1 - Many Lives

I felt such a pressure in my chest and such extremes of sadness that the only way to release it all was by crying. “Ah, you’re such a sensitive child,” said my mum as she ruffled my hair. I was seven years old and watching the Titanic sink in the black and white film A Night to Remember with my parents and younger brothers. It was the Sunday afternoon film on the TV. I had watched the film with interest until it reached the scene where the ship’s lights go out and it starts to sink at an angle. Looking back, I realise how close to the truth she was.

The film was shown many times over the years but it always had the same effect on me. No matter what age I was, at exactly the same point in the film I would feel that pressure in my chest. It became a bit of a family joke and boxes of tissues were passed to me without anyone having to look at me. Then, one day when I was in my thirties, I had a flashback to a previous life. I was looking through the eyes of someone walking down a corridor. There were doors on either side with numbers on them. I could see the arm of the person who was walking down this corridor. It had a white sleeve and a white glove on the hand, carrying a silver tray with a glass of Martini on it. I saw another person approaching - a man in the same uniform, but he had his tray tucked under his arm. We nodded at each other as we passed - and then the flashback was gone.

I had a sense, a ‘knowing’ that I had been part of the staff on the Titanic and that was why I was so affected by that old film. The pressure in my chest was a memory of drowning... Over the years, I had other past life memories flash into my mind and the majority of them involved drowning, which may account for my fear of the sea in this lifetime. To be taken on a cruise would feel like a punishment to me. On our first holiday together, my husband suggested a romantic moonlit walk along the beach. I couldn’t stand it after only five minutes. I could hear the sea whispering to me and I begged to be able to walk on the promenade!

I was shown another life but it seemed as though I was looking down from a great height on the scene below me, where I saw the mast of an Elizabethan ship and a man on the deck. He had sandy coloured hair and beard and I ‘knew’ he was me. He wore a white, open fronted shirt with breeches cut off at the knees, and he was barefoot. The ship was in dock and there were crowds of people on the quayside, come to see it off before it set sail. Amongst those there I saw a young woman with her mother and knew that this girl was the love of the man’s life. I watched him jump from the deck down to the quayside to kiss her goodbye. In this flashback I felt all the emotions of this man as he kissed the girl he loved, but also a great sadness as he knew he would not be coming back from this voyage (it felt like a premonition). Then the ship’s sails unfurled and caught in the breeze and it was time to leave. The man climbed back up onto the deck and waved to the girl quickly before taking his post on the ship. This had been such a powerfully emotional flashback.

Many years later, during a meditation I saw caves high up on a cliff face. In the valley below a wide river flowed rapidly. I watched as a caveman came out of the entrance of a cave and walk along a narrow path that led to the entrance of another cave. As I watched, I saw him stumble and then fall off the path and straight down into the rapid river. He was sucked under the water before any of the other cave dwellers saw it. I began to understand even more my dislike of water.

A while later, I attended a talk given by a Dutch Catholic bishop. I went with a friend, and in the break I went to get us a cup of tea; when I returned I saw that she was talking to the bishop. When she joined me after her chat, she told me that she’d been telling him about all my ‘past life drownings’. She had asked him if he could suggest anything to help me and his reply was, “Tell her to stay away from water!” My mum once told me that when I was three or four years old I fell into a neighbour’s fish pond while playing in their garden. Luckily, one of their sons found me and pulled me out quickly. Maybe water is trying to take me in this life? I made sure both of our daughters could swim from an early age!

I’m fascinated that the majority (well, those I’ve been made aware of so far) of the past lives I’ve had have been as men, but on one occasion I volunteered to be regressed as a demonstration to the rest of the psychic development circle I belonged to at the time. This time I saw a room with a window and a table with a birthday cake on it that had some lit candles. There was a group of people - a man and a woman, an older woman, a young boy and a teenage-looking girl. I understood that they were a Jewish family and that it was the girl’s sixteenth birthday. The grandmother told them to sing Happy Birthday very quietly so as not to draw attention to themselves, because German soldiers were outside in the street. I knew that I was the birthday girl, and the person regressing me asked me to walk over to the window and look outside. I did so and saw that we were in a tenement building about four floors up. It was night-time and there were German soldiers out on the street, stopping people and checking their papers. The building opposite looked like a factory with a lot of windows facing the street. I was then moved on in the regression and this time I saw myself as a machinist in the same factory. I had a friend who was also a machinist and her name was Dora. We made uniforms for the soldiers. I was then moved on again and this time I was in my mid-twenties and a hospital assistant. Wounded soldiers, both German and English, were brought in. I was standing next to the bed of an English soldier and I knew that we had fallen in love. It was then time to end the regression.

There was another regression in which I was a woman. My first scene was of a little hut in the forest where I lived. I was about fifteen years old with long black hair down to my waist and a long dress made of coarse material, tied at the waist with plaited wool. I was a herbalist and I made remedies from things in the forest. I remember seeing a deer by my side while gathering the natural ingredients needed for my potions. The townspeople would come and see me at night, so they wouldn’t be seen by their neighbours! In the next scene I was married and working in the fields with my husband and three children. I was now living in the town with my family; but then my husband cut himself with a scythe and, no matter what potion or remedy I used, the cut became infected and he died. I was then taken to the time of my own death and found that I was back in my hut in the woods, surrounded by my three children and grandchildren. It was a peaceful death. This may explain my interest in natural cures and herbal remedies in this life. I am now feeling a pull towards learning to make my own.

All these visions have come to me quite naturally and unexpectedly. They are very real. If I have had many past lives, then so have you!

When I moved to Somerset, I rented a house that was about three hundred years old, and it was almost opposite the parish church which was over eight hundred years old. There were a few shops on that side of the road too, including a newsagent’s and next door to it a little restaurant. About a year after I moved there I had a strange regression experience. I was a young girl, about sixteen, with blonde hair tied up on top of my head and wearing a long dress that looked pale yellow with little flowers on it. I was living in the same house that I was living in then although the rooms were set out differently and one had a big oak table with pewter dishes set out on it. I lived with my widowed mother who was a dressmaker and I had a strong feeling that she was connected to the Huguenots who came over from France. In the next scene, my mother had sent me over the road to the haberdashery shop to buy her some more lace that she needed for a dress she was making. I watched as I came out of the front door, crossed over the lane and went into the little shop.

The next scene I saw was my wedding day. I was in the same house as before with flowers in my hair, a small posy of flowers in my hands and with a cream muslin dress on. I walked over to the church on my own and waiting for me was a man who looked very much like my local butcher today! He had a ruddy complexion and big mutton sideburns. I was then moved on to my death bed scene. My children were there and so was the doctor, who had diagnosed I had smallpox. Then I was brought back from the regression.

When I told the group I was with what I had seen, they gasped and then told me that the little restaurant over the road had once been a haberdashery shop. This confirmed to me that I had lived in this town before.

Past life regressions can sometimes throw up some interesting things. My friend and I once went to observe a hypnotherapy training group and part of the training was past life regression. I just knew before we arrived that I would not be chosen as a subject and I was proved right. My friend, however, was chosen. It was a very weird experience watching her as she was trying to make sense of what was going on. Although she could talk to us, she wasn’t able to answer any of the questions asked by the tutor. Then she started to try to rub her hands together but they were becoming claw-like and very painful. At this point the tutor brought her out of the regression. My friend explained that, although she could see her surroundings, she was a deaf mute and so was unable to answer the questions asked by the tutor because she had never heard her name or where she lived! She told us that she had been in a hot country and that she was hiding among bushes to avoid being seen by the people who passed by now and again. She was starving and about ten years old. Further on from where she was hiding she found a wood and in the middle of it was a leper colony. She was allowed to join them but had to earn her food and shelter, so she was almost like a slave. My friend saw herself changing filthy straw where the lepers slept, and cooking their food and doing all the hard chores. She also developed leprosy herself and it was eating away at her hands, hence the pain in the regression. She was aware that as a deaf mute she was an outcast even in the leper colony.

Of course, there is no way of knowing how true these lives were. All I can say is that they have felt absolutely real to me - I recognised myself!