by William J. Baldwin, Ph.D.

Past-Life Therapy and Forgiveness

Ours is a culture of competition, with such slogans as may the best man win, looking out for number one (myself), winning by intimidation, might makes right, lawsuits, loser takes the hind quarter. In such a climate, there are many victims: losers in the stock market, sexual victims, discrimination victims, violence victims.

When we explore the victim role, for example, in a case of sexual abuse, we examine the emotional residue such as anger at the perpetrator, fear of being victimized again, sadness over the betrayal, guilt about pleasure derived in the sexual act. There is also mental residue: judgments regarding self-worth and self-esteem, decisions such as not trusting men; and there is physical residue, including damage to sexual organs, scarring, inability to conceive children, disfigurement from torture or beating. Any or all this residue may remain with the victim through lifetimes.

There seem to be several mechanisms by which such abuse is planned and drawn into present-life experience. The ones with the most impact are balancing karma and bestowing forgiveness.

The old maxim, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” is a popular metaphor for the concept of karma. In this way, a past-life misdeed of any degree will be balanced in a future-life event. Pain suffered must be in equal measure to pain inflicted. Simple, basic, brutal. And superficial.

As a client describes the abuse situation in this life, associated emotions and physical sensations may emerge. The emotional and bodily memories are fresh even if the abuse happened years before. The bridge inductions are effective.

Dr. B.: “Recall another time when you felt the same way. Let those feelings [emotional and physical] carry you right back to another time, another place when you felt the same way.”

This may evoke early life memories from infancy when some similar event took place, even a minor intrusion such as cleaning the genitalia with a cotton swab. The client is urged to describe any feelings, words, or images that surface.

Dr. B.: “Recall another time when you felt those same feelings, another time, another place. What comes?”

This often bridges the client into another lifetime at the moment they were being abused in a similar or more brutal way. Men have sexually violated women for as long as there have been men and women. Has it slowed down in present times? Probably not. Let’s take a closer look at the spiritual framework.

The client can uncover lifetime after lifetime when the abuse was echoed again and again. Anger and fear increased, extending to other aspects of life. All that is needed in therapy are two past-life events that mirror the abuse in this life. Then the client is guided to look for the source, the origin, the cause of the victimization.

After violent events from two lifetimes, the pattern of abuse is clear. The core issue is victimhood. The next suggestion will bring a memory that will unlock a chain of events, clarify the present situation, and allow for release of the mental, emotional, and physical residue in the present lifetime. Most important, it will open the way for forgiveness: the key to healing.

Dr. B.: “Locate the karmic event, the connecting event, the event which set the forces in motion that led to the sexual violation. Locate the other side of the coin. Trust what comes.”

After a pause, clients will begin to smile. Almost without exception, the memory that comes is one in which they were the victimizer or torturer—usually male—in a position of power, sexually torturing another, or perhaps many others. The process is that direct and immediate. They see that the balancing has occurred, or has been occurring, lifetime after lifetime.

With a spirit being of perfect integrity, such abuse is seen as a debit on the karmic ledger In the Planning Stage before a lifetime, an event is set up that will lead to balancing that ledger. Often the victim in the former lifetime will volunteer to be the perpetrator in the coming lifetime so the balancing can be complete.

However, once in the lifetime, such plans are forgotten, and the ego and our violent emotions cloud the deep memories and interfere with the balancing. And the cycle continues.

Dual Regression

Past-life therapy is important in couples counseling. A dual regression can be a fascinating experience for two people. Usually the two people locate the same lifetime, but not always. In this case, they found the same experience immediately.

Gail and Stan

Gail and Stan seemed very much in love. Stan had experienced a past-life regression several months before he met Gail. He recalled a life in a small town in Idaho in the 1800s. The session was meaningful to him. In that life, he was married, feeling a deeply loving connection with his wife. Though she died at a fairly young age, he raised their children and attained some political prominence in the town. It was a good life.

When the two met in this life, they felt a strong mutual attraction. In an intimate moment, Stan described to her his past-life regression in Idaho. He looked at her and was stunned, recognizing Gail as his beloved wife in the earlier lifetime. They wanted to be regressed together.

A garden meditation took them into an altered state. They visualized the colors of the flowers, felt the strength of the trees, and passed out a gate at the end of the garden. They were directed to a time when they had known each other. Gail was the first to speak.

Gail: “There is a wavy motion. We’re moving.”

Stan: “You’re scared.”

G.: “I’m not scared. We’re on a sailing ship. We’re going somewhere.”

Dr. B.: “Where are you coming from?”

A gentle probing question often focuses the recall into more specific details.

G.: “England. We’re going to the New World for some reason. Where is our luggage? Where are the children? I am scared.”

S.: “We’ve been accused of doing something. We’re going to the prison colonies. The children were left with your sister in London.”

Their names were Henry and Angela. They were in love. They had been accused of some minor crime and were being exiled to the prison colonies in the New World that would eventually become America. He made a promise to her that he would take her back to see the children. It was a promise he never kept.

A few months later she became ill. Henry reminded her of his promise to reunite her with their children. She could not hold on. Angela cried with deep sobs, knowing she would never see them again. As she died quietly he was also sobbing, heartbroken. Silently he vowed to her that they would be together again.

After a pause, we continued:

Dr. B.: “Are there any promises you make to each other before you leave the body?”

G.: “I’ll always love you, Henry.”

S.: “I’ll always love you. I can never give you children.”

Dr. B.: “Skip to the very moment you leave the body, Angela. What happens?”

G.: “I’m out of the body, I’m up above it.”

Dr. B.: “How does it feel, floating above your body?”

G.: “I’m free.”

Stan was still crying. Gail’s voice was peaceful and soft. She was concerned about Henry. He was grieving and crying. She could not help him, and she began to cry.

G.: “I feel so bad that he is grieving. I left him down there all alone. I wish he could be here. It’s so much better here.”

Dr. B.: “He can’t know that from where he is now. And there is nothing you can do about it. What do you do next, Angela?”

G.: “Floating, higher and higher, becoming smaller, like a point. It was like one little problem out of so many all around. There were problems all around the world. So many.”

Dr. B.: “Look around. Can you see anyone else? Can you see your children?”

Gail burst out crying and laughing simultaneously. She recognized her children in spirit. They had died in England and Henry and Angela, across the Atlantic, never knew. Now she was with them and feeling great joy in the reunion.

This did not disturb Stan’s experience. He continued with his narrative.

Several years later, Henry returned to London to find their two children. He was wary and careful; he was still considered a criminal in London. He went to the sister’s house only to learn that the children, Michael and Christina, had died of illness. He felt he had let Angela down again.

Stan jerked in the chair.

Dr. B.: “What happened, what just happened?”

S.: “It’s finished. I’m ready to go. It’s over.”

In his depressed state he wandered the back streets of London. A group of young toughs attacked Henry, beating him unmercifully.

S.: “Oooh! Ow! That did it.”

Dr. B.: “What happened?”

S.: “Someone clobbered me right on the head.”

Dr. B.: “What happens next?”

S.: “My body relaxes. They got the wrong man. But it doesn’t matter.”

Dr. B.: “Remember your thoughts about being finished, ready to go? For your purposes, did they get the wrong man?”

S.: (laughing) “No. I don’t think so. I’m done. I’m up out of my body.”

Dr. B.: (more softly, to Gail) “Dear one, as this is happening to him, can you see him from where you are?”

G.: “Oh yeah.” (joyful laughter)

Dr. B.: “He doesn’t see you yet, does he?”

G.: “No.”

Dr. B.: (more firmly, to Stan) “What happens to you next?”

S.: “I hang around watching them beating my body. It is absurd. I’m just loving them. It’s time for me to rest now.”

Dr. B.: “Keep looking around. What do you experience?”

S.: “Well, there are the heavens, the stars. I never pictured anything like this. There is a lot of swirling. A lot of stars rushing by, and they got thicker and thicker. There’s a lot of white. A lot of white light all around. And it’s like I see Angela’s eyes looking through. (laughter) I know she doesn’t need to have a form, but I still need her to have a form.”

Dr. B.: “Yes, the eyes are the windows of the soul. It’s how we recognize each other. She would give you that form so you could recognize her. Later you will recognize her by her vibration.”

S.: “Yeah.”

Dr. B.: “How is it now, being together in that space?”

G.: “Ecstasy.”

S.: (laughing with her) “Wow. It’s like there is no separation. Wispy…”

Both their voices trailed off, their faces displayed peaceful joy.

Dr. B.: “Exactly so. There is no separation in the inner being. There is only one, only the blending and connecting of consciousness. In human form, this is what we seek without knowing what it is that we long for.”

S.: “It’s like one long orgasm. There is no beginning, no ending.”

They laughed together.

Dr. B.: “This is true communication, to blend in spirit. It is what we know deep within ourselves. It is what we remember. And it is the ego that holds to the illusion of separation. In spirit we are all one. This is the experience.”

They enjoyed the bliss for a few minutes and were ready to move further. They explored the life together in Idaho that Stan had previously recalled. In the third lifetime, Gail found herself as a Brazilian attorney, single and very active in amorous pursuits. Stan experienced being an older married Chinese peasant woman. They were surprised by this switch. They never connected in that lifetime.

A few months after this dual regression, Gail and Stan dissolved their relationship, without rancor, blame, guilt, or negative feelings. They parted in peace and love. They were not soul mates but they did have that lifetime of pain and regret to heal and forgive.

Group Regression

Groups of people can be guided in past-life exploration, the first level of past-life recall. Most individuals discover prior life experiences, couples often find the same lifetime. Within a group of people attending a seminar or training course, two or more will usually recognize several others in the group. The similarity of interest will draw the same people together again, perhaps for many lifetimes.

In our two-day past-life regression seminars, we conduct seven regressions. Participants are guided to locate the past-life source of certain emotions in their present lives: anger, fear, sadness, guilt, and feelings of abandonment. They are directed to explore a significant relationship. They are also guided to learn their purpose in life.

The instruction for the regression on one’s purpose in life is explicit: Locate the moment when you first chose to come to the planet Earth.

The results are surprising. Over the last two decades, between 60 percent and 70 percent of participants recall coming into Earth existence from another planet or dimension. The purpose is to bring healing, love, and light to people here, and to help them overcome the heaviness and darkness that pervade this planet. Many humans have forgotten their origin, their Source, their spark of God-Light within. Other seminar leaders conducting group regressions regarding purpose in life often find similar results.

Past-Life Recall as an Extraterrestrial

The suggestions “recall” and “locate” are powerful commands to the subconscious. If those levels of “mind” called subconscious and unconscious actually carry soul memories of other lives, the space between lives, and existence on other worlds, then these “memories” are available through regression therapy. If these narratives are imagination, my mind boggles at the variegated richness of the human imagination in all its dimensions.

As one woman recalled her life on another world, she described it as “returning home for further instructions” before continuing in a long series of Earth lifetimes. She was a teacher and healer; she believed it was her job to bring that energy to Earth.

A highly intelligent young man, seriously depressed and feeling lost in life, recalled his origins on another planet. He was part of a group of students of higher learning there, and his trip to Earth for an incarnation was nothing more than a field trip for this group. He had lost contact with them and felt alone in his mission. As he touched into the consciousness of his group, he learned that many of them had also forgotten their mission, and several had committed suicide. With this knowledge, his depression eased and he regained his enthusiasm for following the spiritual path of learning; and I suspect he will go on to fulfill his assignment here on this field trip to Earth.

One type of alien being reported often in recent years has become identified as the “Nordic” type. Blond, blue-eyed, kindly and helpful. Apparently these types have been coming to Earth for millennia.

Most of our clients living in the United States find past lives in Central and South America, Western European countries, the Holy Land, Egypt, and before that, Atlantis. Soul migration seems to be mostly from East to West. Many narratives indicate that the exodus from Atlantis in its last days took people eastward to Africa and the European continent, and westward to the South American lands. From those areas they migrated northward, both physically and by reincarnation.

Ted

Ted attended our basic SRT training course. As a hypnotherapist, he wanted to expand his knowledge and skills, He volunteered as a demonstration subject. Though not uncommon, the tale that emerged was disturbing to Ted.

He discovered a small group of attached ETs that had been in place for years. That’s not unusual. Its stated purpose was to gather data on humans in normal life circumstances. Again, that’s a common situation. What came next was unusual, though we have heard it in other sessions. I directed Ted to locate the origin of this ET connection. He was very surprised at what his own subconscious mind and the ET leader disclosed.

Prior to the present lifetime, Ted was an associate of the attached ETs. They knew each other as fellow citizens on another planet. Ted himself was an ET. His past lives were on another planet. This knowledge was hard for him to accept, yet there it was, coming from his own memory banks.

As part of a “scientific” team on the other planet, Ted agreed to come into the Earth cycle as a research subject. As a human being, he would be a living laboratory for his teammates to study without the hostility or resistance that a native Earth inhabitant might exhibit.

These former coworkers followed him to Earth, moved into his body when Ted was very young, and had set up their equipment. Whatever the effects, he was used to them since they had been present nearly all his life.

Ted chose to release the ETs, get rid of the equipment, the communication and control devices that had been implanted. He disliked what he had discovered about his own past, and he chose a different course. He abandoned the alien project and chose human life. The ETs honored his choice; they knew his free will choice was one of the possible outcomes of such experimentation if Ted discovered them. They agreed to return to their own home-world.

Future Life Progression

Future-life experience is nearly as accessible as past lives. Occasionally a client will describe a traumatic event in a future life as the source of a present-life problem. A client can find resolution of present-life problems with the future-lives progression as easily as with past lives regression.

Lifetimes do not always line up like a string of pearls, though clients often perceive their past lives in sequential order. One client in a deep altered state described her many lifetimes as “bubbles of time” floating in space and she could choose to go into any of them. She knew if she resolved her conflicts and completed her unfinished business in one, several other potential lives would no longer be necessary and they would disappear from the scene.

In the nonphysical realm, time is not a sequence of events, as it seems to be in our physical space-time continuum. Quantum physicists tell us time does not exist as we perceive and measure it. Mystics contend that time is nonexistent; all events occur simultaneously.

The past-life therapist works within this paradigm that contains time and no-time without attempting to explain the unknown and unknowable. The focus of past life therapy is the client, the impact of any real or perceived event or trauma, regardless of origin, and resolution of the mental, emotional, and physical residue caused by that impact.

Dr. Helen Wambach, psychologist, author, and past-life therapy researcher, conducted small group regressions with several thousand people across the country, suggesting several specific time periods. Following the group regressions, each participant completed a questionnaire regarding such issues as the use of plates and eating utensils, clothing and footwear, type of food consumed, social class, race and sex distribution, and population. She compared details from these group past-life regressions with historical fact, and was amazed at the accuracy of most information gained through regression. Where there was disagreement between her subjects’ responses and written historical record, she sought older reference works on the various time periods. She found closer agreement; later volumes had suffered from revision of historical data.

Analyzing the data, she found a surprising correlation between the ratio of males to females in past lives and future lifetimes, and the present-day ratio, which is approximately 49.5 female to 50.5 male. Most of the people in her groups were Caucasian; most in past lives described skin color from black to dark olive with kinky or curly hair, but not straight. Only 10 percent experienced upper-class circumstances in the past.

In her research project, which included future lifetimes as well as past-life experience, Dr. Wambach progressed several thousand people into future time periods, specifically 2100 and A.D. 2300. Only 9 percent of her subjects experienced physical existence in 2100, and only 14 percent experienced physical existence in 2300.

These figures were stable regardless of race or the ratio of males to females in any of the participating groups. Perhaps the results of future-life progressions must be taken seriously because of the statistical analysis of the past-life figures and the accuracy of details of the research that can be verified historically.

Dr. Chet Snow and Dr. Leo Sprinkle continued the work of Dr. Wambach. By 2300, humans will apparently establish colonies in space and carry on routine interaction with extraterrestrials. Snow’s book gives an intriguing view of the future of human/ET contact. Our future on Earth will be quite different from present reality if future-life progressions are valid.

Parallel Lives

There has been much speculation on alternate realities, other dimensions of consciousness, and other planes of spiritual existence. The concept of time seems to be limited to physical existence in a three-dimensional world. In the spirit space, time does not exist and events are simultaneous, as are “lifetimes.” Many people can shift focus and spontaneously tap into other lifetimes, past and future, in altered state sessions.

Another speculation regarding consciousness suggests we have several other soul manifestations alive on the planet at present. Not incomplete soul fragments, but aspects of our higher consciousness, the oversoul, each whole and complete. Perhaps analogous to identical twins in the physical realm.

Can we find the others? Can we explore another life in this world? Not an alternate, but a parallel existence, someone we could walk up to and shake hands with? Not a member of our soul family but another aspect of the oversoul? In the altered state, a client can sometimes locate another aspect of themselves. This is an awesome concept.

Regression to Source

Man people suffer feelings of rejection, separation, and abandonment from a partner, family, parents, or friends. This is certainly a common problem that brings people into therapy. It is often described as a pain or emptiness in the heart, or a hole in the gut. Emotions of sadness, grief, confusion, even guilt accompany these sensations. With this combination of emotions and sensations, the bridge inductions are used. The word “feelings” encompasses emotions and physical sensations.

“Let those feelings carry you back. Recall another time you felt the same way in your body. Locate the cause of those feelings. What comes?”

It doesn’t take long for clients to uncover a memory of separation from mother in this life. Fortunately, the medical model of birthing has been improved significantly in recent years. More than half of women are still given anesthetic during labor, knocking out the conscious mind. The connection, the feeling of oneness with mother is broken. The newborn infant loses physical, emotional, and psychic contact with mother and interprets this as separation and abandonment.

This is not the first time for the feelings. It is not the origin.

“Let the feelings take you back even farther. Farther back now. Let those feelings take you all the way back. Find the cause of these feelings. Locate the source of the feelings of separation.”

Following this suggestion, many clients recall separation from the Creator Source as an individual spark of light. This is the original experience of separation. In the next moment comes a powerful and indescribable memory, the experience just before the separation. This is the experience of oneness with Source before the illusion of separation.

This experience is described by many spiritual disciplines. Many petty concerns disappear, swept away by the magnificence of this moment and the realization of who and what we really are. The ego shrinks from this reality. This is the memory of home, and those who find this place have no doubt of their final destination. We are all going home again. None will be left behind.

Beyond Death

After the death scene in a past-life regression, the newly deceased soul moves toward the Light. The description is similar to accounts of the near-death experience, except the spirit is joined by other beings who come to guide the newcomer all the way into the Light. Only when the newly deceased spirit moves fully into the Light is the past life really over. However, that is only one option for the newly deceased soul.

As the past-life character, through the client’s voice, describes the sequence of events following death, it may not perceive the Light. More information is needed on this.

“What happens next?”

Often the narrative leads to a description of “joining” or “coming into” another living person. This is not a past life of the client. This voice is describing the act of spirit possession or attachment. The being who describes this sort of connection has detoured from the ideal path of the reincarnation cycle. A living person cannot be possessed by a past-life personality. Reincarnation is a continuation, not an interruption.

Some describe looking for another body in the hospital, especially the nursery, on the battlefield after death in combat, or just “waiting for another body to come along.” Steve, a minister who served as a medic in Vietnam, carried many spirits of men who had died in his arms as he comforted the wounded. As different ones spoke through his voice, they described just “coming up his arms” as they left their bodies. Spirit attachment is a major factor in the condition known as post-traumatic stress disorder.

These descriptions of connecting with another body are not past-life memories of the client; they are recollections of other persons who were attracted to and are attached to the client. These are possessing or attaching entities. In my practice as a past life therapist, it was disturbing to find so many of my clients describing just such an attachment or attachments (there is never just one attached entity). It was this experience that led me to develop the techniques of spirit releasement therapy.

Excerpt from Healing Lost Souls: Releasing Unwanted Spirits From Your Energy Body

See Part I here.