WILL I RETAIN CONTROL OF THE PROCESS?
It all depends on the method used and on the individual therapist. Some regression therapists are strongly directive, retaining control of the process at all times; others work with a client-centred approach that allows the client to work at their own pace and in their own way (with help or direction from the therapist when needed).
CAN OTHER PEOPLE ‘SEE’ MY PAST LIVES?
Yes. Psychics, astrologers and shamans all have ways of reading past lives for other people. I use a combination of astrology and far memory to do karmic readings, for example. When I first started doing this work I would see lives unrolling in front of my eyes just like watching a film. It was most graphic. If I looked at someone’s face, I would see their past life faces superimposed. I still use this ability, but now ‘see’ much more subjectively, and often work without meeting my client face to face.
FAR MEMORY
The psychic ability to tune into other lives, whether one’s own or other people’s.
Some psychics and shamans use ‘far memory’, some contact your Higher Self, others contact a guide who knows your past, while others may use a ‘set formula’. One astrological approach has a formula which purports to tell you exactly who you were, whilst karmic astrology identifies your patterns and probable experiences but not the precise detail of your lives. People reading for you may use the aura, the Akashic Record or the birthchart, or journey into other realms to gather information. These readings can be extremely useful in giving you an overview, or in pinpointing particular problems. Sometimes simply knowing, accepting at a deep inner level: “This is true for me,” is enough to recognize the root cause or change the pattern. At other times this is a starting point for personal regression work. Indeed, some regressionists work by tuning into a past life for you and having you tune in too.
GUIDES
Guides are discarnate beings, that is they inhabit the spiritual dimensions rather than the physical. They come to assist us when required. It is widely believed that our guides are souls who have known us in other lives, although it is also possible that they are another aspect of ourself.
There are psychics who can enter into the other life with you, using their energy to bring about change. They are fully involved with you as you were then, feeling what you felt (or feel, if you yourself are doing the regression). At a subtle level they heal the past and you receive the benefit in your present life. Joan Grant and Christine Hartley frequently utilized this approach. I may do so myself during karmic readings or regression sessions but I prefer to facilitate my clients doing the work themselves in regression as I believe we each need to take responsibility for our own healing. Shamans, particularly those using North or South American Indian methods, may well journey to your past lives, ‘recovering’ a lost part of yourself, bringing it back and helping you to integrate this into your present life.
THE AKASHIC RECORD
The Akashic Record is an esoteric narrative of all that has been, and will be. It is woven into the fabric of the universe. It encompasses all possibilities. It can be ‘read’ by psychics, amongst others, to give details of past lives and present purpose.
THE HIGHER SELF
The eternal, spiritual part of us that is immortal and which, because it experiences all our lives, contains our totality of being. It is ‘higher’ because it is vibrating at a faster rate than the physical body.
THE ADVANTAGES AND THE DANGERS
The advantage of any form of past life therapy is that it enables extremely deep change to take place at the source of the problem. It is not dealing with symptoms, it addresses the cause. In fully experiencing or reliving the past, in reconnecting to lost parts of the self, in integrating previously unacceptable facets or in allowing oneself to fully feel the feelings and emotions of that life, and in refraining and rewriting the past, profound healing takes place.
The greatest danger lies perhaps in the ego. If there is an underlying need to compensate for any feelings of inadequacy in the present life, then an ego trip is an ever-present possibility. So too is getting caught up in a ‘fantasy in fancy dress’; wishful thinking is hardly therapeutic. An experienced practitioner will know how to recognize a fantasy, and how to work with it symbolically to bring about healing. The danger from the practitioner’s ego arises when the practitioner is over-confident: “I’ve seen it all, I can handle everything.” Life has a funny way of throwing up a few surprises, so retaining humility and the ability to learn on the job are vital.
The other great danger lies in practitioners who are inexperienced and/or unable or unwilling to stay with the process if deep trauma surfaces. Many hypnotists immediately instruct their clients to forget all about it, thus driving the trauma even deeper. Other practitioners tell their clients to detach, to move away from the experience instead of reliving the pain and blocked emotions that they failed to allow themselves to feel the first time round: thus perpetuating the blockage. They try to ‘make it better’, putting a plaster on it rather than real healing – which may require cauterization and catharsis. Just because it is forgotten at the conscious level does not mean it goes away. It wreaks havoc from the depths of the unconscious. The opposite may apply, someone may go back into an emotion in which they are endlessly stuck, recreating the situation from which they need to detach. Different problems require different solutions and the therapist must be flexible enough to deal with whatever comes up. The danger is that, if, for instance, someone relives having their leg blown off and the trauma is not healed once they are the other side of death, then leg problems may well be triggered in the present life as the ‘seed’ is activated.
A subtle danger may arise from reactivating a past life ‘tendency’ or life state not relevant to the present life (or which it was hoped to reverse) but which is brought into the present through not being released when the regression finishes. For example, a man reconnected to several lives where he had been celibate and deeply spiritual. In his present life he was married and following a spiritual pathway. After the past lives surfaced, he suddenly felt that he could no longer follow his spiritual path and remain married. He turned away from his wife, excluding her from his life and accusing her of sabotaging his spirituality. His astrological chart indicated that his purpose in incarnating this time round had been to learn to be both spiritual and sexual at the same time – something he had been unable to do in the past. He had the opportunity to heal a deep split in himself. It would have been relevant, following the many celibate lives he relived, to ask whether the vows of celibacy by which he was then bound were appropriate for his present life.
Had the answer been ‘no’, then steps could have been taken to release himself from that vow. As it was, not only was his marriage destroyed, but he cut himself off from the potential to heal the two warring factions within himself.
A similar danger arises where people are told, or choose to believe, they are soulmates, that they have always been together and should be together again. I have seen marriages wrecked, relationships ruined, people devastated. Suddenly recognizing someone as a past soulmate can cause a wave of lust to arise that carries all before it, and may well obscure the real purpose in meeting again. Disentangling is difficult. So it is as well to look exceedingly closely at any potential ‘soulmate’ relationship and to check whether that really was what you intended this time around.
SOULMATES
Sometimes called twin flames or twin souls, soulmates are often seen as two people (or souls) who have been together throughout eternity. They are ‘meant for each other’, complete each other. Plato said that, way back in the beginning, one soul had split into two, creating soulmates. (He also said that ‘ever the two shall wander, seeking each other’).
However, from regression work it would appear that we all have several soulmates,