When a friend mentioned that she was reading Michael Talbot’s THE HOLOGRAPHIC UNIVERSE, I thought to check in on that seminal work that introduced many of us to Quantum Physics to see what Talbot had to say about time. His description of a Holographic Universe is:

…the universe in which time is an illusion and reality is no more than a mind–created image…

We are still children when it comes to understanding the true nature of time. Unlike all children placed on the threshold of adulthood, we should put aside our fears and come to terms with the way the world really is. For in a holographic universe, or universe in which all things are just ghostly coruscations of energy, more than just our understanding of time must change. There are still other shimmering to cross our landscape, still deeper depths to plumb. 

(A coruscation is “a sudden gleam or flash of light.”)

30 years later, I’m still plumbing those depths. So I returned to Talbot’s excellent “YOUR PAST LIVES- A REINCARNATION HANDBOOK” (which I previously wrote about in my Past Lives Project blog*) to find Talbot had been intrigued by the work of some of the channelers who were prominent in the mid-1980’s when the book was being written. He was impressed with Jane Roberts’ Seth books and also mentioned 2 lesser known channels, James and Lazaris. He described them as “discarnate entities,” that is, sources of information that are not in physical bodies at present or may never have been in physical form. All of whom had a unique take on Time that I am just now beginning to appreciate and incorporate into my work, and YOUR PAST LIVES was published in 1987!

For example, many discarnate entities assert that far from being frozen in a linear sequence of time, our past lives are actually occurring simultaneously, and it is only our belief that the past is frozen and unalterable that keeps us from realizing that at an unconscious level we are communicating with our past and future selves all the time.

To emphasize this point, rather than use the term past lives James suggests that we employ the term adjacent lives, for, as he explains, the life that is affecting us the most at any given moment may not be our most recent incarnation, but can be any one of our multitude of existences, no matter how seemingly remote in what we currently perceive as space and time. Indeed, he asserts that instead of being laid out in a neat line, our various incarnations are actually part of a much more active and unstable arrangement. As he explains, ‘the easiest analogy is to imagine a roll of pennies, each with a different consecutive date from 1800 to 1895, all stacked in chronological order. Some exuberant, youthful hand knocks over the stack, and all the coins roll and scatter, coming to rest everywhere – atop each other, next to one another, heads up or down. 1896 may be right next to 1930. 1815 may lie atop 1964. 1918 may have rolled off under the bureau, and never be heard from again. And so it is with our lives, your incarnations. The greater being that is your Oversoul is constantly rattling the spare change in its pockets, and so your ‘present’ life is constantly coming in contact with other past and future lives that may be quite distant in terms of chronological time, but extraordinarily intimate in terms of their psychological presence.’

According to James it is when two of these coins, or past lives, stick together that problems surface such as those that come to the fore during a past life regression. By realizing that we can ‘berth’ next to any past or adjacent life that we choose, we can access positive past life influences and experiences.

Lots to unpack there. “James” was originally channeled by Tam Mossman, who was the editor for Jane Roberts’ Seth books, and compiled his James work in a 1993 book, “ANSWERS FROM A GRANDER SELF.” Here’s what Talbot took from James’ channeling:

• Our past lives are occurring simultaneously,

• We are communicating with our past and future selves all the time (Note the inclusion of Future Selves!)

• We have a limiting belief that the past is frozen and unalterable,

• It may not be our most recent incarnation that is affecting our present life, 

• It can be any one of our multitude of existences, no matter how remote in space and (linear) time 

• Since past lives no longer captures the totality of this experience, “adjacent” lives is a better description.

• This force can be experienced as a “psychological presence” in spite of being remote in time and space.

(I wrote a review of this book in October 2018 and completely missed all this information. There’s a lesson in there about getting what you need at the perfect time to absorb it.)

Talbot, who passed away in 1992, was so far ahead in this knowledge that I’m just now catching up. The James material that he references is right in line with what my clients are telling me lately, and I am not in the habit of quoting channeled or discarnate entities. But I am intrigued, and am waiting on a copy of Tam Mossman’s book to look into this further. I’ll let Talbot have the last word:

Although it is obvious that further research is required to determine authenticity of trance information sources, at the very least the pronouncement of discarnate entities provide interesting working hypotheses for some of the greatest mystical questions of all time… However, if this kind of entities turn out to be what they claim, … we may be forced to completely reassess our image of ourselves and our role in the cosmos.

*https://pastlivesproject.org/the-past-lives-project-blog/michael-talbots-past-lives-a-reincarnation-handbook