Past Life Regression  
Back to the past

By Roz Brown

      When I was a 30-year old radio newscaster, I worked with a man in his early 70s named Wayne Nuzum. He owned a shop called Nuzum's Nursery on west Arapahoe Road in Boulder. As a result, he had a radio show devoted to gardeners and their questions on what was then 1490AM, KBOL, Boulder. He told me once that his family had moved to Colorado from the Midwest because they had health issues related to asthma. That's as much as I knew, other than that he was a great kidder, and reminded me a lot of my dad and uncles. We were good pals and he had much to teach about patience and forgiveness.

      Several years after he died, I was visiting family in Iowa. They had just received an updated version of the family tree on my father's side. I was glancing through it when the word "Boulder" caught my eye. Under it the name Nuzum appeared, and included Wayne Nuzum, with information that the family had moved to Colorado when he was just a young man. As it turned out, I'd been working with my fourth cousin-a stranger who was oddly familiar.

      Professionals in the field of past life regression say those who delve into this mysterious and controversial field report similar experiences from the unconscious plane. For example, you might discover your father this time around was your sister in a previous life or this lifetime's difficult boss was your equally difficult brother the last time around. On the other hand, the fantasy of discovering you were Cleopatra or Napoleon in a past life is usually just that.

      "You don't often find people who seek out regression therapy returning as historical figures, or some glamorous Hollywood star," says a local practitioner. "It's more likely they were common folk and now find themselves with problems, in need of help from their guides or guardian angels."  He says it's more beneficial to think of it like opening your mind to a cast of characters in a road show.

Resources,  local and beyond . Beverly Anderson (Durango),    970-382-0277 . Linda Backman, PhD,    The Ravenheart Center,    303-938-0292,    www.ravenheartcenter.com . Sherm Cowdrey, MS, CHt,     303-795-3535 . Imara, 303-575-1100;     www.TheWisdomLight.com . Douglas Pratt, LCSW,     303-665-5829

      Past life therapy is based upon the belief that we carry forth memories of our experiences from past lives and that these memories may be affecting our present life's circumstances, especially in the areas of behavior patterns, inborn talents, likes, dislikes and even illnesses. Many people who try it want help with problems ranging from relationship issues and anxiety attacks to addictions and sleep disorders due to vivid nightmares. In other words, they seek to treat current psychological disorders by bringing to light the cause of the trouble from a previous existence.

      This is not as New Age as you might imagine. In their 1969 book, Many Lifetimes (Ayer Co Pub, reprinted 1980), Joan Grant and her husband Denys Kelsey, a member of the British Royal Medical Institute, advocated the use of regression therapy to address unresolved psychological disorders. Another prominent psychologist, Edith Fiore, PhD, holds similar views and discussed her experiences using past-life regression as a therapeutic technique in her books, You Have Been Here Before (Ballantine Books, 1979) and The Unquiet Dead (Ballantine Books, 1995). Fiore believes that much of what is described as incurable, whether psychological or psychosomatic, is caused by spirit possession. It's her theory that spirits who, after death, remain in the physical world and inhabit the bodies and minds of those still living, cause depression, phobias and other disorders.

      One of the first and most widely documented cases of past life regression occurred very close to home. The story of Colorado housewife Bridey Murphy turns up in nearly every historical reference to hypnotic regression therapy and, not surprisingly, also in nearly everything written by skeptics on the topic.

      Murphy was a 19th century woman whose real name was Virginia Tighe. Under hypnotic regression she began speaking to Morey Bernstein, a businessman and hypnotist from Pueblo. She claimed to be Bridey Murphy of Cork, Ireland, and she apparently was quite convincing because Bernstein's 1956 book, The Search for Bridey Murphy (Doubleday, reprinted 1989), became something of a best seller.

      Murphy spoke with an Irish accent and supplied details of obscure places that were later checked and verified. She also danced an Irish jig she supposedly couldn't have known and sang Irish songs from decades past. Skeptics, however, say she relied on buried memories of accounts she had heard in her childhood. Some claimed that a woman named Murphy had lived across the street from Tighe as a child, and the past life regression was nothing more than a vivid imagination and confused memory.

      Skeptics are validated by Western Christianity, which has never had much truck with regression or reincarnation. Most Christian faiths believe that you're born, you die, and you either end up in heaven, hell or purgatory. From that point of view, Eastern religions that embrace reincarnation do so only because humans don't want to believe we have only one life to live. Instead, we want to believe that each of our lives is like a rung on a ladder where we either proceed to a higher plain of consciousness or fall back, depending on how well we lived a previous life. This makes suffering and a lousy fate easier to swallow because we can then explain why some people have happy lives and others face constant misfortune.

      Non-believers say the practice has been given undeserved credibility only because the credentials of some of its leading advocates are so impressive. They site Brian L. Weiss, MD, a graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School and Chairman Emeritus of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. Weiss was a traditional psychotherapist until one of his patients began recalling past-life traumas and channelling messages from "the space between lives," which contained revelations about Weiss' family and his dead son. He reportedly cured his patient, and the experience sent him seeking answers in yet unexplored places. Weiss writes about them in his book, Many Lives, Many Masters (Fireside,1988).

      Obviously, past life regression might be more successful in healing those who believe in the technique. Those numbers are growing, as evidenced by the success of the International Association for Regression Research and Therapies (www.aprt.org), now more than 20 years old and hosting an international conference in the Netherlands this year.

      A past life regression session typically lasts from one to two hours and can cost anywhere from $100 to $400 per hour. Most clients choose to spend three to 10 sessions exploring past memories. They typically either choose to be hypnotized or enter into something that's closer to an "altered state." For some, it's a stop-and-start process, while others are able to let their memories flow and later analyze what was revealed.

      "Either way you remain alert, aware and in control," says a local teacher. "You interact with the therapist and typically remember everything you say and experience. There are no guarantees, of course, but most people experience positive change. Naturally some people are never able to experience past life regression because they are constantly editing and doubting their impressions." California therapist Susan J. Fisher agrees. "Some people finish a session and say, 'I think I just made it up.'"

      Which leads me to a story about my mother. Mom tried regression therapy while visiting her sister. She told the therapist, among other things, that she was from Germany and remembered going down to the creek to help her sisters protect the ducks from being eaten by fox and weasels. My aunt was convinced. But upon waking from the so-called trance, my mother said she made it all up to appease her sister and the hypnotist. Huh. Was it all nonsense? Or did her analytical side become too uncomfortable with the experience to lend it credibility? Just one of many still unanswered questions about past life regression therapy.

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