Elisabeth Hallett takes the reader on a wondrous journey, exploring the connections our children have to us and to the other people in their lives, connections that appear to exist before they are born, and often before they are even conceived. Connections from soul to soul, that illuminate our material existence with tantalizing glimpses of purpose, meaning, intent, understanding, and love. Without stooping to sensationalism, Elisabeth opens up a world of experiences often kept utterly secret - that of knowing your child before it is born, hearing its voice or seeing its face or sensing its presence, and often, the experience of feeling the depth of its love, understanding, and compassion for us, the people it has chosen as parents. Throughout, she gently pulls forward threads of similarity between the experiences, such as the sense that conception may be more than just chance and biology, but may include a flexible and open agreement between the souls of parents and child.

Many people who have experienced these things do not speak of them for fear of being thought more than just a little nuts. Children themselves often choose not to speak of their pre-birth memories, rather than have those memories discounted as imagination or lies. But here, between these pages, mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, and others speak openly of what they knew of a child before that child was born, or even what they remember from before their own birth.

This book walks you through the experiences, first touching one area of wonder, then another, discovering what it feels like to have a child ask you to be its mother, or exploring the discussions held between mother and child about when - or even whether - to be born. Some stories illustrate the flexibility of the choice, the open dialogue of choosing when to be born, and to whom. Others illustrate the effect of an insistent and persistent soul, prodding parents to allow them in. Elisabeth shows us the possibilities of connections that pass through multiple generations, grandparents providing guidance and support for the following generations. She explores the issue of pregnancy losses, as well, and asks thought-provoking questions about the implications of pre-birth agreements. She shows us how a child can reassure a parent, or disagree with a parent, or simply provide a guiding glimpse of themselves long before that child is present in any material way. She presents us with the stories of children who remember these things after they are here, as well.

Throughout, the contacts are voiced by the people who experienced them, giving us windows into their lives and often leaving us with a sense of how they have been changed by the experience. Elisabeth guides us and directs the exploration, asks questions and provides insight. She then broadens the view with a few chapters that illuminate what it is like to have these experiences all folded together, as part of your day-to-day life. In the process of the book, the experiences blend and meld - themes echo from one story to the next, leaving you with a sense that there is a fundamental unity in the experiences regardless of their differences.

Despite the potential for the stories to be sentimentalized or 'New-agey', Elisabeth keeps her narrative balanced. She speculates with a rational mind, asks questions about the meaning and reason and cause of the experiences, and even speculates on the role of fantasy and the subconscious mind, all without diminishing the profound nature of these contacts. I was often surprised by the depth of her insight, that she even thought to ask a particular question or explore a specific facet of an experience. Her voice is like a well-known friend accompanying you on this journey - together with her, I was awed by the mystery, drawn to the joy, and warmed by the compassion that flows so vividly from the voices that speak in these pages.

Book review by Heather Petit

To Purchase:
   • Stories of the Unborn Soul at Amazon.com
   • Stories of the Unborn Soul at Amazon UK
   • Stories of the Unborn Soul at Amazon Canada