Witchvox Article

Author: Bob Makransky
Posted: October 7th. 2007
Times Viewed: 2,493

�We manufacture whatever immortal souls we have out of the bits of difference we make by living in this world.� - Sue Hubbell, The Sweet Bees

Running past life regressions is a good way to introduce yourself to the practice of magic. It�s so simple to learn that you can easily master the basic method in less than an hour�s time; yet it is so far-reaching in its ramifications that a few months of playing around with it for an hour or so every night can completely transform your life.

Most of us New Agers believe in the reality of past lives, even though we can�t actually remember them. We embrace this doctrine because it seems logical: it explains the vicissitudes of our present existence as the patterns and choices we ourselves made in other lives. The ability to actually remember past lives seems to be the possession of a fortunate few, like Edgar Cayce, who are born with mysterious psychic powers far beyond our reach. But in fact, the ability to recall past lives can be easily learned by anybody � all that is required is an open mind. And there are incalculable insights (and surprises!) that await the adventurer willing to explore these byways of his or her own subconscious.

The entry technique here is adapted from William Swygard�s excellent booklets on Awareness Techniques. Choose a time when you are calm, alert, and will not be disturbed. If you are an astrologer, you can use a lunar planetary hour; however this is merely a help, not a necessity. Have a notebook and pen (or tape recorder) at hand. Remove your shoes, loosen any restrictive clothing, and lie down on your bed. Take some deep breaths, and then put your attention on your toes and relax them with a deep breath. Move up to your feet and relax them with a breath; then relax your ankles, calves, knees, thighs, and so on up to your head.

Then take a deep breath and imagine yourself swelling up like a balloon to twice your volume; then release the breath and imagine returning to normal size. After you�ve succeeded at this, take a breath and imagine yourself inflating and filling the entire room; then return. When you can do this, take a deep breath and imagine yourself engulfing the entire house; then return. Next, take a breath and swell up until you are bigger than the house and float upwards into the sky. Look down as you rise and imagine you are seeing the house, the neighborhood, the surrounding countryside, as if from an ascending balloon.

Then command yourself to descend lightly back to earth in another lifetime. Look down at your feet; how are you shod? Look at your clothes; what are you wearing? Look around you; what kind of place are you in? Are there any other people around you? Who are they? What are they doing? What time or country does it seem to be? What are you doing in the scene? Why are you there? You concern yourself with these sorts of questions until you feel you�re plugged into the past life; then you just let the thing flow and take you where it will.

When you first come down the scene will be fuzzy at first. You look at your feet, then your clothing, then your environment, to put the pieces of the picture into place. You ask questions of the regression to connect yourself to it � to make that life vivid and bring it into focus. For me (who is not especially psychic) regressions are rather murky; I can�t usually make out faces clearly, nor colors unless they�re very bright. You see the regression with your mind�s eye, but it�s more felt than seen � more like a series of emotional tableaux than a movie. You usually only hit the high points of a given life; you don�t see all the day-to-day routine. It�s not unlike a daydream or fantasy, except you soon realize that something other than your conscious mind is running it, and that something is your feelings. The experience will be more or less vivid depending on how much you block it. Don�t judge the experience (by thinking, for example, �This isn�t real � this is just my imagination!�). Just let it happen; if you want to evaluate it, wait until it�s over. This is not an exercise for your conscious mind, so tell your conscious mind to butt out and keep its judgments to itself.

When you first start to use this sort of technique you don�t know how it�s supposed to feel (you can�t believe it could be this easy!), so you may have doubts about whether you are doing it correctly. Don�t worry � if anything at all is unfolding before your mind�s eye, you�re doing it right. If there is no flow or direction (you�re stopped in one scene), it means you are purposely blocking it. You�ll know quite well if you�re doing this. To unblock yourself at any point, just ask more questions: What time of day or season is it? What kind of building / vegetation is around you? And so on.

In running past life regressions it is useful to have a notebook or tape recorder in hand to jot down the past life as it occurs. Since the content of a regression is largely emotional, it tends to fade quickly from conscious memory, and it�s often useful to have a record of it for future reference. It�s a simple matter to divide your attention between the past life and the notebook. Once you get the hang of the entry technique, you can dispense with the going up in the sky and coming down each time.

You might want to experiment with running past lives involving people you know from this life. Try this: ask to see a past life involving someone you love in this life. Then ask to see a past life with someone you dislike in this life. Simply give the command: �I�d like to see a past life with so-and-so� at the time you command to view a past life. The powers that be will steer you to the right place.

Also, you can ask questions during the regression, such as: �Do I know that past-life person in this lifetime?� and you�ll usually get an answer, which will come as either a conscious thought or a feeling. The theory is that you have an infinite number of lives with every being on earth, not to mention other places, but some are closer to your present life than others � more connected to it in terms of lessons to be learned in this life � and these are the lives that usually pop up in regressions.

�We all to some extent meet again and again the same people and certainly in some cases form a kind of family of two or three or more persons who come together life after life until all passionate relations are exhausted, the child of one life the husband, wife, brother, sister of the next. Sometimes, however, a single relationship will repeat itself, turning its revolving wheel again and again.� - William Butler Yeats, A Vision

The question naturally arises as to whether these past life regressions actually are past lives, or whether the whole thing is just an exercise in imagination. These regressions are not always factually accurate portrayals of other times and places (unless you�re very psychic); you can interpolate anachronisms into them if you want to; moreover a life supposedly taking place in ancient Rome often looks suspiciously like something out of Cecil B. DeMille. In other words, we obviously filter these regressions through our present-day concepts.

Also it is often difficult to relate to the �you� in a regression. He or she doesn�t act and react the way you would, and so it�s hard to accept or understand in what sense that person is you; much less that you are personally responsible for all the mischief that person is doing.

Nonetheless there is an emotional truth in regressions that argues for their being taken seriously, no matter whether they are �real� (whatever that means) or merely figments. The real touch in a past life regression is with the feelings that the �you� in the regression is experiencing. There are emotional echoes � little pings of recognition � that you will know mean something to you personally, even if you are at a loss to put them into words. For example, you often recognize the people you know from this lifetime when you encounter them in regressions by the feeling you have for them. I first learned to feel the people around me (instead of merely react to them on a thought form level) by doing past life regressions: understanding how I felt about them in past lives helped me to get a grip on how I really feel about them in this life.

It is the emotional content of these regressions which is of primary importance, not whether they are conceptually real (although my spirit guides assure me that they are no more nor less real than the life we are living now). Nor is it important that you intellectually resolve the �meaning� of this or that life. You just try to be aware that such-and-such a person is hurting you in this lifetime because you asked him to, to atone for what you did to him in another life; or that your stirrings towards music, say, or agriculture reflect a valid part of your being � another life in which you were a musician or a farmer; or that your irrational anger, joy, fears, and hopes are often quite rational and logical after all.

The emotional recognition in a regression is due to an actual line that connects you to the �you� in the regression. Clairvoyants see these connections as fibers of living light, but most people sense them as feelings, emotional connections. The theory is that these fibers from other lives bind us to neurotic patterns of behavior in this one � we feel a need to keep reliving our mistakes until we get them right. By running past lives it becomes possible to recognize these patterns, which immediately releases a lot of the energy that�s tied up in them; i.e., it loosens the fibers between that life and this one, allowing the conscious mind to decide if it wants to do something about the patterns (instead of being dominated by them unawares).

After running a life, it often helps to jot down the impressions you have of it. What was the main thrust or purpose of that life? What lessons did you learn? How did you feel about it after you died? There�s no need to become morbid or obsessed about past lives � just draw your conclusions and move on. After you have run a great many past lives, you will begin to notice certain trends or feelings that keep recurring over and over. For example, during a difficult time in my marriage my guides directed me and my wife to run scores of past lives that we had together, so that we would understand how it was that we were at the place we had gotten to. It turned out that in most of our past lives together one of us had murdered the other one. Beyond that there were many other recurrent themes throughout our lives together that were repeated in this one.

�The victim must, in the Shiftings, live the act of cruelty, not as victim but as tyrant; whereas the tyrant must by a necessity of his or her nature become the victim. �The souls of victim and tyrant are bound together and, unless there is a redemption through the intercommunication of the living and the dead, that bond may continue life after life.� - A Vision

For most people the vast majority of past lives consist either of unremitting hardship and suffering, or else of selfishness and chicanery. I, personally, have had lots of lives as a scoundrel, and it�s interesting how many bells these ring for me in my present life. It can humble you a little, or at least make you realize that in your own heart there is a killer, a drunkard, or a psychopath, no matter how pious and privileged you think you are; and they�re not that far beneath the surface, either.
On the other hand, you�ll find lives in which you were quite admirable � courageous, loving, and wise. These lives will also directly connect to your better side in this life, and confirm your sense of purpose and direction.

It�s this emotional recognition that is the gist of the thing. This is your own heart speaking to you, giving you messages of truth, which you usually ignore or take for, granted until they�re somehow pointed out to you. Past life regressions bring a lot of subconscious flotsam and jetsam up to the conscious mind, which is necessary because everything originates in the conscious mind, and can only be controlled or dispelled by the conscious mind; but first the conscious mind has to be made aware of it. Running past life regressions loosens our light fibers by tuning us into other moods (�life purposes�) from other lives and realities.

In past life regressions we have a safe and powerful technique for bringing useful information up from the subconscious, to help us get to our true purpose in incarnating, and to understand and accept whom we really are.

ABOUT...

Bob Makransky

Location: Coban, Guatemala

Website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac

Bio: To subscribe to Bob Makransky�s free monthly ezine of astrology and magic, send an e-mail to: MagicalAlmanac-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Other Articles: Bob Makransky has posted 29 additional articles- View them?

Other Listings: To view ALL of my listings: Click HERE

Email Bob Makransky... (No, I have NOT opted to receive Pagan Invites! Please do NOT send me anonymous invites to groups, sales and events.)

Home - TWV Logos - Email US - Privacy

News and Information

Chapters: Pagan/Heathen Basics - Pagan BOOKS - Traditions, Paths & Religions - Popular Pagan Holidays - TV & Movies - Cats of the Craft - Festival Reviews - Festival Tips - White Pages (Resources) - Issues/Concerns - West Memphis 3 - Witch Hunts - Pagan Protection Tips - Healing Planet Earth

Your Voices: Adult Essays - Young Pagan Essays - Pagan Perspectives (On Hold) - WitchWars: Fire in the Craft - Gay Pagan - Pagan Parenting - Military - Pagan Passages

Pagan Music: Pagan Musicians - Bardic Circle at WitchVox - Free Music from TWV

Vox Central: About TWV - Wren: Words, Wrants and Wramblings - Guest Rants - Past Surveys - A Quest for Unity

Weekly Updates: Click HERE for an index of our weekly updates for the past 6 years

W.O.T.W. - World-Wide Networking

Your Town: A Link to YOUR Area Page (The largest listing of Witches, Pagans, Heathens and Wiccans on the Planet)

VoxLinks: The Pagan Web: 8,000 Listings

Your Witchvox Account: Log in Now - Create New Account - Request New Password - Log in Problems

Personal Listings: Pagan Clergy in Your Town - Adult Pagans - Young Pagans - Military Pagans

Events: Circles, Gatherings, Workshops & Festivals

Covens/Groups/Orgs: Local Groups Main Page

Other LOCAL Resources: Local Shops - Regional Sites - Local Notices - Global/National Notices - Local Skills & Services - Local Egroups - Political Freedom Fighters

Pagan Shopping: Online Shops Index - Original Crafters Sites - Auction Sites - Pagan Wholesalers - Pagan Local Shops

Web Site Content (including: text - graphics - html - look & feel)
Copyright 1997-2013 The Witches' Voice Inc. All rights reserved
Note: Authors & Artists retain the copyright for their work(s) on this website.
Unauthorized reproduction without prior permission is a violation of copyright laws.

Website structure, evolution and php coding by Fritz Jung on a Macintosh G5.

Any and all personal political opinions expressed in the public listing sections (including, but not restricted to, personals, events, groups, shops, Wren’s Nest, etc.) are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinion of The Witches’ Voice, Inc. TWV is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization.

Sponsorship: Visit the Witches' Voice Sponsor Page for info on how you
can help support this Community Resource. Donations ARE Tax Deductible.
The Witches' Voice carries a 501(c)(3) certificate and a Federal Tax ID.

Mail Us: The Witches' Voice Inc., P.O. Box 341018, Tampa, Florida 33694-1018 U.S.A.

Witches, Pagans
of The World

Current Topic
Editorial Guide

NOTE: The essay on this page contains the writings and opinions of the listed author(s) and is not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Witches' Voice inc.

The Witches' Voice does not verify or attest to the historical accuracy contained in the content of this essay.

All WitchVox essays contain a valid email address, feel free to send your comments, thoughts or concerns directly to the listed author(s).