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Past life regression and healing
How real was my experience at the cave and
with the healing energy used by John of God? Modern psychology has little to
say about imagination, holistic perception or intuition. Most of the research
and therapeutic approaches focus on the left hemisphere of the brain that is
associated with rational thought, logic and verbal communication.
Western
culture has taught the superiority of these areas, leaving imagination to
artists, musicians and writers. When experiences like mine, or past life
memories, are discussed they are often dismissed as the result of imagination,
meaning that they have been invented or created.
Most
people when relaxed exhibit lower brain rhythms and find it easier to use their
intuition and imagination, but modern psychology does not know what they are or
where it comes from. In the early days of psychology Carl Jung referred to
imagination as an opening to the collective unconscious. He proposed this was a
storehouse of ancestral and past life memories. Taking another approach, the
psychiatrist Stanislov Grof worked with altered states of awareness. He
performed clinical trials with the drug LSD and found that many of the
participants spontaneously experienced previously inaccessible childhood
memories, pre-birth and past life memories. He later found that these altered
states could be achieved by using deep breathing exercises rather than LSD.1
Roberto
Assagioli, the founder of the therapy called Psychosynthesis and contributor to the branch of psychology called
transpersonal psychology, found that altered states could be achieved through
meditation. Using
imagination to explore other realities has been known throughout the history of
mankind. The Aborigines of Australia called it the dreamtime.
Shamanism
sees no distinction between the real and the imagined. The shaman enters into a
trance-like altered state of awareness, usually aided by rhythmic drumming.
Shamanism spans tens of thousands of years and covers the indigenous tribes
across all the continents. None of the ancient cultures left written records,
but we can still learn of their practices through those who are still living
and are willing to share their knowledge.
The
simple truth is that for most of our time on Earth, mankind has used
imagination and the lower brain waves experienced in altered states of
awareness as the gateway to intuition and other realities where past lives are
accessible. By sharpening our focus we are still all able to encounter these
realities outside the dimensions of the physical world. Just as we can travel
immediately when we use our imagination, when we tap into the memory store
where our past lives are stored we can travel there instantaneously. An analogy
is the command needed for a computer to access its memory. If the right command
is used, the right memory can be retrieved. In the case of past life memories,
the command is called a bridge and can be a guided imagery, a phrase, an emotion
or a physical sensation.
The Subtle Body – Energy Beyond the
Physical
How
does this work? Much of the history of physics and Western medicine has viewed
the human body as a solid object. This was turned upside down when Einstein in
his theory of relativity was able to demonstrate that the human body is simply
energy, as are all things. This is how ancient traditions see the physical
body, with an energy field around it called the subtle body consisting of
different layers of energy each with its own vibrations. An analogy is ice that can be in the solid form of ice
and still have water vapor around it. The difference between the ice and the
water vapor is the energy it possesses. In various parts of the world the
subtle body has been called chi, ki, prana, fohat, orgone, odic force and mana.
It cannot easily be measured using conventional instrumentation. The Russian’s
Krippner and Rubin reported into the phenomenon of energy around plants,
animals and humans in their book Galaxies
of Life These energy emanations
were recorded in their research by a controversial quasi-photographic process
called Kirlian photographs. An example was the phantom leaf that
proposed to show this energy.
A
psychic called Barbara Brennan relates in her book Hands of Light how she has been able to identify disease by her
observations of the subtle body as accurately as the most modern medical
equipment. The subtle body is credited with healing the physical body using a
technique called therapeutic touch that is used in some hospitals in America
and England. This has followed research demonstrating that the rate of healing
of surgical wounds can be increased when a healer’s hands are held several
inches away from the physical wound.
Traditional
methods have worked with the subtle body in healing for thousands of
years. Examples are the Chinese systems of meridians using acupuncture, and
more recently the Japanese energy healing called Reiki. Many of the
complementary and alternative therapies that are becoming increasingly popular
involve working with the flow of these subtle energies around the dense
physical body.
This
leads on to the topic of whether any of our consciousness resides in the subtle
body. Western science has nothing to say about this. The near death experience
of Patrick Tierney8 quoted in the Daily
Mail is a useful area to start, because it implies that consciousness may
not be tied to the physical body at all: Patrick
suffered a heart attack at the age of fifty-one. At the time he was already in
hospital hours after surviving a less serious heart attack earlier that day.
His near-death experience occurred while he was diagnosed as clinically dead.
He was oblivious to the drama going on around him as doctors at the Hillington
Hospital scrambled to save his life. They succeeded by re-starting his heart
with shocks from a defibrillator. He reported that it seemed as if he was
walking for a long time before he came to a junction and the tunnel went off in
two directions. To the left was pitch black and on his right was a very bright
light. He took the right-hand tunnel, which came out into a wonderful garden
full of beautiful colors. He had never seen anything like it in his life. In
the middle of the garden were his parents, and his mother-in-law came and
joined them [they had died between 1984 and 1990, before the near-death
experience]. He came to a gate and his dad told him not to go through the gate.
His mother just smiled, and then he found himself back in the dark tunnel and
the next thing he knew he could hear the woman calling his name. It was a nurse
from the hospital.
Experiences
such as these have been the source of much debate and controversy, centered on
whether they are hallucinations or a glimpse of the afterlife. The most common
theories supporting hallucination are that they are a physiological change
caused by the dying process. They could be caused by the release of endorphins,
a lack of brain oxygen, an increased level of carbon dioxide or the presence of
drugs. Another explanation is that it could be a psychological phenomenon
created by the patient in their hour of need.
Dr
Parvia and his team from the Horizon Research Foundation in Southampton General
Hospital in England worked with 63 survivors of cardiac arrest for a year. None
of the subjects had any change in the blood level of oxygen,
carbon dioxide, potassium or sodium. Low levels of any of these could cause
hallucinations. This negated the argument that low levels of oxygen or other
chemicals were the cause of the near-death experiences. They also interviewed
the patients about their religious and ethical beliefs. It turned out that the
seven subjects who had a near death experience were no more spiritual than the
other patients.
Cardiologist
Dr Pim van Lommel and his colleagues from the Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem,
Holland, did a more comprehensive study over 13 years.
They
investigated the experiences of 344 heart patients resuscitated after cardiac
arrest. All had been clinically dead at some point during their treatment. Of
these 62 patients reported a near-death experience and 41 a tunnel, light and
relatives.
During
their period of unconsciousness many had no electrical activity of the brain.
This meant that their memory recall of the experience could not be explained by
traditional scientific explanations. Follow-up questions 8 years later found
that they had less fear of death and a more spiritual outlook on life.
The
results were reported in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet.9 This is a
nurse’s account from the study: A
44-year-old man had been taken by ambulance to the hospital during the night
after being found in a meadow. He was in a deep coma and his skin was blue.
Medical staff and myself carried out artificial respiration, heart massage and
defibrillation, and when a tube was inserted in his mouth it was discovered he
was wearing dentures. I removed the dentures and put them in a ‘crash cart’.
After about an hour and a half the patient had sufficient heart rhythm and blood
pressure to be transferred to intensive care although he still needed
artificial respiration.
After
about a week I met the patient on the cardiac ward. The moment he saw me he
said that I knew where his dentures were: ‘Yes, you were there when I was brought
into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them into that
cart. It had all those bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer
underneath and there you put my teeth.’ I was especially amazed because I
remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of
resuscitation. When I asked further, it appeared the patient had seen himself
lying in bed from above.
He
also described correctly, and in detail, the small room in which he had been
resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the
time he had been very much afraid that we would stop the resuscitation
and that he would die. He was deeply impressed by his experience and no longer
afraid of death. Four weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man.
Near-death
experiences are more common than many realize, with over 8 million Americans
having experienced one.10 This growing evidence suggests that consciousness is
a separate entity from the physical brain. Of course further large studies are
needed to verify the research and bring these new concepts into mainstream
science. This is being spearheaded by an organization called the Scientific and
Medical Network, an international group based in 53 countries of 2,000
qualified scientists and doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and
other professionals. They hold conferences, publish articles and support
research into new areas.
Can Some Memories be Past Lives?
We
have seen how consciousness seems to be able to travel from the brain, so can
it link to a past life memory? Enter Dr Ian Stevenson, the former head of the
department of parapsychology at the University of Virginia. He has specialized
in collecting the past life stories from children around the world by
interviewing them and all the witnesses to their experience. This includes
looking for inconsistency or fraud by doing follow-up visits later to check for
signs of any personal gains that could account for deception. An example of one
of his cases is the account of Swarnlata Mishra, born in 1948 in the Madhya
district of India. This
is an extract from his book, Twenty Cases
Suggestive of Reincarnation: When
she was three years old, Swarnlata started having spontaneous past life
memories of being a girl called Biyi Pathak who lived in a village over 100
miles away. She recalled the details of the white house with four rooms, black
doors fitted with iron bars and a stone slab floor.
A
girl called Biyi was later found to have lived in the house Swarnlata
described, and had died nine years before Swarnlata had been born. She also
identified and named several of the family and servants when she visited the
house where Biyi had lived and wasn’t fooled by a trick when a non-relative was
introduced to her and posed as a relative of Biyi. She was even able to
remember the details of the previous life when she went to a wedding and had
difficulty finding a latrine. While the father did not discourage these
memories, no sign of motivation of deception could be
found.
A total of 49 separate points were collected about Swarnlata’s story and
verified by at least one independent witness. None of them could be explained
away except by reincarnation.
In
all, Ian Stevenson and his colleagues have painstakingly collected more than
2,600 cases from a wide range of cultures and religions around the world. Many
are from third-world countries where the children often live in isolated
villages without media intrusion. In this type of community they are isolated
from many of the variables that could be alternative explanations for
reincarnation. A total of 65 fully detailed cases have been published in his
books and 260 in articles.
The
eminent neuro-psychiatrist Dr Brian Weiss of the University of Miami staked his
reputation and career on the publication of the case of a client who recovered
rapidly when a past life surfaced spontaneously during a hypnosis session. His
book Many Lives Many Masters contains in-depth phenomenological accounts of the experiences and the
reduction of the client’s symptoms. The case eroded Weiss’s skepticism of past
lives and he concluded it didn’t matter whether a person believed in
reincarnation or not, they would always link to a past life story when invited
in the right way.
If
consciousness can survive death and access a past life memory, can it also link
to the memories between lives? Using deep hypnosis counseling psychologist Dr
Michael Newton found that these soul memories appeared to be brought to
conscious awareness following a past life regression. Calling it Life Between
Lives Spiritual Regression he worked
with thousands of clients during 30 years, publishing the research in two
widely read books, Destiny of Souls and
Journey of Souls.
The remarkable thing is that despite
dissimilar past lives, the clients would experience similar events between
lives. This includes reviews of the past life with spirit guides, planning for
the next life with spirits of light called ‘Elders’, and working with other
souls in groups.
This
all seems to confirm reincarnation, and a growing number of people in the
Western world now believe this. A study initiated by Professor Kerkhofs at the
University of Louvain in Belgium reviewed people’s beliefs in reincarnation in
Western Europe by using sample sizes of 1,000 in each country. The average
percentage of people believing in reincarnation across Europe was 22, with
highs of 41 in Iceland, 36 in Switzerland and 29 percent in the UK.
A Client’s Experience of Past Life
Regression
Much
energy and ingenuity can be spent trying to prove or disprove the validity of a
past life memory. Just as it’s not necessary for a therapist who works with
dreams to prove the scientific theory of dreams before they use it, the fact
that a client seems to have a memory of a past life does not require it to be
proved before working with them. The first responsibility of the therapist who
wishes to heal a client is to respect the integrity of the client’s own inner
world. Here is a case study to illustrate this:
Helen
was a 35-year-old intelligent and confident single woman. She worked in
industry as an accountant and was responsible for managing the business
accounts of her company. She had reoccurring thoughts of,
‘
They are taking away my children’,
which was strange because she had never had children herself. She would get
extremely angry and often tears would roll down her cheeks. Some days she was
unable to work and this had been going on for about 15 years. She also had
nightmares about stealing and had seen various therapists over the years but
the problems had remained.
After
taking her personal details the objectives for the therapy were agreed. The
first was to help reduce the frequency of the obsessive thoughts about the
children being taken away. The second was to deal with the recurring nightmares
about stealing.
Helen
was asked to lie down on a therapist’s couch, and repeat the phrase, ‘They are
taking away my children’ . She spontaneously had the images of being a
middle-aged mother in medieval England with no husband and living in a cottage
with two children. She described wearing a long shabby brown dress with her
hair tied back under a shawl, and healing people from the nearby village with
herbs in return for food.
Helen’s
voice took a different tone as she described a group of men looking like Quakers who burst into her house
accusing her of being a witch. The healer woman had her hands held behind her
back and was taken to a river and forced to lie face down on a plank by the
bank, with her hands tied under it. As the death was described Helen found it
difficult to breathe and her body went rigid. Clearly in distress, she was
taken through it quickly and her body visually relaxed. The healer woman had
died a traumatic death by drowning tied to the plank. Her dying thoughts were,
‘ I’m so sorry for the children. They
have taken my
children
from me. ’
The
healer woman found it peaceful as she left her body and looked down at it tied
to the plank with the Quaker men standing watching. She was asked to connect
with the spirits of her children and in the dialogue was able to say sorry for
leaving them. She was encouraged to check if the children understood what had
happened and discovered that another family had looked after them. It was
noticed that Helen still had grief in her chest and this was released when she
hugged the children with the help of a cushion used as a prop. Next she was
asked to connect with the spirits of the villagers. She was reluctant to meet
them all without the support of others, and then reported the image of them all
saying sorry.
When
she confronted the spirits of the Quakers the tone of Helen’s voice hardened as
she said the words, ‘ You had no right to
do that to me’ and was not ready to forgive.
Helen
was asked to go to another past life involving the Quakers. She spontaneously
reported a pain in her shoulder and had the images of being a male thief
wearing a black cloak who was trying to escape with stolen goods. The thief was
riding a horse and had just been shot in the shoulder by a crowd of people
chasing him. The horse turned and fell to the floor, also shot by a person in
the crowd. As the crowd arrived, Helen spontaneously recognized some of them as
the Quakers who had drowned the healer woman in the other past life. The thief
was tied by the hands and hung.
Following
his death, the thief was asked to meet the spirits of the crowd who had chased
and shot him. He needed to say sorry for what he had done and promised never to
steal again. Helen was asked to go back to the first past life and could now
forgive the Quakers for what they had done.
Helen
recognized patterns between the past life story and her current one. Also she
recognized a pattern between the water from the drowning and a phobia of water
from her current life. When she was a child, Helen would scream when her mother
tried to bath her or wash her hair in a basin of water. Another pattern was a
difficulty standing up to men in authority like the Quakers.
After
the therapy session Helen reported that the reoccurring nightmares of stealing
and the thoughts of having her children taken away had completely stopped. Also
she was no longer scared of water. A businessman had accused Helen of bumping
her car into his while parking. She said, ‘ Previously
my legs would have turned to jelly with
a male figure of authority but I was
able to hold my ground and tell him it was
just as much his fault. ’ A year later she was still a changed woman.
Had
Helen remembered a past life or had she displaced a painful childhood memory of
her mother trying to wash her hair? Perhaps her psyche had somehow freely
associated with a universal past memory from the English Middle Ages. All these
explanations are possible. However, the important point is that by giving
Helen’s psyche full permission to follow its own resonance and associations she
was able to come to a place of resolution and the remission of her symptoms. It
is not trying to prove the truth of the story that is important in therapy,
more allowing the story’s therapeutic power to heal.
Excerpt from Healing the Eternal Soul Insights from Past life and Spiritual Regression by
Andy Tomlinson
Pliase call for an appointment on +919952106467
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