|
Twin
Cities Metro Magazine Interview on Past Life Regression
and Healing
by Eric Christopher
1)
How did you become interested in past life regression?
It was more of a process than an event.
It began when I traveled around India a couple of
times many years ago, and was exposed to a different
kind of thought. There,
the prevalent concept is:
“We are far more than these bodies and thoughts
about ourselves. Our
larger identity is an eternal, indestructible soul that
has donned the costumes of hundreds of bodies.”
Years later, I read a fascinating
researched-based book by Dr. Michael Newton called Journey
of Souls that supported this idea.
Newton was a skeptical psychologist who initially
did not believe in reincarnation, but his clients
continued to go into past lives under hypnosis.
After noticing the therapeutic benefits of these
sessions, he continued to use past life regression, but
became most interested in regressing them further into
the life-between-life state.
After over 3,500 regressions with different
clients, he was astonished at the amazing consistencies
reported by his clients, despite the varying religious
or cultural persuasions.
What he also noted, however, was the therapeutic
healing benefits the experience had on his clients, as
they saw themselves and their life situations from the
much wider, higher context of their soul’s
perspective. I
was glued to the book as I read it, and deep in my gut I
was saying, “I’m going to do this, both as a client
and a therapist.”
The subject intrigued me so much that my masters
thesis in the Marriage and Family Therapy program I was
in was titled, “Exploring the Effectiveness of Past
Life Regression Therapy.”
The more I studied and practiced it, the more I
discovered how effective it was in overcoming all kinds
of problems. Finally,
when I got rid of about 90% of my public speaking fear
in one past life session, I was sold on it.
2)
How does past life regression work?
It
works because not only is there a large part of us that
is eternal and very wise, but we all have the capability
to tap into this vast ocean of information.
For example, many of our dreams at night are rich
in symbols and messages for us to use to gain better
awareness of ourselves and how we’re dealing with
current life circumstances.
I even had one friend whose dreams were
consistently prophetic.
This wisdom and imagery that comes from our
right-brain is what we tap into during a past life
regression, only we’re awake and in a conscious trance
state at the same time.
When we allow our left-brain analytical minds to
relax, and then go beneath the continual stream of
chatter from our ego, in other words, when our mind gets
to that “blank” void, we can tap into a wellspring
of peace, joy, and other resources from our soul to aid
in our human experience.
Many people have attested to this.
Lao-Tzu said: “At the center of your being you
have unimagined resources.”
Jesus: “The kingdom of God is within you.”
Paramahansa Yogananda: “Within you lies the sea
of infinite knowledge and inspiration.”
It is available for all of us, so in this
receptive state, when you tell your Higher Mind to take
you to a life that’s for your highest good to see, it
is excited to do so because your eternal Self can now
reach out to connect with your human self for the
purpose of balancing energies toward the Soul’s
natural harmony. Thus,
what happens is a “story” will tend to unfold and
you will perceive a life that relates to one of your
deepest needs or issues.
It seems uncanny the first time you experience
it, and a common response is: “I couldn’t have made that
up.” It’s
simply a matter of relaxing your mind enough to get your
left-brain “thinking” mind out of the way because it
will block the process of the “true” information
streaming to you. Anyone
can do it, but it can take a bit of practice at first to
quiet the mind down and still be awake and focused.
A good guide can assist the first time in this
process, and later a guide is no longer necessary.
3)
What is the farthest back you have ever regressed someone?
A
few people went back to times when they were wearing
animal skins and lived in cave dwellings or primitive
shelters. Another
person described his life on another planet.
4)
Is there a particular regression you’ve done that really stands out in
your mind?
They
all sort of run together in my mind, but one in
particular stands out because I did it over the phone at
3 AM. Let
me explain: A
few days prior I asked a client to describe the thoughts
beneath her chronic anxiety.
She replied: “I’m all alone…I didn’t do
something…Someone’s going to be mad at me.”
A few nights later I awoke at 3AM wanting a glass
of water. As
I was in the kitchen, the phone rang.
It was my client, profusely apologizing for
calling at that hour.
She was frightened, hyperventilating, and
experiencing a panic attack.
After releasing the panic energy, we explored
where that stuck thought-form energy in her system
began. She
intermittently saw herself above and in the past life
scene which unfolded as follows:
Her husband, Dave, had gone fishing with his
buddies. She
didn’t lock the back door before going to bed.
A robber came in the back door in the middle of
the night. While
he was in the bedroom, she awoke and screamed.
This startled him, and he panicked and smothered
her face in a pillow.
She then lifted out of her body and saw it
struggling below her.
Her dying thoughts were: “I should have locked
the back door. Dave
is going to be mad at me.
I wish he were here – I’m all alone.”
That intense thought and feeling energy was
“stuck” or “brought along” into her physical,
mental and emotional energy bodies in this lifetime.
She had felt that anxiety her entire life
beginning at the age of six, when some event may have
reawakened that dormant fear energy within her.
She had visited the Emergency Room numerous times
to deal with it, and they gave her a sedative which
blanketed the feeling each time.
Once we uncovered the origin of the fear,
however, she felt that it was completely gone and never
experienced it again.
This case is a good example of why the Tibetans,
a very spiritual cultural group, are careful to try to
die with peaceful feelings, as they believe we can carry
our dying thoughts and feelings into other incarnations.
5)
What do you want people in the Twin Cities to know about past life
regression?
Past
life regression therapy is a great way to karma cleanse.
That is, take care of any “unfinished
business” from other lives.
Roger Woolger, a Jungian psychologist and past
life therapist for 30 years, once said: “We remember
past lives in order to forget them.”
What he means is that these past life memories
and influences are not in some deep, dark crevice of our
minds. Rather,
they are just below the surface, in the repeating
thought and behavior patterns, the phobias, fears,
abandonment issues, musical abilities, etc.
We are eternal, and past life regression therapy
is a great way to free stuck thought and behavior
patterns brought over from other life experiences,
overcome most issues, or simply to gain a larger
perspective of your Self.
In fact, you don’t even have to believe in
reincarnation. You
can interpret the images that inevitably arise as
symbolic metaphors that the mind is creating.
Positive therapeutic results seem to happen
either way you interpret it.
6)
Do you have any advice for people who are considering trying to regress
to past lives?
As
I mentioned before, it takes a bit of practice the first
time to get your “thinking” mind out of the way.
Once you do, it’s so simple and easy, it can
feel as though you are just making up the information
that streams to you in the form of feelings, ideas and
thoughts because you are conscious and aware during the
process. To
satisfy clients’ logical minds, I like to tell them
about the numerous examples of people who thought they
made up the information, then later researched their
past life to find that such a person not only existed,
but most of the details accurately matched up.
A good example involves Captain Robert Snow,
detective for the Indianapolis Police Department for 35
years. He
didn’t believe in reincarnation, nor accurate recall
under hypnosis, so he decided to do a past life
regression only to prove it was “new age nonsense”
which he simply “imagined.”
He got details of a life of an 18th
century artist named Carroll Beckwith, and listed out 28
pieces of information to either refute or verify.
After a long, strange and synchronistic search,
he astounded himself by verifying 27 out of 28 pieces of
data, including names, locations of residence, etc.
He then wrote a book about this profound
experience titled, Looking for Carroll Beckwith.
When our continually chattering ego mind finally
quiets, who knows where that information comes from that
we consider our “imagination?”
It reminds me of a quote by Edgar Cayce, famous
mystic: “Imagination
is the gateway to the soul.”
7)
Is there anything else?
Numerous
teachers and mystics allude to the “growing pains”
that the earth is experiencing now with religious wars,
natural disasters, etc., and mark 2012-2013 as the
climax of a necessary transition time for the
consciousness on the planet to raise toward an
interconnected “oneness.”
Simply Google “2012” to get a glimpse of it. The Mayan calendar, among others, comes to an end at this
time, hopefully marking a transcendent time.
In correspondence, what also seems to be
happening lately is that many people’s emotional
issues are beginning to surface – the particular issue
or lesson their soul wants them to “get” or move
past. The cleansing of these issues often involves releasing and
healing the energy of unwanted thoughts and feelings
that people are dragging with them.
Healing isn’t difficult – it can be done by a
change of perspective, by seeing turmoil or pain through
the soul’s eyes of love and security, rather than
through the human ego’s eyes of fear or lack.
Past life regression can aid us with seeing any
issue or conflict through the clarity and wisdom of the
eyes of one’s Higher Mind.
It’s available for anyone.
The process is automatically healing as it guides
us to experience our Selves and our issues from a
higher, “eternal,” and more interconnected
perspective, which in turn, subtly aids us in ridding
our consciousness from the fear of death and all the
other interlinked subtle fears that trail from that
common base fear. I
realize that viewing ourselves as everlasting beings who
have lived before is new for most western minds.
However, as the scope of “Who We Are” widens,
our inner and world view naturally shifts with it, much
like how our perspective of earth life can shift when we
view our planet from the larger reality of the Hubble
Space telescope, and we see earth as a tiny dot drifting
amidst billions of other galaxies.
When we view our selves from a higher
perspective, it is empowering, there is a stronger
feeling of connecting to a larger whole, and we can
awaken to a great realization:
“I can create which direction I want this life
of mine to go, irregardless of what obstacles are in its
path.” Past
life regression is one tool that can aid us in this
process of growth.
I often call the process “past life therapy,”
because it usually turns out to be therapeutic, even
when it is not intended to be.
I received my past life therapy training through an
organization called the International Association for
Regression Research and Therapies (IARRT).
A person can learn many similar modalities of
healing through this organization.
For more information about past life regression
and therapy, visit www.iarrt.org.
Eric Christopher, MS, MFT, CHT,
is a Marriage and Family Therapist, Transpersonal
Hypnotherapist and Releasement Therapist with a private
practice in St. Paul, MN.
His website is www.ericjchristopher.com.
|
