Did you know that the first-named piece of writing was the work of a Sumerian woman in approximately 2085 BC, while the world’s first novel was written by a Japanese woman in the eleventh century? Or that Hildegard of Bingen, the great twelfth-century Abbess, writer, and composer, defied the Church’s traditions by viewing feminine sexuality as a gift of God? Or that one of China’s most powerful Emperors was a woman?

These are a few examples of the facts in this ‘autobiography with a difference. Its author, a Deep Memory Process therapist, has used previous lifetimes in her own history to illustrate the roles that we all play in preparation for returning to the Source whence we’ve come.

Skilfully weaving her personal story into each area and time period covered, she highlights the injustices wrought on women for centuries as well as their many achievements. It gives a fascinating and comprehensive picture of womanhood through the ages and concludes that the time for equality and greater respect for feminine energy is finally arriving.

ANN MERIVALE started writing in 1993, after being told by the American clairvoyant Aron Abrahamsen (who had worked with the well-known prophet Edgar Cayce) that she had come “partly as a writer – to disseminate information on the spiritual life”. Her children were then aged eighteen, sixteen and thirteen and, since the youngest is adopted and half African, she was at the time deeply engaged in anti-racist activities and other issues of Justice and Peace. Previously a Romance linguist and strong Catholic, she became increasingly interested in healing and in 1998 obtained a Diploma from the London College of Past Life Regression Studies. This was followed in 2001 by a Diploma in Deep Memory Process therapy from the late Jungian psychotherapist, Dr. Roger Woolger. She and her husband, Professor David Pearson, now live in Worcestershire, having moved there from Ludlow, Shropshire (where they spent fourteen and a half very good years) on account of falling in love with a new retirement village in Malvern. The couple are blessed with three grandchildren.