Ok, I’ve been toying with an idea
for a new book for a while now, and although I admit I have not given a ton of
thought to it, I get stuck trying to figure out what direction it
will/could/should go. Before I ask the reading faithful to chime in, let me
give a little background.
Those of you who follow me or have
read my book Queen’s Gold know that I
am a hypnotherapist and past-life regressionist. What the heck does that mean?
It means I take people back to their past lives under hypnosis. I know,
woo-woo, right? Ok, it’s not Western mainstream thought, but actually there are
more people who believe in reincarnation in the world than those who don’t.
I’ve reviewed over 20 of my own past lives and I’ve found it to be an interesting
and satisfying plot device for a keep-‘em-guessing story.
So one day I was thinking about good
and evil and how it all shakes out in the big picture and a random thought
crossed my mind—what if Hitler were reincarnated? After all, I’m assuming he was
a regular person before an abusive childhood, paranoid beliefs and a country
ripe for kidnapping all converged and he turned into a monster. I’m assuming
his soul follows the same rules of Karma that all our souls do, and if that’s
true, then he would definitely reincarnate in order to learn, grow and reach
his full potential. I’m pretty sure being the greatest mass murderer in the
history of the planet would not be his soul’s ultimate goal. So if he was
reincarnated … who would he come back as?
I reasoned that the most surprising
and interesting result would be for him to come back as something far removed
from what he was, yet going to the exact opposite would be too pat. Many people
think Karma is a tit-for-tat kind of thing, so if you murder in one life, you
are murdered in the next. Actually it’s much more subtle and complex than that,
and it can take many, many lives to resolve an issue.
What I came up with is … (drumroll,
please) … a housewife. In Poughkeepsie. Maybe Des Moines. Thirty-something, two
tweener kids, husband is a banker or an engineer or maybe a salesman. Ordinary.
Normal. Until she finds out …
(Jaws
music here … duh DUM; duh DUM …)
I picture her balancing housekeeping
and shopping with chauffeuring kids to soccer games and supporting husband
through pay cuts brought on by the recession. She also struggles with her
weight. In an uncharacteristic grab for some control over the life that has
morphed away from her dreams, she sees a hypnotist, but during the course of
the weight loss session, the stunning nature of her soul reveals itself.
Her first reaction, of course, is total
disbelief. She has no interest in reincarnation. She’s … Baptist … or
Methodist, maybe even Jewish, whatever. But religion for her is like background
music; she can hear it if she focuses on it, but otherwise it just gets lost in
the noise of daily life. Being presented with this silly wild imagining does
not send her screaming for church. She’s a pragmatist. She goes home and washes
a load of laundry.
But the thoughts don’t go away.
So here’s my question to you: If you
found out you were the reincarnation of Hitler, what would you do? What would
you think? How would you feel?
I would love to have your comments
below. I’m dying to hear how this is going to come out!
It would niggle away at my brain. I'm an open minded skeptic and I would start doing research into reincarnation and Hitler. I would begin questioning internal fits of feeling stifled and perhaps worry when normal parenting thoughts of throttling my Tweens or smacking the hubster would crop up. I would need or want to talk about it at some point but not want to because I would know anyone who would listen to something like this without calling demon, crazy, or scoffing.
ReplyDeleteKina, I imagine a very similar reaction. I see a constant battle between giving it credence and dismissing it with it always resurfacing. I can totally see fears when normal anger crops up, wondering if that might be the start of going down the "monster" path. I can see her fearful of talking to anyone about it for two reasons: (1) they'd think she was nuts and (2) talking about it would give it some weight and validity, and above all she would not want it to be true. But keeping it locked up inside only confines it to the hamster wheel, going around and around and around in her brain. Good input! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSome other comments from other venues:
ReplyDeleteSF: Melissa, if I discovered that I was AH in a former life, I would assume that I was given this new life as a chance to make up for all the evil I had done, and I think...I hope I would devote my life to making a positive difference. Wouldn't it be a great life if we all did that?
MJB: How much guilt do you think you would feel?
SF: Well, for me personally, I would feel more of a sense of responsibility than guilt. I think guilt is only useful if it motivates you to want to make amends for something you consciously did that was wrong. But that's just me. I do tend to try to think my way through when strong emotions are involved, like guilt or anger. What I think would be fascinating is to try to get inside AH's head a little bit and try to understand what made him tick. Although that could be dangerous.
MJB: I think you're right. Altho I envision some exploration of AH as a child and the environment that started him on his path, too much of that might be construed as an excuse. No matter how any of us were raised, we still and always have choices and we can choose to fight it or just give up and go with it. Thanks a bunch.
SF: Well, I was thinking more of the danger of being sucked into his madness. That might be interesting to explore a bit. It would certainly add tension.
AW: Melissa, What a great story idea! Here's my take. She has to be Jewish. The repercussions would be astronomical! She'd either go insane with guilt or she'd spend the rest of this life trying to atone for her actions before - that's assuming she actually believes it.
What if someone came up to her - a child maybe - and started screaming or crying or something, calling her Devil - Monster - Hitler - or something she couldn't deny. Anyway, that's my take.
MJB: thanks for the great comments. I thought about her being Jewish but that seems almost too pat. Yes, assuming belief, I felt the guilt would be absolutely crushing. I think there are 2 parts to her coming to grips: handling the guilt and then going on from there.
Interesting thought about having someone "recognize" her in some way. Hadn't thought of that!
WP: OK, I have to approach it from my writing genre which is thriller. You could play on several themes with different arcs for each. The most obvious one is belief, in past lives and that she was Hitler. These can be explored by more regression sessions to learn more, coupled with research into Hitler to find if the facts from the session are true. Another arc is that she had to deal with this mentally and should she tell somebody else. This is where she fights herself and strains her relationships and sanity. And the last I would mention that she finds out early in the session that a person when they regress tend to like the same type of things. Small things like colors, foods, personal traits. This is where you setup early and pay off late by her noticing similar likes between them. This can be explored through her session recordings since she doesn't remember most of them or none. All of this closes the loop as the whether she is sane or insane and how that has affected her life and the people around her.
ReplyDeleteMJB: thanks for the input. I had given some thought to the likes and dislikes angle; had never heard of Hitler's favorites, but that might be turned up in research. The sanity angle has to be a given; if the regression is true, how do you live with that? If it's not true, who would invent that? I think the larger issue will have to be: how do you go on from here? If you accept that you were responsible for the suffering and death of 6M people, how do you go on? How do you mitigate that? How do you learn from it and make it mean something? To tell you the truth, I can't even imagine.
Having experienced past life regression a couple times, it's been interesting to discover what traits of those other incarnations had manifested already, and what traits have manifested since.
ReplyDeleteEllen, do you think you're more aware of "inherited" traits when they manifest? Have you found it easy to pin them back to the past life? I think my character will definitely do a lot of soul-searching, examining her thoughts, emotions and behavior to see what, if anything, has bled thru to the current life. Altho in her case, I think it will be a fearful examination, fearful of any manifestation that smacks of Hitler. For most of us, I think the carried-over traits are fairly benign, thank god!
ReplyDeleteFor purely selfish reasons of self-preservation, I would go into immediate denial. Then, I'd research the heck out of reincarnation and the many details. I'd see a few extra hypnotists to verify results. I'd even become a hypnotist myself because information is my friend. IF and When I finally came to terms with the whole thing, I would make myself sick just thinking about it until I either had an epiphany based on other lives or killed myself with worry and sickness. Either way, The End.
ReplyDeleteMaggie, sounds exhausting! However, I have considered the possibility of suicide, at least thinking about it. Only problem with it is that, if reincarnation is real and we come back to resolve issues, suicide does not avoid the issue but only postpones it until the next incarnation.
ReplyDeleteI had not thought about bringing other past lives in, tho. That might be interesting. Probably not enough time for her to be reincarnated between 1945 and the current life (could be a very short one), but lives further back? That could shed some light. Thanks for the input!