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It’s no secret in my life that the woman pictured on the left, Fanny Chamberlain, was me in me in a previous lifetime. I no longer hide the truth as I used to do when I was younger because I didn’t understand what it all meant. I knew when I “came out” that I would be opening myself to a lot of ridicule. That was something I had to accept in my understanding that being so aware of my past life history was meant to help other people cope with their past lives. I believe in leading by example. I could never expect people to make peace with their various forms of history if I didn’t fully explore and reconcile the bad parts of my own history. There were a lot of bad parts of my life as Fanny even though I do view it as one of my most important lifetimes. I have gotten to a place, after years and years of self-exploration, where I can carry the happy, loving times with me and take lessons from the bad times. It didn’t used to be that way though. The trauma connected with being adopted without explanation, family members rapidly dying, my husband being wounded so often in the Civil War and coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder, etc., used to haunt me a lot.

To be honest, I haven’t thought too much about my past life as Fanny Chamberlain since I published Unveiled: Fanny Chamberlain Reincarnated because it was such a cathartic experience that resolved a lot of things that were haunting me about it. For some reason though, I have gotten a lot of questions recently about whether Fanny’s husband, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, is reincarnated at the moment too and who he might be now. My initial thought is to say, “Uh-huh, you didn’t read my book because I fully addressed it there,” but of course, I don’t actually say that! Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this question, I’d like everyone to look at Lawrence and the depth in his eyes. Really look at him.

The short answer is no, he’s not reincarnated right now.

The long answer is even though I say no, I’m a living person not privy to all of the mechanics of the afterlife and I couldn’t possibly have all of the answers.

People ask me why I don’t think he’s reincarnated at present and, again, I covered all of this in my book but in basic terms, I do not feel that he’s in a body because too many people have seen and experienced his entity. I have personally seen him, many of my friends have seen him, many of my family members have seen him, perfect strangers with no connection to me have seen him, etc. I have a difficult time with the concept that a soul could be a ghost and a living person at the same time. So if my beliefs press me into the soul being an intact, individual consciousness, then Lawrence popping up as a ghost in different places logically leads me to believe that he has not reincarnated with this generation.

Additionally, many mediums since my childhood, most not being told about my past life history, have all described Lawrence as an entity around me periodically throughout my life. They have also said that this entity chose not to reincarnate right now because the main purpose of my present lifetime is to learn to be more independent and live on my own terms. If he was living, we would certainly find each other, being twin flames, and my purpose for learning in this life would be botched up because we depend on each other so much. One medium saying that is interesting. Two mediums saying that could be a coincidence. I’ve had five mediums all independent of each other tell me that beginning when I was 12-years-old. Of course, I struggled to understand what the medium was saying when I was that young though. In my heart, I believe that if Lawrence was alive right now, he would find me and we would be together. That’s how twin flames operate. If they live at the same time, they always find each other. It doesn’t happen very often.

However, looking at the situation from outside of myself, there are people who do believe a soul can be in multiple places at the same time. I respect all beliefs even if I don’t personally subscribe to them. So if I accept that as a possibility, not having the ego to believe that I know everything about reincarnation, then technically it is possible for Lawrence to be living right now while leaving part of himself behind. I’ve also heard of a few cases in which one soul inhabits two bodies at the same time. Frankly, I don’t understand how split reincarnations happen and I’m not entirely certain that they really exist, but I believe anything is possible.

There are actually quite a few men out there who claim to be Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain reincarnated. It’s getting so that they could probably get together and start a convention or a club. I can’t say that I’m surprised about this because he is well-known figure in Civil War history. The more famous a person is, the more likely people will identify with them in future generations and start to believe they were that person. I call it the Cleopatra Syndrome. Basically it means when you lived in a certain period, images or people will trigger your feelings and you may misinterpret recognition as an identity. Cleopatra was one of the most identifiable figures in Egyptian history, making dozens or hundreds of people believe they were her in a past life because they recognize her the most. The truth is these situations are most often cases of reincarnating from her kingdom, her servants, her family members, her friends, etc., but latching onto her because she’s the one figure they recognize from that time. There are dozens of Romanovs, thousands of Titanic victims, etc., but they all can’t be those people. They’re pulled to the emotional connection those events in history evoke. Most likely, people feeling so connected to those things certainly knew people directly involved or had some sort of emotional investment in it.

In Lawrence’s case, I think there might be a touch of Cleopatra Syndrome going on as well. Most of my memories had him in it, so I could easily see how always seeing him might lead a person to believe they were him when they were really just part of his life. If my math is right, there were about 4,000 men who served, fought, got wounded and died under his command in the Civil War. He was governor of the entire state of Maine and president of Bowdoin College, so add roughly half a million people to that who certainly knew who he was and looked to him as a leader in the years after the Civil War. He was a public figure and that means more people would have spiritual impressions of him in future lifetimes.

Simply put: I do not feel that Lawrence is reincarnated right now. His presence as a soul is too strong for me to accept that he’s in a body too.