Past Life regression

Do you think you have lived in the past? Maybe you were Julius Caesar, Groucho Marx, or Jesus of Nazareth.

Are past lives real? Or are they the product of a desire for them to be real, imagination under the influence of hypnotism? Or do our spacious brains contain a library of memories passed down to us generation to generation, species memories like those that tell birds to migrate? Or do we in fact die and are reborn carrying with us the images of our past lives?

As a writer I enjoy the concept of past lives more than accept them as real. I took a seminar several years ago during which several members of the class were placed into semi-hypnotic trances. Under these trances they recounted so-called past lives. One woman had lived in pre-Revolutionary Virginia. A second woman had lived in Cape Town, South Africa three centuries ago. Skeptics can say what they will, the concept is creative and intriguing. I have used it in my soon-to-be-published novel, HUNTING THE KING, in which archaeologist Molly O'Dwyer recounts her past life in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. I think it added another unique layer to the story and will probably use it again.

Last World War I Survivors

With the death of Russell Coffey, 109, the other day, the number of surviving veterans of the Great War has dwindled to about 20 worldwide. Sites on Wikipedia and Nonagenarians & Centenarians list the veterans. There is one Canadian, one Australian, two Americans, two Germans, three Italians, three French etc. There is little national or international recognition of these gentlemen (and one lady), which is typical and too bad. We are too busy creating more survivors of war than learning from those who have fought in the past.

I have written a novel entitled THEY WERE CALLED TO DUTY, which focuses on three aged veterans being interviewed by a veteran of the Iraqi conflict. Don't know if it will ever see the light of day. Probably not before the last of the centenarian veterans has past on.

Check out Wikipedia for a listing by country of those remaining and those who have recently died. Check out Nonagenarians & Centenarians for nice photos of the survivors.