by Judy Bertrand, M.S.W., and Jim Charleston, M.Div., M.S.W.
Editors’ Note: This research study was discovered by our Editor (and APRT’s Ambassador to Cyberspace), Russ Davis, through a chat group on America Online. Bertrand and Charleston had had no awareness of APRT before Russ found them but they had courageously pursued their research because they believed it was important (as it is). They are to be commended, and also, welcome to APRT to these two new members! They used past-life regression to examine connections between present life preferences and past-life experiences in other civilizations.
Introduction
Our desire to explore past-life therapy began when Ms. Bertrand was working at a county department of social services with physically and sexually abused adolescents. Some of these youngsters deliberately cut themselves with knives and razor blades. At the time, Mr. Charleston had a private practice in intensive family therapy and worked sometimes with families with crack-addicted babies. We were talking about the traits of these clients and speculated that if we were in some other 
societies these activities and behaviors would not be unusual. For example, even today in many parts of Africa, carving and cutting skin to produce scarring is still a form of self-beautification, and in some South American (and other) cultures, mothers chew cocoa leaves and babies are often born addicted. Perhaps our clients were only engaging in behaviors that they had done in other lives.
Our final motivation for beginning past-life research was to try to make sense out of why people behave in certain ways and hold certain beliefs that have no basis in their current lives. We decided to start by developing a questionnaire that would identify associations with previous civilizations. But more, we wanted to develop specific techniques that would use past-life therapy in positive ways and pull from people’s strengths as opposed to some traditional therapies, which often focus only on trauma and the negative conditions in people’s lives.
Considerations of Other Therapies
For the most part, traditional therapy fails to address a holistic concept of the person. Although many counselors are effective in dealing with emotional issues, often therapy focuses more on the intellectual than the emotional, and rarely does it reach the spiritual level. Even the names of many current psychotherapies imply more of a focus on the intellect than on the whole person. For example, consider Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which focuses on behaviors that one wants to change, or Rational Emotive Therapy, which encourages therapists to confront clients with their “irrational beliefs.”
Even Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which sometimes appears to be highly effective, has an intellectual, cognitive basis. We believe that understanding the effects of previous existences may contribute to growth and development of the whole person in the current life. As counselors, we realized that traditional counseling systems do not acknowledge these potential experiences from previous lives.
Griscom (1986) states “Since the consciousness of any of our bodies is not dependent on the actual material vehicle, our “sticky” imprints from the emotional body just revisit themselves through each incarnation. The “old” emotional body brings into the “new” physical body all those experiences, reactions, and perceptions of reality that it gained in other bodies.” It may be that we are back again to try to fulfill a purpose that we failed to achieve before.
Objectives of the Study
Objective 1: Design a Civilization Questionnaire that measures the connections between current life preference and past-life memories.
Objective 2: Gather sufficient participant data to measure validity and reliability of Civilization Questionnaire.
Objective 3: Measure validity of results from Civilization Questionnaire with past-life regression results.
Objective 4: Create techniques of past-life therapy that are positive and pull from people’s strengths.
Method
In the summer of 1993 we began to develop a questionnaire that would identify other civilizations with which a person most identified. By identifying traits and attributes of specific societies, we created a list of questions that indicated the civilization with which a person feels he or she has the most in common. We identified16 categories to research by society/civilization.
It was through the responses to these category questions that we felt we could identify common traits, values, and beliefs across lifetimes. Taking liberties with Rupert Sheldrake’s (1981) work on morphogenetic fields and the influence of past forms, we felt there might be an analogy here to the development of the soul’s traits. Sheldrake discusses “automatic averaging,” whereby those features that most past systems (or in our case, past lives) have in common will be reinforced in this life. We hypothesized that people might continue to incorporate those traits (both those contributing to harmony and those that cause stress) that they had developed in past lives.
For one year we performed extensive interviews, took detailed social histories, and had participants complete questionnaires (that initially contained over 1200 questions and now contain approximately 600). We guided nearly 200 past-life regressions.
We used three different past-life recall exercises with each participant, following The Wambach Method, with some modifications. In the first recall, participants identified a specific time period to which they were drawn; our span for this ranged from before Christ to 2100 AD, thus allowing future lives as well as past lives to emerge. The second recall dealt with relationships and whether or not there was anyone in the participant’s present life that they had known in a prior life. The third recall focused on geographical areas toward which the participant felt particularly drawn.
Results
Objective 1: Design a Civilization Questionnaire that measures the connections between current life preference and past-life memories.
Our task was to identify in some way the characteristics of civilizations gone by and tie them into current behavior or life preferences. We began by reading as much as we could about different past civilizations and recording their cultural characteristics. In order to make comparisons among civilizations we grouped these characteristics by category. The categories we found to be fairly well represented across all civilizations were: buildings; children; climate; clothing; death and burial; diet; family and social life; festivals, holidays, and rituals; homes; marriage customs; medicine/health; music; mythology; recreation; religion and spirituality; and women’s roles. We selected 41 civilizations, ranging from the Aborigine to the Zulu.
Because some civilizations were better documented than others our list of characteristics was not evenly distributed across categories and civilizations. To remedy this problem we took three precautionary measures. First, we weighted the specific questions by the number of civilizations to which that characteristic applied to eliminate any across-group bias. Second, we weighted each civilization to eliminate any within-group bias. And third, we kept the number of questions pertaining to any given civilization within a specific range in order to maintain fair representation.
Objective 2: Gather sufficient participant data to measure validity and reliability of Civilization Questionnaire.
With over 1200 initial questions we proceeded to ascertain the reliability of the questions. We first administered this questionnaire to 35 participants. These participants helped us to clarify questions, identify duplicates, and keep responses to each within a 20-80% targeted response range. After this first run-through we were able to reduce the number of questions to 600. We then administered this revised questionnaire to another group of 35 participants and reached the level of reliability that we had targeted. Our final group consisted of 65 participants, ranging in age from 16 to 69 with the average age being 40.
Participants in all phases included people born in Spain, Lebanon, the US, Germany, and Korea. The majority lived in Colorado, but we had participants from other states as well. They included mental health workers, university professors, speech therapists, teachers, scientists, computer programmers, accountants, artists, nurses, managers, psychics, writers, a member of Mensa, a former nun, a former call girl, and others. Seventeen percent of the participants were men and 83% women.
Objective 3: Measure validity of results from Civilization Questionnaire with past-life regression results.
To check for validity in the questionnaire we had each participant complete the questionnaire before engaging in any past-life recall. In most cases this was done in a controlled environment in our office. Once the questionnaire was completed we performed the evaluation to determine which past-life preferences connected to which civilizations and which civilization was most prominent overall. This evaluation provided us with an overall ranking by civilization.
In identifying areas for further research we grouped our sixteen categories under four headings: 1) spirituality (death/burial, festivals/rituals, mythology, religion/spirituality); 2) environment (buildings, climate, clothing, homes); 3) body (diet, medicine/health, music, recreation); 4) relationships (children, family/social life, marriage customs, women’s roles). We are continuing our research along these lines.
Objective 4: Create techniques of past-life therapy that are positive and pull from people’s strengths.
As a result of our research we developed a set of seven visualizations that identify past-life strengths and allow the individual to access and utilize these strengths for their present benefit. These visualizations focus on abundance, creativity, physical well-being, relationships, soul benefits, spirituality, and wisdom. We incorporated a high level of positive language into these visualizations.
Results
Objective 1: Design a Civilization Questionnaire that measures the connections between current life preferences and past-life memories.
The six most prominently mentioned civilizations were:
West Africa 1400 – 1900 AD 65%
Tibet 1000 – 1300 AD 62%
Plains Indians 1500 – 1600 AD 60%
Australia 1820 – 1900 AD 56%
Atlantis ? BC 56%
Forest Indians 1650 – 1800 AD 54%
Objective 2: Gather sufficient participant data to measure validity and reliability of Civilization Questionnaire.
Counting the pilot studies, the Civilization Questionnaire was administered to 135 people in all. Occupation, age, gender, and nationality were all fairly diverse, thus providing us with a reasonable population sample. One area where bias might have occurred is that there may have been a strong metaphysical disposition among our volunteers, although this is not certain.
Objective 3: Measure validity of results from Civilization Questionnaire with past-life regression results.
To avoid any contamination we kept the results of the questionnaire secret until the participant had completed the three past-life recall exercises. What we found was that 96% of the participants regressed to another time period and/or country. Of the participants who regressed, 48% regressed to one of the top seven civilizations we had identified through our questionnaire. Additionally, 93% of those who regressed viewed themselves as living ordinary lives, which seems to be the usual picture in the general population.
Objective 4: Create techniques of past-life therapy that are positive and pull from people’s strengths.
From social histories and participant interviews we identified a number of issues that appeared to arise as general concerns. These concerns were finances, health, relationships, meaning, and understanding. With these concerns in mind we developed a set of visualizations that we feel access past-life situations in which the participant has effectively dealt with these issues. Having accessed this past effectiveness the visualizations focus on bringing those memories back to the present for utilization in this present life. These visualizations focus on and access memories of abundance, creativity, physical well-being, relationships, soul benefits, spirituality, and wisdom.
Conclusion
We found that many participants learned something that they felt was valuable to them during the past-life recalls, especially those who had strong themes in their lives. We also noted a number of synchronicities that occurred among unrelated participants. With 96% of participants able to regress and close to half of them regressing to one of the top seven civilizations, we saw a strong connection between current life preferences and the civilizations of their past lives.
We feel that in a soul’s evolution, many recurring situations are encountered that provide opportunities for the soul to evolve. Past-life therapy allows the individual to clarify these themes, patterns, and opportunities, and once these are identified, the person may resolve issues so as to eliminate having to experience the same type of event over and over again, and find strength from the positive experiences of past and present lives.
If this is correct, then our findings may lead to real help for the sorts of clients discussed at the beginning of this article, who unknowingly inspired us to begin this research. We continue our search for methods to help these and other clients.
References
Griscom, C. Time is an Illusion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986.
Sheldrake, R. A New Science of Life. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1981.