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In my travels through various past life regression hypnosis websites, chat forums, and blogs, I’ve noticed a recurring and (at least to me) somewhat unsettling thread. For whatever reason, people in this field have frequently offered the common notion that whether or not the past lives one encounters in a regression session are real is unimportant; they posit that, as long as you achieve positive personal benefits from your past life regression experience, the accuracy of the past life memories doesn’t really matter. While this may not seem like such a bad idea on the surface, I feel like it undermines a lot of the positive therapeutic benefits you can gain from sessions like those we offer here at Past Life Answers, and that it casually dismisses the notion that there could very possibly be fundamental truths about humanity, spirituality, and the purpose and meaning of our lives existing within our grasp right now.
There’s no doubt that people benefit from past life regression sessions regardless of whether or not the memories they supposedly re-experience are real. Whether it offers an explanation for a particular nervous tick, puts a troubling hyperanxiety issue to rest, or just provides a general peace of mind, the past life regression process has affected positive change in thousands of subjects including myself, and the inherent truth of the memories we uncover doesn’t affect this outcome; as long as we are willing to believe the memories might be true we can allow the process to work. However, an inherent mechanism for dealing with pain or hardship in human behavior is self-delusion. We tell ourselves things like, ‘no one saw me trip over my own feet just then–those people over there are giggling at something completely unrelated to me,’ or ‘I’m sure she really likes me, she’s just been too busy to call,’ or ‘I hold down a job and take care of my family, I can’t be an alcoholic.’ Sometimes this mechanism is therapuetic and sometimes it’s damaging, but even at its most beneficial it is a means for us to lie to ourselves in order to cope with a particular situation more easily, and most would agree that there is something at least mildly troubling about that notion.
If past life regression results in memories that are merely figments of our imaginations, the whole process would fall into a similar category of self-delusion. Unwilling to own up to our mistakes in this life, we suddenly have an easy means to disown responsibility by passing the blame off to previous incarnations of ourselves. And if that is indeed the goal of a practitioner of past life regression, detractors can make a pretty strong case for the inherent faults in the process; sure it can be therapuetic, but is it worth the lies we are telling ourselves?
But if past life memories are real–if we actually have the ability to occasionally tap into that superconscious record of who we used to be–the self-delusion argument flies out the window, and the therapuetic benefits of past life regression instantly become impactful and legitimate. As someone who has always tried to strive for self-awareness, the revelations I discover through this process will bear a great deal more weight if I know I haven’t conjured them up as a defense mechanism or a crutch.
As important and as valuable as the self-improvement we can experience through PLR is, I believe something even bigger than personal therapuetic benefit hinges on the truth of the memories we reencounter. If reincarnation is real, and we are able to access the memories of our previous lives and, more importantly, the space/time between our various incarnations, the answers to fundamental questions about our purpose on earth are suddenly dropped within our easy grasp. We have the potential to discover for ourselves the fabric of the spirit world and learn first-hand why we are here and what the meaning of our existence is. For those like me who have consistently struggled with dogma- or faith-based answers to these questions, past life regression offers something different; as long as we have faith in the accuracy of what we are witnessing, we can achieve the enlightenment that it takes yogis and gurus entire lifetimes to attain.
But that leads us to the paramount concern with this process: how can we really place any faith in the accuracy of our memories? As amazed as I have been by what I have experienced during my journey in this field, I am absolutely certain that, just as the memories of my current life have grown hazy or convoluted over time, there is equal potential for the past life memories we recall to be at least skewed, or at most fabricated entirely. How can we tell which, if any, of these memories are true, and which are false?
I am still wrestling with this question–this website wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. While I have gained great insight from all of my regressions, my foremost desire in each has been to come away with conclusive, verifiable information of which I can say with absolute certainty I had no prior knowledge. This would be conclusive enough evidence for me to accept that at least some of the past life memories we encounter are accurate, and that perhaps we can refine the state of trance to enhance the accuracy of past life memories and decrease the likelihood of false memories.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened for me–yet. I have recalled phrases in languages I don’t know, and names and faces I’ve never seen, but I have yet to be able to link them to a real language or a real person from the past. But I remain optimistic and excited about the process nonetheless, and I hope the day comes when I can share my incontrovertible evidence of the truth of this phenomenon.
Until that day, I will continue to approach this process with an open mind and a willingness to imagine that reincarnation could really happen, and I encourage you to do the same. I invite you to contact me if you are wrestling with any philosophical questions about the subject; I would love to impart my limited knowledge and learn from whatever insights you’ve discovered in your journey.
Matt Winfree
The questions is does it resonate with you. You have your own set of beliefs, knowledge, experiences, and intuitions. You have to compare what is said to you core and then judge it’s validity. This is the difference between spirituality and religion. In spirituality, the individual judges what they will accept and what they will reject. In religion, this decision is made by the church. They tell you what is or is not right. The biggest problem is most people don’t want to have to make that kind of decision. It requires real faith and commitment. It is always easier to defer to someone more “knowledgeable” than have to spend time with your self in a quiet corner and live with the results.
If past lives are true and this hypnosis is true, then why are people following religions such as Islam? Why will they not try past life regression to know the truth?