I’m not a huge fan of past life tourism. You get what that is from what I called it, right? It’s the open-ended exploration of past lives just to check them out. Lots of people are out there who do this. Past life regressionists will guide you back, via trance, to visit past lives. Sometimes they do this one-on-one and sometimes they lead big group trance sessions. You can also explore on your own, using CDs or books to guide you. And there’s deep meditation, of course, focused on the path back by intention. This can be very enlightening for sure, and with the right hypnotic suggestions to guide you into a positive past life, and only a positive past life, I have no problem with it at all. I understand well the curiosity and the desire to know. It’s fascinating. I also understand that in some cases, for some people, these experiences can be awakening and subtly healing. It’s the accessing of past lives without proper guidance and without proper intention that I discourage, and I have very good reasons.
The interesting thing about the spontaneous recall or the “popping up” of past lives is that it happens for a reason. Sure, sometimes that is a pleasant reason. Sometimes it can be, for instance, confirming the reality of past lives for someone who will later go on to raise awareness of them or to work with them in some way. Sometimes it can be the way a soul remembers a mate or someone to to work with and learn from in this life.
Most often, however, the past lives that show up are those that carry the energy of lessons that we have chosen to work through in this life. They represent unfinished business — whether that’s karmic or just part of the soul’s growth. This unfinished business shows up in the form of emotional challenge in this life. Sadness. Fear. Anger. Hatred. Lack of confidence. It can be anything, and it can manifest on the scale of 1 to 10 at any intensity. But unfinished business is not positive and light.
We don’t have anything to learn from the easy lives we’ve lived. We don’t have a reason to carry them with us on our soul body back to this plane, so, generally speaking, we don’t.
Sometimes people see glimpses of past lives. I did from time to time. Through meditation, and sometimes spontaneously, I would see myself as a freed slave or a young medieval child or a man in Paris in front of Notre Dame. And I thought: how cool, right? Sweet memories. What I learned was that those particular images were showing up to help me clear emotion, residual from my experiences at those times. When I explored these lives, I found out why they were readily available to me. I needed to clear emotion. As the former slave, I had been whipped and beaten and later watched my family hang from lynch mob’s ropes before I died the same way. I cleared resentment. As that little boy, my mother smashed in my face with her boot and killed me in front of my siblings. I cleared sadness. I was in front of Notre Dame, yes, but I was tortured and killed there for my beliefs. I cleared a sense of injustice.
The glimpses are just that. Glimpses. So what if the glimpses into the same past lives are of the traumatic times, not the sweet ones?
Let me tell you about Esther. Every time Esther put her head in the sink to wet her hair, she experienced her head being lopped off with a massive blade. Every time she saw a pile of wood, she smelled smoke that wasn’t there and tensed her body to be burned at the stake. Every time she saw a big wave, she would gasp, shake and cough, drowning. Not remembering these, but living these. And it wasn’t until she calmed down that she knew she was recalling past lives. This is PTSD, but it’s past life PTSD, and it nearly drove her insane.
Hers is a dramatic example, but it’s real.
Accessing past lives on your own can cause confusion. It can bring emotion to the surface. Sometimes it can be traumatic and even scarring. But with a professional at your side to skillfully guide you through the difficult past-life soul memories and then transform them into lessons of forgiveness and love, they are profoundly healing and enlightening. With a guide, the recall is brief and immediately transformed, so the experience is not traumatic at all. It’s liberating.
I don’t promote open past life tourism. I believe, from experience, that non-therapeutic regression is fine, but non-therapeutic regression without the close attention of a professional who can handle a traumatic experience if it should arise is irresponsible. I personally see it, at best, as careless, and at worst, unethical. I know people who have visited past lives without appropriate directives, either alone or under the supervision of past life regressionists, and in the process, have experienced confusion, pain, and suffering. And then they were sent on their way to figure it all out on their own.
I don’t do that.
In any guided group regression session, even though the goal is not therapy, the therapist-as-leader will set the intention, out loud during the induction, for the experience to be positive. This is so important. If you are planning to do a session like this, please make very sure that the facilitator works in this way. If he or she does not, please find someone else who does.
When we do one-on-one past life regression therapy, we lead you to the past lives that hold the source emotion of the challenges that you’re dealing with in this life. You’d be surprised how often the source of what you’re feeling comes from some far remote experience in a past life. When we go all the way back to the source in a past life, we guide you through that life to understand it, and in the process, address and transform the experiences and emotions that need resolution. With understanding comes healing and growth, and letting go then inevitably results in letting go now.
In past life regression therapy, you will never be alone. You will never have to go home carrying the unresolved memory of unrequited love or unbearable despair or unquenchable anger. You will never be sent on your way without interpretation or feedback. You will experience amazing, beautiful, unimaginable things, but you will also understand why you did, and how it is relevant to your current life.
That’s my promise to you. And it’s why I do what I do the way that I do it.
Visiting past lives with professional guidance or even on your own, when positive intention is set clearly in the process, is not bad. It can be amazing. Just please know that to really clear the issues that you’ve brought with you to resolve in this life, a regression session with a qualified professional is the way to go. Choose to work with someone who will get you through the challenges safely and lovingly, will transform those experiences into clear lessons resulting in the release of the emotional charge, and will integrate the experience into your current life so that you can move forward freely. That is what past life regression therapy is.
And if you do experience unsettling or traumatic past life recall, whether alone or in a group setting, please know that there are professionals out there who can help you quickly, completely, and safely. You do not have to deal with this on your own. Please don’t. Reach out to me or find a therapist near you, anywhere in the world, through the EARTh Association website.
Travel safe.
PC: Raymond Hoffer, via Tacky Tourist Photos, tackytouristphotos.com