Capítulo 4. La Prueba.

 

Proof

Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. NIELS BOHR, QUANTUM PHYSICIST

Is it possible to find proof for the existence of past lives, or for lives of healing and reconciliation that take place between our incarnations?

These days, information about reincarnation and life after death is readily available. Many books have been written about past lives. A few have been written about our life between lives. Anecdotal stories of children who remember past lives can be viewed on YouTube. The late Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia spent forty years researching reincarnation. He documented over two thousand cases of children who provided credible evidence of their past lives. Nevertheless, such ideas are considered unorthodox, and many people remain skeptical.

Very few mainstream educational institutions are interested in researching non-physical reality, reincarnation, and life between lives. People who conduct such research rarely belong to academia. Some have little or no academic background. Many have left mainstream science.

Collectively, researchers such as Michael Newton, Robert Monroe, Brian Weiss, Bruce Lipton, Rupert Sheldrake and Thomas Campbell have made a great contribution to the understanding of non-physical phenomena. If you are looking for evidence of the non-physical, I can recommend their work.

Not everyone needs scientific evidence to convince them that other dimensions exist beyond our conception of physical reality. Some people are in tune with their deeper selves. They know that we are more than just our physical bodies.

In the past, I was fairly skeptical. Over the years, however, I have encountered a great deal of anecdotal and scientific evidence of paranormal phenomena. This opened my mind to the possibility of non-physical reality. Then I gathered my own personal evidence through paranormal experiences, self-hypnosis, lucid dreaming and regression. Even so, I value evidence over blind faith. I think it is important to keep the door open to new information and possibilities. I like to remain in a state of learning.

Ultimately, we need to reach our own conclusions about the existence of life before and beyond death. Information gathered during regressions can provide convincing evidence for other lives and life between lives. Here are a few examples.

Belya

Belya experienced a past life as a nurse in the Second World War. After I guide her into a trance, she finds herself with a group of displaced people near the end of the war. They are hiding in a forest because they are afraid of being caught by their enemies. They walk for miles behind the tree-line, too frightened to venture out into the open, where they might find something to eat. Because Bella is a nurse, others in the group look to her for leadership. But she does not know whether to rest or to keep moving, or which way will lead them to safety. She decides to forge on, hoping to find some food. It makes no difference. Eventually they all weaken, and die of starvation.

When Belya comes out of the trance she comments on the uniform she was wearing in that life.

‘It was very distinctive. There was an apron-type thing with a cross on it. And a cap. I would know it if I saw it.’

I suggest we look on the Internet for pictures of nurses from the Second World War. We find pages and pages of images. I point out different possibilities that seem to match her description. She rejects them all until finally she sees a picture of nurses from Scotland. ‘That’s it!’ Belya exclaims.

Belya is shocked. The nurses wear a shirt with a Pedro Pan collar, an apron with a cross on the bib and a basin-style cap. This is the uniform she saw.

Karen

Personal experience can be a powerful convincer, as I discovered some years ago during my first visit to my life between lives. When the practitioner took me back to my immediate past life, I was surprised to find myself living as a male during the Second World War. Even more astonishing, he served as a German infantry soldier on the Eastern Front during the invasion of Russia. During the invasion, he witnessed a scene that shocked him.

I am standing looking at a group of captured Russians. Apart from their Captain and one of the men, they are all sitting on the ground facing me. Their hands are on their heads. The Captain is kneeling on the ground, attending to some injury on the back of one of his men. The Captain has his back to me. Beside me, on my right, is a German soldier with a rifle. I feel no fear.

The captain’s uniform is very strange. He wears a blue cap and a jacket that is off-white with a bluish tinge. I can’t believe that anyone would choose such a pale colour for a uniform. War is a grubby business. A light colour like off-white is so impractical. It doesn’t make sense. I must be making it up.

Now I am feeling uneasy. The German soldier is pointing his rifle at the Captain. He is going to shoot him. I want to stop him, yell out and say ‘No!’ It doesn’t seem right to me, shooting a man in the back, a man that is our prisoner, our responsibility. Before I get anything out, he shoots the Captain in the back. That must have been a signal because now I hear machine gun fire. I am aware of two German soldiers, one on my far right and one on my left. Each is aiming a machine gun at the Russian prisoners. They are mowing them down, killing them all. I don’t feel a part of this slaughter even though I am a German like those murdering these men. I am shocked. Dismayed. It is wrong.

After the regression, I undertake some research. I find out that Russian prisoners were often shot by the Germans. I also learn that Hitler gave a specific order in 1941 that all Commissars were to be shot. The Commissars were officials of the Soviet Communist Party.

I have a strong sense that I fought at the Battle of Stalingrad in my previous life, and died there in December 1942. The German invasion started in June 1941, so I work out that this incident must have happened in the 18 months between June 1941 and December 1942. I search the Internet until I find a picture of a NKVD Commissar Captain. The NKVD was a Soviet law enforcement agency, closely aligned with the secret police, and part of Stalin’s apparatus of political repression. It was later renamed as the KGB. The uniform I discover exactly matches the one I saw during my regression.

The Commissar can be seen in the picture on the previous page. His jacket is a bluish-tinged off-white, and his cap and trousers are dark blue. This uniform was only in use in 1941 and 1942. The picture is from a painting by the talented Russian artist, Andrei Karashchuk (used with permission).

I feel shaken. Up until this point, I was still not sure if past lives really existed. Perhaps we make it up, I’d thought. I know I have never seen this picture before in my current life. With this hard evidence, something shifts inside me. I cannot deny it anymore. I surrender to the idea that I have lived before.

David

David experienced a past life as a Catholic monk called Desmonte. It is 1560 and Desmonte is travelling around the Bohemian countryside visiting Catholic churches. He is secretly gathering information about the excesses of the priests. He notices that they wear elaborate robes and their churches are ornate. He also sees that the peasants are poor, hardworking and suffering economic hardship. He believes the priests are exploiting the piety of the masses.

He returns to Prague in 1564 to make his report. He sees a large crowd gathered around people in stockades. There is social upheaval and he cannot find the religious people with whom he is aligned. They have been replaced and now are in hiding or have fled. There are two factions in the church, one given to power, the other devoted to spirituality. Desmonte belongs to the latter faction, hoping that the church will experience spiritual renewal. Unfortunately for Desmonte, his faction is losing ground.

Desmonte never finds his allies. Eventually, he leaves Prague, and dies many years later in Spain.

When David returns to do a life between lives regression, he tells me he has been researching his past life as Desmonte.

It all makes sense now. It was the time of the Counter-Reformation in the Catholic Church. But during the regression, I kept doubting the information I was getting. It seemed a bit strange being a devoted, spiritual monk who was spying on others in the church.

The Counter-Reformation was an attempt by the Catholic Church to regain its power in the face of the Protestant Reformation. It ran from 1545 to 1563, and while a number of administrative reforms did take place, they did not herald the changes that Desmonte and his colleagues hoped for.

David is one of those people who easily receives names, dates and details during regressions. Not everyone has this capability. David spent many lifetimes in monasteries. I wonder if his ability to observe and record detail was developed in those quiet, secluded lives.

Jacobo

Jacobo had lived previously in the thirteenth century[3]. During his regression, Jacobo found himself embarking on a journey to Jerusalem with many others. Together they rode into battle, and brutally conquered a mighty city. When Jacobo emerged from the regression, I asked him what he knew about the crusades. He said he knew nothing about them. Returning home, he began to research their history.

In the course of his reading, Jacobo came across some old illustrations of Istanbul, previously known as Constantinople. He immediately recognised it as the place where he had fought as a crusader. The crusaders were merciless. Jacobo admits that it was so disturbing that he didn’t want to see what he had sensed during the regression.

I fought against the information I was receiving. I thought I must be making it up. But I remember the city vividly. It had a cathedral with a great copper dome. When I did some research I realised that the city was Constantinople, not Jerusalem. The cathedral was the Hagia Sophia.

The Hagia Sofia dates back to AD 537. Jacobo was a part of the Fourth Crusade that sacked Constantinople in 1204. The Fourth Crusade originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem. Instead, the crusaders were diverted to Constantinople. A historian described this infamous event:

They rushed in a howling mob down the streets and through the houses, snatching up everything that glittered and destroying whatever they could not carry, pausing only to murder or to rape, or to break open the wine-cellars[4].

Even though Jacobo knew nothing about the crusades, I sensed that the experiences he was reporting during his regression related to a life as a crusader. However, he didn’t mention the word ‘crusade’ at any time during the regression and neither did I. In fact, the crusaders never used this term. They described themselves as Knights of Christ and saw themselves as undertaking an armed pilgrimage. The Christian military campaigns against Islam during the Middle Ages were not described as ‘crusades’ until 1638—four hundred years after the Fourth Crusade!

After undertaking his research, Jacobo was convinced that he had not made it up. The doubts he experienced during his regression proved to him that he had relived a genuine past life.

Cenicienta

Cenicienta experienced a life as a woman during the American War of Independence.

The scene opens when she is in her early twenties. She is watching a battle that is taking place in a field. She is not afraid, just curious. She notices, with some surprise, that on one side the soldiers are dressed in uniforms with red jackets. The others are not in uniform and look less professional.

I ask her whose side she is on. She doesn’t know. I prompt for more information. She struggles to make up her mind. She says she doesn’t really care who wins. Cenicienta is young and never studied English or American history.

After the past life, Cenicienta and I discuss her experience. She says she found it difficult to accept what she was getting. She thought she was making it up. It was true that she was struggling to receive the information. I had to intervene frequently to help her maneuver around her blocks.

Even during the regression, she thought it was very strange that she didn’t know which side she supported during the battle between the redcoats and the militiamen.

I recall the case of Andrés[5], one of my other clients, who had regressed to a past life during the early days of the American War of Independence. I describe his experience to Cenicienta.

Andrés is on the side of the rebels and against the redcoats. He says many settlers have not yet decided who to support. The redcoats are advancing, and Andrés is riding back to his farm. In the distance, he sees a small contingent of redcoats ride up to his neighbour’s farm. He feels he should intervene but knows he cannot. He has an essential role to play in this war. Andrés knows his neighbour tried to sit on the fence because he was afraid to take sides.

Andrés lies low and watches. His neighbour’s indecision does not save him. The redcoats drag him outside and execute him.

Cenicienta is reassured by this story. She can see that her indecision actually makes sense. She was living at a time when the settlers were loath to take sides. They didn’t understand all the issues and they were afraid to commit to one side, as they had no idea who would prevail.

When Cenicienta came back to do her life between lives regression, her skepticism had been resolved. The regression proceeded smoothly without the blocks and confusion that accompanied the past life regression.

Proving that we retain consciousness during the period between incarnations is more difficult than validating past life experiences. Individuals can find evidence, however, in the form of predictions that are subsequently found to be correct. An example is my own life between lives regression, mentioned earlier. I felt overwhelmed by my responsibility for my elderly mother. She was suffering from dementia, and had few financial resources. During my regression, the Council told me that my mother would be well cared for, and subsequent events proved this to be true.

Conclusion

Many people experience doubts while they are in the trance. They worry that aspects of their story are not making sense. Such doubts block their progress and need to be put aside. They are always surprised and reassured when eventually the story does make sense or when their subsequent research bears out what they saw in the session.

I can also be surprised. I have had my initial doubts about a past life later overturned. As noted earlier, in my previous life I served as a German soldier in both the world wars. During the regression my therapist asked me what I did between the wars. ‘I am a soldier,’ I replied.

I have studied both world wars in some detail and I had some doubts in my mind. I had assumed that the Treaty of Versailles prohibited Germany from having a standing army.

I was wrong. When I looked it up, I discovered that Germany was allowed to have a standing army of one hundred thousand men after being defeated in the First World War. I also learn that soldiers were trained in Dresden. This explains another mystery for me: Some years before I knew about these past lives, I experienced a compelling sense of déjà vu when I first visited Dresden. I knew I’d been there before.

Clients have told me that they have visited cities for the first time during their travels, only to discover that they immediately felt right at home. They knew exactly where to go and what scenes would unfold as they walked around a corner. The city fitted them like a glove. Such experiences can act as evidence of past lives.

People who visit their past lives and life between lives often begin to trust that they will endure after their current physical lives come to an end. Those who doubt are often opened up to greater possibilities. The more they open their minds, the greater their chance of having more affirming experiences.

We all need to do our own research and come to our own conclusions about the nature of our universe. While scientific evidence can be helpful, nothing quite beats the experience of remembering a past life, which reveals personal historical truths we had not previously known.