Without Provenance:
Historic Lessons of the Self Through Past-life Regression
Leslie S. King, Atlantic University
The mirror hangs majestically on its own wall at The Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Museum. Bolling descendants and the museum's founder look upon it reverence, eyes all shining brightly from this recent acquisition. Murmurs of its provenance insinuate that it is originally from the White House, something taken from those hallowed halls by First Lady, Edith Bolling Wilson, who gifted it to her brother. Today many of us would recoil in horror at the notion of presidential couples taking America's treasures out of the White House, but during the early twentieth century, presidents and presidential wives were permitted to take some bounty with them at the end of their presidency. Yes, indeed this mirror, based on comments by an appraiser, seems Presidential enough, what with its gold eagle and being timely to the Wilson's years at the White House.
As director of the museum, I could not as easily rest upon the aesthetic provenance of the mirror. To me, it means instead that an investigation of Agatha Christie magnitude would be necessary to substantiate the claim of its former whereabouts. The museum world would raise their eyebrows if we deemed the mirror a White House Piece without more evidence than its appearance and the documented time period in which Mrs. Wilson gave it to her brother. To prove this claim, I will have to dig through a collection of paperwork not yet cataloged, correspond with White House historians, and enlist countless others to help me document its provenance before we can rest on its presidential laurels.
The story of the mirror reminds me of the practice of past life regression. Though I was originally drawn to regression for the potential historical value such practices might provide, my ideas about what "truths" are generated from a past life regression are more akin to finding personal value in the experience and the life patterns than with the factual validity of the information gained. This is the transpersonally oriented part of me. In exploring my own past-life regression work, I have found my awareness of my potential past to be relevant to the issues that I face in the present. I see patterns and solutions in the stories my mind conjures up. I become less interested in factual objectivity, and more fascinated by my own evolution. From the world of the museum that now encompasses my life, I seek the definite and documentable before defining an item in its historical context. With past life regression, such documentation and verifiable information seem less important, while the story and its potential seem most important -- what resonates with the person experiencing the past life regression, and what they take from the experience matters most, not what can be historically proven.
At first I thought I would have trouble reconciling these two ideas -- story for story's sake or factual information. Those around me in the museum world often ask me to lead them in past life regressions so they can learn about other times and experience them first hand. At first I was leery about doing this, because it seemed almost trivial, but I soon learned to ask a few more questions. These questions include "what do you really want to accomplish?" or "what is the purpose of your trying past life regression?" If they want it more for curiosity's sake or to prove or disprove the idea of reincarnation, I tend to not work with them right away. Instead I refer them to Henry Bolduc's book Journeys Within: A True Story of Time Travel, Past Life Regression, and Channeling, Brian Weiss's Many Lives, Many Masters, and recently Henry Reed's essay, "Past Lives Present Learning Opportunities Today." In this, he discusses similar ideas about the usage of past life experience. He describes the idea of truths that resonate for one's self versus the importance of its being factual. Based on work with Bolduc, Reed recapitulates the evolution potential of the stories created. The stories are devices to help people learn more about themselves.
The process of past life regression is an exploration of the self. It involves several steps to gain accesses to inner information. Beginning with a relaxation process, the participant is asked to engage in the simple act of focusing their eyes on a particular spot on the wall and then closing and opening the eyes for the duration of a countdown. Progressive relaxation follows, during which the participant is asked to consciously release tension from various parts of the body. Suggestions are given for even greater relaxation, as are peaceful visualizations. The participant is then directed to remember various episodes from recent experiences to early childhood memories. Continuing backwards, the process involves going back to a safe time in the womb to a pre-physical time -- a time of transition referred to as the blue mist. Progressing from the blue mist, the participant is inwardly taken back through time and space, and into the story of a past life. Noticing one's feet is the first step, then awareness moves up the body. Other aspects are then brought into focus such as "home," the landscape, transportation means, and other individuals who may present themselves. The participant is directed to move to a time of importance in that particular life. From there, that life's death experience is explored. This is done in such a way that the participant does not need to feel the pain or actually experience the mortality. Once the death moment happens, the participant is asked to move beyond that lifetime and into a space where the totality of that life can be examined. This is where patterns may be identified. Forgiveness plays a large role during this period. The participant is asked to look into the eyes of various people that were important in that lifetime and forgive them for various trespasses if necessary. Self-Forgiveness is also considered after forgiving the others. Then it is suggested that the participant bring forward in their current life whatever is most helpful from the past life, leaving behind that which is not necessary. At this point, the participant returns through the blue mist and back to normal consciousness. Scripts exist for facilitating this process.
In addition to the actual process, there is a preliminary explanation of the procedure before the session begins, and after the session, the participant is asked a series of questions that helps provide focus to the experience. Patterns are examined, the experience is discussed, and the participant is advised to write down the memory, and encouraged to continue writing about it in the future, as many more inner truths may come to light long after the session.
In my own episodes, I have had a reoccurring story that fits well into the idea of "knowing" an inner truth. Even with a love of history, I do not bother trying to prove the information received as factual; I do not receive enough particulars for that, but I have more information that I use as a measurement for my being. In this past life, I am a male Native American. The first time I experienced this life, it was from an adult perspective, and I witnessed myself being abandoned on an island by my tribe to perish. Even my wife and child left me. During another session, I re-experienced this life from a child's perspective. In it, I was the grandson of a medicine woman and was thought to have great potential as a healer. Instead I had little interest in learning the healing arts and faked it, finally being discovered as a fraud later in life, hence the reason why I was eventually left to die alone on the deserted island. At other times I have returned to this life when I feel ineffectual or too inexperienced. I have also re-experienced it when another museum director suggested that when there is doubt about particular historical pieces, it is unlikely that anyone will find the provenance, thus making it alright to claim the piece as something for which there is no proof. This was suggested with such authority, as though all museums have this practice, that I struggled with actually doing this at my museum. Using my own personal code of ethics and looking at my past life patterns, I knew how I should proceed with the wording on artifacts that are in question, "This is thought to be such and such, based on this and that" -- being honest and upfront about the objects.
In looking up "past life patterns" in a web search I became aware of experiments conducted by Nicholas Spanos in the 1990s. Though Spanos' studies seemed more concerned about hypnotizability, his theory is that past lives remembered during regression work are not memories at all, but rather, are caused by expectations, social constructions from television and societal interaction, life experience, and from one's desire to experience an actual past life regression. Results also hinged upon the participants' particular ideas about reincarnation (those believing in it were more likely to experience imagery or a story line than those who did not have a shared belief in reincarnation). Other results were based on the participants' desire to please the hypnotist. Granted that though these experiments did not look at the value in the story that was told, I do not think the material one experiences in regression can be so quickly disregarded. This is Bolduc's point as well as Reed's.
I feel however that Spanos' theory has some validity. In my personal experience, I recently helped guide both a mother and a daughter through the past life regression process. I worked with them separately, with the idea that they would wait until the other was finished to share the information they each received. Both are historians in their own rights and before visiting me had been exploring Civil War sites, specifically from African-American angles. Interestingly enough, both women went back to past lives as slaves -- both are Caucasian. Each had a different experience. The mother's was more heavy and resigned to the lot of slave trials and tribulations, whereas the daughter was able to see the life with more optimism, finding joy in the life. Whether they really were slaves, their experiences reflected the current events and interests, in which they had recently been immersed (the mother still refers to her youth as being post-civil war, before segregation was truly abolished). All this is where Spanos may have a point with what creates a past life memory. And yet, when I asked both mother and daughter what they thought of the experience, both found it to be worthwhile and saw patterns that related to their current lives. The mother also found her writing block of many years lifted directly after the experience. They cared little for what may have caused the memories, but related to the information received.
There is another point to consider about past life regression that is important for consideration and is what I share with those who just have a curiosity about the practice (instead of planning to use it as a personal tool). It is the idea of amnesia. In my own practices, I often find the stories that my subconscious mind issues forth from me often fade quickly and leave little memory evidence. These times are not without fruit, though. I suddenly find situations that had seemed difficult were easy to handle, or I gained patience where there seemed to be none before I used past life regression to help me deal with the issue. This memory fog is not uncommon and in fact was documented in a case study by Brian Weiss, who wrote about a client who did not or even wish to remember her past life stories. In his book Many Lives, Many Masters, he describes her progress in dealing with depression and low self-esteem. Even without recalling the details of her past life regressions, she blossomed.
I present past life regression as a self-learning tool, one that can answer more questions about one's self -- that is past life regression's true value. I do not discredit the idea that people experience genuine past lives, but rather that the information that presents itself during a past life regression -- whether a distant memory caused by social sources such as television, movies or books, or a made up fictitious character -- is what is most valid to the self. It may or may not be difficult to prove one's past life provenance in the context of history, but it can easily be seen as a mirror of one's inner self.