I love regression because it puts people directly in touch with their own inner wisdom. This makes it one of the most empowering of all the therapies.
Most people come for a regression about a current problem they feel might have originated in a former lifetime. Regression is effective because it can track the past-life cause of many things that are happening in our lives today.
It works because the subconscious mind is a huge store-house of information about all our lives and experiences. This information isn’t passive – it’s not like books in a library, which we can decide to read or ignore.
Although our past lives may be long gone, their memories remain alive within us. They play an active part in our psyche, continuing to influence us in all kinds of unconscious ways. This can have both beneficial and obstructive effects on our present life.
Past lives are like a fairy godmother that comes to us at birth. They endow us with all kinds of positive gifts, such as personal qualities, special talents and a lot of good karma.
However, a bad fairy sometimes comes to the new baby as well. This one casts the dark spells of negative past-life experiences. At their worst, these hidden influences can drain our energy with anxiety, depression, neuroses or phobias. They may also show up in the form of strange moods, unintended slips of the tongue and physical symptoms.
People sometimes experience negative past-life effects as an invisible block in their lives. They keep reaching for success or fulfilment. But like the main character in Alice Through the Looking Glass, they just go round in circles, always ending up back where they started.
In the twentieth century, psychologists found the magic key to solving these issues. They found that the best way was to regress their patients back to when the problem began. As soon as people knew that, the issue lost its unconscious power over them. After that, their old symptoms melted away.
This is why regression can break the dark spells that would otherwise haunt people throughout their lives. And it’s not just a theory. Countless case studies have shown how effectively it works.
Renate came for a regression because she’d suffered from claustrophobia all her life, and wondered if there was a past-life cause for it.
She went back to a seventeenth-century life during the English Civil War. She was hiding from enemy soldiers in a farmhouse. The soldiers suspected she was there, and kept coming back to search the place again. Every time they came, she had to scramble into a tiny, dark cellar under a trapdoor. She’d wait there in breathless terror till they’d gone. One night the soldiers found her there. They dragged her out, took her away and killed her. This was the origin of her fear of small, enclosed places.
Afterwards Renate told me that the guesthouse where she was currently staying had a small, windowless bathroom. Before the regression, because of her claustrophobia, she hated having to use it. The evening after the regression she enjoyed a relaxing bath in there without any of her old fears coming up. Her claustrophobia had lost its grip on her as soon as she understood where it had come from.
Consciousness is like a multi-storey building. Everyday awareness is akin to one of the floors. When we’re on that level, we can see only what’s on that floor.
To find out what’s on the other floors, we have to change to another level of consciousness. Regression provides a stairway between the floors.
It always begins with relaxation techniques to slow down the brainwaves. To do this, the therapist will talk in a calm, slow voice. They will often use images of soothing scenery and physical relaxation. Repetition and counting down also work well.
But all of this only works if the person is willing. If someone doesn’t want to be relaxed, then nothing can force them into it.
As our brainwaves slow down, our consciousness changes. This is how we move to the other levels.
In the grand structure of our psyche, there are four main levels of consciousness: beta, alpha, theta and delta. They each have their own light, medium and deep levels. We go in and out of all of them every day and night as we move between waking, working, relaxing and sleeping.
We know this because these different states have been researched and measured using electroencephalograms – EEGs for short. Our brainwaves produce an electrical impulse and, to trace it, sensors are placed on people’s heads, connecting them to EEG monitors. A wavy line on a graph then reflects their changing levels of consciousness. As they relax, so does the line on the graph, which becomes softer and smoother the deeper they go.
Beta: This is everyday consciousness. We’re in a light beta state when we’re doing a routine task that requires our attention but isn’t too demanding. Medium beta would be when we’re studying, or trying to fix something.
A more intense focus – trying to hurry through heavy traffic for example – will take us to higher levels of beta. This level can also bring feelings of stress and anxiety. The beta line on an EEG graph is shallow and spiky, like a choppy sea.
Alpha: This is more relaxed. We slip into a light alpha state easily and naturally when we’re daydreaming, listening to music or staring out of the window. The EEG graph line has bigger and more rounded curves, which look like a peaceful rolling sea.
Meditation or regression will take us to deeper levels of alpha. When we get there, we’re at the gateway to the subconscious. At this level we can access material that’s normally hidden from the everyday mind.
Studies have shown that past-life information becomes available when brainwaves measure around 7 to 8 cycles per second – which is the medium-to-deep alpha state.
Theta: We pass through theta just before going to sleep and in the first moments of waking up. The deeper states of lucid dreaming, trance and visionary experiences become available at this level.
Delta: This is deep sleep. In delta, we can access higher consciousness directly, and may be out of the body altogether. When we return to lighter levels of consciousness, we have dreams translating those experiences. Dreams are vital to us. When deprived of dream sleep, people experience mental breakdown and eventually, death.
We move naturally between these four levels of consciousness all the time. Being able to do this is important for our psychological and physical health and wellbeing.
There are four main reasons:
In my experience, 98 per cent of people access past-life memories in some form. The very few who get absolutely nothing may be blocked for one of three main reasons:
Everyone’s regression experience is unique to them. There are no right or wrong ways. Past-life memories will come to you in whatever way is right for you. The key is to stay relaxed, trust the process and don’t try too hard.
You may get:
Your intention is the key. You will get what you intend to get. If you want to access a real past-life memory, then that is what will come up for you.
Even if you did try to ‘make it up’, your story would still contain truth about you because it came from within you. One of my workshop exercises is to ask people to ‘make up’ a past life spontaneously and share it with the group.
They’re always surprised afterwards when they realize that they didn’t choose a wonderful fantasy. Instead, they talked about ordinary lives such as a Victorian servant, a Roman soldier or a medieval farmer.
Talking it over afterwards often shows that clues about those lives were already in their current life. It becomes clear that although they set out to ‘make up’ a past life, they came up with a real one.
On this subject hypnotherapist Dr Morris Netherton said, ‘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 sceptic.’
Another validation comes from the strong emotions that often arise during a regression. This creates involuntary physical effects, such as a reddening nose and tears. Reactions such as these can’t be faked.
As psychologist and hypnotherapist Dr Edith Fiore said, ‘Are they putting on an act? If so, most should be nominated for Academy Awards. After thousands of hours observing regressions, I am convinced there is no deliberate, nor conscious, attempt to deceive.’
When people first hear about past lives, they often wonder if they were ever important or famous.
They may have a feeling that they lived in a particular time in history. Then they project that feeling onto an iconic figure who represents that era. A regression will often reveal that they did indeed have a life at that time – but not as the person they imagined.
For example, Annie wondered if she’d been Mary Magdalene. She’d had all kinds of dreams, flashbacks and synchronicities about that biblical world. Her regression showed that she really had been part of the new spiritual movement that was flowering in the Middle East at the time Jesus is believed to have lived and died.
She discovered that, as a young girl during that life, she’d decided to leave behind what she saw as her old frivolous ways. She’d joined a group similar to the Essenes and had dedicated herself to a life of spirituality instead. Although she hadn’t been Mary Magdalene, it was easy to see why she’d had that impression.
Sometimes people identify with outstanding historical figures because of what they represent. This quality will often be something that they need to develop in themselves. In this way, the psyche uses fantasy to lead people towards their future potential.
Harold came for a regression because he’d received all kinds of signs supporting the idea that he was once Edgar Cayce, the famous American psychic. His regression showed nothing of the kind.
But in the second part of the session, his spirit guide told him that the idea had come to him because he needed to believe in and develop his psychic powers. The Edgar Cayce fantasy was not literally true – but it had a serious inner purpose.
Have you ever wondered if you were once someone famous? If so, don’t dismiss the idea too hastily. It may not be literally true. But if you dig a little deeper, you may find that it was the outer wrapping of an important inner gift for you.
During a regression you don’t hallucinate or forget where you are. You can talk to your therapist as clearly as at any other time. So it’s easy to say that you don’t want to see any more. A responsible therapist will then move you on immediately – either to a more pleasant memory or out of the session altogether.
If you’re getting the memory by yourself – through meditation or a self-regression CD for example – all you have to do is open your eyes, and you’ll be back in your present world.
You can simply keep quiet. Although it’s more helpful for your therapy if you do discuss what’s coming up, there’s no obligation to talk about anything if it will make you feel uncomfortable.
You can also let your therapist know that you want to observe what arises, but without talking about it. And whenever you wish, you can ask to be moved to another memory or brought out of the session altogether.
Everyone on Earth has made all kinds of mistakes in their past lives. Nobody can point a finger at anyone else. We learn and grow through our mistakes. By the time this kind of past-life memory comes up, you’ve moved on from who you were in those days.
The memory comes up because it’s time to forgive your past self and heal the effects of that life. Owning this kind of memory also enables you to move ahead with greater compassion and understanding for both yourself and others.
None whatsoever. It’s a natural state of relaxation, which you’ll come out of whenever you feel ready.
In the past, people assumed that everyday consciousness was all that we consisted of. But we now know that different states of consciousness are a natural part of our human make-up and heritage.
Because of these discoveries, past-life knowledge may one day be an integral part of everyday life. Knowing how it works, we’ll be able to access helpful past-life memories whenever we need to.
