The Garden of Recycled Souls
When one of my clients, Lisa Erbes, was visiting a castle in Ireland a couple of years ago, she had a flashback memory of seeing a dead body. As she uncovered the history of the castle, she discovered that it involved a tragic “Romeo and Juliet” style love story of an English girl falling in love with an Irish boy around the 1600’s. There was something about the life of the girl that resonated with her in a strong way, and she also wanted to get to the bottom of this flashback vision, so she decided to do a past life regression with me. During the regression experience, Lisa uncovered details of being that girl in that life over 400 years ago. She was able to verify these details on her second trip to the castle a year later. She describes her amazing account in a book she wrote about her experience called The Garden of Recycled Souls.
The back cover summary blurb of the book reads: “This is the true story of a skeptic’s journey to discover the origin of an intense, ghostly experience at a 500-year old Irish castle. To understand what took place, she undertook a yearlong investigation of past-life memories, the paranormal, clairvoyance and a 17th-century love story. This is what she discovered.” Here is a link to the book on Amazon.
I wrote the Afterword for Lisa’s book in which I describe my own journey into facilitating past life regressions, and also describe more about what past life regression is about, and the value of it. If you’re interested in a fascinating read, I would encourage you to get the book. Below is my contribution to the book that I wrote in the Afterword:
Where to begin? There is so much to say about the topic of Past Life Regression. I’ve been facilitating sessions as a therapeutic modality for 23 years, and it’s a passion of mine. My master’s thesis is called Exploring the Effectiveness of Past Life Regression Therapy. I have spoken about it for four straight hours at various workshops. I am well aware of how mainstream society and Wikipedia views past life regression to be wacky and even fraudulent. And I, along with probably any other past life regression therapist, would like to scream, “What you think it is, is not what it is!”
Past life regression is based on the idea that our primary identity is an eternal, indestructible soul being that transcends time and space, and happens to be using a body, instead of our main identity being a body that has a soul. I, along with most of western society, did not grow up with the former concept.
To give a little background, my father was a Methodist minister, so I grew up going to church every Sunday. The thought of reincarnation was never on our radar. In my early 20’s, during college and bit after, I grew into quite the skeptic and considered myself agnostic. At the age of 24, however, I had several experiences backpacking around India that laid the foundation for a radical perception shift. One of them happened when I decided to work at one of Mother Theresa’s Homes for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta. My first day there, I spent time with a dying man who wanted to talk with me. He looked into my eyes as he reached out his arms for me to hold, and then he died right in my arms. He increasingly became a cold, hard, stiff shell which we eventually placed on a burning pyre to transform into ash. I had a strong sense that what I was just talking to a few hours prior was not that burning body, but rather the light, energy and consciousness that left his body, whatever and wherever that was. I later had a psychic/medium tell me, “There’s an Indian man here who says you were with him when he died. He wants to thank you.” There’s no way she could possibly know that! It’s been said that one experience is worth a thousand case studies, and I had several types of experiences that helped transform my beliefs into: we are an eternal being using a body. It is a view of life quite common in most of Asia.
As I began to research reincarnation, I discovered that there is significant of evidence for it, but only if you dig. One of the best resources is the work of Ian Stevenson, author of 29 books and a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine for fifty years. He thoroughly researched 3,000 cases involving the memories of children, between the ages of 2 and 7 years old, who remembered living other lives. These kids would typically have specific memories of their former lives, such as their names, the city or village where they had lived, names of family members, some even recalled phone numbers they had, and how they died. These were the types of cases Stevenson researched and verified. If there was any way these children could have gotten that information from another person or source, he would never bother to research the case. In all, he felt that he had at least 1,000 solid case studies in which reincarnation seemed to be the most plausible explanation for these children’s accurate memories. It is important to note that up until the age of 7, children are predominantly in a slower brainwave state, Alpha and Theta brainwave cycles, which is the same state a person is in when they are in deep meditation or hypnosis. In these slower brainwave states, there is more access to the unconscious mind.
Another example of reincarnation evidence is the Indianapolis homicide detective Captain Robert Snow, who had authored several books on good detective work. He only did a past life regression to prove it was complete nonsense, because he didn’t believe in reincarnation nor in accurate recall under hypnosis. It is true that the mind can confabulate information while under hypnosis. So, Snow set out to debunk past life regression by doing one himself. He eventually saw images of a late-nineteenth century artist named James. After the regression, he listed out 28 pieces of information that he was going to either refute or verify. But after a brief investigation, he could not find any verifying information of any details, and so concluded that he made the whole thing up. However, several months later, he was in an art gallery and saw a painting of a woman. He was astonished because he recalled seeing himself painting that same painting during his regression. He initially insisted that he must have seen that painting before and it somehow emerged from his unconscious during the regression, even after the owner of the gallery said that was impossible because that particular painting had been in a private family collection and this was the first time it was shown in public. He learned that the artist’s name was Carroll Beckwith, and so began to research him. He discovered that Carroll Beckwith never went by his first name, but rather his middle name, James. Most importantly, he learned that Beckwith had kept a diary of nearly everyday of his life from the age of 17 onwards, and these diaries happened to be stored in the basement archives of the New York Academy of Art and Design in Manhattan. Detective Snow went there, poured through the diaries, and then was able to verify all 28 details about the life of James Beckwith from his regression. He wrote a book about his experience called Looking for Carroll Beckwith.
I discovered there were 100’s of these types of anecdotal case studies out there which couldn’t prove reincarnation because there was nothing to scientifically measure, but combined, they gave strong evidence of it. Through deductive reasoning, I considered that one day we won’t be our body, but try as we might, we cannot separate ourselves from the life energy force and consciousness that animates the body. So why can’t we tune into this eternal being that we already are and we can’t escape from? I believe we can…when we quiet our thinking mind with meditation and go deep within. No one is good at meditation from the start. We discover that our mind is what the Buddhist’s call a wild racehorse. But with lots of practice you begin to feel the deep peace beneath the chatter.
Hypnosis is a like a short cut route to get into a deep state of meditation. If you couple that with a guided journey in which you leave behind your current body/mind identity and take on a different body/mind identity that your unconscious shows you, then also leave that identity behind, you can begin to feel the deep peace of the soul self. For most people, past life regression is a fast and efficient means of going within to tune into the eternal aspect of yourself.
What Past Life Regression Really Is
In my practice, as well as any other past life regression therapists that I know of, the emphasis is not necessarily on discovering other lives your soul has lived…although it can be. Mostly, past life regression is used as an efficient and effective tool to help someone get unstuck in some way, or heal themselves of something, or gain insight or clarity into an issue or situation. People who experience a past life regression somehow feel drawn to do one. Neither myself, nor any other past life regression therapist, can guarantee that you will see a life that your soul has lived before while doing a past life regression. However, I can almost guarantee that the person coming to me will see a life or lives that will somehow help them to move forward, grow, evolve, heal, or gain some insight or clarity about their life, whether they are seeing images of a past life their soul has lived before, or a life from the mass consciousness stream, or whether they are seeing some sort of symbolic metaphor that their unconscious mind is showing them. How can I almost guarantee this? It is said that just as the body’s instinct is to breathe, the soul’s instinct is to grow and evolve. That makes sense to me, because as I’ve noticed after facilitating over 4,000 past life regressions, a person’s higher soul-self, or unconscious mind, will show them something very helpful and beneficial 9 out of 10 times while doing a past life regression. Having said that, however, I do believe that most of the lives people see during a past life regression are indeed coming from a life that their soul has lived before. Mainly because if you consider that our souls grow, learn and evolve through the experience of these earth lives, we all have had many lives that we may have botched up or could have made better decisions. These are the types of lives that 90% of my clients see. They are rarely the lives of famous people, but rather ordinary people with sometimes boring or partially traumatic lives, at times ending in tragedy or suicide. The most common thing I hear after a person emerges from a past life regression is: “I would never have made that up.”
Three Common Ways a Person May Benefit From a Past Life Regression
- Releasing energy that is limiting you or holding you back physically, mentally or emotionally.
The Tibetans are a group of people who have studied spirituality and almost made it into a science. They say we have a physical, a mental and an emotional energy body. When we die and move up into the higher vibration of the spirit realm, we leave that heavy energy behind. But when we incarnate again, we can pick up again some of the dense trauma energy left over from a previous life. I have witnessed many hundreds of examples of this.
One example includes a client who had been on medications for 30 years due to anxiety that felt like impending doom, coupled with a strange pain in his chest that the doctors couldn’t figure out. He regressed to an idyllic past life hundreds of years ago where he lived in a clan that felt like extended family near a forest. They always had plenty to eat. But the last minute of his life was filled with chaos and panic because his village was raided by invaders early one morning, and he died from a sword in his heart. When the life was over, he drifted higher into the spirit realm and we released the energy of physical, mental and emotional trauma from that death experience. After the session was over, he said his anxiety and the ongoing pain in his chest was gone. Six weeks later, he emailed me saying he had weened off all of his medications for that issue, and the anxiety and pain was still gone and he’s never felt better.
Examples with other clients include: eliminating ongoing migraines by finding the source of it in a past life where she was one of the first recipients of Electric Convulsive Therapy for depression, before they used anesthesia; Eradicating a phantom chest pain after discovering the source of it in a previous life car accident that killed her; Releasing and eliminating deep anxiety and phobia of anything around my client’s neck after uncovering the source of it from being hung in a past life; Releasing the phobia of needles after seeing the source of it in a past life where she died in an institution that gave her frequent injections; Eliminating the fear of being on a bridge when shown a past life where he was working on building a bridge near San Francisco, and fell to his death. I’m not suggesting that all of our issues come from past lives. I’m only suggesting that in some cases, I believe this may be the case.
- Drawing upon beneficial energies from other lives
Not all past lives are traumatic. One client came to me with feelings of unworthiness, undeserving and not good enough as a result of growing up with an extremely critical and abusive mom. She thought she would see the life of an abused orphan, but instead saw a life where she was a Native American warrior who had a deep connection with spirit and nature and felt great harmony with everyone and everything around him. Other tribal members had great respect for him. In the higher vibration of the spirit realm after the life was over, she easily saw how her feelings of unworthiness had nothing to do with her, but rather how she was raised. She released all beliefs of unworthiness, and for the first time had compassion for her mother. When I saw her five years later, she said the regression experience changed her life and that she and her mom are now best friends. I’ve seen numerous examples of this type of regression experience.
- Learning Soul Lessons…shining a spotlight on unconscious beliefs or perspectives that limit you
An example of this was a woman who saw two lives: The first was a very wealthy woman who looked down upon her servants and anyone not of her status. The next life she saw herself as a homeless woman living under a bridge. In her words, “I came back in the poor life to have an experience of how I treated others in the previous life.” The lesson was about being mindful of how you treat others.
One of the most common soul lessons I encounter during past life regressions has to do with learning to deal with loss. It seems that loss is built into the human experience to learn from as a soul. I’ve seen many hundreds of examples where a client is shown a past life where they didn’t deal with loss very well, and consequently they see themselves in the past life becoming an alcoholic, or guarding their heart by closing themselves off to others, and many times committing suicide. In their present life, they may be challenged to deal with loss in a different, healthier manner, in which they have the courage to find love again and live life anew after the loss. They gain this insight in the past life regression, and sometimes, while in the deepest part of the regression experience when connected in the spirit realm, they can even feel the presence of loved ones on the other side. It can be quite a profound and healing experience for a person.
In all of these cases, I can never prove that these are lives their soul has lived. But whatever their unconscious mind shows them and wherever it comes from, it is often the precise thing that will help them overcome some type of issue. That is what matters most to the client and the past life regression therapist. It makes sense to me, however, that in most cases, they are being shown lives that their soul has lived before, for the purpose of healing, growing and evolving, or in some way helping out the present life personality.
Cases of Verifying Information from Past Lives
There are also less common cases such as Lisa’s…where people get impressions of scenes, people or other information from a past life regression, and then later research and validate the information. I have had several dozens of clients who have researched and verified past life information. Some of this information has included obscure clothing styles in Wales at the turn of the 20th century, or outfits that Mongolian wrestlers wore hundreds of years ago. Or what certain neighborhoods looked like before, during and after a flood 100+ years ago. In rare cases, people can get names that drop into them. I had one young woman in her 20’s who saw her life of a U.S. pilot during the Vietnam War. His plane was shot down and he was captured by the Viet Cong and held in a bamboo cage. He became close friends with the U.S. soldier next to him in the cage who was from Kentucky, and they vowed that they would get together at his home if they ever got out alive. But they did not. When he was killed with a blow to the back of the head, the soul looked down at the body and my client gasped, “Oh my God, I’m MIA/POW. No one knows how I died! Now I know why I’m obsessed with becoming a medical examiner in my present life, so I can help families know how their loved ones died!” She recalled what her name was as the soldier, as well as the name of the man from Kentucky next to him in the cage. She found both names on the Virtual Vietnam Memorial Wall, and was able to research and verify significant information about her former life prior to going to Vietnam.
In Lisa’s case, I believe she may have had a flashback past life memory during her first visit near Ross Castle, and that the memories that came to her in the past life regression were from another life her soul has lived, namely the life of Sabana. If this is the case, rather than saying, “Lisa was Sabina”, it might be more accurate to say, “Lisa and Sabina share the same soul.” There is a theory in which we can think of our higher soul self as a pomegranate that has many different seeds. Each seed can represent a fraction of soul energy that goes to a different life our soul has lived. We can have many different earth lives, sometimes even overlapping, as well as lives in other dimensions. We always leave a large percentage of our entire soul energy behind, so even though a deceased loved one may already be incarnated, we can still see them after we die.
Why did Lisa see the vision of Orwen? One theory is that perhaps a part of her higher soul-self wanted her to see that life because Sabana died of a “broken heart” or in other words, she ended her life. Could it be that she did not deal with loss very well in that life, so her soul-self wanted her to see it so she could make a different choice after losing someone important in her present life? If so, she is doing remarkable, and passing the soul lesson of dealing with loss with flying colors by choosing life and love again with her relationship with Jim. We may never know for sure. But viewing ourselves as eternal beings having a human experience for the sake of growth may offer one viewpoint as to why Lisa saw the vision of Orwen.
In Closing
I have found that each past life regression session I do is quite unique and different. Not everyone is a good candidate to do a past life regression. I have found that people who are somewhat intuitive tend to have better sessions, because the information drops into a person in a very intuitive way…not through our five senses, but rather through the sixth sense in the form of images, thoughts, feelings or like an intuitive hunch. If you’re not used to the process, it can feel a lot like you are making it up. Hence, the amazement people feel when researching the information and discover validations of what dropped into them during the regression. Also, it helps to have a belief that we are eternal beings that have lived other lives before. Sometimes rigid beliefs can act as filters that limit how we see life and also what we experience, so it helps to have an open mind.
In my experience, the overall theme of past life regression is, “As you go within, you tend to get precisely what you need.” It seems to be tailor made by your own higher self, or unconscious mind and be very beneficial if you can get your analytical thinking mind out of the way. In fact, one definition of hypnosis is, “a bypass of the critical thinking factor of the conscious mind.”
Finally, after guiding 4,000+ past life regressions over the past 23 years, I’ve noticed three common themes or soul lessons that often emerge during the latter part of the session when the earth life is over and is being reviewed from the vantage point of the soul. There is such wisdom in these lessons that I wanted to share them.
#1 Do not live from fears or guardedness. You will regret the times that you allowed fears to hold you back or limit your life expression in any way. A common example is withholding your expression of love by guarding your heart from emotional pain. Other regrets include choosing security over pursuing a passion, love or joy, whether it be marrying for status and money instead of love or holding back on following a dream. As Wayne Dyer once said, “Don’t die with your music still left in you.”
#2 Be more proactive in creating your life experience rather than simply reacting to what life gives you. I’ve heard many variations of this same missed opportunity. Unfortunately, we cannot get through life without loss or failure because they seem to be built into the human experience as a means for us as souls to evaluate how the human part of us chooses to respond to challenges. Loss or failure can limit us or it can make us stronger and wiser with a richer life experience. Can we use our difficult and challenging experiences to be a source of support for others who will inevitably be dealing with loss or failure? Can we have the courage to love and try to enjoy life again? When we glimpse behind the scenes and view life as a temporary role-play, losses and failure don’t paralyze us as much. In other words, as we become more awake to our permanent identity, we become freer.
#3 Be more fully and consciously present in each moment of life to experience more joy. It reminds me of Emily’s famous line in Thorton Wilder’s play Our Town, “Is anyone really aware of life while they’re living it?” This is a theme that we all can relate to as we often go through life in our heads rather than appreciating the underlying love and beauty that is available in each instant, often only noticing it when it’s gone.
We can understand these lessons intellectually, but yet not fully feel and experience the truth of this wisdom. The value of past life regression is that it can allow us to integrate deeper soul truths at the level of the body and subconscious mind, thus helping us to more easily live from them in our daily lives. This is because towards the end of the session, the background noise of the thinking mind is silent and you are fully anchored in the here and now, which is actually a higher dimension of your being that is saturated in peace, love and clarity. You are more deeply connected to the soul part of you that is always ‘here’ and never goes away.
There is a theory that says the consciousness of the planet is raising. Much of the latest technology will be obsolete in 10 years, and it seems this pace is escalating faster as the years go by. In the same way, I believe our collective consciousness is raising spiritually…in our awareness of being more than our physical bodies, and that we are multi-dimensional beings. And that there may be far more behind the scenes than only this earth life and these physical bodies. I’m so happy that Lisa shared her unique and profound experiences in this book! It is another contribution to the raising of the collective consciousness of the planet by helping us question our set beliefs, and by opening ourselves to new ways of seeing ourselves, earth life, and perhaps a more expansive view of reality than what we are currently aware of. May we all continue on our journey of growing, learning and evolving!
