Past-life dreams, like many other types of dreams, are sent to us by the soul for a reason. Icléa shared one of hers with me in which she was doing a ritual in Egypt. Before she entered the place that housed the altar where she was going to perform the ritual, she looked at herself in a shield that was highly polished like a mirror. What she saw was a very young woman, very beautiful and very dark. When she looked in the mirror, Icléa just knew that “she” was “me.” The altar had charcoal and a fire. Icléa could even smell the fire. Then she reached into a basket, picked up a snake, bit it in two, and threw the pieces into the charcoal. She knew she was “not nice.” Icléa woke up trying to clear her throat. The vividness of the colors, the music that was playing, and the intense smell convinced Icléa that this dream was indeed a remembrance of a past-life event.
Sometime later she attended a talk given by the late Betty Bethards, a spiritual healer, meditation teacher, psychic, and mystic. After the meditation, Icléa went outside for a breather, and Betty was there. Betty said to her, “It’s okay. We meet again. We knew each other in Egypt, but we were not very nice.” Then Icléa shared the dream with her. If Icléa had needed any confirmation, Betty’s comments did just that. Perhaps this dream was giving her a message similar to the one delivered in her spiritual regression you will read about in Chapter 5.
Past-Life Remembrance
Georgina Teyrovsky and I were introduced at a local meeting of the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) where I was giving a talk on reincarnation. She shared many stories of her past-life remembrances, especially those of when she was a child. The following is one of her more compelling experiences, which I am presenting in her own words.
“The year was 1939, March 15, and I was fifteen. On that spring day I was in the kitchen in our home in Jahodnice, Prague. When my father came home that afternoon, he called in an excited voice to Mother and me, “Do you know what the news is today?” We answered, “No.” “The Second World War was declared today!” he said in a voice filled with apprehension.
Some voice inside me called out, “War, again war! How many wars do I have to live through before people will discover that wars are harming everybody! They bring so much pain and suffering for everybody!” I was stunned! My young personality somehow answered, “How can you say that?” I searched my memory and answered, “You were born in 1924, the First World War ended in 1918, and there wasn’t any war in Europe or in our country since then!” But I remembered many wars! I felt these thoughts inside me. I remembered the suffering, the anguish, and the humiliations of lost wars! I even remembered being in the middle of one with the emotional pain of a lost cause.
A vision came to me. I was standing in front of some big gates. I was a strong, enthusiastic man about thirty-years-old. I valiantly held some weapon in my hand, but I knew that the attackers were much, much stronger than I. I knew they would win, kill us all, and kill our just and righteous cause. Death did not scare me, but the destruction of all that we believed in gave me tremendous pain in my heart. It was a pain which my fifteen-year-old person or personality had not experienced before. Its depth scared me.
Then I came out of my vision and wondered what to make of it. I lacked any explanation. In conclusion, I decided it had showed me that I could be a person of courage. I said to myself, “When the opportunity comes, I know I will be courageous!”
Our soul speaks to us in its own language of the subconscious. It prods us through means such as these as it guides us through our lives.
Past-Life Regression Information Quest
In my own past-life regression practice I work in concert with my client’s intention to take him or her back to a former time. This is done not only for spiritual archeology, but also, more importantly, for spiritual therapy. However, great benefit can often be derived by merely accessing a prior life and learning the “history” of it. The following regression is such a case. As you read details of Dean’s former life from childhood to death, note the recurring patterns.
DEAN
Dean always talked about being a mountain man, and when he saw the movie Jeremiah Johnson, he knew he had lived a similar life. [Jeremiah Johnson tells the story of a trapper in the mid-1800’s who lived a solitary existence in the mountains of the western United States.] Dean’s wife Samantha gave him a gift of a past-life regression with a well-known regressionist to explore this feeling that was so strong for him.
After the regression, he said this was a “trip of a lifetime.” Here are some of his own words which he recorded immediately after this episodic experience.
My parents are leaving in a covered wagon with all of their belongings, except their children! I have an older brother and sister and a younger sibling. We are being left in the care of a couple roughly the same age as our parents. There are other people leaving with my parents, but no children. It seems that they are going someplace that is too dangerous for children and will return for us at a later date.
I must be eight or nine. The man caring for us is a bit of a tyrant. The land is quite rocky, and my brother and I are trying to remove rocks from the fields with picks and shovels. There is no respite from the chores to be done; he works us very hard.
My brother has finally had it and runs away. I try to talk him into taking me with him. However, he feels I am too small and leaves without me, presumably following the trail of our parents. Now I have to do his work as well as mine, and it is not a pleasant situation. Our “surrogate father” is quite mean to me.
My dilemma is soon resolved, because my “father” trades me to a group of Native Americans for something in exchange. The Native American community is very well organized with straight streets and well-cleared areas between houses. The houses are cylindrical in shape with round roofs and are constructed of adobe or similar earthen material. There is a school in the community to which I am allowed to go. There are two male teachers, one Native American and one white. I am initially pleased with the schooling but later become restless, wanting to leave and find my brother and parents.
My feeling of being alone and unwanted is very heavy. The sense of not belonging to anyone is extremely powerful. While I am initially relieved and pleased to be going to this group of Native Americans, it is quickly apparent that they don’t want me either. I feel absolutely unwanted by anyone. These second surrogate parents are very unemotional, and the rest of the Native Americans couldn’t care less. I am extremely unhappy.
One day several soldiers in blue uniforms come with the word that we must evacuate. No one seems to mind, at least I’m not aware of any resistance, and we are herded out the gate on to a road. The small, weak, or ill are allowed to ride inside huge military freight wagons, while the healthy are told to walk. After a period of time, we arrive at a military fort. I am removed from the evacuee train (possibly because I’m not Native American) and adopted by a military family at the fort. The military family that takes me in is strict.
Ultimately, I become a flag bearer. I am too young to bear arms. I think my age must be around twelve. My best friend is a young soldier, who is in actuality my friend in this life [although they do not look the same]. He is only three or four years older than I, but he is a real soldier and carries a rifle and bayonet.
The entire troop is ordered out of the fort to march somewhere. We finally engage the enemies in a large swampy area. We