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Can We Establish An Ethical and Scientific Basis for Regression Work? – Jan Erik Sigdell (Is.23)

by Jan Erik Sigdell

Abstract

In a European group much controversy recently arose about questions of ethical and scientific aspects of regression and even “elitist” claims in that respect. The discussion about this concerns everyone everywhere who works with regressions and needs to be taken to a public level in the professional community. I herewith wish to give answers to criticism and outline a basis for our work.

  What are souls?

One point of criticism is that everyone speaks about souls and even soul fractions and yet no one seems to be able to define them.

If there is no self that survives the death of the body, there is no reincarnation and past-life regression is nonsense. The only valid form of regression is the attempt to go back into memories from the childhood and, at most, the prenatal state in the womb.

But what is a soul? Since we do work with regression under the hypothesis or theory of reincarnation, it is obvious that we deal with souls. For us, a simplistic and pragmatic definition is quite sufficient: the soul is your self in a state that can exist without a body. Various doctrines, religions, and philosophies talk about divisions of this self in at least two parts: soul and spirit and up to five and more parts like various sheaths (Sanskrit: kosha) or levels which constitute a kind of “anatomy” of that self. It is of little or no value to be concerned with that in the practical work with regression. For practical purposes we may simply regard the soul to be all of that together.

 

Past-Life Report: Therapy In The Treatment Of Multiple Personality Disorders By Kardecist Healers In Brazil – Stanley Krippner (Is.12)

by Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.

Dr. Krippner originally presented this topic as the keynote speaker during the banquet at the October, 1993 convention of the Association for Past-Life Research and Therapy in San Francisco. The importance and scope of his address were such that we asked him to share his comments, observations, and research with our readers.

 The emergence of past-life report therapy is one of many harbingers of what many philosophers have called the “postmodern age.” “Modernism” or “modernity” holds that the methods of “objective” natural science will reveal “the external world” and lead to unanimity of belief regarding “natural laws” and their implications. However, this glowing vision has never been actualized. The search for “objective” methods has revealed that the observer is an inevitable part of what is being observed, and that each set of researchers constructs what they are looking for in a way that influences what they eventually claim to discover (Gergen, 1991).

There are three divergent points of view taken by postmodern scientists on the nature of “external reality.” One group denies that there is an external reality; one group suspects that there is such a reality but that humankind will never be able to apprehend it; one group thinks that the “world out there” will be knowable but not with “objective” research methods, attitudes, and measures. Modern scientists, to the contrary, are convinced that there is a “world out there” and that modern science is perfectly capable of observing it, explaining it, controlling it, and even predicting its activity.

Spirit World Of The Native American – Lewis E. Mehl (Is.8)

by Lewis E. Mehl, M.D., Ph.D.

The Native American, says this author, does not hold to a linear, wheel-of-karma, reincarnational logic. Rather, he (or she) embraces the concept of a free-roaming spirit that can cross time and space boundaries, mingle with other spirits and enter other lives. His world view is as direct and simple as that of the child whose imaginary playmates are still real. For the culturally intact Native American of today, spirit communication is a practical, everyday experience. Dr. Mehl offers a detailed account of a ceremony in which a woman of mainstream culture experiences and incorporates the Native American way of perceiving.

The Native American world, though sparse in developed theory, is rich in experience, stories, and lore. Theory is implicit within its teaching tales and ceremonies and its rituals reinforce the implicit theory without requiring explicit statement.

Through my upbringing and participation in the Native American culture, along with my bridging to the dominant culture, I have developed a special perspective on the beliefs of Native America. While it is impossible for me to say if these beliefs were always the same, an understanding of the teaching tales in which journeys take place to the past or the future, or to the spirit world, suggests that they were.

Implicit within all these tales is a lack of sense of circular reincarnation. There is none of the philosophy of the wheel of karma or of the Hindu refinement of the soul through successive lives. Rather, the Native American world view is consistent with the statement by Seth, as channeled through Jane Roberts: “We are only here once and cannot hold more than one exposure to this vibrational field.”