Karma Can Be a Real Pain: Past Life Clues to Current Life Maladies

Groundbreaking in its approach, this is a painstaking analysis of past-life connections to chronic pain.

Joanne Dimaggio Rainbow Ridge Books Softcover $16.95 (272pp) 978-1-937907-45-7

Karma, the universe’s account book, can be balanced but never really goes away. Karma can manifest as recurring patterns of struggle, relationships that feel a little too familiar, or, as Joanne Dimaggio explores in her new book Karma Can Be A Real Pain, mysterious aches and pains. In an exhaustive year-long study of fifty volunteers, Dimaggio investigated the link between past-life memories and chronic health challenges.

Uncovering origins “is an important part of the healing process,” Dimaggio says. For ailments that resist traditional medicine, this means that healing is needed in the subtle body, the layers of energy that surround and penetrate the physical body. Beginning with Dimaggio’s own experience—a burning lower back pain that had no detectable structural or neurological origin and wasn’t responsive to medical treatment—karma Can Be A Real Pain delves into the past-life origins of pain. The book is broken down into ailments from diabetes and rheumatism to sex problems and drug addiction and claims that once the past life is explored, the condition often improves.

Although there is plenty of New Age writing on past lives, it is unusual to find a book that treats the psychological phenomenon with seriousness. Dimaggio’s scientific approach is meticulous and thorough. Each session is carefully documented. Each section ends with a short piece of soul writing, where the volunteer expresses the thoughts and emotions of their soul body.

Strongly influenced by the work of Edgar Cayce, Karma Can Be A Real Pain is a painstaking record of past-life analysis as it relates to the present day. The addition of soul writing, as a meditative and healing practice, sets the book apart from other groundbreaking works in this genre. Dimaggio’s writing is heartfelt and honest, offering hope and new tools to people interested in alternative treatment for chronic illnesses.