Bringing The Light Author Hinze Shares Her Vision Of Child Spirits And Life Before Life

After a traumatic miscarriage, Sarah Hinze began to pray that her baby’s spirit would return. One night Hinze dreamed of lying in a narrow hospital room, and a nurse handing her the beautiful baby daughter she had lost. A voice said, “Her name is Sarah.”

Soon Hinze was pregnant. In the hospital, shortly after the birth, the nurse explained that every room in the maternity ward was full. Hinze was wheeled into a small, seldomused room on the second floor. She recognized it immediately as the narrow room from her dream.

A nurse walked in, carrying a small bundle. She handed the baby to Hinze, just like in the dream. It was the promised Sarah. To this day Hinze believes Sarah is the child she feared she had lost.

Hinze, the Phoenix author of “Coming from the Light” and mother of nine children, will speak at the Body Mind & Spirit Expo Saturday at the Spokane Convention Center.

Just as Dr. Raymond Moody has been called the pioneer of life after death studies, Hinze has been labeled the pioneer of life before life research.

Hinze has collected almost 200 case studies. “Coming from the Light” (Cedar Fort Inc.) is a collection of stories from parents who believe their children appeared to them as spirits before birth, or even before conception. “They radiate a great power of love and a great message that they are ready to be born,” she says.

Hinze’s faith helped lead her to this research. As a member of the Mormon Church, she believes that all people are the spiritual children of God, who come from heaven and return home after death.

But she does not mention her religious affiliation in her book or her lectures. “We don’t emphasize religion because it tends to divide,” she says.

She stresses that this belief has appeared in various cultures throughout time. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Texts, which were discovered in Egypt in the late 1940s, refer to a life before earth life.

“My stories are coming in from people of every religion,” she says. “I just got a phone call from a black minister in L.A. who had a phenomenal experience with his unborn daughter. He saw her in four consecutive dreams. On the fifth night, he woke up and she was standing by his bedside and she said, ‘I am ready to be born.”’

Hinze believes the time is right for her message.

“Americans have tried humanism, the ‘me generation,’ and now they are hungry for a relationship with God,” she says.

She quotes a 1994 Newsweek poll which reported that 58 percent of Americans feel the need to experience spiritual growth, 33 percent of Americans have had a religious or mystical experience, and 13 percent have seen or felt the presence of an angel. Another 68 percent feel a sense of sacredness at the birth of a child.

Hinze has found, through her research, that the spirits of children may appear in dreams or waking visions.

She also finds that a number of life-after-death accounts include visions of people who are waiting to be born.

“I know the critics now coming along of the near-death experience, saying it’s neurons going off in the brain and various endorphins kicking in,” Hinze says. “But when you have people who see with their natural eyes their child before it is born, this is not neurons kicking off. It is not a near-death experience. It happens to people out of the blue.”

Hinze manages to write her books between 4 and 7 a.m., before her children awake each morning.

Her own “prebirth” experiences did not occur until that fifth baby, Sarah, came into her family. In each succeeding pregnancy, she had similar experiences.

“I think with having children, I grew in my understanding of the sacredness of motherhood,” she says. “Perhaps as I grew in my understanding of that sacredness, more was granted me.”

Now she’s at work on two more books. “Going Home” will present case studies of near-death experiences in which people have seen pre-earth life. “Celestial Gifts” will describe experiences people have had with a preborn spirit or a loved one who has passed away and returned to offer a message of comfort and hope.

Her current book is being picked up by Barnes & Noble, which owns B Dalton. A major talk show has called, and while Hinze is in Spokane, Paramount Studios will film a segment on her and her book for the ABC television show “Sightings.”

Hinze is now 45 and a grandmother. Her children range in ages from 24 to 4. She has decided not to have any more children.

“Each one was prayed for and desired greatly and anticipated,” she says. “My greatest privilege in life was to be a mother.

“I didn’t plan on having nine children, it was always that I wanted another one. I think that feeling in my heart will still be there when I am 80 years old.”

MEMO: Sarah Hinze will present a free lecture at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Body Mind & Spirit Expo at the Spokane Convention Center. She will give a workshop at noon Saturday on “Life Before Life.” The cost of the workshop is $20. General admission to the expo is $5. For more information about the expo, see Thursday’s Choices page in the IN Life section.