The Soul Contract Theodicy: New Age Understandings of the Death of a Child

Abstract

This article delineates a contemporary New Age explanation of human suffering and illustrates its application to the loss of a child. Founded on belief in reincarnation and the progressive evolution of souls, the soul contract theodicy depicts personal misfortunes as fated in pre-birth plans, or contracts, which souls supposedly create to accelerate growth in an upcoming incarnation. Descriptions of the soul-planning process are considered from primary sources published in and since the 1990s, which reflect the incorporation of interlife regression into past life regression therapy. The treatments of the death of a child specify the evolutionary objectives that, according to bereaved parents and their spiritual consultants, called for this extreme form of suffering. Recent portrayals of soul planning depart from New Age subjectivism; its exponents present the interlife as a realm to which all souls return, regardless of their expectations.

Notes

1. Primary sources refer to the interlife plan variously as “blue print” (Lauman 64; Gomes 126; Heath and Klimo 151; Piha 11); “chart” (Browne 198); “contract” (Amber 34; Andrews and Andrews 48; Baker; Baptista 44; Bertoldi; Carman and Carman 371; Hathaway 261; Jones 155; Myss; Ohotto 3; Williams 53); “pact” (Van Praagh 20); “plan” (Drake 5; Modi 109; Morrin 188; Sutphen 24); “road map” (Wands 191)—and other synonyms.

2. For example, Jana, a psychic at Live Life with Soul in Highgate, London, provides a soul blueprint analysis that uncovers the customer’s hidden purposes, lessons, and talents. After her reading, one patron (Eleni in Stockholm) attested, “I can say my life has meaning, wonder and passion. I feel blessed.” (http://www.livelifewithsoul.com/pages/testimonials.php, access date: 29 July 2014).

3. All claims about the spirit world in this article derive from the primary sources referred to in the text and bibliography. To avoid tedium, I have minimized the use of qualifiers such as “purportedly”, “allegedly”, “supposedly”, and the like.

4. Some of the more detailed cases (Baptista; Goodman; Lauman; Valerie in Schwartz’s Courageous 207–45; Puryear) indicate the potential of the soul contract theodicy to satisfy subjects’ need to find meaning in their loss (Davis, Nolen-Hoeksema and Larson). However, alleged After-Death Communications in these accounts provided a more potent form of consolation. The women described unusual phenomena (light bulbs flickering unaccountably, objects mysteriously displaced, vivid dreams, etc.) they attributed to the presence of—not a theory about—the deceased child (Kwilecki).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Kwilecki

Susan Kwilecki is Professor of Religious Studies at Radford University in Radford, VA. Her research has focused on a variety of topics in the academic study of religion, including the causes of personal faith, religion and economics, and, most recently, an emergent non-ecclesiastical understanding of death. CORRESPONDENCE: Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, Radford University, Radford, VA 24142, USA.