Column Chronicles: Past-lives tales, part one

Past-lives tales, part one

Frank Cotolo
October 11, 2018

For as long as mankind has philosophized about life and death, mankind has pondered the possibilities that souls are transferred after death to other lives. The process, called reincarnation, continues to attract scrutiny, probably because it is nearly impossible for people to prove they have a soul that lived in another mortal shell before.

Recent studies of people claiming to be living in the scheme of a traveling soul are currently in progress. We are fortunate to have the transcripts of some interviews of people describing their experiences as the studies ensue. The names of the subjects have been changed. Please do not share these stories with anyone else.

Mr. X, age 56

I don't know why but every time I awake after a night's sleep, not a nap, but a long night's sleep, say nine hours, I don't get right up. I sit on the edge of my bed and I feel like I am eight years old and I begin looking around the room to spot my Teddy Bear. It's a specific Teddy Bear, one with a mangled arm and a forced smile. I can smell it because it has an odor like a pot of porridge cooking on an old stove, one you see in a movie that takes place in the Old West.

In the distance I hear a voice calling a name and I want to respond to that name, and say, hey, Mortimer, I'm here in my room looking for my smelly Teddy Bear. Then I begin to sweat and sometimes I wet myself. It's frightening and must be an experience from a former life.

Miss Y, aged 37

Sometimes I am washing clothes and I start to sing gospel songs, the kind that slave women sang before the Civil War. These songs just spring from my mouth, which is strange because I could never sing, not until one day when I was washing clothes and felt this inner warmth that came over me and resulted in singing gospel songs. As I am singing I can see a deep horizon that glows in reds and oranges and suddenly there is a chorus behind me, a chorus of at least twelve others harmonizing and waving their arms. Then, when the washing machine goes into a spin cycle, everything becomes quiet and I am out of breath and I have to sit down and have a Scotch on the rocks. It's frightening and must be an experience from a former life.

Mr. Z, aged 79

All my life I wanted to be called Zeke. I don't know why but sometimes people would call me by my real name and I would automatically say hey my name is Zeke. Call me Zeke. Through the years this became involuntary. I signed up for the U.S. Army using the name Zeke. I was given an honorable discharge under the name Zeke and no one ever said hey you aren't a Zeke. When my mother died she looked up at me and called me Zeke. When my father died he remembered when my mother died and called me Zeke and told me my name wasn't Zeke. It's frightening and must be an experience from a former life.

To be continued...

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.