M.J. Rose

Tune in to this hour of To The Best of Our Knowledge:

The Brain and Belief

“Independent producer Karen Michel reports that some of the country’s leading neuro-biologists are collaborating with Buddhist monks in an effort to understand the effects of meditation on the mind and the brain. Andrew Newberg directs the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania, and he tells Steve Paulson what brain imaging technology can tell us about the experiences of Franciscan nuns and Pentecostalists at prayer...”

As life saving and resuscitation techniques improve there are more and more accounts of Near-Death Experiences. In this short video clip Gary Habermas delivers an account of the amazing near-death experience of a little girl from Idaho.

(From The Mindful Hack*) “Agnostic pediatric intern and brain specialist Melvin Morse admitted a small girl, Katie, to a mid Western American emergency room. She was said to have been under water for nineteen minutes and was comatose. She was hooked up in the ICU but was not treated. She came to three days later, and remembered the two doctors who worked on her. That is, she watched them at work on her while she had no brain wave activity (“profoundly comatose”). She recalled other details that could later be verified.”

*(The Mindful Hack is a Web log of Denyse O’Leary, co-author of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist’s case for the existence of the soul (HarperOne August 2007). The Mindful Hack publishes information of interest on the relationship between the mind and the brain. O’Leary also publishes the Post-Darwinist, which keeps up with the intelligent design controversy.)

Dear Readers,

Remember the first book that meant something to you? For me it was THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was more than magical; it was deeply mysterious with a garden locked up and hidden behind a stone wall with overgrown trees that reached for the sky. I loved the suspense that coursed through the storyline and kept me turning the pages.

THE SECRET GARDEN also was the first book that made me think about writing a book of my own. One night as my mother read it to me I stopped her and asked if we could go to see the garden the next day. She explained it was make believe. Before this moment, I’d never connected the concept of make believe to books. That night I told my mother that when I grew up I was going to write books about discovering a secret garden.

Writing a suspense novel is very much like uncovering gardens that have been hidden and secreted away. The secrets in my newest novel, THE REINCARNATIONIST, revolve around a subject that has deep significance for many people — reincarnation. My fascination with this topic began when I was a child and it’s a book that I’ve been working on for more than nine years.

In my research I discovered I was in good company: Believers in Reincarnation throughout history include Carl Jung, Rudyard Kipling, Einstein, Ben Franklin, Napoleon, Mark Twain, General George Patton, Louisa May Alcott, Tolstoy, Henry Ford, Goethe, the Baal Shem Tov, Nietzsche, Gandhi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Schweitzer, Walt Whitman, Wordsworth, Levi ibn Habib (the Ralbah), Rumi, Thoreau, Socrates, Jesus Christ in the Gnostic Gospels, Voltaire, Josephus, Balzac, Gauguin, Pythagoras, Kabbalists, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians.

I’ve learned that there currently are over 26 million people who are believers in reincarnation — and I’ve created this blog as a hub for “reincarnationists” – a place to find news related to reincarnation, read reviews of books on the subject, and discover links to other blogs and websites on reincarnation and related intriguing topics.

I love reading page turners that give you something to think about, something that resonates and matters. I hope that’s what this novel does for you.

I hope you visit the book’s website to watch an interview or a booktrailer or to tune in to a discussion about the novel and its fascinating subject matter. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about the book.

— M.J.