Regression
Regression
Do you want to relive a past life?
Have you lived before ?
Past life regression lets people explore the possibility that this is not their first life. Hypnosis allows you to go back in time and experience previous lives. Who knows? Maybe you served at the court of King Solomon, or maybe you switched between man and woman in previous lives, maybe you were a slave? Are you being affected by things that happened in a past life? Have you lived before? Do we live other lives than this one? Is there a universal consciousness that we all share? Many people believe that reincarnation is possible and that souls can migrate from one body to a new one after death. Other people think the whole idea is nonsense.
Evidence for past lives
Whether you believe in it or not there is indisputable evidence that under hypnosis some people spontaneously report going back in time and reliving episodes from past lives. The whole subject is split by claims and counter claims. For every piece of evidence that past lives are real there is contradicting evidence that it is due to imagination, fraud and wishful thinking. For every skeptic's argument there is a believer's counter argument.
Whatever the truth of the matter there is no doubt that hypnosis is effective in generating the phenomenon and is easy to apply. I am willing to hypnotise anyone who wants to explore past lives for themselves. I have done it many times and always with interesting results.
PROCEDURE
The basic procedure is to induce hypnosis and regress the person back to childhood and then gradually go further back to a time before they were born. The person is then asked to describe whatever they are experiencing.
Induction
The induction for past life regression is usually longer and more detailed than for ordinary hypnosis. This is to ensure that the client is deeply entranced at least to the stage of somnambulism.
Safe Place
The first visualisation is to some safe place where the client feels warm and safe and totally in control. The client is told that this safe place always has existed and is available instantly whenever needed. Some time is spent establishing the safe place and ensuring the client has a strong connection to it. This is because when going back into childhood memories without a therapeutic target there is a remote possibility of the client re-opening some long overlooked memory and getting frightened and upset by it. This is called an abreaction. It is rare but does happen. If one appears the client is immediately directed to the safe place and the reaction is dissipated. (The only possible effect is to get startled and upset. Nothing in your own mind can ever harm you).
Bridge to the past
The next stage in the procedure is to take the client back to childhood and find some childhood memories. This is just to accustom the client to unfamiliar memories and to ensure that the client is comfortable with the process. Clients usually enjoy this part. (I regressed a man of over 80 back to his school days and he was delighted to discover that he could recall every detail of one ordinary day in the school library more than 70 years earlier. He recognised old school friends and could recall the nicknames of teachers he hadn't thought about for sixty years). The client is then led to a bridge or a train station or some other journey metaphor and allowed to cross the bridge or get on a train going backwards or whatever, which takes them to some place where all they can see is a mist.
Neutral language
Once in the mist the client is asked specifically if they still want to go to a time before they were born. On getting positive agreement they are told that the mist clears and they are free to experience whatever is there.
At this point the exact words are critical. The hypnotised mind is literal and the critical faculty is suppressed, so it is easy to lead the client by the wrong use of language. The hypnotist uses only as many words as are necessary to help the client to register the experience. The hypnotist uses only neutral non-directive language. This is known as using clean language.
Instead of saying "What colour are your shoes?", I say "Look at your feet: What do you see?". "What colour are your shoes" implies that there are shoes there, it is a suggestion for the mind to think about shoes. The hypnotised mind will therefore try to find something to say about shoes. The second statement is neutral, it doesn' t put anything into the mind that wasn't there already.
Life Lessons
The client is asked to described whatever is happening or what is being seen or heard and only prompted when they stop speaking. Usually all that is said is "And what else?".
After the client has described the past events they are asked to commune silently with the past life and to absorb whatever wisdom or life lessons the past life is willing to pass on. This is normally kept secret and not made known to the hypnotist or any others present.
Return to the departure point
Once the interchange with the past life is over the client is guided back to the mist and asked if there are any more past lives waiting or if they want to return to the present. Usually the person will want to go back and will experience a total of three previous lives.
Spiritual Awareness
The final part of the experience is to allow the person to go into that place where the soul goes between lives. The person is then allowed to drift in the space between lives and to experience whatever sensations they are open to: universal oneness or spiritual connection or whatever they believe is there. Clients have reported quite unique and complex experiences, and are usually filled with wonder afterwards.
Reorientation
Eventually the client is guided back out of the mist and brought back the same way they went into the past life regression. There is usually a longish pause so the client can reflect silently on what they have learned and how these lessons can be applied to their current life.
Most clients are deeply moved, fascinated and keen to talk about their experiences once they come back from their journey.
Past life regressions can be done in a group setting, with individuals taking turns to go back and then sharing their experiences afterwards.