of Chinese were introduced to opium by the British government who had a vested interest in maintaining the addiction; and the gin palaces of the British Industrial Revolution killed the pain of existence for many thousands more people.
HEALTH
Health is an enormous subject when looked at from the past life perspective. Old attitudes such as ‘hard-heartedness’ can affect the present life: hardening of the arteries and heart attacks being common manifestations. Old emotions, injuries and traumatic experiences create physical disease. A woman who had constant heartburn in her present life relived drinking a cup of poisoned wine given her by a lover. The heartburn was easily cured by erasing the memory of the poison through her imaging drinking the antidote. We can also recreate our old feelings when we put ourselves in present life situations which resonate. Before therapy, having her current-life lover feed her a tempting morsel had almost choked her, as she could never be quite sure that he wasn’t trying to kill her.
The past life reasons behind present life illness are sometimes dramatic. An elderly lady had suffered from asthma all her life. When she arrived for regression she brought with her not only an inhaler but also a friend who was skilled in resuscitation techniques and had revived her on more than one occasion. In the event, however, neither were needed.
She was guided back through time until she found herself in the Middle Ages acting as a kind of go-between who received the reports from spies and informers and passed these on to the witch-finders. It was something in which she had unwittingly become embroiled and could not then break free. She described herself as an insignificant looking, lonely man. He felt suffocated by what he was doing but could see no way out. If he tried to leave or to protect people, he would be put to trial by his employers as they would assume that he had been bewitched. He wanted to commit suicide but this was a mortal sin and he was too afraid of the consequences.
Eventually the burden became too great to bear and he took a horse and rode off without caring what would happen. He was followed and was stabbed by a sword, which caused him to fall from the horse. The horse then rolled on him, crushing his chest. He died literally unable to breathe and gasped his life away in a most distressing manner that exactly matched an asthma attack. As the elderly lady relived it, the physical symptoms were very real. She gasped and fought for breath, making the most horrendous noises. But, because she was both reliving that life and aware of the present connections, she would assure me from time to time that she was ok. This was not an asthma attack. Knowing that she needed to go through this, I encouraged her to stay with it as she passed through death and into the between-life state. There, the trauma fell away. Her breathing quieted, almost to the point of imperceptibility. We cleared the residues of that life to heal the present.
When she ‘returned’ from the regression, she was full of compassion for herself as she had been, saying that he had had no choice. What surprised her was how afraid to commit suicide he had been as, in her present life, that would have been what she would have done in a similar situation. It is difficult to believe nowadays just how great the fear of mortal sin and resulting everlasting damnation was but this had graphically portrayed itself to her. The fear had been even stronger than the feelings of guilt and wrongness, which were in themselves overwhelming. With that kind of inner conflict combined with violent death, it was no surprise that her current life played out the drama in such a physical fashion.
She recognized that her asthma was the direct result of both the sense of suffocation and guilt that she had felt then, and also the physical sensation of her death. It had imprinted itself on her present life body, which continued to ‘gasp her life away’. It also explained why she had become a pioneering psychic and healer. She wanted to make reparation. Her compassion and forgiveness for herself healed the root cause. Following the regression, her asthma attacks ceased.
Several points of ‘disease’ may arise from one life. Muriel relived a life in the theatre. She was badly beaten by the manager of that theatre, who was jealous of her success. He constantly criticized her: “She was no good” (despite the fact that she was a very good actress). She could not break free and felt most inadequate. Much of the beating was on her back. In her present life, Muriel suffered from constant sore throats, back trouble and lack of confidence. These conditions were exacerbated when she and her partner got involved in amateur dramatics. She felt that her partner was that theatre manager.
In the regression, she went to the end of her life. She hung herself on the stage, in a most dramatic fashion, saying, “That will show them all.” She wanted to be seen when ‘they’ entered the theatre the next day. She wanted ‘them’ to be affected by her death. She wanted ‘them’ to notice her. The death was a slow one, her neck not being broken, and she suffocated to death. Muriel commented that it explained why, in her present life, she could never complete a performance without having a sore throat and a cold. She associated the slow asphyxiation and pressure of the rope around her neck with the current life throat trouble but also felt that she was in some way sabotaging herself as a result of that constant criticism in the past.
However, the ‘disease’ went deeper than that. As a teenager, Muriel had suffered from nocturnal epilepsy. A chiropractor had then realigned the vertebrae in her neck, and she never suffered another fit. In the regression, she commented that her body jerking at the end of the rope was just like having convulsions. As her neck was not broken, the vertebrae were pushed out of alignment. In her present life, her ‘etheric blueprint’ had recreated that pattern.
When we began to look at the healing options, she simply wanted to leave that body there. To get away as quickly as possible and go into the halls of healing, which she described as ‘absolute bliss’. In a spontaneous soul retrieval, she then saw a man rushing in and taking her in a 1950s taxi to the hospital where she was born.
It became clear that, whilst that part of herself had ‘slept’ in the halls of healing, other parts of Muriel had had other lives. In order to be born whole in this present life, that ‘sleeping part’ had had to be rushed to join the rest of herself at birth. Its memories had been activated when she went back into the theatre. Past life therapy then healed the ‘cause’ and she was able to perform without difficulties. Later, when she visited a chiropractor again, she saw herself just prior to putting the rope around her, neck. Her guide said to her, “You don’t have to damage your body, you have come to the end of that life and can come with me.” She then saw the empty rope. The situation had been reframed and her body was able to release the memory.
SOUL RETRIEVAL
Reconnecting to a part of the overall self that has been ‘left behind’ in a past life.
ETHERIC BLUEPRINT
The ‘seed’ from which the physical body develops in the present life. The etheric blueprint carries all the information, and scars, from past lives that will affect emotional and physical health and well-being in the life to come.
SEXUAL DIFFICULTIES
Sexual difficulties too can stem from varied past life causes. One of the most common problems is that vows, such as celibacy or everlasting faithfulness, taken in other lives are not rescinded before reincarnation. They then subtly interfere with present life relationships. Having taken a vow of celibacy, for example, may result in impotence when faced with a sexual partner. The subconscious can simply switch off sexual arousal when confronted with the deep inner conflict of ‘I desire this woman’ and ‘I vow eternal celibacy.’ The time frame may need to be renegotiated: ‘for ever’ becoming ‘for this life only’.
Old patterns of behaviour can also be carried over. Some people endlessly recreate their past relationships, sometimes compelled by a vision of what they did not have, at others obsessed with the search for what they did have. They may also carry inappropriate patterns of behaviour. One man, suffering from premature ejaculation, experienced furtive sex with another servant in his past life. There was always an urgent need to ‘be quick’, someone might find them. Another man was sexually hung up on his mother. All his fantasies were about sex with her. Not surprisingly,