If you ask me who you were in a past life, I will answer that I have no idea. I am not even so sure that reincarnation exists, at least, in a way, how we see it. However, sometimes, while watching television or enjoying a concert or during demonstrations of mediums communicating with the dead, fragments of the entertainer’s past lives have popped into my head. As no one can prove these visions as being right or wrong, of course, I asked why I got insights of this particular celebrity's past life, and not some other celebrity's past life. Spirit doesn't answer. I was left to ponder, as I have been left to ponder â€" together with some other Russians, Vysotsky's serious fans and Moscow artistic elite insiders â€" why she? â€" Why did Spirit let me channel Vladimir Vysotsky's otherworldly poems and messages that I compiled into a book Channeling Vysotsky (http://www.tanika.com). Maybe, after all, I have some psychic abilities that respond almost automatically to invisible vibes around me.
Tom Brokaw. It happened shortly after my arrival to this country. Upon returning home from work, I set out to straighten up our tiny room. An old TV set was airing the evening news with Tom Brokaw. Probably a fleecing of America episode was on… Suddenly, something made me stop dusting and cast a look at the NBC anchorman. Now my inner eye saw a white and frosty Siberian winter. A lonely two-horse kibitka â€" a covered wagon â€" was gliding along the wide white road. “It is a Great Siberian Track*,” flashed through my head. How did I know that? Inner visions have no subtitles! I saw Tom Brokaw as an illiterate Bashkir** national, a professional coachman who delivered mail in places east of the Ural Mountains along the only Siberian highway. (The mail route crossing from eastern to western Russia before the great Trans Siberian Railway*** was built.) That Bashkir was buried in a set of shubi â€" fur coats â€" in order to survive the Siberian winter. In that area, frost could easily reach minus 40 degrees Celcius. The knowing was given that it was the era of Yemelyan Pugachev’s revolt**** and Tom Brokaw’s coachman â€" in his heart a Pugachev sympathizer â€" carried forbidden news about the mad and cruel insurgency from one inn and tavern to another. Every such inn had multiple functions, such as feeding and changing horses, accommodating travelers, offering life-saving shchi (an extremely hot, greasy soup of sour cabbage), as well as undiluted spirit for both internal and external use for those who were exposed to frost longer than a human being can tolerate. These taverns were also places for meetings and dealings between hunters and traders, and socializing and exchanging local gossip and news. Somehow I knew that over the years, at the scheduled arrival time of that Bashkir coachman, the crowd of the curious locals kept growing. According to modern day standards, the Bashkir was becoming a media star. His stories about the crazy Pugachev and his mutineers never ended, instilling dangerous dreams of freedom. Local gendarmes (the name of policemen in tsarist Russia) watched the Bashkir. However, his presence brought business to the taverns and a mysterious notion reached the ears of the gendarmes that if the Bashkir would be arrested, the flow of free vodka may dry out as well. Police labeled the Bashkir a loony type and left him in peace to tell his stories in exchange for hot shchi and vodka. It was a time that predated the era of newspapers. So the role of coachmen as newsmen was huge. Did that illiterate Bashkir realize his stories made him walk a fine line? A tiny false step could cause a fall into the hands of the gendarmerie. Hadn’t he seen stockades of prisoners marching along the highway to their destinations â€" prisons in the deep Siberian Taiga? Nevertheless that Bashkir continued his self-appointed mission until one day â€" in his other incarnation â€" he woke up as an NBC anchorman. Tom Brokaw was wrapping up his news. What I was hearing was like a blow that stunned me for a minute or so. He was talking about a trip to Siberia â€" in his present lifetime, of course! He shared photos of the Taiga wilderness. An influential Russian official had invited Brokaw to hunt in the Siberian forests… According to New Age beliefs the trips and expeditions to exotic lands are brought about by invisible energy connections between the present lifetime and past incarnations. If you recall the foreign countries that you have visited, you may grab Ariadne’s guiding thread through the labyrinth of your past lives. Whether that is true or false, the fact is that Tom Brokaw enjoyed quite a different treatment in Russia compared to his life as a coachman on the Great Siberian Highway. Of course, my common sense told me the fact that my Siberian vision was followed by Tom Brokaw’s story of his Siberian hunting trip was a simple coincidence. In my heart I knew, it was not a coincidence. It was a message, but what was it telling me?
James Van Praagh. I will cite this story as I wrote it in my book Death the Beginning. A friend invited me to attend a demonstration of spirit communication facilitated by a rising media star, an outstanding medium, and at that time a young and slender James Van Praagh. He moved about the audience, passing along words of reassurance from the world of spirits. After several beautiful and peaceful messages, there was a dramatic one involving an entire family. Members of that family occupied almost a row. They had lost their son in a street fight. The message produced disturbing details, as well as the names of people responsible for the murder. From the spirit world there was no cry for revenge. On the contrary, the family was asked to stop crying and was given assurance of the son’s other-worldly well-being. The boy’s mother, a small, thin woman, broke into tears until her cry became a howl of despair. It reminded me of many Russian women who had been notified of the loss of their sons in World War II and Afghanistan. The open emotions accumulated additional energy and it created a friendly, trusting atmosphere. Someone asked about reincarnation. Van Praagh answered, almost jokingly, that according to his psychic friends he had at least two European incarnationsâ€"one as a vagabond artist and the other as a king’s jester. Who can tell? If there is truth to it, then this may explain Van Praagh’s success: two or more lifetimes as a street artist who literally worked for food might now help him stand before big crowds, delivering messages from the other side. Maybe there were more significant lifetimes required for opening his clairaudient and clairvoyant abilities… As if still seeking an answer to that question, my inner eye saw a picture from the past. I was in ancient Egypt. Above me were turquoise skies. In front was a turquoise pool filled with crocodiles set in a sprawling courtyard surrounded by palaces and temples. The stones and ceramic tiles were spotless colors of beige and cream. Here and there patterns were created of light blue, pink and green semi-precious stones. Everything was perfect, expensive and not for commoners. Nobody was in sight. Somehow I knew the Pharaoh and his family were present at a ceremony in the temple. Someoneâ€"â€"maybe a guard, maybe a family memberâ€"â€"stayed behind to watch the temple entrance. I recognized the sentinel as James Van Praagh. The vision continued. The heat of the sun was almost unbearable. The guard looked around but nobody was in sight. Then he left his post, approached the pool, took off his sandal, and submerged his foot into the water, cooling and rotating his ankle, teasing a sleepy crocodile. I knew these giant reptiles were sacred. If someone were caught committing such a sacrilege as washing his feet in the pool’s waters, he would be killed instantly. Finding myself in the position of an observer, I was worried whether the sentinel would make it safely back to his post. I needed more energy to see the outcome of that situation but my vision became fuzzy and the images vanished. I found myself back in the Bel Age Hotel. The energy was warm and uniting. James Van Praagh was sitting in a chair and listened to a person sharing her opinion about a received message. To my surprise, while listening, James Van Praagh took off his shoes, crossed his legs and then rotated his ankle, copying the gesture of the guard in my vision. Was this a coincidence or did it confirm the truth of what I had seen? Was this glimpse of eternity revealed so I might see the roots of the medium’s spiritual training? According to many sources, the Pharaoh’s family members, personal servants and especially guards, who were appointed exclusively among nobility, went through the most advanced esoteric training. History reports cases where body guards killed Pharaohs and took over their thrones.
Hollister Rand. A spontaneous vision of a past existence of Hollister Rand, known to friends as Holli â€" came to me when she conducted a spirit communication demonstration at a retreat with Robert Brown in Freeport, the Bahamas. The demonstration took place at night. That day I got up early, sat through lectures and spent some time at the beach, and when I arrived at Holli’s demonstration, I was quite tired. In other words, my mind was lazy, empty and sleepy. Suddenly, a light came into my inner eye, and I saw a hotel restaurant in a coastal city in south Asia. It was a booming hotel for Europeans. Judging by the visitors’ clothing it was somewhere between the last decade of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th century. I had the impression that the guests spoke English. The musicians who were strumming exotic string instruments, offered guests a taste of the local music. Was it Burma or Thailand? The performers’ colorful silk costumes were not stylized to fit the tourists’ taste. They were still authentic and were not uniformed. Holli was wearing a light violet silk kimono. Sitting on a low bench, almost on the floor, she touched a zither-like instrument and was humming a quiet, sweet melody. My understanding was that she, as everyone else in that band, had multiple tasks to juggle â€" to play music, sing, dance, and attend to the needs of guests experiencing an opium trip. The musicians had to light pipes for them and, of course, keep their eyes open in case the local authorities needed some information about the guests. In that incarnation Holli was a tiny thing, with a pale face, sad eyes and a resolutely conflicting soul. There was a growing wish to switch sides and become the guest, a free European, not accountable to business people whom she viewed as fat rats that made the place stink. Outside the hotel, there was a heavy rain. One day that rainy darkness would swallow her tiny figure. Her last thought would be a prayer, a request to God to make her wish come true. This prayer reached God’s ears, and in her next incarnation she came as an American girl… The point was that having this vision I did not know Holli well and had no idea that she was a professional singer. After her demonstration I shared my vision with Holli, she smiled politely, but I could tell that she did not believe me. She took it for granted that I knew she was a singer. I did not. I learned about it some years later, while again attending Robert Brown’s retreat in the Bahamas. At one demonstration, Holli decided to entertain us. She sang excerpts from popular songs, as if challenging Spirit to find a message that would echo the song’s theme. Spirit obliged, and it turned the demonstration into an unforgettable experience. Even during her singing, I still had not put two and two together. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I started to write this piece that I realized that in my vision I saw Holli as a professional musician in Burma. And in this lifetime, Holli is still a musician, a singer, but as if in thanks for having been brought out of slavery into a free world, she chose a difficult career as a medium -- a very good and professional medium. The merciless professionalism that she obtained in her Burmese incarnation serves her really well.
John Edward. I am not acquainted with John Edward. He has not read for me and I will probably never meet him personally. Nevertheless, totally useless visions of some of John Edward’s past lives happened to pop into my head during his demonstration in Los Angeles. It took place at a Downtown Marriot hotel. I found the hotel’s ballroom designated for the Edward’s demonstration at the last minute. It was supposed to be held for a small group of people, but the room was crowded and I found a few vacant seats in the last rows. Instead of acoustical clouds, ceiling panels that make the speaker’s voice heard, the ceiling of this room was covered with massive square chandeliers. These crystal creations instilled respect toward power and money but muffled the speaker’s voice. As if the acoustics weren’t bad enough, behind the back wall, a noisy party broke out. An Armenian couple celebrated their silver wedding anniversary and the clamor of their guests silenced the talk completely. I decided to kill time by trying to look at John Edward’s past life. This was the only time that I asked Spirit for help. I did not expect to get much and promised to be thankful for whatever would be sent, if anything at all. Almost instantaneously, I saw a desert. A rider was riding AWAY from a place. (How did I know he was riding away and not toward a place?) The rider was wearing an Arabic beige headscarf held in place by a reddish bandana and decorated with a circle of knitted red symbols (around the bandana). It was obvious that the rider was a Muslim, an imam. Who or what the heck is an imam? A quick look at the Internet suggested that imam is a “term used for denoting a person with special qualities relevant to the religion.” Yes, the rider seems to be an educated man. The militant aspect of practical Islam disillusioned him. He disagrees deeply; he wants to go away. If his religion doesn’t stand for peace, he doesn’t need it at all. The vision ended here and I did not learn what happened to that imam who rode away from a mosque straight into a vast desert. However, before I returned to my normal senses, I was hit by another and far more dramatic vision of the divination at Sybills***** grotto in the Roman Empire. I had read some archeological accounts of the Sybills’ places, but the unfolding vision told me a different story. At the dawn of the Roman Empire, mediums capable of being Sybills, the prophets, were found among the slaves. They were CHAINED to their chairs, hands bound to the chair’s arms, and frightening dogs sat on both sides (usually these dogs has been seen as guards of the gates of hell). In my vision, these dogs served a practical end -- to prevent the escape of slave mediums into the nearby wilderness. John Edward was one of these slave mediums and he was chained to an armchair. I felt the pain clearly in my hands, as if they were tied to those chairs. The medium’s hands were wrapped in leather pieces and then roped to a chair’s arms before providing “readings” to clients from Rome. I couldn’t determine the medium’s sex â€" was it male or female? After all, it did not matter. Sybill was heavily sedated. (This was probably done for a necessary mind shift.) Conceivably, the lifelong hardship as a slave medium developed John Edward’s astounding ability to work under any given circumstances. Behind the thin wall the party was growing louder. However, John Edward continued delivering messages as if nothing was wrong, as if the party noise did not disturb him at all. In ancient Rome he read not for money, as mediums do in our day â€" but he read to save his life â€" to avoid being mauled by the terrible dogs, or being whipped to death by priests who stood nearby. More information was thrown in â€" this time without the accompanying visions. Only knowingness was given. The entity now called John Edward had about twenty or more incarnations as a tribal shaman. A turning point in the soul’s development occurred when the soul incarnated as a blind person. That incarnation developed all remaining senses of communication with the world including clairvoyance, clairaudience and acceptance of help from the spirit world. It happened eons ago! None of these visions are connected to my personal friends. What’s in it for me? Wait a minute! Maybe these visions are not so useless after all? They all show that a successful incarnation was preceded by one or more difficult and dangerous incarnations that served as preparation or training for a future success. Tom Brokaw, as a coachman/messenger of dangerous news on the Siberian Highway, was watched by gendarmes at his every stop. James Van Praagh, as a pharaoh’s guard, received developmental training that one can only dream about, and -- as has been established by other psychics â€" this privileged incarnation was followed by a most difficult and demanding lifetimes as an actor of Commedia dell'arte*****, the Italian improvisational theater and a jester. In other words, his past incarnations involved street theater for the masses and the dangerous job as court jester for nobility. Hollister Rand, as a professional musician, was allowed to entertain guests mostly for food â€" if the restaurant had food to share. John Edward, as a slave medium, would have been killed the instant he lost the ability to channel gods and guides and dead loved ones. I think I regarded this information as useless because I was missing the point! After all, Spirit tells that great success is not a matter of luck -- it has to be earned! If you happen to be a contender, and you are not reaping your reward today, do not let despair set in! You are working for you future!
Oddly enough, I have asked Vysotsky spirit about his past lives that led to his last incarnation as a most famous Russian performing poet, and he never answered. Instead, I got pictures that I was sharing with you. Why? There is no rational answer to this.
Yemelyan Pugachev* (b. 1740 or 1742 -- executed 1775) was a leader of the great Cossack insurrection. The Cossacks sought separation from the Russian state during the reign of Catherine II. Alexander Pushkin wrote a remarkable history of Pugachev’s rebellion, and he recounted some of the events in his popular novel The Captain’s Daughter (1836) that is read by every Russian.
TheGreat Siberian Highway** â€" connected the European part of Russia with Siberia and China. The construction started in 1730 and lasted to the mid 19th century. Before the highway was built rivers were used to reach Siberia and China. At the end of the 19th century economical needs forced construction of the Trans Siberian Railway.
Bashkirs*** â€" are concentrated on the slopes and confines of the southern Ural Mountains and the neighboring plains. They speak the Bashkir language, a relative of the Tatar language.
Sybills**** â€" In the Etruscan era, early Roman era, the Sybills were holy women who could supposedly read the future. They were considered genuine prophetesses of God, sent to the Gentiles as the Hebrew prophets were sent to the Jews. Most other pagan oracles were condemned as demonic ones by the Christian churches.
Commedia dell'arte*****, the theater of masks and improvisation that served mostly the mobs on the streets and in marketplaces, can be considered a natural acting school that has produced great actors over several lifetimes. While watching TV, if one casts a closer look at Hollywood actors, he or she may notice that there are actors with outstandingly expressive body language which may be more vivid than that of their face and eyes. As a New Ager, I think in some earlier lifetimes the Commedia dell'arte experience polished the acting skills of actors like Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Harrison Ford, and as strange as it sounds, Brad Pitt. They still carry “masks” on their faces, and deliver the films’ messages through their body language. And for all of them, it created certain tensions with members of the Oscar committees who prefer actors groomed by the Stanislavsky method (like Marlon Brando).
The Author’s Bio
Tatyana Elmanovich (pen name Tatyana Tanika) is an internationally known film critic and writer, as well as a medium and astrologer. Channeling Vysotsky is Tanika’s sixth book. Her previous book Death the Beginning was written in English and published in the United States in 1999.
The Moscow publishing house Istusstvo published Obraz Fakta – “The Image of a Fact” (1975), Elmanovich’s master thesis about the Estonian reality shows and documentaries of the '60s and 70s which were considered the models for the renewal of the stale Moscow Central Television programs. In 1980 the Estonian publishing house Eesti Raamat published Ajapeegel. Andrei Tarkovski filmid – “The Mirror of Time. The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky” by Tatyana Elmanovich. At a time Andrei Tarkovsky’s films were shelved and forbidden by the Soviet authorities and the book brought many problems to everyone involved, especially – the author. In 1989 she was forced to leave the country.
Tatyana Tanika is also the author of hundreds of film reviews and articles published in Estonian, Russian, German and English.
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