Past life regression

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Spirituality portal

Past life regression (PLR) is a therapeutic technique that uses light levels of hypnosis to activate memories, or pseudo-memories, that appear to represent past lives. PLR is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a therapeutic setting where it can be used in an attempt to resolve emotional, psychological or psychosomatic problems. Skeptics suggest that the "memories" are hypnotic confabulations rather than genuine memories of past lives. Some therapists claim that PLR has spiritual and therapeutic value regardless of the empirical validity of the memories.

Contents

History

PLR therapy has been developed since the 1950s by a number of professional psychologists and psychiatrists from the US, UK and Australia. The key researchers, and their published findings, are Alexander Cannon’s The Power Within (1950), Denys Kelsey’s Many Lifetimes (1967), Morris Netherton’s Past Lives Therapy (1978), Edith Fiore’s You Have Been Here Before (1978), Helen Wambach’s Reliving Past Lives (1978), Hans Ten Dam's Exploring Reincarnation (1983), Roger Woolger's Other Lives, Other Selves (1988) and Brian Weiss’ Many Lives, Many Masters (1988).

More recently Andy Tomlinson’s Healing the Eternal Soul (2006) and Hans TenDam’s Deep Healing (1996) have described how PLR therapy can be integrated with current life regression in regression therapy.

The elements of the PLR experience

Many PLR therapists use light trance and guided imagery to enable past lives to emerge. Some therapists also use bridging techniques from a client’s current life problem to bring past life stories to conscious awareness.[1] Most past life stories do not actually relate to famous people and contain few historical details, although occasionally subjects come up with a plethora of names, dates and places that can be checked.[2]

Recollections of past lives are normally relevant to clients, who often perceive similar patterns in their current lives. An example is an irrational sense of responsibility for the deaths of others, carried over from the death of loved ones in a past life.[3] Other patterns can take the form of a strong emotion (i.e. fear, anger, guilt), an associated thought, or body sensation (i.e. sexual block, skin rash). It has been suggested that these unresolved wounds from a past life may be the cause of present day complexes.[4]

The therapeutic value of PLR

Most of the pioneers were previously either Christian, agnostic or atheist. Nearly all claim that they were profoundly skeptical at the outset, but gradually became convinced because of the results of PLR as therapeutic tool.[5] According to proponents, PLR has produced dramatic, rapid and permanent improvements in some clients who had spent years in conventional therapy.[6]

A more formal survey was conducted by Hazel Denning, who examined the effects of PLR on nearly 1000 subjects between 1985 and 1992. Results were measured just after the therapy, with a follow up five years afterwards. Of the 450 subjects who could still be tracked, 24% reported the troublesome symptoms had completely gone, 23% reported considerable or dramatic improvement and 17% reported noticeable improvement.[7] It should be noted, however, that self-report studies of this type, using patients who are aware of their treatment status, are considered the weakest type of evidence for treatment effectiveness.[8]

The reality of lives recalled under PLR

Arguments in favor of the reality of past lives were shown in Australian psychologist Peter Ramster’s documentary The Reincarnation Experiments (1983) and the accompanying book.[9]

Although most of the PLR pioneers saw genuine past lives as the natural explanation of the phenomena they observed, the apparent success of past life regression therapy does not necessarily indicate that the memories have any basis in reality. Skeptics such as Ian Wilson,[10] Paul Edwards[11] and Melvin Harris[12] have argued that past lives revealed by regression are nothing more than narratives that the subconscious creates using a mixture of imagination and normally acquired information that has been forgotten. This is properly referred to as cryptomnesia. Harris, for example, showed evidence that the celebrated “Bloxham Tapes” were based on fictional sources that the subject, Jane Evans, had previously read and then forgotten.[13][14]

See also

References

  1. ^ Andy Tomlinson, Healing the Eternal Soul, O Books, 2006, ch 3, p 35-53.
  2. ^ Ramster, Peter, The Search for Lives Past, Somerset Films and Pub, 1990
  3. ^ Iseman, Esther, Regression Therapy as an Adjunct To Marriage Counseling: A Case Study, Journal of Regression Therapy, Vol 18, 1, 2008.
  4. ^ Woolger, Roger, Healing your Past Lives, Sounds True, 2004, ch3, p. 28.
  5. ^ Lawton, Ian, The Book of the Soul, Rational Spirituality Press, 2004, ch 4, p. 73.
  6. ^ Wooger, Roger, Other Lives, Other Selves, Thorsons, 1987, ch 1, p. 15.
  7. ^ Snow, Chet, Past-life Therapy: The Experiences of Twenty-Six Therapists”, Journal of Regression Therapy 1:2 ,1986.
  8. ^ Maguire, Una, Counselling effectiveness: a critical discussion, Brit. J. Guidance Counselling 1:38-50, 1973.
  9. ^ Ramster, Peter, The Search for Lives Past, Somerset Films and Pub, 1990
  10. ^ Wilson, Ian The After Death Experience, William Morrow and Company, 1989 and Mind out of Time, Improver Press 2002.
  11. ^ Edwards, Paul, Reincarnation Prometheus Books, 2001
  12. ^ Harris, Melvin, Investigating the Unexplained, Prometheus Books, 2003
  13. ^ Harris, Melvin, Investigating the Unexplained Prometheus Books, 2003, ch 18.
  14. ^ Lawton has since argued that in at least one of the three lives recalled by Jane, the fictional source proffered by Harris did not contain many of the obscure details of the past life. See Lawton, Ian, The Bloxham Tapes Revisited: Why cryptomnesia is not the complete explanation and Journal of Regression Therapy, 18:1(38-52), July 2008.

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