Sarah Hinze

For those who read my previous post on Roy Mills’ book about his memories of the premortal life, this post will be an exciting follow-up, with further information on individuals who have had distinct experiences with the premortal existence. After my father, whose name is also David Larsen, read the Mills post, he referred me to an individual he knows from IANDS (International Association for Near Death Studies) who specializes in “pre-birth experiences.” Her name is Sarah Hinze and she has done extensive research and writing on this phenomenon, focusing on collecting experiences from individuals who claim to have received communication from a child before he/she was born, or even before the child was even conceived.  Such experiences indicate that the child already exists in spirit long before his/her birth into the world, and that the “self” not only continues after this life, but also precedes it. In this post, I would like to give a brief overview of Sarah Hinze’s work.

Sarah’s research in this area began nearly twenty years ago, after she had a “pre-birth experience” (PBE) in the form of a communication from a child that she miscarried. Since then she has interviewed individuals and chronicled many of these types of communication from children before they are born. Her work has provided significant evidence that unborn children can warn, protect and enlighten us from the spirit realm. Most often these children appear to announce it is their time to be born. This communication can occur between the child and a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or grandparent, etc., as they come to warn, protect and enlighten through the veil.

According to Sarah’s website, www.sarahhinze.com or www.royalchild.com, there are several diverse ways in which such a communication can be received.

• During a Near Death Experience (NDE): there are many accounts of NDEs which describe a visit to the premortal realm where future children are contacted.
• Very vivid dreams: in which the individual sees and/or converses with a being that the individual knows has not yet been born but will be born in the future. Some cultures call this type of experience “announcing dreams”. These dreams are often extremely vivid and memorable.
• Visions: PBEr sees distinctly male or female form, various “ages”, variously attired, while awake; sometimes form is accompanied by glow or light, sometimes not; sometimes appears and/or disappears suddenly.
• Auditory: Experiencer hears a voiced message from or about the preborn. Often the voice is a child, gives its preferred name, announces that it needs to come to earth now, and/or refers to the parent as “father” or “mother”.
• Telepathy: Preborn beings witnessed by communication directly to the experiencer’s mind; telepathic or spiritual communication, as often described in NDEs.
• Sensory: An individual vividly senses an unseen presence hovering around them. Along with the presence can be a distinct feeling of urgency.

Other pre-birth accounts include: an individual being able to remember an escort who brought him/her to earth, individuals having flashbacks or being able to remember themselves or siblings in a prebirth/premortal state, children who will be adopted appearing to either the adoptive or biological parents to announce the situation that will take place, and other types of experiences.

The website also describes ten general aspects of the “typical” prebirth experience:

• Radiation of love: The preborn radiates a powerful love to the prebirth experiencer, similar to the love felt from the light in the NDE.
• Celestial light: The preborn may radiate, or appear in, a brilliant light that does not hurt the eyes and conveys extraordinary peace, similar to the light in the NDE.
• Thankful and eager to come to earth: The preborn is excited about earth life, views it as a growth opportunity, and is thankful that the parents are providing this opportunity. Yet there may be some fear of the unknown in facing the transition to earth life.
• Leaving a heavenly home: The preborn is eager to enter earth life, but expresses a degree of loss or apprehension at leaving the sanctuary of his heavenly home.
• A time to come to earth: The preborn often indicates that the time in which one comes to earth is assigned, as part of a divine timetable, so personalized growth experiences can be achieved.
• A unique mission: The preborn message conveys that each individual has special purposes or missions to accomplish during his specified time on earth.
• Protection/Warning: Some preborn appearances provide protection or warning to the recipient. (In the case studies reviewed, aid to the PBErs was provided by the preborn to prevent or recover from suicide attempts, abuse, rape, birth control, and abortion that would block the preborn’s conception and birth on earth.)
• Messages: Some preborn appearances provide messages about something the future parent(s) or others must do as part of their earth mission or to help the preborn.
• Escort to earth: Some preborns are brought to earth by escorts (just as some NDErs are escorted to the life after life).
• Deja vu: Some PBEs consist of memories or flashbacks of one’s pre-earth life.

In another section of the website, “PBE Accounts“, Sarah provides a few of the many prebirth stories that she has recorded. There are even a couple of accounts from celebrities. Here, for example, is an excerpt from John Denver’s experience when he and his wife were trying to adopt a child:

“Once we started processing the adoption papers, whenever I found a quiet moment in the day, including just before I got out of bed in the morning, I offered a prayer to this little spirit out there: ‘Whoever you are, wherever you are, I don’t know what you have to go through to get here and be with us, but we love you very much and can’t wait to be with you.’

“With all of those anticipations streaming through me, we came to New York. I had four sold out nights at Madison Square Garden and we were staying at the Sherry-Netherland. It was May 12, 1974, and that night I dreamed that three people in white robes came and gave me a little boy. We hadn’t specified either sex in our communication with the adoption agency, all we wanted was that the baby be healthy enough to live with us in the mountains. We were active people, we liked to be outside, and we wanted that for our baby as well. But in my dream, when the baby was put into my arms, I noticed that it was a boy-a dark-faced boy with round eyes and a bit of an overbite-and as I was holding him, he looked up, grabbed my thumb, and smiled.

“In the morning, I recounted the dream to Annie. Eleven days later, Zak was born. We didn’t see him then, but we were notified about his birth, and when he was about two months old we went up to Minnesota to the adoption agency to pick him up…

Anyway, we arrived at the agency. Zak was being flown up from the South. There were papers to be signed. There was also a little formal procedure to go through, designed to help adoptive parents deal with the anxiety of meeting their child.

“…This was where you were supposed to get your first glimpse of your baby. We had just been told that the young woman who was bringing Zak had been delayed and we were trying to keep from feeling disappointed, when the door at the far end of the hall opened and the woman appeared after all, with our child. Without a word, she came running down the hall and handed the baby to me. He had round eyes and this little bit of an overbite, and when I held him he smiled and grabbed my thumb. Zak was the child in my dream-exactly the same child! I recognized his face and I think he recognized mine. At least he looked at me in the most knowing way. Right there, dream and reality came together for me.”

Quoted From Take Me Home: An Autobiography by John Denver & Arthur Tobier, Harmony Books: New York, p.116

John Denver with Zak

Another such experience was that of Richard Dreyfuss. In an interview with Barbara Walters on 20/20 after the Academy Awards in 1996, Dreyfuss revealed that a PBE was key to helping him overcome years of addiction to drugs and alcohol.

The interview revealed that Dreyfuss’ first marriage had fallen casualty to his troubled years, as had some great film roles. Over twenty years of addiction recycling had come and gone. The turning point occurred miraculously in a dark hour. Dreyfuss was hospitalized in an effort to detox him yet again from the grasp of drugs and alcohol. Hours passed. As he sobered all alone in the hospital room, there entered a three-year-old girl in a pink dress and shiny black patent leather shoes. She told him, “Daddy, I can’t come to you until you come to me. Please straighten out your life so I can come.” And she was gone.

But the pleading message of her haunting eyes was seared into Dreyfuss’ memory, a constant inspiration to reorder his life so that his daughter might come. With this sacred incentive he maintained sobriety, remarried, and prayed. Within three years a daughter was born to Dreyfuss and his wife — the same girl who had come to his hospital room.

I share these two stories because of the amazing fact that they are from two famous people who have shared these amazing prebirth experiences publicly. Sarah Hinze provides many more stories on her site.  Besides her website, Sarah has also written a number of books: Life before Life, Songs of the Morning Stars, The Castaways, We Lived in Heaven: Spiritual Accounts of Souls Coming to Earth, and Coming from the Light. More information about these inspiring volumes can be found here, here, and here.  I will look at these books in greater detail after I have been able to obtain and review them.

While I simply can’t do Sarah Hinze and her extensive research justice in this one post, I would like to conclude with some of the historical information regarding belief in the premortal existence that she includes on her site, under “PBEs in History“:

Over 800 references to the pre-earth existence of mankind have been identified in Jewish and Christian sources from the time of Christ until the sixth century, A.D. Early Hellenistic (Greek) writings also referred to belief in a pre-earth life. However, after the sixth century A.D., mention of a life before mortality virtually disappears from orthodox Jewish, Christian, and Greek writings (Hamerton-Kelley, R.G., Pre-Existence, Wisdom and the Son of Man in the New Testament, Cambridge University Press, 1973).

A premortal existence was discussed by such well known ancient philosophers as Plato, and Christian writers Origen of Alexandria and Justin Martyr. The writings of the ancient Jewish historian  Josephus and the Jewish theologian Philo (who claimed that everything he wrote agreed with the Pentateuch) show that belief in a premortal life was evident in Judaism until the 5th century, A.D., which in certain quarters held that the soul longs to return to that premortal existence after earth life (Judische Theologie, 212-228).

Until the sixth century A.D., early Christianity taught that we had a pre-earth life. Then the doctrine of a pre-existence was condemned by the council of Constantinople in A.D. 553. However, Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics reports the doctrine of a pre-existence was favored by Origen (the greatest of early church theologians), Justin Martyr, Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, Peirius, John of Jerusalem, Rufinius, Nemesius, and the Western Church generally until the time of Gregory the Great (article on pre-existence, p. 239).