Healing With Past Life Regression

By Roy Skillen

The thought of being able to see my past lives, to travel back and witness the events, places and people that may have shaped who I am today has always interested me.  Have I ever been extremely wealthy or famous? Have I lived in exotic places or travelled the world? The possibilities seem endless. But it had never been more than curiosity that has fuelled my interest. It wasn’t until I researched it further that I realised past life regression is used by many as a healing tool. It is thought that conditions ranging from anxiety and stress to un-rational phobias, troubles with money and even relationship problems can all be traced back to their roots in a past life. Amanda Hanel practices past life regression therapy out of The Mystical Dragon shop situated in Melbourne’s south eastern suburbs, she says “A lot of people have blockages in their lives that they feel they just can’t move around. So we basically take them back to touch base with what it is that may have occurred to cause their current life problem”.  It’s the witnessing of this link that is thought to be able to free the mind and allow us to move forward with our lives.

But as with all forms of alternative therapy the lack of scientific proof seems to attract a lot of criticism. One of the main problems is that there is no actual evidence to prove the reality of past lives. With many scientists saying it is all in the mind, a dream like state created, controlled and directed by the hypnotherapist themselves. Whether this is done intentionally or not, it seems to worry many sceptics. They feel that these dreams can cause false memories, which some people think will increase a person’s suffering rather than help by causing delusions, especially if horrendous scenes are witnessed. Miss Hanel agrees that this could happen in some cases but says that the trick is to not let them witness the events first hand. “The way to do it is to take a step back and observe anything like that rather than let them experience it fully because that wouldn’t be healthy”

Miss Hanel also agrees that hypnotherapy can make people vulnerable to outside suggestions. But she says that the method she uses takes her clients in too a state of deep relaxation and leaves them to tell her exactly what they see.  “When you work with hypnotherapy it takes the client to one of the deepest levels, the theta level, it is being at this deeper level that can leave the client susceptible to suggestions. What I do is take you in to more of a meditative state and then ask for the spirit guides to take you where ever you need to go to, with the intent of ridding whatever blockage you may have. I purposely don’t plant any seeds I just ask them to tell me what they are seeing and then try and tune in to see the same stuff”. Miss Hanel says that these blockages may not even be in a past life at all; many clients are actually taken back to present life childhood memories, to something that they have blocked out of their mind that was in fact the root of their current problem. She even feels that a belief in past lives is not essential and anyone can benefit from this type of healing “It can take a while to get people to that level of relaxation if they are a bit sceptical, but people are always amazed by what they get out of it”

But even with all the positive feedback the sceptics still aren’t convinced. Psychologist Robert Baker has conducted an experiment that only seems to add to their ammunition. He looks to have proved a connection between a high expectation of gaining a successful result and the belief in reincarnation, to the strength of peoples experience while under hypnotherapy. He took 60 students and split them into three groups. He told the first group that they were about to experience an exciting new therapy that could help them uncover their past lives. Eighty-five per cent in this group were successful in remembering a past life. He told the second group that they were to learn about a therapy which may or may not work to engender past-life memories. In this group, the success rate was 60%. He told the third group that the therapy was crazy and that normal people generally do not experience a past life at all. Only 10% of this group had a past-life memory.

Despite all the scepticism the number of people convinced that witnessing past life events has helped with their current life problems is growing. There are also many hardened critics who have been won over by some amazing results, Psychiatrist Dr Brian Weiss is one such person. He says it all began when one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas that seemed to hold the key to her recurring nightmares and anxiety attacks. His scepticism was eroded, however, when she began to channel messages from "the space between lives," which contained remarkable revelations about Dr. Weiss's family and his dead son. Using past-life therapy, he was not only able to cure the patient but also embarked on a new, more meaningful phase of his own career. Using the past life hypnotherapy technique Dr Weiss says he has managed cure thousands of people, believers and non-believers alike, of all sorts of ailments and is adamant of its use in mainline psychotherapy. He has also gone on to write many books on the subject such as ‘Same Soul, Many Bodies’ and ‘Mirrors of Time’, which is about using regression for physical, emotional and spiritual healing.

There are always going to be people sceptical about things that they don’t fully understand or that can’t be proved by scientific methods. But I feel that if something can help in your life’s quest by healing your mind, body and spirit whether it is past life regression, acupuncture or magnetic therapy by all means do it.