on the losing side.  I didn't know what to make of that.  She said that the general felt hugely responsible for the loss of the men under his command and it bothered him for the rest of his life.  She thought at first that it was Robert E. Lee, but then decided it was someone associated with him.  (Because psychics are frequently accused of telling clients that they were someone famous in a past-life, I suspect many are loathe to actually name someone famous.)  Lee was, indeed, sorrowful about the loss of his men, especially after Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.  In any case, she said that I have the same eyes now as I had then.   Could it have been Robert E. Lee, or was it one of his sons or even his nephew, Fitzhugh? 

I was stopped at a traffic light and noticed a bumper sticker on the car in front of me.  It advertised a tavern and upon squinting my eyes, I could barely make out the fine print giving its location, that is, Hanovertown, Virginia.  Later that evening, I was reading a biography of Fitzhugh Lee and found it mentioned him participating in a battle at Hanovertown.  General Lee had sent General Hampton and his cavalry there, including Fitzhugh Lee, and they ran into Federal cavalry. Coincidence or synchronicity?

  
Fitzhugh Lee                  W.H.F. Lee                        G.W.C. Lee
1835 - 1905                   1837 - 1891                     1832 - 1913

Robert E. Lee married the granddaughter of Martha Washington and some say actually modeled his behavior after George Washington.  Virginia governor Wise told Lee that he played Washington perfectly.  In any case, the two are so similar that even President Woodrow Wilson said Robert E. Lee was Washington reborn.

Lee and I share certain traits.  In fact, he reminds me a great deal of myself in personality and character.  He was very kind, generous and gentle.  Although he was emotional and could have a volcanic temper, he avoided showing his emotions.  If he wronged someone he went out of his way to make amends.  He avoided personal confrontations with people which some say led him to retain incompetent subordinates.  If he had to scold someone, he did it gently and usually indirectly.  He had a keen sense of personal honor and strongly believed in doing your duty.  Lee was highly religious and had, like Washington, a providential view of God.  He was very punctual and hated routine.  He also disdained "office politics" and deeply resented people who used politics to get ahead instead of merit, which only slowed his own advancement in the peacetime army.  Lee was widely admired as a soldier, including by the commander of the army, Winfield Scott, but that did him no good in terms of advancement.  Lee dearly loved animals and treated even his horses as members of the family.   He had a special affinity for women and girls, admiring their gentleness, so he preferred them as friends rather than men.  He treated women as women and, though he was devoted to his wife, seemed to have a need to develop platonic friendships with the beautiful ones.  (His wife understood.)  As an example, from 1832 to 1835 the wife of one of his friends and fellow officers, Harriett Talcott, was a close friend.  He called her "My beautiful Talcott." 


Harriett Talcott

I went to the Monroe Institute for their week-long course called Gateway Voyage.  The night before I left for the institute, I dreamt of Robert E. Lee all night long.  Then, in my first session at the institute, I had an eidetic image of Robert E. Lee appear in my mind. 

To make matters even more confusing, after I retured home, I asked my higher self under self-hypnosis who I was during the Civil War and saw an image of a man in a blue uniform putting on the skin of a dead lion, complete with head.  (That was also a common image of Alexander the Great as Hercules.)  I didn't know what to make of that, so I asked to be given a sign as to whether I was Robert E. Lee.  That night, I picked up a biography of Lee and read where one of his contemporaries remarked that some Confederates, unlike Lee, tried to wear the lion's skin without first killing the beast.  The author kept referring to Lee as "leonine."  Lee also wore US Army blue before joining the Confederate side.  So was all that coincidence or synchronicity?  

When I first contemplated being a reincarnation of Lee and asked for a sign, I walked into a book store and found myself looking at a magazine cover featuring a picture of Lee.  I thought that was a weak sign, if at all.  More than a year later, I asked for a sign and walked into another book store to spot a picture of Lee on the cover of a magazine.  In between, I saw no pictures of Lee.  So maybe it is a sign!

I've had people tell me I look a lot like Lee.

  
       Robert E. Lee                                    Me
         1807-1870

 
Lee                                         Me

According to various sources, we tend to incarnate with the same set of souls, as sort of repetory company who assume different roles with each other in each lifetime.  Some people try to determine if their relatives or friends look like people associated with their past-lives.  In the case of Robert  E. Lee, my son reminds me of Lee's nephew, Fitzhugh.  My son's former partner and friend looks a lot like Lee's eldest son, Custis, and has certain commonalities with him. My daughter looks just like Fitzhugh's wife, Ellen Fowle Lee.

The psychic who said I was an aide to Washington also said I was Robert E. Lee's brother.  He had two, one a farmer and the other a Naval officer who was said to be better looking than Robert and more convivial, especially with ladies.  That brother, Sydney Smith Lee, doesn't look much like me.


Sydney Smith Lee

Sydney was the commander of the ship on which Matthew Perry sailed to Japan and during the Civil War, he served with the Confederate Navy.  Interestingly, Sydney's nickname as a child was "Rose."

WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS?

So, to add to the confusion, long before my hearing about Sydney, I had a psychic say that I was a Union officer whose name started with something like "rose."  I had no idea to whom he was referring.  However, several weeks later, I woke up one morning to find the word "Rosecrans" going through my mind.  That was followed by "Nashville."  I looked up Rosecrans and found he was a Union general who fought mostly in the western theater.  Nashville was where the Army of the Cumberland, which he commanded, was headquartered.  Rosecrans was in many ways similar to Robert E. Lee and the two met and corresponded after the war.  Interestingly, one of the first encounters of the Civil War was in western Virginia (now West Virginia) where in July 1861 an unknown Robert E. Lee faced off against an unknown William Rosecrans, and Rosecrans won, driving the Confederates out of what would become West Virginia. 

Rosecrans also had some things in common with me, including an interest in architecture, engineering, mining and geology.   Before the war, he was an engineer and helped build the Washington, DC, Navy Yard, where I used to work occasionally.  I used to work as an engineer at General Motors and as a civil engineering technician.  He also helped find and develop the Kanawha coal field in West Virginia, in the same area that George Washington used to own land.  Both Washington and Rosecrans were entrepeneurs who were trying to become wealthy.  Washington was forever speculating on land in "the Ohio country" and also owned land fairly near to where Rosecrans was born.  I did my geology field work in the Appalachians of Virginia and West Virginia since I was interested in the economic geology of the area.  Most of my classmates went out west.

After the war, Rosecrans became involved in mining ventures in Nevada. As for me, exploring old mines, especially in Nevada and the west is one of my favorite activities.   Rosecrans eventually moved to southern California and owned land in the south Los Angeles area, where I once lived, and in San Diego, where I also lived.  Rosecrans later represented California's first congressional district (San Francisco at the time), living near to where my twin brother now lives.   He was  also appointed ambassador to Mexico and was instrumental in trying to get Americans to invest in Mexican railroads.  At the Defense Intelligence Agency, I was once assigned to study the infrastructure of Mexico while with the Military Geography Branch.  (During the Mexican War, Capt. Robert E. Lee expertly used his knowledge of military geography to find ways of flanking the Mexican army.)

 Later, I asked for a sign as to who I was in the Civil War and soon found myself parked next to a car that had a license plate reading, "4ROSY."  Rosy is what everyone called Rosecrans.  Then, a bit later on the same day, I saw a U-Haul trailer pull alongside my car with a pictorial of Redondo Beach on the side.  That's where Rosecrans lived in his later years and where he died.  A couple of weeks later, I was heading to Richmond, Virginia to see a Civil War show.  I asked again for a sign that I was Rosecrans.  As I sat in the bumper to bumper traffic on I-95 for hours, a car came up on my right.  The license plate said, "4ROSY."  It was the same car.  What are the odds of that happening?  Coincidence or synchronicity? 

A couple of years later, I was thinking about the possible Rosecrans connection when a car with a U-Haul trailer came along side me on the freeway.  The trailer had "Redondo Beach" on the side of it.  I rarely see U-Haul trailers (although lots of trucks and vans), but the next day, I saw another U-Haul trailer with "Point Pleasant" on the side of it.  Point Pleasant, Ohio, is the town in which Rosecrans' nemesis, Ulysses S. Grant was born.  Strange.

I also tried to program my dreams one night to see if my Civil War identity would pop in.  All I recall from a dream that night was myself saying, "I have a letter from Hazen."  That would probably be William B. Hazen, one of Rosecrans' subordinate generals and a hero at the battle of Stones River.  Of course, Hazen could have sent a letter to anyone, but Rosecrans seems the most likely.

In any case, I do look a bit like Rosecrans, who is shown here at various stages in his life.  He also looked like some portraits of Washington.  

 
  William Rosecrans                                      My Twin Brother
     1819-1898

 
Rosecrans                                         Me


 
Rosecrans                       Me

 
Rosecrans                                              Me 

  
Washington used to own tens of thousands of acres along the Kanawha and Ohio rivers in what is now West Virginia.  After the Revolutionary War, he visited his holdings to ascertain their economic value, including a visit to a coal  mine.  Then Washington became obsessed with creating a lock and canal system to link the Potomac and Ohio rivers.  Rosecrans was involved in coal mining along the Kanawha River and founded a company to create locks and canals to transport coal by water.  Rosecrans was an engineer and inventor, holding several patents. Washington used his farm as a laboratory to experiment with various ways to better the soil and find more efficient ways to farm. 

While working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)during the first Gulf War in 1991, I unraveled the entire Iraqi water control system of locks, dams and barrages so as to explain how they might be manipulated to flood the approaches to Baghdad.

Interestingly, when Rosecrans was re-interred at Arlington Cemetery in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt gave a eulogy in which he stated that the great works of George Washington would have crumbled into the dust if it weren't for the efforts of Rosecrans and his men.

Oddly, both Lee and Rosecrans seem convincing to me.  Lee had my personality and character.  Rosecrans had my interests and abilities.  Both had my looks.  Is it possible to be in two bodies at the same time?  Some people say so.



WORLD WAR II PERIOD 

Seeing that my possible incarnations were mostly all generals,  I wondered if I might be a general in my last life, too, or at least a military person.   After all, I used to be obsessed with military history and even owned over 50 board war games at one time that recreate historical battles.  I'm also fascinated by guns, especially antique ones. 

KENNETH N. WALKER?

I was once told by a psychic in yet another story that I was in a bomber during WWII.  When I joined the US Army in 1969 it was to be a helicopter pilot and I seriously thought about being a pilot when I was young.  In fact, I almost joined the Air Force reserve to be a fighter pilot after I got out of the Army.  Anyway, in those few instances where I've been behind the stick in an airplane, I felt completely at ease, like it was natural.  So, in thinking about the possibility that I was a general again in my last life, I looked into American generals who died during WWII.  I soon came across Brig. Gen. Kenneth Newton Walker, who was born the year Rosecrans died, and something about him resonated.  He is considered the father of American strategic bombing and, in fact, wrote the air war plan to bomb and destroy German industry.   While working at DIA, I was assigned for a while to the Strategic Targeting Division where I helped devise strategic bombing policy.  Walker was also an intelligence officer as a collateral duty. 

Looking at his biography, he reminds me of Rosecrans quite a bit, and even looks a bit like him.  He was born in Cerrillos, New Mexico, (which I've been to many times since it's near where my son lives) and his father worked in the turquoise mines there until he abandoned his family.  Oddly, I have a friend, a geology professor, who did his doctoral thesis field work at Cerrillos.  Did I know him there in a previous life? 

Walker's birth was on 17 July 1898, about 50 years to the day from mine since I was born on 12 July 1948, and about four months after Rosecrans died.  Walker eventually got a job as an executive trainee with a mining company in Denver.  Rosecrans was, as indicated, heavily into mining and his brother was a miner in New Mexico.  Walker joined the army in December, 1917, almost exactly 60 years before I joined the Navy Reserve in December, 1977.  (I was on active duty in the army from 1969 to 1971.) 

While in the army, Walker lived in an assortment of places, including Washington, DC, and also for three years in California at Hamilton Field, which is near to where my brother lives and next door to San Rafael where Rosecrans lived when he had a business in San Francisco.  Walker was also taught to fly at Mather Airfield near Sacramento.  During the war, Walker was assigned to Australia, where for some reason he visited a uranium mine near Alice Springs, and in New Guinea as commander of the 5th Bombing Wing.  Walker was disappointed to be assigned to the Pacific theater since he had written the plan to bomb German industry and infrastructure and wanted to help carry it out.

Walker frequently rode along on dangerous bombing missions to see how they were doing and to correct problems.  His commander finally forbade him from doing it, but he disobeyed one time too many and his B-17 was shot down on 5 January 1943 over Rabaul, New Guinea, winning him the Medal of Honor posthumously.  He's the highest ranking MIA from WWII.  When I was a young boy, I had a dream, the most realistic one I've ever had, of being a passenger in an airliner that crashed.  It was so realistic, I fell out of bed.  Was that a remembrance of Walker's crash?  I don't know.

 Of course, I asked the universe for a sign that I was Walker and then shortly after got an email from a friend about how downed bomber pilots were helped to escape in WWII.   It was strange since Walker was a downed bomber pilot and she never sent me anything even remotely like that before.  Later that evening, I passed by the television and saw the word "Walker" blazoned across it.  Surprised, I learned it was an ad for Johnny Walker scotch whiskey.  What's strange is that the program was on death masks and immediately prior to the commercial, the topic was George Washington's death mask.  In any case, I can't recall ever seeing a Johnny Walker ad on TV before.  For about a week, I saw the name "Walker" quite frequently.  I even had an insurance adjuster come to my house named "Walker."  But then, it stopped and I have rarely seen the name since, even though it's common.

In January 2012, I happened to see a movie trailer for "Red Tails", about black fighter pilots in WWII who escorted bombers.  As I watched the combat scenes, my body was seemingly electrified as I vibrated all over for several minutes.  Was it a reaction to a subconscious memory?

     
              Kenneth N. Walker                             Me
                      1898-1943                   


PAUL WURTSMITH?

Going with the possibility of bomber pilots, I came across Paul Wurtsmith, born in 1906.  Like me, he was from Detroit, Michigan.  He also attended Cass Tech High School, where I once had a girlfriend attending, before graduating from the University of Detroit.  Strangely, while I went to Wayne State University, across town from the University of Detroit, I did go to the ROTC program at that university and ask about joining the program to be an Air Force fighter pilot.  I didn't follow through because of my wife's protests.  As a teenager, Wurtsmith liked to build a Ford Model-T hot rod, whereas I was once an engineer for Fisher Body, General Motors.  After graduating with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering, Wurtsmith joined the Army Air Corps and was stationed at Selfridge Field, just outside of Detroit.  Selfridge Field is where I did my Navy Reserve duty when still living in the Detroit area.

In one of his missions, he tested flight operations in sub-zero weather at what was later named Wurtsmith Air Force Base,  Oscoda, Michigan, not far from where  I once owned property.

In World War II, Wurtsmith went to the Southwest Pacific theater and eventually commanded the fighters for the Fifth Air Force while, by coincidence, Kenneth Walker was commanding the bombers.  He was much decorated for his successes.

After the war, Wurtsmith was assigned to the Strategic Air Command headquarters at Bolling Air Force Base, DC, where I worked for many years at DIA.  He then became head of the Eighth Air Force as a major general at the young age of 37.

In 1946, Wurtsmith flew a B-25 bomber from McDill Air Force Base, where I've visited, on his way to Selfridge Field in Detroit.  Along the way, his bomber hit the top of Cold Mountain, just southwest of Asheville, North Carolina, not too far from where I live now in the Charlotte area, killing all aboard.  (Cold Mountain was featured in the Civil War book and movie by that name.)

Despite my having a lot in common with Wurtsmith, at least geographically, I've not seen a sign that I was him, nor do we look much alike.

 
Paul Wurtsmith                      Me
1906 - 1946


CLAUS SCHENK GRAF VON STAUFFENBERG?
  
But there's something about Walker and Wurtsmith that didn't seem to fit.  When I was a child, I used to doodle incessantly either Civil War figures or Nazi soldiers and swastikas.  Something about the Kepie hat of the Civil War and the German army helmet of WWII fascinated me.  I didn't have much interest in the Pacific war against the Japanese.  So, could I have been a German or fought the Germans in the Second World War?  

At a hypnosis conference, I became acquainted with an older man and a young woman who were quite affectionate with each ohter, despite the aesthetic disparity and age difference.  He said they both remembered when he was on the German General Staff during WWII and she was his girlfriend back in that life.  They both claimed I was there.  At the time, I took that with a grain of salt since I couldn't imagine being a Nazi or supporting them. 

 I looked into German generals who died in WWII but found no likely candidates.  Then I remembered Claus Schenk, Graf von Stauffenberg, the colonel who tried to blow up Adolf Hitler.  Looking into the life of Von Stauffenberg, I found out that he reminded me very much of William Rosecrans.  Like Rosecrans, he was a Catholic, becoming devout later in life, and very spiritual.  Both wanted to be soldiers when they were small and imagined being a hero.

Von Stauffenberg was considered the most promising young officer in the entire German army and the only real genius on the General Staff.  Like Rosecrans, he made it a point to get to know all the officers personally in his command and talked to them about subjects as varied as history, literature, politics and religion.  Rosecrans was famous for talking about such subjects, especially religion, to his staff until almost dawn.  Like Rosecrans, he was affable, always cheerful, humorous and kind.  Von Stauffenberg  was universally admired and respected, even by the top ranking generals who used him as a confidante.  Rosecrans was admired and respected by his troops, who loved him. 

Like Rosecrans, Stauffenberg was a perfectionist with a temper who could also sarcastically dress down subordinates, especially if they were being dishonest.   Both were severely critical of the incompetence they saw among their superiors and weren't afraid to express it.  That was one of my traits as well, which sometimes got me in trouble with the bureaucrats I had to work for.  Both von Stauffenberg and Rosecrans were vitually tireless, working long into  the night.  Both had iron wills, and could multi-task, for example, dictating several letters at the same time.

Rosecrans and Stauffenberg believed in a life of service to others, although Rosecrans was also an entrepeneur who tried to support his family with business ventures because the military didn't pay enough.  Stauffenberg, as a wealthy aristocrat, didn't need to earn money.  I gave up an engineering job at GM to work for the government because I thought service to the nation was more fulfilling than a regular job.

While still a student, von Stauffenberg became interested in architecture and almost went to school for that discipline.  He wanted to design cathedrals.  Rosecrans was an engineer and architect who helped design a cathedral in Columbus, Ohio and built a number of churches.  (One, in Newport, Rhode Island, is the church in which JFK and Jackie Kennedy were married.)  I, too, have always been interested in architecture and even applied to an architecture school once. 

Like me, von Stauffenberg was born with curly blond hair that gradually straightened and darkened with age.  And like me, he had large steely blue eyes that people noticed.  Rosecrans had wavy, sandy colored hair and blue eyes.

He was also born in 1907, one hundred years after Lee.

     
        Von Stauffenberg
            1907 - 1944

Von Stauffenberg's family tried to push him into literary pursuits and he became a poet and devotee of Stefan Georg, a renowned German poet and mystic.  George was called "Master"  and "Prophet" by his young followers and they bought into his ideas about a Germany ruled by a spiritual heirarchy.  That reminded me of my days writing poetry and my time as a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba.  The Sai Baba satsang was initially run by an old guy who looked somewhat like Georg.  He was artistic, not poetic.  Oddly, Georg was born on July 12, 1868, or 80 years to the day before I was born on July 12, 1948.  If I was von Stauffenberg, did I incarnate on that date to honor my former teacher?  Anyway, looking at Georg's poetry, and I presume von Stauffenberg's was similar, I was struck at how similar his poetic style is to mine.

While serving in North Africa, von Stauffenberg was severely wounded in an aircraft attack on his convoy, losing his left eye, his right hand and forearm, along with two of his left fingers.  He also had shrapnel embedded in his legs and back along with damage to his right eye.  He wasn't expected to live but when he did, he decided it was for some greater purpose, probably saving Germany from the Nazis. Von Stauffenberg refused any anesthesia or analgesics as he was being operated on and during his three month recovery before leaving the hospital.

Likewise, Rosecrans was severely burned in an industrial accident at the coal oil plant he ran before the war.  His burns were so severe that he wasn't expected to live, yet managed to survive.  It took him 18 months to recuperate enough to get on his feet.  I have long suspected that Rosecrans believed that he was saved for a special purpose because he acted as if that were the case during the entire Civil  War.

Von Stauffenberg was, like many German men of his time and place, initially attracted to the ideas of Hitler,  especially German nationalism and rectifying the damage done by the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War.  But he refused to join the Nazi party.  Still, like Rosecrans, he supported the government and thought it should be obeyed.  However, once he witnessed the persecution of Jews during Krystall Nacht and the slaughter of civilians conducted by the SS on the Eastern front, he turned vehemently against the Nazis and organized the ill-fated attempt to kill Hitler.  He considered it a moral duty.  

(I have a theory that the immediate past-life of Adolf Hitler was Ulysses S. Grant.  If that's true, then if Rosecrans, who hated Grant and vice versa, became Von Stauffenberg, then it may help explain Von Stauffenberg's turning against Hitler.)

I asked for a sign whether I was von Stauffenberg and that evening I received an email from a woman showing pictures from Life Magazine of Hitler and the top Nazis.  I was somewhat shocked since this woman never displayed any interest in that period of history and never sent me anything like that before.  The next day, I again asked for a sign and that evening found posted on my Facebook wall the trailer for a movie on Sophie Scholl and the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance group.  Figuring those were weak signs, I asked again the following day and that evening turned on the television to find a biographical program on the life of von Stauffenberg.   What were the odds of that happening?   Coincidence or synchronicity?  

Some months later, I decided to reaffirm the signs and asked again.  Later that day, I turned on the TV to find a program called "Third Reich: The Fall."  I hadn't seen any programs on Nazi Germany on TV for quite a while, so I was impressed by the timing.

A couple of weeks after that,  I decided to reaffirm whether I was von Stauffenberg again (it seems so improbable) and asked for another sign.  The next day I turned on the TV and found, once again, the same television program on the life of von Stauffenberg.  I had not seen it between those two broadcasts.  Coincidence or synchronicity?


KARL LUDWIG FREIHERR VON UND ZU GUTTENBERG?

Despite all that, another possibility is Karl Ludwig Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg.  I decided to program myself to dream about who I was in my past life.  Just before falling asleep, I saw an image of a bear jumping up on a pedestal.  I took that to mean "Bear on" or Baron.  (The German word for baron is freiherr.)  Throughout the night, I kept dreaming about the name "Beck."   I figured Beck might be General Ludwig Beck, one of the opponents of Hitler who was executed for the 20 July plot.

Guttenberg was arrested after 20 July and tortured to confess and reveal the names of other plotters.  He never caved in and so was released.  However, he was murdered in April 1945.


 
Karl Ludwig Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg
             1902 - 1945

 

As for Ludwig Beck, he was Commander-in-Chief of the German army until he had a falling out with Hitler in 1938 over the invasion of Czechoslovakia.  He resigned then.  Beck was involved in the 20 July plot and was executed along with Von Stauffenberg.  (Terrence Stamp played him in the movie "Valkyrie.")  Beck was born in 1880.

HELMUTH JAMES GRAF VON MOLTKE?

Another more remote possibility is Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, who was not a baron, but rather a count.  Still, when I was a kid, my father said that our last name, Wolke, means "cloud" in German and we acquired that name when our ancestor fled Prussia after a revolution.  He wanted to go in obscurity, so he renamed himself Wolke.  My mother said the ancestor was a Prussian general, von something or other.  For some reason, I settled on von Moltke, and figured the Prussian field marshal, Helmuth Graf von Moltke, was the ancestor.  In later life, I figured it might be a von Moltke, but not Helmuth, the uncle of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke.  Helmuth was contemporaneous with our ancestor who arrived in 1854 from the Westphalia part of Prussia.  That relative, Joseph Wolke, may have been one of the 48'er's, the name given American immigrants who were  fleeing the 1848 revolutions in Europe, including Prussia. 

Helmuth James was a lawyer and a very liberal man who esteemed freedom and human rights.  Concerned about the rise of the Nazis, he was about to emigrate to Britain when the war broke out.  He was drafted and became a specialist on international law and the laws of war for the German General Staff intelligence department.  He used his position to urge humane treatment of prisoners of war and avoiding war crimes.  Growing increasingly disgusted with the Nazis, he formed the Kreisau Circle, a group of conspirators who were formulating a way to get rid of Hitler and form a new government.  After the failure of the 20 July plot, von Moltke was arrested, tried, and executed in 1944.

Interestingly, von Moltke was born on 11 March 1907.  Rosecrans died on 11 March 1898 and Lee was born 100 years earlier in 1807.

I've not received a sign that I was Guttenberg or Moltke, though I did ask.

 
Graf von Moltke
  1907 - 1944                    

  
             John Cutts
             1661-1707

Cutts was closely associated with Algernon Sydney, who became his mentor.  Famous for his "Discourses" on human liberty, Thomas Jefferson called Sydney and John Locke the two main inspirations for the American concept of liberty.    Cutts was also the retainer to John Scott, Lord Monmouth, who was King Charles II's illegitimate son by a woman, Lucy Walters, who at one time was also the mistress of Algernon and Robert Sydney.   Eventually, Monmouth was arrested and executed for trying to depose the Catholic King James II, at which time Cutts fled to Holland where he had a friend in William of Orange who, in turn, invaded England and overthrew James II.   William then became King William III (of William and Mary fame).  Perhaps Cutts had some influence on William's "Glorious Revolution" that created an English Bill of Rights, establishing a parliamentary monarchy that ended the king's absolute rule.

Is it a coincidence that Washington, who was fighting for the principles espoused by Algernon Sydney, had perhaps his greatest display of generalship at the battle of Monmouth?  Back before he became a general in the Revolution, Washington ordered from London busts of famous generals to decorate Mount Vernon.  He chose Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, King Charles XII of Sweden, King Frederick II of Prussia, Prince Eugene of Savoy and the Duke of Marlborough.  Interestingly, Eugene of Savoy and the Duke of Marlborough were co-commanders in the battle of Blenheim, a battle in which Cutts, the third ranking commander under Savoy and Marlborough, played a major role by engaging at the village of Blenheim in most of the battle's fighting.  Cutts, rather than Savoy or Marlborough, really was the hero of Blenheim.

I asked for a sign if I was Cutts and later that night, my wife was reading a new novel.  She turned to me and said, "Why would you call someone a salamander?"  I was jolted.  She thought her book was a historical novel and wondered why a character would be called a salmander when it turned out the book was a fantasy and the character really was a salamander.  If she had known that, she wouldn't have asked.  Coincidence or synchronicity?


OLIVER CROMWELL?

Figuring that I seem to have been a soldier or general in my last four lives, I looked into the period before John Cutts lived and was reminded that I once stayed at an inn located in Huntingdon, England that, as it turned out, was the very house that Oliver Cromwell was born in.   So I looked into the life of the great Lord Protector, as he was called.  Cromwell became famous during the English Civil War, but prior to that he was, like Cutts, a member of parliament representing Cambridge.  That happened to be the only other town I wanted to visit while in England and it was the only other town I visited other than London.  

Cromwell was born 200 years before Washington died.

 
           Oliver Cromwell
              1599-1658

I asked for a sign if I was Cromwell and soon after came across a reference to him while reading about the American Revolution and Baron Von Steuben.  That was interesting, but hardly conclusive.  However, the next day, my wife came out of the decorator shop where she sometimes works carrying a magazine on English country houses.  I opened it at random and found an article on Bristol Castle in which it said the previous structure was demolished by the parliamentarians during the English Civil War.  In fact, it was Oliver Cromwell who ordered the castle to be torn down.  Coincidence?  Later that evening, a friend mentioned that she had a dream about a guy shipwrecked on a desert beach whose name popped into her mind as James Christian Riley.  It turned out that, according to Wikipedia, James Riley was indeed shipwrecked on the coast of North Africa.  It said that Riley was an American commercial sea captain born in Middletown, Connecticut.  But  there was no indication that his middle name was "Christian."  To confirm that, I then went to Ancestry.com and much to my amazement discovered that Riley wasn't born in Middletown at all.  He was born in Cromwell, Connecticut.  Coincidence or synchronicity?

        
Young Rupert and his Weimaraner
            
 
  Prince Rupert of the Rhine
               1619 - 1682
 
Also, as I mentioned about signs that I was Cromwell, the Bristol Castle that Cromwell had torn down came into his possession after a battle in which Cromwell bested the castle's commander.  That commander was Prince Rupert.  So perhaps the magazine was a sign in advance linking Cromwell and Rupert.

Nevertheless, I asked for a sign whether I was Rupert in a past-life.  Later that day, I started reading a biography on Rupert  and saw that his family was ejected from Prague, so they took refuge in The Hague, Netherlands.  Then I went back to my computer to find a Facebook friend request from someone living in The Hague.  That's the only time anything regarding The Hague has come to my attention.  Coincidence or synchronicity?




MEDIEVAL PERIOD

JAMES IV OF SCOTLAND?

In looking around for other possibilities, I was struck by how much King James IV of Scotland, born in 1473, fit my pattern.  James was a polymath and "quite affable among the common people", sometimes mixing among them anonymously.  James was also "more fearless in battle than a king ought to be."  He was extremely fond of learning and passed a law that ordered the nobles in Scotland to get an education.  He introduced the printing press to that country and encouraged the arts and literature.  He also designed and built several castles.  Like Rupert of the Rhine, he installed a foundry in his castle to make weapons and he also built a fleet of warships.  His reign is the first in which Scotland was acknowledged among the monarchs of Europe as an equal.  Unfortunately, James, who was an honest, generous man loved by all was killed in battle against the English since he felt he owed the French, to whom he was allied, with his support when the English attacked France.  

I tried to program a dream to show me who I was in my last life. That night, as I was dreaming, a portrait flashed into view with the words, James IV of Scotland accompanying it. It was out of place in the dream (which I otherwise don't remember.) Was it a sign?

 
King James IV of Scotland              Me
1473 - 1513


COLIN CAMPBELL OF GLENORCHY?

However, the man who James IV appointed as Lord Chancellor of Scotland was Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, 1st Earl of Argyll.  What shocked me was that I found out Campbell built Kilchurn Castle.  As it happens, I live on Kilchurn Drive.  There isn't too much known about Campbell other than that he was a formidable warrior and a member of the Knights of Rhodes (later Malta) and spent some time crusading in Palestine while his wife built Kilchurn castle.  Oddly, my wife has a love affair with Scotland, although she's never been there.  Could she have been Marjory Stewart, the first wife of Colin?  (He had four.)  Thinking I might have been Sir Colin, I asked for a sign.  Seconds later, my wife said, out of the blue, "How do you spell Colin?"   It seems she was texting a friend who has a child named Colin.  Coincidence or synchronicity?



  Sir Colin Campbell, 1st Earl of Argyll
                    1433 - 1493

CHARLEMAGNE?

 Looking for other clues, I remembered that under self-hypnosis, my arms would automatically move without my volition and I would "see" a globe with a cross on it in my left hand and a sword in my right.  I never knew what that meant, but I did look it up recently and found the globe with a cross is called a Globus Cruciger, and it symbolizes Christ's dominion over the world.  Many Christian monarchs, starting with the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, are shown with the Globus Cruciger, but they all have a sceptre or staff in their right hand.  There aren't many shown with a sword in the right hand, but one was Charlemagne, the great Frankish king of of the 9th century.  I once had a psychic say I was very famous in the Middle Ages but refused to tell me who it was.  She wanted me to figure it out.  Charlemagne, perhaps?

Charlemagne (Charles the Great) was a tall, powerfully built, plain dressed man who totally transformed the military (he introduced logistics), the monetary system, legal system and education.  He tried to keep the peasants free by beating back serfdom and valued education so much that it's said there wasn't anything that didn't interest him.  He introduced education to his realm by importing teachers.  Under his renaissance, arts and sciences flourished.  He was kind, although ruthless with enemies, and mixed well with commoners.  His military successes abounded and he greatly expanded the Frankish Empire by personally leading 52 military campaigns from the front.  He's generally considered the greatest king of the Middle Ages. 

I asked for a sign that I was Charlemagne and later that evening was at Costco where I opened a book on military leaders to find Charlemagne.  A few days later, I again asked for a sign as to whether I was once Charlemagne.  Later that evening, I turned on the TV and found a History Channel program on Charlemagne.  Coincidence or synchronicity? 

This is an imagined picture of Charlemagne.  In reality, he had a moustache but no beard, according to contemporary accounts.  Note the sword and globus cruciger, however.

 
            Charlemagne 
               742-814

Others shown with a sword and Globus Cruciger include Holy Roman Empire Kings Heinrich II (also known as St. Henry after his canonization), his son, Heinrich III, Wenceslas IV, and Frederick II.  Also, William the Lion, King of Scotland, King of Cyprus, Peter I de Lusignan (also known as Peter I of Cyprus), and Tudor King of England Edward VI.  All of the British kings from William the Conqueror to Richard I the Lion Heart also show themselves on their state seal with a sword and Globus Cruciger.  

(Interestingly, in the US Capitol building dome there's a fresco mural called "The Apotheosis of Washington."  Apotheosis is the exaltation of something, usually a man, to the God state.  Washington is shown among the classical Gods, and he has a sword in his left hand and his right hand is making a gesture similar to the one I did.  The difference is that his sword is pointing down as is his hand gesture.  Presumably, since he's in heaven, his gestures are pointed downward towards the Earth.)



ANCIENT PERIOD

MARY MAGDALENE?

I once was hypnotized by my brother who asked me to come up with a symbol that was important to me.  I saw Jesus on the cross and for some reason, it sent me into a fit of sobbing.  I was truely grief stricken and kept thinking how cruel it was of God to let such a good man suffer like that.  For some reason, I thought I might be Mary Magdalene and knew myself as his wife.  I thought that was weird, but did ask for a sign.  Shortly thereafter, I went to see a movie entitled "All About Steve" in which the main character, played by Sandra Bullock, says her name is Mary Magdalene Horowitz.  Shortly after that, I went to the airport and found a group at the gate that was returning from Europe where they went on a Magnificat Tour.  They all had a picture of the Virgin Mary attached to their carry-on luggage.  As I pondered that, a group of French tourists arrived and instead of finding their own area, proceeded to surround me.  Legend has it that Mary Magdalene fled to France. 


A picture of Jesus materialized by Sai Baba


BARNABAS?

I've also had a psychic tell me I was Barnabas, the companion of St. Paul, and that I was the Virgin Mary's cousin.  She said I made beads for a living and gave a string to Mary, thus making the first Rosary.  Good work if you can find it.


CARNEADES?

In January 2012, I hypnotized a friend of my son's and asked, as I usually do, whether he knew me in a previous life.  He went back to the robe and sandal period and said I was his teacher and because he had no family, was a surrogate father.  The teacher taught skepticism, which made him unpopular with religious authorities and so there was a lot of tension and the young man avoided looking at soldiers.  The teacher eventually killed himself, although my subject didn't know how or when.  From his description of the city and countryside, I'd say he was in Cyrene or Alexandria and the teacher was Carneades, the principle philosopher of the "Academic Skepticism" school.  The pupil was probably Clitomachus, his close friend and successor.  They lived in the second century BC.  Interestingly, Carneades taught that we can't know the truth about anything, including that we can't know the truth about anything.  All we can do is assign probabilities and act accordingly.  That's more or less my philosophy in life.  Carneades lived to an old age, but because of his infirmities, said he wanted to kill himself by drinking poison.  Nobody knows if he really did.


Carneades

OTHERS?

Back around 1996, I hypnotized a co-worker who said she saw she and I as students in an old robe and sandal mystery school.  A forbidden love affair between us was discovered and she killed herself.  This lady also saw the two of us as a king and queen in ancient East Anglia, Britain.

I once had a massage and while relaxing, saw myself as an old American Indian sitting in the snow, dying, and wondering where the buffalo went.  I once wrote a poem about dying alone in the snow years before.



COMMENTS

Obviously, the odds of my having been one of these historical figures, much less all, is exceedingly small.  As mentioned previously, I don't make the claim to have been any of them and present here only the process by which I came up with the possibilities.  This would only have worked if the past personalities were known in history.  A lifetime spent in average lives would not leave much of a record, if at all.  So why even consider them as possibilities?

The main reason for suspecting that any of these lives were my actual past incarnations is that of the signs which I deemed significant.  When conducting my search, there were many personalities for which I asked for a confirming sign only to receive nothing.  So what is presented above is merely the most significant.  In some cases, I did get what could be construed as a sign but it was not convincing enough.  For example, I asked if I was Thomas a Becket and then read about a kid whose mother painted his toe nails.  His name was Becket.  I took that as a mere coincidence.  A sign needs to be startling or really unlikely to be convincing.  In some of my cases, it was my wife who gave me the sign, which makes me wonder if her subconscious was reading mine and then responded accordingly.  That seems unlikely because in most cases, she was prompted by an external stimulus, such as reading a book.  It's also interesting that some of the signs had to be set up in advance before I asked for them.  The car with the "4Rosy" license plate had to have been on it's way down I-95 before I asked for a sign.  It's as if the universe knew in advance when I would ask and arranged the answer.  That may not be typical.

You may also have noticed that psychics are not the most reliable method of identifying past lives.  It's not that they're necessarily trying to deceive you, it's just that they report on what they see and that may be accurate or just imagination.  I had one psychic give me a past-life scenario only to realize it was the plot of a movie I had seen.  I regard psychics as possibly partially right, and it behooves you to discern what is likely and what isn't.  They provide clues that you can follow even if all the information isn't correct.  One of the ironies is that people claim psychics will tell you that you were someone famous in a past life as a way to ingratiate themselves.  In my experience, psychics are loathe to claim you were someone famous just because of that.  They usually say you were associated with some famous person rather than say you were that person.

Another oddity is that I received signs indicating simultaneous lifetimes.  Could I have been both Rosecrans and Lee?  If you think of the soul as you would a body, confined to one identity, it's impossible.  But if the soul is just energy and consciousness, there's no reason why it couldn't divide or, as in the quantum physics of photons, be either a wave or a particle depending on how it's viewed.  The soul may be a wave but is viewed as a particle from the mind's perspective.  Several authorities claim we can be in more than one body, including people who have had near death experiences and identified who else they were on the earth plane.  So at least in regard to double incarnations, it's possible.  But why famous people?

There's apparently something different about me, aside from appearing nuts.  I once had a person say the aura around my house lit up the skyline.  When I visited the Indian Avatar, Sathya Sai Baba at his ashram, he stared at me whenever he saw me.  One time when visiting another Indian saint, Ammachi, she dumped flowers on my head.  I've had psychics claim my energy isn't from this earth and one told me I'm actually from Arcturus.  Interestingly, I had a roommate at the Monroe Institute say the same thing.  His description of that world, where he, too, was from, fit one I once saw in a dream.  Other psychics said I'm here on Earth to perform important tasks and this time around I'm just observing.  Apparently, that fits  the job description of Arcturians.  As one psychic said, I incarnated to help found the United States.  Maybe that's why I'm so passionate about the state of the nation.

Another question is why I appear to have had the "warrior mentality", as the psychic put it, over all those lifetimes, yet in the distant past, seemed to be on the spiritual path.  My impression is that it had to do with the death of Jesus and the perception that God punishes or allows to be tortured those who love the divine.  I have the feeling that I thought it was safer to be on the side of those inflicting the punishment rather than being the one who was punished. 

So who knows how accurate any of this is.  It makes an interesting story, at least for me.  But I'm apparently not alone.  Here's a poem by another believer in his warrior mentality:



"Through a Glass, Darkly"

General George S. Patton, Jr.

Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
I have fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy's field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.