Many Eastern religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism and the Krishna movement to name but a few, believe that we are reincarnated from one life to the next. The belief is that after we die, we are reborn carrying memories and experiences from each incarnation. This is referred to as Karma. Some of our Karma is positive, and some may affect us to such a degree that it has a crippling effect on us and our current life.

We have all experienced an unexplainable affinity to a certain place or a person. We all have unexplainable skills and we all have things we just can't master. Some of us even feel attracted to a particular culture or region without knowing why, especially when that culture or religion is not part of our upbringing or immediate surrounding. Could this be to do with our past lives?

Because of the ever growing New Age movement, thoughts and ideas of past lives have captured our imagination. Westerners are moving away from the idea that we have one life, to embracing a mixture of different beliefs and spiritual possibilities. A much higher percentage of Western populations are now comfortable talking about psychic experiences, telepathy, déjà vu and of course past lives.

We can use past life regression to investigate or relive past life experiences that may still be affecting us. It is thought that reliving a past life experience can free us of ties or unresolved negative patterns. At the very least it can help us understand more about ourselves and can shed light as to why we are the way we are in this lifetime.

When entering past-life regression one does not enter a time machine and suddenly find themselves transported to another time and place with no awareness of the present. Participants have said they watched their past as if observing a movie. Some are more vividly involved with more emotional reactions. Some 'feel' things more than they 'see' them. Sometimes the predominant reaction is that of hearing or even smelling. Afterwards, the person remembers everything experienced during the session.

Hypnosis is often combined with regression therapy. This fathoms the unconscious more deeply than psychoanalytical techniques. By tapping into memory storage areas unavailable to the conscious mind, hypnotic regression therapy offers many patients deeper, and dramatically quicker results.

In hypnosis, your mind is always aware and observing. This is why people who may be deeply hypnotised and actively involved in a childhood or past-life sequence of memories are able to answer the therapist's questions. The hypnotised mind, always retaining awareness and knowledge of the present, puts the childhood or past-life memories into context.

This is also a reason why a hypnotised patient, finding themselves a nurse during world war two, for example, can recognize people from that past-lifetime whom are known in their current life. Their present-day mind is aware, watching, commenting. They can always compare the details and events with those of their current life. The patient is the movie's observer, its critic and usually its star at the same time - all the while remaining in a relaxed, hypnotised state.

With past life regression, many patients are able to rid themselves of chronic lifelong symptoms, such as specific phobias, panic attacks, recurrent nightmares, unexplained fears, obesity, repeated destructive relationships, physical pain and illness, and so on.

Wisdom, they say, is learned through experience, maybe the accumulated experience of many lifetimes. The soul lessons are those lessons learned, or not learned, in any given life; past or present. In the learning comes wisdom. Regression enables the processing of soul lessons, adding to the tapestry of life and the wisdom of the individual. Examining the results of multiple regression sessions with respect to a present life is like adding photos to a family album. The story becomes richer in detail and clearer in purpose.