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Eternal Lives, Eternal Deaths
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Chapter 4
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Chapter Four
Methods and Techniques of Past Life Regressions
Remembering the Past: On the Nature of Therapeutic Past Life Regressions
Gandhi famously referred to it as ‘nature’s kindness’ that we generally do not remember our past lives. A quick glance through our history books easily reveals the reason for this. Our past is fraught with horrors: war, persecution, torture, and other traumatic experiences have been our regular lot. Thus, the mythic underworld ritual of souls drinking from the river Lethe to forget all memories of their previous lives can be seen as an act of mercy. Dissociation through amnesia is a powerful psychological coping mechanism in the face of trauma – apparently also across multiple lives. It allows victims to avoid an unbearable overload of pain and focus on surviving and functioning in the present.
Why then, you may ask, would anyone be curious about their karmic past? According to the tradition of various mystery schools, it is a necessary step on the road of self-discovery, hence remembering past lives is seen as a requirement to attain a certain level of spiritual development. The Rosicrucians, Theosophists, and Anthroposophists all teach mystical, meditational practices aimed at accessing these memories; Gnostic traditions, both ancient and modern, regard these recollections as part of receiving gnosis (i.e. direct spiritual knowledge). Buddha himself is said to have recalled his past lives before reaching enlightenment under the Bodhi tree which was crucial for his understanding of karma, development of compassion, and validating his teachings on the nature of suffering. Psychologically speaking, the remembrance of past lives may be analogous to the re-integration of traumatic material, once the individual has gained enough internal strength and reached a safe emotional environment to resolve unhealed issues from the past.
Since Western psychology has opened up to the transpersonal dimensions of the psyche, past life regression has gradually become part of the therapeutic arsenal. From the 1960s onwards, there have been reported cases from psychotherapeutic sessions in which patients accessed memories from apparent past lives.i At the beginning, most of these cases occurred unexpectedly during age regression, sometimes even against the resistance of the sceptical therapist. Linda Tarazi, for instance, was treating a woman obsessed with memories of a past life in 16th century Spain. At the beginning, Tarazi attempted to discredit the reality of this past existence, believing it was confabulated and interfered with the patient’s present life. However, after checking hundreds of detailed facts and taking trips to Spain, the Caribbean, and North Africa, no errors were found.
On this note, we may become disappointed, however, if we hope to verify reincarnation through regression cases which occur at a therapist’s office. For that, the studies conducted by Stevenson and his followers, where children’s memories of past lives were meticulously checked against facts, are much more suitable. Therapists usually lack the time and resources necessary to conduct extensive fact-finding missions. They may even lack motivation to do so, as they are primarily invested in healing and improving their clients’ current life circumstances. Also, in the therapeutic setting, it is nearly impossible to tell whether emerging ‘memories’ are historically true, confabulations, or stem from other subconscious material. Human memory can be treacherous: while we may be tempted to think of it as a type of database that stores information like a computer, in reality, it is more like an organic, pliable, and creative web of thoughts, sentiments, and energies, constantly changing and evolving over time. If we change our attitudes in the present, our memories of the past may change with it.
The pliable nature of human memory is demonstrated by the famous experiments in forensic psychology conducted by Elizabeth Loftus. In one of her experiments, subjects were shown a video clip about an automobile accident and later answered questions about it. Loftus found that the way she formulated the questions not only influenced the subjects’ assessment of the severity of the accident but also had the power to implant false memories. When she asked ‘About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?’ instead of collided, bumped, contacted or hit, the participants gave higher estimates of speed. Moreover, those participants who were asked the question with the verb smashed were also twice as likely to confirm that they saw broken glass (which was a false memory, as no broken glass was shown in the film). ‘We can never be 100% sure, whether a memory is true or false,’ Elizabeth Loftus concludes, ‘unless we have facts to support it.’
We can imagine, if regular memory is so fickle, remembrances from a karmic past – that cannot even be stored in the brain but come from the uncharted Akashic field – must be even more so. Can a person truly recall a past life just as it historically happened? (Perhaps, in some cases.) Or do subjects in past life sessions tap into the collective memory field of humanity? (This is more likely, in most cases.) Do they filter the (collective) past through the lens of their (individual) present? (Almost certainly.) In general, we cannot rely on the factual truth of past life memories that come up in regression sessions.
However, from a therapeutic perspective, we don’t even need to. Psychologically, more important than factual truths is the question why a particular content is coming up. In other words, the value of the material arising from therapeutic past life sessions is not so much determined by the historic truths it contains, rather by its psychological truth. You know you found something that is psychologically true if it illuminates your inner processes, helps you integrate previously disturbing or confusing life experiences and aids your healing and/or personal development.
This kind of subjective verification belongs to the new paradigm, as it is not objective in its nature as the old paradigm would demand. Like dreams – which are not true in an objective sense but through symbols and archetypal imagery contribute to the understanding, healing, or awakening of the psyche – the validation of past life regressions stems not from fact-finding but from the positive development it activates in you. Regression sessions open access to deeper layers of the psyche where clusters of memories and emotions can be found that form life’s challenges. Working with them, we can overcome fears, traumas, blockages and develop skills, talents, and visions.
The material gained from past life sessions, together with the entire personal COEX system (present life events, including birth, traumas, family and relationship dynamics, dreams, visions, spiritually relevant and/or psychedelic experiences) form the evolutionary material of a particular individual’s consciousness. Past life regression is the art of excavating the karmic heritage of a person in order to find underlying patterns and set the future on the highest possible course. It can be the most worthwhile endeavour. However, even today, while our knowledge and interest in them is increasing, we must act with caution: Past life regressions are still considered the ‘hard road’ to self-recovery.
Why then, you may ask, would anyone be curious about their karmic past? According to the tradition of various mystery schools, it is a necessary step on the road of self-discovery, hence remembering past lives is seen as a requirement to attain a certain level of spiritual development. The Rosicrucians, Theosophists, and Anthroposophists all teach mystical, meditational practices aimed at accessing these memories; Gnostic traditions, both ancient and modern, regard these recollections as part of receiving gnosis (i.e. direct spiritual knowledge). Buddha himself is said to have recalled his past lives before reaching enlightenment under the Bodhi tree which was crucial for his understanding of karma, development of compassion, and validating his teachings on the nature of suffering. Psychologically speaking, the remembrance of past lives may be analogous to the re-integration of traumatic material, once the individual has gained enough internal strength and reached a safe emotional environment to resolve unhealed issues from the past.
Since Western psychology has opened up to the transpersonal dimensions of the psyche, past life regression has gradually become part of the therapeutic arsenal. From the 1960s onwards, there have been reported cases from psychotherapeutic sessions in which patients accessed memories from apparent past lives.i At the beginning, most of these cases occurred unexpectedly during age regression, sometimes even against the resistance of the sceptical therapist. Linda Tarazi, for instance, was treating a woman obsessed with memories of a past life in 16th century Spain. At the beginning, Tarazi attempted to discredit the reality of this past existence, believing it was confabulated and interfered with the patient’s present life. However, after checking hundreds of detailed facts and taking trips to Spain, the Caribbean, and North Africa, no errors were found.
On this note, we may become disappointed, however, if we hope to verify reincarnation through regression cases which occur at a therapist’s office. For that, the studies conducted by Stevenson and his followers, where children’s memories of past lives were meticulously checked against facts, are much more suitable. Therapists usually lack the time and resources necessary to conduct extensive fact-finding missions. They may even lack motivation to do so, as they are primarily invested in healing and improving their clients’ current life circumstances. Also, in the therapeutic setting, it is nearly impossible to tell whether emerging ‘memories’ are historically true, confabulations, or stem from other subconscious material. Human memory can be treacherous: while we may be tempted to think of it as a type of database that stores information like a computer, in reality, it is more like an organic, pliable, and creative web of thoughts, sentiments, and energies, constantly changing and evolving over time. If we change our attitudes in the present, our memories of the past may change with it.
The pliable nature of human memory is demonstrated by the famous experiments in forensic psychology conducted by Elizabeth Loftus. In one of her experiments, subjects were shown a video clip about an automobile accident and later answered questions about it. Loftus found that the way she formulated the questions not only influenced the subjects’ assessment of the severity of the accident but also had the power to implant false memories. When she asked ‘About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?’ instead of collided, bumped, contacted or hit, the participants gave higher estimates of speed. Moreover, those participants who were asked the question with the verb smashed were also twice as likely to confirm that they saw broken glass (which was a false memory, as no broken glass was shown in the film). ‘We can never be 100% sure, whether a memory is true or false,’ Elizabeth Loftus concludes, ‘unless we have facts to support it.’
We can imagine, if regular memory is so fickle, remembrances from a karmic past – that cannot even be stored in the brain but come from the uncharted Akashic field – must be even more so. Can a person truly recall a past life just as it historically happened? (Perhaps, in some cases.) Or do subjects in past life sessions tap into the collective memory field of humanity? (This is more likely, in most cases.) Do they filter the (collective) past through the lens of their (individual) present? (Almost certainly.) In general, we cannot rely on the factual truth of past life memories that come up in regression sessions.
However, from a therapeutic perspective, we don’t even need to. Psychologically, more important than factual truths is the question why a particular content is coming up. In other words, the value of the material arising from therapeutic past life sessions is not so much determined by the historic truths it contains, rather by its psychological truth. You know you found something that is psychologically true if it illuminates your inner processes, helps you integrate previously disturbing or confusing life experiences and aids your healing and/or personal development.
This kind of subjective verification belongs to the new paradigm, as it is not objective in its nature as the old paradigm would demand. Like dreams – which are not true in an objective sense but through symbols and archetypal imagery contribute to the understanding, healing, or awakening of the psyche – the validation of past life regressions stems not from fact-finding but from the positive development it activates in you. Regression sessions open access to deeper layers of the psyche where clusters of memories and emotions can be found that form life’s challenges. Working with them, we can overcome fears, traumas, blockages and develop skills, talents, and visions.
The material gained from past life sessions, together with the entire personal COEX system (present life events, including birth, traumas, family and relationship dynamics, dreams, visions, spiritually relevant and/or psychedelic experiences) form the evolutionary material of a particular individual’s consciousness. Past life regression is the art of excavating the karmic heritage of a person in order to find underlying patterns and set the future on the highest possible course. It can be the most worthwhile endeavour. However, even today, while our knowledge and interest in them is increasing, we must act with caution: Past life regressions are still considered the ‘hard road’ to self-recovery.
When to Embark on Past Life Regression Sessions:
Indications and Contraindications
The life stories which tend to emerge from regression sessions are hardly ever flattering to the ego, quite the opposite. The public misconception that people tend to remember having been some glamorous historic figure (‘the Cleopatra cliché’) does not hold up against experiences in day-to-day therapeutic life. People I worked with have found out about previous lives in which they have been slave traders, prostitutes, frustrated housewives, kidnapped boys, defeated soldiers, grieving mothers, robbers and murderers, cruel priestesses and Nazi interrogators, crippled clowns and tortured children – hardly the types of personalities one would be likely to identify with in wishful fantasies. Some of the past lives are humiliating to remember, others are full of unresolved trauma. Unpleasant abreactions to the revival of past emotions – weeping, shaking, feeling confused – are not uncommon, either. A certain level of spiritual fearlessness, the willingness to see one’s own shadow, and work with it, is required from anyone who undergoes this inner adventure. Ernest Pecci writes:
Past-life therapy is not a therapy for the narrow-minded or sceptical but for the already partially awakened spiritual traveller who is ready to embrace the reality of spirit guides and the existence of other dimensions and other worlds, and who is unafraid to explore consciousness in all of its unlimited varieties and forms.
Pecci is a pioneering psychiatrist who proposed the most practical and effective test to determine which individuals have the right foundations to undergo and benefit from past life regression sessions. His test consists of requesting the candidate to list ten questions they are currently occupied with in life. The test is evaluated by the nature of the questions, not the answers. The rationale behind the ten-question test goes back to the discovery that the chakras of the human energy body are organised hierarchically. Each chakra of the subtle energy body corresponds to certain psychological areas of life. Lower chakras, such as the root, the sacral, and the solar plexus chakra are associated with base issues: physical survival, belonging to the tribe, forming family ties, and establishing power. As long as the candidate is predominantly concerned with such lower chakra issues, Pecci suggests they are not ready to embark on past life explorations. Only when their attention is directed to the heart (corresponding to the development of compassion) and higher chakras, are regressions indicated. Interest in these higher, loftier topics, such as the expression of truth (throat chakra), multidimensional perception (third eye), and spiritual connectedness (crown) suggests that the person is not only concerned with personal issues but is ready to work on the transpersonal level.
The Pecci test is usually applied as part of a general interview and personality assessment necessary before any past life work. It is to ensure that the person’s readiness is grounded in a well-established personality structure that can support whatever comes up in those sessions.
The regression process itself demands persistence, which serves as a self-selective filter: Those unwilling to invest themselves fully will not get far. Once, a spiritually aware and curious woman came into my practice. Together, we discovered a fascinating prehistoric past life where she lived alone in an abandoned underground tunnel system. After the session, she acknowledged the relevance of this experience for her life; at the same time, she candidly confessed that she ‘never thought this would be so much work.’ She left, never to return, even though she felt the potential of this for personal growth.
Also, embarking on a past life journey requires the willingness to accept an unusual degree of responsibility. Experiencing a series of inner journeys into past lives enhances our understanding of karma which inevitably leads to the realisation that each of us is responsible for our destiny.
These three criteria: the willingness to view life from higher perspectives than the ego, to work hard, and to take responsibility are all prerequisites for uncovering memories of past lives.
Sometimes, we can make exceptions from the general readiness test when we are dealing with symptoms (physical or psychological) that are not explainable and curable by standard medicine or therapy. In such cases of ‘incurable’ symptoms, past life therapy might be the last resort. We have seen in the previous chapter that 12-year-old Ludovik was able to put down his crutches after he revisited how he died in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. Even though little Ludovik has not yet reached the transpersonal heights required by the Pecci-test, the regression session was useful for him, as the past life remembrance could ease his related symptoms. In another case, I had a client, Thomas, whose brain tumour went into spontaneous remission after he remembered being forced in Nazi Germany to shoot a fellow soldier in the head (which was at the same spot as the tumour).
There is also potential in exploring past-life therapy for cases of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). These can be rather bizarre cases, in which sufferers feel that a limb should not be part of them and desire its amputation, or believe they should have a disability, such as blindness. Currently, BIID raises serious ethical questions for medical practitioners regarding the permissibility of amputating a healthy limb or inducing blindness upon request (which has happened in real life), ostensibly to alleviate significant psychological discomfort. The mismatch between the physical body and the internal sense of how the body should be as experienced by people with BIID, seems absurd from a single-life perspective. However, it could be explained through energetic residues from past lives. If we could obtain information about the person’s past life, we may be able to trace the origin of these perceptions and potentially offer a cure for this enigmatic disorder.
Similarly, past life explorations could be useful in all cases where a person feels that they are ‘in the wrong body’ (e.g. in cases of gender dysphoria, especially before undergoing hormonal treatment and/or surgical intervention). Although little to no relevant research has been conducted so far, in this area many promising projects could open up in the future – meanwhile, we should keep our minds open for more cases in which past life regressions could be indicated.
Past-life therapy is not a therapy for the narrow-minded or sceptical but for the already partially awakened spiritual traveller who is ready to embrace the reality of spirit guides and the existence of other dimensions and other worlds, and who is unafraid to explore consciousness in all of its unlimited varieties and forms.
Pecci is a pioneering psychiatrist who proposed the most practical and effective test to determine which individuals have the right foundations to undergo and benefit from past life regression sessions. His test consists of requesting the candidate to list ten questions they are currently occupied with in life. The test is evaluated by the nature of the questions, not the answers. The rationale behind the ten-question test goes back to the discovery that the chakras of the human energy body are organised hierarchically. Each chakra of the subtle energy body corresponds to certain psychological areas of life. Lower chakras, such as the root, the sacral, and the solar plexus chakra are associated with base issues: physical survival, belonging to the tribe, forming family ties, and establishing power. As long as the candidate is predominantly concerned with such lower chakra issues, Pecci suggests they are not ready to embark on past life explorations. Only when their attention is directed to the heart (corresponding to the development of compassion) and higher chakras, are regressions indicated. Interest in these higher, loftier topics, such as the expression of truth (throat chakra), multidimensional perception (third eye), and spiritual connectedness (crown) suggests that the person is not only concerned with personal issues but is ready to work on the transpersonal level.
The Pecci test is usually applied as part of a general interview and personality assessment necessary before any past life work. It is to ensure that the person’s readiness is grounded in a well-established personality structure that can support whatever comes up in those sessions.
The regression process itself demands persistence, which serves as a self-selective filter: Those unwilling to invest themselves fully will not get far. Once, a spiritually aware and curious woman came into my practice. Together, we discovered a fascinating prehistoric past life where she lived alone in an abandoned underground tunnel system. After the session, she acknowledged the relevance of this experience for her life; at the same time, she candidly confessed that she ‘never thought this would be so much work.’ She left, never to return, even though she felt the potential of this for personal growth.
Also, embarking on a past life journey requires the willingness to accept an unusual degree of responsibility. Experiencing a series of inner journeys into past lives enhances our understanding of karma which inevitably leads to the realisation that each of us is responsible for our destiny.
These three criteria: the willingness to view life from higher perspectives than the ego, to work hard, and to take responsibility are all prerequisites for uncovering memories of past lives.
Sometimes, we can make exceptions from the general readiness test when we are dealing with symptoms (physical or psychological) that are not explainable and curable by standard medicine or therapy. In such cases of ‘incurable’ symptoms, past life therapy might be the last resort. We have seen in the previous chapter that 12-year-old Ludovik was able to put down his crutches after he revisited how he died in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. Even though little Ludovik has not yet reached the transpersonal heights required by the Pecci-test, the regression session was useful for him, as the past life remembrance could ease his related symptoms. In another case, I had a client, Thomas, whose brain tumour went into spontaneous remission after he remembered being forced in Nazi Germany to shoot a fellow soldier in the head (which was at the same spot as the tumour).
There is also potential in exploring past-life therapy for cases of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). These can be rather bizarre cases, in which sufferers feel that a limb should not be part of them and desire its amputation, or believe they should have a disability, such as blindness. Currently, BIID raises serious ethical questions for medical practitioners regarding the permissibility of amputating a healthy limb or inducing blindness upon request (which has happened in real life), ostensibly to alleviate significant psychological discomfort. The mismatch between the physical body and the internal sense of how the body should be as experienced by people with BIID, seems absurd from a single-life perspective. However, it could be explained through energetic residues from past lives. If we could obtain information about the person’s past life, we may be able to trace the origin of these perceptions and potentially offer a cure for this enigmatic disorder.
Similarly, past life explorations could be useful in all cases where a person feels that they are ‘in the wrong body’ (e.g. in cases of gender dysphoria, especially before undergoing hormonal treatment and/or surgical intervention). Although little to no relevant research has been conducted so far, in this area many promising projects could open up in the future – meanwhile, we should keep our minds open for more cases in which past life regressions could be indicated.
The Past Life Journey: Preparation of the Mind
To embark on this inner journey, once the psyche is ready, the mind must be prepared, too – prepared for remembrance. Some potential clients of past life regressions might harbour the expectation that hypnosis would be like a time machine, catapulting them into another time, another place. While hyperrealistic impressions, like stepping into a 3D film, may occur, we must not be too anxious that the effectiveness of the session would depend on that. Most sessions are like any other remembrance: sometimes messy, sometimes arduous, often emotional, and always personal. Usually, the client remains present with their current awareness actively involved, even while accessing past life memories. If necessary, they can reference their present life (most notably recognise people from the past) and participate in the evaluation process in the bardo state after the death in the visited life.
Research conducted to investigate the difference between past life regressions and other, more traditional, types of altered states of consciousness (ASC) explains why the subject can participate to such a high degree with their present awareness. Studying the brain’s electric fields as measured by electroencephalography (EEG), it has been found that certain neural oscillations (brain rhythms) highly correlate with specific states of consciousness.i While in the waking state the brain functions mainly within the Beta band (frequency of 16-31 Hz), in altered states of consciousness (meditation, hypnagogy, or dreaming) frequencies slow down to Alpha (8-15 Hz), Theta (4-7 Hz) and/or Delta (<4 Hz). Past life regressions, however, differ from these altered states through the prevalence of all bands with striking flares of Beta. This mix of brainwave patterns may also explain why the subject is able to remain present and retain cognitive control (like in the normal waking state), while accessing karmic memory (frequently diving back into a relaxed state).
Subjects often do not even feel that they are in an altered state during the experience, yet can access information normally unavailable to them. Hungarian past life researcher, Péter Kövesi defines the altered state of consciousness during past life regressions precisely through the capacity of perceiving something that is not delivered through the physical senses from the physical world.iii The perception point – or as Carlos Castañeda used to call it, the assemblage point – of the person’s consciousness has shifted, ready to access the past, the present, and the future and see how it is all connected.
Traditionally, to achieve this state in which the perception point shifts, hypnosis was used, even believed to be necessary; today, this is only partially true...
There’s the old-fashioned understanding of hypnosis based on the authority of the hypnotist that contains a certain level of mental and energetic dominance, even manipulation of the subject. (It is the type of hypnosis we see featured in stage shows and used in more subtle, but not less effective ways, in advertisement and politics.) This kind of hypnosis has no place in therapy, where self-determination and autonomy must not only be respected, but encouraged. In that sense, Dethlefsen talks about the ‘removal of hypnosis’ in past life work: Only those elements of classic hypnosis (relaxation, visualisation, focused attention) are kept which are compatible with the self-determination of the client; others based on the therapist’s authority (imposing one’s will and energy on another) are omitted. Past life regression sessions must focus on the self-empowerment of the client; the role of the therapist is to facilitate the process, hold space, and invite self-healing forces.
If we define hypnosis as a mental state of relaxation and focused intent, those elements remain crucial for past-life recalls. We have a rich variety of techniques (e.g. Hartland’s progressive relaxation) to induce a relaxed state and we can use personalised imagery to divert the attention away from the external, everyday world towards a bygone life. Imagery is used here in the wider sense of the word – the precise term would be internal representational system to include not only the visual, but also the auditory, cognitive and/or kinaesthetic systems, supported by olfactory (scent-based) and gustatory (taste-based) recalls. In general, the more senses are involved in an internal experience, the more vivid and effective the inner work becomes. (Hence the formulation: see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt at that time.)
Also, the more the inner journey is tailored to the personal representational system, the better. To find out about a person’s dominant representational system(s), the therapist may ask for a simple memory, such as last night’s dinner, and observe the kind of internal representations through which it is being recalled. ‘How did you come up with that memory in your mind?’ If someone saw the meal or the environment (the kitchen, the layout of the dining table or restaurant), its colours and textiles, that would indicate visual representation. If they hear dialogues during meal preparation or eating, music that was played in the background, or even the sizzling, boiling sounds during cooking, they have a strong auditory sense. A kinaesthetic person would remember the act of cooking or travelling to the restaurant, body movements and positions during eating, as well as a sense of the space they inhabited that night. Using cognitive recall, they would ‘just know’ what they had for dinner last night (seemingly) without any support from your senses, like you ‘just know’ that the capital of France is Paris, without needing to visualise, say, the Eiffel Tower first. Scents and tastes of the food may aid the memory through olfactory and gustatory recall – in any combination of the above-mentioned representational systems.
The five most common internal representational systems: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory, sometimes along with the cognitive, are mentioned in most textbooks on hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming (NLP). In the context of past life sessions I have conducted, two additional types of representational systems have been observed that could be referred to as situational and energetic representations.
A situational representation is a type of knowing – specifically of a certain situation, sometimes linked to a particular place or people. This representation is generally vague – I’m in a kind of temple, something like a sacrifice is going on. It can emerge spontaneously: someone might visit a place that feels familiar – I’ve been in this house before, it was a bordello, and I was working here as a prostitute – or meet a person who leaves the impression of not being a stranger. Observing these kind of situational impressions – during or outside of sessions – can be essential for past life recall, as they often serve as launchpads for further details.
Particularly significant in the regression context is the often-overlooked energetic representation. Those trained in an energy healing modality (such as reiki), internal martial arts, or yoga – or those with a natural sensitivity – can perceive life force energy fields and the energy body. Living with this sense in the modern world can feel like having full vision in a society where many perceive only shades of grey: while the reality of colours is obvious to those who see them, explaining them to others may be challenging, especially if the vocabulary to describes all hues is also lacking. Energetic awareness is invaluable for past life work, as it can reveal connections between past and present events, even when they seem outwardly different. The energetic blueprint carried across lifetimes can not only be perceived but also shifted and healed by those attuned to it.
In general, it is highly recommended to conduct energetic cleansing before a past life session. An excellent way to do this is by inducing the vibrational state – a naturally occurring energy resonance phenomenon, often described by people entering the out-of-body state. It is commonly accompanied by a ‘powerful vibration felt as an internal quake or waves, which may resemble a high voltage electrical current running through the body, and which can occasionally be accompanied by the auditory impression of noises such as whirring or roaring.’v Through a technique called Voluntary Energetic Longitudinal Oscillation (VELO)vi which – despite its complicated name, takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master – this vibrational state can be induced at will. In the technique, personal will (hence voluntary) is used to bring one’s energy to the toes then moving it upward along the body (hence longitudinal) and back down (in an oscillating pattern). The up and down movement of the energy is accelerated each time the cycle is repeated until the energy is no longer perceived as moving up and down, but as a vibration throughout the body (hence vibrational state). This technique not only cleanses and protects the practitioner but also demonstrates a profound truth: energy follows will. While we aren’t typically trained to consciously influence our energies, it is entirely logical that we can do so, just as we move our limbs through acts of will.
Intention is crucial, not only for moving energies, but also for setting the direction of the past life session. Without setting an intention, jumping into past lives would be like diving into an endless ocean of labyrinthine waves. Intention, like Ariadne’s thread, helps entering and exiting the labyrinth not just safely but meaningfully. Therapeutically relevant issues, such as a relationship with a challenging twist, a fear of unknown origin, a job that feels unsatisfying, an important decision that would lead towards a different future... all can serve as the starting point for the sessions. Sometimes, people don’t understand something curious about themselves (Why don’t I like people?), their behaviour (Why am I censoring what I’m saying in groups?), or events in their lives (Why is the medical supervisor at our clinic so negative towards me?). Other times, they want to understand a detail of the past that feels significant (my Native American dream as a teenager) or the root of a health problem (Is my back pain just physical or mental?). It even happened that a young lady felt her karma was too good and wanted to know: What am I supposed to do with it?
Once the therapeutic question emerges, we take good note of it, as later it will be used as a bridge to lead into past life memories: either as a full sentence, or shortened to a significant phrase, or even a feeling or energetic impression that triggers remembrances of its origin.
Then it is time to darken the room and find a comfortable position. The client is asked to close their eyes, take a deep breath in, and let the inner exploration across time and space begin...
Research conducted to investigate the difference between past life regressions and other, more traditional, types of altered states of consciousness (ASC) explains why the subject can participate to such a high degree with their present awareness. Studying the brain’s electric fields as measured by electroencephalography (EEG), it has been found that certain neural oscillations (brain rhythms) highly correlate with specific states of consciousness.i While in the waking state the brain functions mainly within the Beta band (frequency of 16-31 Hz), in altered states of consciousness (meditation, hypnagogy, or dreaming) frequencies slow down to Alpha (8-15 Hz), Theta (4-7 Hz) and/or Delta (<4 Hz). Past life regressions, however, differ from these altered states through the prevalence of all bands with striking flares of Beta. This mix of brainwave patterns may also explain why the subject is able to remain present and retain cognitive control (like in the normal waking state), while accessing karmic memory (frequently diving back into a relaxed state).
Subjects often do not even feel that they are in an altered state during the experience, yet can access information normally unavailable to them. Hungarian past life researcher, Péter Kövesi defines the altered state of consciousness during past life regressions precisely through the capacity of perceiving something that is not delivered through the physical senses from the physical world.iii The perception point – or as Carlos Castañeda used to call it, the assemblage point – of the person’s consciousness has shifted, ready to access the past, the present, and the future and see how it is all connected.
Traditionally, to achieve this state in which the perception point shifts, hypnosis was used, even believed to be necessary; today, this is only partially true...
There’s the old-fashioned understanding of hypnosis based on the authority of the hypnotist that contains a certain level of mental and energetic dominance, even manipulation of the subject. (It is the type of hypnosis we see featured in stage shows and used in more subtle, but not less effective ways, in advertisement and politics.) This kind of hypnosis has no place in therapy, where self-determination and autonomy must not only be respected, but encouraged. In that sense, Dethlefsen talks about the ‘removal of hypnosis’ in past life work: Only those elements of classic hypnosis (relaxation, visualisation, focused attention) are kept which are compatible with the self-determination of the client; others based on the therapist’s authority (imposing one’s will and energy on another) are omitted. Past life regression sessions must focus on the self-empowerment of the client; the role of the therapist is to facilitate the process, hold space, and invite self-healing forces.
If we define hypnosis as a mental state of relaxation and focused intent, those elements remain crucial for past-life recalls. We have a rich variety of techniques (e.g. Hartland’s progressive relaxation) to induce a relaxed state and we can use personalised imagery to divert the attention away from the external, everyday world towards a bygone life. Imagery is used here in the wider sense of the word – the precise term would be internal representational system to include not only the visual, but also the auditory, cognitive and/or kinaesthetic systems, supported by olfactory (scent-based) and gustatory (taste-based) recalls. In general, the more senses are involved in an internal experience, the more vivid and effective the inner work becomes. (Hence the formulation: see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt at that time.)
Also, the more the inner journey is tailored to the personal representational system, the better. To find out about a person’s dominant representational system(s), the therapist may ask for a simple memory, such as last night’s dinner, and observe the kind of internal representations through which it is being recalled. ‘How did you come up with that memory in your mind?’ If someone saw the meal or the environment (the kitchen, the layout of the dining table or restaurant), its colours and textiles, that would indicate visual representation. If they hear dialogues during meal preparation or eating, music that was played in the background, or even the sizzling, boiling sounds during cooking, they have a strong auditory sense. A kinaesthetic person would remember the act of cooking or travelling to the restaurant, body movements and positions during eating, as well as a sense of the space they inhabited that night. Using cognitive recall, they would ‘just know’ what they had for dinner last night (seemingly) without any support from your senses, like you ‘just know’ that the capital of France is Paris, without needing to visualise, say, the Eiffel Tower first. Scents and tastes of the food may aid the memory through olfactory and gustatory recall – in any combination of the above-mentioned representational systems.
The five most common internal representational systems: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory, sometimes along with the cognitive, are mentioned in most textbooks on hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming (NLP). In the context of past life sessions I have conducted, two additional types of representational systems have been observed that could be referred to as situational and energetic representations.
A situational representation is a type of knowing – specifically of a certain situation, sometimes linked to a particular place or people. This representation is generally vague – I’m in a kind of temple, something like a sacrifice is going on. It can emerge spontaneously: someone might visit a place that feels familiar – I’ve been in this house before, it was a bordello, and I was working here as a prostitute – or meet a person who leaves the impression of not being a stranger. Observing these kind of situational impressions – during or outside of sessions – can be essential for past life recall, as they often serve as launchpads for further details.
Particularly significant in the regression context is the often-overlooked energetic representation. Those trained in an energy healing modality (such as reiki), internal martial arts, or yoga – or those with a natural sensitivity – can perceive life force energy fields and the energy body. Living with this sense in the modern world can feel like having full vision in a society where many perceive only shades of grey: while the reality of colours is obvious to those who see them, explaining them to others may be challenging, especially if the vocabulary to describes all hues is also lacking. Energetic awareness is invaluable for past life work, as it can reveal connections between past and present events, even when they seem outwardly different. The energetic blueprint carried across lifetimes can not only be perceived but also shifted and healed by those attuned to it.
In general, it is highly recommended to conduct energetic cleansing before a past life session. An excellent way to do this is by inducing the vibrational state – a naturally occurring energy resonance phenomenon, often described by people entering the out-of-body state. It is commonly accompanied by a ‘powerful vibration felt as an internal quake or waves, which may resemble a high voltage electrical current running through the body, and which can occasionally be accompanied by the auditory impression of noises such as whirring or roaring.’v Through a technique called Voluntary Energetic Longitudinal Oscillation (VELO)vi which – despite its complicated name, takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master – this vibrational state can be induced at will. In the technique, personal will (hence voluntary) is used to bring one’s energy to the toes then moving it upward along the body (hence longitudinal) and back down (in an oscillating pattern). The up and down movement of the energy is accelerated each time the cycle is repeated until the energy is no longer perceived as moving up and down, but as a vibration throughout the body (hence vibrational state). This technique not only cleanses and protects the practitioner but also demonstrates a profound truth: energy follows will. While we aren’t typically trained to consciously influence our energies, it is entirely logical that we can do so, just as we move our limbs through acts of will.
Intention is crucial, not only for moving energies, but also for setting the direction of the past life session. Without setting an intention, jumping into past lives would be like diving into an endless ocean of labyrinthine waves. Intention, like Ariadne’s thread, helps entering and exiting the labyrinth not just safely but meaningfully. Therapeutically relevant issues, such as a relationship with a challenging twist, a fear of unknown origin, a job that feels unsatisfying, an important decision that would lead towards a different future... all can serve as the starting point for the sessions. Sometimes, people don’t understand something curious about themselves (Why don’t I like people?), their behaviour (Why am I censoring what I’m saying in groups?), or events in their lives (Why is the medical supervisor at our clinic so negative towards me?). Other times, they want to understand a detail of the past that feels significant (my Native American dream as a teenager) or the root of a health problem (Is my back pain just physical or mental?). It even happened that a young lady felt her karma was too good and wanted to know: What am I supposed to do with it?
Once the therapeutic question emerges, we take good note of it, as later it will be used as a bridge to lead into past life memories: either as a full sentence, or shortened to a significant phrase, or even a feeling or energetic impression that triggers remembrances of its origin.
Then it is time to darken the room and find a comfortable position. The client is asked to close their eyes, take a deep breath in, and let the inner exploration across time and space begin...
Entering The Labyrinth: Induction Techniques
You can now gently close your eyes… and relax... there is nothing you have to do... or be right now... just allow my voice to wash over you… and the more you are listening… to the sound of my voice… the more relaxed you become…
All around you… physical reality is still there… surrounding you… and you can still pick up some sounds and noises from the environment... you can feel the temperature, your clothes, and the furniture against your skin… even see some light filtering in through your closed eyelids… you can sense the physical world all around you… and in a strange and contradictory way… all these sounds, noises, lights, and sensations… from the outside… are just helping you to relax even more… unless something happens that requires your immediate and urgent attention… in which case you’re able to simply open your eyes and do what needs to be done…you just relax deeper and deeper still… just listen to the sound of my voice… for it is with the sound of my voice… that I am now inviting you on a journey… within… a journey that can be a lot more interesting than any journey you have ever taken in the outside world… a journey going within…
And in order to embark on that journey… in a moment’s time… I will slowly but surely begin to count from 10 back to zero… and with each number I’m counting you will feel more and more relaxed… also with each number I would like you to use your imagination… and just imagine… that you are walking down a path… and I don’t know how that path will look like… for it is your imagination that will be creating it… I just know that it will be a beautiful, interesting path… taking you down…
Once the internal journey has begun, it can take many different turns: The imagery will depend not only on the particular client but the presenting therapeutic issue. The therapist will count...
10… 9… 8… you are going deeper and deeper… 7… 6… 5… deeper down into the valley… 4… 3… deeper into the depths of your own mind… 2… 1… 0… You are now in a deep, beautifully relaxed state of mind… In a moment’s time… I will say the word NOOW… when I say the word NOOW… you will be in an even deeper state of mind… and you will be at…
… and the client will be taken to their special internal place from where the past life journey can commence:
- Some will be taken to the Hall of Records, or a similar place that holds the Akashic Library. Here, scrolls and manuscripts can be found that hold the records of bygone lives for those who are destined to come here in the future and look for clues about the past.
- Others, who are perhaps interested in their connection to a particular place, will be guided to lift up from their current body, see the Earth underneath as a Rotating Globe and descend to the place that has the answer to their therapeutic question.
- An illuminating inner adventure can also start with visiting the Antique Shop. It is just a small, insignificant-looking little shack next to a dusty bus stop out there, where the mountains begin – but inside it is special. In there, you can pick from various items on display, something you have owned once upon a time…
- Similarly to the Antique Shop, we can visit the Museum, filled with artefacts of the past, where the items may have labels on them, giving a first hint about their use, as well as the time and space they originate from. All the items in the Museum belong to the visitors’ karmic past. Sometimes whole rooms or houses of the past can be found here and as the visitor walks around, these once-inhabited places slowly come back to life...
- According to tradition, it was from the Knights Templar that we have inherited the method of visiting the Celestial Sanctum, where we can remember things that occurred before our birth. It is a long journey to get there. Like in katathymic-imaginative psychotherapy, the inner traveller walks on a path through a meadow, and eventually will begin to ascend a mountain, first through a pine forest, then through thinning vegetation, all the way up into the sky, where among the clouds, the sanctum awaits…
There is no limit, only in imagination, how many ways and paths can lead the mind into past lives. The method that will work the best is the one that is best tailored to the individual person’s individual case. Sometimes, we may need special techniques to locate the issue on the timeline:
- The Planet of the Crossroads is a great technique to let the unconscious mind decide whether the key to a problem is in a past life, in the present life, or the future. In this visualisation, we take a spaceship to a special planet with a long walking path, eventually coming to a crossroad: Turning left, takes us into a past life; straight ahead, into the present life (in form of age regression); going right, into the future.
- Similarly, if we don’t yet know where we shall go in time (past life or age regression), we may find the magic photo-album. In it, pictures come to life and take you back in time (this life or a past life) either where the presenting problem originated from, or where its solution can be found.
Among the countless variations of imagery that can be used – all of which can be tailored to the individual client and the particulars of the case – my favourite involves diving into a lake filled with the Mist of Time. The mist represents a metaphysical Emptiness: ‘not an empty emptiness but an Emptiness filled with all possibilities of creation.’ This image of a Mist of Time as Emptiness is powerful, especially as it resonates with various indigenous ideas of an ancient yet eternal spacetime (‘everywhen’), like the Aboriginal Dreamtime, from which the world was dreamt into being, or the Pachamama in the Andean cosmology. It can also evoke the Buddhist concept of Emptiness (śūnyatā in Sanskrit) of which spiritually advanced clients may have direct experience. For many, the Mist of Time connects to the ageless knowing about phenomena lacking intrinsic existence and independent self-nature. For past life explorations, this archetypal image helps dissolve fixed views and identification with the present life personality and circumstances. Walking into the lake filled with the Mist of Time also helps, as a type of progressive relaxation, to deepen the trance:
You can now… slowly walk into the lake… it has a secret… that it is not filled with water… but with the Mist of Time… as you go in there… the mist is surrounding your feet… you go deeper… deeper and deeper… your feet… your legs… your hips… and chest… get heavy and relaxed… finally with your head… all dived in… you can breathe easily in this mist… soft and safe… you notice… you are surrounded by Emptiness… but this is not an empty emptiness… but an Emptiness that is filled with all possibilities of creation…
Here, in the Mist of Time, the past life traveller is in an ideal state to invoke the therapeutic aim of the session. Hence, they are invited to repeat their presenting question, phrase, or recall the relevant emotion or energy. Their intent will move them forward, until they arrive at ‘the other shore, in another place, at another time.’
Now... I would like you to grab your most powerful intent… to go… where you can find the answer… to… […] until you feel… that your intent is taking you in a certain direction… let it take you… until you feel that you have arrived… somewhere else… at another shore… where you are someone… at another time… in another space… where you will find your answer to [repeat trigger]
Usually, there is a sense of movement into a certain direction (the meaning of which has not yet come to me, although it seems significant and different in every situation), which ultimately culminates in a sense of arrival.
Here, at the ‘shore,’ the client may immediately pick up some impressions from a past life, even launch into a story, but if not, it can be helped with some targeted questions, such as asking what kind of footwear the person is wearing to gain a first impression about a bygone life. Here is an example:
All around you… physical reality is still there… surrounding you… and you can still pick up some sounds and noises from the environment... you can feel the temperature, your clothes, and the furniture against your skin… even see some light filtering in through your closed eyelids… you can sense the physical world all around you… and in a strange and contradictory way… all these sounds, noises, lights, and sensations… from the outside… are just helping you to relax even more… unless something happens that requires your immediate and urgent attention… in which case you’re able to simply open your eyes and do what needs to be done…you just relax deeper and deeper still… just listen to the sound of my voice… for it is with the sound of my voice… that I am now inviting you on a journey… within… a journey that can be a lot more interesting than any journey you have ever taken in the outside world… a journey going within…
And in order to embark on that journey… in a moment’s time… I will slowly but surely begin to count from 10 back to zero… and with each number I’m counting you will feel more and more relaxed… also with each number I would like you to use your imagination… and just imagine… that you are walking down a path… and I don’t know how that path will look like… for it is your imagination that will be creating it… I just know that it will be a beautiful, interesting path… taking you down…
Once the internal journey has begun, it can take many different turns: The imagery will depend not only on the particular client but the presenting therapeutic issue. The therapist will count...
10… 9… 8… you are going deeper and deeper… 7… 6… 5… deeper down into the valley… 4… 3… deeper into the depths of your own mind… 2… 1… 0… You are now in a deep, beautifully relaxed state of mind… In a moment’s time… I will say the word NOOW… when I say the word NOOW… you will be in an even deeper state of mind… and you will be at…
… and the client will be taken to their special internal place from where the past life journey can commence:
- Some will be taken to the Hall of Records, or a similar place that holds the Akashic Library. Here, scrolls and manuscripts can be found that hold the records of bygone lives for those who are destined to come here in the future and look for clues about the past.
- Others, who are perhaps interested in their connection to a particular place, will be guided to lift up from their current body, see the Earth underneath as a Rotating Globe and descend to the place that has the answer to their therapeutic question.
- An illuminating inner adventure can also start with visiting the Antique Shop. It is just a small, insignificant-looking little shack next to a dusty bus stop out there, where the mountains begin – but inside it is special. In there, you can pick from various items on display, something you have owned once upon a time…
- Similarly to the Antique Shop, we can visit the Museum, filled with artefacts of the past, where the items may have labels on them, giving a first hint about their use, as well as the time and space they originate from. All the items in the Museum belong to the visitors’ karmic past. Sometimes whole rooms or houses of the past can be found here and as the visitor walks around, these once-inhabited places slowly come back to life...
- According to tradition, it was from the Knights Templar that we have inherited the method of visiting the Celestial Sanctum, where we can remember things that occurred before our birth. It is a long journey to get there. Like in katathymic-imaginative psychotherapy, the inner traveller walks on a path through a meadow, and eventually will begin to ascend a mountain, first through a pine forest, then through thinning vegetation, all the way up into the sky, where among the clouds, the sanctum awaits…
There is no limit, only in imagination, how many ways and paths can lead the mind into past lives. The method that will work the best is the one that is best tailored to the individual person’s individual case. Sometimes, we may need special techniques to locate the issue on the timeline:
- The Planet of the Crossroads is a great technique to let the unconscious mind decide whether the key to a problem is in a past life, in the present life, or the future. In this visualisation, we take a spaceship to a special planet with a long walking path, eventually coming to a crossroad: Turning left, takes us into a past life; straight ahead, into the present life (in form of age regression); going right, into the future.
- Similarly, if we don’t yet know where we shall go in time (past life or age regression), we may find the magic photo-album. In it, pictures come to life and take you back in time (this life or a past life) either where the presenting problem originated from, or where its solution can be found.
Among the countless variations of imagery that can be used – all of which can be tailored to the individual client and the particulars of the case – my favourite involves diving into a lake filled with the Mist of Time. The mist represents a metaphysical Emptiness: ‘not an empty emptiness but an Emptiness filled with all possibilities of creation.’ This image of a Mist of Time as Emptiness is powerful, especially as it resonates with various indigenous ideas of an ancient yet eternal spacetime (‘everywhen’), like the Aboriginal Dreamtime, from which the world was dreamt into being, or the Pachamama in the Andean cosmology. It can also evoke the Buddhist concept of Emptiness (śūnyatā in Sanskrit) of which spiritually advanced clients may have direct experience. For many, the Mist of Time connects to the ageless knowing about phenomena lacking intrinsic existence and independent self-nature. For past life explorations, this archetypal image helps dissolve fixed views and identification with the present life personality and circumstances. Walking into the lake filled with the Mist of Time also helps, as a type of progressive relaxation, to deepen the trance:
You can now… slowly walk into the lake… it has a secret… that it is not filled with water… but with the Mist of Time… as you go in there… the mist is surrounding your feet… you go deeper… deeper and deeper… your feet… your legs… your hips… and chest… get heavy and relaxed… finally with your head… all dived in… you can breathe easily in this mist… soft and safe… you notice… you are surrounded by Emptiness… but this is not an empty emptiness… but an Emptiness that is filled with all possibilities of creation…
Here, in the Mist of Time, the past life traveller is in an ideal state to invoke the therapeutic aim of the session. Hence, they are invited to repeat their presenting question, phrase, or recall the relevant emotion or energy. Their intent will move them forward, until they arrive at ‘the other shore, in another place, at another time.’
Now... I would like you to grab your most powerful intent… to go… where you can find the answer… to… […] until you feel… that your intent is taking you in a certain direction… let it take you… until you feel that you have arrived… somewhere else… at another shore… where you are someone… at another time… in another space… where you will find your answer to [repeat trigger]
Usually, there is a sense of movement into a certain direction (the meaning of which has not yet come to me, although it seems significant and different in every situation), which ultimately culminates in a sense of arrival.
Here, at the ‘shore,’ the client may immediately pick up some impressions from a past life, even launch into a story, but if not, it can be helped with some targeted questions, such as asking what kind of footwear the person is wearing to gain a first impression about a bygone life. Here is an example:
- Now I would like you to look down at your own feet. What are you wearing: some kind of footwear, shoes, anything at all?
- Some pointy shoes.
- Pointy shoes, all right. What are they made of?
- Leather.
- Can you see what colour they are?
- Deer-brown.
- Now that you can see this footwear, look a bit higher up: what are you wearing on your legs? Are they covered by anything?
- (surprised) I look like a clown!
- Can you see whether you're male or female?
- Male.
- Describe the rest of your attire.
- Colourful top, funny hat, a drum in my hands.
Therapeutic Intervention
At the beginning of the inner journey, the traveller can find themselves ‘dropped’ into any scene – sometimes, the connection to the session’s intent is clear, other times it becomes apparent only later. The scenarios can be expected or entirely surprising, sometimes bizarre, frightening, or bewildering. I’ve had clients who suddenly found themselves sold by their parents or killing their children with the enemy closing in. Others have experienced being tied to the ground, eyelids cut off, forced to stare into the sun while dying slowly. Some have landed in the middle of a Vietnam War combat zone or been abandoned in a scorching, desolate village in the Middle East. One client struggled to speak as he relived being kidnapped by an unknown tribe as a child, while another was paralysed with fear, alone in an underground prehistoric hiding place.
Tortured to Death
Hayashi, an advanced spiritual practitioner in his current life – a senior Buddhist monk as well as an 8th Dan karate master – wanted to find out about his intense sensitivity to torture scenes, even in films. (He could not sit to finish watching movies such as Braveheart, where the storyline involved the hero being tortured to death.) His past life regression journey took him into a jungle setting, where he found himself tied to a post and wounded by others.
What is the purpose of remembering something terrible like this? How does one deal with the ‘karmic’ memory of being tortured to death? All too often, past life journeys take one into shadowy encounters with traumatic events whose effects linger on over multiple lifetimes. The purpose is not merely to remember but to heal these wounds of the past. Typically, the healing process undergoes four stages, the names of which vary between different therapists, yet describe a similar process.
In the first stage of identification, the client experiences internally a re-living of past-life event(s). It is common at this stage to cry, express fear, or else abreact powerful emotions. Hayashi felt emotionally deeply affected by his memory of being tortured. He was not alone with this: In my experience, having tears flowing during a first past life recall is more common than not to have them. Some therapists, like Woolger, insist on proper abreaction and believe the more dramatic it is the better; others, like Fiore, say that the recall of the experience itself is therapeutic. Preferable is to take the golden middle way, allowing the memory to come up fully to ‘discharge the energy tied up’ with it but with a safety cushion:
That is all right… allow those tears to flow… you are there… while you are also here… in a safe place… you have the resources to transmute this experience… you have a friend now…everything is all right… you can allow all your experiences and emotions to emerge… while you know… that ultimately you are safe
This approach imbues the traumatic situation with a sense of safety, by bringing in the present Self as well as the therapist to stand by as helper and friend. It also allows the client to gradually shift into a witness position, which marks the next phase of the healing process. From the witness position, deeper cognitive changes can occur: patterns can be restructured and reframed, furthermore, significant conscious insight can be gained. The revival of the death moment in a particular lifetime – especially by exploring the predominant thought or feeling at the moment of death – can provide great clarity into the nature of the pattern that is waiting for understanding and healing.
To Hayashi, after he had re-experienced being killed at that improvised torture post, I suggested to go to the actual moment of his death and asked the all-important question:
This detached feeling is not the same as disinterest or post-traumatic dissociation, which is a self-protection mechanism used to distance oneself from the pain that would be too much to experience in the given moment. Here, Hayashi encountered a part of himself that is ‘older than the experience’ – that is behind the experience. It is the experiencer beyond (self-)identification: it is consciousness itself. It is the eternal, timeless I am. Having found this vantage point signifies the next stage of the healing process, at which events can be observed from the witness position and underlying patterns can be explored. In this state, the person regains awareness of an existence greater than a single-lifetime identity.
Reaching this transpersonal moment, Hayashi was ready to fully disengage from the original horror the experience held for him. This is the time of the therapeutic process when evolutionary learning and (self-)development occur. At this point, Hayashi learned of a truth that is not only relevant for him personally, but for the entire cosmic evolution of consciousness. The monk revealed to him:
‘Those individuals who have experienced deep, traumatic pain, will offer the most powerful
lessons for people to break away from all the trances of social conditioning. Such people
know the effects of such trance states.’
Finally, Hayashi reached the healing conclusion:
I was supposed to go through these traumas!
Tortured to Death
Hayashi, an advanced spiritual practitioner in his current life – a senior Buddhist monk as well as an 8th Dan karate master – wanted to find out about his intense sensitivity to torture scenes, even in films. (He could not sit to finish watching movies such as Braveheart, where the storyline involved the hero being tortured to death.) His past life regression journey took him into a jungle setting, where he found himself tied to a post and wounded by others.
- Can you see or feel your body?
- Yes. I'm bleeding from wounds on my body, on my chest and at my side. I can see blood going out. I’m tied to a post.
- Who tied you there?
- I encountered a group here in the jungle. I was comfortable here, but as it just happened down the path, I encountered this group... don’t know who they are, but I don’t have a good feeling about seeing them. I get a sense of panic because I don't think I'm capable of escaping. I'm not part of their tribe. They made it look like it's all OK, but they just want to get closer to me. My options aren’t good: I’m running, terrified. This is all just a thrill for them! They don’t care about my life a bit. They set a post, tie me up... one of them has a knife and sticks it into my right side, my lungs collapse. This is extreme terror, I just want to be somewhere else. Now I remember: I was tortured to death!
What is the purpose of remembering something terrible like this? How does one deal with the ‘karmic’ memory of being tortured to death? All too often, past life journeys take one into shadowy encounters with traumatic events whose effects linger on over multiple lifetimes. The purpose is not merely to remember but to heal these wounds of the past. Typically, the healing process undergoes four stages, the names of which vary between different therapists, yet describe a similar process.
In the first stage of identification, the client experiences internally a re-living of past-life event(s). It is common at this stage to cry, express fear, or else abreact powerful emotions. Hayashi felt emotionally deeply affected by his memory of being tortured. He was not alone with this: In my experience, having tears flowing during a first past life recall is more common than not to have them. Some therapists, like Woolger, insist on proper abreaction and believe the more dramatic it is the better; others, like Fiore, say that the recall of the experience itself is therapeutic. Preferable is to take the golden middle way, allowing the memory to come up fully to ‘discharge the energy tied up’ with it but with a safety cushion:
That is all right… allow those tears to flow… you are there… while you are also here… in a safe place… you have the resources to transmute this experience… you have a friend now…everything is all right… you can allow all your experiences and emotions to emerge… while you know… that ultimately you are safe
This approach imbues the traumatic situation with a sense of safety, by bringing in the present Self as well as the therapist to stand by as helper and friend. It also allows the client to gradually shift into a witness position, which marks the next phase of the healing process. From the witness position, deeper cognitive changes can occur: patterns can be restructured and reframed, furthermore, significant conscious insight can be gained. The revival of the death moment in a particular lifetime – especially by exploring the predominant thought or feeling at the moment of death – can provide great clarity into the nature of the pattern that is waiting for understanding and healing.
To Hayashi, after he had re-experienced being killed at that improvised torture post, I suggested to go to the actual moment of his death and asked the all-important question:
- What is your predominant thought or feeling in the moment of death?
- I’m thinking that I don’t want that to ever happen again. Then I’m going far away. I want to be safe, I want to be free. I want to understand why such things happen. I have no sense of revenge or anger, I just want to prevent anything like this from happening again. I’m keeping to myself and observing. I’m replaying all my feelings. There must be a sensitivity that allows a person to avoid negative energy. Some part of me, throughout this experience, seems very detached, ancient, cosmic, supportive, despite the terror – it feels older than the experience.
This detached feeling is not the same as disinterest or post-traumatic dissociation, which is a self-protection mechanism used to distance oneself from the pain that would be too much to experience in the given moment. Here, Hayashi encountered a part of himself that is ‘older than the experience’ – that is behind the experience. It is the experiencer beyond (self-)identification: it is consciousness itself. It is the eternal, timeless I am. Having found this vantage point signifies the next stage of the healing process, at which events can be observed from the witness position and underlying patterns can be explored. In this state, the person regains awareness of an existence greater than a single-lifetime identity.
- I can sense somebody here, in this bardo state, somebody here before me, who was praying to reduce my suffering.
- Go to that person… Noow…
- (Emotional.) I’m looking at this person from a distance of maybe a hundred feet. He is like a monk with a shaved head, wears brown robes and is kneeling, surrounded by scriptures and candles. He knows that I am there, he knew that I was coming, he knows who I am and… I am him!
Reaching this transpersonal moment, Hayashi was ready to fully disengage from the original horror the experience held for him. This is the time of the therapeutic process when evolutionary learning and (self-)development occur. At this point, Hayashi learned of a truth that is not only relevant for him personally, but for the entire cosmic evolution of consciousness. The monk revealed to him:
‘Those individuals who have experienced deep, traumatic pain, will offer the most powerful
lessons for people to break away from all the trances of social conditioning. Such people
know the effects of such trance states.’
Finally, Hayashi reached the healing conclusion:
I was supposed to go through these traumas!
Healing Transformations
By progressing through the stages of past life healing – moving beyond personal involvement in deeply painful experiences and ascending to higher levels where one can observe patterns and disengage – the past life traveller becomes an adept. This process is not only about healing; it represents the evolution of consciousness in action. The perspective of the person shifts from the ‘skin-encapsulated’ ego to a transpersonal dimension. This ‘shifting of gears’ (Blake Lucas) is called in adult development theory the subject-object shift: The subject at one stage becomes the object of the subject at the next stage. At the beginning, Hayashi identified with the tortured boy (subject), reliving the painful situation. Later, as he moved into a more disengaged, transpersonal stage, the boy became the object of his observation. Finally, both the boy and his present Self became objects of scrutiny from the higher-self perspective of the monk. This subject-object shift is a well-observed process in human development, which happens naturally, but can be accelerated through evolutionary understanding. Past life therapy provides an excellent alchemical laboratory for learning about and facilitating such shifts.
This kind of work is magic – a form of inner engineering. The shift Hayashi made, guided by his own mental imagery, can be facilitated by various techniques that aim to change one’s (internal) thoughts, sentiments, and energies in order to create (external) changes in that person’s life. The following techniques are particularly powerful. They allow the aspirant to get into the mind of the opponent, find the positive intent, reframe the situation, or work with the different parts of the psyche that are involved.
This kind of work is magic – a form of inner engineering. The shift Hayashi made, guided by his own mental imagery, can be facilitated by various techniques that aim to change one’s (internal) thoughts, sentiments, and energies in order to create (external) changes in that person’s life. The following techniques are particularly powerful. They allow the aspirant to get into the mind of the opponent, find the positive intent, reframe the situation, or work with the different parts of the psyche that are involved.
Getting into the Mind of the Opponent
Therapist Hazel Dunning describes a case similar to Hayashi’s as it also involves a torturous, traumatic death from a past life. One of her clients, Lois, remembered an incarnation in which she was burned at the stake, accused of being an evil witch after she attempted to heal a baby with herbs and the laying on of hands. The priests who led her to the execution told her that she could never be forgiven and her soul would burn in hell forever. After the painful remembrance, the therapist asked Lois to use her intuition and get into the minds and feelings of those priests and see what prompted their actions at the time. To her surprise, Lois discovered that the priests did not hate but were genuinely afraid of her, as they believed she was indeed working with the devil. As a result of this insight, Lois could release her deep-seated feeling of guilt and could see her healing talent as something good and worthwhile to pursue.
Getting into the mind of the opponent instigates an internal shift from the ‘skin-encapsulated’ ego perspective to a more universal and transpersonal view. Something similar occurs naturally after death, as we know from the famous life review reported by those who had a near-death experience. After death, the traveller of the bardo realm gets the chance to review the life they just departed by seeing every event not only from their own perspective but everyone else’s involved. Undoubtedly, there is an evolutionary purpose. Gaining a holistic view as a basis of all compassion and empathy is a universal value that is expressed in virtually every religion as the Golden Rule: In the Bible, it says: ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you’. In the Talmud, we can find a negative formulation of the same principle: ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation, go and learn.’
The rest is explanation, go and learn… This is precisely the kind of learning that unfolds when we explore past lives. The intricate web of consciousness unfolds its experimental learning from life to life, moving closer to what it wants, away from all it does not want. The Golden Rule may be simple in theory but it is complex in practice. The priests, for example, who burned the natural healer at the stake as a witch, may not have done anything to her they did not wish upon themselves – to rid the body of the devil at any price – yet their ignorance caused tremendous suffering. As we mature, we learn to see things from different perspectives. Mental health becomes a function of evolutionary learning.
Getting into the mind of the opponent instigates an internal shift from the ‘skin-encapsulated’ ego perspective to a more universal and transpersonal view. Something similar occurs naturally after death, as we know from the famous life review reported by those who had a near-death experience. After death, the traveller of the bardo realm gets the chance to review the life they just departed by seeing every event not only from their own perspective but everyone else’s involved. Undoubtedly, there is an evolutionary purpose. Gaining a holistic view as a basis of all compassion and empathy is a universal value that is expressed in virtually every religion as the Golden Rule: In the Bible, it says: ‘Do to others what you would have them do to you’. In the Talmud, we can find a negative formulation of the same principle: ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation, go and learn.’
The rest is explanation, go and learn… This is precisely the kind of learning that unfolds when we explore past lives. The intricate web of consciousness unfolds its experimental learning from life to life, moving closer to what it wants, away from all it does not want. The Golden Rule may be simple in theory but it is complex in practice. The priests, for example, who burned the natural healer at the stake as a witch, may not have done anything to her they did not wish upon themselves – to rid the body of the devil at any price – yet their ignorance caused tremendous suffering. As we mature, we learn to see things from different perspectives. Mental health becomes a function of evolutionary learning.
Inner Alchemy: Finding the Positive Intent
It was the famous psychiatrist, C.G. Jung, who first observed the psycho-spiritual background of alchemy. What if – he suggested – the making of gold from base metals, the finding of the philosopher’s stone, and the elixir of life were not merely worldly but rather spiritual pursuits? He noticed that the symbols of the alchemical process translate to archetypal events of the psyche and stages of the internal journey Jung called individuation. It is a path towards self-realisation and wholeness, involving the integration of various parts of the psyche, most notably the shadow (suppressed traits), and finding one’s most authentic purpose. The Jungian idea of the psyche as an alchemical vessel, in which our lower traits (‘lead’) are transformed into universal value (‘gold’) constitutes a fundamental break from previous psychoanalytic thinking. Freud may have thought that by healing various neuroses, mental health is restored – but Jung went deeper. He understood the incompleteness of the human condition in its present form. Just like Buddha acknowledged the truth of suffering, they both saw life as the opportunity to find the way out of suffering. In other words, as they acknowledged the incompleteness of the human condition, they could also see it as a transformational, evolutionary process.
There is tremendous healing power in this approach. It allows us, humans, to shape our lives by setting the significance of every situation, whether we perceive it as good or bad. The evolutionary aspect gives life its direction: Gradually, we learn to steer away from the unwanted and move towards the wanted. The metaphor of driving a car works well: It does not matter much how fast we are driving, if we stop on the way or not, what matters is the direction we steer the wheel into. Even a small adjustment, made with a small movement of our hands, would make all the difference where we end up.
In order to stir away from the unwanted, we must examine the past critically, at the same time with compassion. This is especially true in cases, where past trauma comes from events in which the client was not the victim but the perpetrator. Committing crimes and atrocities can leave the consciousness burdened over many lifetimes. One way to overcome – and to learn from feelings of shame, guilt, and self-hatred – is to find the positive intent behind the actions, see their evolutionary value, find antidotes, and foster self-forgiveness.
Hitlerjugend
Tia remembered a past life in which he was a sports trainer in Nazi Germany, who worked for various Nazi organisations, such as the Hitlerjugend and later the SS. Gradually, he recalled committing various crimes not only against humans, but even animals which began to weigh heavily on him. The therapeutic aim was to learn from the past, in order to never commit such atrocities again; at the same time, regain his self-composure to move toward a more positive future.
The Nazis, as many past life travellers attest with their remembrances, have created the invert versions of the Buddhist practices in compassion and empathy: They designed exercises, as clever as they were cruel, to desensitize the human heart. They set measures that worked against the healthy, positive evolution of the human spirit. Their black magic is so shocking that it brings up nothing but feelings of remorse, shame, and guilt in those who have belonged to it. How could there be any sort of positive intention behind such things?
There is tremendous healing power in this approach. It allows us, humans, to shape our lives by setting the significance of every situation, whether we perceive it as good or bad. The evolutionary aspect gives life its direction: Gradually, we learn to steer away from the unwanted and move towards the wanted. The metaphor of driving a car works well: It does not matter much how fast we are driving, if we stop on the way or not, what matters is the direction we steer the wheel into. Even a small adjustment, made with a small movement of our hands, would make all the difference where we end up.
In order to stir away from the unwanted, we must examine the past critically, at the same time with compassion. This is especially true in cases, where past trauma comes from events in which the client was not the victim but the perpetrator. Committing crimes and atrocities can leave the consciousness burdened over many lifetimes. One way to overcome – and to learn from feelings of shame, guilt, and self-hatred – is to find the positive intent behind the actions, see their evolutionary value, find antidotes, and foster self-forgiveness.
Hitlerjugend
Tia remembered a past life in which he was a sports trainer in Nazi Germany, who worked for various Nazi organisations, such as the Hitlerjugend and later the SS. Gradually, he recalled committing various crimes not only against humans, but even animals which began to weigh heavily on him. The therapeutic aim was to learn from the past, in order to never commit such atrocities again; at the same time, regain his self-composure to move toward a more positive future.
- What did you do?
- We killed dogs. (Struggling and emotional.) It was part of the training program.
- Training program?
- Yes. We raised these dogs from the time they were little puppies, at home. We trained them and bonded with them. When they turned one (year old), on command, we shot them.
- Why?
- To demonstrate our loyalty to the Führer.
The Nazis, as many past life travellers attest with their remembrances, have created the invert versions of the Buddhist practices in compassion and empathy: They designed exercises, as clever as they were cruel, to desensitize the human heart. They set measures that worked against the healthy, positive evolution of the human spirit. Their black magic is so shocking that it brings up nothing but feelings of remorse, shame, and guilt in those who have belonged to it. How could there be any sort of positive intention behind such things?
- In a moment’s time… I will count from 0 up to 5… by the time I reach the number 5… you will be in contact with your Higher Self […] Ask your Higher Self: What was the positive intent behind the Nazi ideology?
- (surprised) Yes! The original idea of the Übermensch as described by Nietzsche, is evolutionary – that we can become something better than we are today. The Nazis corrupted this idea through their murderous, racial exclusiveness. But we can bring back the possibility of evolving beyond our current level of humanness – if we make it inclusive for every sentient being, the idea can be salvaged.
Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness
Thomas, who also remembered a Nazi past – yes, I lived before... yes, I was a Nazi... yes, I worked in a concentration camp – said that self-forgiveness was one of the big lessons he had to learn from his karmic experiences. He shares the sentiment of many karmic perpetrators, namely that his residual guilt and shame caused him to live a lower profile life. Despite having chosen to be Jewish in this current life, he always felt alienated. Interestingly, Thomas met two of his former victims, who remembered him as a Nazi and granted him their forgiveness! Yet, he understood that he must find his own self-forgiveness, ‘healing and rest.
Reframing
Redemption is not something we expect to hear a lot about in the therapeutic context; our conditioning places the idea into the religious realm, where it signifies some form of deliverance from sin or wrongdoing. Yet, if we weave further the Jungian idea that human psychological development is naturally an alchemical-transformational process, then all our past mistakes, traumas, and moral injuries can be turned into rungs on the evolutionary ladder. This requires us to recognize and admit past wrongs, make amends, and turn towards the most positive intent involved in the situation.
Reframing is a well-known cognitive technique – which implies changing the perception of a situation from negative to something positive, while the facts remain unaltered – that can be used to achieve this evolutionary shift.
The Leopard Who Broke His Tooth
Gavin wanted to explore and shift his persistent feeling of a ‘spiritual base anxiety’ that made it difficult for him to enter relationships, as it made him attract but simultaneously repulse the connections he wanted. Using a particular hand gesture as a trigger (touching those fingers he tends to fidget with when in that state), we went in search of a past life memory as the origin for his anxiety.
This insight gave Gavin the chance to reframe his current problem as a resource: Instead of stressing himself over the anxiety he felt, he learned to see its value. In fact, it was a warning that something in his life went in the wrong (harmful) direction. From now on, he could use this kind of anxiety as a feedback mechanism, learning more about how his own intuition worked.
Reframing is a well-known cognitive technique – which implies changing the perception of a situation from negative to something positive, while the facts remain unaltered – that can be used to achieve this evolutionary shift.
The Leopard Who Broke His Tooth
Gavin wanted to explore and shift his persistent feeling of a ‘spiritual base anxiety’ that made it difficult for him to enter relationships, as it made him attract but simultaneously repulse the connections he wanted. Using a particular hand gesture as a trigger (touching those fingers he tends to fidget with when in that state), we went in search of a past life memory as the origin for his anxiety.
- Look at your body: in what kind of body are you now?
- It’s very flexible and agile; it can swiftly jump on rocks. Cat-like… I have cat-like paws that are very soft.
- How does it feel to be in this body?
- Predatory. Vigilant, then burst into action. Pliant, crouches low, lots of joy in movement. Playful.
- What do you do?
- Climb trees. Don’t see anyone else. I’m alone, a leopard. I stretch out among the branches of a tree. It feels homey.
- How do you spend your day?
- I observe… stalk… suddenly, there’s a shot fired. Practically, I was shot. I felt a blunt hit, then I lie there.
- Are you still alive?
- Not sure. Life is leaving. It happened so suddenly. After that blunt hit… it’s just a big piece of warm meat – as if a big piece of warm meat had fallen onto me. I’m looking at it now from above.
- What thoughts or emotions, or thought-like or emotion-like qualities are you perceiving in this moment?
- Confusion. What did I do wrong? Why? I don’t understand…
- Is there anything else you can tune into now?
- I harmed someone. I was biting through someone’s spine and neck, from behind. As I do, my tooth breaks. It’s a warning of a karmic burden.
- What creates the karmic burden?
- To have attacked a human or human-like creature. She is female, blonde and fragile. The attack was sudden, she got very scared. It was such sudden vulnerability!
- I am now going to count from 0 up to 5, by the time I reach the number 5, you will call the Higher Intelligence that can give you insight about the connection between the life of the leopard and Gavin. o...1...2...3...4...5
- Breaking of the tooth was a sign that I was with another conscious being I should not have hurt. If we are on the same wavelength, you shouldn’t hunt them. Vulnerability is good only when the other is not abusing it. As Gavin, I broke my tooth when my ex-girlfriend wanted me to go with her on a long journey that wasn’t my path. I was hurting her, by giving false assurances. Yesterday, I broke my tooth again, when I tried to connect to people with whom we were not quite right for each other. Hence, I felt that anxiety, that sense of connection but also repulsion.
- How can you interpret your anxiety in this light?
- It’s a warning. It’s good that I have it because it gives me information whether I am doing the right thing with the right people, or not. I can use it as a resource.
This insight gave Gavin the chance to reframe his current problem as a resource: Instead of stressing himself over the anxiety he felt, he learned to see its value. In fact, it was a warning that something in his life went in the wrong (harmful) direction. From now on, he could use this kind of anxiety as a feedback mechanism, learning more about how his own intuition worked.
Parts Work
Advanced, modern psychology acknowledges that the human psyche is neither a single, homogenous entity, nor as simply divided as a Freudian tripartite model like that of the id, ego, and superego might suggest. We can certainly visualise the psyche in such a way – like a tree rooted in the instinctual unconscious, with the ego as the trunk, growing high up into the realm of the superego or Higher Self. But a tree also has many branches that developed at different times of our lives. These branches serve or served different purposes of the psyche, sometimes crucially important, even life-saving ones. Often, they grew out of childhood situations, when the child had to navigate a world in which their caregivers were unable or unwilling to provide adequate protection.
Using a different metaphor, these parts of the psyche can be seen as various programs that were written and installed into the mind at different times, to address different needs. Even after a program becomes obsolete, it can be triggered by situations that present a similar threat or problem-solving challenge. The key point about these programs, or parts, is that they were all created with a positive intention. They are not enemies of the Self, but may interfere with goals and aspirations when they take control in conflicting ways.
In various situations, people can act from different parts of their psyche. When they are centred and connected to their purpose, they are more likely to act in healthy ways that benefit not only themselves, but also those around them. However, factors like tiredness, stress, distractions, social pressure, or triggering events can pull them away from this centred state, causing them to act from conditioned, reactive parts of their psyche. The goal is not to fight any of these parts, but to align them so they can mutually support the person’s most authentic expression and highest purpose.
In the past life context, parts can be seen as energy or thought forms inherited from the past. When a given part is detected to cause problems in the present life, it can be identified, reconciled with the part that can help (so-called resource part) and re-integrated into the psyche. During parts therapy, the problem part and the resource part are given space to have an internal conversation during which their aims are aligned.
Whore or Nun?
Renata, who suffered from terrible menstrual cramps, remembered a series of past lives which left a burden on her sexuality: She remembered being a hairy prehistoric man who made one of his wife’s life miserable; a Renaissance money-lender who joyously killed his sexual assailant; and the daughter of a whore who became a frustrated nun. In other lives, she spent her sexual energy elsewhere, like bringing up foster kids or treating writing – her recurring, evolving skill – like an intimate partner. In this life, she felt a lot of repression of her sexual energy (the ‘fluidity’ is lacking), which also led to weight gain and the inability to lose that weight.
After having soothed the problem part suppressing her sexuality into sleep, Renata reported that she has been losing weight, counting steps, and was feeling not so scared any more to do it.
Using a different metaphor, these parts of the psyche can be seen as various programs that were written and installed into the mind at different times, to address different needs. Even after a program becomes obsolete, it can be triggered by situations that present a similar threat or problem-solving challenge. The key point about these programs, or parts, is that they were all created with a positive intention. They are not enemies of the Self, but may interfere with goals and aspirations when they take control in conflicting ways.
In various situations, people can act from different parts of their psyche. When they are centred and connected to their purpose, they are more likely to act in healthy ways that benefit not only themselves, but also those around them. However, factors like tiredness, stress, distractions, social pressure, or triggering events can pull them away from this centred state, causing them to act from conditioned, reactive parts of their psyche. The goal is not to fight any of these parts, but to align them so they can mutually support the person’s most authentic expression and highest purpose.
In the past life context, parts can be seen as energy or thought forms inherited from the past. When a given part is detected to cause problems in the present life, it can be identified, reconciled with the part that can help (so-called resource part) and re-integrated into the psyche. During parts therapy, the problem part and the resource part are given space to have an internal conversation during which their aims are aligned.
Whore or Nun?
Renata, who suffered from terrible menstrual cramps, remembered a series of past lives which left a burden on her sexuality: She remembered being a hairy prehistoric man who made one of his wife’s life miserable; a Renaissance money-lender who joyously killed his sexual assailant; and the daughter of a whore who became a frustrated nun. In other lives, she spent her sexual energy elsewhere, like bringing up foster kids or treating writing – her recurring, evolving skill – like an intimate partner. In this life, she felt a lot of repression of her sexual energy (the ‘fluidity’ is lacking), which also led to weight gain and the inability to lose that weight.
- Now I would like you to place your hands… with palms upwards… in your lap… Imagine a figure or a symbol to represent the part of you that cannot lose weight.
- The right. It’s a square with a circle in it.
- Ask that part: Why is it that it doesn’t want you to lose weight?
- Something got stuck, some energy… the sexual energy. Shame in the enjoyment of sex. […] You are more pure if you are suppressing sexuality. Then you are a saint.
- Go now to your left palm, and place a symbol on there for the part of you that wants you to lose weight and knows how to.
- That’s a rock, very nice, almost the size of my hand. I’m spinning. In order to lose weight, I must get that fluidity back. Relax and tune in to geo-energy. Walk more in nature, where there are more rocks. Rocks give me comfort, solid reassurance, and that is what I need. I also see a lot of lava, volcano, that is my home. […] [The problem part] is very stubborn.
- What can the rock do with it to help?
- Soothe it into sleep, in a comforting, motherly way, using almost like a euthanasia kind of solution. [Doing it, saying:] You’re safe. You no longer need to do that… you’re safe… you’re tired, you need to rest… be free… sexuality is no longer your concern...
After having soothed the problem part suppressing her sexuality into sleep, Renata reported that she has been losing weight, counting steps, and was feeling not so scared any more to do it.
Finding Resources from the Past
When we dive deep into the past, traumatic events easily come into our focus, demanding our attention and healing. However, the past does not only hold trouble and tragedy! There were also good times, when we may have had valuable skills and genuine, supportive relationships, perhaps access to healing or inspiring energies. It is possible to set the therapeutic intent to visit one of these resource lives, which does not only make for a safe and pleasurable session but can have tremendous therapeutic benefits. The resources of the past are often buried in sediments of contradictory conditionings from other lives, but can be unearthed with a bit of finesse and put to new use.
Awakening the Writer Within
Renata, whose weight loss problem we worked through by soothing her problem part, also wanted to work on unfolding her creative talent. In college, she was told by a professor that she could be a writer, the prospect of which filled her with glory and fear at the same time. At the time of her therapy, she wanted to write, but her ‘freaking perfectionism’ and ‘paralysis of analysis’ kept her from doing so, which she attributed to childhood bullying and growing up with many older brothers who kept criticising her. We went to search for her creative energy and talent in a past life. There, she saw herself as a young Frenchman, with light skin, freckles, and red hair…
We finished the session by taking all the energy of that intimate relationship with writing to fill her body. The week after, Renata reflected that afterwards, she started writing down on paper the sentence ‘My father got me ink because that made me the happiest.’ She wrote down the sentence over and over again, 200 times, and it felt almost orgasmic how she let the ink flow. ‘Now I carry a pen with me, everywhere I go,’ she said, ‘and write down everything.’
As we have seen in this chapter, the past life journey is not only a healing path, but an evolutionary process. The more we learn about the past, the more aligned we can become with our future purpose, and the more we can see evolutionary patterns unfolding in our lives.
In the following chapter, we shall explore these evolutionary patterns. What can past life regressions reveal not only to those who have undertaken them, but for us all: What do they show us about the potential we have as human beings, in the present, as well as in the future…
Awakening the Writer Within
Renata, whose weight loss problem we worked through by soothing her problem part, also wanted to work on unfolding her creative talent. In college, she was told by a professor that she could be a writer, the prospect of which filled her with glory and fear at the same time. At the time of her therapy, she wanted to write, but her ‘freaking perfectionism’ and ‘paralysis of analysis’ kept her from doing so, which she attributed to childhood bullying and growing up with many older brothers who kept criticising her. We went to search for her creative energy and talent in a past life. There, she saw herself as a young Frenchman, with light skin, freckles, and red hair…
- I live in a cabin somewhere in the woods, where the trees are my friends. It’s a very carefree life. I help my dad chop the wood. My mother died at birth, my father loves me and takes care of me. Something happened to my brain, autism or so. In that life, it feels, I was mentally challenged… […] I see myself writing with a quill. I don’t like talking too much: I feel, I’m mute… I could talk, but my brain doesn’t allow me to speak. But I love the trees so much, I need to write that down, that way it feels more meaningful. I’m writing the Diary of my Confession to the Trees. Writing is a relationship to me: a beautiful relationship, the intimacy of writing…
- Take some time and experience that relationship… NOWw.
- Wow, it is almost as if the ink, quill, and paper… gave me joy, so much joy. Each stroke is such a release, beautiful words to the beautiful trees. It’s an expression of love, how grateful I am for their existence. […]
- [In the in-between-lives state] Ask your Higher Self how you can bring that energy into your present life?
- It’s just a matter of getting started and connecting to that intimate feeling (like using head-phones to isolate myself). […] ‘Don’t try to ritualise it, don’t create a whole elaborate scenario, don’t overthink. In a true relationship, nothing needs to be thought too much, allow it to happen. It’s already there, it’s yours, just shift it open to let it flow.’
We finished the session by taking all the energy of that intimate relationship with writing to fill her body. The week after, Renata reflected that afterwards, she started writing down on paper the sentence ‘My father got me ink because that made me the happiest.’ She wrote down the sentence over and over again, 200 times, and it felt almost orgasmic how she let the ink flow. ‘Now I carry a pen with me, everywhere I go,’ she said, ‘and write down everything.’
As we have seen in this chapter, the past life journey is not only a healing path, but an evolutionary process. The more we learn about the past, the more aligned we can become with our future purpose, and the more we can see evolutionary patterns unfolding in our lives.
In the following chapter, we shall explore these evolutionary patterns. What can past life regressions reveal not only to those who have undertaken them, but for us all: What do they show us about the potential we have as human beings, in the present, as well as in the future…
Future Progressions
Effective reincarnational therapy involves reaching for and integrating a powerful future vision into one’s life. Past life work fulfils its potential when we connect the dots of the past with the issues of the present and the possibilities of the future. For that work, we have the techniques of future life progressions – visiting a future incarnation – as well as (pseudo-)orientation in time – advancing in time in the current life – available.
These techniques are not meant to serve as a divination tool but for making unconscious trajectories conscious. We may, for instance, ask: Where will I be in 10 years’ time if I continue the life I’m living? – We can then use the guided imagery of a time machine to travel to a future day and conduct a structured interview. If the life so seen is not satisfactory, we may come back into the present and ask: What sort of changes do I need to make to arrive in a different, better future? (These question, of course, can be specified to the individual situation and aim understanding that particular person’s existential program.)
Sometimes, a single session of this kind can fundamentally change a person’s behaviour or free them of an unwanted habit. One of my clients, Mark, had a gambling addiction. During his future session, he saw himself on the streets – lonely and homeless. In this future, his gambling habit would have caused him to lose his wife and their child. Horrified, he asked his Higher Self how he could change the timeline. The answer that emerged was to channel his entrepreneurial spirit and courage away from the casinos into starting his own enterprise. (This was also an example of discovering the positive intent: His addiction to gambling, misguided as it was, turned out to have its roots in his genuine desire to make good fortune for his family.) Two years later, he reported having established his own business and living happily with his wife and their toddler.
If we conduct multiple sessions, following regression work, we can connect the dots in order to find the person’s highest possible future, aligned with their existential program. The initial question can be: What is my life going to be like in X years’ time, when I’m on my highest path? Or: What could my life be like in x years’ time if I’m living my existential program to the fullest? Once that future is seen in a session, adjustments may need to be made. We can come back into the present and ask the person’s Higher Self (or internal guide) the ultimate transformational question: What do I need to do in the present to get onto (or stay on) that path?
These techniques are not meant to serve as a divination tool but for making unconscious trajectories conscious. We may, for instance, ask: Where will I be in 10 years’ time if I continue the life I’m living? – We can then use the guided imagery of a time machine to travel to a future day and conduct a structured interview. If the life so seen is not satisfactory, we may come back into the present and ask: What sort of changes do I need to make to arrive in a different, better future? (These question, of course, can be specified to the individual situation and aim understanding that particular person’s existential program.)
Sometimes, a single session of this kind can fundamentally change a person’s behaviour or free them of an unwanted habit. One of my clients, Mark, had a gambling addiction. During his future session, he saw himself on the streets – lonely and homeless. In this future, his gambling habit would have caused him to lose his wife and their child. Horrified, he asked his Higher Self how he could change the timeline. The answer that emerged was to channel his entrepreneurial spirit and courage away from the casinos into starting his own enterprise. (This was also an example of discovering the positive intent: His addiction to gambling, misguided as it was, turned out to have its roots in his genuine desire to make good fortune for his family.) Two years later, he reported having established his own business and living happily with his wife and their toddler.
If we conduct multiple sessions, following regression work, we can connect the dots in order to find the person’s highest possible future, aligned with their existential program. The initial question can be: What is my life going to be like in X years’ time, when I’m on my highest path? Or: What could my life be like in x years’ time if I’m living my existential program to the fullest? Once that future is seen in a session, adjustments may need to be made. We can come back into the present and ask the person’s Higher Self (or internal guide) the ultimate transformational question: What do I need to do in the present to get onto (or stay on) that path?