Are your past-life experiences causing problems in your present? Nick Parkins investigates
Are your past-life experiences causing problems in your present? Nick Parkins investigates
A study by renowned psychiatry professor Ian Stevenson found that children who speak of a past life often bear birthmarks and wounds which correlate to injuries and events in their past incarnations.
A Burmese girl born with no lower right leg spoke of a past incarnation in which she was struck by a train. Upon investigation, eyewitness testimony to the purported accident not only confirmed the girl’s existence, but that her right leg had indeed been severed by a passing locomotive. In fact, 43 from 49 cases that Stevenson recorded of children that spoke of a past-life personality and physical injury were supported by medical documents of deceased persons with wounds bearing uncanny resemblance to the birthmarks or birth defects of the relevant child.
Spirit levellers
Past-life regression, some say, teeters on the wonky shelf of the practising therapist, despite credible voices that counter support for this unusual brand of DIY health. Arguably the most revolutionary therapist, Prof Stevenson was a true pioneer and academic authority on matters regarding spiritual re-birth.
Founder of the division of perceptual studies at the University of Virginia’s department of psychiatry, Dr Stevenson researched and collated claims from more than 3,000 children who recounted past-life experiences. After four decades of research he reached the conclusion that birth marks, physical birth defects and even the psychological character with its attributed flaws and phobias might be traced back to a past-life and often traumatic event.
Regression hypnosis is often used to heal psychological and physiological disorders that stem from events in a person’s life. However for ailments such as phobias and eating disorders, often a cause cannot be found. Some claim that it is only when we step further into the unconscious psyche of past-life conflicts, where sexual issues and fears of death often reside, that we can hope to lay our ghosts to rest.
SHOULD I TRY IT?
While powers of personal healing may come from resolving fundamental psychological problems, even ironing out habitual quirks and wrinkles, it may not be for everyone. While some people choose past-life regression to satisfy an afternoon’s curiosity, on occasion issues may surface from a single regression that catch the sitter raw and offguard and which if left unresolved and without the appropriate therapy when necessary, could lead to problems.
Past life regression therapist Andrea Foulke’s own success has lead to her involvement with a pilot production soon to air in Los Angeles that seeks to focus on what she regards as the ultimate goal of past-life therapy: “The actual healing benefits are what is important,” she explains.
Similarly, clinical hypnotherapist Lorraine Flaherty believes it is best undertaken by those who have reached a point where they need answers or have major decisions to make in their lives: “Often people will come because they have tried everything else: they have reached a crisis point and there is a responsibility on the therapist not only to decide if this really is the best option for them, but to guide them safely and appropriately through work they may need to do.”
What all therapists agree on is that past-life regression under the right guidance and circumstances can be a powerful tool, with the ability to transform lives. Whether we choose regression or not, Stevenson tells us we are all children at heart, and it is often by tuning into our inner child that we can learn to put down the fears and phobias that come from our past.
FORGET ME NOT
Through trance a person can waken unresolved experiences and tied-in emotions, memories and conflicts. Past life regression therapist Lorraine Flaherty, who worked with Paul McKenna, likens this to unconscious programmes that lie repressed, often running beyond everyday conscious recall. She says that helping a person to locate and understand these programmes may free them from tied-in emotional responses out of their conscious control.
One client, Brian Walsh, hated his mundane job but had huge anxieties about making a change. Under trance he ‘returned’ to the 1700s, as the Italian pacifist son of a wealthy land owner, who had defied his father’s wish that he train as a soldier in order to satisfy his love of herbs and healing. One day the town had been lost while under his guard resulting in the deaths of many, including his wife and children. Healing had proven a tragic distraction and he had vowed not to do it again. Upon clearing the latent vow he went on to enjoy a highly successful career in healing.
“My work helps my clients to understand events in their lives and be free of old unwanted thoughts and behaviours,” explains Lorraine. “When you know where something comes from you are no longer tied to the old response.”
Brian’s story reflects in the everyday work of practitioners like Anjalee Carey who recalls the nightmarish terror of a lady who would often wake choking in a state of panic. After barely warming the couch the lady discovered a military past in war-torn North Africa, where she had apparently died from smoke inhalation whilst under siege. Anjalee says the panic and choking were linked: “Having visited the life just once and understanding what she needed to from the experience she now suffers from neither,” says Lorraine.
Access the past
We all have a double, a subtle body or aura that yogic philosophy says is driven by primary energy centres, or chakra; six ‘wheels of light’ that align vertically from the ‘root’ at the base of the spine, culminating at the seventh chakra, or ‘crown’. Each chakra receives and transmits energy particular to physical, mental and/or spiritual functions and so plays a unique role in holistic well-being. When a chakra is blocked or imbalanced this may lead to illness.
The crown combines the lower six chakras and is our portal to universal knowledge (and past-life records). Opening this chakra can reveal and so heal unconscious conflicts, restoring a top-down balance to the lower chakras. Likewise, resolving issues with lower chakras may rebalance the crown and with time allow you to develop this energy centre to fully connect with your spiritual self.
“Through trance a person can waken unresolved experiences and tied-in emotions, memories and conflicts”
Chakra meditation
Try this mediation from Andrea Foulkes to reveal and heal past conflicts.
To start this process try to visualise each chakra as a colour: red (base), orange (sacral), yellow (solar plexus), green (heart), blue (throat), indigo (forehead) and violet white (crown):
Relax, close your eyes and breathe slowly; imagining each breath feeding the chakra; connected, aglow and filling with colour
Visualise the grounding glow from your base chakra, a red light that flows through a rainbow of colours as it connects with each energy centre, through emerald green of the heart’s love chakra, through to the violet white at your crown – a light of protection and infinite truth
At the end feel yourself rooted to the centre of the earth once more, grounding you back to reality.
To access and download this meditation in full, sign-up to the free newsletter at andreafoulkes.co.uk.
Choosing your counsel
Life on the road to enlightenment via the sleepy hypnotic town of regression may have one or two potholes. Finding a reputable therapist can prove difficult as hypnotherapy qualifications need not conform to official across-the-board standards, save those of the issuing organisation.
Track down:
Therapists trained by, or that maintain direct affiliations with, reputable experts
Those honoured through established universities and accredited as members of the General Hypnotherapy Register or the Association of Professional Hypnosis and Psychotherapy
Experts with training diplomas in past-life regression and/or spirit releasement, and members of responsible bodies like the Past Life Therapists Association that satisfy a greater degree of professional transparency
Those with published works
Going off-road, word of mouth is equally important in an industry where experts often rise to prominence by less than conventional means. Therapists without formal track records may prove excellent spiritual facilitators and be equally as honest, and trustworthy with exacting ethical and professional standards; driven by genuine commitments to the holistic well-being of those they treat. In fact, many are caring, compassionate, empathic and honest and may over commit in their desire to help, often at personal expense.
MORE INFORMATION
Nick Parkins has a master’s degree in philosophy of the mind and a keen interest in the unexplained. He can be contacted at nickparkins@hotmail.co.uk.
