Introduction In the early 1990s I founded an organization dedicated to past-life research, education, and therapy. PLEXUS, an acronym for Past Life Exploration, Understanding and Sharing, was headquartered in Naperville, Illinois and there I hosted monthly programs, inviting therapists, authors, and other professionals in the field of regression therapy to be our guest speakers. Occasionally, I included individuals who weren''t practitioners per se, but who did basically the same work using a different modality. K. David Roell was one of those people. David was a gifted channeler and when I knew him he had quite a following in the Chicago area. This was because he was the real deal. At a time when so many charlatans were hanging out their signs proclaiming to be mediums, psychics, or channelers, David''s authenticity was above reproach.

I know this because I attempted to trip him up, ala Houdini style. David channeled Dr. Fredericks, an Akashic librarian who had access to the records of every soul''s thoughts, words, and deeds over lifetimes. I asked him to pull my "Book of Life" and read the chapter that dealt with a past life of mine that supposedly began in 1773. I had been working intently on proving or disproving that lifetime for years, so I knew it inside and out. Having not shared any of that with David, I decided that if Dr. Fredericks got it right, I''d be a believer for life. He did--and I am.

One afternoon I was hosting a channeling of Dr. Fredericks for about a dozen folks at the PLEXUS office. It was customary that once Dr. Fredericks emerged, each person would have an opportunity to ask a question. If we were lucky that day, he''d stick around long enough for us to get in a second question. Occasionally I would sit in on the sessions and ask a question of my own. I''ll never forget this particular session. When it was my turn to address Dr.

Fred, I lamented the fact that there was nothing new in the way of past-life research. To me, it was the same old stuff, occasionally repackaged under a new name. I reasoned there had to be something new and exciting on the horizon; some break-through technique that would propel past-life regression to the forefront and give it more mainstream acceptance. I posed that question to Dr. Fredericks, fully anticipating he would be impressed that some brave soul finally asked a question other than, "What is my soul''s purpose?" I was sure he''d give me the keys to this as-yet undiscovered esoteric technique or at the very least plant a seed that I could nurture and grow on my own. When he said, yes, there was something new, my heart leapt with excitement. I leaned in, eagerly anticipating he would expand on his statement and give me what I had been yearning to hear for years. Instead, he said nothing.

After what seemed like hours, I urged him on. "What is it that is new, Dr. Fred?" To which he responded: "There is something new. You just haven''t written it yet." I sunk back in my chair and issued an audible groan, protesting that I didn''t know of anything new. That was why I was asking him. He mustered an all-knowing smile and then went on to the next person. I knew then and there that even if I got a second chance, that was the last I''d hear from him on that subject.

I pondered his comment for weeks, wondering what it was that I supposedly already knew. I reviewed everything I had read, heard or done in my past-life work but none of it was new or intriguing. I decided to turn within and ask for the answer through soul writing. That only compounded my frustration, for echoing Dr. Fred''s message, I was told I already had everything I needed and no new information would be forthcoming. Apparently "they" had the answer, but they weren''t about to spoon-feed it to me. I was on my own. After awhile I forgot about my quest for the big breakthrough in regression therapy and went on with my life, eventually disbanding PLEXUS and moving to Charlottesville, Virginia.

Once in a while I''d remember that session with Dr. Fred and that comment from my friends upstairs that I had everything I needed--I just had to put it together for myself. Before I could find the time to seriously revisit this challenge, I endured a series of personal setbacks, the most severe of which was a near-fatal car crash in November 2000. I was driving to a client meeting with my close friend and business partner, Karen. The roads were slick that day and radio reports were urging drivers to be cautious. As we came upon a curve on the narrow two-lane highway, we noticed a car in the opposite lane come around that turn too quickly and losing control. I slowed as I watched his car fishtail across both lanes and then realized it was sliding sideways toward us and there was no way to avoid him. In that instant I had a flash that this crash might be fatal, but even though my car was totaled, we only ended up with minor injuries.

After we arrived at the hospital, the police officer at the scene came by to say he didn''t know how we made it out of that accident alive. One odd thing did happen. In the emergency room, Karen kept insisting she was hovering over the scene, watching as the rescue squad cut me out of the car. I told her that wasn''t possible because after the accident she crawled out of the car and was sitting on an embankment talking to me the whole time. Shortly after the accident, something even more bizarre occurred. Somehow, out of nowhere, I became disinterested and disillusioned with any type of esoteric work. While I remembered how involved I was with it and all the people whose friendships were a part of my interest in metaphysics, suddenly I could care less about them or my work. I wanted to live a "normal" mainstream life and this esoteric stuff no longer fit with the new Joanne.

For all intents and purposes, I suffered from a form of metaphysical amnesia. This went on for three years and then, on the morning of the third anniversary of the accident, I woke up as if out of a coma and found I was back to the person I had been before the accident--with one major difference: Now I had to deal with the consequences of my actions three years earlier. I no longer had my past-life organization. I had given up my membership in the A.R.E. and given away most of my metaphysical library. Worse yet, all the "like-minded" friends I had acquired over the years had moved on, rebuffed by my rejection of their continued friendship.

This was a very strange place to be, for I knew I had been the architect of all that took me away from the life I had and the people I cared about, but I did not understand why. Every feeble attempt I made at trying to find an explanation about what happened and to reconcile with those I left behind failed. It was very much the dark night of my soul. It took another three years to emerge from this desolate place, but when I did, my thoughts centered on Edgar Cayce, the most documented psychic of the twentieth century. I had been a student of the Cayce readings for many years and I knew that if I were to get back to the person I was before, I had no better guide than Mr. Cayce and the esoteric truths contained in his readings. In 2006, I enrolled in Atlantic University, which was founded by Edgar Cayce in 1931, the same year he began the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.

E.). I started a three-year Masters in Transpersonal Studies program, which eased me back into the esoteric studies I had abandoned years earlier. In my last year of studies, I enrolled in an elective course on Near-Death Experience. A required reading was Coming Back to Life: Examining the After-Effects of the Near-Death Experience, by P.M.H. Atwater, L.

H.D. In her chapter on Major After-Effects of an NDE, she identified one of the symptoms of a near-death experience as: "Difficulty Understanding Time Sense or References to What Occurred in the Past or Might Occur in the Future--A Sense of Timelessness." In talking about how survivors processed memory before and after the NDE, she wrote: ". recollection of events that occurred before their episode was different. They could still remember past events, for the most part, but the process of that memory seemed slower, somewhat impersonal, as if they could not fully identify with it . Any number of survivors described a "line of demarcation" that seemed to have formed at the time of their experience, separating those things before from anything that came after." I was stunned.

This exactly described my experience nine years earlier. Could this be the answer I had been searching for? It sounded right, but I wasn''t convinced it applied to me because in my mind, I could not have had a near-death experience without dying first. Luckily for me, P.M.H. Atwater and I attend the same Unity Church so the Sunday after I read that passage, I sought her out after services and told her about my experience. I repeated that while her book had a plausible explanation of what I went through, in my mind I could not possibly have had an NDE. I didn''t die in the accident.

In fact, I was conscious the whole time. "Did you think you were going to die?" P.M.H. asked. It was then I recalled that split second when I did think it was the end. She said it was at that moment when I thought I was going to die that I had the NDE. Later Betty Riley, a renowned intuitive spiritual awareness consultant I had known for years through the A.

R.E., confirmed that, saying at the moment of impact my etheric body shot out of my physical body, thus triggering the NDE. With that explanation satisfying my need to understand what had caused such a drastic shift in my consciousness, I threw myse.