Reincarnation has its own geography. As the long path of our soul journey winds around the Earth, we build up all kinds of personal associations with particular places. Those bonds can be strong enough to continue calling to us over great distances of time and space. When we go back to those places, we often recognize them with a strong feeling of déjà vu – a deep inner knowing that we’ve been there before.
When Jeff visited Assisi for the first time, he had an extraordinary déjà vu experience. He knew exactly how the town was laid out, and found his way around easily without a map. He also remembered buildings that had once been there, but had now disappeared. He said it felt like he’d come home.
The writer Louis Bromfield was sure that his love of France came from an earlier life. ‘Nothing ever surprised or astonished me there,’ he wrote. ‘No landscape, no forest, no château, no Paris street, no provincial town ever seemed strange. I had seen it all before. It was a country and a people that I knew well.’ Ever since childhood, the hypnotherapist Arnall Bloxham had vivid dreams of earlier times. One of those dreams came true when he visited the Cotswolds for the first time.
It began with a strong déjà vu feeling about a certain steep hill. In one of his recurring dreams he was always going down that hill in a bumpy coach – and feeling travel sick. Even though he’d never been there before, he somehow knew that at the bottom of the hill there’d be big iron gates between two towers. That was the entrance to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire – which he instantly recognized as his home in a previous life. Once inside, he immediately knew where everything was. He was able to show his wife and friend around, identifying all the rooms and special features without a guidebook. While the déjà vu experience gives us big clues about our former lives, there are also many other ways in which past-life places may call to us. The main reasons for this are:
1. To complete unfinished business.
2. To heal a negative past-life effect.
3. To strengthen a positive past-life effect.