Cosmic Cradle: Introducing the Work of Elizabeth and Neil Carman

Interview by Elisabeth Hallett

I am pleased to introduce two new researchers on the frontiers of consciousness. Elizabeth Carman, in collaboration with her husband Neil Carman, Ph.D., has just published Cosmic Cradle: Souls Waiting in the Wings for Birth. (Fairfield, Iowa: Sunstar Publishing, Ltd., 2000.) They are documenting with personal reports the territory where psychology and metaphysics meet.

Cosmic Cradle is an encyclopedic gathering of evidence for the most mysterious phase of human existence--the stage before conception--bringing together traditional lore, little-known historic and religious references, and interviews with contemporary Americans. This cross-cultural research shows that experiences suggesting the soul's pre-existence have been known and recorded throughout time, world-wide.

In more than 700 pages, Cosmic Cradle bravely explores questions such as these: Do souls plan birth and choose parents before conception? What kinds of people have pre-conception communications with future children, or carry memories of their own pre-uterine life? Does a heavenly realm exist outside the physical universe, filled with intelligent spirits waiting for human birth?

Elizabeth Carman explains why she selected the pre-conception phase for intensive investigation: "Whereas pre-conception is part of the whole pregnancy process and is generally lumped together as part of pregnancy, the purpose of my investigation is to give recognition to this most mysterious and poorly-researched stage of human birth. The wealth of information that I found warrants an exclusive study."

Gifted Memory

In the ten-year project that led to Cosmic Cradle, Elizabeth conducted more than one hundred interviews. Among her most intriguing discoveries were numerous cases of what she terms "gifted memory," or the apparent memory of "events occurring prior to being in a physical body." In these accounts, individuals appear to recall the realms where they existed before conception, and often describe choosing their parents and their life's purpose. The following excerpts give a glimpse into this exciting field of research.

Teresa, a 37-year-old mother and business owner, tells of selecting parents, social status, spouse, means of death, and so on, with the help of "a Divine Planner," a tall, stately gentleman who stood in front of a device similar to a podium with a computer on the top. Teresa's memories surfaced when she was as young as two, but no later than five years old. She recalls, "The Divine Planner was a calm, cool, collected gentleman who talked to me about going to Earth. He said, 'Earth is set up for the purpose of healing the mind. Earth is a world built off of specialness. Specialness is when you favor someone over another, when you judge others. Specialness is the opposite of Heaven where God loves everyone equally.'"

The heavenly guide helped Teresa design a cosmic contract. First, he asked, "Do you want to be male or female?" "At that time," says Teresa, "I was enjoying the female energy. So I said, 'Of course, I prefer the female energy.' It was a powerful loving energy, the coolest, most wonderful feeling. He warned, 'Well, you will be persecuted if you are female on the planet. That is part of the deal.' I replied, 'I don't care. I want to be female. I love the energy too much.'"

Lorenzo. A number of interviewees had total recall of their journey from pre-conception to birth. Lorenzo Caravella, a lecturer and author, recalls "the pre-existing soul stage" prior to entering the womb. Here everything was part of Oneness. He was aware of "everyone and everything and everywhere else." He says, "Imagine all your senses just rolled up into one sense of being. You don't really hear, see, taste, smell, or touch. You don't do any of those things, yet everything exists for you. And you are totally unattached. It is a total unity experience."

As a pre-existing soul, Lorenzo saw his whole future life before him. "I accepted its lessons, both the peaks and the valleys. I knew there was going to be some discomfort - and sure enough, it came along in different shapes and forms, but I did not want to remember some valleys that I contracted for. . . In order for the peaks and valleys to be what they were, I needed to be guided through those energies called 'parents.' So when the selection was made, it was not specifically this or that human but that energy to serve this peak or valley and that energy to serve this other peak and valley."

"In the womb", he reports, "the pre-existing soul becomes the divine child, that point of pure innocence where there is just a touch of ego for identification purposes. The divine child has a little more ego than the pre-existing soul. They are different vibrations, one more expressed than the other."

" In the fetus, I was aware of the coexistence of present, past and future. I knew this was going to be a high life and that there was going to be a lot of work, too. And, of course, that was my choice. The past is also there with the pre-existing soul. So we are talking about parallel lives. We even see lives that are yet to come...

"After I attached to my physical body, I experienced my parents as images but nothing in form. They were environments of male and environments of female energy. They both interact and interchange."

Lorenzo sensed his mother's emotions as well as sounds from the higher realms: "I grew up in the fetus, listening to Sibelius, Beethoven, Schubert. One of my favorites was Sibelius's 'Valse Triste,' an extremely seductive, haunting, metaphysical piece. That is the level I appreciated it on, whereas it created melancholia in my mother. I felt her melancholy energy. There was always celestial music and voices coming from 'the Mouth of God,' the energy induction center at the base of the skull."

Lorenzo recalls times during the pregnancy when he was uncomfortable with his parents' energies, and found that he was able to escape by traveling to higher realms. He says: "It taught me that I had jurisdiction over my being in the womb. As the divine child, I knew that the door opens both ways. If some activity was unsupportive, I did not have to be totally there. . . I came and went as I pleased."

Author's Note: Elizabeth Carman, who holds degrees in Psychology and Consciousness Research, has spent more than thirty years investigating the field of consciousness through meditation and teaching meditation. Her devotional orientation is evident throughout the book, which includes many stories of spiritual giants such as Sri Ramakrishna and Ammachi. I was curious to know how Elizabeth became interested in researching pre-conception. She explained that in 1989, she had taken a year off from teaching to pursue a graduate degree in professional writing and became intrigued with a friend's peak experiences during childbirth as a topic for a magazine article. Although she had never been interested in taking care of babies, her curiosity about self-actualization and the outer limits of human potential made the subject of motherhood palatable.

For additional information about Cosmic Cradle, please see the article in this column "Spirit-Child: The Aboriginal Experience of Pre-Birth Communication" which describes the Australian aborigines' traditional lore concerning pre-existence. Visit their website at http://www.cosmiccradle.com.