By Andy Tomlinson
The idea that we have past lives is becoming more widespread and an increasing number of people are having their own experience. The therapists who offer past life regression frequently use hypnotic trance. This enables past life memories to quickly surface into conscious awareness, and often with amazing clarity. A considerable number of independently investigated cases have been published in which people have recalled information that has been subsequently verified. Often this information is obscure and so detailed about the period of the past life that it is unlikely to have been obtained by normal means. Also the circumstances of many of these cases have been fully investigated without any signs of deliberate deception. An example is the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson and his team at the University of Virginia who have investigated and documented thousands of cases in which children’s reports of past lives have been subsequently verified. One five-year old child reported 49 specific details of a past-life experience that was later verified by at least two independent witnesses who knew the past-life person. This research together with other evidence provides a compelling case that past lives are to be taken seriously.
When clients are taken to a deeper level of hypnosis than used for past life recall what appears to be soul memories come to their conscious awareness following a past life death.
The obvious question is what happens between lives? When clients are taken to a deeper level of hypnosis than used for past life recall what appears to be soul memories come to their conscious awareness following a past life death. If the death has been traumatic such as from a battle, execution or accident, many of the associated harsh emotions are still present. Healing and rest is offered and at some point a review of the past life takes place. The narrative moves to meeting a soul group, who are souls that help each other and often jointly reincarnate on some meaningful work. A highlight at some point is to meet ‘elders’, who are souls who have attained a level of experience and wisdom that not does require them to physically reincarnate. They review the progress of the soul before them and what is expected for the next life. Achieved with love, compassion and the participation of the soul, it leads to the next physical incarnation having a purpose.
Immediately after a past life death most clients report floating out of their physical body and usually express a sudden sense of lightness and freedom, and sometimes the death scene is observed for a while with an air of detachment. A transcript to illustrate this is from a client I’ll call Ben Cook who found himself in a past life of a First World War British soldier dressed in kaki and waiting in a trench. It was a cold damp morning and he could hear gunfire and bombs going off all around him. At exactly 7 o’clock a voice a voice shouted ‘fix bayonets’. He could see grim faces around him as he found himself climbing up a ladder out of the trench and advancing. Suddenly he felt a pain in the chest:
I feel as though I’m lifting.
Are you able to look down and see the body?
God, it’s in a mess.
Just describe what you can see.
It’s just lying in the mud, where it was hit.
Are there any other bodies around you?
Oh yes. Oh yes. Just a massacre.
Do you feel drawn to stay or do you move on?
Oh, I can’t move on yet. I’m just taking in all this carnage. It’s terrible. What purpose? The pain’s stopped though. Thank goodness. No pain. No pain!
What other things are happening?
I’m just the stillness. Just quiet. It’s quite a pleasant feeling really. I can see little dots of light.
Do you feel a pull, or desire to go towards these lights?
A little bit. It’s not tremendous, and I know I can’t stop here. I just want to watch what they do with the body. It’s put on a stretcher. Somebody’s fiddling around with it and they take it away. This big trench, and they are throwing us all in. Half a dozen of us, and they just bury us. It’s the end, isn’t it? That’s it.
