Q: What was your first concrete clue that lead to the connection between you and John B. Gordon? Were the clues ongoing after your initial discovery?

Keene: There is no one thing that led me to my connection with the long dead Confederate general. The most memorable event happened on a Civil War battlefield. I had seen a few of the Ken Burns series on the Civil War in 1990 and while in the area of Maryland felt compelled to visit Antietam Battlefield Park where, in turn, I had a strange experience at a portion of the battlefield known as The Sunken Road (aka Bloody Lane).

“I walked down onto the road itself. I had only gone a few yards when something very strange happened, something the likes of which I hope will never happen again. A wave of grief, sadness and anger washed over me. Without warning, I was suddenly being consumed by sensations. Burning
tears ran down my cheeks. It became difficult to breathe. I gasped for air, as I stood transfixed in the old roadbed. To this day I could not tell you how much time transpired, but as these feelings, this emotional overload passed, I found myself exhausted as if I had run a marathon. Crawling up the steep embankment to get out of the road, I turned and looked back. I was a bit shaken to say the least and wondered at what had just taken place. It was difficult getting back to the car because I felt so weak. I had regained most of my normal composure on the way back and said nothing to Anna about what had just happened. What could I say? How could I explain it to her? I did not have any answers, just questions. I would one day receive my answers, but not until more than a year later and then from a most unusual source.”
© Someone Else’s Yesterday by Jeffrey J.Keene 2003

I was later to find that I had walked into precise the location of the 6^th Alabama commanded by Col. John B. Gordon. So, my story is backwards from what most people think. I did not have a great interest in the American Civil War until after the episode at The Sunken Road and after reading about Gordon in an old Civil War Quarterly magazine a year and a half later.

Probably the most unnerving moment was when I saw Gen. Gordon’s picture in the Civil War Quarterly magazine I bought at Antietam and recognized the face as my own. Many people are startled by the resemblance when they view our pictures side by side. I realize now, after ten years of discoveries that I have always had a connection to General John B Gordon. Do I still feel things now that I know the connection? Yes, before, during and after the discovery of the Gordon connection. All my life strange things had been happening to me, I just did not understand them until I had delved into John Gordon’s lifetime. Sometimes there are memories on a conscience level and sometimes on a subconscious level. Anything can be a trigger for a past life memories; a painting, a song or even an odor (yes, the sense of smell is a big one). As the song goes, "always something there to remind me...". I tell people that, “I did not find Gordon, he found me on an old farm road called Bloody Lane.”

Q: How did your family and friends react to your discoveries?

Keene: Believe it or not, the only person to tell me “you’re nuts” was my own mother upon hearing my thoughts on being the reincarnation of Gen. John B. Gordon for the first time. I had to read what my wife thought in the newspaper. You see, I do not bother people by asking them their thoughts on whether they believe me or not. A reporter called my wife Anna while he was doing a front-page piece on me for the Connecticut Post. I asked her what kind of questions he asked her and she said, “He wanted to know if I believe you about your reincarnation story.” I asked her what she told him and she said, “read it in the paper.” Well, I did, and it turns out she does believe me. My mother has come over to my side also, after traveling around with me and experiencing many of the wonderful and strange events that marked my ten year exploration into the world of reincarnation.

Q: The physical similarities between the two of you are astounding. Explain the significance of the scars.

Keene: I have six places (scars, cluster veins and other markings) that match wounds Gordon received during the Civil War. Five of these wounds were received at Antietam. In his book, the General describes being shot through the right calf, higher up on the same leg, in the left arm and through the face. I have cluster veins in only two places on my body, on my right calf and higher up on the same leg. I have a three-inch scar where I had a mysterious blood clot removed from my left arm. There is an area under my left eye where the skin is slightly darker and indented. This is the exact area where a bullet entered Gordon’s face. On the right cheek I have some marking that match the exit wound on the General’s right cheek. Mark number six is over my left eye and is just where Gordon received a bullet wound later in the war. Many of these markings can be borne out by photos of John B. Gordon in the collections of the National Archives and the Library of Congress. I was surprised and pleased to find that the Norwalk Hospital (Norwalk, CT.) still had the records of my visit to the emergency room on September 9, 1977 (my thirteenth birthday). I was suffering terrible pain in the area of my right jaw and neck that mimicked the facial wound Gen. Gordon received at Antietam (115 years earlier). This was more than a decade before I had ever heard of John Gordon. Gordon was born in 1832 and had been shot through the face at The Sunken Road in 1862, at the age of thirty. John Gordon is a part of me just as all of you are made up of all the experiences that you have gone through in your life (lives), a culmination of every kiss on the lips and every punch in the nose.

Q: Recently, you underwent quite a bit of rigorous testing to help support the past life connection between you and John B. Gordon. Tell us about it.

Keene: In June 2004, I was filmed by a crew from the new Sci-Fi Channel program Proof Positive (will air November 3, 2004). They filmed my wife and I here in Connecticut and then interviewed some of the people I had worked with during my career on the Fire Department. We then traveled to Maryland for some more filming at Antietam Battlefield Park (Cornfield, Burnside's Bridge and, of course, the Sunken Road). They had a doctor check the markings on my body that match Gen. Gordon wounds and even gave me a polygraph test, which I passed with a 99.6. This will be the third time my tale of reincarnation has been shown on television, the first two being the documentary Beyond Death shown on A&E and an independent film titled In Another Life. When I wrote in my book, Someone Else’s Yesterday, that “every word is true”, I meant it and stand behind it.

Now, after more than ten years of research, I have one of the strongest reincarnation cases ever presented to the public. Its strength lies in the objective evidence amassed that, when viewed together with the anecdotal evidence, it is hard to refute. In fact, a reasonable person would appear unreasonable in denying the facts placed before them. Note that I use the word “evidence” and not the word “proof”. For some people, no matter what the evidence shows, there can be no proof.

Q: If you could travel back in time to Gordon's lifetime, what sort of proof would you leave for yourself, if you could do so?

Keene: I don’t need to go back in time, the evidence is here in black and white in the form of photos, official records from the War Between The States and Gordon’s own book, Reminiscences of the Civil War, just to name a few. I need no proof; all I need do is look in the mirror.

Q: Have you made any connections to any other past lives besides that of John B. Gordon?

Keene: Yes, I will list a few:

British soldier in the SAS (North Africa during WWII)
Tibetan Monk
Mariposa (Native American)
Samurai
Franciscan Friar
Irish girl (yes guys, you can change gender)

None have had as strong an effect on me this lifetime as the Gordon lifetime has.

Dr. Walter Semkiw uses my case in his book Return of the Revolutionaries and we co-lecture when we can. The channel medium, Kevin Ryerson, also co-lectures with Dr. Semkiw and is Shirley MacLaine’s spiritual adviser (he played himself in the mini-series, Out On A Limb, starring Miss MacLaine). Mr. Ryerson confided to Dr. Semkiw that I had been Gen. Israel Putnam during the American Revolution. Well, my jury is still out on that one. Although I did stop reading anything about Gen. Putnam because it was getting a little eerie and that was years before Kevin mentioned the Putnam connection to the good doctor. I’ll stick with Gordon; one Major General at a time, thank you.

Q: What would you say to skeptics who might dismiss your claims as the product of an overactive imagination and/or coincidence?

Keene: I leave people to their own beliefs. I offer my evidence and let people decide for themselves. I have a quote that pretty well sums things up:

"We seem to have here one of those problems wherein people readily agree on what it would take to establish something they very much do not want to believe--and then when, contrary to anyone's expectations, the evidence actually emerges strongly supportive of the belief, they return (for no persuasive reason) to add more conditions to what it would take to establish what they very much do not want to accept. And they continue to do so until it is virtually impossible that any such evidence should ever emerge.''
-- Robert Almeder, Dept. of Philosophy, GSU

I might pose a question for the skeptics though: Since when does imagination cause scars and markings or pain that puts you in the hospital, all before you were even aware of a past life?

Q: Based on your own personal experiences with synchronicity, what is your theory on coincidence and fate?

Keene: I have had many of what people might call coincidences, synchronicities and even some epiphanies. I threw the word coincidence out a long time ago. Coincidence is just a catch-all word that people like to use. It makes them feel safe. They don’t have to go out of their comfort zone and actually think or make decisions based on the information before them, information that may conflict with what they have been taught growing up or certain religious beliefs.

As far as fate goes, I believe we have a great amount of input into the blueprint of our lives. We may not follow the blueprint exactly (free will), but when we come to the different signposts along the way, it is up to each of us to decide which road we will take. As Carl Jung said, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I chose to become.”

I have a story you might get a kick out of, under the "small world" category. My wife Anna's friend, Wanda, works at the dentist's office that we go to. She called the other day with news for me. One of the patients there just came back from a family reunion down South and informed her that she found out that she is related to a famous Civil War general. Want to guess which general? You got it, old J. B. G. An uncle of hers is doing research now, but she believes she is John Gordon's G/G/G/ Granddaughter. She lives here in Trumbull, CT. and works in a store in Westport, CT., where I grew up and joined the Fire Dept. She called me, and I stopped by to see her where she works. She is very nice, with a good sense of humor. She is reading my book now and will get in touch with me after she is finished. What are the odds? So, people, places and events continue to come into my life, as if guided by some unseen hand. The beat goes on, and I just march along to the drummer.

Q: Your book often refers to "Soul Groups". What are they and what more would you like to teach us about them?

Keene: Most of the information on “Soul Groups” in my book came from Dr. Walter Semkiw’s research and his book Return of the Revolutionaries. It is a simple concept. Think of Shakespeare’s quote, “All the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players...” Well, what better than to work with some of the same actors you worked with before. From lifetime to lifetime, the roles can change dramatically, such as race, gender and relationship to others. Sometimes there is a karmic debt that needs to be addressed with others you have come in contact with in other lifetimes.

Q: Of the other persons you have identified as a part of your "Soul Group", how many are there, and do any of them know/acknowledge your findings about this "Soul Group" experience? How do they feel about this?

Keene: How many? Not a clue to a number. All of your life you are dealing with others you have had contact with before. From babyhood to death, you are interacting with what might be termed “soul group” members. The most important ones will most likely be relatives, spouses and other major players in your life.

The firefighters in my book that I showed in comparison photos with soldiers from the Civil War have not expressed their feeling on reincarnation to me. Nor have I solicited an opinion from them. I display those photos as a curious aside to my story.

Q: How has your past life connection to John B. Gordon helped you to understand your role in this lifetime?

Keene: Many of the things that Gordon did in his life are similar to things I have done or that I am in the process of doing at this time. Compare a combat unit in the military and firefighters fighting fires and you can see that they are very close in the way they approach the problem at hand. Gordon's book came out in 1903, mine in 2003. After the General retired, he traveled the lecture circuit trying to reunite the peoples of the North and South. Now that I have retired from the Fire Dept., I have the time to travel and lecture to people about reincarnation, with the hope that they too can be reunited. But in this case, the reunification is with themselves, the realization of who and what they truly are.

Q: What advice would you offer to someone who might be considering investigating their own past lives?

Keene: There are a few ways you can go about finding answers. I believe the best way, and maybe the easiest, is "do it yourself". A simple universal rule is 'All Answers Are Within'. Keep a record of strange feelings and thoughts you have (or have had in the past), even if they don't make sense to you. Have a notepad by your bed so that you will be able to write down dreams or thoughts you might have during the night. Try meditation. Find what form works best for you and then practice. Set aside time each day to meditate. Just like any other endeavor, working with it will bring about results, and if you have read my book, you know some of these results can be rather amusing. If you need help, or would want someone to guide you through the process, you might consider Regression Therapy. If you go this route, please make sure to get a good therapist. Go to the IARRT.org website and they can put you on to someone in your area. Try it alone first; you may be surprised what comes to you.

Q: In summation, is there anything else you'd like to add?

Keene: Yes, a passage from my book:

“No one can make you believe in the soul’s existence; it comes with a Knowing. Pause for a moment and contemplate what the World would be like if reincarnation were proven to be a fact of Life. How would we then treat others? When dealing with family, friends or acquaintances, we would need to ask ourselves some questions like: Who are these souls? What is their relationship to me? Am I to learn something from them, or am I to be the Teacher? The possibilities are endless. We all live in the same house and that house grows smaller every day. This planet has become the “Global Village.” No longer does it take the written word to tell of events on the other side of the earth. With the flick of a switch, we can sit and watch as events unfold. Every country affects all the others with their finances, pollution problems and their petty hostilities. Now more than ever everyone needs to change his or her way of thinking: no more I, but US—no more THEM, but WE. We leave our mark on ourselves and those around us; so let us strive to use a gentle touch.”
© Someone Else’s Yesterday by Jeffrey J. Keene 2003

Home | Ghosts & Paranormal | Message Board

Copyright © 2001-2004 SpiritKeep.net, All Rights Reserved.