by Dolores Cannon

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. ~ John Donne

I was to enter the fascinating spirit realm many times. This is the area that holds the most fear for humans, and the one that raises the eternal question, “Where will I go when I die?” Everyone wonders what will happen to them, whether there will be total oblivion or continuation of the personality. Even the most religious still harbor their uncertainties. I do not have all the answers, but I believe I can help through the information I have received in my regression research. Even the regressed somnambulist cannot tell you what they do not know. But when you obtain the same descriptions from many different people, you have to assume it has validity. Maybe it rings true because the majority would truly like to believe the afterlife is a place of peace and contentment.

I personally find the idea of staying in the ground until Resurrection Day or Judgment Day totally repulsive. Also the idea of floating around on a cloud playing a harp for eternity is not my vision of Heaven. I think it would get boring quickly. Maybe I find this concept of the schools attractive because of my insatiable curiosity and my constant quest for knowledge.

Whatever the case, I think this gives us the best description and maybe, just maybe, the answers to some of the haunting questions that plague us all.

Many times when I regressed different subjects they would not be involved with a life. Their answers would reveal that they were in-between, on various spirit levels or planes and in different places. The most common of these was the school. I asked for a description.

S: It is the school of knowledge. I see the hall. It has tall pillars and it’s all in white. Real light – how do I explain it? The light comes from within and without, from everything and just shines.

D: Do you mean like sunlight?

S: Not that bright, but more … lasting. It’s very peaceful, very restful, very calm. It is a very nice place to be.

D: Where is this school of knowledge?

S: It’s just here. It is on a different vibration from the existence known as Earth. It is on a separate plane of existence.

D: It has no connection with Earth?

S: We learn of what we have done, and in this way it has a connection with Earth, but none other than that.

D: You said this is like a big hall. Are all the classes held in the hall?

S: No, they have classrooms off of it. This is kind of a main walkway, I guess. You can see anything that you want to see here. Just by visualizing it, it occurs. You can make it as nice or as bad you wish. If you’re dealing with a guilty conscience and want to make yourself suffer, you can make yourself do that also. You can make the surroundings look like you want them, or the way you have visualized it. On some planes, including the plane that I am on now, it’s like being on a higher plane of Earth, so the topography here is similar, but it has a finer energy level. I mean, there are hills and mountains and valleys, but they may not be positioned exactly like the hills there on Earth. There’s greenery and such, but the colors are more intense and purer. One can also have buildings and such here, but usually their constructs of energy are influenced in such a way as to give off a certain image.

D: Would the other people there see the same things you are seeing?

S: Yes, the mountains and greenery are general features of this plane that everyone sees. It’s Earth, but it’s at a different energy level. And with it being a different energy level, the laws governing energy are different. The ground is solid and the hills are solid, and the trees and the animals really exist; they’re really there. It’s like the plane of incarnation that I will be going to again. But since the laws of energy are different, other things can be done with artificial constructs.

D: Does everybody have to manifest it or is it just there all the time?

S: It’s there all the time. It’s just a matter of personal perception as to whether or not you perceive it.

D: Do you mean there are people who might come there and not see the same things you see?

S: No, I’m speaking of people on the plane of incarnation. They would not perceive it because they’re perceiving things at a lower level or a lower plane.

D: Would this place be equivalent to what some people call “Heaven”?

S: No. It is probably what they would refer to as “paradise”. I’m making a distinction between heaven and paradise because paradise means a perfected Earth. Sometimes Earthly, but without the destruction and decay that exists on the plane of incarnation. And heaven refers to the higher planes of existence that the spirit knows of instinctively, although it cannot convey a clear picture of it with the inadequate vocabulary and concepts available on the plane of incarnation. Heaven refers to the higher planes where everything is energy. And paradise refers to these so-called “lower” planes where it’s still similar to Earth because you’re on a higher plane of Earth.

D: Then whenever somebody talks about going to Heaven, they’re going to a higher plane where there are no … pictures, so to speak. It’s all energy or are there scenes around them?

S: Well, it’s mostly energy and energy manipulation. But when people speak of dying and going to heaven, what they actually do is go to paradise because everything must be taken in order, and things must be perceived and comprehended in order. You have to be prepared for higher levels so that you can assimilate them more fairly.

D: But in the area known as heaven, would it just be all blank or would there be scenes, buildings or whatever?

S: No, not buildings. Your perception is different and you can see the energies. It would be like fantastic displays of aurora borealis. You would be energy yourself and you could manipulate the energies to achieve different things and cause different things to happen. When you’re in the higher planes referred to as heaven, you can look into the lower planes very easily and see the physical planes and see what’s going on. It’s no problem seeing things: it’s just a matter of what level you’re looking at as to what you see. But there would be no surroundings because there are no horizons.

D: But you said people wouldn’t go there right away.

S: That is true. Usually when one dies there is a period of transition where one can adjust to the fact that one is no longer on the plane of incarnation. When one adjusts to that fact then one has the freedom to move between the planes that one has access to, according to how advanced your spirit is.

D: Is there anyone else there with you at the school?

S: There are about 50 people just in my … class. There are others here, but we don’t have much to do with them. They are working out other problems. They have different lessons that they have to learn, and they must come to terms with it within their own selves. I just consider that I’m waiting. I know I’m going back. I learn here and I can look at and evaluate the things that happened while on Earth because I’m not hampered with worldly influences.

D: When you learn, do you do it all by yourself or does someone help you?

S: No. I get help if I need it. If l search or if I ask or I question, all things come and it’s there.

D: Who is teaching you?

S: The masters. Each class has several. They teach you to study one’s self.

D: How do the people look? I mean, do they have clothes?

S: Here they wear robes, but not always. Basically the way we look over here is ectoplasm in its various forms. Sometimes you will see someone with the shape of a body and they’ll appear to have clothing on, but they’ll be rather white and transparent looking. Or sometimes if they wish to look more solid, they do. And whatever type of clothing they want to project as wearing, they’ll do it as being part of the type of image they want to project at that particular time.

D: Then all of them don’t look alike.

S: No. And even one particular one will not necessarily look alike from one time to the next. It depends on what they want to achieve. But at this time in this place they have robes.

D: What are you learning at the school?

S: I’m studying life experiences and effects. I study long and hard in order to learn and to know. I put the pieces of my experiences together and compile them to make sense of my existence. I ask myself: How did these things affect me? How did I handle them? It is very peaceful and quiet here so I have much time to myself – solitude I think and I work through these things. Sometimes I go back through experiences and try to understand. You see, in life I tilted my judgment to fit, for whatever reason – usually to make me feel justified in my actions. And here I can analyze so I go through the situation again to get a truer perspective of what really happened. I try to understand why I acted and reacted in such a way so as not to repeat previous errors. We amass great knowledge here of lessons to be learned, karma to be dealt with. We learn many things about dealing with human nature and about the problems that I had to face. Also the problems I will be facing and the decisions to be made about that. And through this I will learn to grow and expand.

D: Will you face these problems while you’re there?

S: No, the next time I’m born. I’m preparing to descend again.

D: Did they tell you what kind of problems you will have to face?

S: Some, but not a lot. We’re just going over what I should decide and talking about work that I want to handle and what problems I want to deal with.

D: You mean you’re trying to figure out which ones you want to handle, or are there some you’ll have to?

S: Some that you’ll have to. But right now it’s really a learning situation.

D: Do you think you will have many problems to face next time?

S: Depending on what you call problems. Many of them are just decisions and how I will handle myself and relationships with other people. When you go through something on Earth, be it good, be it bad, the important thing is your attitude, the way you accept it. How do you handle the defeats? How do you handle your victories? How do you deal with situations and problems? How do you accept failures? Are you gracious? You know, your life situations. All these are the sum total of who and what you are. And self-deception, that’s a big one. People can’t be honest and can’t look at things. They make excuses for why they do things and justify it and twist it until they’ve lost all truth.

D: Are there any particular lessons that you’re having trouble with?

S: I have to learn to speak up for myself. I have to learn to be more demanding and not let people manipulate me so much. Part of my problem is that I’ve been around so long and I’m always so aware that it’s not that big a thing, that I sort of float through the situations. I’ve let people manipulate me because it really didn’t make that much difference to me. So I have to be more decisive and learn to make decisions. I don’t really like doing that.

D: Do you draw these situations to you so you can work them out? Or do you plan that far in advance?

S: I think you make many of the situations. Whatever is in your mind sometimes comes about. Your spirit knows what things you need to learn and then it creates situations without you really being aware of what’s going on. But it all happens for reasons. When I’m there on Earth I won’t really know, I won’t really decide. I’ll just think they’re happening by chance. But they’ve all been thought about and planned out for purposes.

D: Does anybody help you make these plans?

S: Yes, sometimes I let other people here help me. There’s a woman who’s helped me a lot. She looks after me. Sometimes even in a life I seem to become more aware of her existence, for instance, when I’m growing out of being a child. Sometimes when I’m very involved in everything I’m not as aware of her presence. Here she sometimes shows me how certain actions will affect me in a life. She’ll flash them like on a movie screen on a wall. And she will say things like, “This is what will happen if you do this; and this is the problem you will face.” You know, she’ll explain it where I wasn’t aware of it. In life, there were difficulties when I knew something was wrong but couldn’t see it. Sometimes she’s made things that I needed to know knowledgeable to me.

D: Do you know how long you’re going to stay here?

S: Not long. I know I need to get on with it. I want to learn all I can. I try to continue all of my learning as much as I possibly can. At times I think that I have pretty well got it and then there are always things that come up, something that I never quite thought of. [Thoughtfully] You never completely get it, I guess. But you can perfect it and try it. It’s like putting something in a furnace and refining it.

D: Do you like experiencing Earth?

S: Well, even though I think there’s nothing more I can learn, each time I learn something else. I have a tendency to be a touch rebellious. I know that I’ve not overcome it yet, even though I like to think I have.

D: Is it mandatory that you return to Earth and inhabit a body again or do you have a choice?

S: No, for there is no have to. If it is most appropriate, yes; then that might be the best thing to do. However, there is no rule that says one has to incarnate, for who is to say that one might choose not to reincarnate forever? It is up to the life-force involved. I can stay here and learn or I can go back. I will probably go back. I look at the peace and I think I’m ready for the challenges.

D: Do you make any decision as to when you come back?

S: When I find someone who I feel will fit my need, then I have a choice. You get involved with other people. You build ties and emotions. You are open, you feel, you sense, and their lives affect you.

D: Is it all planned in advance?

S: It has to be because there are so many who wish to return and so few bodies to return into.

D: Do you make all these decisions yourself?

S: No, ours are the lesser decisions to make. The teachers and the masters help us decide the major decisions and the major happenings.

D: It sounds like it would be complicated.

S: Yes, but it works. It would be too complicated for you to figure out by yourself. Plus the fact that everyone would want to make things extremely easy for themselves and not have any problems. You wouldn’t grow that way.

D. Can you choose the type of person you will be?

S: You have certain characteristics. You are the sum total of everything you have ever been or done. You are a person. You may be slightly imprinted through your childhood by the people you’re around but that is more of an added element. It doesn’t really change you. You are what you are, what you’ve done, what you’ve said, what you’ve thought, how you’ve lived and handled every situation. You are a sum total of all these things.

D: What about free will?

S: Part of that is … each soul has a personality. Because of that there is free will in the fact that we know how that person will decide in any given situation because they are that person. Based on what they have done in their other past lives, the personality is very predictable. They can prevent certain things from happening just by changing or going against their own character, but it‘s unusual for a person to change that drastically.

D: I thought you meant that these things were set up and that was the way they had to be. That you didn’t have anything to say about it.

S: You wouldn’t learn unless you made your own decisions. You have to handle your own mistakes.

D: Then is our theory of predestination correct?

S: To the extent that the predestiny you see is your own, and not determined by some God in the sky who says, “You shall do this and you shall do that. And you and you and you shall do some other.” The predestination you perhaps see in your future is entirely your own because you, yourself, choose which path you will take. It might be relevant to say that the “you” I speak of here has a far greater scope than what you yourself are accessible to. There is in each of us a far greater part than we are aware of. Each of us are tips of our own iceberg and it is this iceberg which chooses our destiny. That is why it is so easy to ascribe those experiences which you might call “unpleasant” to some god, some unseen deity in the clouds. Someone who says, “You shall grovel and wail and gnash your teeth, while the one next to you shall ride in splendor and enjoy a life of luxury.” This is not the case at all. It is that each of us is simply speaking from our own very limited perspective.

D: So things are not all “predestined”?

S: Only to a certain degree. They are predestined in the fact that, like I said, you know the personality and that that person will ultimately come up to that decision. The personality basically stays the same. It only changes as you grow.

D: Then you have an idea of what kind of situation they will function in. Some people say you don’t have any choice about things.

S: That’s just people’s way of saying, “Since we don’t have any choice about the matter, why should I worry about what’s going on, because it will happen to me anyway.” And that’s just a person’s way of being very lazy about it and not wanting to grow.

D: Then apparently they do have a great deal to say about it. Do you think it’s already planned out who you are to meet and the people you will have association with?

S: To some extent, because you have some type of a previous bond with most of the people that you meet throughout your life. You will have things to work out between two or maybe more individuals. Sometimes you come together in a trio, sometimes you come together in a whole group, with the things you have to work out with these people. Sometimes you’re born among them, which makes it easier. This also explains why some parents and children cannot stand each other, because they hated each other previously. They decided they wanted to try to at least work something out, but they just aren’t handling it very well.

D: But once you go back into the physical body, you don’t remember these things.

S: To a great extent that’s true. But there are always ways of tapping into their consciousness. It just takes time and study.

D: Many people ask me why we don’t remember our past lives. They think it would help a lot if we consciously knew about these karmic connections.

S: It wouldn’t; it would make things too complicated. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to function in the everyday world if you had the memories of countless past lives constantly bombarding you? You would never be able to concentrate on the lessons you have to work out during this lifetime. Sometimes when you’re a young child you remember your past connections because you’re still close to it. But then the memories you get in future years bury these memories and you forget, although they’re still there in your subconscious. As a consequence, when you have a feeling you should do one thing instead of another and you follow that feeling, it’s generally because your subconscious is subtly reminding you of a certain aspect of karma.

D: Something you didn’t do right before.

S: Yes. That is the reason why, in general karma, you have been allowed to develop this technique of hypnosis and other medical techniques as a way of finding out about some of this past karma so that the people involved with this can progress even more swiftly. That has to do partly with entering the Age of Aquarius.

D: Do you know what karma is?

(A general definition of karma is: the universal law of balance, of cause and effect, where everything both good and bad must be repaid or balanced out.)

S: I think the word in itself … different people have added their own meaning. It’s hard to really say, but as a very general word it means loving. As an example, you know that if you kill, that you have to face it again. For instance, let’s say you killed for money. Then you must come around to the same thing again till you can overcome it.

D: Oh, a complete reversal.

S: Yes, or you may have to leave a very delightful life where things are all pleasant and good. You cut it short. Therefore you have to experience the loss of something. It all comes around.

D: I’ve also heard there are other ways of paying it back. It wouldn’t have to be a life for a life.

S: No, say you do a person a great injustice. You do something wrong to them. Then you may have to come back in another life and serve them. Maybe you’d have to take care of them and serve them and be their protector to make up for a wrong you may have done them before. So sometimes it’s the dedication of a life. The giving up of yourself for that other person. What you do is always justified some way.

D: What about you? Are you a young soul or an old soul? In other words, have you been around a long time or a short time?

S: All souls have been around for the same degree. Some of us have chosen, for our own personal reasons, to incarnate into the body more often than others. That is where they get the term “old or young soul.” Some are young in terms of Earthly experience. I have found that I like to do what I can in a tangible way to help not only myself but others. Thus I have had a tendency to keep coming back over and over.

D: Then a young soul would be one that has not had much Earth experience?

S: Yes, or just experience in the other realms because Earth is not the only realm of consciousness.

D: You said you were going to the schools; that you were learning lessons there. Well, if you’re able to learn lessons while you’re in the spirit world, why is it necessary to incarnate in the physical form at all?

S: There is great need for this due to the fact that – its like reading a book. When you have read a book, the knowledge is within you, but you have not utilized it. And if you do not use this knowledge it has no worth. You cannot change yourself without experiencing a reason to change. It is stronger, more personal if you are experiencing or living the problems. It is not felt this greatly when you have just read about something. You can learn all about how to do something by reading the book, but unless you have the “hands-on” experience it doesn’t do you a bit of good.

D: They say it’s difficult to experience on Earth in the body. That this is a hard way to learn lessons. Do you think that’s true?

S: It is a hard way to learn lessons, but they are more lasting. If you can learn a lesson through all of the struggles that you go through, it will remain with you. I think we could use an analogy and compare this to a college course in chemistry. You can learn how to perform many experiments from reading the book, but until you have actually mixed the chemicals and followed the directions yourself and see the results, the experiments remain only words in a book. Through practice you understand the procedure and results more fully. Many people with college degrees have only book knowledge that they cannot apply to their own lives. This is where the “hands-on” experience comes in.

Excerpt from Between Death & Life