Discovering the Interlife: Your Journey Between Lifetimes, Your Life Between Lives

While many teachers and therapists have explored the realm of past lives, rarely have I found anyone in the clinical community who has endeavored to discuss the impact of the period between death and reincarnation. This is just what you will find in Dr. Georgina Cannon's book Discovering the Interlife: Your Journey Between Lifetimes, Your Life Between Lives. Whether you refer to that in between period as purgatory, bardo or use her term "Interlife", she feels that regression back to the "in between period" could give you lessons that may lead to personal awakening and transformation.

This book presents the reader both theory and a discussion of methodology. She bases her ideas on the ancient Egyptian and Tibetan books of the dead, which are classics when it comes to understanding spiritual cosmology. Her discussion clearly brings up issues and ideas without fully exploring the depth of these concepts anywhere as exhaustively as implied in the briefly referenced works. On the other hand, there are plenty of appropriate quotes in the margins and within the text lend background color for the audience.

A particular welcomed contribution that I found was in the latter part of the book as she outlined some of the methodology used by her and several of her colleagues. When she described experiences and outlined her subject's experiences, I particularly liked the well-placed testimonials, which tended to give her descriptions substance.

In all, I must say that this is a brief, easy-to-read testament and introduction by an extremely experienced past life regression authority. It is not, however, a clinical or academic book. But, apparently that was not her purpose for writing it. Even though she begins by explaining that her concepts have a basis in ancient religious writings, that claim is insufficiently supported to the extent I would have liked. And, a lot of her other supporting references are of the modern spiritual genre, which in turn also lack academic or scientific credentials. Regardless, I fully realize that this is a dilemma for anyone who dares to attempt to bridge quasi-religious concepts with clinical applications. While regression has long been very well accepted therapeutic concept, delving into the metaphysical arenas of past and future lives still has a long way to go before getting general acceptance within the mainstream clinical community.

Dr. Cannon has written a book full of sincere beliefs backed by a strong level of charisma. Her broad experiences are derived from countless sessions with real people. Her novel approach of looking at the "interlife" as a subject of a therapeutic regression is a fascinating concept which needs additional exploration. Her experiences could have been easily developed into a how-to manual for any clinician open-minded enough to explore this area. I would love to see her back up statements with the numerous case studies, which I have no doubt that she could easily produce. Nevertheless, this introductory book leaves me wondering if there is more. Of course, in the final pages she informs the reader of her extensive teaching credentials and numerous courses. So, there is more.