EXPERIENCE
Could past life regression therapy – a hypnotic meditation designed to introduce you to your past self – hold the answers to understanding your present? Arielle Steele tries to find out, and has a profound encounter in the process…
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a girl who lived in Yemen hundreds of years ago called Rema. She has silky dark hair that flows down her back. She earns a living from weaving rugs. She can hardly remember her mother, who died when she was small. She misses her father, who was killed by some kind of sinister enemy. I often think about how she felt – othered and scared, determined and hopeful – and I try to honour her life in my own.
But Rema isn’t a documented figure I’ve read about in a history book, nor a fictional character from a Hollywood movie. Rema is me. Well, not me right now, but a version of me from a previous life.
That’s the idea, anyway; I met her in my mind during a past life regression therapy session with Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, a psychic and director of The Wellness Foundry. Past life regression (PLR) is a form of hypnotic meditation used to guide a person through unveiling one of their ‘past lives’. Rooted in the concept of reincarnation, the idea is that the hopes and fears of our past lives could hold healing answers for the issues we’re facing in our current ones.
Like most spiritual ‘new age’ practices, PLR is, in fact, nothing new. Versions of the practice can be found in Indian and Chinese religious mythology, but PLR was popularised in the West in 1988, when American psychiatrist Dr Brian Weiss published his globally bestselling book Many Lives, Many Masters. When his traditional therapeutic methods failed to help a young woman with severe phobias, he turned to hypnosis and was shocked when the woman began recalling traumas from her past lives that seemed to hold the key to her problems.
The evidence surrounding PLR is, unsurprisingly, flimsy and it’s generally dismissed by the psychological field. But, in a time when traditional science seems to be struggling to keep up with our demand for healing, more of us are turning to spiritual, psychic, slightly woo-woo practices. ‘It offers another way of looking at things and provides more insight about who we are,’ says Greenlaw-Meek. People who attend his PLR sessions range from the spiritually awakened to the sceptically curious (I fall into the latter camp). They go for various reasons: from general intrigue to seeking answers for a specific issue, such as a difficult relationship. I didn’t have a specific question I wanted answering, but by the time my appointment arrives on a stormy Thursday evening, my heart is heavy.
A few weeks earlier, I woke up to messages from my sisters in Israel assuring us
