Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00008)

Dear Thoa (and all):

The folowing post, while disappearing into devachan, was also copied
to Chicago (a bit closer), and thus I am able to repost:
-------
I recently offered to post a genuine past life memory, with comments.
In view of a comment by Bart, I though now must be the time, so here it
is.

For many years I earned my living, or part of it, by playing the piano
accordion or the piano, mainstream jazz in my early days (Django kind
of stuff) and popular tunes of the day, and more importantly, past days.

I discovered, over a period, that the songs of the First World War
evoked an emotion in me that was out of proportion to the quality of the
song as a song, and one night I was playing in a village pub on
November 11th, when we remember Armistice Day of W.W.I. There
were a lot of old soldiers there still gong strong from that time, and their
singing along and remembering all the words moved me a great deal.

Note the above date - it's important to what follows.

To avoid too much waffle, I had studied occult ideas for some years by
then, and was inclined to accept reincarnation as a fact.  About a year
or two later, recalling that night, I wondered if I was so strongly affected
because I had be incarnated during that war, and following what might
be called third object disciplines, attempted to discover if there was any
substance to this, as by this time I had received enough occult training to
be able to do so.

So I went in, so to speak.

The brief result was as follows:

I was in an airplane [biplane, with a machine gun mounted forward]
flying over a battlefield.  It was raining, and had been for some days.
The ground below was a sea of mud.  Suddenly, I received a blow in
the chest, as if a shot had been fired from the ground (I was close
enough).  As things faded, there were other memories appropriate to
the period - farmhouses, and a double decker milk wagon pulled by a
single horse.  I came back to normal wakefulness, and, as I knew how,
went back in to obtain more info, on the basis that if true, my memory
would also have info about the circumstances of the event, which was
so.

On going back in for more details I wanted certain information, as the
event did not tell me much in itself.  The procedure is rather like
question
and answer, which is why it is useful to come out and then go back in
again, so as to formulate useful, rather than "curious" questions.

Age?  18
Name? John [Big deal!]
Place?  Ypres
Date?   December 1918.

Remember the date - November 11th?  This didn't fit, because as we
were all taught at school, the signing of the Armistice was the end of the
war.  I nearly didn't bother to follow this up, as I was convinced this
could not be correct, but some impulse led me to the public library to
find out what I could of the historical record.  I had no knowledge or
information about the battle of Ypres prior to this except that there had
been one!

It appeared, as I read, that although the armistice had been signed, the
speed of communication in W.W.I not being very good, the folks at
Ypres
didn't know the war was over, and were still fighting.  The battle took
place in *December* 1918, as I had been told.

Aircraft were not used very seriously except for reconnaissance [sp?]
during W.W.I, and only began to be more useful towards the end of the
war.  Many of the pilots, who were members of the army's Royal Flying
Corps, were young men, mostly around 18 to 20.

The weather during the battle was atrocious, and fitted exactly the
conditions I had seen.  Ground fire at aircraft was most often from rifles
shooting directly at the pilot when he flew low to see what was
happening.

Another book gave me a picture - almost a replica - of the milk wagon
and the type of farm I had recalled.  I could hardly believe my eyes, and
was amazed at what I had read.  The memory and the answers were
true, though I could not verify the name [surprise!].

At the time I put the experience down to a genuine remembrance of a
past life of my own, which maybe it was.  But the pilot of that plane was
*not* the same person I am in *this* life.  I concluded that in all
probability I acquired a new persona, or even "soul" for this life.

Later I saw only two possibilities to explain my experience.

1.  I *had* inhabited the body of "John" who was shot down over
Ypres, and had inherited some of the emotion and feeling that went with
his short existence when I reincarnated.

2.  I had *remembered* "John's" experience due to some affinity
between myself and him, so that we were linked outside of time as we
ordinarily understand it.

I am inclined, so far as this experience goes, to suspect that 1. was the
most likely, but in another post I will recount another such experience
where I suspect that 2. was more likely - and that there is also a "3."

Watch this space!

Alan
---------
THEOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL: Working for a New Age:
http://www.nellie2.demon.co.uk/
E-mail: TI@nellie2.demon.co.uk