By Bruce and Andrea Leininger, with Ken Gross.

Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2009 Click to Buy this book!

During the Second World War, unprecedented, incomprehensible numbers of victims died tragically and violently, with untold deaths occurring among children and youth. In the 2000 book Crimes Against Humanity, the British barrister and author Geoffrey Robinson gave the estimated number of deaths in the twentieth century as 160 million, the result of wrong or outdated forms of government and the subsequent wars, famines, imprisonments, diseases, genocides, and slayings. In light of the spiritual teachings regarding the laws of karma and reincarnation that were included in the evolutionary advance of Christianity at the beginning of the twentieth century, through countless individuals and avenues, and most notably within Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, great numbers of souls who died between 1933 and 1945 might be expected to quickly re-appear in our time, many expressing unusual abilities and talents in the first seven years of life, the years of the rapid development of the physical body. Unusual children who seem to have healing capacities have become evident to the public due to the mediums of television, the internet, book and magazine publishing, etc. Even in this regard, the story of James Leininger is outstanding. Were it not for advances in computer science and the rapid expansion of the internet, this story probably could not have been written and published as early as 2009, for James’s parents, Bruce and Andrea Leininger, utilized twenty-first century resources to locate and contact individuals and organizations who were eventually able to confirm as fact the past-life memories of their son. Soul Survivor is not only about their son, it is also the story of their long, difficult sojourn toward higher truths, particularly Bruce Leininger’s gradual acceptance of belief in reincarnation, while still mingled with some skepticism, as compatible with his Evangelical Christian beliefs.

Soul Survivor was written and published as a commercial enterprise with the assistance of Ken Gross, a professional novelist and nonfiction writer from Brooklyn, New York. The decision to take James’s story along a commercial path, including appearances on television talk-shows, has made this important case for the reality of reincarnation well-known. This path also seems to have involved factors of destiny, as Bruce Leininger had worked both as a human resources executive for various corporations and as a consultant, and Andrea had been a professional ballet dancer. At first, prior to the taping for an ABC Primetime presentation in 2003, the couple wanted no reference to the family name or to the town where they lived. However, they were persuaded to change their minds, and as Ken Gross writes: “That is how it works in television, the salesmanship is sophisticated and builds on small steps of trust.” Unfortunately, most contemporary American nonfiction writing of this nature tends to be highly personal, almost to the point of being offensive. (Bruce wrote on a 2009 blog, “… this book has moved our lives into a fishbowl.”) But overall Soul Survivor is very well-written, holds the reader’s attention, and may become a classic in the literature of reincarnation, especially if the enormous number of reviews, articles and blogs online about it are any indication, from Buddhists, Edgar Cayce devotees, down-home folks, and, unfortunately, careless writers (one had a very important fact wrong — for the record, James Huston was killed while flying a Wildcat, not a Corsair), as well as the epitome of bad taste: a person claiming to know the past lives of Bruce, Andrea and James — Scottish royalty — “according to the akashic records.”    More »