More on Past Lives
What are the benefits of knowing about past lives?
Since my last article on life regression, I’ve done quite a bit more reading. I just finished my third audio book by psychiatrist Dr. Brian Weiss, generally recognized as the foremost expert on life regressions. His first book, Many Lives, Many Masters, introduces the topic of past lives and how he came to know about them. It tells the story of his first life regression client, Catherine, and the initial past life discoveries he and Catherine made together. It’s an outstanding book, and gave me an excellent start on learning about the subject. I also read Through Time Into Healing and Same Soul, Many Bodies1.
In these books, Dr. Weiss tells the stories of several patients who did multiple regressions, and some of the stories are quite startling. Beyond the stories themselves, he talks about the purpose of multiple lives and to some extent, the cosmology conveyed to him by the spiritual masters he has met through his patients and on his own regression journeys. My conclusion after reading these books is to be more thoroughly convinced (1) that past lives are real (with some personal caveats I’ll share later), (2) that doing life regressions can be very healing and therapeutic, and (3) that the cosmology is worth understanding for the comfort and reassurance it brings.
In the last article, I conveyed the outlines of my regressions, which felt vividly real. I am convinced they were real lives. However, after I experienced them, I did some research and found some facts that didn’t fully check out. I’m not sure why, but partly I think it was because I was using my logical left brain mind to do the followup research, and some of the assumptions I was making may not have been correct. I also believe (and this is the caveat I referred to) that while in the trance, the subconscious mind perceives the outline of the past life but may also embellish the story with additional thoughts that are meaningful to the subconscious but not necessarily part of the life. (This is my personal opinion, not Dr. Weiss’s view.)
For example, when asked during a regression, I gave what I thought might be my name, but I recall thinking as I spoke it that it didn’t feel right; it was more that I badly wanted a name, so my mind invented one. In my research afterwards I could not find a state birth or military record of that name; but there was another flaw as well; I thought I knew which state I lived in and approximately what years, but it was an impression that may have been incorrect. As another example, in another regression, I took part in a religious ceremony, and I thought I knew what the ceremony was, but later a person of that religion corrected my mistaken understanding and told me it was another kind of ceremony. In verifying facts, one makes assumptions based on the impressions received during the regression, but we may not be interpreting the impressions correctly.
Nevertheless, Dr. Weiss’s books present some startling regression cases that convinced me of their reality. None was so startling as the case of Victoria in Same Soul, Many Bodies. In this regression, Victoria was a man with a severe back injury in the time of Jesus. He saw the Sermon on the Mount and was powerfully drawn to Jesus. Subsequently he saw the crucifixion and was completely healed of his spinal injury—the implication being that Jesus healed him. More amazingly, as she told the story to Dr. Weiss’s seminar group where her regression was done, Victoria was also spontaneously completely healed of documented severe and painful spinal cancer. But miraculous as it is, that isn’t the end of the story. She said to Dr. Weiss, “I saw you there!” She had seen one of his lives there in Jerusalem at the crucifixion, and she described him and his unique clothing precisely. She was certain it was him. He was taken aback, as he had done a regression of his own in another time and place, shared with only three people, in which he had seen the crucifixion. He looked exactly as Victoria described him, including the very unique and identifiable robe he wore. In this case, her past life confirmed itself with a miraculous healing and it also confirmed Dr. Weiss’s past life. This story leaves me utterly astonished.
Often, Dr. Weiss explains, seeing their lives leads patients to psychological healing, either immediately or over time as they recognize the origins of painful emotions carried over into this life. In my case, one life produced tremendous grief which had previously been inexplicably part of my emotional struggles in this life. In therapy I recognized that it was there and in my regression, I realized where it came from. I worked on expressing the grief in therapy, and over the course of several months, it was released.
Another benefit Dr Weiss’s patients express is feeling a greater kinship with people of other races and cultures. My Jewish and Native American lives have given me a new appreciation of these groups. Perhaps the more people do regressions, the more of a sense of oneness all of us will have. The details of our bodies simply do not matter. Behind those minor details, we are all souls, connected to one another and the divine. If everybody were to do regressions and recognize themselves as members of other races and cultures in their past incarnations, how would they ever feel hatred or make war against other peoples? To do so would be make war against themselves and their own people! Diversity is built into our spiritual heritage!
A Labyrinth (photo by author)
The cosmology Dr. Weiss has uncovered, and with which I deeply resonate, offers other reassuring benefits. The first and most obvious is simply the idea that we never die! Our souls are immortal, and any unfinished work in this life will carry over into the next. This is a tremendously reassuring realization, much like the idea of heaven or nirvana. We know that upon death we will travel to the light where we will be present with the divine and all other souls, and we will be given a chance to return to a body to continue learning and making progress.
That latter thought—progress—is key to understanding why we have multiple lives. Dr. Weiss spoke to ascended spiritual masters during his own and others’ regressions. They are souls who have finished their embodied lives and have chosen to become teachers to other souls who are still embodying. Some may think of them as angels or spirit guides. Their purpose is to help us through each life. They are the wise voice our higher self or soul hears when we become still and seek spiritual guidance.
The masters assured Dr. Weiss that our lives are a spiritual “school” in which we learn unconditional love, compassion, and empathy and to overcome our own emotional and life struggles. After many lives and a completed learning path, we will stop reentering bodies and will progress through the levels of the soul realm or what some may think of as “heaven.” We will become spiritual master souls who lovingly guide others on their progression. The ultimate goal for a master is to merge completely with the divine. When we look at the broad strokes of such a plan, we see that it fits with the views of virtually all religions, whose purpose is to teach love to the soul to help it return to god.
Above all, the masters reassure us that the entire progression is very loving. We live in a loving universe designed to assist our progress and help us return to our source. All souls in the soul realm love one another and the divine and are interconnected. In that realm, we work together in soul groups that return to bodies together, which is why we see our “soul mates,” who can be many souls with whom we have a special bond, over and over again. In each life, we return to bodies and find each other, working together on our spiritual progress. Some may recall John Bunyan’s story of A Pilgrim’s Progress, or the metaphor of labyrinths found on the grounds of some churches and retreat centers, in which lives symbolically journey from a starting point through the maze to the center. That is the age old story. Our souls journey together through our life struggles to the center—the divine.
This strikes me as an incredibly comforting and loving process. Despite any struggles and existential loneliness we may sometimes feel, the truth is, we are never alone in this universe. The divine, our loving spirit guides, and the other souls whom we love and journey with are always with us through every life and in the soul realm, if only we can awaken and recognize them.
Please feel free to comment. I would love to have a dialog on this topic. I look forward to hearing from you!
If you have time for only one book, my personal favorite so far is Same Soul, Many Bodies. Dr Weiss wrote it 24 years after the first regression. It covers multiple patients’ past and future regressions and offers Dr. Weiss’s mature conclusions about multiple lives and the cosmology they reveal. Also, the audio books are abridged, so you can read them much more quickly than the print books if time is a factor for you.
I blazed through the Many Lives audio book and was fascinated! (Have been excited to tell you). Spiritually, this is the framework that makes the most sense to me. I was talking with my husband about the idea and he raised the question of where in the universe our souls might travel to/from: other places than earth? And I was wondering about all life forms and when in evolution would souls have emerged? (This is the left side of my brain getting over active too maybe 😂)
The overall meaning though with things we need to, even choose to, learn in this lifetime is fascinating.