Age Regression

Usually age regression is not a goal but a tool which is part of the therapy, among other techniques, used by the hypnotherapist to solve a variety of problems and traumas that have deep roots in the past. It is also part of the Inner Child Healing Technique.
A client, however, might ask specifically for age regression if there is something in their past that they want - for whatever reason - to remember, but which eludes their conscious mind.
All our experiences are stored in the subconscious mind, even the tiniest and most trivial ones. If the entire body of our memories were accessible by our conscious mind we would be submerged in an ocean of memories which would be largely useless, and this is why they are stored safely away, as if in a huge archive.
Age regression is ideal if you wish to remember details of a past event in your life. More commonly it is used to retrieve lost items: for example if you don't remember where you put an important document, or your wallet. Through age regression you can relive that past episode in full and remember that very small detail that eludes your conscious mind.

Why Past Life Regression Therapy?

You do not need to believe in reincarnation to take advantage of this powerful technique. Some people say that it is proof of the fact that we have already lived before in other bodies, while others think that it is just a symbolic way for our subconscious to communicate with our conscious mind. Other people claim that our subconscious mind picks up information from the Collective Unconscious as postulated by Carl Gustav Jung. Whatever the cause of this phenomenon, it is a very powerful and meaningful experience.
You may seek this experience for spiritual growth and in this case I shall guide you in the exploration of past lives as well as of the inter-life periods. If you are puzzled by recurrent dreams that seem to point to another time and another life, we can investigate their possible source and you might be amazed by what you discover.
Past life regression is very beneficial for those who are particularly frightened by the idea of dying, those who are terminally ill and all those who are either caring for someone dying or are mourning a recent loss. Exploring past lives and life between lives gives a completely new perspective to the dying process and can bring great peace and serenity.
It is also very helpful and comforting for those who feel a special and deep bond with someone else and wish to investigate better the nature and roots of their spiritual and emotional connections.
This type of regression can also be used as a specific therapy. Sometimes people find themselves describing what seem to be past lives when looking for the root cause of a phobia or a fear. If you are not comfortable with the concept of reincarnation you need not worry because such recalls are exactly like those of your childhood in age regression. The important thing is that once you have retrieved the memory at the base of your phobia or fear I can help you to let it go and move on. The understanding that comes from its retrieval is normally enough to free you from its unwanted effect for ever.
Regression is the most powerful tool of hypnosis. Through regression, in a very few sessions, you can solve deep-rooted traumas whose effects limit or impair your psychological or physical well-being and which have always eluded all previous attempts at resolution.
Sessions of past life regression normally last between one and a half and two and a half hours and they include a free CD recording of the regression. When you re-emerge from hypnosis you remember everything, but just in case you want to double-check some details later on, like a name or a date for example, the CD will help you with that. I shall also advise you on what to do at home in order to get the maximum benefit from your experience, and I offer free follow-up support.
Quite often PL regressionists simply facilitate the revision of previous lives and nothing else, while thanks to my competence in Advanced Techniques, I shall also be able to help you to remove old blockages and emotional wounds that can still interfere with your present life, cut the ties with the negative emotions and limiting beliefs generated in those past lives, and let go of painful experiences. If necessary, I shall be able to put you in contact with your various past Selves so that you can rebalance your whole being. I shall guide you to assess your past lives from a spiritual point of view while you are in the non-incarnated spiritual dimension, and understand the lessons learnt in those lives. This new awareness will allow deep and powerful healing to occur so that an even and smooth energy flow can be restored.
There are many different methods which allow us to access the memories of past lives and some are indirect methods through psychics. Although they are all good and enriching experiences, to obtain true healing it's important that you personally go through the past events and re-experience them, so that you can connect with the emotions and feelings of that time, and by doing so, gain the power of letting them go, and heal yourself. Your personal experience will also allow you to go to the very root of the problem – it doesn't matter how deep or far away it is - as Dr Brian Weiss also writes: "Although information from a psychic is interesting and sometimes informative, it usually doesn't remove symptoms. The person often has to experience the memory herself and thus get resolution. The psychic might be picking up on a past life, but the root of the problem might go even further back".

Reincarnation and Karma

It's not possible to give a date when the concept of reincarnation first appeared among human beliefs because it seems to be as old as humankind itself and it is present in cultures all over the world.
Its first manifestation seems to be in Shamanism. From it the belief in rebirth has passed into all major religions that have developed on earth, accompanying and influencing them throughout their evolution.
Reincarnation though transcends the limits of specific, codified religious systems. Nowadays, in a more and more secularised Western society, it is science that enjoys respect and credibility, while traditional religions are constantly losing public interest: in fact people are in search of a more direct and less structured spirituality. In this climate, interest in reincarnation is not fading but growing and this ancient, primordial belief is now receiving validation and support by just those very scientific milieux that - traditionally - have always been the antagonists of religions. I say ‘primordial belief’ because looking back to the entire history of human thought, reincarnation is actually the only worldwide concept that has shown continuity and permanence from our origins to the present day.
Eastern religions are well known to hold the concept of rebirth at the very core of their teachings. What is less known is that reincarnation has also always been present in monotheistic faiths and philosophical systems of Western and Middle Eastern societies.
In classical Greece Plato, Diogenes and Pythagoras spoke of reincarnation and past life regressions.
The Ancient Jews believed that Abel had reincarnated into Moses, and in the Middle Ages reincarnation appears in the esoteric teaching of Kabbalah, developed further in later times by the Hassidic movement.
The concept of Karma was introduced to Latin Rome by Ennius, after being imported from the newly conquered Eastern territories, and Virgil describes reincarnation in his poems. Medieval Islam was also familiar with the concept of rebirth, and the Persian Sufis have preserved this belief up to the present day. The Quran itself explains the law of Karma. What about Christianity? Reincarnation was an integral part of the beliefs of early Christians and there are references to it even in the teachings of Jesus himself. However everything changed in 325 AD when, at the Council of Nicaea, reincarnation was condemned as heretical. The fact is that this council was called in times of great turmoil and insecurity and its decisions were dictated by political needs and not by spiritual considerations; in fact the Council was requested by Constantine, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, and it marked a crucial political turning point in the fate of what would later become Europe as we know it today.
At that time the old empire was disintegrating under the pressure of nomadic peoples coming from the East, bringing with them a completely new and unknown civilisation. Constantine was the head of this vanishing empire and he was desperate to maintain an order which was faltering in the face of the advancement of the chaos brought by them. To do so he needed absolute power and absolute obedience and to obtain them both he needed very strict laws, able to keep order within the threatened boundaries. In such a situation people were supposed to obey without question, and no challenge to his authority or the status quo was tolerated.
Reincarnation states that we incarnate over and over again, experiencing all sorts of human conditions, and that someone who had been a king in the past could be reborn as a tramp and vice versa.
The precariousness and transitoriness of social status that it taught certainly sounded very subversive to a frightened monarch, and didn’t hold any appeal for him. Constantine used a heavy hand to eradicate it. He banned it as he did all other ideas or beliefs he felt threatened by, and he didn’t hesitate to execute their supporters, mercilessly silencing any opposition.
In spite of all this the idea of rebirth has never been extirpated and today - although the traditional religious systems are in crisis throughout the entire Western civilisation - the belief in reincarnation is growing steadily both in Europe and the USA, as the statistics of the last twenty years show.
From various polls it appears that 25% of Americans believe in reincarnation, which means that one American in four believes in past lives. The European average is only slightly lower (24%) but it greatly varies from country to country, going from 15% in Norway to 33% in Great Britain. This means that in the UK one person out of three believes they have already lived in another body, in another time and - consequently - will probably come back again in the future.
Religious beliefs do not seem to interfere with the acceptance of the concept of reincarnation either, since polls have shown that - although Catholicism has been the faith to most strongly oppose reincarnation in modern times - countries where Catholicism traditionally predominates also show high percentages of belief in rebirth, even among regular mass-goers: Portugal 32%; France 28%; Italy 27%; Spain 25%. (For more details see: www.spiritual-wholeness.org/faqs/reinceur/reineuro.htm).
These data are highly encouraging in our present climate of gloom and insecurity (similar to Constantine’s time) where we are all called to revise deep-seated behaviours and re-examine ways of life we had always considered ethically correct and never thought of putting under scrutiny before. However, this time there is not an empire or the future of a continent at stake but the entire planet and the survival of our species.
Fully embracing the concept of reincarnation and living according to it will generate at least two important benefits which we are certainly in great need of: a serious environmental conscience and tolerance.
If we believe that when we die it’s all over or - alternatively - that we fly away to heaven leaving the earth far behind us forever, there is not much incentive to protect the environment for future generations that we shall never meet. The temptation to say: “It will be their problem, who cares?” is strong. However if we believe that we shall come back here and that we shall be part of those future generations, then the problem suddenly becomes ours too and it’s better to look into it sooner rather than later (especially because it is already quite late anyway).
Wars and discrimination are always based on greed and resentment but they are masked, in one way or another, by the justification of diversity. Hate feeds on envy for what others are or have. Reincarnation teaches that we have all lived many, many lives, incarnating in many different conditions: different sex, different colour of skin, different cultures, different religions, different sexual orientation, different locations, different social status ... Once we are fully aware of this, it becomes impossible to attack someone else for being “different from us” because we know that we have experienced all the possible permutations ourselves. Reincarnation teaches tolerance, it teaches us to accept and respect what is different from us because we are likely to have already been - or are going to be - in that way too.
Regrettably however, the great interest and faith in rebirth revealed by the results of surveys isn’t reflected in the interest and attention demonstrated by official channels and the non-specialised press, with the unfortunate result that too many people still feel intimidated to openly show an interest in this subject and fear to be ridiculed or considered superstitious.
The thought that some sort of political ostracism is at work now as it was in the 4th century is quite tempting. Certainly reincarnation has important philosophical consequences: embracing belief in rebirth and informing their lives on it, people certainly free themselves from many fears, and this process makes them more responsible and more independent, leaving much less possibility for them to be manipulated. Are the political powers and the hierarchised religious systems frightened of losing control as they were nearly 2000 years ago? We are not in the time of Constantine anymore and since then humans have grown up enough to be able to take responsibility for themselves. A quick search on Google gives 5,200,000 hits for ‘Reincarnation’ and 59,100,000 hits for “Past Lives”. These data speak for themselves and don’t need any further comment. As Greywind said in his Voice within the Wind: “Take courage, make the leap”.

To end this part we need only to add a few words on the concept of Karma, which is the universal law that regulates Reincarnation. Karma means “action”, “deed”, but it can also mean “reaction”. Although its precise interpretation varies from religion to religion, Karma can be broadly defined as the universal law that regulates the cycles of rebirth through actions that will need reactions until the balance goes back to zero.
These facts are quite well-known and probably do not need to be discussed any further here. However I would like to briefly look into an interpretation which is unfortunately too commonly heard in modern Western civilisation. According to it the evil that people suffer depends on previous faults of theirs.
This is a very reductive and simplistic way to explain this universal law and it also lacks compassion. Although Karma is the law of cause and effect, action and reaction, it is not so simple and easy. Before reincarnating, the soul decides a broad script for its new life, setting some goals to achieve through certain types of experiences. We all do this but the choice of whether to have happy or painful experiences is not simply dictated by a sort of spiritual accountant who has to balance the books at the end of the day.
It’s true that a painful experience can be in payment for an old debt, but many other reasons can also explain it: some souls may decide to speed up their evolution by filling a single life with tests that other souls prefer to undergo during many lives. There is always someone who takes a shortcut and in this case we should admire them and not tell them that they deserve their suffering because they are guilty.
Not only that: learning compassion and expressing it is the best way to progress in the spiritual world and it should therefore always be paramount. Compassion helps the sufferer who receives it, but even more the person who shows it. If you see a blind man walking unknowingly under a train you can think that it’s his karma to die in that way and maybe that a premature death is the fair reward for some bad deed he committed in another life. Or you can go and save him, preventing him from dying, because if you don’t take action you might find yourself, in a future life, paying for your callousness, so that when you will be most in need of help no-one will give it to you. Life plans are always complex things that involve many souls; there are mutual agreements of interactions.
Any hasty and superficial judgement of the painful tests someone else is passing through needs to be carefully avoided. So - if you see someone suffering some terrible ordeal - don’t think that they deserve it, but instead think: “How courageous they must be to have chosen to go through such a terrible experience” and give them all the support you can.
Remember: there is always an alternative in life.

Interlife: a Spiritual Exploration

When we undertake a past life regression we normally investigate the most important facts of that life and then we are led to the moment of our death and to the minutes just after it, when the soul detaches from the body, becoming free again, and assesses the life which has just terminated. Normally even people who are regressed for the first time are able to reach this point and gain much peace from it. However, after the revision of the first moments following the detachment from the physical body, it is possible to investigate what the soul does in the spiritual dimension. It’s a busy time for the soul: first of all it recovers from the traumas suffered in its last incarnation and re-examines the experiences gained. During this period (also known as Bardo state) the soul meets with its soul-family, represented by souls very close to it and with whom it has probably incarnated many times to interact and learn lessons together. Finally the soul drafts the blueprint for its next life, sets goals and makes the appropriate arrangements about how to achieve these goals with those souls who will have a relevant role in it.
Some people might object that all information coming from the spiritual world is somehow dated, closely reflecting the beliefs and culture of the person channelling the information at the time. This argument is often used to dismiss the entire subject as a pure invention of the psychic’s mind. I believe that the truth is quite different. We are here on earth to pass tests. The spirit world can give us help but we must not fool ourselves: no-one will ever pass us the exam papers with the right answers already written on them. If they did, it would be useless for us to incarnate.
The Otherworld is a very complex reality, much more complex than our physical minds can ever hope to grasp. When we contact spiritual beings they may give us hints but they are always very careful to keep them within the boundaries of our beliefs and cultural limits. They can nudge us towards the right doors, but they will never open them for us. It’s our task to open them and go beyond, no-one else can do it for us. This is why the messages humans have received through the centuries seem to progress at our own pace, even if slightly ahead of us.
Life between life investigations lack perhaps the charm and local colour (and strong emotions) that past life recollections normally have, but they are far more important and meaningful, especially for those on a spiritual path. Through these investigations we can really gain a deeper understanding of our purpose on this earth, and the experience can be so overwhelming that it might really bring permanent changes for the better to our everyday life and speed up our evolution.
People who fear death will also find this type of investigation most fulfilling and find themselves able to radically change their attitude towards physical death. Interlife explorations will throw a completely new light on it, showing it to be a simple ritual of passage.
You might not be able to reach the interlife at the first attempt but it is certainly a goal worth aiming for.

Future Life Progressions: Do the Past and the Future Really Exist?

Many physicists, from Einstein to contemporary quantum physics scientists, have proved that time is a relative coordinate, specific and valid only in our three-dimensional physical world; a mere illusion due to our particular perspective, similar to the illusion that makes us think that it’s the sun orbiting around the earth and not vice versa.
According to this theory time doesn’t move, it’s us who move along it, like a passenger in a train who sees the landscape passing in front of his eyes, even if the landscape is still and it is he who moves through it.
The spiritual world, not being material, is not subjected to the constrictions and limits set upon us by time. It is interesting to note the incredible consistency shown in all traditions of the world, past and present, describing contacts with the Otherworld. In these stories a temporal distortion is always present, and normally it is also the main characteristic of the experience: a day spent there can be a century on earth or a year there can account for only a few seconds in the physical reality of our bodies. This is - by the way - also what happens in dreams and the dream dimension is probably the one which is the most familiar to us among all the non-material states. We can dream of the future as we can dream of dear ones departed a long time ago and see them in front of us, interacting with us as if “time hadn’t passed at all”. The fact is that in that dimension time does not exist, and therefore it cannot pass.
For this reason, as we can explore past lives, we can also explore future lives if we wish. About this subject however there is a relatively small amount of investigation and literature compared to the research done on past lives. The practical reasons are evident and such a type of investigation also raises a few complex philosophical points. We need to admit that here we are definitely in a foreign country, more or less “where dragons lie”, to use the words of our ancestors; a country which has been explored even less than the afterlife and where we are just starting to make our first uncertain steps.
If you are interested you can try, but you must be prepared to find more resistance from your subconscious because of the deep conditioning we have all been subjected to since our births: we live in a three-dimensional world where clocks rule our lives (lives which are mainly spent worrying about a mysterious, unknown future). It is not easy to suddenly trespass across the old boundary and wander in the “forbidden” land that lies beyond.
In their favour progressions have the excitement of discoveries in a virgin territory where everything is possible. Do you feel up to the challenge?
To avoid disappointment though, I would suggest trying progressions only when you already feel confident with both past-life regressions and interlife investigations. These experiences will also give you a solid spiritual ground enabling you to handle the information from your possible future. If you succeed, the reward will be remarkable: the experience will greatly help you to understand mistakes you are making in the present by showing you the effects that your actions of today will bring you if you do not change.
As past life regressions can solve problems you are experiencing in the present and therefore change your present, progressions can also help you to modify your present in order to have a better future.
Remember: nothing is set in stone and we are constantly bathed in an ocean of ever-changing possibilities. We can receive help but the choice will always be ours, and with it, the responsibility too.

Them and Us

In the middle of the 16th century, while the Church of Rome was caught in the storm of the Reformation and feared for its own survival, the high Roman clergy met in Trent, a small town in the Alps of North-Eastern Italy. The three popes who, one after the other, chaired the Council (which went on for 18 years) had the difficult task of finding a way to hold back the “heresy” that was raging and expanding like wild-fire all over Europe.
In times as difficult for the Church as they had been difficult for Constantine in the 4th century, the establishment was struggling to survive among political and religious disagreements and diatribes.
Besides the main discussion on the integrity of the dogma, other topics were examined and debated and among them there was the old question: do women have a soul? The justification for such a doubt was of course Eve’s sin. The heated debate ended with a vote that saw the party supporting the existence of the feminine soul win by a very narrow margin.
Sadly, this deliberation, recognising a spiritual dimension to women, wasn’t enough to prevent the brutal murder (after extended, barbaric tortures) of more than nine million women, often burnt alive under the accusation of witchcraft, together with many more millions of cats who - in Christian culture - represented one of the favourite incarnations of the devil.
Mass murder of those who - because of some material interest or prejudice of the establishment - were marked as “different” was not new to the Church though. In the 11th century Turold, the probable Anglo-Norman compiler of the famous Chanson de Roland, has Turpin (the fighting archbishop of the epic) say: “Christians are right and Saracens are wrong”, and this plain, unjustified statement was enough to validate and endorse any merciless killing even of unarmed and peaceful people. Arabs, Pagans, Jews, “heretics” and homosexuals (who were persecuted and often burnt at the stake for centuries) fell in their thousands and sometimes millions in “religious” purges.
In the mid 19th century, Northern Italy was divided into two parts: the larger part in the East was under the foreign control of the Austrians who had already abolished ghettos some time earlier. The Western part was instead the ‘free’ part, under the rule of an Italian king and in it the Jews were still forced to live in ghettos. The Italian king was preparing to attack the Austrians in order to ‘free’ those regions from ‘slavery’. However the problem of the Jewish condition was a thorn in his side because for the Jews living under Austria the success of his campaign wouldn’t have meant freedom but the loss of it. Opinions were split and the bishops of the Italian kingdom took a very active role in the discussion of this topic and left us the inheritance of a ponderous correspondence. In it they argue (once more) about the old question: do Jews have a soul?
When the political power of the Church started to fade away, the secular governments stepped into the space it had left vacant and adopted the same methods of creating control and getting economic advantages, justifying their actions with the usual well-worn reasons.
At the beginning of the 20th century in the USA some doctors intentionally injected syphilis into the bodies of “negroes” to study the evolution of the disease in order to improve the health of white people. As boring and unimaginative as it can appear, the justification was still the old one: black people were defined as “big apes”, not humans, and since animals do not have an immortal soul - they claimed - they can be used and disposed of at humans’ [in this case whites’] whims.
We know only too well what happened in Nazi Germany during the last war and we also know only too well how many genocides have been committed all around the world from Vietnam and Ruanda to South America and Yugoslavia - to mention just a few - using the excuse of some physical or cultural difference.
Even today, in countries where human rights are supposedly applied and discrimination is officially banned in favour of equality, women, homosexuals, Jews and black people know that sneaking discrimination is never too far away in their every day life.
The common denominator of all these target groups is the fact that when the abuse is perpetrated the victims are in a position of weakness and cannot defend themselves from the violence of the stronger attacker. This means that after millennia we are still acting according to the law of the jungle which cavemen lived by. Basically the thought behind it is: “Hurting, torturing, abusing, killing you satisfies my greed, frustration and sadism, and alleviates my personal insecurity, my sense of inferiority ... Because I am stronger than you are (or simply because I am protected by the law which happens to be in force at the moment) I do it. However, since I need a reason to justify my actions, firstly I shall prove that you are somehow different from me and secondly I shall prove that this difference between us makes you inferior”.
In the whole of human history the supposed lack of an eternal soul has been, if not the only, certainly the most commonly used justification for brutal and unprovoked acts of violence.
It seems that humans have a capacity for endless labelling and endless categorisations when they want to justify their lowest instincts. All this stems from a mentality based on division, while the spiritual world is based on union. A strong belief in reincarnation helps us a lot on this path, but more doors still need to be opened. A stronger awakening to the reality and omnipotence of unity that permeates the universe is needed.
During the past millennia humans have struggled to get rid of so many -isms; now, at the dawn of the third millennium, the current challenge is Speciesism, the belief that humans are superior to the other animals and therefore entitled to use and abuse them as much as they like.
Of course, as usual, the first step to justify such abuse is to deny them a soul. The modern literature about the spiritual world is huge and although many books still build their old-fashioned theses on the assumption that the Afterlife is an exclusively human affair, it is encouraging and refreshing to see that more and more works are published every year providing new proof of the exact opposite. As a century ago scholars went around the world collecting stories of reincarnation and of the spiritual survival of the soul, many people are now gathering the same evidence about non-human animals. Those interested in this aspect can refer to my Bibliography where I quote several excellent works in this cutting-edge field.
In addition to this, more and more often, while channelling, psychics meet the spirits of departed animals who had been dearly loved by their clients. They are there with their human departed ones, without any difference between them at all, sending their love and affection. The fact that these encounters are now happening more and more frequently means that the time has finally come for us to enlarge our boundaries and open ourselves up more widely to the spiritual world, letting the limits of our wounded egos dissolve. In our evolution we have created so many separations but in the spiritual world union is the only way forward, and union feeds on love, compassion and a strong feeling of sharing.
Here is a door, we are now on its threshold with glimpses of what lies ahead; our spiritual guides can gently nudge us forwards, but we are the only ones who can push it wide open and walk assuredly into the healing light of love for all living forms.
There is a lot of talking about the Mayan prophecy concerning the Winter Solstice of 2012 and what exactly that means. In her Past Life Angels, Jenny Smedley sees that date not as a gloomy deadline marking the end of our planet, but as the time when a heightened consciousness level on earth will reach the critical mass needed to allow a sudden “quantum leap” in spirituality for all humankind, and I like to think that she is right, completely right.
All those humans who have been lucky enough to share a part of their lives with an animal and have grieved when he or she has passed over, can finally find the reassurance that their separation is only temporary, less than a heart-beat compared to eternity. Ultimately love is the only law that works and its bonds will never be broken. Soul groups are created by love, and the shape of a physical body is only a temporary material coat we take at birth and shed again when we die. It is no more important than the colour of our skin or of our eyes, our sex or our social status.
Animals’ souls are - unlike ours - unadulterated by the rational thinking that has led us to so many blinding distinctions and separations and therefore they are able to enjoy wholeness at a degree almost impossible for us to reach when incarnated. This is why they are such great teachers for us, and why we have so much to learn from them if we have the humility to listen to their voices.
Animals’ lifespans might vary greatly from ours and if on the one hand to see them going and leaving us can be really heart-breaking, on the other hand it gives us a chance to meet them again and again in our current life. Love is the great guide and our mutual feelings, like powerful magnets reaching across the worlds, will eventually bring them back to us. If we look around and keep our eyes and our hearts open we might be lucky enough to meet them again, incarnated in a new body: look for signs and you won’t miss them.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any
more than black people were made for whites or women for men.

Alice Walker