12

REINCARNATION AND PAST-LIFE THERAPY

In chapter one I mentioned my first experience of sensing, seeing, and feeling a past life as a physician in Egypt. I was still relatively neutral about the whole concept of reincarnation, not having strong “beliefs” and certainly not doubting it. Four months later, I was at a meeting of the Neuroelectric Society in Snowmass Aspen. Dr. William Kroger, OB/ GYN physician, who was also an expert hypnotist, was giving his lecture just before mine, and he was trying to convince the audience that acupuncture was hypnosis. Having done acupuncture since 1967, I was sitting there saying to myself, “Bull—.” Suddenly Bill said, “And, in the last century, there was a British physician who demonstrated that you could operate upon mesmerized patients. His name was John Elliotson.” When he said that, I felt as if an iceberg had been thrown against my spine, and I said to myself, “My God. I was John Elliotson.” I went up to Bill after his talk and asked for more information. He could not provide it. I called our medical librarian, and she could find nothing on John Elliotson. So I planned a trip to London to look up John Elliotson, assuming that he might have been a surgeon, since he demonstrated that you could operate upon mesmerized patients. I asked the cab driver to take me to the Royal College of Surgeons. Rushing through London traffic, he turned to the right. I was sitting in the back seat of the cab and felt the iceberg down my spine. I was literally physically picked up by some force and turned in the opposite direction. I therefore asked the cab driver to take me down in the opposite direction despite his knowing the route to the Royal College of Surgeons. About two blocks in the opposite direction, we encountered a large, circular brick building. I went in and truly felt totally at home. I sensed that I knew every room. I went on to the Royal College of Surgeons, where I learned that, actually, John Elliotson was an internist, not a surgeon. So I went to the Royal College of Physicians, where I was able to find two photographs of John Elliotson and a great deal of history about him. His father was a pharmacist. Growing up, John had some problems that left him with a limp. After medical school, he studied in Paris and brought home to England both the use of the stethoscope and the use of opioids for pain relief.

John Elliotson was the first physician in London to give up the wearing of knickers with high socks. When I was nine years of age, all the boys in my class wore knickers. My mother bought me knickers—I literally tore them apart and had a temper tantrum, refusing to wear them. John had striking, black, curly hair; I had blond hair and, as a child, craved having black hair. In fact, when I was about five, I went up to an aunt of mine who had black, curly hair and cut off a lock of her hair. When I was sixteen, I asked my mother to dye my hair black before I went off to college. I did it only once and settled for blond hair, which gradually became sandy colored and then, fifty years later, began to turn blond again as my hair would bleach in the sun.

John was a Latin scholar. In high school I was a Latin scholar and won the Latin medal two years in a row. Remember, I was going into neurosurgery and needed a year of surgery before I could do neurosurgery, but instead I interned in internal medicine. He introduced opioids into London. I have spent much of this life trying to wean patients from opioids, as I think they are of no value except in acute pain.

John's reputation as an internist was made because of his giving public lectures, which attracted large numbers of followers. Finally, when the new medical school, University College Hospital—London, opened, John was appointed the first chairman of the Department of Medicine. Shortly thereafter, he began to do mesmerism and carried on public demonstrations of mesmerism in the amphitheater of the hospital. Both Charles Dickens and William Thackery became friends of his through that circumstance, and in fact, he taught Dickens to do mesmerism on his wife, who had a lot of psychosomatic problems. William Thackery wrote a book, Pendennis, which was dedicated to John Elliotson, and in the novel, Dr. Goodenough is reported to have been patterned after Elliotson. (Ref.: John Elliotson, “William Makepeace Thackery and Dr. Goodenough.” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, Vol. 11, April 1963, pg. 122-130). As a teenager, my favorite author was Charles Dickens.

One of Elliotson's most unique contributions, other than the introduction of the stethoscope and opioids, was to demonstrate in mesmerized patients that they could make a medical diagnosis. This was further documented in Eisdale's book, Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance. After some years of demonstrating and practicing mesmerism, as well as his busy medical practice and teaching, the Board of Trustees of the University College Hospital—London told Elliotson that he would have to give up practicing mesmerism in the hospital amphitheater. Elliotson resigned, went into private practice, and for some twelve years wrote der Zoist, in which he largely wrote about experiences with mesmerism. It was during that period that he demonstrated, with the help of surgeons, that he could put patients into a mesmeric trance and allow surgery to be carried out. This was also continued in India by his friend who wrote the book on natural and mesmeric clairvoyance.

Over the next year, seventy five “psychics” confirmed that I had been John Elliotson, and eventually, Kevin Ryerson also confirmed that I was John Elliotson. This was reported in Dr. Walter Semkiw's book, Return of the Revolutionaries.

I have gone into great deal about this particular past life because of the remarkable number of synchronicities between Elliotson's life and my own. Since that time, I have had a number of spontaneous recalls of past lives, as well as ones that have been revealed to me during past-life therapy with a number of talented past-life therapists. Overall, I “know” about thirty of my previous lives:

•   A Jewish, small tribal leader more than 3,500 years ago.

•   A Greek physician 3,500 years ago.

•   Egyptian physician 3,000 years ago.

•   A Roman senator at the time of Christ, confirmed by several intuitives.

•   Executioner, approximately the ninth century, for “The” Church, confirmed by one intuitive.

•   A priest with St. Francis in the 13th century, confirmed by a number of intuitives as well as by the current reincarnation of St. Francis himself.

•   A priest in France in 1600.

•   Peter III. I mention this because it is certainly not a grandiose claim. Peter was a phenomenal, unbelievably weak wimp. I have no respect whatsoever for wimps! More importantly, for many, many years, I had nightmares in which I would feel myself being closed in and choked to death, and I would awaken screaming. As soon as I knew about Peter III, the nightmares ceased. Peter was married to Catherine the Great, who had him imprisoned in a very small room and choked to death by her lover, Orlov. Fascinatingly, I personally figured out who Catherine the Great is in this life, as well as who Orlov is in this life, and all of this has been confirmed by two excellent intuitives.

•   Mathew Thornton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from New Hampshire.

•   There is one other of whom I am certainly not proud but who has great relevance to the whole field of intuition and synchronicity. In 1995 I awoke about 75 percent paralyzed as the result of that physician who had visited me to show me his “hot hands.” Having seen many healers who have really hot, red hands, I asked him to show them to me. He put his hands on my head and jerked my head 180 degrees in both directions. It dislocated my spine and I wound up developing, over subsequent years, over 50 percent compression of the spinal cord at C7 T1, leading to a fusion of my spine from the fifth cervical vertebra through the first thoracic vertebra. It took me many months to recover, and I still have some residual weakness and spasticity in the legs. However, from the moment this happened, I knew it was karmic. Thus, I never “blamed” the individual who jerked my neck. I would often say that it was probably someone whose head I had cut off in a previous life. Some years later, I suddenly knew, and had confirmed, a life several hundred years ago in which I really was quite a brute and had my own son murdered in order to prevent him from taking over my position. The man who jerked my neck was indeed my son in that life.

As I have often said, going from the brute I was several hundred years ago to what I am today isn't bad, as well as understanding that each of us has the potential, perhaps currently or in the future, as well as in the past, to have done brutal things. To me, it becomes much more important to work out, as much as possible, any unfinished business from those previous lives. That is the value of past-life therapy. For instance, in the Peter III life, even though the nightmares stopped as soon as I knew the details, I wanted to go through the death process, which I did with Dr. Morris Netherton, whom I consider the world's best living past-life therapist. Of the roughly thirty past lives that I have gone through, being choked to death was the most painful!

I have listed in some detail some of my past-life experiences because I think it is important to recognize that all of us have a long history of incarnation and reincarnation. Ultimately, the purpose of existence in this apparent universe is to work only to do good to self and others. Once we learn that, it is my impression that we then are able to move into a higher dimension. As I have indicated, I have had a number of past-life therapy sessions with such talented past-life therapists as Morris Netherton, Dr. Denys Kelsey, and Kay Ortmans. Kay was one of the more unique past-life therapists. She never said a word, never asked you to say a word, and said that if you had any images that you wished to share, please share them. She would then set to work with her talented hands, finding areas of muscle tension, and she might work on one area for an hour or even two hours while playing relatively loud classical music. I once invited her to come to my clinic, and I took four of my patients who had chronic pain and just told them she was a superb masseuse, which is really what she did. Each of them came out of the room having experienced vivid imagery of a past life. One of the patients said, “What did that woman do?” I said, “Well, the woman didn't do anything. You did it because you released memories from your past.” After a couple of sessions with Kay, all she would have to do is lay her hands on me and turn on Mozart's Requiem, and I would suddenly be in a past life. One of the most vivid was an instance in 1975. She had been working on me for two hours, I had had no imagery, and all of a sudden I had the most vivid image of seeing myself hanged as a priest. I burst out laughing, not from being hanged, but because my image then slipped backward so that the incident that led to my hanging was that I was caught having sex with the bishop's daughter. And, although it was okay for the bishop to have a daughter, it was not okay for a lowly priest!

In 1988, the last session I ever had with Kay, she had come to our clinic to do a training program for ten individuals, and we each worked on one another. On the last day, Kay said, “I want to work on you.” She put her hands on my abdomen, began Mozart's Requiem, and instantly I saw a path that divided into two branches. I knew that if I went up one of the paths, I would enter another past life, but I chose to go to the left, which really was a requiem for the priest who had been hanged without proper last rites. It was indeed a requiem for the priest who was hanged.

One can argue whatever one wishes about images, memories, beliefs, and feelings, but experiences like this have powerful potential for healing. I will mention just two such examples in my own experience with patients:

A woman came in to see me with intractable pain. The history she gave was that she had shot herself accidentally while cleaning her husband's gun. The shot went through her abdomen, severing her spinal cord, and she was paralyzed and had intractable pain. I took her through a past-life experience, and she gave an absolutely perfect account of being Anne Boleyn, right up to the rolling of her head after the guillotine. When I brought her back out of a very, very light trance, I asked her what the meaning of this experience was. She said she had no memory whatsoever of anything. Fortunately, I had taped the experience, and I played it back for her. Again, I asked, What does this mean? She started to cry and said, “I don't know.” I replied, “I know. You think your husband shot you, because you just gave me the story of a martyred wife.” She then told me that when she awoke after surgery, she was told that she had shot her husband while cleaning his gun. He was a policeman. All she remembers as the last thing before she passed out was that they were having an argument. As a result of this experience, she divorced her husband, her pain went away, and she went back to work as a counselor. Does this mean that that patient was indeed Anne Boleyn? I doubt it, and I think that sometimes what we perceive, even in our spontaneous memories, as well as those evoked during past-life therapy, are allegories for something that happened. In her case, the metaphor may have been at some subconscious level and perhaps the only way that she could come near the idea of her husband damaging her. So it is not important whether a past life really happened, but it is important to clear any emotions associated with metaphorical images.

Another man, who had very intractable pain and had had two unsuccessful neck operations, had his pain disappear instantly when I did a past-life therapy session in which he saw himself killed in a very primitive time by an opponent who knocked him to the ground with a club and broke his neck. In this life, he had his neck injured when he was working as a veterinarian, doing artificial insemination on a cow, and the cow kicked him. The allegory in this case was that his wife had taken up a lover after he had become disabled. Again, did it happen as he saw it, or was it only an allegory? Over and over again I would say that I don't think it matters. Past-life therapy is the single most powerful tool one can use in reaching deep into the subconscious or even conscious mind for “meaning.” To me, the past lives that I have experienced, both in past-life therapy sessions and in spontaneous recall, lead me not to “believe” in past-life therapy but to “know” that that is the way it is. When one or more excellent intuitives can confirm what the client has brought up in a session, then it seems to me to be as real as anything else that we experience. I do think that for those who have not had a past-life experience, it is advisable to seek a session with someone who has been certified by Dr. Morris Netherton. I have made one CD—"Multilevel Awareness"—which is the basic technique that I use in past-life therapy.

In summary, past-life therapy is a prominent tool for evoking intuitive memories that are absolutely real or allegorical/metaphorical. As such, it may be the most useful medical intuitive tool of all.

As far as I can tell, perhaps the most difficult problem Edgar Cayce had in accepting his remarkable talent was the concept of reincarnation. But, as it appeared so many times in his readings, he eventually did accept it. He not infrequently gave reasons for a patient's problems as coming from a past life and gave some readings of his own past lives as well as that of a number of individuals. Perhaps my own favorite of all of Cayce's commentaries is that he often said, especially in a disease like multiple sclerosis, “This is a case of the entity meeting self.” Multiple sclerosis is a disease that we now know to be an autoimmune disease, in which the body is attacking itself. Certainly, that is a case of the entity meeting itself better than anything else I can imagine, but the implication in Cayce's readings was that the disease was the result of the entity coping with some problem from the past. Whether it was a past life or this life is not always clear. My friend Marianne Woodward, who wrote the Edgar Cayce Story of Karma and Scars of the Soul, discussed problems that we develop in this life as a result of some misbehavior, or “cash karma.”

What is most important in understanding karma is not blame. There is no reason to believe that God or even the soul punishes someone for past behavior. It is just the simple fact that when you do something that is harmful to another individual, it is creating an energy in the collective unconscious. Just as negative thinking attracts other people with negative thinking, it is as if one has a magnet in one's personal energy bank that is attracting something to clean up whatever needs to be purified. It would be interesting if we could foresee what will happen to all of the corporate leaders of the past couple of decades who have been greedy and created great harm to other individuals.

I often say to a patient, “Have you ever murdered anyone, raped anyone, robbed anyone or purposely harmed anyone?” If you have not had any of those behaviors, then you have nothing about which to feel guilty. Actually, my own guide once said, “The only sin in the eyes of the Universe is murder.” I have had a number of discussions with this guide, and it appears that God, whom he calls the Universe, does not consider some of these other behaviors sin, although most of us consider them bad behavior at the very least. Whether or not it is a sin, it is a negative effect on someone. Thus, we need to dissolve the magnetic attraction that we may have set in motion in some previous life. Obviously, helping others is one of the ways of washing one's slate clean.