It’s time for another exciting installment of Hunter’s Heroes. Today it’s my pleasure to be interviewing Akemi Gaines, who’s known for her unique focus on lightworkers’ empowerment. You might think that I’ve interviewed her before, but no, this is “Akemi 2.”

You see, Akemi has recently undergone an ascension soul shift. She learned her life lessons, her old soul left, and she got a brand new one. It’s like in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf the Grey fulfills his life purpose, dies, and comes back as the more powerful Gandalf the White. The same person in a way, but something is different.

It wasn’t just her either. She says a whole slew of people have experienced soul shifts recently, including me. It’s all part of this thing called light ascension.

For those of you who haven’t been exposed to this kind of stuff before, you might find it overwhelming, or at least very hard to swallow. You may want to start by reading the interview I did last September with Akemi 1 about the Akashic records, which is a gentler introduction to this brand of spirituality.

This interview on light ascension is not for the weak hearted or closed minded. This is hot off the press spiritual insight from someone who doesn’t hold back. I’m sure the reactions to this interview will be all over the place, and I’d like to hear them all.

I want to be clear that ascension is not a theory I came up with, and I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of it. But Akemi is always happy to answer questions, so don’t hesitate to ask.

Hunter: OK, first things first. What exactly is ascension?

Akemi: Ascension, or light ascension, means both the process Earth and its residents are going through and the possible destination, or event, in the future this process will lead to.

It’s something completely new – so I’m learning and researching as I go through my own experiences and through my Akashic Record Reading service. Please consider this interview as a progress report – I will report more on my own blog, Yes to Me, as I find out things.

When our soul’s vibration rate increases, or ascends, to a certain level of development, a new soul comes down and shifts with the old soul. I first observed this special kind of soul shift January this year. I now call it Ascension soul shift, which seems to be happening to more and more people.

Ascension soul shift brings a bunch of recognizable symptoms, such as:
• Change of food preference (many become vegetarian)
• Change in taste for clothes (many women report embracing more feminine clothes)
• Change in interests and aspirations. Also strange wanderlust.
• Change in interpersonal relationships. Basically, who or what interested you before just don’t hold your interest any longer.
• Sudden spiritual “awakening”
• Some also report physical symptoms like change in sleep patterns, ringing in the ear, or strange itching and twitching around the body.

In short, you’d feel another person is living in your body. And the change comes quite abruptly. It’s not something you planned or worked on to change.

You remember what you learned in school, work, and life in general. Your personality basically stays the same, although it may become more “raw” or pronounced. But you just feel . . . different.

Before I send some readers to shock – this is NOT a random take over of you. When I first observed Ascension soul shift, I only knew there were some kind of agreement, or arrangement, between the two souls. Recently, my Akashic Record Guide explained more into details how these souls are related, that they both come from the same Higher Self.

As I wrote in Who Am I?, the Source split part of itself to form individualized forms of itself. They traveled around, and some came to Earth. In order to incarnate in the physical body, these individualized energies split part of themselves to form souls in much the same way the Source formed them. These souls have been going through multiple lifetimes, crossing over to the other side after each incarnation and coming back when they were ready for a new challenge.

Now we’ve done enough of this. We’ve done enough of learning by contrast. So we are starting a new game plan, called Ascension. This involves increasing the vibration rate a big time, and our old souls are not quite up to the task. So our original energy body – our Higher Selves — decided to “upgrade.” It split out another soul and is sending it to us. The new soul is like the new, powered-up version of the same software.

There is also a planetary change involved here. Each person needs to achieve a level of spiritual development to ascend, but we are also receiving the benefit of Earth’s change, our mother Earth’s grace. I’m not an expert on this Earth’s shift, but the increasing number of individuals having Ascension soul shifts leads me to think this is not just a shift on the individual level, but is a change affecting us as a group.

What will all these lead to? I think something wonderful is waiting for us in the near future, the big Ascension, or the New World.

Hunter: How many people have experienced ascension soul shifts? Is it just a small percentage of the population, or something that’s taking over the world?

Akemi: My Akashic Record Reading practice is pretty small and I don’t really know how many people are having this soul shift out of the whole population. I can say, there are a lot more than I initially thought, and the number is increasing fast. I think it may be increasing like the exponential function.

Hunter: When someone gets close to ascending, should they know it? I wouldn’t have thought that I was close to ascending. I didn’t have any sense of having completed my life lessons, or that my soul was maxed out on its vibration. When our soul needs to be upgraded, are we supposed to be able to tell?

Akemi: My own Ascension soul shift came abruptly, too. I was working hard on my life lessons, thinking it would take the rest of my life.

These days, however, I am getting more experienced about this, and can tell if a client is close to their soul shift, and the approximate timing of it. Please understand I don’t predict the future – I only know the likelihood. The timing can change pretty wildly.

I think it just happens at the right time – on the conscious level, there is nothing we need to do for the upgrade. I’m more concerned if the transition gets complete after the new soul comes down. Often, the first soul gets stuck and this can cause a lot of discomfort for the new soul.

Hunter: In your line of work as an Akashic record reader, I know you must encounter lots of people who think you’re crazy. But you’ve always had a community of people on your side, because they were practitioners too.

Now with this ascension theory, even most practitioners seem to be disagreeing with you. Why is it that other Akashic record readers don’t agree with your ascension theory? What is the source of your information, and why is it more accurate than their source?

Akemi: First, I must say my understanding of why they disagree is limited – I gathered what they wrote to me in comments, etc. but that is all. Whenever there is a disagreement, the rule of thumb is to hear both sides’ stories, so you might want to interview a practitioner who opposes the idea of ascension to really understand their view. I cannot speak for them.

And I’m not attached to this ascension theory. I’m only reporting what I observe, and the idea of ascension seems to explain it well. If someone has a better way of explaining things, I’ll drop my theory like a hat any day.

Now I know the idea of soul shifts are new to most readers, but they have been known in my circle – soul shifts themselves are nothing new. There is a way to check if a person has had only one soul in this lifetime or have had multiple souls, and if the latter is the case, there are ways to find more details. I wrote about the various types of soul shifts in my article Ascension Soul Shifts Or Walk-Ins.

This year, I noticed the kind of soul shift that is very different from other kinds of soul shifts we knew. Again, in the Ascension soul shift, the new soul is related to the first soul – it has the same group of origination. And it’s a brand new soul with no physical past lives. It’s also a very advanced soul, vibrating high. And it’s happening like popcorns starting to pop – in groups. Some go through additional soul shifts after the first Ascension soul shift.

So I suggested setting a new category of soul shifts. Ascension soul shift is a term I coined out.

My understanding of their disagreement is that they don’t think it makes sense because the whole point of spiritual development is to develop our souls. One soul going through many lifetimes for refinement. I also sense there is fear about “losing” their souls’ achievements.

How do I know my reading about Ascension soul shift is accurate? Exactly the same way I gather other aspects of my reading are accurate: my clients confirm their readings. For example, there was this new client that I only knew by name, DOB, and place of birth at the time of reading. In her case, even I hesitated for a second when I started talking with her on the phone. She had four soul shifts in her life, starting in her young adulthood and the most recent one being the Ascension soul shift just a few weeks ago. But I went ahead and shared what I found, including when each shift happened and the characteristics of each soul, and she immediately screamed, “Yes! That is exactly what happened!”

Hunter: When I heard about my soul shift, it made me think about who I really am.

I have a certain perception of “me,” my consciousness, my sense of self. “Me” includes this mind and body. You’ve said that we’re really our souls, so I guess my soul is part of “me” too.

If I had known ahead of time that I was getting a new soul, what would I expect to happen to my sense of “me?”

Option 1 is that my consciousness would separate from my body, and go with my soul back to the ether. What I considered to be “me” would be out there. My mind and body would be inhabited by a different soul, and so my mind and body would no longer be “me” in any sense.

Option 2 is that my consciousness would stay with my mind and body. I’d still have all the tangible elements of “me,” but with a new soul, my identity would be fundamentally different. I’d be a new person in the same mind and body. I’d feel like Jason Bourne, having all these skills and memories but not knowing why.

But neither of these happened. My sense of self has not changed at all. I still feel like me, and there was no disruption of consciousness. I don’t feel like part of me is somewhere else, and I don’t feel like someone else is in my body.

Here’s where I’m going with this. We hear that when we die, our soul leaves our body. Our body turns to dust, but our soul lives on, so death is not the end for us. But in this soul shift, I lost my original soul and didn’t even notice. In other words, what I perceive as “me” is not connected to my soul in any way. So when my mind and body die, won’t that be the end? It doesn’t really matter if my soul lives on, if everything I know as “me” is rooted in the mind and body.

Akemi: Hmmm. . . interesting question.

Between the two options you described, I think Option 2 may describe the situation better, but not quite. I think some of us who have had Ascension soul shifts are indeed feeling like, “Okay, I have this skill and this job, but why? Why the heck do I care to come to this work every day? It doesn’t resonate with me at all. Why am I with this boyfriend / girlfriend? Why do I live here?”

But each person’s experience and perception is different. Why some of us experience it more or less dramatically is one of the many things I am studying as I do more and more reading and coaching with post Ascension soul shift clients.

From my own experience, I can say things stabilize after awhile. And again, the mental awareness continues.

By the way, this is why I write about Ascension soul shift even though I don’t know everything yet. There are people going through this process without knowing what is happening to them. You don’t need to know the word Ascension or do specific spiritual work to go through this. And these people need to know they are not having some mental disorder.

I don’t have a clear cut answer to how the sense of “Me” is formed. I’d like to say it’s the soul, and the sense of continuity is there thanks to the fact the new soul is the same kind from the same Higher Self. But I’m not sure. I also think the body and the mind play a big part of the sense of “Me” — or the big old ego.

Hunter: Just like last time, it looks like we’re running a bit long, so let’s end part 1 here. But be sure to subscribe now so you don’t miss the spiritual adventure that is part 2.

Update: Part 2 has been posted.

Akemi: In the meantime, if anyone has additional questions, please ask in the comment section, and I will do my best answering them.

As an Akashic Record Reading specialist and spiritual coach, Akemi Gaines helps you further your spiritual development and know yourself on the soul level. She writes about ascension and empowerment of lightworkers on her blog, Yes to Me. You can get updates by subscribing to her blog.

• Light Ascension With Akemi Gaines, Part 2
• The Complete Akashic Records
• Akashic Record Reading With Akemi Gaines, Part 2
• Akashic Record Reading With Akemi Gaines, Part 1
• Where Does Human Consciousness Come From?
• Stop Craving Sugar!
• Indulging Your Inner Child