Questions People Often Ask

It’s certainly possible to have actual past-life recall through these regression exercises, although many other types of relaxation or meditation techniques can lead to the same thing as well. People may also experience past-life recall during dreams or déjàvu, spontaneously (this is often seen with children), or in many other ways. For example, my first recollection of a past life actually didn’t take place during regression therapy or hypnosis, but as a result of the state of relaxation caused by shiatsu massage (or acupressure). Suddenly, I vividly observed myself as a priest in ancient Babylon. Now, for those of you who feel discouraged because you can’t seem to bring back memories of past lives when you first play the audio, I’d like to point out that it took me three months of daily meditation before I had this first regression. So, the more you practice, the better prepared you’ll be to open up to these experiences. Keep in mind that the audio might not lead to a memory of a past life at all; or you may retrieve a memory from your childhood, where the causes of your current problem may lie. The wisdom of the sub- conscious will take us wherever we need to go for the cure to take place.

Thousands of my patients, readers, and work- shop participants have used these exercises without any problems, because the subconscious offers powerful protection against distressing feelings or experiences. Therefore, nothing too traumatic will enter your awareness. If anything uncomfortable arises in the regression exercises, I instruct you to detach from the scene and float above it, where you can view it without emotion. You can also open your eyes and end the experience. The choice is always there. The only risk lies in doing the exercises while driving a car or handling equipment that needs your full attention.

 I find that actual past-life memories are usually accessed and described in one of two ways. The first is the classical pattern, where the person enters one lifetime only and is able to perceive an extremely complete, detailed depiction of that life and its events. Al- most as if it were a story, much of the entire lifetime passes by; that is, it often begins with birth or childhood and doesn’t end until death. It’s possible that the person will painlessly and serenely experience the death scene and a life review, where the lessons of the lifetime are illuminated and explored with the benefit of the person’s higher wisdom and possibly by a religious figure or spiritual guide.

The second pattern of past-life recall is what I call the key-moment flow. Here, the subconscious knits together the most important or related moments from a cluster of lifetimes, those key points that best eluc date the person’s hidden trauma and can most quickly and powerfully heal them.

 Remembering these “short moments” is often enough to give you insight into your present life and to open your mind to the possibility of soul survival, reincarnation, and the like.

It isn’t critical to determine whether what comes to mind is a symbol, a metaphor, a true memory, your imagination, or a mixture of them all. My advice is to relax and let what happens happen, in a nonjudgmental way. If you allow the rational side of your brain to take over, you may block memories and waste an opportunity. Just experience and let your super-conscious wisdom come afterwards, you can analyze what you’ve gone through. With practice, things be- come clearer, and you can differentiate what is memory and what is metaphor, symbol, or imagination. There are many people who try to validate their memories with proof: Some of them have found their own graves; others find official records that confirm evidential details of their recall, offering proof of past lives. One of the most extraordinary cases of this involves a woman named Jenny Cockell. As a child, she had memories of living in Ireland and dying when her children were still small. As an adult, she decided to look for them, and she managed to find five of the eight children that she had borne during that life. Validation may also take place through the intensity of the feelings associated with the memory and by the alleviation of symptoms. Xenoglossy, which is the ability to fluently speak a language one has never learned or even encountered, is another type of proof.

The image of the light (and its symbolism) is found in all cultures and societies on our planet. In near-death experiences, a magnificent light often appears as the consciousness detaches from the physical body. The light transmits the feeling of peace and is associated with understanding. And just like color, light is a form of energy. I like to use light and colors to deepen the induction to regression, and as a metaphor for opening up the mind and enhancing perception.

As for the staircase, slowly descending it symbolically leads to deeper awareness and concentration. The garden is a metaphor for a safe harbor, or the place where one feels protected and secure from any danger. This is why I sometimes recommend that when people experience anxiety and tension, they should breathe in deeply, imagine themselves immersed in light,  and visualize the garden of safety and serenity.

Remember that the other senses also count the experience doesn’t have to be visual.  For instance, during the process, people have described that they “knew” or “felt” the symbols.

As for the staircase, slowly descending it symbolically leads to deeper awareness and concentration. The garden is a metaphor for a safe harbor, or the place where one feels protected and secure from any danger. This is why I sometimes recommend that when people experience anxiety and tension, they should breathe in deeply, imagine themselves immersed in light,  and visualize the garden of safety and serenity.

The more you do them, the more experiences you may have, and the deeper you’ll be able to go. This means that it would be ideal to meditate with the exercises every day, particularly because it’s healthy for the body and mind to have a half hour of relaxation and concentration amidst all the tumult and stress of daily life. But if you take long breaks between the exercises, don’t give up—simply go back to doing them, without judgment or guilt.

Reincarnation occurs because we have lessons to learn about such things as love, compassion, charity, nonviolence, inner peace, and patience it would be hard to master them all in only one life. If your education isn’t finished, you’ll find yourself being born into another lifetime. There may be some choices involved, however, but apparently these choices are limited. For example, when you learn all about love, you don’t have to come back. Yet highly evolved souls often voluntarily choose to reincarnate to help teach others.

 I’ve posed this question to many patients, and the answer is always the same: This isn’t the only place where there are souls. There are many dimensions and different levels of consciousness where souls exist. Why should we feel that we’re the only place for souls? After all, there’s no limit to energy. Earth is merely one of many schools in the universe. In addition, a few patients have told me that souls can “split” and have simultaneous experiences.

In ‘Through Time into Healing’, I explain the process of hypnotism in more detail: Your conscious mind is always aware of what you are experiencing while you are hypnotized. Despite the deep subconscious contact, your mind can comment, criticize, and censor Some people in hypnosis watch the past as if they are observing a movie. In hypnosis, your mind is always aware and observing. This is why people who may be deeply hypnotized and actively involved in a childhood or past-life sequence of memories are able to answer the therapist’s questions, speak their current life language, know the geographical places they are seeing, and even know the year, which usually flashes before their inner eyes or just appears in their minds. The hypnotized mind, always retaining an awareness and knowledge of the present, puts the childhood or past-life memories into context. If the year 1900 flashes, and you find yourself building a pyramid in ancient Egypt, you know that the year is B._C., even if you don’t see those actual letters.

Regression therapy is very similar to traditional psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. When traumatic events are brought to the surface, interpreted, and integrated, clinical improvement usually results. The main difference is that regression therapy enlarges the arena, so memories can be retrieved not just from this life but from previous lives as well.

I think that animals do have souls. At least this comes up in my work from time to time. I’m not sure that their souls are as individuated as ours—there may be more emphasis on  a  group soul.  I’m also unsure about  animal  reincarnation,  but  I’m open  to the possibility.

Becoming aware of a pet or beloved animal after crossing to the Other Side is a frequent occurrence. However, I’m not convinced that people reincarnate as animals or plants. Perhaps they do, but the memory from those states isn’t retained.

When I ask someone for the earliest source of input for a particular problem, he almost always describes an animal wound or death.  We detach a patient from an animal incident using the same method of repetition employed for human traumatic input. 

       The fact that animals lives are described to me as the  earliest level of existence my patients go through brings up an interesting point about the progression of lives.  The implication of my patients’ experiences is that we all move from the animal level to the tribal level and thence to life in progressively more sophisticated societies.   

It is possible to go into the future, and some people spontaneously do, but I don’t pursue that area for several reasons. For instance, there seem to be possible futures and probable futures. Also, there may be distortions related to going into the future, and you might make decisions that you don’t need to make. You absolutely need to have reached a certain level of maturity in order to “go into the future.” I think that destiny and choice both exist and keep interacting with each other, because as soon as you make a choice, it changes the future. So maybe the possibilities and probabilities change to an extent as you do that. It’s true that we learn because of free choice, but we also can’t discount the role destiny plays in our lives.

Yes, although few are unable to get beyond this point.  Usually, when a patient says he sees or hears “nothing,” he has been re-stimulated to an incident in which he is blind, blindfolded, deaf, or otherwise unable to perceive in the normal ways.  In such situations I will ask, “What’s happening to your eyes, or ears?”  Frequently this will break the barrier.  The patient will remember being blindfolded or blinded, and then proceed to remember the other details of the incident. 

        I do have some patients who cannot ever succeed in recalling any past life.  I am convinced, however, that this is a function of shut-off commands recorded in the unconscious, rather than the result of a natural inability.  Most frequently, when a patient who has had great difficulty finally  does reach an incident, the phrases he picks up concern the secretive nature of the incident – 

       “We shouldn’t be doing this,” “Whatever you do, never tell a soul about this,”        or, occasionally, “Don’t tell a doctor anything, they really don’t know what they’re talking about.”  In the case of one patient whose therapy was never really begun because she could not reach past incidents, I discovered that during her prenatal period her mother had converted to a religious philosophy that denied all pain and any feelings that might tempt one away from God.  This prenatal experience was, I’m sure, responsible for the total shutdown of access to the unconscious. 

  Each patient feels it differently.  For some it is not very different from a totally conscious state.  There is very little slowing of speech or change in syntax patterns.  For others it is more clearly differentiated; the voice drops to a lower register, and the words come out in a measured, slightly dream-like fashion.  Some patients start by feeling that they are “making up” parts of what they tell me, but they soon discover that they cannot change the content of their past-life incidents, and must reveal the most personal and painful aspects of the stories they had thought were imaginary.  This is what most quickly convinces the skeptic.  He begins by saying the first thing that comes into his head simply to placate me.  But the moment he comes face to face with his pain, he can no longer deny the validity of the therapy. 

       Reaching the unconscious mind without hypnotism is quite simple.  I do not to any relaxing exercises with my patients, nor do I use sensory awareness techniques to make the body, or eyelids, feel heavy.  There is nothing trance-like, in fact, about a Past Lives Therapy session.  At the beginning the patient may have some trouble getting the unconscious memories to flow, but this difficulty is usually eliminated as the patient sees the therapy beginning to work.  Once a sense of trust is established between the patient and his own unconscious mind, reaching back to the past becomes a very simple matter. 

  All the time.  Invariably the trauma that a patient describes in this life will have a past-life and prenatal component.  Even if the trauma is a totally new one for the patient, it will “remind” his unconscious mind of the most similar incidents in the past.  Trauma must be erased in the past, in the prenatal period,  and in the present life, where it frequently recurs in infancy, childhood, and adulthood.

   Unconsciously, the patient already knows everything about his parents prior to therapy.  This knowledge often causes deep problems because it is buried, and only expresses itself in the patient’s behavior toward his parents.  

       Misunderstood resentments, hostility that seems to have no source – these are the external signs of an unconscious anger at the parents’ past behavior.  When the facts are made clear, the patient almost always sees the reason and logic of his parents’ actions in perspective for the first time.  If a patient comes to me describing a genuinely friendly and secure relationship with his parents, I know that there will be nothing “dredged up” in the course of the therapy to damage that bond.  If anything were lurking in the prenatal, the patient would already sense it, and already have an adversary relationship, although he might not understand why. 

       Normally, people who enter Past Lives Therapy have many problems with their parent.  Although we may come across prenatal scenes of aggressive, hostile behavior, often directed at the unborn child, patients emerge from such scenes with great understanding of their parents.  They perceive the mother’s or father’s point of view for the first time.  Rarely does a patient respond with anger to recollection of the prenatal period.  Many patients find the relationship with parents improving even though that was not the purpose of their therapy.  

       Recall of experience in the prenatal period opens up their perspective.  It frequently allows people to feel compassion for their parents for the first time in their lives. 

 I have kept no statistics on this question, but most of my patients recall at least one life as a member of the opposite sex.  Helen Wambach reports that 80 percent of her subjects of both sexes reported at least one past life as a member of the opposite sex.  

 Coincidence simply cannot explain the number of people who seem to know people from previous incarnations.  Wambach notes that 85 percent of her subjects report knowing someone from a past life in this life.  She does not attempt to corroborate this figure.  Some people suggest that the space between lives provides a mechanism for bringing people back together.  My own experience supports this in two cases described in this book:  the Carl and Abigail Gordon therapy reported in the chapter “Relationships,” and the case of the child born twice to the same mother in Part IV, “Inferences, By-products, Implications.”  Despite cases like these, it is essential to stress that, in therapy, it is the pattern, and not the actual identity of a person that is important.  We want to know what the position of “father” and “husband” has meant to you, not if the current male holding that position is identical to one from the past.  

 It is.  Karma, as understood by the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jainist religions, involves a system of divine judgment.  Each man is judged on the basis of all of the acts of his life, and his next reincarnated as a vicious animal, and a devoted priest may be rewarded with a “perfect” next life.  These are the religious beliefs of almost a billion people, and I am not prepared to comment on them one way or another.  I can only report my own experience in listening to many hundreds of reports of past lives over the years.  From these, I have evolved my own belief of what “karma” means. 

       Karma is a debt owed to the self, to be paid off by the self at a time when the self decides, and in a manner that the self chooses.  It can never be used as an excuse, because everyone has the ability to pay the debt, to come to peace with himself whenever he decides to do so.  As long as the debt remains unpaid, it is only he who is not paying it.  To pay the debt one must resolve the patterns of one’s lives, and take responsibility for being the person one is. 

Responsibility is not guilt, blame, shame, or punishment.  It is simply knowing that you are the cause of your life.  It is you who chose it, not your parents or your maker.  You have, in some sense, been the same person for centuries.  You must know who that person is, and you must agree with yourself that you will act in a responsible manner, understanding exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are, to reach the personal potential within you.

Patients often receive residual benefits from Past Lives Therapy.  Because a traumatic incident that causes death frequently destroys several parts of the body, detachment from that incident may well result in many types of bodily improvement.  A patient with acute migraine headaches discovered many deaths by torture; including, but not exclusively involving, damage to the head.  

       As he became detached from these incidents he began to notice improvement in an arthritic condition which he believed was purely a physiological disease.  

       Needless to say, the torture scenes he relived included pain to the joints, stretching of the fingers, and other input that would lead to arthritis in a later life.  The patient had had no hope of easing his arthritic pain, and was amazed that this disease could be eased by therapy.  This is not an uncommon occurrence.  I have witnessed new growth of thinning hair, improved eyesight, and even increased breast size in a woman working out a sexual identity problem.  These physical manifestations of mental-health improvement were unasked for in every case. 

     Patients frequently feel that the world is changing all around them.  Many claim that their therapy has changed their companions, their friends, and their co-workers all for the better.  This is, of course, a subjective reaction to their own improvement.  

What has usually happened is that the patient no longer triggers negative behavior in others.  By changing unattractive patterns of hostility or submissiveness, the patient triggers a fresh reaction from people who were used to avoiding or undermining him.  Impressed with the improvement of a patient’s attitude, his mate may suddenly become more cooperative, his superiors may find him more worthy of promotion.  The improvements brought about by any kind of successful therapy can be measured in the same way.  But because the improvement in Past Lives Therapy is so rapid, reactions by others can seem quite dramatic.  

Not entirely.  The  physical characteristics of a newborn child are determined by the genes of his or her parents; this inheritance is the basis of the “bloodline.”  I would argue that the unconscious mind is not bound by the rules of genetics, however.  Many experimental researchers of reincarnation attribute the phenomenon of past-life recall to “genetic memory,” claiming that the events people recall from the past are passed on to them by their parents along with the color of their hair and the strength of their teeth.  If this were the case, patients would be recalling the lives of their ancestors.  My patients’ experiences do not support this theory in any way.  Their recall tends to cover the spectrum of human existence; white patients remember being black, Chicano patients recall being British soldiers in World War II, and so forth.  In addition, many patients recall past lives that took place during their parents’ lifetimes, material that could not possibly be stored in the parents’ genetic code. 

       On the basis of my work I am forced to conclude that our family, cultural, or blood heritage stored in the unconscious mind, one that may or may not be similar to our physical family line.  Recall that each of us tries to come back in an environment that will allow us to continue the patterns of the life we have just left.  In some cases the most efficient way to accomplish this end might be to return to a similar cultural background.  Thus, a Russian Jew, playing out patterns of religious persecution at the time of the Czar, may find it desirable to return as a Russian Jew.  In such a case his cultural heritage and his “past-life” heritage would be virtually identical.  However, it would be as likely that he might be born a black man in South Africa, fated to play out the same patterns of oppression, but with a different cast of characters and a different cultural backdrop. 

It’s certainly possible to have actual past-life recall through these regression exercises, although many other types of relaxation or meditation techniques can lead to the same thing as well. People may also experience past-life recall during dreams or déjàvu, spontaneously (this is often seen with children), or in many other ways. For example, my first recollection of a past life actually didn’t take place during regression therapy or hypnosis, but as a result of the state of relaxation caused by shiatsu massage (or acupressure). Suddenly, I vividly observed myself as a priest in ancient Babylon. Now, for those of you who feel discouraged because you can’t seem to bring back memories of past lives when you first play the audio, I’d like to point out that it took me three months of daily meditation before I had this first regression. So, the more you practice, the better prepared you’ll be to open up to these experiences.Keep in mind that the audio might not lead to a memory of a past life at all; or you may retrieve a memory from your childhood, where the causes of your current problem may lie. The wisdom of the sub- conscious will take us wherever we need to go for the cure to take place.

Because Past Lives Therapy is a complex process, many of the questions I receive relate specifically to the technique itself.  I have covered most of these in the pages of this book.  Many other questions are asked, however, concerning the validity of the therapy, the “feelings” associated with the therapy, and the results of therapy.  I have here assembled the most common of these questions and tried to answer each individually.

Although information from a psychic is interesting and sometimes informative, it usually doesn’t remove symptoms. For in order to get resolution, you should experience the memory, with its accompanying emotion, yourself. Your own experience of the memory through regression will be much richer, deeper, and more personal. It will contain a feeling of “knowing” that a simple reading would never be able to convey.

“You are much, much more than your body or your mind. You are a beautiful being, immortal, eternal, full of love and light.” —  Brian Weiss

The quest for happiness is a common denominator among all human beings. Driven by this desire, we create new technologies and fine- tune existing techniques in order to reach levels of extraordinary sophistication  in  the  consumption of consumer goods. Yet, despite the incredible sophistication of our society, I feel that there is widespread dissatisfaction on the individual level. Having more, earning more, needing more; and being better, more famous, more brilliant, and more successful than every- body else are just superficial attempts to find happiness—but these social differences are creating wider and wider chasms among people. In addition, our society is seriously threatening the planet and rapidly poisoning the environment. At the same time, a spiritual revolution is occurring. It seems to me that the people who read my books, attend my lectures, or write to me are trying to do far more than solve mere physical or emotional problems. They’re seeking a pathway to endow their lives with more meaning, fulfillment, and joy, and they’re transcending the mundane. For me, the essence of happi- ness is inner peace. And this peace can be achieved only when we recognize our fundamental nature, which is unconditional love: love that’s freely expressed and asks for nothing in return.

This is what we came to learn in this school of life, and we need many lives to accumulate this wisdom. As this is not an easy school, and the process takes much time, advances are often imperceptible, while lapses may well discourage us. It’s worthwhile to invest in this path of love, how- ever, because it’s one of peace and happiness.

Don’t worry about the pace of progress or judge yourself when you make mistakes. This is your unique path, and there’s so much to learn along the way. In this school, we have physical bodies and we learn through emotions and relationships. As we progress along the path of spirituality, we’ll become more tolerant, understanding, and open to love.

I want to offer you my support and encouragement and be a companion for you on this journey. Be persistent, patient, and open—the journey truly is as important as the destination.

Yes, and I do think that people come in groups for the working out of debts and responsibilities, the concept of karma. These are the people that we’re learning and growing with. I even put love at first sight, or hostility at first sight into that category, a recognition of souls.
I know the old saying: blood is thicker than water. Well, I mention in Through Time into Healing that spirit seems thicker than blood.

For one, more and more people are remembering. Through therapeutic techniques such as hypnosis, but also through dreams, spontaneously, through meditation, déjà vu. When they’re in a place they have never been before and they know their way around.
This may be an evolutionary shift. I don’t know why we don’t all remember. The Greeks had a myth that when you were born again you drank from the River of Lethe, so you would forget your previous lives.