“Nearly everyone has one or more fears that appear to have no logical cause. For example, many people have nothing in their background that would account for their unreasonable fear of the dark, water, bugs or being entrapped in a closed space. Yet, when they confront circumstances that trigger these fears, they often freeze in an immobilizing panic attack, which can be accompanied by sweating, fainting and/or shortness of breath. Although these fears usually do not present a real danger to a person’s life, they often can cripple them to the point whereby they are unable to function in a normal, healthy manner. Because of this, these people feel endangered. As a general rule, most of the devastating fears my clients have encountered are traceable to one or more fleeting, yet extremely traumatic events in their past lives. The one exception to this is the fear of being in small spaces, which I’ve found frequently is caused by long periods of entrapment in a past life.

Regardless of how long my clients have suffered, or how gruesome and frightening their past-life experiences may have been, their fears can be easily neutralized in a matter of a few minutes during regression. Something worth mentioning again is that as the regressees relive the casual events, they do not feel any actual physical pain. By simply releasing their long- suppressed feelings associated with these incidents, they’re freed from the pernicious and often debilitating consequences of their long-forgotten past.

Sadly, there are untold millions of people who continue to suffer daily from fears that very often are only the delayed manifestations of some long forgotten past-life event. If conventional therapists were trained to use past-life therapy, more than likely, their patients would heal more quickly. In all of the following examples of past-life experiences, the principals found themselves unable to mentally override their physical and/or emotional responses to events that occurred in a former life. Many previously had undergone various types of psychotherapy, from psychoanalysis to behavior modification. But not any, with whom I dealt, had found lasting relief until they were regressed and the retained, toxic emotions had been neutralized.

To show how the re-experiencing of a past event and the releasing process works, I’ve chosen several of the more unusual and often grisly cases I’ve dealt with in order for you to realize that, no matter how horrible an experience one may have, the feelings associated with it can be eliminated. Once this is done, the person then will be able to live a freer and more fulfilling life.

The first case is one of the more typical cases, which demonstrates how fear can limit one’s life. Ann was a sixty-four-year-old woman who appeared to be a very “together” lady with a warm, open smile. To look at her, you’d think she never had a worry in the world; however, as the old saying goes, “looks can be deceiving.” As she began to tell me the reason for her visit, she became noticeably uncomfortable. She obviously was embarrassed by the tears that were filling her eyes as she began describing her problem. She told me that about a week earlier, as she and her daughter were leaving a local park, they decided to take a shortcut across the lawn to their car. To their surprise, the automatic sprinklers unexpectedly came on catching them in the middle of the lawn. In panic, Ann immediately froze when the water splashed against her face. Unable to act upon her daughter’s pleas to run to the car, she remained frozen in her tracks. After what seemed an eternity, her daughter came and forcefully pulled her away from the sprinklers.

Once she calmed down, she confessed to her daughter that throughout her life, she never could tolerate having her face touched by splashing water. She also sheepishly admitted that she never had taken a bath or shower, only sponge baths. Her unreasonable fear of water had prevented her from enjoying many of life’s simple pleasures, such as sitting near a mountain stream or swimming in a pool. Leaving the safety of a dry shelter during even a light spring rain, was totally out of the question. As a consequence, she’d been trapped in many a car or building for long periods waiting for the rain to stop.

In order to find the original cause of her problem, we had to go back about 350 years to a former life in Switzerland when she was a three year-old girl. The causal event took place late one afternoon when she was walking home with her fourteen year-old brother. As they crossed a small footbridge that spanned a fast-running mountain stream, he suddenly picked her up and turned her upside down. Then while holding her by the ankles, he lowered her over the side-rail of the bridge until the ends of her long blonde hair dipped into the cold water below. With paralyzing fright she stared into the down-rushing stream as its waters splashed against her face.

Helpless and terrified, she envisioned herself being engulfed by this avalanche of water and being swept away forever. Over and over again, she begged her sadistic, laughing brother to lift her back to safety. Finally, when he realized how really terrified she was, he took pity on her and pulled her up to safety. Despite the fact her brother’s cruel prank only lasted a minute or two, the damage already had been done; she had been severely traumatized by the experience.

Because he was afraid of what would happen to him if she told their parents about his malicious trick, he began to profusely apologize while promising her he’d never do such a thing again. Within a few minutes she regained her composure and the incident soon was forgotten, or so it seemed. She went on to live a normal life without any further apparent repercussions. Fortunately for her, she had incarnated into a family that didn’t believe in taking baths because of their religious convictions. As a result, she never had to worry again about being splashed with water in that incarnation.

However, the terror she experienced and internalized that day on the bridge remained dormant at soul level until her present life when, as a three-year-old, she was taking a bath with her two-year-old brother. He playfully splashed water on her face just for fun. She immediately was seized by a paralyzing fear, finding herself unable to either breathe or move. She felt as if she were going to die. The water splashing on her face triggered her old feelings of impending death, which had been buried in her soul consciousness for over 350 years. Upon hearing her cries, her grandmother immediately came to her rescue, took her out of the tub, gave her a loving kiss and a warm hug and promised her she’d never have to get back in that “bad ole’ tub” ever again. Although no one in the family understood why she became so upset, she never was forced to take a tub-bath again. Instead, she was allowed to wash herself with a cloth.

In this case there were three factors operating which triggered her self-defined phobia. Both occurred when she was three years old; both had to do with splashing water on her face and both involved her brother. Her younger brother this time, coincidentally, had been her older brother in her Swiss life.

In session she successfully re-experienced and released the pent-up fear from both of her past and present-life incidents. Being able to view both events from the perspective of a grown woman, she was not only able to see them more objectively, but also realized she was no longer in any danger of dying whenever she got her face wet.

Several weeks after her regression, she called to tell me that while she and her daughter recently were vacationing in New Orleans, they had taken a ride on the riverboat, The Mississippi Queen. To her own and her daughter’s surprise, she spent much of her time leaning over the stern enjoying the spray of water from the paddle wheel on her face. Obviously, her fear of getting her face wet no longer existed. In addition, she told me she now has become an avid “shower taker.”

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Another unusual fear surfaced during my pre-regression interview with Marsha, who was in her late thirties. She said that as far as she could tell, there was nothing in her childhood or family background to account for her fear that something terrible would happen to her body after she died. She felt so strongly about this issue that she made it known to her friends and family that her body must not be unattended for a single moment after her death until it was cremated. She also insisted that her body must be cremated.

To discover the cause of this fear, it was necessary to investigate a life which occurred several hundred years ago in Europe during one of the plagues. In that life, she was a young woman living with her well-to-do family in a beautiful home. To ensure they would be safe from the horror surrounding them, they barricaded themselves within their home with sufficient supplies of food and water to last them for several weeks. What they were not aware of, however, were the clandestine comings and goings of one of the servant girls, who snuck out the house each night to take food to her family. Apparently, during one of her trips she unknowingly picked up some disease-ridden fleas, which she then brought back into her mistress’s home. It wasn’t long before the servant girl became fatally ill and died. Although the family wished otherwise, they placed her body outside the house to be picked up by the death wagon, which circulated daily through the streets of the town picking up the uncountable victims.

As it turned out, my client had developed a close friendship with the servant girl, which brought them into frequent personal contact. Not long after the servant’s death, she, too, became ill and was unable to eat. Soon large open sores began to appear on her body, after which she became delirious with an extremely high fever and chills. Before long, she slipped into a deep coma, which her family mistook for death. Because of her family’s wealth, her body was taken to a place of preparation for a proper Christian burial rather than being set out on the curb for the death wagon to cart away.

Several hours later, she regained consciousness only to find herself lying naked on a hard, cold stone slab with a horribly ugly man holding her arms down while another man raped her. When she realized what was happening, she screamed and tried to resist but the man holding her quickly placed his hands around her throat and began choking the life from her body while his companion continued with the rape.

Once out-of-body she instantly recognized that the two undertakers were necrophiliacs, (people with a morbid sexual attraction to dead bodies). It was this horrifying experience, which caused her to be so fearful that something terrible would happen to her after she died. During the regression she was able to release the frightful emotions she associated with her former rape and murder. Several months after the session, she reported that although she was no longer obsessed with the idea that someone had to remain with her body until it was properly cremated, she said she still would feel better if someone would volunteer to do so.

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Most of us take birds for granted and enjoy their sounds and colorful feathers while others admiringly write songs and loving poems about them. But not everyone likes birds. The following story is a case in point. Barbara’s totally irrational fear of birds first presented itself when she was twenty-seven, about twenty years prior to her regression. While strolling along the seacoast with a friend, a seagull swept down to pluck a kernel of popcorn from her friend’s outstretched hand. As it flew by, however, its wing just barely brushed against Barbara’s face. This fleeting contact with its feathers triggered an immediate panic attack, causing her to avoid all connection with birds of any kind from that moment on.

Each time she had to leave her home or car, she would compulsively and carefully check the area for any signs of birds. When circumstances forced her to walk in an open area, she always carried an umbrella under which she fearfully crouched praying to avoid any contact with low flying birds. She always was terrified a swooping bird might somehow pierce her defenses. Desperate to find out why such a seemingly harmless incident had such a continuing and devastating effect on her, she wanted to be regressed to see if the cause of her fear might be found in a past life.

During the regression, she recalled a time when she was a twenty-seven-year-old white man living in the southwestern United States during the late 1800’s. As a man, she had gotten drunk and raped a young Indian girl. When the victim’s relatives learned of the attack, several braves from her tribe tracked him down and caught him. After roughing him up, they stripped him to the waist, then staked him out spread-eagle on the desert floor, leaving him there to die. However, before his captors left they cut him from his chest down to his belly. The cut was just enough to draw a lot of blood but not deep enough to kill him. Under the hot blazing sun and without food or water, he quickly dehydrated and soon became delirious. During his lucid moments, he could see several birds of prey slowly circling in the sky above him.

After some time had elapsed, one of the vultures landed at a safe distance from his helpless form. His screams held it bay for a time. However, after it had determined he was defenseless, it boldly jumped onto and dug its talons into his exposed belly. It, along with five others, then began tearing away at his flesh with their beaks. It wasn’t long before more vultures joined the feast and they too began to rip away his living flesh. Horrified, he realized he was literally being eaten alive. As one of the big birds began pecking at his eyelids, he could hear his screaming voice echoing from the distant hills. When he nearly was insane and totally seized by terror, his pounding heart suddenly stopped beating. He literally was frightened to death. It was this long-forgotten horror from her past life, which was triggered by the seagull incident when she was twenty-seven years old that was the basis of her irrational fear of birds.

Before the regression ended, Barbara, not only released her former life’s terror of birds as well as the fear of them from the beach episode in this life. She was also curious to know why she had such a horrible experience with the birds. To find out, I regressed her again. This time she went farther back in time, over a century before her life as a rapist. That life took place in France during the Inquisition. Once again she was a man who, this time, was in charge of torturing those who were considered enemies of the Church. One of his favorite practices was gouging out the eyes of his victims. Now Barbara could see how her encounters with the birds was but another case of “what goes around, comes around,” as are many of the events in our present lives. After making this discovery, she decided she had seen enough and ended her session.

She contacted me several months later, and delightedly told me that not only was her fear of birds gone but she even had purchased a new parakeet. Granted, parakeets are not “birds of prey,” but to some people, they may as well be. Oh yes, she also has become a steady contributor to the national foundation for the blind.

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The following story is one of the most gruesome experiences a person ever could possibly have. Remember no matter how horrendous the event we choose to experience, it merely is the soul’s way to attain balance, harmony and restitution for past-life misdeeds. Most everyone is cautious when they’re around strange dogs, but Carol, a young, well-educated woman took it to an all-time extreme. She came to see me because she had a lifelong problem of being not just afraid, but terrified of all dogs, even little ones. As she was telling me about her fear, she remembered a time when she was about six years old. She said she always took a three-block detour on her way to school in order to avoid any possible encounter with the neighborhood cocker spaniel for fear it would attack her. Although the pup never had been known to attack anyone, Carol wasn’t taking any chances.

She said on rare occasions in her life when she unexpectedly encountered a dog, she would freeze in terror as her imagination created images of being torn apart by the snarling beast. Activated by fear, her imagination could turn a feisty toy poodle into a ravenous timber wolf! To her, dogs always appeared larger than life. Even though in this life she’d never been harmed by a dog, she, nonetheless, was always afraid of them.

Through regression, we found the cause of her problem originated in a past-life as a four-year-old girl living in Spain over 400 years ago. It all began when she suddenly was awakened by loud shouts and screams in the middle of the night. Although half asleep, she got out of bed to investigate the unusual noise coming from the outside hallway. As she entered the hall, the first thing she saw was her parents’ lifeless bodies lying in large pools of blood, their two killers standing over them. Not fully awake and never being told about death, she didn’t realize her parents were dead, but knew something was terribly wrong. In her innocence, she picked up her father’s severed head and attempted to put it back on his dead body. This amused the two dirty ugly men standing nearby, and they began laughing at her hopeless efforts.

After a brief exchange of words between themselves, the men decided to kidnap rather than kill her. While one held a large burlap sack, the other roughly picked her up and brutally shoved her into it. The next thing she became aware of was being bounced around in the back of a moving wagon. After the wagon stopped, she was coarsely picked up and carried to a very large room where she was dumped out of the sack onto the cold stone floor. Moments later, an older, very well dressed man entered the room. He immediately ordered her kidnappers to dump her into what he referred to as “the hole.”

In response to his order they dragged her over to a large open trap-door and dropped her down into utter blackness. She fell about twenty-five feet before her fall was broken by landing on some dead, decomposing bodies. As the trap door slammed shut above her, she could see nothing in the blackness, which suddenly engulfed her. Dazed, but not physically injured by her fall, she, nevertheless, was terrified by her new surroundings. After a few moments, she could hear strange noises and barely could make out a shadowy figure moving toward her. Afraid, she crawled away from the menacing sounds until she was able to find a dark corner in which to hide. There she huddled with her back pressed against a cold, damp stone wall. As her eyes adjusted to the almost total darkness of the dungeon, she could see several large, menacing shapes slowly moving toward her. However, at that very moment, she felt a woman’s soft hand gently touch her on the cheek. Before the other prisoners could harm her, the woman began to fiercely fight them off, using her own body to shield the child’s.

From time to time table scraps were dropped through the trap door in the ceiling to the starving inmates. When this happened, they fought like dogs with each other for every morsel of food. Whenever possible, her newfound protectress snatched an extra bit of food and gave it to her. After several days of living in absolute terror and with little to eat, she became very ill. Being too small and weak to fend for herself, she ultimately was torn from the arms of her protectress by the other inmates, many of whom were insane. Terrified, she suffered an agonizing death in the dark as the other prisoners, who ignored her pitiful screams, cannibalized her tiny body while she still was alive. (Although my client was aware of the sensations of the pain, she was not able to feel it.) At this point her rapidly pounding heart stopped beating. As in the previous story, she also was literally “scared to death.” At the moment of her death, her spirit instantly left the death scene. In her case death was a wonderfully welcome relief.

However, as I previously have mentioned, all the emotions she was experiencing, just before she died, were instantly downloaded into her soul’s consciousness. Then, in this incarnation they were triggered by her mother, who always told her “to stay away from dogs because they would bite her.” Fortunately, she was able to completely release the terror from her former death as the Spanish child. She also recognized her current fear of being bitten by dogs had absolutely nothing to do with dogs. It was people, not dogs who had attacked and bitten her. In addition, she inadvertently discovered where her lifelong fear of darkness had originated and also why she was so intensely loyal to her current employer, who was her protectress in that horrible dungeon.

Interestingly, a few years after her regression, she called to say she was engaged to marry a man who owned a 180-pound St. Bernard. She was amazed to discover she had no fear of this awesome animal. Later, she also reported that, while walking in the park with her five-year-old niece, they were attacked by two huge rottweilers who were running loose. Even though she is only five foot two and weighs a mere 108 pounds, to her amazement, she fearlessly fought off both huge dogs with her bare hands until their owner came to her rescue. Miraculously, neither she nor her niece were harmed.

After this incident, she knew, without a doubt, she no longer had any fear of dogs. Then with a giggle, she also told me she acquired a puppy of her own with whom she has an unbelievably loving bond. As the fates would have it, her home is located in an area of town where people tend to let their dogs run free. At last report, about six of them have adopted Carol as their best friend. Whenever she takes her own dog for a walk, others always seem to show up just in time to tag along. Seeing this, her husband now fondly refers to her as “the dog lady of Jersey Street.””

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Excerpt from Exploring Our Forgotten Lives: The Amazing Healing Power of Past Life Therapy by Bryan Jameison