How to view ones past lives?

Hello all,
A few of you may know that I am Gnostic (sad I have to clarify, but no, NOT agnostic). I feel deep down inside that to achieve Gnosis I must see all of my past lives. How would one go about doing this?

[edit on 3-11-2008 by goldbomb444]

reply to post by goldbomb444


Hypnosis tends to bring out fantasies of past lives, so I would be careful going that route. If you claim to be a prince/nobility or someone of importance, then it is most probably fantasy. If you regress to being a turnip farmer or shepherd, it may have some validity. Make sure the hypnotist asks for names and dates, and if your past life is from a foreign speaking land, record you speaking in the native language. That way you will have names, dates and a possible language spoken that you did not learn in this lifetime.

Good luck on your journey.

Is there any other way besides hypnosis? I have always been able to astral project without aid, and I was hoping there was a way to view past lives as well...

I try to practice astral projection as well but think I'm a little to old for it to settle down to be easy for me, Think the only other option from hypnosis (apart from self hypnosis which requires tapes and such like) is to say to yourself , " next time I project I want to explore my past lives ,if any" .
Convince yourself that's what you want to do , just a quess I suppose.

I attended a seminar by Carol Bowman about 6 years ago. She is a master in guided meditation and past lives. The entire room participated and I had one of the clearest 'memories' ever. I remember every detail as if it happened yesterday.

She has a forum here www.reincarnationforum.com... and she's also written a few books.

Good luck on your journey.

There is no evidence for reincarnation, so be wary of people who claim it is true but can't offer any evidence. There is simply no way to know if they are making it up or not.

It's like if someone was selling devices to keep Bigfoot out of your home - obviously you'd want to know if Bigfoot existed, with evidence, before purchasing one.

reply to post by goldbomb444


Hi there...

I actually think that hypnosis is a really good way to access past lives, *IF* you choose a well trained and experienced past life therapist. It's not a route to go on if you are unsure of their abilities. I've had regression therapy under hypnosis, and am going for more in the New Year with the same therapist, who is excellent, and really spends time with her clients. I found the memories and images that surfaced really intense, unexpected, and completely believable. There were a few surprises, but nothing ridiculous....I too get very wary of "I was an Egyptian Princess" claims. In my case, I was a farmer in 19th C Wyoming, an immigrant farm hand in 16th C Italy...by far the most vivid, which still reduces me to tears if I think about it too much...and an embalmer/priest in Syria...I have no dates for this one.

Please investigate what feels right for you, but in my mind, it's easier to do this kind of work being guided by someone with experience who can control what is happening to you. Not all past life recall is pleasant, by any means, and if trauma of some kind surfaces, you will need help to deal with it.

Cait

reply to post by caitlinfae


This might sound a bit harsh, but how can you distinguish between your memories of a past life and your imagination?

reply to post by dave420


Not harsh at all...it the kind of question I ask too. I do have a really strong imagination, and am an experienced meditator, but in a hypnotic state we access other memories and information held in our souls, if you like, that we simply couldn't make up. Some of the details I saw and felt in the regression were astonishing and unexpected, as were the emotions that surfaced, almost as if I was still there, looking at the scene, and still feeling the same things, physically and emotionally. The only one that I had an awareness of beforehand was the Syrian life, but even then, there were many details that I simply didn't expect, like my awareness of relationships and my place in society.

And just to clear this up before anyone asks...I don't smoke, or drink anything alcoholic, I have never, will never do drugs, and no...no mental illness either, apart from a fascination with and slight addiction to tidying up. I can be fairly sure that there is nothing in my system that might help to mess with my head, so I know that what I feel is what I feel.

A well trained therapist will be able to put you in and hold you in a state that means you can access previously hidden information. Instinct plays a big part too...I've had spontaneous past life recall in one or two situations, that has been even more intense, and I'm afraid there is no other way to describe the information received other than "I just knew"...but I knew intensely, if that makes sense.

Hope this helps..!

Cait

reply to post by caitlinfae


But can you actually prove it? It sounds like you've not mentioned anything that can't be described by attributing it to your imagination. We can have astonishing, unexpected, emotional, vivid episodes through our imagination - they're not solely possible through this 'hypnosis'. Can you show that we have souls, that hypnosis actually allows our souls to pass on information, and that it's impossible for our imaginations to come up with similar (although not as accurate) thoughts? Because no-one else on the planet has managed to do that.

I'm not attacking you, I've just never ever ever seen any reports by anyone or any group that conclusively demonstrate this stuff is real. Considering the massive financial gain anyone who sells this stuff would make, and the total lack of evidence, it doesn't seem true.

Thanks for the reply Dave....it's a really sticky point to talk about...the proof thing. It's a bit like trying to prove that I'm happy...I can be, even if I don't look like it, but how do I prove that I have that emotion to you? I would need to find a way of "loaning" you some of it, as it's completely intangible (although hormones could be measured, I suppose...not very practical though!). Empirical evidence is not the bottom line of everything.

The whole point of spirituality and hypnotic regression is that it's an individual experiential process, and cannot be proven to someone else. It can ONLY be experienced individually, and that you don't believe that's it's true or possible, and don't feel it yourself, doesn't make it any less real for me. Perhaps the individual repsonsibility with regards to proof lies with ourselves...we all have to seek our own proof, and our own experience. If I could "prove" it to you, then you wouldn't have to do the work yourself, and that's just not fair, in spiritual terms. Our relationship or lack of it with the Divine cannot be passed onto someone else....we build it, or it doesn't get built, but again, that's a personal thing. No-one is saying you have to have one.

As for proving that we have souls...how could I do that? I would love to! Again, it's a personal thing. I "know" that we do. The big fuss I make of no drugs, cigarettes or alcohol is actually really important....if our bodies and minds are as clear and as healthy as we can make them, then the information we get spiritually can be trusted to a greater degree. I feel that I am sharp enough and discriminating enough to tell the difference between imagination and past life recall. They feel completely different to me. And a decent therapist won't charge the earth, and will put a huge amount of effort into making the session safe and useful in terms of personal spiritual progression. My last regression took 5 hours and she charged me only £60...not very much at all.

Does this help? I'm happy to talk about this with anyone, as long as we don't stray down the "it's-clearly-crap-cos-we-would-have-discovered-it-by-now-and-you-can't-measure-it-anyway" route. And if some bright thing CAN suggest how it might be measured....please post here or U2U me? I would love to know.

Cait

reply to post by caitlinfae


Well, on the happiness front, any number of tests exist for the physiological effects of happiness, such as elevated dopamine levels in the brain, etc. Proving you are happy is actually a very easy thing to do.

This is what makes me somewhat skeptical about the whole deal: trusting your own perception is inherently flawed. Under the scientific method, such observations are enough to construct a hypothesis, but not enough to support a theory - it's anecdotal. Our brains play all kinds of tricks on us, without meaning to, as we struggle to understand sensory input we might not be familiar with. We see patterns, we ascribe meaning, we turn the mundane into something more fantastic. Trusting in one's own perceptions, no matter how tempting it is, is not going to give you a clear picture of what's actually happening. It's like trying to film something with a slightly-broken camcorder. The video it records might be a perfectly accurate depiction of the scene, but if it's broken, it might not be. If all you have to go on is the camcorder footage, how do you know it happened the way it looks? You can't.

The only way for past-life regression to be demonstrated as not part of the imagination is if some fact or event can be described in enough detail to rule out a coincidence, and then discovery of said fact/event is then discovered by historians. That would be a very easy way to demonstrate some sort of persistent prior knowledge. That is objective, rational evidence - evidence that can be verified by other people.

I don't want to sound like such a downer in this thread, it's just something I can't really get past. I require evidence for everything I do - from which car is the safest, which airline is the cheapest, why it's a good idea to not overdose on prescription medication, etc.

reply to post by dave420


Dave, the happiness thing was just an illustration...I know that chemical levels can be measured, and it is "provable" in that sense. I'm wondering why you have such a fascination with lack of proof of other's spiritual ideas though? Why should it be needed for me to prove to you that my regressions are real to me? I'm not saying this to be nasty, but does it really matter that much to you what someone else has experienced? Why does it matter so much, or seem to? Why not investigate it yourself with a completey cold mind, allow whatever might surface to surface and then we can talk about it? That would be interesting! Of course our own perceptions can be flawed, and that's why some thing like regression has to be done by a practitioner who is experienced and has integrity, with a subject who is safe to work with. It's not an easy thing to do well.

Proving even one experience of regression with historical corroboration might be a cumbersome task, and would be impossible to achieve for every regression done. Historians are not infallible either, and even if the "facts" they present are correct, often the propaganda surrounding them will distort them, and the distance of time will make it difficult to discern if they are accurate of not. Most regressions show very mundane lives, for which there will be little or no historical data, making them impossibel to prove. It still all comes down to the realisation that spiritual experiences cannot be measured, however much you want them to be, to satisfy your empirical expectations. Not everyone is as focused on "proof", "fact" and "data" as you are, so it may be that you are the unusual one here...please don't take this as an insult...merely an observation that you seem to be very fixed on the idea that everything should be quantifiable.

I don't particuarly care if my evidence is verifiable by other people. I felt it, and for me, it's an important piece of my spiritual progression and history. It would be interesting to have it verified, but really it makes no difference.

Although many people dismiss hypnosis as pseudoscience, you might find Michael Newtons work interesting.

newtoninstitute.org...

Although not quantifiable in tthe way you are expecting, it's the closest I've read to a repeated pattern of independently sourced accounts of regression that all basically say the same thing.

Let me know what you think. I'm not asking you to change your mind...just investigate and discuss. If the perceptions that surface are your own, will you be so willing to dismiss them as imagination? How will you feel if you *can't* explain part of it?

Cait

Edit to fix link..

[edit on 4-11-2008 by caitlinfae]

reply to post by dave420


I don't know if following is proof for past living, but it is widely suggested in physics that matter itself never disappears, nor will anything new born out from nothing, so every atom (or whatever you may want to call smallest particles of matter) has always existed in a form or another, so there is lot of sensibility in claiming that we have existed before this life, whereas we have only become a self-cognitizing forms of matter in this life.

I really cannot say if we've existed in self-cognitizing forms of life before, but I can claim in some certainty that we have existed before. But I am sure you were aware of this already

All the best,

-v

[edit on 4-11-2008 by v01i0]

reply to post by v01i0


That's not exactly true. The adage is 'energy can not be created nor destroyed'. What can happen, though, is energy can turn to matter and vice-versa.

But our memories and knowledge is not stored in atoms, but in arrangements of molecules, which we definitely know can and are created and destroyed on a regular basis.

reply to post by caitlinfae


It matters to me because I'm trying to learn. I would have thought that if it means so much to you, you'd not rest until you can demonstrate categorically that it exists and is not a figment of your imagination. Or are you quite OK with it possibly being real and possibly just a well-intentioned hoax that is slowly sucking money out of your wallet?

reply to post by goldbomb444


I read that remote viewing allows a person to travel through time (not physically) to witness past events. I do not know if this will help with a past life or not.

Do you have any unusual birthmarks? They are supposed to show how a person died in their past life.
As a child, did you tell your parents wild stories about being someone completely different and having different parents and or siblings? Some research indicates we are more likely to remember past lives as young children. As we age, we turn more materialistic and forget about any past life experience.
Have you tried to contact a Shaman? They take their responsibilities seriously, and will help you with your journey if you are serious about it too.

Edited to add:

Shamans can be found in some Native American tribes. They are also popular still in Africa and South America.

[edit on 11/4/2008 by kidflash2008]

reply to post by dave420

Originally posted by dave420
reply to post by v01i0

 

That's not exactly true.

No it isn't, because you are interpreting it by your own conceptions. Let me be more specific: Of course the forms of matter can be build or demolished, but the idea of matter itself, in a platonic sense, will never disappear. Of course I can take this rock (imaginary), cut it to peaces, melt and reprocess it into something else or even make it into a gas and therefore seemingly disappear. Yes, in my opinion you are right about the energy, but nevertheless I hope you don't hang on this little issue, because the point of my post remains.

Besides, how do you know in such certainty that our emotions and other things cannot be stored in matter or energy? Or them to be rearranged when more complicated forms of matter (or energy) are assembled? I am not claiming that they are, I am just curious because you seem to know a lot.

Well, anyways as caitlinfae above pointed out, I'm neither interested explaining my own beliefs to others, and I am in no way here to argue about irrelevant details. And I am quite sure you misunderstood - which is my fault because I usually write in careless way, not choosing my words scientifically carefully - my point in above.

Sincerely,

-v

reply to post by dave420


Um, ok...a few points...to me it's not just a possibillity that it's real...it is real, and there is no hoax. I *know* what I feel and what I see. I'm also clairvoyant, so I do recognise the difference between ordinary imagination and psychic or spiritual information. They are *very* different in intensity and presentation. As far as finances are concerned, it has cost me almost nothing to pursue this, so no-body is sucking money out of my wallet, I promise you. I don't care about the physics of it, like I don't care how my car works...only that it does. What a girl...sorry! Although if someone can provide the explanation, I'm really interested...



"But our memories and knowledge is not stored in atoms, but in arrangements of molecules, which we definitely know can and are created and destroyed on a regular basis."

....I'm not a physicist, but how do you know this? How do we know that memories are not stored in atoms...how do we know that memories are stored in only arrangements of molecules and not at atomic level? Is this what you are saying? Can you or someone else explain this for me please?

In my opinion, for something so intensely personal, I would think that the only way to really understand what's going on is to experience it yourself. If you don't know what the experience is, how can you go about proving or disproving it?

Cait

I was very surprised when I had a past life recall last spring, spontaneously, viewing material related to the life. Of course such a thing could not be proved scientifically, or at least yet (because there are so many accounts of ets knowing all these things and they show these things on viewing screens, so there may be some very interesting breakthroughs eventually). When it happens to you, you know. For me it just got accepted instantly at my core, but it took days for my mind to catch up, which viewed things in time and space and that time frames of that length were unimaginable, to deal with looking through a period of that amount of time as though to my soul only a decade had passed. It was a complete download of knowledge. For example, I not only knew and felt the horror of that experience, but the bonds and love that ties us together. I got a sort of simplistic overview of how it works and how we have family groups. I'm not going to discuss it here. But you know. And recall feels different than having a brief daydream after watching a romantic movie or something else.
In my case, it was not something my psyche was in the least comfortable with. It actually felt like a wall either crumbled down partially or there was a huge crack in it. It felt unnatural as if forgetting this was natural. I went through a rough ride for a few days feeling disturbed, and tumultuous. And yes, it changed my perspective on things enormously.
I would like to find a good hypnotherapist myself. Everyone says not to , but from everything I've read, it works. Up until I had that surprise occur, I accepted reincarnation as a possibility as i believed in the evolution of the soul, so perhaps that didn't upset me, but aspects of it changed my perspective nonetheless.

[edit on 4-11-2008 by mystiq]

[edit on 4-11-2008 by mystiq]

[edit on 4-11-2008 by mystiq]

Also, I think learning how to lucid dream may be helpful. I knew how years ago, as a preteen. It happened for about a year, ending a long period of nightmares that were preventing me from actually allowing myself to fall asleep. The moment my dreams permanently turned around, the ability disappeared. But I was just reading online about someone who was suddenly aware they were sleeping while asleep, and then found they had conscious control. They asked the person in their dream if they were imaginary, and the person replied that they were his/her guide. That person visited a eutopia type mall and saw past lives shown to them on a viewing screen. Would I ever love to regain that knowledge again. Its time to start working on my dreams again.