To introduce the reader to this highly promising method of treatment we present here the introduction from Trutz Hardo's Great Handbook of Reincarnation. For more information about regression therapy and reincarnation in general, take a look at the Books page which contains extracts from many of Trutz Hardo's other works.
At long last, a new and novel means of healing many previously considered "incurable" diseases has been found. For millions of people in need of help, this method remains unknown, and worse still, is unknown to hundreds of thousands of health care professionals. I see an urgent need, therefore, to introduce this method to a wider public. Thousands of sick people have tried this novel therapy which has proven its efficiency a great many times. After countless failed therapies and after losing faith to ever reach a full or even partial recovery, these people often experienced spontaneous healing.
In most cases, regression therapy puts the client into a state resembling waking sleep (alpha state) and takes him back to the root cause of his symptom or problem. The root cause may be found in this life (such as in youth, childhood, infancy or in the womb) and/or in past lives. In dealing with past lives, regression therapy will often be referred to as reincarnation or past-life therapy and the practitioners will be called reincarnation therapists. However, since this type of therapy uncovers the root cause of symptoms and problems whereever they may be found - including the present lifetime - the terms regression therapy and regression therapist respectively seem more appropriate. In the following, I will therefore use these terms to the exclusion of others.
As with so many novel approaches in the field of psychology and psychotherapy, the practice of regression therapy originated in California. To my knowledge, the first people to come across the curative potential inherent in the uncovering of past-lifetimes were Irene Hickmann, Ph.D. and Hazel Denning, Ph.D., together with Ron Hubbard and Valney G. Mathison, who made their discoveries as early as the beginning of the fifties. Originally, this newly found therapy gained only a limited following but was eventually tried and found effective by a large number of psychotherapists and psychiatrists. I would like, in the following, to quote two of these professionals.
The psychiatrist, Prof. Adrian Finkelstein, known to a wider public through books and television appearances, has tried regression therapy, obtaining not only proof of the validity of reincarnation but also amazing therapeutic successes. He states, "As a physician and as a psychiatrist I feel compelled to make some philosophical reflections about the meaning of this extraordinary finding. It has changed a great deal the way I look now at illness, the way I look at current existence. It has changed the way I plan to understand my patients from now on, and people in general. It opens up horizons in terms of diagnosis and therapy, and if put in the context of helping humanity and helping suffering people, I think that efforts in verifying these truths could be worthwhile. Unfortunately, there are only a few fellow psychiatrists or physicians in other specialities, who are openly interested in this kind of research. Therefore I encourage the medical communitiy to investigate this matter, which may bring solutions to a great deal of the still unsolved problems that we physicians struggle with in our practice."
The psychiatrist, Prof. Brian Weiss, author of three books on regression therapy, notes that he "realised that past-life therapy offered a rapid method of treating psychiatric symptoms, symptoms that had previously taken many months or years of costly therapy to alleviate. Here was a much more direct way to heal pain and fear. I began to use this therapy on other patients and again had excellent results."
After years of applying regression therapy he now uses past-life regression with roughly forty percent of his patients, while the remaining sixty percent will benefit from and be adequately treated by traditional approaches. "For those forty percent, however, regression to previous lifetimes is the key to a cure. The best therapist working within the classically accepted limits of the single lifetime will not be able to effect a complete cure for the patient whose symptoms were caused by a trauma that occurred in a previous lifetime, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years ago. But when past-life therapy is used to bring these long-repressed memories to awareness, improvement in the current symptoms is usually swift and dramatic."
I would like to add here that none of the above should be seen as denigrating conventional methods of treatment. On the contrary, regression therapy should rather be considered an enhancement to conventional treatment. Clients unamenable to one method might benefit from another method (such as regression therapy). In addition, not every patient is suitable for regression therapy. The severely mentally handicapped never receive benefit from such treatment. Other people such as those suffering from schizophrenia will only benefit during periods between episodes. The therapy is also unlikely to produce a positive result during periods of acute fear or crisis. Ten percent of clients cannot be put into an alpha state (or only with difficulty or not deeply enough), so this group must be added to those excluded from regression therapy. From my personal experience, however, I feel sure that eighty to eighty-five percent of people are suited for regression therapy - unless they are hindered from undergoing this type of therapy due to religious reservations.
Regression therapy holds the important advantage that neither therapist nor client need believe in the reality of previous lifetimes. Many therapists who have been successfully practising regression therapy, did not originally give the slightest credence to past lives and reincarnation, explaining to their clients - who shared this disbelief - that there would be, for instance, symbolic pictures and scenes from other eras arising from their subconscious which could provide important clues for the process of healing.
The psychiatrist, Prof. Brian Weiss, writes, "As a therapist or a patient, you don't have to believe in past lives or reincarnation for past-life therapy to work. The proof is in the pudding. As more than one fellow psychotherapist has said to me, 'I still don't know if I believe in this past-life stuff, but I use it, and it sure does work.'"
It is likely that any therapist trying this method will be persuaded of the validity of reincarnation over time, since clients in the alpha state proffer historical and cultural facts or data of which they have no knowledge in their waking state. Such facts (which cannot be rationalized with cryptomnesia) can be verified and confirmed by the therapist.
In Germany, in spite of a number of committed regression therapists and teachers, regression therapy has still to achieve wide acceptance. When such treatment is accepted, I believe it might well revolutionize medical science and psychotherapy in its entirety, since the cause of disease will be uncovered not just within the present, but within previous lifetimes, enabling them to be de- and reprogrammed.
During my lectures on past lives and regression therapy, the uninitiated will often object, "Why should I concern myself with a past-life? The present one is just about enough for me! There are so many problems I have to grapple with. Why should I look into problems from previous lifetimes or even relive them on top of that?" I will then try and explain that we probably wouldn't need to bother about previous lives if they didn't "bother" about us. "Unreleased" feelings from other lifetimes will stir in our soul until they are "redeemed". They affect our life in various and manifold ways (assuming the guise of fear, anxiety and phobias for example) and press us to examine and tackle them. Regression therapy brings about the confrontation with the past and helps us rid the disagreeable ballast we have been dragging around for so long. Only after undoing that which ties us to the past are we really in a position to say, "What has the past got to do with me?"
Above all, this book is intended to give the reader, apart from the theoretical background, hands-on instructions on how to successfully carry out regression therapy by himself. To this end, the book provides many concrete practical examples. I refer to those seeking treatment predominantly as "clients" and not "patients", since many people finding their way to the regression therapist's practice are not sick, but rather have problems with their partner, their work or with other areas of their life which they hope to resolve.
Having thoroughly perused the book, the reader who has already worked as a therapist may try out regression therapy by himself using the practical section of the book. I would recommend, however, to first undergo training.