Souls don't represent all that is pure and good about a body or they wouldn't be incarnating for personal development. Souls come to Earth to work on their own shortcomings. In terms of self-discovery, a soul may choose to act in conjunction with, or in opposition to, its own character in the selection of a human body. As an example, a soul combating tendencies toward selfishness and indulgence might not mix well with a human ego whose emotional temperament is disposed to engaging in hostile acts for self-gratification.

Quite often, troubled people have suffered painful environmental trauma such as physical and emotional abuse as children. They have either internalized themselves, creating a shell to hide behind their pain, or externalized by mentally moving outside their bodies on a regular basis. These defense mechanisms are a means of survival to preserve our sanity. 

When a client tells me that they love to "tune out" and practice astral projection because the out-of-body experience makes them feel more alive, I look for disturbances. Indeed, I may not find anything other than curiosity, but an obsession with being away from the body indicates a desire to escape from current reality.

It is perhaps for this reason I am troubled by the walk-in theory as another escape mechanism. I believe the whole idea of walk-ins to be a false concept. According to the proponents of this theory, tens of thousands of souls now on this planet came directly into their physical body without going through the normal process of birth and childhood. We are told that these possessing souls are enlightened beings who are permitted to take over the adult body of a soul who wants to check out early because life has become too difficult. Therefore, the walk-in soul is actually performing a humanitarian act, according to devotees of this theory. I call this possession by permission.

If this theory is true, then I must turn in my great-guru white robe and gold medallion. Not once, in all my years of working with subjects in regression, have I ever had a walk-in soul. Also, these people have never heard of any other soul in the spirit world associated with such practices. In fact, they deny the existence of this act because it would abrogate a soul's life contract. 


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To give another soul permission to come in and take over your karmic life plan defeats the whole purpose of your coming to Earth in the first place! It is deluded reasoning to assume that the walk-in would wish to complete their own karmic cycle in a body originally selected and assigned to someone else. If I am a senior in a high school trigonometry class, would I leave my class and go down the hall to a freshman algebra class where a student is struggling with an exam and tell him I'll finish the exam for him so he can leave early? This is a lose-lose situation for both students -- and what teacher would permit it?

The whole walk-in theory is like suicide, although it is supposed to combat suicide by allowing the walk-out soul to escape responsibility for straightening out their life. The walk-out soul relinquishes ownership of its host body so a more advanced spirit who does not want to go to all the trouble of being in a child's body can take over. 

This is one of the major flaws of possession by permission. From everything I have learned about body assignments, it takes years for a soul to fully meld its energy vibrations with that of a host brain. The process begins when the baby is in a fetal state. All the essential elements of who we really are come from the soul assigned to a specific body from the beginning. 

Consider first the three I's emanating from the soul: imagination, intuition, and insight. Then add such components as conscience and creativity. Do you think the adult human mind is not going to recognize the loss of its partner Self to a new presence? Now, that would drive a host body insane as opposed to healing it. I tell people not to worry about losing their soul -- it's with us for the duration because there are good reasons for having the particular body you occupy.

Souls take their responsibility very seriously, even to the extent of being inside nonfunctional bodies. They are not materially trapped. For instance, a soul may inhabit a comatose host body for many years and not abandon it until death. These souls are able to roam freely across the land visiting other souls who might be making brief trips away from their bodies during normal sleep states. This is especially true of souls in the bodies of babies. 

Souls are very respectful of their host body assignments, even if they are bored. They leave a small portion of their energy so they can return quickly if needed. Their wavelengths are like homing beacons who have "fingerprinted" their human partners.

When a soul's energy does leave the human body, this does not provide an opportunity for some demonic being to rapidly move in and occupy a vacant mind. This is another superstition. Aside from the nonexistence of such demonic beings in the first place, the mind is never completely vacant of a traveling soul's energy. A malevolent entity would be unable to squeeze in, even if they did exist.


Destiny of Souls by Michael Newton. This article was excerpted with permission from the book:

Destiny of Souls
by Michael Newton.

©?2000, published by Llewellyn Publications, http://www.llewellyn.com.

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Michael Newton, Ph.D.

About The Author

MICHAEL NEWTON, Ph.D. holds a doctorate in Counseling Psychology, is a certified Master Hypnotherapist and a member of the American Counseling Association. He is considered to be a pioneer in uncovering the mysteries about our life in the spirit world, first reported in his best-selling book Journey of Souls (1994), which has been translated into ten languages. Michael Newton is a historian, amateur astronomer, and world traveler.