We were discussing religion over lunch when my mother said to me “Mike, I don’t understand. I’ve prayed that you’d find the truth.”
I said, “Your prayers have been answered Mom. I have!”
“Not that truth,” she replied, shaking her head with exasperation.
My mother was a devout Christian. She loved Jesus as much as imaginary invisible friends can be loved. And, like most devout Christians, questioning the things she’d learned in church was uncomfortable, if not down right blasphemous. I, on the other hand, never hesitated to ask questions. I figured that’s how you got answers.
One of the questions on my mind 30 years ago concerned reincarnation. Was it true? It certainly contradicted the religion I was inculcated with from birth. But I had become curious to know because of a book I’d read about the life of Edgar Cayce.
Cayce was known in the early part of the 20th Century as “The Sleeping Prophet”. He had discovered that while in a state of self-induced trance he could give amazingly accurate diagnosis of people’s health problems, He became world famous for the treatments suggested while in his state of unconsciousness. They were medically unorthodox, but very effective. All of this he did with nothing more than the person’s physical location and name.
A very pious and religious man, he never accepted money for his services, and made his living as a photographer. Halfway through his 40 year career as a psychic he discovered the added ability to see people’s past lives and relate their significance to the current life. At first he was deeply bothered by the seeming contradiction with his Christian theology. A difference he reconciled after much prayer and Bible study in which he found scripture that suggested it was actually a belief accepted by Christ and his disciples. Disputably so, as with any other interpretation of scripture.
I had always rejected reincarnation, as most Christians do, because it directly contradicted the one-life-one-chance-for-forgiveness cornerstone of the religion. But the story of this devoutly Christian man had piqued my curiosity. I wanted to know more.
I remember wishing Cayce was still alive so I could have a past-life reading myself. No more than two weeks passed when I saw a flier in a window offering “past life readings”. In bold letters at the top it read Wichita School of Metaphysics. It gave a time – 3:00 o’clock Sunday afternoon. And an address on east Douglas Avenue, in Wichita, Kansas. Nothing could have kept me away.
At just a few minutes past three I rang the bell of one of the old rundown Victorians that lined that section of east Douglas. The door opened and a woman ushered me into the large living room. She placed her finger to her lips, indicating I should be silent. I said nothing and sat in the overstuffed arm chair she directed me to, joining about 15 other people who were sitting in an eclectic assortment of chairs around the room.
Sitting cross-legged on a couch under the front window was a petite blonde headed girl I guessed to be in her early 30s. She was breathing deeply and her eyes were closed. I correctly assumed she was the “Edgar Cayce” who would be giving the readings. I waited with eager anticipation.
Just as with Cayce someone else – someone conscious – acted as the “moderator” between the client and the self-hypnotized reader. This duty was being performed by a heavyset woman who also appeared to be in her ’30s. From a clipboard she read the names of people – some of whom were physically present, and others who were not – asking the blonde to report on their physical condition. The blonde would hesitate a few seconds and then begin to talk rapidly in a monotone voice, oddly referring to herself as “we”.
After a few such readings the moderator gave the blonde instructions to deepen her trance and move to the fifth level of consciousness for past life readings. It’s been 30 years and I may have forgotten which level – maybe it was the fourth, or maybe the sixth – but I will never forget what happened next.
A black woman had brought her young son for a past life reading. I’m guessing he was in his early teens. The moderator asked the blonde to search for a past life that was significant to his current life. One of the tenets of reincarnation is that experiences carry over from one lifetime to another – both positive and negative. Our heaven and our hell so to speak.
The blonde did not reply immediately. I could see her eyes moving back and forth under her closed eyelids, as if she were scanning something visual. Then she began to speak in the same staccato monotone. “We see this one in the land known as Virginia. This one is in the occupation of farmer. This one… blah blah. I don’t remember the details until she answered the young boy’s only question, what was his name in that previous life. She answered, “This one was known as Robert Michael Land.”
Stop! My name is Rodney Michael Land, and if you know anything at all about statistical probabilities you know it was a virtual impossibility that she would be saying my name. Granted the first name was different, but how many R.Michael Lands are there in the entire world? One in a million? But moreover, how many of them lived in Wichita, Kansas? How many of them had paternal roots in early Virginia? The odds that she could pull my name out of a hat were statistically impossible.
Had someone known I would be there? Yes. Me! Me and only me. And I had not had the opportunity to introduce myself. There was only one other who knew I would be there, and could have arranged this impossible coincidence – God.
I was dumbstruck. And my life forever changed in that moment – a change for the better. How, you might ask, could a “Pauline” conversion FROM Christianity be a change for the better? In several ways. Let me explain.
First of all, every bigoted thought I had ever had evaporated like the morning mist in July. I was raised in the ’50s, by folks from Texas and Oklahoma. When we moved to Wichita in 1954 there was a housing shortage, and the only place my dad could find was a rented fourplex across the street from “nigger town”. I had rock fights with the nigger kids that passed by. That was what we did, and sadly, that was how we talked.
But now I was struck with the realization that this teenage African American could be a reincarnated ancestor – a great great uncle, or cousin of mine. I knew that my great great grandfather Nicholas Rufus Land was born in Virginia in 1810. It was a “heart-opening” possibility, and I have to this day never had another feeling of racial or cultural bigotry.
A second realization almost made me laugh at the irony. If this kid had lived another life as a farmer in early Virginia then he was a reincarnated slave owner. How funny would it be if the very ones who railed against the whites who had enslaved their ancestors were only venting anger at their own deeds – acts of cruelty from a former life. Karma! The perfect judgment.
Most of all – and I’ve only recently realized this – Christians and Atheists are cut off the same bolt of cloth. Both believe one life is all you get. They just believe it differently. It’s a needless limitation, but it reflects the skepticism that exists in both ideologies. I’ve had heated discussions with members of both camps and they are equally vocal in their disdain for the idea of more than one physical incarnation.
There was one more thing I used to say to my mother that aggravated her. Yes, I did. I purposely aggravated my mother. But, in my defense, sometimes she asked for it by chastising me for not being a Christian. I’d listen then I’d deliver the squelch by looking directly into her soft brown eyes and saying “Mom. Someday you’re going to know who I really am.”
She’d grit her teeth in mock anger, wave her perfectly manicured finger in my face and say “I know who you are. You’re my son.”
And that is who I am – this time around.
Mom is gone now, waiting for her next life. I think about her often. I thank her for her prayers. And I thank God for answering them.