Readable, speaker-attributed text with links back to the original recording.
Margaret Hiller: Alrighty, welcome, welcome, and for those of you who don't know me, I'm Margaret Hiller, a spiritual leader here at Unity Christ Church. We are so happy and grateful that Chris Bache has returned to visit with us. I know it's not just because Ann Marie, our member and bookstore manager, happens to be his mother-in-law. We know he's here because he loves us. I have it on good authority from Chris that he really does appreciate this group. So, Chris, wow. He comes to us with over 30 years of being a professor in religious studies and also a former Director of Education at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He's written several books, and most importantly, he's been here before, and we all so respect and honor you and your presentation style and presence and all that you bring to us. So thank you for being here again. Chris, thank you. Good morning.
Chris Bache: Good morning, everybody. How nice to be back with you again.
Margaret Hiller: Now, let me just ask Ross, do we need a mic? Because we can, like, yeah...
Chris Bache: Good question. Are we okay noise-wise? How’s everybody doing? Can you all hear? Don't be shy about letting us know.
Margaret Hiller: If you want, I can get the mic, and that may help.
Chris Bache: I'd love to talk about the things we're going to discuss today, and I've got oodles of information to share with you. But the most important thing I'm going to be trying to do is interest you in reading some of these books. Some of them you will already have read, some will be new to you, but the richness is actually going into the material and reading it firsthand because I’m just going to be summarizing. I won’t be able to take you into the richness, which is really people's lives and experiences.
I teach at a state university in Ohio. The prevalent worldview in universities today is secular humanism—material reductionism, flatland metaphysics, where the physical world is seen as the only real world, and talk of a world beyond is just fanciful speculation. In more progressive environments, there's still the perception that my students come with, that we cannot know what happens to us when we die. We can speculate, have theories, but it's beyond known knowledge. Up until about 30 years ago, maybe in Western culture, that was true. But today, with emerging disciplines and convergent data, I think we are gaining sustained insight into the larger cycle of life, which is only partially about what happens to us when we die. It’s the cycle where we keep coming back, and today, I’m introducing you to four areas of research. The more you read this material, the more any residual fear of death evaporates. I've been watching students be changed by this knowledge for decades.
Chris Bache: Today is just an introduction to four areas of research: reincarnation research, near-death experience research, life-between-lives therapy, and psychedelic research. Each area is a whole course in itself. Reincarnation research reveals the larger vision of the soul implicit in reincarnation, exploring the fundamental understanding of life’s workings. Near-death episodes give us insight into what it's like to die from an interior perspective.
In life-between-lives therapy, we gain insights into the structure of the social world we enter between death and birth. Michael Newton's work offers insights here, congruent with mystical traditions. Lastly, psychedelic research, a lineage important to me, involves sacred medicines that amplify consciousness. This field offers a positive correlation with non-psychedelic methods.
I’m recommending 12 books in these fields, and we will break for lunch and return in the afternoon. Questions are welcome anytime along the way. Ready to go? We'll begin with reincarnation research.
Ian Stevenson, who recently passed, was revolutionary in reincarnation theory, similar to Darwin with evolution. His work involved meticulous research on small children with spontaneous past-life memories. Ian specialized in verifying these memories, providing empirical data that moves reincarnation discourse onto a larger landscape.
Brian Weiss is a well-known therapist in this area. Stevenson was a researcher, not a therapist, focused on children with spontaneous memories, avoiding hypnosis to maintain data integrity. Winifred Lucas, also now passed, was foundational in past lives therapy, aiming to establish a clinical protocol. Her work was primarily for professionals, though approachable. Stevenson's work, although dry, is crucial for understanding reincarnation empirically.
Audience: How did Ian Stevenson get into this research?
Chris Bache: He started as a traditional academic in Virginia’s medical school, writing standard textbooks. But he encountered such cases, recognized their importance, and devoted his career to understanding them. With support from an endowed chair, he explored internationally.
Urban Laszlo proposed an Akashic field explanation for past lives. I argued against it, citing the concrete details and continuity of individual memory in these cases. Our dialog led to his acknowledgment that continuity of individual memory most effectively explains the data.
The cycle time seems shorter now than before, likely due to the increased opportunities for varied experiences in the modern age. We find these children reincarnate faster and closer to home, suggesting an unusual connection between their lives.
Audience: I also started reading your book. It seems children are more believable in their memories because they haven't had as much external input, yes?
Chris Bache: Stevenson focused on children for that reason; adults' memories often lack verification due to life’s accumulated experiences. Past lives therapy, on the other hand, commonly involves adults where memory is intentionally evoked through methods like hypnosis, offering a different but parallel data set.
Audience: I've always felt I was an Indian in a past life. After reading your book, I dreamt of being an Indian all night.
Chris Bache: Reincarnation suggests many centuries and millennia of experience are embedded within us, naturally evoking memories. Our interactions and inclinations are shaped by these past experiences, offering a new richness to understanding life.
Roger Woolger is a favorite author of mine in this field. His work is accessible and intelligent, offering a methodology of past lives therapy, discussing karma as cause and effect, and illustrating how our past intricately influences our present. This underscores the idea that nothing is without origin; our abilities and tendencies emerge from past life's patterns.
Audience: Can you clarify the difference between karma as retribution and as opportunities to learn?
Chris Bache: The idea of karma intertwines action and consequence, offering threads through which life's lessons are continuously revisited until understood.
Chris Bache: Karma has a bad reputation when it's placed into Puritan cultures with a vengeful God in the background. In essence, all karma means is that which causes—it's a volitional act, a chosen act, which causes the pair of cause and effect. Karma is just cause and effect. It's totally neutral. For instance, if you die by being thrown off a horse and have a phobia of horses in your next lifetime, that's cause and effect. It's not because you did anything wrong or are being punished. It's just neutral cause and effect. If you cheated someone in business, and in your next lifetime, you find yourself being cheated, that's karma. It has a moral quality but is neutral at its core. In Lifecycles, I differentiate between moral karma and non-moral karma. My view of the universe is that it's not interested in punishment—only in growth. Growth is like when you fail a student on a test. It's not punishment; it's feedback on opportunities to learn. Anything not learned in one lifetime will be revisited in subsequent lives.
We also hold a linear concept of reincarnation—life A leads to life B, then C, and so on. But life isn't that simple. It's like playing cards. You have a deck of 52 cards, but your hand only holds a few, depending on the game. You may have 100 lifetimes behind you, but not all are equally relevant to your current life. Only certain lives contribute to the issues you're challenging in this lifetime. Reincarnation is not just about getting it right. The universe is interested in the open-ended development of our capacity over vast periods—creating genius, manifesting more potential within the human form than we've tended to think in the past.
Margaret Hiller: I love the phrase you used last time you were here—that reincarnation is the universe's way to roll forward information and intelligence. Am I remembering that correctly?
Chris Bache: The universe is like ecology; it wastes nothing. Everything we learn is rolled forward into future learning. Evolution expresses itself up to a point by creating new species. Eventually, sufficient consciousness is concretized to produce individuals, allowing evolution to develop both species and individuals. Essentially, nature recycles, folding our learning forward and taking it to unexplored places.
Audience: I've been hearing a lot about empirical knowledge and data collecting. Where do you place the concept of intuitive knowing—not something gathered from books, but an intuitive knowing that feels right, even if it goes against mainstream thought? How does this fit into the journey to higher consciousness?
Chris Bache: That is one of the many qualities we're developing. Our consciousness faces out and in, and we're learning both about the external world and to trust what's within. Creative artists, intuitive scientists, good parents—all learn to trust the voice rising from within, despite a culture oriented towards external validation. Developing inner intuition is critically important: it affirms the texture of your perceptions and feelings. I'm going to display two other books just to keep us on track.
Carl Bohm and Anne Marie have done interesting work. Carl Bohm, for instance, is a very grounded person who became interested in reincarnation through personal experience. Her child had nightmares, which led her to Stevenson's work. She realized that many other children lived with unresolved issues from past lives. She documented her findings for parents wishing to help their children deal with these memories. Her approach is to attend, listen, and encourage, trusting that the system will self-regulate and resolve these issues without harm to the children. The first book I wrote, Lifecycles, was published in 1990. As a young academic, I tried to make Stevenson's cases more reader-friendly and accessible.
Lifecycles presents overwhelming empirical evidence of reincarnation, prompting questions about how it affects our identity, relationships, and understanding of life. One of the biggest chapters deals with reincarnation in Christianity. I explored how reincarnation could be integrated with Christian principles since many students were convinced by Stevenson's cases yet felt conflicted by religious teachings. Christianity initially rejected evolution but later found ways to integrate it. Could it do the same with reincarnation? I outline options for those with a Christian background who struggle with this evidence.
A key takeaway is the concept of reincarnation changing how we view family, recognizing that children aren't simply products of parental lineage. They are whole and complete entities with their lineages, which we're meant to help unfold. Approaching children with this perspective can yield better results. There’s also a chapter on whether Jesus taught reincarnation. Academic pursuits in New Testament research led me to conclude there isn't conclusive evidence, though provocative possibilities exist.
Chris Bache: Why can't we remember our former lives? Forgetting is necessary for reducing discontinuity, which leads to exponential change. Imagine you're God; you want to evolve life quickly. You could give a human 100,000 years or break it into increments, changing identities each time. This variety fosters growth. If we remembered past lives fully, learning would stagnate. Forgetting allows us to engage fully in new experiences, accelerating learning.
Audience: Do we bring anything from past lives in terms of perception, not just memories?
Chris Bache: Yes, we carry through perceptions, gut feelings, hunches. Though we may not remember past life details, those perceptions and affinities persist. Eventually, I believe, the soul will incarnate intact, without forgetting its past lives. This could signify a new evolutionary leap. While the old goal in Hinduism was moksha, or escape, I see the ultimate goal as awakening here on Earth with full awareness of our spiritual history. Forgetting is a temporary, purposeful phase in this journey.
Audience: There's a quote, "If one knew all, one would forgive all."
Chris Bache: Yes, knowing our complete history fosters compassion. Forgetting allows us to enrich that history.
Audience: If forgetting is beneficial, what happens when we remember everything?
Chris Bache: It's a different game with new rules, possibly leading to a global systems shift. Currently, our culture derives from ego—a fragmented psyche. An awakened soul-conscious world would transform our culture, our species, into one of Buddhas and Christs. If humanity achieved full awareness, we could transform the planet, transcending current obstacles. This is the birth of the Diamond Soul, a new, inclusive identity evolving through time and space.
Audience: My son aligns with similar ideals but channels his frustration outward.
Chris Bache: Anger holds truth but can consume. The challenge is transforming it with compassion into wise, constructive action. Although we all experience anger, it's through understanding the broader context that we find direction. Anger, tempered by wisdom, becomes a powerful tool for change.
Chris Bache: He'll find his way to it. Sometimes it's very useful. I mean, I value deep, introspective work. Sometimes it's useful to follow something like that to its source, to really go into history and get at the very roots of that anger. Because sometimes, even if it's an accurate perception in the world, there's a cause deeper in our personal history. When we get to the cause and clear it at a personal level, sometimes it allows us to let go of the anger but not the truth. There are many ways of moving into it.
Interviewer: I was thinking that couldn't just be anger,
Panelist: but an elective frustration at
Interviewer: what is and what can be, and that more people don't get it or are not making enough progress in that direction.
Panelist: Being unable to do anything about it, it just turns inward.
Chris Bache: My students are angry. They're trying to make their way in the world, and they know it's not working; it's getting worse. The sea level is rising, the jobs are moving. They're angry. But how do you use that perception in a way that doesn't eat you alive? So shall we call the close to the first segment and take 10 minutes? Be back here at .
Margaret Hiller: Oh, yeah, what happened? What time did you get here?
Panelist: I had to do an interview, three articles due today for Natural Week.
Audience: Okay, and then I told Mary to be a little bit late.
Panelist: Looks like they're recording it. Yeah, be nice.
Audience: Hopefully make an audio or something.
Audience: Good to see you.
Panelist: Continuously embarrassed now I.
Editorial note. All published transcripts in the Chris Bache Archive are lightly edited for readability. Disfluencies and partial phrases have been removed where they do not affect meaning. Verbatim diarized transcripts are preserved separately for research and verification.