Past Life Regression

Most therapists working with clients in hypnosis will sooner or later encounter the strange and often quite surprising phenomena labelled as spontaneous regression.

Being well trained, the therapist immediately follows the client keeping in mind Milton Erickson’s advice “Accept and Utilize”. This regression can be to the clients’ childhood or, even further back in time, to a past life. I remember well the first time that happened to me. I had my client in deep hypnosis doing free associations, i.e. remembering situations in her childhood. It seemed to me that a lot of these memories centered around her angry and impatient father. Their relationship was, and had always been, strained. Suddenly the picture changed and the client, without missing a beat, describes how she (then a he) is advancing on an angry and highly exited crowd. Being the officer in charge my client commands the crowd to disperse but that seemed to make them even angrier. In the tumult that ensued my client stabs one of the main agitators in the chest but gets, at the same time, a terrible blow to the head and dies there on the street.

There were other benefits resulting from the session as well but I can’t nowUpon returning to normal awareness a few things were immediately clear to my
client. The man she, as the officer in charge, had killed was her father in a past life. Within minutes her animosity to her father melted away and she clearly understood why their relationship was so dysfunctional. She also understood and resolved her fear of crowds.

remember exactly what they were. My client was delighted but at the same time
completely surprised. She had never really given the idea of a past life a thought. Now, was this a true past life, a concoction of the mind or something else entirely?

As a clinical hypnoanalyst I have to say that I don’t particularly care what it was – the important thing was that my client was tremendously benefited by the session.

However, I have had the opportunity to research some clients past life experiences with the help of historians – some of these regressions were filmed and shown on national television – and my present understanding is that at least with some clients the information given to them about a past life is correct. What is unclear is where that information comes from. I can think of several sources but none of theme are less “metaphysical” than the theory of past lives.

In my practice I have done many, many hundreds of past life regressions and have seen the good therapeutic results of these sessions. For an experienced hypnotist it is surprisingly easy to bring somebody back in time to a past life but it takes some skill to bring about the “moment of enlightenment” when everything falls in place.

By Jörgen Sundvall