Dear Soul Arcanum:
I have not talked to one person who said that they remembered a previous life and benefited from that knowledge. I have known two supposed Cleopatras, and I am sure there are a million more of them, but the one’s I have known were not a full bowl of soup, if you know what I mean. I’m writing to ask what the point of exploring past lives might be. How can this supposed knowledge and awareness help us in these fast changing times we live in?
Michael
Dear Michael:
We have all heard stories about past life seminars boasting not just one but several Cleopatras, Mark Anthonys, Abraham Lincolns, etc. While I applaud your discernment, I would no more allow these individuals to taint my entire outlook on reincarnation than I would allow a few rapists to taint my view of all mankind.
I feel there are really two issues here. First, as you seem to be questioning the validity of remembering past lives at all, if not questioning the very fact of reincarnation, I encourage you to explore some of the astounding evidence researchers have uncovered for yourself. You might begin with well-respected author Dr. Ian Stevenson, who wrote Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and more recently, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. Beyond this, allow your intuition and interest to guide your research. A search for books on reincarnation at amazon.com yielded me nearly 8,000 hits.
I think simply believing in reincarnation itself is healing. Knowing that we can’t run truly avoid life’s lessons (for they will be presented to us over and over again until we master them) generally motivates us to face our issues promptly and honestly. Similarly, knowing that suicide is not an escape would certainly motivate us to find some way to endure and to heal. In the words of theosophist Annie Besant:
All life changes its aspect when reincarnation becomes a settled conviction, beyond all argument, raised above all dispute. Each day of life but one page in the great drama of existence; each sorrow but a fleeting shadow cast by a passing cloud; each joy but a gleam of sunshine reflected from a swinging mirror; each death but the moving from a worn-out house. The strength of an eternal youth begins slowly to pass into the awakening life; the calmness of a vast serenity broods over the tossing waves of human thought. The radiant glory of the immortal Intelligence pierces the thick dusky clouds of matter, and the imperishable Peace that nought can ruffle sheds its pure whiteness over the triumphant spirit.
Believing in reincarnation not only shifts one’s entire perspective on life; it opens one up to the transformational power of past life therapy, which can be helpful in the same ways that “normal” therapy is. When we bring our unconscious fears and motivations to the surface, we can consciously work on changing them in order to create greater health and happiness. When conventional medical or psychological therapy fails time and time again, past life therapy has often shown amazing effectiveness. Some people spend many years trying to resolve lifelong chronic problems such as phobias, addictions, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, chronic unexplainable pain or illness, self-destructive habits, unhealthy relationships, etc. and never see results. While researchers may not be able to explain exactly why or how, past life therapy often leads to rapid improvement in these patients’ lives. To me, this suggests that the cause must have been in a past life as well.
For example, I have heard of people who experienced chronic headaches, who had sought all kinds of medical help to no avail, and upon “recalling” a traumatic death due to a head injury in a past life, were cured. Now you can call this the placebo effect or brainwashing or whatever you want – I’m sure the person who is no longer suffering doesn’t really care, so long as it works. There are many other problems that frequently stem from past lives, from physical ailments like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia to eating disorders and addictions. Many people who are overweight this lifetime have starved to death in a past life, and are unconsciously eating all they can to avoid that fate again. When they recognize what is subconsciously driving their behavior, they’re empowered to change. Many phobias stem from past life experiences. A fear of fire may signal a prior death by fire, or a fear of snakes may stem from a deadly snake bite. By consciously recognizing that our fear is out of place in the present, we begin to put things in a sane perspective and reclaim our personal power to create what we want in our lives.
In my own reading work, I have seen many relationships transformed via past life awareness. For example, I recently read for a woman whose husband was her father in a past life. All I knew going into the reading was that the relationship was troubled because her husband was very possessive and controlling, and she was tired of it. I relayed information about a past life in which she was his son, and he was her father. As his son, she worked in the family business (making things like saddles, bags, belts, etc. out of leather) and as she grew into a young man, she wanted to go to a big city nearby, but her father wanted her to stay and work with him. He became very controlling at that point in an attempt to hold on to her. In response to the reading, she wrote that she was amazed by this information, for she is working in the family business again THIS lifetime, and wants to leave it to do something more fulfilling, but she feels pressure from both her father and her husband (who is also in the business) to remain.
Learning of this past life connection helped her to realize why she seems to naturally succumb to her husband’s wishes. Her friends have often told her she should just tell him no, but she has found that very difficult to do, for it is more “natural” to her to obey him as a child obeys her father. She then realized that she could spend another whole lifetime doing what others wish of her, or she could learn the lesson and find the courage to stand up for herself and make her own decisions. In simply understanding her unconscious feelings and responses, she was freed to consciously choose something else.
It often happens as well that two people will meet and “fall in love,” and yet have a hard time fully entering the relationship. Sometimes this stems from past life betrayals, which lead to an unwarranted sense of mistrust in this life. More often, such guardedness is born of fear of loss. When someone we love deeply dies unexpectedly in a past life, it can be very hard to let ourselves love them all out again in a future life. We may live on edge, both wanting to enter in fully and afraid that at any moment, they could be taken from us. When we uncover the past life memories that may be generating this fear of loss, we can stop unconsciously holding back.
Past life memories help us put death in perspective: when we realize that in a past life we “lost someone” and now that person is right back in our experience, it helps us to make peace with the inevitable separation of death, for we know that we’ll be with them again in the future, so it’s “safe” to go ahead and love with all our hearts and souls.
A wonderful internet resource for information on past life healing can be found at healpastlives.com. There you’ll find lots of information, exercises you can do yourself and more. As your question reveals that your inner being is guiding you to explore reincarnation and past life therapy, I encourage you to explore the subject with an open mind and heart!
– Soul Arcanum
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