Page 31 - 200303 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - February 2003

Past Life Regression 31 Past Life Regression 31 Paranormal Pursuit: after a past-life regression session. I had match the memories of the children. Paranormal Pursuit: Past-life regression stirs seen it as akin to a party game or at least Past-life regression stirs an afternoon's diversion. Instead, for me, Stevenson -- who grants no interviews for up the present, too it was much more. fear his work will be taken too lightly -- up the present, too The first past-life regression has published various scholarly papers, By Jessie Milligan therapist I call is not home. I leave a and granted an exception to `Washington Star-Telegram Staff Writer message. She leaves a message for me. Post' Editor Tom Shroder, who wrote a Obviously, neither of us is psychic; work on Stevenson's life, `Old Souls: The What's new in this offbeat realm of otherwise we wouldn't need these Scientific Proof for Past Lives' (Simon & the occult? In this final segment of our message machines. Her message says she Schuster, July 1999, $24). Yet throughout three-part series, our writer visits a past- uses a method that helps recapture his work it's difficult to find more than a life regression therapist and takes away fragments of a soul. The message handful of the 3,000 cases he's compiled some unexpected self-discovery. machine clicks off. I feel a chill. I feel in which he has been able to show that a The surface tension of everyday defensive. I do not want someone to mess child's story is identical to a deceased awareness breaks. I feel myself sleepy, around with my soul fragments, no matter person's life. very sleepy, just like the cliche. I am how helpful she intends to be. Stevenson's work has been falling into a hypnotic trance, and a past- I call another regressionist, Sandy criticized as being fraught with leading life regression therapist is going to help Winnett-Ortner of Dallas. Does she questions and supplied information. He's me explore what lives I may have lived believe we can recall past lives? also been praised as a groundbreaking before being reincarnated as a journalist. "I have mixed feelings," she says. scientist whose work is, unfortunately, all I see myself as a pioneer woman "Some people believe in past lives, others too ignored. Ultimately, as with any on the American prairie, living alone and don't. What matters is that you are discussion of anything paranormal, the hoisting a shotgun, so defensive I exploring your own mind." contradictions pile up, until we are left to threaten even those who come to help. Hypnosis creates a comfortable examine nothing but our own personal I see myself and my current boss as environment in which to launch that feelings. astronauts orbiting the Earth. We look exploration, she says. She's taught classes I decide to visit Brenda Steele, down at the lovely blue and green where she puts 30 to 35 students under director of the Body Mind Spirit Center, a patterns below, and our job is to figure hypnosis at once. They'll emerge with quiet haven of a yoga studio and holistic out how to protect it. various stories. healing center off Bryant Irvin Road near HEY! I stir from the hypnosis. "Some were aliens, some saw Interstate 20. That could not have been a past life. I was themselves as animals, some as well- Steele guided my fellow journalist born into this life before the space known celebrities. What's important is Mary Rogers through a past-life program started. I could not have lived as that they are able to review those regression session some years back, and an astronaut. experiences and see what it means in their Rogers spoke highly of Steele and her I was about to decide that past-life life now. techniques. regression therapy does work, but not in "People come out of hypnosis and Steele is a registered nurse, a ways I had expected when I set out to say, `Oh, I understand now why I smoke, naturopathic doctor, a certified explore my own inner frontier. or why have I have an eating disorder," hypnotherapist and a yoga teacher. She's Past-life regression has been Winnett-Ortner says. The meditative state been leading past-life regression sessions popular for about the past half-century, we reach under hypnosis is more since 1988. ever since a woman named Ruth important than the question of the reality In her view, the images we see Simmons from Colorado went under of past lives, she says. from a past life are metaphors for issues hypnosis and, in an Irish accent, claimed One of the most famous (or that bother us now. she was named Bridey Murphy and infamous) believers in reincarnation, Ian "It doesn't matter if past lives are accurately described Irish society in Stevenson, a psychiatrist and researcher real or not," Steele says. "It gives you a 1890. at the University of Virginia, says what greater view of who you are. It gives you The quest to find past lives has we envision under hypnosis is no an opportunity to forgive, forget and evolved considerably since that 1952 different from what we see in dreams. move forward," she says. event that at the time was ballyhooed as The pictures are sent to us from our I chat with Steele in her office for a "scientific proof" that reincarnation subconscious, not from previous lives, half-hour or so before we start. She asks a exists. Stevenson says. bit about my life and what I hope to Today, past-life examinations most Instead, he believes that proof of accomplish. I have no big issues to frequently are used as therapy for reincarnation comes from the mouths of resolve, I tell her. I only want to releasing current fears or issues. babes. Stevenson has spent the past 40 experience the trip back in time. I am a bit Believers in reincarnation say the years attempting to document past life worried that I will not be able to be troubles in our lives are based on issues memories of children from all over the hypnotized. I begin to yawn as we talk in left unresolved from earlier lives. Among world. When 3- to 5-year-olds tell the soft light of the office. skeptics, hypnosis-induced visions of spontaneous stories -- while not under "It has started," she says. "This is "earlier lives" are considered useful in hypnosis -- about past lives, Stevenson the beginning of the hypnosis." drawing subconscious problems to the sets out to investigate the facts. He surface for better examination. attempts to identify the people that the Continued on Page 35 I had not anticipated the questions children claimed to be; he tries to learn The New Internet Kids on the Block - about my own life that would be raised whether the facts of the deceaseds' lives www.rel-mar.com