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Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?
by Robert Schwartz (Goodreads author!)

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128256.Courageous_Souls_Do_We_Plan_Our_Life_Challenges_Before_Birth_?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171948962m/128256.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128256.Courageous_Souls_Do_We_Plan_Our_Life_Challenges_Before_Birth_?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/73629.Robert_Schwartz">Robert Schwartz</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6288039?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>Despite the title, this book does not explore or answer the question of if we plan our lives before birth. In the introduction Schwartz plainly admits he will not pursue a logical argument for the belief structure, but rather asks readers to merely entertain the possibility. His goals are clearly to encourage emotional healing and help people mentally get past physically impassable challenges rather than to justify supernaturalism - which is fine, but goes against the title. The lack of arguments for the veracity of psychics and mediums, or the possibility of angels and non-theistic predestination will probably drive skeptics mad, or lead them to dismiss it immediately. I don’t recommend this book to them. It certainly didn't convert me, but if you're interested alternative value systems and beliefs systems and can keep an open mind, it may be worth a look.
<br/>
<br/>Rather than make the case for it, Schqartz goes straight to the healing messages of the work. Even total non-believers should find the stories of struggles with homosexuality in homophobic cultures, cancer, aids and the loss of children to be provocative, and the path of emotional healing to be at least interesting, if not helpful. Beyond the metaphysics, Mr. Schwartz has written a book about forgiveness and coming to terms with many grave problems. In essence, most of the great evils in most lives were designed so that people could learn and grow as individuals, giving the psyche a sense of the greater experiences (including traumatic ones), and so while they are very painful, you do not have to grieve over them or loathe the world, and you can come to terms with it and simply experience things. Many of the resolutions and spiritual explanations seemed too pat or strange to me, but the stories of lives made it compelling.
<br/>
<br/>There is one dangerous aspect to his idea. People could easily come to emotionally think they are to blame for problems that are otherwise out of their control, for their own pain and for any trouble they cause others – especially in what they cause others, which is not the focus of this book. Someone suffering from survivor’s guilt could easily spiral into even deeper depression if she came to believe she designed the scenario that killed others, regardless of Mr. Schwartz’s assertion that the souls of those others agreed to the life plan. A disabled boy who already feels bad about inconveniencing his father with all his daily needs could feel worse for coming to believe he designed the scenario. Mr. Schwartz’s book is careful to try to explain its way around such problems, but I fear many people would fall to such emotional and intuitive reactions that would be enormously self-destructive and contrary to Mr. Schwartz’s hope of a healing message. He could easily write a second book about just those sorts of people. Interpretations of the unrepentant would be particularly interesting, even if those sorts of people would be the least likely to submit to his belief system.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/147818?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

John's review
rating:
recommended for: New Age readers, people interested in supernaturalism

Despite the title, this book does not explore or answer the question of if we plan our lives before birth. In the introduction Schwartz plainly admits he will not pursue a logical argument for the belief structure, but rather asks readers to merely entertain the possibility. His goals are clearly to encourage emotional healing and help people mentally get past physically impassable challenges rather than to justify supernaturalism - which is fine, but goes against the title. The lack of arguments for the veracity of psychics and mediums, or the possibility of angels and non-theistic predestination will probably drive skeptics mad, or lead them to dismiss it immediately. I don’t recommend this book to them. It certainly didn't convert me, but if you're interested alternative value systems and beliefs systems and can keep an open mind, it may be worth a look.

Rather than make the case for it, Schqartz goes straight to the healing messages of the work. Even total non-believers should...more Despite the title, this book does not explore or answer the question of if we plan our lives before birth. In the introduction Schwartz plainly admits he will not pursue a logical argument for the belief structure, but rather asks readers to merely entertain the possibility. His goals are clearly to encourage emotional healing and help people mentally get past physically impassable challenges rather than to justify supernaturalism - which is fine, but goes against the title. The lack of arguments for the veracity of psychics and mediums, or the possibility of angels and non-theistic predestination will probably drive skeptics mad, or lead them to dismiss it immediately. I don’t recommend this book to them. It certainly didn't convert me, but if you're interested alternative value systems and beliefs systems and can keep an open mind, it may be worth a look.

Rather than make the case for it, Schqartz goes straight to the healing messages of the work. Even total non-believers should find the stories of struggles with homosexuality in homophobic cultures, cancer, aids and the loss of children to be provocative, and the path of emotional healing to be at least interesting, if not helpful. Beyond the metaphysics, Mr. Schwartz has written a book about forgiveness and coming to terms with many grave problems. In essence, most of the great evils in most lives were designed so that people could learn and grow as individuals, giving the psyche a sense of the greater experiences (including traumatic ones), and so while they are very painful, you do not have to grieve over them or loathe the world, and you can come to terms with it and simply experience things. Many of the resolutions and spiritual explanations seemed too pat or strange to me, but the stories of lives made it compelling.

There is one dangerous aspect to his idea. People could easily come to emotionally think they are to blame for problems that are otherwise out of their control, for their own pain and for any trouble they cause others – especially in what they cause others, which is not the focus of this book. Someone suffering from survivor’s guilt could easily spiral into even deeper depression if she came to believe she designed the scenario that killed others, regardless of Mr. Schwartz’s assertion that the souls of those others agreed to the life plan. A disabled boy who already feels bad about inconveniencing his father with all his daily needs could feel worse for coming to believe he designed the scenario. Mr. Schwartz’s book is careful to try to explain its way around such problems, but I fear many people would fall to such emotional and intuitive reactions that would be enormously self-destructive and contrary to Mr. Schwartz’s hope of a healing message. He could easily write a second book about just those sorts of people. Interpretations of the unrepentant would be particularly interesting, even if those sorts of people would be the least likely to submit to his belief system....less

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