Can Hypnotherapy be Proof of Reincarnation?
Re-regression therapy is when a client is taken back to a past life; this is also known as Past Life Regression.
Arnall Bloxham, an English hypnotherapist collaborated with the BBC in the 1950s to make a televison program of a housewife called Jane Evans who he regressed back to the twelfth century.
The Boxham Tapes and Reincarnation
The Boxham tapes are a set of more than 400 recordings of past-life hypnotic regressions. These tapes were transcribed and published as a series in the Sunday Times in the 1970s. A BBC producer, Jefferey Iverson went through these tapes and picked one to focus on: the case of Jane Evens, a pseudonuym for a 30 year old Welsh housewife who actually produced six different past lives while under hypnosis.
In one of her past lives, Jane Evans was regressed back in time to 1189, where she was living in York as a woman called Rebecca with her husband, a wealthy Jewish money-lender, Joseph and two children. Rebecca related her fears of the consequences of the anti-Jewish atmosphere for her family at that time and they were considering fleeing from York.
Then one evening a mob attacked the Jewish quarter, murdering some of the inhabitants and burning homes and when the house next door was on fire, Rebecca’s family left with the mob close behind them. Her husband emptied a sack of coins onto the road and the mad scramble for the coins delayed their pursuers giving them time to seek refuge in a church.
Past Lives Remembered
They hid themselves in the dark crypt beneath the floor but eventually her husband and son had to go out for food. Whilst they were away, Rebecca and her daughter could hear the horses and mob returning shouting “Burn the Jews”. They entered the church, came down into the crypt and murdered mother and daughter.
After being hypnotised Jane Evans walked out of Arnall Bloxham’s office and fainted. She also felt ill for days afterwards.
Professor Dobson an expert on the topography of York, concluded that the only church which Rebecca could have hidden in was St Mary’s at Castlegate; however this church had no crypt. In fact none of York’s medieval churches have crypts except for York Minster Cathedral which Rebecca had insisted she’d not used. This fact made Rebecca’s story seem improbable until 1975 when work men began turning St Mary’s Church, Castlegate into a museum. During the course of the renovations something unknown to any living human was discovered: that beneath the altar lay a crypt.
Hypnontic Regressions and Past Lives
The most believable hypnotic regressions are, of course, those which can be confirmed through historical regression in the present life. However it is not the claims of having been “Cleopatra” or “Napoleon” in a previous existence which impress the researchers; it is the stories of normal people who aren’t particularly well known historical characters. If it can be proven later that these obscure characters from the past really did exist, the past-life memories are more likely to be true.
Sources
Roberts Martin Seeing the Unseen: A Past Life Revealed through Hypnosis (Crown House Publishing (1996))
Sugue, T, The Story of Edgar Cayce (Are Press, (1997))
Iverson J More Lives than One? The Evidence of the Remarkable Boxham Tapes (Pan Books (1982))
Cerminara, G Many Mansions: The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation (Signet (1988))
© C Somerville. This article has also been published in Yahoo Voices and Helium. Permission to republish in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.