Famous Past Lives – Issues to Consider
One theory I’ve heard about why so many people think that they were the same historical person in a past life is because they were close enough to that person to have some similar memories. For example, they may have been the maidservant to Cleopatra, or Napolean’s valet. They remember enough about the intimate life of the famous person that they believe they are that person instead of just someone closely connected to them.
I would suggest that anyone who feels a strong connection to a famous person from the past take it back one step further and consider that the famous person may feel so familiar to you simply because they were so well known. Famous people influenced a lot of people’s lives, even the lives of people who never met them, both during their own lifetime and after. You may have a strong emotion about them because you idolized them in a past life. Or maybe they had a significant influence on your life somehow. Famous people will also show up in your dreams or stand out to you in other ways because they function as archetypes. When you are having dreams about them or feelings or feelings of familiarity, it would probably help to try to figure out what they represent to you on a metaphorical level.
So, just how do you sort it all out?
One commonality I’ve noticed in people who I believe to truly have been someone famous in their past life is that they fought against the idea for a long time and only reluctantly finally gave in an accepted it. They flat out did not want to have been that famous person. If your main thought when you discover you may have had a historically significant past life is “Wow! I was really important. That’s so cool,” you probably ought to also look at the current state of your ego and consider that you may have a need to be important. If you think that you had multiple famous past lives, that’s an even stronger indication that you may be confusing a need of the ego with the truth.
Next, look at the degree of fame that person had. The vast majority of people I have met who I believe to have had famous past lives were what I call the B-Listers of history. Looking at it from a fantasy versus reality point of view, someone who has a need to feel important is going to fantasize about being the king, not the king’s third cousin twice removed. One reason why I believe Jessica Jones Jewett’s claims of being the reincarnation of Fanny Chamberlain is that realistically, nobody fantasizes about being the wife of a Civil War hero and governor of Maine. Most people have never even heard of Fanny Chamberlain, and the historians that have generally treat her in a unflattering manner. Which brings me to a related aspect. The degree of admiration that people have for the historical person could be another factor in determining that a past life memory is for real. The less that people respect the person now, the more likely the memories of being that person are to be real.
If you go to a psychic for a reading or or a hypnotherapist for a regression, do not mention who you think you were. Instead, ask them to look into the time period or an issue in your current life that relates to the possible famous past life. There is a natural inclination to want to make the client happy. Even if your reader or hypnotherapist isn’t consciously doing that, being front loaded with a suggestion about who you were could falsely influence the results they get. If the reader or hypnotherapist is unscrupulous, they will use that knowledge and make up whatever they think you want to hear.
That isn’t to say that no one who remembers being a well-liked, very famous person from the past really was that person in a past life. I have met some people who I do believe to be the reincarnations of very high-profile, well-loved people. Influential people from the past reincarnate just the same as everyone else. However, if you do think that you may have been a famous person in a past life, it is essential that you be brutally honest with yourself about the ego issue. And I do mean brutally honest. If you do that and still come to the conclusion that you were who you think you were, then that will give you more confidence that what you are experiencing is real and not some flight of fancy. If you can’t honestly say that there aren’t any egotistical needs playing into your belief, don’t kick yourself for it. Ego is a normal human failing. We’ve all got it to some degree. You just aren’t doing yourself any favors by holding on to it instead of looking for the truth about your past lives.