FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is a prior life regression (PLR)?
For decades, mental health therapists who have been employing hypnotherapy to uncover issues in their client’s current lives have found that many times when they told their clients to go to the time some issue was created, their clients began reporting from a previous life. The point I am making here is that regression to prior lives is not something new, but it wasn’t reported much until fairly recently. During a PLR, which is facilitated through an induction involving progressive relaxation and guided imagery (explained in a different FAQ), clients are helped to move into a different level of their minds that holds memories of prior lives. As I mention in another section, I believe that each client’s guide or guides bring the memory that they feel is appropriate or helpful for this particular session. Usually clients enter the memory when in the prior life the client is younger (child or young adult). Then through suggestions by the facilitator the client is moved from one “significant time” ahead to another. In this way the life unfolds, and clients can get a feel for who they were and what experiences they had. You needn’t worry, though, about whether you would see a really difficult scene. If it is difficult, it is suggested that you would view it as a third-party observer. In this way you could see what is happening, but not have to feel the emotions. Likewise, when you reach the end of that life, it is suggested that you go to the time of the last breath you took. Then the next awareness is of being in the spirit world, which almost always brings a feeling of relief and happiness. It is from here that your facilitator helps you move on into the spirit world during and LBL session.
Why do The Newton Institute (TNI) facilitators ask that clients have a PLR session first and then start the Life Between Lives (LBL) session with another PLR session?
This is a reasonable question for clients to ask. There are a number of answers to this. The first is that while almost all clients move along quite easily from the induction into a prior life, a few have some issues that may hinder them. Some people have some emotional barriers in their current lives that get in the way of a transition into their subconscious and a previous life. Oftentimes these emotional barriers can be taken care of during this session, and during the next session they can move beyond their current lives, or if some therapy is required they can arrange for therapy and then return for a PLR session. This, then, is a practical approach. That is, if a client is going to have difficulties, it is better to find this out during a session expected to last an hour and a half rather than one expected to last from three to four hours, allowing better time management for both clients and facilitators.
The second answer is that clients usually enjoy knowing about more than one past life. If the first life seen was unhappy, then having another PLR session as part of the induction phase of an LBL session offers the possibility of seeing a happy one, thereby achieving a balance of perspective. For example, during an initial PLR session one client saw herself as a young woman courageously saving some children during wartime, but then immediately being killed. In the second PLR session as the lead-in to the LBL session, she went back to Medieval times when she was a man who was a successful merchant. He had a delightful family and they enjoyed a good life with travel to interesting places. He lived a full life before dying peacefully. Seeing the second life made the client feel much better about her prior lives in general. In fact, during the follow-on LBL sessions, her guides told her that they thought she would enjoy seeing an uneventful, fulfilling life after seeing the rather stark one.
A third reason is that the induction for an LBL is somewhat longer and more involved than the induction for a PLR. By having a client experience the shorter PLR induction, which has the same lead-in progressive relaxation and guided imagery aspects as the LBL, clients are becoming accustomed to the general process. Then when a client wants to move on to an LBL, the memory of the PLR induction makes the LBL induction go more smoothly because of the knowledge of what to expect.
From my experience in having numerous PLR sessions as part of my training, I found that each prior life that I saw was significantly different. If I had stopped at only one, I would have had a rather bleak view of where I had come from. Also, I found that it was easier to move into a subconscious state the second time, third time, etc.
What is life between lives (LBL)?
Throughout history there have been oracles or wise people who appeared to have the ability to access broader spiritual information than other people. Currently these people would likely be called psychics. One recent psychic, historically speaking, is Edgar Cayce, who passed to the other side in 1945. His sessions for clients wanting to know more about past lives, done in a self-induced subconscious state, accessed what are known as the Akashic Records, which he reported to be a Hall of Records in the spirit world. From these records he reported on pertinent past lives of the clients and could identify trends that impacted on their current lives. Other psychics, many currently practicing, report being able to access the Akashic Records for clients as well, and getting information from other sources including clients’ guides.
The breakthrough for people looking for spiritual guidance came with Dr. Michael Newton’s work as initially reported during the 1990s in his Journey of Souls and his following Destiny of Souls, as well as following compendiums of cases of students of his methodology through The Newton Institute (TNI). Through his research over years, Dr. Newton found that with the proper induction, involving progressive relaxation and guided imagery, clients were able to experience their death in a prior life and then move on to the spirit world. By using this approach, then, people would not need a psychic. Rather, being helped along in their adventure by a trained TNI facilitator, they would find their way to the spirit world and gain the spiritual insights available there. In fact, if they wanted to, they could ask their guide or guides to take them to the Akashic Records. Most people, though, gain most of the information they seek from their guide or guides and/or a group of very highly advanced souls called the Council of Elders who convene with different compositions as needed to help each individual soul (client) seeking guidance and answers to their questions.
How does hypnosis come into play during a PLR or LBL session?
One time when I mentioned using hypnosis as part of inductions for PLR or LBL sessions, the person who I was talking to asked whether I would make her crow like a rooster or quack like a duck. With a chuckle I told her that, no, that was something that she might see as entertainment on a stage, but it was not what we do in TNI. To the extent that we use hypnotism, it is employed as hypnotherapy. The intent is to bypass the conscious mind and reach the subconscious mind initially, where information on past lives can be accessed. This is what is done for PLR sessions. For LBL sessions, the induction lead-in is extended, and a deeper level of the subconscious, which Dr. Newton called the superconscious, is reached. During an LBL session, clients don’t think about being in a different subconscious state from the superconscious level, but the extra induction effort creates more comfort with being in a subconscious state, and clients can move with more ease from their death in a prior life into the spirit world.
What is involved with progressive relaxation and guided imagery?
The inductions involve a progressive relaxation technique in which the facilitator suggests relaxation of the body, starting at the top of the head on down to the toes. Along with this, clients are told that they can just allow their minds to relax and to let any tensions go. I believe that clients find this to be comforting and enjoyable. I know that I did when I was taking my training. When complete relaxation is achieved, clients are then led through some guided imagery where they picture what they would see if they were floating over the landscape and then landed gently by a pretty pond in a small, sunlit forest and imagined how it felt to be there. These two techniques, progressive relaxation and guided imagery get the client to bypass his or her conscious mind and to relax into their subconscious. Then with suggestive techniques the client can allow himself or herself to recall memories from a prior life. I think that clients’ guides oftentimes pick lives for clients to recall and relive the experiences according tothe purpose the guideshave for a particularsession of the clients.
Will I have difficulty in coming out of a subconscious state?
When people ask whether there will be any problem in their coming out of a subconscious state, I tell them that I’ve never had a client who had difficulties. The worst that can happen, though, based on the hypnosis literature, is that the client would just sleep a while and then wake up as from a normal sleep.
If I am in a subconscious or superconscious state, will I remember what I experience in my session?
Yes, you will remember what you experience in your sessions, both the PLR and the LBL. Even without any suggestion to remember, you would remember what you saw and felt in a prior life or in the spirit world. Even so, most facilitators give the suggestion that clients will remember what is seen and heard to strengthen the client’s ability, or possibly resolve, to remember. The only reservation I have in saying this, is sometimes clients who have received a lot of information during an LBL will be told by their guide or guides that while they might not understand immediately all that they’ve been told, over time in dreams or just quiet moments more and more understanding will come. I don’t hear this too often, but I have had a number of clients relay that they have gotten this instruction.
What are most people looking for when they ask for PLR and LBL sessions?
The questions that people want answers to are all over the board, and quite likely are related to a change in their lives. Since PLRs are experienced as lives, that is, prior lives, in PLRs clients usually don’t learn more than people in current lives are learning about problems that they are facing in their current lives. It is in the LBLs, in which all prior lives are accessible, as well as the experiences and training in the spirit world, that people (spirits or souls, whichever term is preferred) receive the answers to their important questions as well as meeting others who have been important to them in prior lives and their current life. People who have just lost a loved one often want to reconnect with that person in the spirit world, and almost always my clients have been able to do this. As examples, other questions may be: What is my life’s purpose; why have I had so many difficulties; what should I do next; should I continue with a current relationship; what type of vocation should I be in; and what can I do, if anything, about the physical problems I’m having. Of course, there are essentially as many types of questions as there are different people. I ask that clients bring a list of their questions with them (as I mention in the What Do I Need to Do to Prepare FAQ.) Then I can ask those questions and clients can hear the answers during the LBL session as opportunities present.
How will I experience a session?
The way a client experiences a PLR session or LBL session is quite varied. Some people feel, more than see, what they are experiencing. In PLRs they may see all of the colors and hear people talking to them, or they may just see what is happening, but rather than hear, they simply know what is being said. The most important advice in going into a PLR is to just let scenes develop. That means that you don’t want to question in your mind what you are seeing or feeling; you want to just relax and let what you are seeing or feeling unfold as if it is a movie that you are watching or experiencing.
My partner for my first regression training told me to just relax and let whatever comes into my mind to sit without reflection on my part. After a while I simply saw a color, which I reported.
She said, “Okay, just let it stay there.” Then after a while, she asked, “Now what?” I said that it appears to be a farming scene from long ago. They were using horses to work the land.
She said, “That’s it. Just stay with it.” Then, “What are you seeing now?” I answered that now I was riding a horse through a village, and the people didn’t seem to like me much. The session proceeded on from there, becoming clearer and involving my feelings more. The point is that there is no one way that you should experience either a PLR or an LBL. I should mention that in LBLs clients usually just know through telepathy what they are being told, and this works just fine.