It was like time travel. One minute it was a chilly Saturday evening in early fall 1995. I was sitting in the comfortable Whiting, Ind., living room of hypnotherapist M.E. Harding. Next I was standing on the dirt floor in a grimy blacksmith’s hut, on a sweaty workday in medieval Europe.
Was I hypnotized? If I said I smelled smoke and felt medieval grit between my toes, would that confirm it? Maybe the greater question ought to be whether this actually was a past life? Or was it merely the elaborate concoction of a highly imaginative writer’s mind?
Experts say the practice of exploring one’s previous lives has become fairly commonplace among once-conservative suburbanites. For about $50 to $75 per session, the inquisitive reincarnate can take a peek at what are alleged to be his/her past lives either through hypnosis or channeling (connecting with a universal consciousness with the help of a human conduit). This cynical journalist tried both and put reincarnation to the test. You be the judge.
– – –
I spent about 45 minutes in a hypnotic trance induced by Harding. She has been a hypnotherapist for 15 years and teaches adult education classes in meditation, visualization, dreams and self-hypnosis at Indiana University Northwest in Gary.
A former physical therapist who saw a strong mind-body connection in her clients, Harding says she’s also the author of more than 40 audiotapes on topics such as self-affirmation and self-esteem and host of a local-access cable television show in Indiana about spiritualism.
I also visited channeler Diandra (she has no last name) in the Naperville home she shares with her partner and soul-mate, Batavia (who also has no last name).
Diandra claims to have channeled, or mentally tuned into, a high spiritual plain where she learned about my previous lives. She and Batavia conduct spiritual seminars, classes and trips under the auspices of their jointly owned business called Inward Journey.
In Harding’s living room, the lights were dimmed, candles flickered and the sounds of rolling surf droned from a sound machine. There was no hocus-pocus, no shiny watch swinging back and forth before my eyes. She never once said, “You are getting sleepy.”
Instead, she invited me to close my eyes, while she spoke in a soft monotone. I followed her suggestion, relaxed according to her instructions and before long experienced a sensation of “seeing” a lot of colored lights. I had an awareness of a presence–a very old Chinese man, a high official in an ancient red and gold robe, named Chen. I knew him, or at least felt as if I knew him.
Although I don’t recall every detail of Harding’s instructions, sessions are normally taped and I later heard her suggest to me that I raise out of my body to go to another level and look around me in search of a spirit or guide to a previous lifetime. She asked me to describe what I was seeing, and if I were present in the scene as the Chinese man, another person or merely an observer.
I was not the Chinese man, I told her. I was a protege who admired the elder enormously. Harding suggested he was a spirit guide–like an angel–and asked me to follow where he led. We visited other lifetimes: Victorian-era New York, colonial New England. Although I knew where I was each time, the knowledge came more as a sensory experience rather than one with visual clarity.
Harding asked if I recognized other souls, later explaining that it’s possible to recognize the souls of people present in your current life. In one life, in colonial New England, I recognized the soul of my husband. Both boys, we were best friends.
Harding said clients usually have more than one session of hypnotherapy and may or may not visit the same past lives. What is seen generally is related to what is currently going on in one’s life, she noted.
– – –
“Hypnosis is a powerful tool that can be used to explore previous lives and, in exploring them, we can understand and then reverse destructive cycles of behavior in our current life,” explained Oak Lawn hypnotherapist Gaile Vitas. .
Diandra agrees. She said more mainstream therapists are getting attuned to the concept of previous lives: “We all have the ability to go within ourselves and find the truth.”
Diandra, Vitas and Harding all contend that past life exploration or regression through hypnosis can be therapeutic. They and dozens of others who advertise similar services in a magazine called The Monthly Aspectarian herald a recent trend. The Monthly Aspectarian (published in Morton Grove and distributed free to area book stores) bills itself as “Chicago’s New Age magazine . . . dedicated to awakening consciousness.”
The growth of the magazine alone is evidence of the surge in spiritualist popularity. According to founder, editor and publisher Guy Spiro, the magazine that began 17 years ago as a single page is 112 pages today, with a circulation of 20,000. “It’s a boom,” Spiro said. “There’s no doubt about it.”
Ed Maslovicz, owner of Sanctuary Crystals in Alsip, says, “When we opened here (four years ago), people said we would never make it on the South Side,” implying that New Age mysticism was reserved for those trendy North Siders.
“At first we had one unit in this strip mall. Since then we’ve expanded five times. We occupy the whole mall now,” Maslovicz boasted. His shop is not without competitors. From Crystal Lake and Schaumburg to towns such as Lombard, Naperville, Burbank, Tinley Park and Joliet, metaphysical shops abound.
Many shops, such as Sanctuary Crystals, offer regularly scheduled classes in everything spiritual, from self-hypnosis to astrology, channeling and yoga. All of them sell self-help books, videos, audiotapes, rocks, minerals and a wide variety of products aimed at expanding spiritual consciousness. It’s a reflection, said Maslovicz, of a new focus on something that’s very, very old–spiritualism.
Lynn Rose of Frankfort, housewife and mother of three, believes her sessions with Diandra have augmented her religious beliefs. “It’s not like a psychic kind of thing,” she said.
Rose feels knowledge she obtained from Diandra about past lives gives a clearer perspective on current relationships. “As (Diandra) spoke about the people in my life today all the pieces of a puzzle seemed to fit together,” Rose said, adding, “It’s like she knew my children personally.”
Although Rose acknowledged that her parents disapprove, this devout Catholic said, “You always need to remain open to new things.”
“I see people from all different backgrounds–Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever–who view spiritualism as a great new interest,” Maslovicz said.
But the past life approach to spirituality has its critics. Elizabeth L. Hillstrom, associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College, believes hypnosis “can yield experiences that seem real but get mixed in with fiction.” She calls this the false memory syndrome and says that in an altered state of consciousness the brain may produce experiences that have nothing to do with reality.
Others aren’t so critical, just skeptical. Dr. Karen Taylor-Crawford, chairman of psychiatry and substance abuse services at Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn, often refers patients to hypnosis practitioners for the purpose of losing weight or breaking a smoking habit.
“Hypnosis works best for reducing anxiety. But it is not a cure-all. It can be part of a treatment, not the only treatment,” she said.
About past-life regression through hypnosis, Taylor-Crawford says, “I’ve seen people do some interesting things in terms of spiritualism with trances and channeling. But I don’t understand that, so I don’t deal with it. It’s powerful, real powerful. But if I don’t understand it, I’m not going to send someone into it.”
Hillstrom believes she has become something of an expert on Christianity and spiritualism, including hypnosis, after teaching a seminar on the topic for the last six years. She recently completed a book about the Christian stance on New Age spiritualism. In her book, called “Testing the Spirits” (Intervarsity Press, Westmont, $12.99), Hillstrom debunks both hypnosis and reincarnation.
“As a Christian, I just don’t believe we reincarnate,” she said. “And the false memory syndrome merely underscores the deceptiveness of the altered state (of consciousness).”
Neither Harding nor Vitas disputes the possibility of false memory.
Vitas, who has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Illinois/Chicago Circle, responded, “I know I’m not going to change anyone’s beliefs. But you don’t have to believe to benefit from hypnosis. This is the way the subconscious shows us recurring patterns of negative behavior.”
Diandra, raised a fundamentalist Baptist by missionary grandparents, isn’t looking for an argument, either. “I don’t feel any of us has the ultimate truth,” she said. Diandra started channeling in 1980 after an automobile accident left her bedridden for more than a year. She chronicles a number of spiritual experiences since then, including one that moved her to take the name of her spirit guide.
– – –
Back in Harding’s living room I awoke after my 45-minute trance with a decent recollection of what I had experienced. Not unusual, said Vitas, who explained, “If you generally remember your dreams, you will more likely remember events when you’re in a trance.”
Harding agreed, adding, “It also depends how deep the trance state is. If it’s your first time, it probably won’t be very deep.”
It was my first time. It might not have even been a trance, but it was at least very, very deep concentration, because a nagging backache subsided in its duration. I also felt extreme well-being and comfort.
The 45-minute session with Diandra yielded similar results. She closed her blue eyes and zoned in on my previous incarnations, which included lives as an ancient Egyptian woman, a black slave in the late 18th Century and the daughter of a prominent Parisian lawyer in the 1850s.
Diandra also interpreted the lessons to be gleaned from these spiritual revelations. She told me the Egyptian woman’s young son was killed in a storm while boating on the Nile and that this soul is in my life today–possibly my older son, Joe. (Interestingly, when he was a toddler, Joe had a powerful and inexplicable fear of rain.)
Through the occupations of my other lifetimes, Diandra tracked certain current interests such as government, art and music. All told, I came away feeling that such glimpses of self-revelation are extremely beneficial.
Diandra said it is believed that souls cluster, passing from one incarnation to another in a group. The benefit, she said, is that each lifetime offers opportunities to work on different aspects of a relationship. Additionally, each lifetime is a chance to grow spiritually through experience.
While Harding, Diandra, Vitas and Batavia all agreed to an interview, an equal number of practitioners and clients either refused to be interviewed or requested anonymity. Vitas warned that anyone contemplating past life regression or any therapy via hypnosis should first check the practitioner’s credentials.
“If they are not certified by either the American Board of Hypnotherapists or the National Guild of Hypnotherapists, I wouldn’t recommend them,” Vitas said. Additionally, Taylor-Crawford cautioned against patronizing any practitioner who believes hypnosis can cure everything.
As for my experience, was it real or was it memo-wrecks? Are the practitioners sham or shaman? Who knows? At the very least, it was an intense mental workout–intellectual aerobics to challenge the long-distance thinker. At best I got a bigger picture of the universe.
