This is an important book.

By means of communication through mediums and channels, Robert Schwartz examines the subject of pre-birth planning by having these interview angels, spirit guides and the souls of selected persons exposed to severe life challenges. We are given access to pre-birth conversations and thus gain “direct” information regarding how we arrange difficult life events beforehand with all the involved persons.

Six types of challenges are dealt with, a chapter being devoted to each. These are physical illness, parenting handicapped children, deafness and blindness, drug addiction and alcoholism, death of a loved one and, finally, accidents.

I was previously aware of the concept of pre-birth planning, but this well-written book has illuminated the matter clearly for me and I have been much comforted by reading it. Partly, I have myself considerable health challenges and have been aware of the fact that they had meaning, but have now been confirmed of this. The book has comforted me. Also, the book has taught me to respect brave persons I encounter who I understand have chosen their hard lot in life for purposes of growth.

In the first chapter about physical illness, we meet Jon, who chose both to have AIDS and be gay. Jon planned the experience of having AIDS, not just for his own learning, but for the growth of his entire soul group. The progress we as personalities make on the Earth plane expands both our individual souls and every soul in our group. “The disease of AIDS is about splitting a desire for unconditional love with the belief that one does not deserve it.” Jon came down to his life to heal shame – the belief that he is not deserving of unconditional love.

The author asks an angel what it would say to someone with AIDS who is trying to understand the deeper spiritual meaning. The angel replies “Remain very open in your heart. Follow that which comes only from the heart, and in this way many healings will occur on levels that are beyond your understanding.” I feel this is valuable advice.

Of the souls in Jon’s soul group, Jon agreed to be the one with AIDS, while the others were incarnating around him to judge him, reject him and refrain from providing him with unconditional love.

AIDS “points to a pattern of self-hatred among humankind … movement away from light, and a belief in the Self as the body and separate from All That Is.” AIDS is healing humanity.

We also hear about Doris, who suffered from self-loathing and had a toxic self-image. She developed breast cancer. Through her illness Doris learnt the correct use of sexual energy, acceptance of the female form and self-love.

Doris’s cancer is neither a failure nor a punishment. It is a form of healing, not illness,

“As Jon and Doris released shame and self-loathing and chose instead to love themselves, they made it easier for every person on Earth to replace self-judgement with self-love.” They created a vibration or resonance of love that radiated well beyond their immediate sphere. “By surmounting the challenges we planned before birth, we create a resonance that heals humanity.”

In the chapter about parenting handicapped children, we hear the story of Jennifer, who has two handicapped boys, one with Asperger’s Syndrome, bipolar disorder and ADD, the other one with severe autism and who is blind.

The two boys were brothers in a previous life, where they also were Nazis. They chose to come back “communicationally disabled” to learn what it is like to have the truth and be unable to communicate it, since before “they had the truth and deliberately buried it.”

In the chapter about deafness and blindness we are given the story of Penelope, who has been completely deaf since birth, She knew she was meant to be deaf “to better understand the neglected”. The medium, Staci, finds out that being deaf gives Penelope the opportunity to be more in touch with her “inner experience, intuition, thoughts, even the physical symptoms and feedback” her body gives her. It helps her to know herself.

We also learn about Bob, who is blind. His life plan was designed to give him a deeper understanding of self-love through both its lack and the experience of its subsequent creation.

The chapter on drug addiction and alcoholism is particularly illuminating, since this is a group whom we often judge, wondering why they don’t just pull themselves together and refrain from submitting to their addiction. The persons involved planned not only their addiction, but the specific addictive substance. We are told that for those addicted to drugs it is “essential to honour your past, know yourself, learn about who you are, and then love yourself”.

We learn to see drug addicts not as such but as courageous souls who undertook the life challenge of drug addiction to learn self-nurturing.

Pat, the alcoholic, had carried into this life the energy of fear. His plan was that fear would cause alcoholism, which in turn could lead to a healing of fear. He planned not only his alcoholism but the surmounting of that addiction. He had lost his connection with the All That Is, with God, with his own divine nature and spirituality. The return to seeking and achieving spiritual connection is motivated by the total lack of it, which the alcoholism causes. This was a classic learning-through-opposites life plan.

The chapters on the death of a loved one and accidents are equally instructive.

I found the book as a whole to be thoroughly illuminating, insightful, informative, satisfying, comforting and perfectly expressed. I would absolutely recommend this book to everyone. It is one of the most important books I have read this year, in fact, ever. ( )