Why does belief in past lives and reincarnation make sense? This is a question that I’ve personally considered all throughout my practice as a hypnotherapist. It is difficult to prove any theory of the afterlife of course, but reincarnation is indicated as a very plausible theory, even without the experience that many people have with past life regression. The purpose of this article is not to come up with the definitive answer, but rather to spark some thought and consideration about this possibility.

One Birth Theory vs. Multiple Birth Theory

Reincarnation and karma explains the inequities found among individuals and groups.

In the religions that propose that people have one life, there is really no logical explanation as to why there is so much disparity between the lives of separate individuals. The question that perplexes many of us is simply this, why would the creator god decide that someone would have all the advantages of a fully endowed life (enough of the necessities of life and to be born being surrounded by the circumstances that would allow for the correct spiritual view) while others are not so fortunate? And, why would the creator god then decide that those who “do not comply” with the dogmas of that religion be damned to eternal punishment? One would have to decide that the creator god is quite capricious rather than the all knowing all loving being.

When you allow for the laws of cause and effect, believing that people experience what they caused others to experience sometime in the future, the inequities of life begin to make more sense. It’s not an uncommon view that when someone performs an action, its effects are definite, so it doesn’t take a great leap of faith that when you think and/or do something, that a potentiality is planted in your mind. Under the right circumstances, that potentiality can ripen into an effect. Thus positive causes result in positive effects, and negative causes result in negative effects. If you were unkind in a past life, unkindness (under the right circumstances) can ripen and be present in a life. If you deprived people of necessities or their life, then those effects, under the right circumstances, can also ripen in the future.

No afterlife point of view vs. multiple birth theory

To believe that there is no afterlife what-so-ever, you would have to believe that our consciousness is centered in the body and that all minds are gross minds. Simply put, when the body dies, the mind dies and that’s it. It is a materialistic point of view, meaning that your consciousness is based on your body.

We do know that all minds are not gross minds (dream minds tell us this), and we even know that the gross mind is not a solid entity. If the mind existed from its own side, it would never change. Our mind is dependent on many causes and is ever changing. We also know that all of our existence, including the existence of our mind, has always been a potential effect since the beginning of time, or it would not exist today. This is the same for our body and this current make-up of who we are is an effect from potentials begun many eons ago.

So, if this mind that we call “me” has been a potential, when we die, why wouldn’t it be a potential again? And, since it has already been a realized potential, what stops it from continuing on? Why then would our mind stop at death? There is no proof that anyone can point to that clearly demonstrates that the mind, our sense of self or our “I” is dependent on the body, but with the above reasoning, we can say that our body is rather dependent on the potentials and minds that preceded it.

Past lives make logical sense! Why would someone be born blind, or killed in war, or live in abject poverty when someone else lives in a happy family in peacetime and is financially secure? Also, why do some people have battles with a pattern of continuous bad luck that they are seemingly unable to change?

One way of looking at this is that before we incarnate onto this earth plane, we have the intention to work on certain lessons. When we fail at the end of a lifetime to learn that lesson, we get another chance to do a “make over” in another incarnation — with a different set of circumstances or sometimes with the exact person we were with before. But what often happens is that the lesson is still not learned, and therefore a pattern starts to develop. With each succeeding life, the pattern becomes more ingrained, resulting in greater difficulty to overcome it.

From this present life’s perspective, we are puzzled about why we should have this particular pattern or bad luck and how to release it. In actuality, it is just a particular lesson coming up again for resolution.

Fortunately, we can access this information easily through the use of hypnosis. Every memory we have ever had in any lifetime is recorded in our subconscious memory computer, and we can gain access to it through our conscious intention to do so in a very relaxed state.

Past life regression gets at the root from so long ago of when this pattern first began and through good understanding and forgiveness releases the pattern so that it never returns again in this present life or in subsequent lives.

Almost any unresolved issue begun in a past lifetime can affect our present circumstances in health, relationships, career, finances, fears, phobias and addictions.

One common fear is of one’s personal psychic or healing abilities. Someone may be fascinated by these subjects but have a terrific fear of developing them. Many times this can be caused by rejection, banishment, humiliation and even death (burning at the stake), for example, for being a medicine person in a past lifetime. Therefore, there is fear of developing these abilities again because of the subconscious fear that you may again suffer a similar fate. This pattern can be erased by forgiveness of the perpetrator(s) and remembrance of one’s innate psychic and healing abilities.

The following are other fears and patterns that may arise from past lives:

• Fear of leadership — This can be caused by actual misuse of power or perceived, but not actual, misuse of power in a past life. For example, many people, particularly in the Midwest, have guilt over lives as Native Americans when, as chiefs or tribal leaders, they made decisions they thought were correct but had an adverse effect on their tribe, resulting in widespread death and loss of land. This guilt is misguided, because no matter what their decision, the result would have been the same.
• Fear of intimacy — Many people with this issue were violated or abused in a previous lifetime and today still carry a lack of trust in and a fear of getting close to others.
• Failure to let go of a relationship — People may need to repay karma to one another before letting go. Often, though, they fail to recognize when the karma has been completed and it is time to move on.
• Money issues — These may be the result of greed to the point of harming others’ health and livelihood in a particular lifetime. In this lifetime, therefore, there is scarcity, money losses or failure to be able to make or save money.
• Weight gain/loss issues — These sometimes are the result of past life food deprivation or starvation. In this lifetime, the person overeats because of a subconscious fear of not having enough food.
• Illness — Some illnesses, especially those that are unexplained by the medical community, may have a direct basis in a past life. For other illnesses, past lives may be a contributing factor or trigger.

Many people feel actual physical symptoms during hypnosis, such as pain or pressure in their chest or head, shaking of the body, difficulty breathing, and crying. These symptoms go away by the end of the session.

If the perpetrator/victim is someone the client knows in this lifetime, additional dialogue is needed to release current misunderstandings based on the past.