It was more than a decade ago when I heard a well-known journalist and TV host ask her audience, “Who started this soulmate concept, anyway?”
Well, I would like to make a little confession. I wanted to tell the TV host that, although I certainly did not originate the concept, I was the one who first wrote about it in 1979 in Panorama, whose then editor was the much-admired Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc, who would later become Inquirer editor in chief. Although the topics I wrote about then were largely unknown and controversial, Magsanoc welcomed them in her conservative magazine.
The idea of having a perfect counterpart of yourself, later known as a soulmate, is not new. We can trace it back to the writings of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato some 400 years BC.
In his dialogue “Symposium,” which is a discussion on love, Aristophanes recounts that at the beginning of time, both sexes, the male and female, were joined in one body, but had one head with two opposite faces, four arms and four legs.
They could not walk, but could roll over to go from one place to another. They were very powerful, and soon these four-armed, four-legged creatures became too ambitious and began to challenge the gods. And so the chief god of Mount Olympus, Zeus, decided to split them into two halves, one male and the other female, to weaken them. From that time on, each half has been chasing the other to complete themselves, to make them whole again.
The word “soulmate” was first used in the 1930s by the American psychic prophet Edgar Cayce.
According to Cayce, soulmates are two souls who, after a series of lifetimes on earth, become so close to each other that their destinies are intertwined, so that one becomes a helpmate to the other in their soul evolution.
Body, mind and spirit
To have a soulmate is to have a perfect partner in life to help accelerate your soul’s evolution. It is not what most people regard a soulmate to be, namely, merely a romantic life partner, although that goes with it.
The relationship of soulmates must encompass the whole of one’s being—namely, body, mind and spirit. In a soulmate encounter, the spiritual aspect dominates.
The 1979 article I wrote in Panorama caused quite a stir. Young women, office workers and many others began copying the article and sending it to their friends. At that time there was no Xerox yet. It was painstakingly copied by manual typewriters or via blueprint.
Later, while visiting an office, I saw a secretary busily typing something. I looked to see what she was typing and I saw my article on soulmates, but the secretary did not have the name of the author. So I told her I wrote the article, and she couldn’t believe it. She thought I was joking. I told her to please put my name as the author, but I never found out if she did.
It took another decade, around 1988 or 1989, before I decided to develop and conduct the first “Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation” seminar in the country. The response was electrifying. There were times I had more than 60 students.
I still conduct this seminar once a month on weekends in Makati, and previously in other parts of the world.
I have conducted this seminar in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, Warsaw, Poznan, Cyprus, etc. The responses and questions I have been asked were the same, whatever country I held that seminar.
Curious
In 1992, I wrote the book “Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation” to make the topic available to people outside Manila who couldn’t go to the seminar.
At first I was hesitant to write the book, thinking it might adversely affect attendance in my seminar, but the opposite happened. More people became curious, and attendance to the seminar increased.
In less than six months, the book sold out and the publisher had to do a second printing. Today, 24 years later, the book is still available at National Book Store and has undergone numerous reprints.
It has also been translated into the Polish language.
The seminar’s highlights are the two group hypnotic regressions I conduct for the whole class, and the powerful invocation I teach for finding one’s perfect partner or soulmate. I have received many testimonies about the effectiveness of that invocation. That’s why I tell my participants not to use it unless they are prepared for the possible consequence because, if invoked properly and regularly, somebody will surely appear in their lives.
Among the many important and interesting topics covered in the course are scientific investigations about reincarnation, biblical proof of reincarnation, common objections to reincarnation and answers to them, why reincarnation was removed from the teachings of the Catholic religion, how the law of karma works, specific examples of karmic law in action, characteristics of a soulmate encounter, invocation or prayer for a soulmate or perfect partner, and two past-life hypnotic regressions for the entire class.
A pre-Valentine seminar on “Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation” will be held on Feb. 13 from 1 to 7 p.m. in Greenbelt, Makati. If interested, please reserve three days before the seminar schedule. We don’t accept walk-ins. For details, tel. 8107245.