"Shelf Help*" -Pros & Cons

I read both of the following paragraphs while doing research yesterday.

"The unconscious mind (subsconscious mind) is like a voice and video recorder that has been recording everything one has heard and experienced every second of one's life, and past-lives, even when asleep, unaware, or unconscious.  One is never truly unconscious since messages and their corresponding energy/commands are still being absorbed whether one is consciously aware of it or not.  These unconscious recordings or memories affect one's self esteem, motivations, career choices, life choices, and the way one processes conflicts or challenges...

There are many ways to define memory and how it is retained.  Most clinical hypnotherapists, however, believe forgetting or suppressing a traumatic or emotionally charged memory does not mean it is gone; rather the specific incident is not consciously available.  Memory can be compared to the hard drive of a computer.  Hypnosis, or a self-guided, "focused-state" of dehypnosis, accesses the important files that are stored on one's computer (i.e. mind).  Hypnotherapy, especially when performed by a clinical hypnotherapist specializing in The Netherton-Paul Method, can reveal the most important files, or memories, that need to be brought to the forefront and reprocessed in a healing way.

Dr. Morris Netherton, author of Past Lives Therapy (William Morrow, 1978) (Claimed by the author to be “the first published book in the field of Past Life Therapy.”)

Later that day, when in a bookstore, I picked up "The Abduction Enigma" by Randle, Estes and Cone, opened it, and found this paragraph -

“We have been told countless time by various “authorities” that memory is the storehouse of everything we have ever seen, felt, experienced, or done. We are told that memory is like a giant videotape on which everything we have ever seen, done, or participated in is recorded with the accuracy of videotape. And while that point has been strongly contested by psychologists and scientific evidence, we learn the real purpose of memory is not to store data but to allow us to function on a day-to-day basis. Memory is not meant to be an accurate record of our past or even a storehouse of our experience but rather an inner representation of who we are and what we feel. More important, it does not have to be very accurate to carry out these everyday functions.” 

(italics mine)

Pg. 286.

The Randle, et. al. book is very critical of hypnosis as a method of accessing hidden memories; in fact, that paragraph is in a chapter titled “Recovered Memories”. Netherton is the co-originator of the Netherton/Paul “Past Life Therapy Center De-hypnosis Method”, practiced at their clinic in Los Angeles, CA, USA. (Regular session- 90 minutes -$280, Intensive- 3.5 hours- $680, Intake interview - 75-90 minutes-$180, in person or skype, same prices)

There are no citations to back up either argument, so I can't offer any rebuttal either way.

But I was intrigued by the pastlifetherapycenter.com blog and spent a lot of time reading their material, until they lost me with this dismissal -

"Between lives therapy or space between lives is consulting with spirit guides and masters that likely do not exist. " 

With my experiences with this work over the last 35+ years, I respectfully disagree. I heard a great quote by author Joshua Cutcheon on a podcast that I have to paraphrase, but the gist was once you start doing this para-normal work, then the ways of the old scientific method seem not just 20th century, but 19th century. Netherton uses his technique to access experiences during the birthing process and interestingly, during surgeries when under anesthesia. Does he think we remain asleep for years or even decades between lives, and that information is not accessible? 

The reason this is so important to me is that I am finding the most interesting part of the past life exploration is occurring after the transition out of the body and in the between lives stage. That is where the healing takes place, where situations that seemed unbearably difficult in a life time can be re-framed, and where the experiences of a life can be put into the longer term perspective of series of incarnations. And as far as "spirit guides and masters that likely do not exist", I extend an invitation to experience this work and encounter some "smokey ghosts" and decide for yourself who or what they are. 

*"Shelf Help" is the art of picking a random book off a shelf with an open mind and finding the information you are looking for. Or sometimes finding a counter argument to what you just read. 

"Look down at your feet and tell me what you're wearing"

That is the first instruction I give in a session after we have completed the preliminary exercise, and they have accessed a past life. "Look down at your feet, and tell me what you're wearing" is a brilliant and easy way to get acquainted with the' physical' body we'll be exploring in the incarnation we have connected with. Seeing the footwear, or lack of footwear is very grounding, and once completed, it enables us to see the rest of the clothing and hairstyle which gives us input into the sex, ethnicity, social standing and the era that we are accessing. So I got a giggle when I was doing a search for some information on other forms of past life regression and saw that wikihow.com has a page for HOW TO REMEMBER YOUR PAST LIVES.

<http://www.wikihow.com/Remember-Your-Past-Lives>

Like almost every other form of past life regression, they use walking down a long hallway (or sometimes a staircase) leading to a doorway, on the other side of which is a previous life. I enjoyed that some part of William Swygard's Awareness Techniques might possibly have been used when I saw this-

"...try the shoe method: look down at your feet, and go with the first pair of shoes you see yourself wearing, and work from there. You might see sandals, and then realize you’re wearing a tunic. You might see little pointy shoes, and realize you’re wearing a big silk gown."

That's the only part in common with what we are doing, and for a self-directed exercise its OK, but what Swygard published in 1971 is still, in my humble opinion, the most effective way to access past lives. 

More great quotes from sessions

Every time I work with someone, I come away with a great quote that arises from doing this work. Last week, it was with B., who experienced coming to the end of a life as a woman who's husband had passed away, and who'd lost a child. There was some sadness, and the feeling that her life hadn't mattered. We were able to move on through her death and into the between lives experience that is becoming the most important part of this work. B. described "the feeling of oneness" and of being "the thread in the pattern, connecting all the other threads." In the between lives state of a non-physical experience, B. described how "it doesn't matter that it didn't matter," a beautiful reframe of her previous sadness. Now the sessions are progressing from "running" a past life and going through that life's ending, into the non-physical experience between lives, and then back into another life. Its amazing what we are able to accomplish in 90 minutes to 2 hours. 

1/7/17

From an email with GS, who I worked with on a physical issue -

<The prevailing wisdom is that we accept or agree to certain physical and emotional ailments, whether it's to work out karma from past lives or for reasons beyond our comprehension. Both for myself and the people I work with, I am asking the same questions- how do we "heal" something that we agreed to experience?>

This is phase 2 of the work, the between lives, non-physical experience leading into what goes into the planning of the next life. How do we "heal" from something if we agreed to experience it as a part of our growth process, and does removing it interfere with that process? I just read a story about a woman who had a near death experience while battling stage 4 cancer. She said outside of the physical body, while in the NDE, she understood completely why she had cancer. No word on whether her condition changed after this realization. 

I recently did some 'running' (Swygard's term for this past life work) on a person with whom I have had a difficult working relationship. After spending some time looking at this relationship from a past life perspective, i was able to to arrive at a 'reframe', an NLP term for seeing the relationship in a totally different way. I was able to get to a point where I could be grateful to him for "participating in my schooling", even though that lesson was painful and expensive. I wonder if we can ever get to a place where we can accept and be grateful for an illness for participating in our schooling? Will that emotional shift lead to healing in the physical body? 

1/2/2017 update

i had an insightful session with G.S. who lives here in Asheville. We set the intention of learning about a physical condition that was troubling her, and got a past life perspective on it right from the start. It was a short life that ended with violence, and we very carefully moved through the traumatic ending into the between lives stage, the Non Physical Experience. She had the most beautiful description of the non-physical energy beings she met here; she described them as 'Smokey Ghosts". I asked her permission to post this, because I had to share it. That is the most elegant way to put into words something so elusive. And a great start to this work in a new year. 

Quotes from Journey of Souls

From Michael Newton's "Journey of Souls" -

"In a remarkable underlying message, particularly from advanced subjects, the possibility is held out that the God-oversoul of our universe is on a less-than-perfect level. Thus, complete infallibility is deferred to an even higher source. … The concept that our immediate God is still evolving as we are takes away nothing from an ultimate source of perfection who spawned our God. To my mind, a supreme, perfect God would not lose omnipotence or total control over all creation by allowing for the maturation of less-than-perfect superior offspring. These lesser gods could be allowed to create their own imperfect worlds as a final means of edification so they might join with the ultimate God."

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Pg. 275

(Fascinating that Newton comes up with that from his reports. It is worthy of an entire book in itself. But it resonates perfectly with Swygard's idea that the Creator released parts of itself with the admonition, "Go, know my creation, and return it to me." Our experiences are returned to the Creator who then 'learns' from them, so of course our immediate God is "still evolving." And I absolutely love the concept of "our immediate God." It opens us to the idea that our God has a God, and on and on until we reach "the ultimate God". )

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"...my belief (is) that souls are attracted to geographical settings they have known during earlier incarnations."

pg. 117

(Here's an idea I have not yet experienced in my personal work, but will be paying attention to it now that it has been brought to my attention.)

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"... past life memories often spill over into contemporary problems in whatever spiritual setting is selected."

Pg. 64

(The idea that "we may be done with the past, but the past is not done with us." I don't know who said that first, but it is the basis for this work. )

Review of Michael Newton's "Journey of Souls"

    Back after a hard drive failure and replacement. I used the time to read a book suggested by someone at the first MeetUp, “Journey of Souls”, by Michael Newton, PhD. (1994). Subtitled “case Studies of Lives Between Lives”, this is what the book jacket calls the “travel log” of the accounts of 29 people utilizing Newton’s own hypnotic technique. Now I am presenting my work as an alternative to the standard method of hypnotic regression for past life exploration, so I had to overcome my skepticism of the whole practice but this book was a perfect introduction. (I will be digging deeper into the differences between hypnotic and guided meditation as a means of accessing past lives with a planned interview with a leading hypnotist.) Newton has assembled an overview of the between lives experience from a 10-year collection of clients’ experiences, providing a fascinating road map of the between lives journey, some of which I have experienced and others I have not. Newton’s unique hypnosis technique places the client in what he refers to as a state of superconsciousness, and this allows him to take a conversational tone with his clients that took me by surprise. I prefer to ask questions and the most common question is merely “What happens next?”, allowing the experiencers consciousness to show the most relevant material to their inquiry. Newton is fearless to the point of being confrontational, interrupting and using hypnotic techniques to get the information he wants, when he wants it. This causes me great discomfort, especially with the delicacy of the (literally) ethereal nature of the work.

    This brings me to the main issue with Newton’s work. I don’t know if his doctoral status as a hypnotherapist required that he maintain clinical detachment, but he does not address his direct experience with his own technique. It is only the common elements in his numerous client’s journeys that enabled him to construct the scenario he is describing. By the end of the book, I had the sense of someone writing a travel guide to Europe without having ever visited, and using the reviews from TripAdvisor as his source material. But I will never take anyone into an area that I have not extensively explored myself.

The past life piece of the puzzle

"Every soul has existed from the beginning. It has therefore passed through some worlds already, and it will pass through others before it reaches the final consummation. It comes into the world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life."

Origen, an early Christian scholar

I found this quote, or it found me, just as I was starting this website, and thought it was a perfect distillation of the concepts involved in past lives exploration. I am using the work of William Swygard as a jumping off point, and he had a beautiful and unique description of the origin of the soul. In Swygard's cosmology, souls came into existence when Source/Spirit/"God"/choose your favorite deity released pieces of itself with the admonition, "Go know my Creation, and return it to Me." I love that description of Creation; it resonates with me and I refer to it as "the spiritual Big Bang Theory." If it is true, and I am open to believing that it is, then as Origen pointed out, "every soul has existed from the beginning." In this framework, we are all old souls. This work is based on the idea that we can know where we were "strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life." Or as someone put it more recently, "You may think you're done with the past, but is the past done with you?"

Past life explorations are just the start of the journey, I call it Phase 1 of the Past Lives Project. If we have had even one past life in a different body, then that life had a beginning, middle and and end, and after it ended, the soul continued its journey between lives. I like to call it an NPE, the non-physical experience that we are able to explore any time we leave a past life behind, (in contrast to the NDE which requires almost dying). This is Phase 2. 

The 3rd phase is hinted at in Origen's quote. The idea that we have "passed through some worlds already, and ... will pass through others" is intriguing. I have not even explored this on my own, but when I do, I will be sharing my experiences here on this blog. This is an ongoing project, I have a few answers and a thousand questions, and I welcome you to join me on this journey.