Fanny and Lawrence’s anniversary

Posted by Jessica Jewett No Comments »

Today is the 157th wedding anniversary of Fanny Adams and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.

It was an unusual courtship marked by an unconventional age difference with Fanny being nearly three years older, long separations, arguing, jealousy, disapproving parents, and even the temptation of another woman. A little known fact about Fanny and Lawrence is that they actually met as toddlers. She was about four and he was about two when her adoptive mother visited his mother at the Chamberlain family farm. Despite being older, she was the same size as him, or so their mothers remarked, and they played together for that one day. Once Fanny’s mother bade Lawrence’s mother goodbye that day, they wouldn’t see each other again until they were in their early 20s.

Fanny Adams was an unusual lady for her century in that she had already lived on her own as an artist and musician by the time she met Lawrence. She had rather dreamy, idealistic thoughts about the concept of love but never really showed an ability to give up her identity for marriage. Her older sisters made fun of her as a teenager for always having this or that crush on boys in school, yet she generally found them to be void of depth of emotion and intellect. When she met Lawrence around 1849-1850, she was at an age generally believed to be on the verge of spinsterhood. She was 24 and he was 21. In those days, a younger man pursuing an older woman, even with just a few years difference, was considered a little strange.

In contrast with Fanny’s boy hopping, Lawrence doesn’t appear to have had any serious relationships with ladies before he met her. He grew up with a speech impediment (stuttering) that made him rather shy until he learned to overcome it in college. I don’t think he ever had the confidence to approach girls before then, although he must have had his fair share of secret crushes before he left the farm for college. Fanny was given a rather liberal education for a female. She was well-read, a professionally trained artist and musician, and she went to a music college in New York City. On the other hand, Lawrence came from a very strict religious household and was not allowed to read secular literature until he left home. He was the distinctly naive one of the pair when they found each other, which was rather unusual for the time. Typically, the lady was the naive half of the relationship, or allowed her man to view her that way. Lawrence’s continued education leveled the playing field and they became, for the most part, equals.

Early on, the things they fought about were based in jealous games. Lawrence knew from day one that Fanny was it for him but his openness in expressing his feelings often made her recoil and fearful because she was much more private about how she felt. Sometimes she would ignore him altogether, or sit too close to another man in social places, or respond coyly when pressed for affirmations of her feelings, and all of these things were interpreted by him as rejection or not being as committed. Beastly, jealous letters would go back and forth until forgiveness came. He proposed multiple times before she accepted. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him – trust me, she did – but 19th century marriage entailed a lady giving up her religious, political, mental, and legal identities to her husband. Fanny was 26 when they got engaged. At that age, most of her peers were long ago married and well into raising children, while she still enjoyed an unusual level of independence. She wasn’t so willing to give that up for a man, but on the other hand, she loved him rather intensely, and finally decided to accept his proposal. So their arguments shifted from jealous banter to defining their roles once they were married. Fanny wanted to contribute to their family by continuing to teach music, while Lawrence suddenly developed his alpha male bone and insisted that he be the sole breadwinner. They argued about sex as well. Fanny was terrified of childbirth and suggested that perhaps they have a sexless marriage, to which Lawrence bluntly told her that he knew she couldn’t sleep with him and not want to be with him any more than he could with her. Women in those days were not supposed to enjoy sex but he was decidedly different from his peers in respecting a woman’s individuality and sexuality.

The majority of their engagement from 1852 through 1855 was spent 1,000 miles apart with Fanny teaching music in Milledgeville, Georgia, and Lawrence attending the Bangor Theological Seminary in Maine. She had decided that she couldn’t bring debt into a marriage (legally, all of her possessions, money, and debt would belong to Lawrence), so she accepted a job in Georgia that paid better than jobs she could find in New England. She lived with distant relatives by the name of Orme house, which still stands virtually unchanged in Milledgeville today. The separation took a toll on their relationship despite their best efforts to focus on planning their future, playful banter bordering on obscene at times, and beautiful expressions of admiration and devotion. Evidence has come to light suggesting that Lawrence either came very close to having an affair or actually had an affair with his cousin, Annie, to console himself while being without Fanny.

When Fanny finally returned to Maine in the summer of 1855, she was turning 30 and feeling the pressure to marry in a hurry. Her adopted younger sister married in November, which Fanny found humiliating, because she had been engaged much longer and people left and right were asking her when Lawrence was going to get on with their marriage. He couldn’t be married without a job to support her and possible children, so it caused a delay.

December came and finally a wedding date was settled. The wedding took place on the 7th at First Parish Congregationalist Church in Brunswick, Maine, and the service was conducted by her father, Reverend Adams. Against so many impossible odds and years of being apart, they made it to the altar, and they spent the winter honeymooning in Brewer, Maine, on the Chamberlain family farm. All of the talk about having a platonic marriage and illegal birth control appears to have been utterly pointless because Fanny got herself a honeymoon baby within four weeks of being married. So began a regular succession of babies born in 1856, 1857, 1858, 1860, and 1865. They were, in order – Grace (Daisy) Dupee, unnamed baby boy (premature, died same day), Harold Wyllys, Emily Stelle, and Gertrude Loraine/Lorraine depending on the source. Emily and Gertrude both died before they reached their first birthdays in two separate scarlet fever epidemics. It has been suggested by some that the depression that came with losing two children in the four years before the Civil War played a role in Lawrence’s decision to join the army, as if part of him wanted to get lost in something larger than himself.

I usually get asked if I remember things from the prewar years, as they were during Fanny’s prime before she began to age and decline in health. It’s a rather complicated thing to try and explain. I spent a few years writing a book trying to explain it and I was never satisfied that I could articulate it well enough. As with all children who go through spontaneous past life memories, they are at their most vivid between ages two and nine, which was true for me, along with another period of vividness between about 18 and 25. Things are not so vivid anymore in visual terms because I’ve worked quite hard to undo the negative energy that carried over into this life from certain things in that one. When you work toward letting go of the bad, sometimes the good will fade too. And that’s okay. Past lives present themselves when there are incomplete life lessons or unresolved relationships, but when those old things are resolved, it will naturally fade into the background to allow you to concentrate on the here and now.

Most of what I still remember is what’s known as emotional memory. I feel the reactions, hopes, failures, loves, hates, etc., that I felt back then whether my conscious mind knows what I’m reacting to or not. For example, when I look at the people Fanny’s children have become today, my first instinct is to mother them even though they’re both older than me in this life. That’s emotional recognition. If I see Lawrence’s picture or even a representation of him in movies, my first emotional memory is long distance love. It was always that way before I even knew who he was (imagine how confusing that is to a young girl). The only places I truly feel at home in this country are Brunswick, Maine, and Portland, Maine, and those are places that haven’t undergone so many changes that Fanny wouldn’t recognize them when she lived there. I have always been intensely protective over the way Civil War vets are honored today, which can logically be seen as an extension of my former places as a colonel’s wife, then a general’s wife, and then First Lady of Maine during Reconstruction.

This is usually how it goes for adults who went through spontaneous past life memories as children. The visual memories will fade and become harder to recall but the emotional memories seem to be permanent. They’re easier to live with and don’t really intrude on present relationships. All of us carry around love for every spouse we’ve ever had (it’s just part of inter-soul bonding) but we still go on to create relationships with new people. The difference with people like me is I just happen to remember some of my previous marriages, both good and bad. I have compared it in the past to something a bit like widows/widowers going on to build new lives for themselves. They always carry the love they felt for the previous spouse but they still have room in their hearts for new love too. Admittedly, I find myself drawn to men who have intense personalities, mild egos, complicated minds and devotion to their purpose in life, much like Lawrence. It’s not conscious on my part until people point out, “Hey, he reminds me of your Chamberlain,” which has happened concerning more than one man. You could say I have a type. (Cue the snickering from every friend who has ever pointed it out to me.)

Most of my memories come from during the war. The reason for that, as I discussed in a previous blog about children’s past life memories, is because trauma seems to come back to people faster than pleasant memories. The war was incredibly traumatic on Lawrence and it was just as traumatic for me to patch him back together when he got sick or shot. He was shot six times. He had malaria, sunstroke, and various other illnesses in the war as well. Believe me when I say the wives were just as much warriors as their husbands. Ask any military wife today what they go through, especially with a wounded husband or a husband with PTSD (both Lawrence and his brother, Tom, suffered through PTSD). I acquired enough trauma in that war that it left scars on my soul, which were still there when I was reborn as Jessica, and brought me nightmares as a toddler of blood, gore, and army hospitals.

The glimpses of things I still have that were from before the war concerned the “jealous period”. There is a brief glimpse of some kind of party ending and everyone crowding the hall to get hats, coats, and bonnets, along with goodbyes and such. Someone was helping me with my coat or whatever it was, and Lawrence caught my eye around some people but I felt indignant and wouldn’t speak to him. I turned my back to him and made a fuss laughing with other people, pretending to have a good time. Why? I don’t know. I don’t have a backstory other than the feeling that I was trying to hurt him for some reason. People in new relationships do stupid things like that no matter what century it is.

The one story I’ve never forgotten is one that I’ve told before but I think it’s important for people to be reminded of the simplicity when everything falls into place. I couldn’t tell you what year it was but I suspect it was 1851-ish. We were walking along the river – I’m guessing it was the Androscoggin River – and it was vivid enough that I could feel the weight of my dress and the uneven ground beneath my feet. For someone who doesn’t walk, that’s a completely foreign sensation. The grass was tall and a breeze pulled it toward the river. A treeline stood to the right and got closer to the riverbank up ahead. I was leading the way to a place I knew and I could hear his heavier footsteps behind me. I looked over my left shoulder and there he was, walking along behind me, carrying a wooden chest under one arm and an easel under the other. The way he looked at me with a silent smile as we walked made something click in my head for the first time and I thought, “He loves me.” I don’t know when it was or what happened before or after that, or why I even remembered it at all, but it hasn’t faded in all these years. It never changes. Not one leaf on a tree changes. It’s as present in my mind as it was when it happened.

Several years ago, I looked for a picture of a place that looked like what I remembered and this was as close as I could get. This is the Androscoggin River near Brunswick, Maine.

When I die, this is the place I intend to go to meet him again.

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Why I do past life work

Posted by Jessica Jewett 1 Comment »

Sometimes I post the daily hate mail I get because I want aspiring intuitives, psychics, mediums, etc., to see what’s going to come at them if they choose to make the work part of their lives. It’s not easy and it’s not as much of sunshine and roses as people might think. There is very real opposition out there to people like me that can border on violent aggression. I don’t want people to jump into the work without understanding what they might face. It takes toughness. It takes thick skin. It takes enough self-control not to respond to it because there is no point.

However, there are other messages I get that remind me of why I do what I do. It’s funny that these messages surprise me as much as they do. On the other hand, it shouldn’t surprise me that I get messages like this from my clients because the ones sending me angry, aggressive, rude messages are the people who have never spoken to me in my life. I want you all to see part of the message because I want you to understand, no matter what you do in life, that you can make a difference in people’s lives despite any opposition you may encounter. The thing is, it’s so important to remember that if you’re hitting a wall of opposition in work that’s important to you, it means you’re hitting a nerve and doing something right. I’m showing you that you can make a difference using whatever talents you possess.

“Thank you for answering my questions and helping me understand myself in a way that I haven’t before but needed to badly. I thank the Universe/God/everyone for putting you in my life with your understanding, unjudgmental [sic] personality and I thank you for usng [sic] your unique gifts to help people like me. You’ve helped me more in the past year and a half than the doctors and counselors have helped in the past 14 years, and that says a lot.”

Let the good outweigh the bad. Let the good rise higher and let it be encouragement from the universe.

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Does your child have past life memories?

Posted by Jessica Jewett 5 Comments »

For parents, there is nothing more frightening, in paranormal terms, than a small child speaking of past lives and old families. Second only to children seeing ghosts, this kind of occurrence is incredibly difficult to understand, to cope with, and to overcome. Children who speak of “my family before” or “when I was big before” are often bullied by peers or even adult authority figures who simply don’t understand what’s happening to them.

The main reason why people dismiss past life claims by children is because children have naturally active imaginations. It can be incredibly difficult to discern the difference between an overactive imagination and genuine past life memories. Added to the complication is that a small child will never come out and directly say, “I’m having a past life memory,” or, “I’m the reincarnation of…” because it isn’t within a child’s vocabulary to articulate the difference between “normal” and “paranormal”. Small children simply haven’t yet been taught that the paranormal is, to society, a separate reality or a nonexistent fantasy. To children, their perception of reality is absolute. A memory of a past life can be as natural as a memory of yesterday’s lunch. Children have not yet been tainted by society’s repetitiveness that the paranormal isn’t real or should be met with fear and suspicion. Unfortunately, such ideas typically begin with exasperated parents who have no other way to cope with spontaneous past life memories in their children. If the child doesn’t learn to suppress quick enough, it often leads to punishment, which then leads to the child associating their experiences with doing something wrong.

The key to better communication with a child going through past life memories is understanding their reality. The next step is figuring out whether the child’s experiences are probably real or simply a product of an overactive imagination. Finally, the child must be led to a place of understanding in which they can come to terms with it, release it, and go on living here in the present as a child rather than an adult trapped in a child’s body, as often happens.

Parents and other adult authority figures need to primarily understand that it’s not their place to tell the child they’re either wrong or being dishonest when they allude to things they experienced in other lives. It’s no different than making a child feel wrong for reporting their encounters with ghosts. Whether or not the adult believes what’s happened is irrelevant because it’s a distinct reality to the child. Berating or punishing the child will lead to confusion, anger, detachment, and it will delay the healing process. According to Dr. Jim Tucker, the medical director of the University of Virginia’s Child and Family Psychiatry Clinic, approximately 70% of child past life cases are those of people who died of unnatural causes, i.e. trauma. Therefore, a child going through past life memories is quite likely to recall traumatic details of their previous existences, which should be treated delicately by the authority figures in their present lives. Forcing punishment for speaking about it has the potential to cause psychiatric damage. Many adults who were not supported as children in their experiences grow up to spend significant time taking medications for anxiety and depression.

Unfortunately whether the person having spontaneous memories is a child or an adult, the majority of memories that come to surface first are traumatic. Violence or emotional distress usually manifest in the dream state, causing nightmares that will linger in the afflicted individual for days, weeks, or months afterward. These nightmares are typically so vivid that the child will act out in their sleep by talking out loud or even physically acting out the dream. One of the more prominent examples of a child suffering through repeated past life nightmares was that of James Leininger, a child who endured vivid flashbacks of his past life as James Houston in World War II. Houston was killed while flying over the ocean near Japan, shot down by Japanese soldiers. His nightmares began at such a young age that he could not have been exposed to World War II or Japanese fighter pilots, yet his nightmares were so vivid that he seemed to physically fight for his life in his sleep. At first, his father was rather disbelieving and disapproving of his mother’s theory that it was a past life. The disbelief led Leininger’s father to do research in an effort to prove the boy was imagining everything. Instead, his research led them to prove every fact the boy offered was true from James Houston’s life. Acknowledging what happened and supporting their child in healing his past trauma allowed that part of him to heal and he no longer suffers from the paralyzing flashbacks. You may read about the Leininger reincarnation case in Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot.

In addition to vivid and repeating nightmares and dreams, the child is likely to exhibit signs of phobias connected to the way they died. Recently, there was a television show on Bio called Ghost Inside My Child that profiled reincarnation cases of three children, including James Leininger. Another child, Cade, was born with the thoughts and experiences of a man who was killed by falling out of the World Trade Center on 9/11. He endured such vivid memories that he could hardly function in normal society, including a paralyzing phobia of skyscrapers and an obsession with airplanes. Cade struggled with even getting out of the car in downtown locations, especially when surrounded by skyscrapers. The trauma has been so recent and he’s still so young that he’s struggling to overcome the nightmares and phobias, although his parents reported progress as he grows. Cade is a bit unique because he reincarnated quickly after being killed, making the memories much more vivid to him, as well as an apparent inability to accept the fact that he’s a child again. Overcoming the phobias may be much more difficult that overcoming the past life itself.

There must be a delicate balance in conversing with the child. It’s better not to bring it up unless the child does first because the child will be more likely to pull from imagination to fill in the gaps if they’re not readily available. When the child initiates a comment, ask questions that will not lead the child into false memories, nor indicate that what they’re remembering is abnormal. A parent’s role should, at first, be neutral in case it is an overactive imagination. Such questions will also assist the parent in discerning the difference between reality and fantasy. Begin by asking if the child knows his or her name from before and if he or she remembers any names from their other family. If there are positive responses, write them down, and ask if they remembered where they lived. Write down the responses. Wait a few weeks and then have the same conversation again when the opportunity arises. If the child gives identical answers after a lapsed time, there is probably a measure of reality involved. If the answers change or the child acts oblivious, it was probably some measure of fantasy. When the child is repeatedly offering up the same details over months or even years, a parent must accept the possibility that what the child says is the truth. Ask for details conversationally without making the child feel pressured to respond.

Reincarnation researcher, Nellie Kampmann, offers this advice:

When children have past life memories, that offers a unique window of opportunity to explore the phenomenon. If you aren’t sure that you want to pursue this, keep in mind that as children grow older, their past life memories fade. You may not get another opportunity. Likewise, your child may eventually have an interest in past lives when he or she is older. It would be very frustrating for your child to know that he or she could remember a past life clearly as a child, but no longer has access to the memories when he or she might be interested in them as an adult. As a parent, you don’t necessarily have to do anything with the information you get from your child. At least if you collect the memories now, the information is there if you or your child do want to look more into it in the future.

The best advice I’ve heard is to just discuss it with your child as if the memories were a normal, every day matter. That way, they are less likely to either clam up or go in the opposite direction and start making things up to keep mommy and daddy happy. If you can record your talks, great! Otherwise, write down notes as soon as you can so that you don’t forget anything.

As you receive information, attempt to find evidence of such people or events much like researching genealogy. Ancestry.com is a good place to start if you’re lucky enough to have a name and location. Additionally, you may look into local historical societies, archival newspapers, or general Internet searches if the child describes details that might be confirmed with Google or other search engines. The reasons why researching the child’s claims are important are because you will be able to prove or disprove the claims as legitimate, and you will find a way to reassure the child that what they’ve experienced is true. It has been shown in numerous cases from both children and adults that being presented with tangible evidence of the past life has a soothing effect on the unsettled state of their subconscious minds. Quite often, seeing evidence of what happened with articles, pictures, and so forth, begins the healing process, although it is not entirely understood. Perhaps it has to do with giving the afflicted person confidence in themselves and their experiences. Perhaps it has to do with tangible proof for the subconscious that the life in question has truly ended and it’s time to release negative ties and devote full energy to living in the present.

If a parent has the ability to draw conclusions and make connections with the child’s claims, there may be a point when visiting the place where the last life ended is necessary. This has shown to be effective in the final stages of the healing process, as proven in the James Leininger case, and numerous other cases. Leininger’s parents took him to the place where Houston was shot down, where they conducted a memorial service and allowed the child to grieve for the traumatic ending he faced in World War II. Other cases have included a child visiting a former home in the UK, a child who was proven to be an extra in a 1930s Hollywood film and visited his old home, children who were previously killed in the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 visited the memorials for those tragedies, and many other cases. There appears to be a measure of psychological healing when the child is old enough to face the reality that the previous life has ended. When they’re allowed to properly grieve and process, they let go. The nightmares stop and they become more comfortable going through childhood again.

Small children with past lives may sometimes find that their previous family members are still alive. Sometimes connections are made but most of the time, parents protect the children from likely rejection. Deciding to come forward with a child’s past life isn’t easy and a lot of things must be considered. For example, the Leininger case involved a death that happened 60 or more years ago, allowing enough time to pass for James Houston’s family to have gone through the grieving process. Leininger had a relationship as a child with Houston’s sister, who felt the case was authentic. However, Cade’s case from 9/11 was so recent and horrifying that his mother chose to keep the identity of the past life a secret, for fear of interrupting the family’s grieving process. Cade himself appears to not be psychologically strong enough yet to meet the people he left behind just 11 years ago. Parents of children with obvious past life cases must primarily take into account the psychological and emotional ability of their child to undergo facing such tangible proof of their past lives. Secondly, they must take into account whether the previous life was too recent. Thirdly, the parent must realize the child cannot process putting to rest their previous lives until they are at a certain mental maturity. Most parents of children with past lives don’t allow them to revisit the old locations until roughly ages 8, 9, or 10 – or older if possible.

Above all, the process of going through a child’s past life memories should be with the ultimate goal of helping the child release those ties enough to function as happy and thriving individuals here in the present.

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