[davidsun]

This is taken from the opening paragraphs of Ch.12, titled Life Selection, of Michael Newton, Ph.D.'s book Journey of Souls. (There is much more including case history hypnotic regression session transcripts, in there):

The rejuvenation of our energy and personal assessment of one's Self [after death] takes longer for some souls than others, but eventually the soul is motivated to start the process of incarnation. While our spiritual environment is hard to leave, as souls we also remember the physical pleasures of life on Earth with fondness and even nostalgia.

When the wounds of a past life are healed and we are again totally at one with ourselves, we feel the pull of having a physical expression for our identity. Training sessions with our counselors and peer groups have provided a collaborative spiritual effort to prepare us for the next life. Our karma of past deeds towards humanity and our mistakes and achievements have all been evaluated with an eye toward the best course of future endeavors. The soul must now assimilate all this information and take purposeful action based upon three primary decisions:

* Am I ready for a new physical life?

* What specific lessons do I want to undertake to advance my learning and development?

* Where should I go, and who shall I be in my next life for the best opportunity to work on my goals?

Older souls incarnate less, regardless of the population demands of their assigned planets. When a world dies, those entities with unfinished business move on to another world which has a suitable life form for the kind of work they have been doing. Cycles of incarnation for the eternal soul seem to be regulated more by the internal desires of a particular soul, than by the urgency of host bodies evolving in a universe of planets.

Nevertheless, Earth certainly has an increasing need for souls. Today, we have over five billion people. Demographers vary in their calculations on how many individuals have lived on Earth in the last 200,000 years. The average estimate is some 50 billion people. This figure, which I think is low, does not signify the number of visitations by different souls. Bear in mind the same souls continue to reincarnate, and there are those who occupy more than one body at a time. There are reincarnationists who believe the number of people living on Earth today is close to the total number of souls who ever lived here.

The frequency of incarnation on Earth by souls is uneven. Earth clearly has more need for souls today than in the past. Population estimates in 1 AD are around 200 million. By 1800, humans had quadrupled, and after only 170 more years, quadrupled again. Between 1970 and 2010, the world's population is expected to double once more.

When I study the incarnation chronology of a client, I find there is usually a long span of hundreds, even thousands, of years between their lives in Paleolithic nomadic cultures. With the introduction of agriculture and domesticated animals in the Neolithic Age, from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, my subjects report living more frequent lives. Still, their lives are often spaced as much as 500 years apart. With the rise of cities, trade, and more available food, I see the incarnation schedules of souls increasing with a growing population. Between 1000 and 1500 AD, my clients live an average of once in two centuries. After 1700, this changes to once in a century. By the 1900s, living more than one life in a century is common among my cases.

It has been argued these increases in soul incarnations only appear to be so because past life recall improves as people in hypnosis get closer to their current lives. This may be true to some extent, but if a life is important it will be vividly remembered at any age in time. Without doubt, the enormous population increase on Earth is the basic cause for souls coming here more often. Is there a possibility that the inventory of souls slated for Earth could be strained by this surge in human reproduction?

When I ask clients about the inventory of available souls, they tell me I should worry more about our planet dying from over-population than exhausting the reserve of souls. There is the conviction that new souls are always available to fill any expanding population requirements. If our planet is just one example among all other intelligent populations which exist in this universe, the inventory of souls must truly be astronomical.

I have said souls do have the freedom to choose when, where, and who they want to be in their physical lives. Certain souls spend less time in the spirit world in order to accelerate development, while others are very reluctant to leave. There is no question but what our guides exert great influence in this matter. Just as we were given an intake interview in the orientation phase right after death, there are preparatory exit interviews by spiritual advisors to determine our readiness for rebirth. The case which follows illustrates a typical spiritual scene with a lower-level soul.