The Method Used in Past Life Regression

By Dr. Edith Fiore

Here I show you my method of regressing a person into a past life and describe clients’ reactions to exploring their previous lifetimes. What is like to experience a past life regression? I invite you to follow the steps.

First, I asked you what you would like to find out about yourself. Since you have come for a past life regression, not as a patient for therapy, your reasons may be fairly vague. Usually the answer is, “Oh, I’d just like to know who I was before.” At this point I offer the “menu” – various topics from which you can select. Sample items are:
- Exploring a past life relationship with a partner or family member.
- Finding a lifetime in which a talent or skill was highly developed.
- The first incarnation on earth.
- The last previous incarnation.
- A life as the opposite sex.
- If you have a special interest or hobby, such as a fascination with Victorian houses, the Civil War, racing cars, sailing, etc., then you might choose to investigate its origins.

The regression is an exciting adventure. You will not lose consciousness. Your conscious mind is always aware of what is going on, both within and without. In the beginning of the trance, and sometimes well into it, you may notice noises in the hall or outside of the room, but gradually you will focus more and more on the unfolding inner scene. Your conscious mind may doubt, question or revel on the scenes that develop. Of course, you are always aware of me, to some degree. Sometimes after coming out of the trance, people have reported wondering whom that voice belonged to. Some are aware that it is I and even address me during the regression. Other response to the voice, but pay no particular attention to it. It is there, accepted.

I point out to you that you are always in control of the situation. One client regressed to a lifetime as an American Indian girl, studying herbal medicine, became very evasive and finally announced determinedly, “I do not want to talk to you anymore!” Back in the present but still in altered state, she explained that, as Indian girl, she felt I was a “test.” Since the herbal cures were secret, she became really frightened of me. Also, she could not understand who was asking those threatening questions. When I tried to explain, we got lost in a hopeless tangle. Then and there, she refused to speak another word, even folding her arms across her chest to accentuate her decision.

I begin the hypnotic induction by asking you to lie on the couch. Then I suggest that you close your eyes and focus your attention on your breathing. When you show signs of beginning to relax, I ask you to use your imagination and “feel the relaxation from your closed eyelids flow out onto your temples like a warm, relaxing liquid.” I direct your attention to its spreading over, and relaxing, one by one, the muscles of your face, and then progressively those of your whole body. This takes about ten minutes. I ask you to imagine yourself lying down in your favorite place in nature and, using the various senses one at a time to experience the scenes and yourself in it. This is an easy way for you to prepare to experience the scenes that will develop during the regression.

By now, you are in a deep enough trance for a past life regression, but there are still two important steps:
· I set up finger signals by asking you to think the word “Yes” over and over and to notice that “a finger lifts all by itself – lifted by the subconscious mind.”
· A “No” finger and an “I don’t want to answer” finger come next.
· Then I asked the inner mind, or subconscious mind, if it is willing for you to go back to a former lifetime. If we get a “yes” response, we proceed directly.

Sometimes there is a great, almost insurmountable resistance from the subconscious mind to regress – and often for very valid reason. For an example, after many months of resisting anything more than a light trance, a patient finally found herself on an operating table in a hospital. The surgeons were performing a pre-frontal lobotomy on her. She bled to death as they walked out, having given up. After surfacing the origin of her fear of “going under and allowing someone to work on her brain,” she has regressed to many past lives with ease – and is solving her problems and eliminating her many symptoms.

If your subconscious indicates that there is some resistance to regressing, I then bargain with it. I offer a way of viewing the material that puts distance between you and the experience. I suggest that you will see it portrayed on a “movie screen” in your mind. If need be, I suggest a posthypnotic amnesia if you cannot handle certain aspects of what will emerge.

This arrangement agreed upon, I regress you to a former life by counting to ten very slowly, suggesting that you go back in time and space through a time tunnel – and at “the count of ten you will find yourself in another time and another place in another body, but it will be you.” I suggest that the images and impressions will be very clear and vivid. By then you usually start to move your closed eyes, grimace, look puzzled or in some individual way convey to me that you are experiencing something. I start questioning you and you are able to answer. Sometimes it takes a bit of prodding on my part for the images to emerge and for you to find yourself “there.”

People experience regressions in many different ways. I have found that if they experience one past life regression vividly with all five senses, they will usually experience all past lives very similarly. Some just describe seeing themselves, as though viewing a movie. Others fully relive every second. Some remain calm and unemotional, even while describing being raped, scalped, or burned at the stake. Others shout, cry, or scream.

I find it fascinating to see how one person reacts as different personalities in different lifetimes. Most of my clients are consummate “actors” as they portray their various roles. During the regression, many people get so much into the character that they do not understand words I use, such as “years,” “customer” and “country.” In these cases, I suspect that their conscious minds are really “not in the act” at all. Some people are very definite about names, dates, and places, while other are confused or get lifetimes mixed.

After progressing through the significant events in the former life, I take you through your death and into the state immediately following the dying experience. Like all other painful or traumatic experiences, people experience it differently – apparently according to their capacity to tolerate stress. I may need to help you by giving you calming suggestions through your death or any other unpleasant events.

After we have gone though the life we wanted to look at or have dealt with the material responsible for a problem, I give you suggestion to return, still remaining deeply relaxed, to the present and to yourself, mentioning your name. I count backward from ten to zero. Once back, we discuss what you have just experienced. You may add interesting details.
I asked you if any of the people you interacted are people you know in this lifetime. Sometimes you may feel uncertain. If so, I give you suggestion that help you to make it very clear.

At this point, I asked your inner mind (subconscious mind) to reveal to you all the ways in which the lifetime you have just explored has affected you in your present life. Often interests, fears, and other facets of one’s personality are due to unsuspected causes that can very easily be overlooked.

Just before I bring you out of the trance, I give you suggestions that you will feel “really good and remember everything and with the next few days receive more and more insights about that lifetimes.”

I then slowly count to ten and ask you to open your eyes. Often people open their eyes, frown in disbelief and say, “But I didn’t go anywhere! I was here all the time.” We then talk over what you have experienced and what it means to you.