By Warwick Dunnett · 16 min read · June 30, 2026
A review of Dr. Michael Newton's famous book, 'Journey of Souls.'
For many people, losing somebody they love initiates a flood of absolutely overwhelming despair. Certainly, that was the case for me. However, some people do not feel the same intense grief because they are absolutely convinced they will see their loved one again in the spirit world or after being reincarnated. To others, this sounds ridiculous. But ask yourself this question…
If billions of people think a God is looking over each one of us and that we will go to a mystical place called heaven, what is so far-fetched about the concept of our soul going through a process of reincarnation instead?
I discussed communicating directly with spirits via mediums in Dance with Angels. However, there is another form of communication that lets us hear, from a first-person perspective, a soul’s description of the journey and destination after a person dies. There are a few eminently qualified therapists who say they have recorded and documented hundreds of sessions of people in deep hypnosis or other altered states of consciousness who describe their prior lives. These individuals are not only able to describe their death in those previous lives but also the experiences of their souls after they die. In this type of hypnosis, the subject speaks in the first person as the departed soul, describing their journey.
Authors such as Brian L. Weiss, MD, and Michael Newton, PhD, are two such professionals. Their books make for exciting reading. The journey after death they describe is undoubtedly something I would love to believe in. I am prone to favour their accounts over the other options I have examined earlier.
Michael Newton’s book Journey of Souls which i put in my curated list at LighthouseLaneBooks.com, has been previously mentioned, but only briefly. It deserves closer attention. I highly recommend reading it as part of your exploration. In it, Dr Newton shares his experience of over a decade with 90 of his patients and provides 29 case studies of people who underwent hypnosis as part of age-regression therapy to assist with needed behaviour modifications in their current lives. He then wrote a second book detailing additional case studies.
Unfortunately, like many interactions that profess a knowledge of or contact with a spirit from the world beyond, interactions with God, descriptions from those who have experienced death, and messages on mountaintops or discussions with angels, they are often uncorroborated. You have realised by now that I am a sceptic. Therefore, I was a little disappointed that the records from the case studies don’t appear to have been confirmed by anyone other than Dr Newton.
Nevertheless, I love the concept and the stories that Dr Newton describes; My general impression from reading Journey of Souls was that the stories seemed real, but I also got the sense that some of the details later in the book may have involved a bit of creative license. I really don’t know.
According to the Newton Institute website, Dr. Newton held a PhD in counselling psychology and was professionally trained and certified in hypnotherapy. I assume he also had significant professional and personal integrity to maintain. I wrote to the Newton Institute twice, asking for any corroborating evidence of the case studies in Dr Newton’s books, but never received a response that I am aware of. I will reiterate that a lack of corroboration does not necessarily mean something is untrue; I am just disappointed that the recordings or notes were not corroborated directly, because I would love to believe these stories. If the purpose of this book was to find something that resonates with me, Journey of Souls does so.
According to Newton, based on his case studies and recordings of patients under hypnosis, during the journey after death, we progress through a series of reincarnations over thousands of years, advancing through different levels of spiritual growth. Hopefully, every time our spirit returns and experiences another life, we grow in wisdom, gain new insights, increase in compassion, learn to overcome envy and bigotry, and, eventually, cope with pain and suffering in better ways. Also, in less fortunate lifetimes, we gain insights that help us understand childhood trauma, perseverance, hardship, and resilience.
We all have baggage, traumas, and histories that have affected us. Still, the critical takeaway is that if we, as humans, had not had these experiences, we would not have the spiritual understanding and growth we have achieved and would not be able to help others on their own spiritual journey. During the spiritual journey after death, the process that we go through helps us review and assess growth in our past life as well.
During these many cycles of reincarnation and subsequent evolution of the soul in the spirit world between lives, souls at different developmental levels are represented by different colours. From beginner to advanced, the visual representation of one’s soul progresses from a white light to yellow to different shades of blue to eventually being represented by a radiant, deep-purple glow. Souls who have gone through thousands of years of development to reach this ultimate stage are called overseers. These souls possess great wisdom and offer guidance to others. The wiser you get over these cycles of reincarnation, the closer your soul gets to what is called:
The Source of all beings in Dr Newton’s book is not described as a person but more of a collective energy that all beings and creation share.
Helping people connect more fully with their inner selves or spiritual cores is a fundamental trait of any good therapist. Understanding one’s inner voice, assisting people to live a more authentic existence and dealing with demons are standard phrases used in therapy. But why do we not take these ideas seriously? Indeed, we all sense there is more to ourselves than a body and a mind! To many, that inner voice is more than just a signal from our brain or years of subliminal programming. That voice represents the true soul within us. Like many of his peers, Dr Newton considered the act of assisting clients to reach their inner selves an essential part of his work, and he helped his patients connect with their souls through a form of deep hypnotherapy.
Throughout Journey of Souls, the soulful self within is revealed, and Newton explains the journey experienced after death and how the soul interacts with the mind and body of its physical form when not between lives. Toward the end, Newton describes reincarnation, when our soul is finally returned to Earth (or some other planet with intelligent life) to embark upon the process through which we select our next life. His descriptions of this subject often seem too intricate to believe, and my scepticism grew somewhat, but I remain open to the concepts he describes. Still, according to the book, as souls, we are involved in this selection process to some degree and have a certain level of knowledge that gives us a sense of purpose regarding the further development of not just our souls but those of those around us as well. In short, we choose our bodies to further our learning goals for a reason.
Sometimes, we choose a body that will be damaged at some stage in the future, suffer a terrible illness, or overcome significant physical hurdles—all of which are designed to allow us to experience a learning path to hasten our soul’s development. One of Newton’s subjects described choosing to be crippled as a way to gain intellectual concentration. She became a listener and thinker and felt guided by an internal power. In another previous life, she reported being a Nordic man with great strength and ability who was never sick. But, as Newton explains, this is where karma enters into the equation. If a soul chooses one extreme—such as being born as a crippled child—in a future or prior reincarnation, this will be counterbalanced with an opposite choice to even out the soul’s development.
To me, one of the deepest and most profound of Dr Newton’s conclusions from working with hundreds of people describing their soul’s journey is this:
The real lessons of life are learned by recognising and coming to terms with being human. Even as victims, we are beneficiaries because it is how we stand up to failure and duress that really marks our progress in life. Sometimes, one of the most important lessons is to learn to let go of the past.
Reading this statement from Journey of Souls seems so accurate and appropriate for anyone who has suffered loss! Is it possible that part of one’s dharma (or educational purpose of the soul) in life is to learn to grow through the deep, terrible, overwhelming darkness that overcomes you when you lose a child or other loved one? Was Harrison’s soul journey explicitly designed to bring joy to me and to the thousands of other people with whom he came in contact over his 20 short years? And, at the same time, in some wondrous karmic lesson of the universe, was I given the opportunity to balance all that joy with a huge opportunity to overcome the pain of his loss and move forward to make a difference in his name? Do those who read this book have the same opportunity?
We all search for meaning to make the terrible loss we experienced more tolerable. We, as people on the other side of the death equation, can spend years tormenting ourselves with thoughts like, Surely, his or her death was not just random! Or, how could such a lovely life be taken for no reason? We look for answers, reasons, and explanations so that this tragedy can make sense. But perhaps it doesn’t!
Suppose I were to fully believe the logic set out in Journey of Souls. In that case, I might say that my journey of experiencing the grief of losing a son was a karmic balancing of the events of a prior life that was void of such pain or a life in which I caused this same pain for the parents of others, and, therefore, it’s all part of the soul’s growth process. Even though I love the concept of Harrison’s soul living on and undergoing the journey described in the book, the pain does not go away; it only recedes.
This is all good news, of course. Most of these case studies suggest that when our soul leaves our physical body, we will feel a euphoric sense of freedom and brightness.
Unlike those of us left behind, those who have recently died are not as devastated as we are because they realise there is a spirit world, and they will eventually be reunited with the people left behind.
Unfortunately, we, the grieving ones, live in pain if we do not have a firm belief to lean on. Even if we do, we are still grieving our loss and access to the person who has passed. In doing so, are we just feeling sorry for ourselves? I think that’s a question worth pondering over a good beer or two in a rowdy pub someday! Maybe when I order that pint or two, a few more years will have passed since my loss. With the beliefs I’ve established during my journey of writing this book, I’ll eventually be able to stand up in that pub, tap my glass to get everybody’s attention, announce I am buying a round for everyone in the place, and declare:
“This week, I finished a book I began after my son Harrison died. He lived a short but remarkable life, and his spirit continues to guide me. Please join me in raising a glass to his memory—and to the light he brought into the world. His memory, his energy and spirit live on. Of that, I’m certain.”
I am not ready to make that toast yet, and I probably will never find a bar where people stay quiet for that long! But Journey of Souls has put me a step closer. It gives me great comfort to think that if these stories are true, my son did not undergo pain and suffering when transitioning out of this world. Instead, he experienced a peaceful transition in which his soul met a guide. That guide led him to a peaceful, majestic, infinite dimension.
Harrison went to sleep and left this life in his girlfriend’s arms. He was a kind, passionate, loving boy, and his death was not traumatic, as far as we know. I expect—or certainly hope— that his transition was genuinely peaceful and lovely. In that way, at least, we were fortunate!
According to Newton’s book, after we die, our soul reviews the life we just lived, our recent growth, and rejoins a group of souls similar in development and spiritual growth. These souls are met and embraced with a feeling that is like being wrapped in a bright-light blanket of love. If I had to lose my boy, this is certainly the type of journey I would want him to have experienced.
Warwick Dunnett