THE JOURNEY OF YOUR SOUL:
A Channel Explores Channeling
and the Michael Teachings
by Shepherd Hoodwin (Summerjoy Press)

The high profile of near-death experiences and life-between-life in recent years has sparked many people’s curiosity about what lies beyond this mortal coil. Shepherd Hoodwin's book responds to this interest, with fascinating information not only about souls, but the entire framework of the soul's place in the universe.

I discovered the Michael Teachings back in the early 1990s, as my own past life experiences were trampolining to the fore. Precise as a many-petalled lotus, the Teachings made the most sense of any metaphysical system I’d come across to date – and I found Hoodwin’s book to be the most useful on the Teachings.

The fact that Hoodwin is both a professional Michael channel and a talented writer is evident from the first pages, as he goes into detail on the experience and work of channeling as a whole. In about 85 pages, his channeling explanation covers such ground as what channeling is, ways to channel, who can channel, intuition, the quality and plane of the source, what channeled entities see, predictions, recognizing truth, the purpose of channeling.

Parts II-IV go into the beautiful and complex Michael System – personality vs. essence, roles, cadres and entities, positive and negative traits and why both are valuable, soul ages, and on and on. This framework turns out to be an incredibly complex system which Hoodwin explains in great detail. He reveals layer upon layer of specific relationships and qualities each soul has. The best part of the book is Part II, where he gives an overview of the whole scenario beginning with the three basic levels of self and continuing through the journey each soul, or "essence" embarks upon.

This is not the kind of book one sits and devours like a summer novel – there is so much dense information here, it would pay to read a chapter, and then go away and think about it. At roughly 400 pages, with a glossary and indexed, it is a whole Encyclopaedia of Michael – and well worth your time.