Life Patterns, Soul Lessons, and Forgiveness by Henry Leo Bolduc

Reviewed by Rabia L. Clark, Ph.D.
In JRT Issue 13, 1995

Henry Leo Bolduc has been researching hypnosis and regression therapy for over thirty years. He has been a frequent speaker at APRT conferences, and travels extensively as a motivational speaker. His earlier books are Self-Hypnosis: Creating Your Own Destiny and The Journey Within. His new book covers an area which is not covered as thoroughly in any other book as far as I know. It deals with life patterns, learning their lessons, and through this insight and forgiveness, going on to a happier future.

There is an interesting chapter on how to make self-hypnosis tapes to help focus on ideals, objectives, the inner child, and remembering past lives; it includes scripts the reader can tape. There is a chapter on soul lessons, including an introduction to Edgar Cayce and his important work in this area. Edgar and Gertrude Cayce’s strong influence on Bolduc is described.

Three case studies are used to illustrate the connections between past and present lives. The third, Enrique, is unusual because he kept a diary of thirty years’ remembrances from sessions. His diaries are briefly outlined to show the lessons learned in each life, and how they have reappeared in other lives, including the present one. What was gained by living each life, and what might have been lost when the life was a tragic one, are also examined. The idea that past lives influence the present life permeates the whole book, and seems to be a basic premise. This, of course, presupposes that the past lives that appear in regressions are true, which many past-life therapists believe, but which has not and may never be proven.

Bolduc goes on to link one’s past lives with the need for forgiveness in the present. (Ed. note: See Bolduc’s article, “Forgiveness as a Therapeutic Tool,” in this issue). When a person accepts responsibility for past patterns and completes a process of forgiveness, then the pattern is released. The client’s higher guidance is contacted to help the client discover the best way to forgive past-life problems and to release destructive patterns. Self-forgiveness is often the key. Bolduc suggests specific techniques in detail for clients who are primarily visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. He finds these forgiveness techniques a very important way to resolve past-life memories affecting the present.

The book has many examples drawn from the author’s experience and from client cases that make his points clear. He also includes drawings, which give the book a user-friendly appearance. The last three chapters could usefully have been enlarged, as they clearly deal with past-life patterns. Also, I found the multitude of topics in the other chapters a bit confusing.

This book will especially appeal to people interested in cycles of past lives as metaphysical. Most past-life therapists do seem to accept the importance of past-life patterns which appear again in the present, and many consider past lives to be real. The book will be of most interest to people with a curiosity and interest in metaphysical topics, who believe that past lives affect the present life, and that forgiveness can release old past-life patterns and change the present for the better.