M.J. Rose

The Reincarnationist welcomes author Leanna Renee Hieber – thank you for answering our questions Leanna!

Leanna Renee Hieber is the award winning, bestselling author of the Strangely Beautiful series of ghostly, Gothic Victorian Fantasy novels beginning with The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker (Barnes & Noble Bestseller) and continuing soon with the April 27th release of the sequel, The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker.

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

My life-long obsession with the late 19th century. I was driven to start my first novel when I was around twelve years old, a Gothic novel set in 1888. Many years and projects later, I returned to that first beloved genre with a new manuscript, a ghostly, Gothic Victorian Fantasy again set in 1888, my debut novel; The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker. The Strangely Beautiful series has mythic themes of incarnations so this is a fitting dialogue for me. I’ve always fostered a keen desire to paint the difficult, gorgeous, gritty, atmospheric time that is the Victorian era, a time whose triumphs, terrors, riches and injustices, conflicts and fierce fascination with the supernatural make for a fascinating epoch that I’ve felt I’ve always known. When I travel to London, I have an uncanny sense of the city – having grown up in rural Ohio this should not have been innate. So I truly believe something of my heart and spirit belongs to 19th Century London, as it’s always had a claim on me.

What is your principle defect that you believe may be inherited from a previous incarnation?

Trying to balance sensitivity, trust, generosity and ambition – a very tricky scale to keep level.

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you could have been and why?

The first women who put pen to paper and declared themselves writers, any of the men and women of the Suffrage and the Abolitionist movements, because they were brave, right and just. And one hero in particular: Caroline Earle White who founded the American Anti-Vivisection Society in the late 19th Century to speak out against animal cruelty, elevating a discourse on human ethics. As a vegetarian and caretaker of a bunny rescued from a laboratory, that issue is close to my heart.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

Jesus – I imagine he’d have some fascinating things to say about it.
Martin Luther – I’m Lutheran and so I’m curious what points he’d argue.
Queen Victoria – because I’d really love to meet her and her interest in spiritualism could make it a fascinating discussion.

What do you think happens when we die?

I’m not sure and I don’t mind the Divine Mystery. I believe energy continues on, and sometimes it may linger tied to a specific person or place, but generally it moves onto towards Peace (what that looks like or may be, I can’t presume to say) or to perhaps another go-round on the globe.

When you come back next time, who (or what!) would you like to be?

I’m really enjoying being a novelist! I think I could do it for a few lifetimes and still have stories I’d want to tell. Or a bird; flight would be lovely.

Leanna’s Links:
Website: www.leannareneehieber.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/leannarenee
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/sbsfan

Welcome back to the Reincarnationist Blog’s series of interviews. Today’s subject is Deepak Chopra. This particular Q&A was previously published on our blog back in ’07, so the questions are slightly different that what we’ve been publishing this past month. Enjoy! (…and stay tuned for the next several months for many, many more Q&As with authors and others whose perspectives you may find very interesting!)

THE QUESTIONS:

Title of your latest book as of Sept 1, 2007 –

Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment, HarperOne, May 2007

Do you believe that reincarnation is possible?

I think consciousness outlives the death of the physical body through which it expresses itself. Also, the universe is constantly recycling itself while evolving to higher levels of creativity. Because we are a part of the universe, we too recycle ourselves and continue to evolve to higher levels of creativity. As a result, there is no such thing as a person. What we call a person is a constantly evolving confluence of memories, desires, imagination, relationships, meanings, contexts, and archetypal stories.

What books on the subject have made an impression on you or do you recommend people who are interested in the subject read?

Life Before Life by Dr. Jim B. Tucker

Life After Death: The Burden of Proof

What is your most marked characteristic that you believe could be a hold over from a past life?

As I mentioned, I do not think of myself as a person. We are wisps of memory, and threads of desire latching on to chunks of consciousness and participating in a cosmic dance. The only solution to all of life’s conundrums is enlightenment – to move to a domain of awareness beyond the personal self to the universal self. Any holdovers that I have from the past are part of my collective karmic inheritance. These include attachment to outcome and need for approval.

What is your principle defect that you believe might be inherited from a previous incarnation?

As I mentioned, I do not think of myself as a person so I am unable to answer the question.

Which of your favorite heroes do you think you actually could have been and why?

I believe that we all have relationships with archetypes but since we do not have a separate self, our heroes are archetypal energies that we karmically resonate with. My heroes include Jesus, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Krishna, amongst others. But I do not believe I was one of them because as I have shared before, there is no such thing as a separate self.

What three people from history would you like to have over to dinner for a discussion about reincarnation?

Jesus Christ, Buddha, Hitler not to discuss reincarnation but to understand what made them who they are.

What do you think happens when we die?

We upgrade or downgrade the illusion that we call reality as a result of the state of consciousness we are in.

When you come back next time, who would you like to be?

Don’t plan to return.

We would love to hear your responses to these questions. Please feel free to copy and paste the Questionnaire with your answers into a Comment for this post.

Reincarnation in the news

And some more