This is an answer you must come to on your own. My purpose is not to try to convince you of the validity of either reincarnation or information acquired through past-life regression or mindwalking journeying. The goal here is to provide you with a catalyst for change by first remembering who you truly are—a spiritual being expressing itself through adventures in and out of matter—and then by affording you the opportunity to make course corrections necessary in your evolutionary process. I would, however, add this to the discussion of the question of whether or not reincarnation is real: in regressing a few of my clients it was quite clear to them and to me that the details of prior incarnations contained information they did not have prior knowledge of. Some even began speaking in foreign languages that they did not know. For others, it seemed as if the subconscious had used this venue to express itself in a way that it could be heard through symbols rather than through actual past-life memories, similar to the messages in dreams. As a hypnotherapist and past-life regressionist it is not my place to judge. What is relevant is the value that can come from this type of exploration. My focus, and the focus of this book, is to provide a vehicle to assist you in creating your future in a way that aids you not only on your soul’s journey but also in adding vibrationally to the shift to higher consciousness on this planet.
Remembering Past-Lives
“ . . . there is no fence or hedge round Time that has gone. You can go back and have what you like if you remember well enough.”2
Richard Llewellyn
Memories of past-lives can come to us in many forms; some sought after and others unsolicited. Although past-life regression is the most common method of retrieving our memories, it is but one of the many means available for accessing them. Mindwalking is another. It is my own unique process that incorporates the retrieval of past-life memories and the “rewriting” of them during a shamanic journey into non-ordinary reality. During the journey neural pathways in the brain are corrected to transform negative life-patterns of the past-life into positive ones. You will read more of this process in Chapter 3.
Psychic readings, dreams, flashbacks, among others, can also bring information about our former incarnations to us. Here are a few interesting examples:
Past-Life Recall in Meditation
In his book Ancient Egyptian Mysticism, John Van Auken, a director of the A.R.E., wrote about reliving a past-life in ancient Egypt while in a deep meditative state. It felt to him that this life still existed and that he was a part of it. This was followed by similar experiences in meditation, dreams, and even flashbacks. Sometime after that, John visited Egypt. While meditating in the sacred temple at Abydos, he had the profound experience of finding himself as a participant in an initiation ceremony. He was so deeply engrossed in this event that when the tour leader tried to tell him that it was time to leave, John did not even recognize who he was!
This experience was so profound that it awakened an almost insatiable interest in ancient Egypt, its mysticism, and mythology. In many ways it has shaped his life as he has lead numerous tours to Egypt, speaks at the A.R.E. Ancient Mysteries conferences, writes books about the subject, and continues to delve even deeper into the mysteries of that place and time.
Past-Life Recall During a Near-Death Experience
Near-death experiences (NDE’s) are being reported more frequently as medicine and technology are able to save many who would have previously died from their injuries or illnesses. Less common are NDE’s in which the person relives a past-life. One such instance was Gretchen’s near-death experience that took place while she was laboring to birth her daughter. As the baby was unable to pass through the birth canal because of its position, the anesthesiologist administered sodium pentothal in order to deliver the child. That was when Gretchen began reliving a series of three prior lives in which she had died in childbirth.
In the first recall Gretchen was an English woman married to a planter in Africa. They were attacked by Africans of a tribe different from the ones who worked for them. She was raped, left for dead, and rescued by a native man and woman who lived in a cave. The English woman discovered she was pregnant but was unsure if the father was her husband or one of the attackers. When it was time to deliver the child, she went into protracted labor and was unable to deliver. In her agony she somehow learned to lift out of the body to alleviate the pain and was finally able to drag herself out of the cave. She did not want to die inside the cave because the man and woman who had helped her would have had to abandon it.
After leaving that body, she immediately found herself in a second past-life inside a covered wagon that was being attacked by Native Americans. Again she was pregnant and in the throes of delivery but could not deliver the child because the wagon was bouncing around. She became very angry and rose out of her body, filling the sky with her spirit. She was furious. The horses of the attackers sensed her spirit and would not move. The wagon trains immediately pulled into a circle for defense. When the members of her party checked on her, they found that she was already dead, and no one attempted to save the baby.
Then, through the fog, Gretchen heard the voice of the anesthesiologist telling her to breathe deeper, which she did, and in doing so slipped into a third past-life where she was once more exiting her body during delivery. She was married to a farmer in Britain who had a disability. As the farmer’s wife she was very ecstatic to be released from that life, but her husband was distraught. Although her spirit playfully said to him after it left the body, “Don’t you know I’ll be with you always? I’ll never leave you,” he couldn’t hear her and refused to be comforted. She began to sense the enormity of how bad her decision to leave her body was when suddenly Gretchen found herself back in the present looking down at her body in the delivery room. Gretchen thought in amazement, “I’ve done it again!” As she watched, a nurse reported, “No detectable pulse, doctor.” The anesthesiologist responded, “No discernable breathing,” and the doctor said, “Well, let’s get the baby out, at least.”
As she watched what was taking place, Gretchen felt sad, recognizing that there must be something she needed to work through FOLLOWING the birth of a child. That caused her to take a deep breath and immediately return to her body and deliver her daughter.
Gretchen was raised with a very conservative Christian religious upbringing. Reincarnation was not part of that belief system, but this experience caused her to begin a search which changed her life. She subsequently returned to school to receive a Master’s degree, divorced her highly dysfunctional husband, met and subsequently married the man who had been the farmer in the third past-life recall (!), and became involved with the A.R.E. The information in the Cayce readings answered her questions and led her to a new spiritual life based on those concepts. All of this occurred because of the very dramatic reliving of three lives in a near-death experience resulting in her making a different choice this time—the choice to stay in the body and birth a new life, not just for her daughter, but for herself.
Past-Life Recall Flashbacks
Past-life flashbacks happen unexpectedly and can by very disconcerting, as this one was for me. My husband Frank and I were in Georgia working as volunteers at a Sports Car Club of America event some years ago. After the event we drove to Washington, D.C. for sightseeing. While still in Georgia, we took one of the exits off the highway to stop for dinner. The road back to the highway was not the same as the one leading to it, and Frank took a wrong turn when returning. We found ourselves surrounded by cornfields. The sun was going down, and we were driving deeper and deeper into the back country. Sitting there in the passenger’s
