Healing the Eternal Soul:
Insights from Past Life and Spiritual Regression
B Y   A N D Y   T O M L I N S O N

Chapter Two:
The Theory Behind Past-Life and Spiritual Regression

The Ancient Wisdom
Modern Western science has established that the physical world is made up of energy. However, it has not yet provided a theory to explain intuition, the subtle body and the non-physical dimensions we can experience. Neither has it been able to explain people's near-death experiences and children's past lives that indicate some part of consciousness exists entirely independent of the physical body. In the absence of Western science providing an explanation, we have to turn to other sources for a theory of past lives.

All the great teachers of all the major religions have communicated the same fundamental truths to different parts of the world to suit the time and culture. In their outer form many religious perspectives appear to be in conflict, but when the inner teachings of the founders are studied in depth, they have a remarkable harmony. It has been called the Ancient Wisdom and has been around for tens of thousands of years. A "golden thread" it connects the esoteric, spiritual and indigenous teachings the world over.

For many years these teachings were not written down but passed orally by individual teachers to religious groups and secret societies such as the Kabbalists, Essenes, Sufis, Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, Freemasons and others(1). In the last 100 years the Ancient Wisdom was written down and spread in major waves in the Western world. One was with the Theosophical Society and included authors such as C.W Leadbeater, Annie Besant and summarized by Arthur Powell in a range of books including The Etheric Body, The Astral Body, and The Mental Body. Other contributors have included Helena Roerich with the Agni Yoga Society. The next wave of releasing the Ancient Wisdom came from an Englishwoman, Alice Bailey, in conjunction with the Tibetan Master Djwhat Khul. A series of books where produced over the first half of the 20th century and the Arcane School was founded to study the Ancient Wisdom.

To truly understand this new way of thinking we have to throw off our materially blinkered view that if we cannot see, touch, smell, and taste something it is not real. Rather than dogma, which requires unquestioning belief, the Ancient Wisdom is based on a series of principles and spiritual laws that govern the universe(2). These truths are revealed and expanded through people's experiences in their lives.

The First Principle - A Material and Spiritual Duality
The Law of Correspondence is the first of the Ancient Wisdom principles. It states that what occurs on earth also has a spiritual counterpart. This duality existed at the beginning when a single source of spirit energy and matter expanded and filled the universe. The theory of the big bang of physical matter has become widely accepted by science. The equivalent with spirit energy resulted in smaller parts of the original(3) being distributed. Specialist spirits of light use this to create new souls(4) to meet the Earth's growing population. Each individual person has a soul that is pure spirit energy and the memories and experiences gathered in each physical incarnation. The soul grows with each life experience until a stage is reached when reincarnation is not necessary unless it's chosen to serve a higher purpose. The ultimate purpose of life is to be reunited with the spiritual source from which we came.

An application of the Law of Correspondence is an energetic link called intuition that exists between our physical body and our soul. In meditation, hypnosis or altered states of awareness during regression therapy this link becomes easier to use. Our soul memories, past lives and ability to telepathically link to the spirit realms become more accessible. It is also this link that carries our unresolved thoughts, emotions and body memories from the physical body at the point of death, to our soul. The medium that carries this is an energy field around our physical body called the subtle body(5). This has three different vibrating energies called the etheric, astral and mental bodies. The etheric body is immediately next to the physical body and contains our physical memories. The astral body extends around the etheric body and contains our emotions. The outer mental body contains our thoughts.

We all know we have thoughts and emotions but the interesting question is where they are located. Traditional science would suggest they are located where the electrical activity in the brain occurs. The Ancient Wisdom places them around the physical body in the subtle body. An analogy is the music from a CD. The source of the music is contained on the CD but the location of the music cannot be said to be in any particular place. It's a vibrating energy that is in the air all around us.

Were Alan Gamble's birthmarks related to a past life? The Ancient Wisdom attributes physical memories that are carried from our life to the next to the "etheric body". This energy field overlaps the physical body and for some people is just visible as a thin grey border around the physical body. Its purpose is to link and vitalize the physical body. It is this energy field that is manipulated in traditional acupuncture to reduce pain. It is also the blueprint for constructing aspects of the physical body when the soul merges with the baby's physical body during incarnation. The research Ian Stevenson, former Professor of Psychiatry in the University of Virginia offers many case studies to support this. His book Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect is a small selection of the 2,600 past-life cases that he has investigated. Birthmarks, scars, malformed parts of the body and other physical manifestations have been found to relate to the physical aspects of past-life deaths. A common feature of all the cases Ian Stevenson investigated was that body symptoms transferred to this life were related to violent or traumatic deaths in past lives.

Inexplicable pains and chronic physical holding patterns in this lifetime may be attributed to injuries in previous lifetimes. The memory of pain from ropes, spears, swords, beatings and other wounds to the physical body from previous lives is imprinted onto the etheric body. When a person dies, the etheric field separates from the physical body, leaving the physical memory imprinted onto the person's soul to affect future incarnations.

Memories held in the Astral and Mental Bodies
When a client I'll call Roz came for therapy, she talked about the chronic pains in her joints and various parts of her body she had experienced for most of her adult life. Despite visits to her medical doctor the pains had been diagnosed as unexplainable. She talked about being a single mother with four small children but her voice took a different tone when she talked about her relationships with men. She said she had thoughts of "I cannot do anything" and felt powerless as she had been first dominated by her father, then by her husband, and then after her divorce by her current boyfriend.

When regressed Roz found herself as a young girl who had been abandoned as a child in Victorian times and was being brought up by nuns. She left them to work in a laundry, being treated almost as a slave because she had to stir the washing in a big heated pot for long hours for very little pay. A wealthy older man took a liking to her and married her. For the young girl it was as if her wildest dreams had been answered. However he did not want an intimate relationship and took his frustrations of business life into beating her. She accepted her fate because she had no relatives and nowhere to go, and thought that no one would believe an uneducated girl. Whenever she accepted her beatings the thoughts, "I cannot do anything," confirmed her powerlessness. Finally he beat her so badly, that she ended up falling down stairs, giving her pains in her legs, arms and over all over her body. She was dragged into the cellar where she died. At the death point the pains in her body, the feelings of powerless and the thought "I cannot do anything" went with her.

Roz was regressed back to the point in the past life of the young girl when her husband started to hurt her. Roz's body took the posture that went with the experience as she lay on her side curled up. Her body quivered and her voice trembled as she described the beating. With encouragement from the therapist she pushed him off, by pushing against a cushion held by the therapist. "Get away," her voice took on a new life as she beat the cushion with her fists. With a sigh Roz visually relaxed and the young girl was taken to the afterlife to confront the spirit of her husband. She reported that he was ashamed, on his knees, and was asking her for forgiveness. The young girl reported that she felt power return to her and just felt sorry for him. Following the therapy Roz was able to confront a man in her current life for the first time, in this case her boyfriend, by saying, "Treat me well or leave." The pains in her joints and body that left following therapy have never returned.

The case study of Roz illustrated how the thought of "I cannot do anything" and the feeling of powerless were linked to her past life as the Victorian girl and had been a pattern that kept repeating itself in this life.

The "astral body" is the next energy field and is where emotions are stored. This is not normally visible with the eye, but psychics report it extending a half a meter around the physical body. At death the astral energy field leaves the physical body and unexpressed or frozen emotions are taken with it and imprinted onto the soul. Fear, rage, shame, guilt, anger, sadness, hatred and despair are some of the strongest "negative" emotions held in the astral body. Had they been expressed at the time they would have been released.

The "mental body" is the next energy field and contains our spoken and unspoken thoughts. This extends up to several meters around the other energy fields and the physical body. Even if unexpressed, our thoughts in this field have energy and are powerful. Many people will have had a time when they picked up someone else's thoughts, often without realizing it. A common example attributed to this is the time when we are aware someone is looking at us from behind, and confirm it by turning round.

The Second Principle - Karma
A client that I will call Jenny, was an intelligent single woman who forced her views on people and had a history of getting into conflicts with them. This often resulted in her getting angry. She also had a history of choking sensations in her throat and stomach pains whenever she became angry.

Jenny regressed into a past life of a man in medieval Europe who was employed by different towns to keep order. He did this by beating people. He took no notice of whether they were guilty or innocent, but used the beatings to terrorize the other town folk. He led a group of followers and went from town to town. His reputation went ahead of him and in one town he was overpowered by the local people and beaten. He was taken up some steps to a platform in front of a large crowd and hung by his arms with shackles. Unable to look at the crowd, his death was by wooden stakes being hammered into his stomach and throat.

Jenny was asked to go to another past life linked to this one. She regressed into a young girl who was being beaten by cruel parents. At some point the young girl married and her husband started beating her too. She died being beaten to death with the dying thought "I'll get my own back one day. I'll be powerful like them." Jenny was brought back to the first past life with a new understanding and was encouraged to transform the past-life memory. Now the medieval man was able to open his eyes and look at the crowd. He was able to describe the stakes being hammered into him without any emotion. He could notice now the face of the man doing it who showed disgust at what he had to do. He recognized people in the crowd as some of the ones who he had beaten. The medieval man was taken to the after life and encouraged to meet the spirits of all the people he had beaten. He asked and received forgiveness. Jenny found that she could bring this learning into her current life and became more understanding and gentle in her dealing with others.

The Law of Karma is the second of the Ancient Wisdom's principles. In ancient Sanskrit the word karma means "action". Karma can be seen as the reward of positive actions and attitudes and a punishment of negative. As the Christian Bible says, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap".

It can be like a form of cosmic accountability. We are given free will to decide how to respond to any situation. The choices we make either create or resolve karma in our life.

However karma is more complex than this. An in depth account of karma is given in Ian Lawton's The Book of the Soul(7). We are given different bodies in different lives to gain experiences of both sides of a situation to learn. Jenny had experienced the abuse of power as a victim in one past life and the abuse of power as a persecutor. The soul searches for understanding and any karma not resolved in one lifetime is carried to the next life. Defeats, betrayals, abandonment, loss of children or loved ones, guilt and sacrifice are just a few of the karmic themes people are trying to resolve. The underlying key for the balance to be complete is when we can forgive others who have wronged us and forgive our self for our own misdemeanors. When we fail to deal appropriately with a situation, especially when there is a high level of emotional reaction, we are faced with continuing to work with the same situation or the other side of the coin. Karma allows us to learn and profit from our many lifetimes as humans to evolve to higher beings.

To break the karmic cycle we must learn to react differently to the problems placed in our path. This can be done through finding new answers to the old problems in this life, or by revisiting a past life and discovering a new answer. In the case of Jenny she discovered she did not need to keep her eyes closed when in conflict and was able to see beyond the actions of others and into their motives. This can be difficult when highly charged negative emotions are carried over from our past lives. The aim of regression is to help reduce and release these negative emotional charges and allow the larger picture to be seen thus giving more choices, more understanding and to facilitate forgiveness.

The Third Principle - Reincarnation
During a workshop a young nanny I'll call Alice regressed into the past life as a bishop who had a lot of respectful followers. The bishop however was not as innocent as his followers thought. He had a secret, which was that he had been in league with men stealing gold that he hid in the cathedral crypt. This was located under a secret slab that moved sideways. At a later point the bishop rescued a group of eight local villagers who had come to the cathedral to avoid being killed by a gang of plunderers. The bishop put them in the only safe place, which was in the crypt with the stolen gold! Although the bishop was able to stand up to the killers and turn them away, the people in the crypt had died of suffocation. He dragged the bodies out of the crypt and told the other villagers that the plunderers had killed them. Feeling bad about what he had done, the bishop then committed himself to the church and arranged for the gold to reappear and to be given to the needy. In the spirit realms, after the death of the bishop, Alice spontaneously recalled her soul memories of reviewing the past life with three spiritual beings. The bishop was full of remorse for what he had done. The spiritual beings reasoned with him that he had been loved by the local people, had stood up to the plunderers and had not intended to kill the villagers. It was only in the area of abuse of power and responsibility that he went wrong. This encounter planned the next reincarnation to work on responsibility, which was Alice's current life. At the end of the session Alice felt the deep peace and love from that encounter and understood why she had constantly had difficulty doing jobs that involved responsibility for other people.

This was an interesting case of bringing to conscious awareness, without the use of hypnosis, soul memories from between past lives. All that was used was the altered state of awareness from a past-life regression. Spiritual Regression goes further and works with more detailed soul memories following the use of deep hypnosis.

The Law of Reincarnation is the third of the Ancient Wisdom principles. The soul returns to physical life to learn answers to problems not resolved in previous lives. Through gathering the learning and achievement from many lives, karma is cleared and the soul becomes more spiritually aware. Reincarnation has been an enduring spiritual belief for billions of people for thousands of years all over the world. It was a global idea that sprang up independently amongst people from every continent from the Celts and Teutons of Northern Europe to the indigenous peoples of Africa, Australia and the Americas. Hundreds of millions of Hindus, Buddhists and some of the Sufi sects of Islam make it the cornerstone of their faith. Some mystic Christian sects, such as the Cathars(8) who lived in southern France and parts of Italy during the first millennium, also accepted reincarnation. However, written reference of reincarnation was removed from the Christian religion in AD 325 by the Roman emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicaea. This was in the interests of uniting the empire from feuding Christian factions.

The Ancient Wisdom explains reincarnation through different levels of existence called planes. For the purposes of regression therapy they can be simplified to three planes; the divine, the spirit realms and the physical. The divine is the world of pure spirit or higher angelic intelligence from which all other worlds emanate. In the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying(9) it is called "the pure light of the void" and "ground luminosity" and it is the "highest truth" in the mysterious Tao of Taoism. In Christianity it is called "Father, Son and Holy Spirit"(10). It is the state where people do not speak of having visions of light, because they are part of the light and there is no longer a distinction between the subject and object.

The spirit realm is where the soul resides. It is the visionary world of the shaman and dreamtime of the aborigines. For spiritualists it is called the "Summerland"(11) the location where the spirit energy is communicated with via psychic links. In Buddhism these middle realms are referred to as the "Bardo of Dharmata", the revealing of unconditional truth, and the "Bardo of Rebirth". It is the midway point between the physical world and the ultimate and formless reality of pure spirit. It is here that the mythological gods and visionary heavens and hells coexist in a non-spatial relationship with each other, with Earth time having meaning. The Ancient Wisdom refers to them as the astral and mental planes. The vibrations on these planes are higher than the matter on earth making them invisible to many people.

Reincarnation Cycle
Adapted from The Three Worlds and the Voyage of the Soul
by Roger Woolger

The physical world is the sensory world of physics that has the dimensions of time and space and the death of the physical body. In Hindu and Buddhists teachings it is called the Samsara, which means the world of becoming. This is where our samskaras, which are old habits or old ways of thinking from past lives, are taken to be resolved.

The case study of Alice is consistent with Michael Newton's research. Reincarnation is planned. The preparations include selecting a new body, parents, situation and culture for the new incarnation. Spirit Guides who have been involved with this planning oversee the earth life. They understand the soul's aims and provide assistance. Our personality is shaped during the merging of the soul and the baby's physical body while it still in a malleable state in the womb. At this point a memory block of past lives and soul memories is put in place so that new ways of solving the old problems from past lives can be achieved in this life. It is a gradual process over early childhood rather than an abrupt one, and accounts for some children having more access to spontaneous past lives. The soul imprints from unresolved past lives are reactivated by early childhood events, emotional encounters over our current life and by the culture that we find ourselves in.

The Fourth Principle - Attracting Others For Our Spiritual Growth
Under deep hypnosis a client I'll call Sarah, regressed into a past life of a young woman in her twenties. The young woman was the daughter of a drunken father and ran away with her brother and went to San Francisco in America to avoid his abuse. She took a job making dresses for a wealthy widow and eventually became treated as a friend and mingled socially with the widow's friends and family. A male doctor came into her life and wanted her to go away with him. She decided to stay with the widow and some years after the widow died she also died, heartbroken, with no friends. After the death in that life she was taken to her soul memories between lives. This is an extract.

In Sarah's past life the young woman had planned to meet one of her soul group and transform her life by learning a new healing skill with them. Equally she could have planned to work on some other aspect of karma with one of her soul group. We attract to us those that we need for our spiritual growth. The Law of Attraction is the fourth of the Ancient Wisdom principles. Everyone has within themselves the resources to bring about their own soul healing. The experiences of people in spiritual regression suggest that when planning new lives, karma is viewed as progressive and repetitive. This means that new lives are planned to be progressively more difficult but within the soul's ability to successfully achieve their karmic goals. This is a generalization, because souls have free will in the spirit plane over the speed at which they complete their learning. Difficult lives can accelerate this and easier lives will extend the number of lives needed. However the important point is that planning is needed to ensure that the karmic patterns at the right level of difficulty will be encountered. This is often done by souls from the same soul group with the help of their Spirit Guides discussing their karmic requirements and where matches take place agreeing the roles they will take. Thus a complex web of working together to mutually fulfill each life goal is created. We are attracted to meet these in our current life at a soul level, unaware consciously that we are setting up the conditions for repeating our karmic patterns of betrayal, abuse, loneliness, willing victim etc until the learning is complete.

Applying the Theory with Regression Therapy

Understanding what the lesson is, absorbing it, and working out the reason for it not to be repeated is an important part of healing karma. Another is removing the charge from the complex associated with the karmic problem. A complex is the way we carry thoughts, feelings and body discomfort that seem out of context in our life. It can be called depression, anxiety, panic attacks, anger, sadness, phobias, obsessive compulsion disorder, post-traumatic stress, and so on. A common feature of a complex is that when some sort of imaginary button has been pressed the same rigid response is elicited. A depressed person may think, "It's hopeless" and feel more depressed and have the physical symptoms of lack of energy. A person who thinks they are being controlled may get angry and lash out. Complexes produce self-defeating behaviors. Someone with difficulty in making relationships may have the thought "I'm not good enough", which will stop them trying to make new relationships resulting in feelings of loneliness or sadness. In regression therapy the complexes are traced back to the original source in the current life or a past life, or both. Telling the story that emerges starts the process of mobilizing a person's healing resources, which can be used to transform the complex that has kept them stuck.

In Western psychology bringing to life all kinds of dreams, fantasies and images is one of the most powerful tools we have to facilitate the healing and resolution of psychological conflicts (Appendix I, Note 3). However, compared to the great psycho-spiritual disciplines of the East it is still in its infancy when working with past lives. Working in the spirit realms after a past-life experience opens the person to experience spiritual transformation from traditional healing practices used for thousands of years, to transpersonal spirit figures and soul memories from between past lives. From my experience of working with hundreds of clients it does not matter whether a person believes in past lives and reincarnation in order to experience them. Trying to prove that they are real would be counterproductive. I simply ask a client to stay with whatever experience they have in their inner world.

Regression therapy explores the psychological, physical and spiritual unresolved residues from our present and past lives. It is a comprehensive method for transforming them in a way that is both safe and structured. The therapy allows a client to understand the patterns in this life and how they were created in the past life. It enables them to see beyond the personality-contained illusion and confusion of this life alone. In the spirit realm, a person can open themselves to spiritual inspiration and revelation from their higher self and spiritual teachers. Understanding the truth and the power of forgiveness can bring about their own soul healing, and transform their current life.

Summary
Until Western science has an explanation for intuition, consciousness and near-death experiences, we can turn to the Ancient Wisdom. This has existed on this planet for tens of thousands of years. Through four principles it underpins the theory of past lives and the soul memories between lives. It shows how balancing karma can come from learning both sides of a situation and not repeating the old patterns. It explains how unresolved physical, emotional and thoughts are carried from one life to the next. These are the focus of release and transformation with Regression Therapy. Through past life and spiritual regression, clients can see through the confusion and illusion of this life and integrate these insights into their current life. In the words of The Idyll of the White Lotus:

These truths, which are as great as life itself,
are as simple as the simplest mind.
Feed the hungry with them.

© 2006, Andy Tomlinson

(1) McLaughlin, C. and Davidson, D. Spiritual Politics, Findhorn, 1994
(2) Bailey, A. A Treatise on White Magic, Lucis Trust, New York, 1998. Page, C. The Frontiers of Health 1996
(3) Blatzer, J.P. The Donning International Encyclopaedic Psychic Dictionary, The Donning Company, 1986
(4) Lawton, I. The Book of the Soul, obtainable from www.ianlawton.com, 2004 Ten Dam, H. Exploring Reincarnation, 1987
(5) Powell, A. E. The Astral Body, Kessinger Publishing Co., 1998 Page, C. The Frontiers of Health 1996
(6) Stevenson, I. Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, Praeger Publishers, 1997
(7) Lawton, I. The Book of the Soul, obtainable from www.ianlawton.com, 2004
(8) Guirdham, A. The Cathars and Reincarnation, Spearman, 1992
(9) Rinpoche, S. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Rider, 1992
(10) Hopking, A. The Emergence of the Planetary Heart, Godshaer Publishing, 1994
(11) Browne, S. Life on the Otherside - A Psychic's Tour of The Afterlife, Platkus, 2001

Taken from Healing the Eternal Soul by Andy Tomlinson; Published by O Books; ISBN 190504741X; $29.95. Available to order via any good bookshop or online retailer. For more information visit www.o-books.net.