hree weeks passed before our next session. On ray vacation, lying on a tropical beach, I had the time and distance to reflect on what had transpired with Catherine: hypnotic regression to past lives with detailed observations and explanations of objects, processes, and facts-which she had no knowledge of in her normal, waking state; improvement in her symptoms through the regressions-improvement not even remotely achieved by conventional psychotherapy over the first eighteen months of treatment; chillingly accurate revelations from the after-death, spiritual state, conveying knowledge she had

no access to; spiritual poetry, and lessons about the dimensions, after death, about life and death, birth and rebirth, from Master Spirits who spoke with a wisdom and in a style well beyond Catherine's capabilities. There was, indeed, a lot to contemplate.

Over the years I had treated many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of psychiatric patients, and they reflected the entire spectrum of emotional disorders. I had directed inpatient units at four major medical schools, I had spent years in psychiatric emergency rooms, outpatient clinics, and various other settings, evaluating and treating outpatients. I knew all about the auditory and visual hallucinations and the delusions of schizophrenia, I had treated many patients with borderline syndromes and hysterical character disorders, including split or multiple personalities, I had been a Career Teacher in Drug and Alcohol Abuse, funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), and I was very familiar with the gamut of drug effects on the brain. Catherine had none of these symptoms or syndromes. What had occurred was not a manifestation of psychiatric illness. She was not psychotic, not out of touch with reality, and she had never suffered from hallucinations (seeing or hearing things not actually there) or delusions (false beliefs).

She did not use drugs, and she had no sociopathic traits. She did not have a hysterical personality, and she did not have dissociative tendencies. That is, she was generally aware of what she was doing and thinking, did not function on "automatic pilot," and had never had any split or multiple personalities. The material she produced was often beyond her conscious capabilities in both style and content. Some of it was particularly psychic, such as the references to specific events and facts from my own past (e.g., the knowledge about my father and my son), as well as from her own. She had knowledge that she had never had access to, or accumulated, in her present life. This knowledge, as well as the whole experience, was alien to her culture and upbringing and contrary to many of her beliefs.

Catherine is a relatively simple and honest person. She is not a scholar, and she could not have invented the facts, details, historical events, descriptions, and poetry that came through her. As a psychiatrist, a scientist, I was certain that the material originated from some portion of her unconscious mind. It was real, beyond any doubt. Even if Catherine were a skilled actress, she could not have recreated these happenings. The knowledge was too accurate and too specific, lying beyond her capacity.

I pondered the therapeutic purpose of exploring Catherine's past lives. Once we had stumbled into this new realm, her improvement was dramatically rapid, without any medicine. There is some powerful curative force in this realm, a force apparently much more effective than conventional therapy or modern medicines. The force includes remembering and reliving not just momentous traumatic events, but also the daily insults to our bodies, minds, and egos. In my questions, as we scanned lifetimes, I was looking for the patterns of these insults, patterns such as chronic emotional or physical abuse, poverty and starvation, illness and handicaps, persistent per-secution and prejudice, repeated failures, and so on. I also kept an eye out for those more piercing tragedies, such as a traumatic death experience, rape, mass catastrophe, or any other horrifying event that might leave a permanent imprint. The technique was similar to reviewing a childhood in conventional therapy, except that the time frame was several thousand years, rather than the usual ten or fifteen years. Therefore my questions were more direct and more leading than in conventional therapy. But the success of our unorthodox exploration was unquestionable. She {and others I later would treat with hypnotic regression] was being cured with tremendous rapidity.

But were there other explanations for Catherine's past-life memories? Could the memories be carried in her genes? This possibility is scientifically remote. Genetic memory requires the unbroken passage of genetic material from generation to generation. Catherine lived all over the earth, and her genetic line was interrupted repeatedly. She would die in a flood with her offspring, or be childless, or die in her youth. Her genetic pool ended and was not transmitted. And what of her survival after death and the in- between state? There was no body and certainly no genetic material, and yet her memories continued. No, the genetic explanation had to be discarded.

What about Jung's idea of the collective unconscious, a reservoir of all human memory and experience that could somehow be tapped into? Divergent cultures often contain similar symbols, even in dreams. According to Jung, the collective unconscious was not personally acquired but "inherited" somehow in the brain structure. It includes motives and images that spring anew in every culture, without relying upon historical tradition or dissemination. I thought Catherine's memories were too specific to be explained by Jung's concept. She did not reveal symbols and universal images or motives. She related detailed descriptions of specific people and places. Jung's ideas seemed too vague. And there was still the in-between state to consider. All in all, reincarnation made the most sense.

Catherine's knowledge was not only detailed and specific, but also beyond her conscious capacity. She knew things that could not be gleaned from a book and then temporarily forgotten. Her knowledge could not have been acquired in her childhood and then similarly suppressed or repressed from consciousness. And what about the Masters and their messages? This came through Catherine but was not of Catherine. And their wisdom was also reflected in Catherine's memories of lifetimes. I knew that this information and these messages were ttue. I knew this not only from many years of careful study of people, their minds and brains and personalities, but I also knew this intuitively, even before the visit from my father and my son. My brain with its years of careful scientific training knew this, and my bones also knew.

"I see pots with some type of oil in them." Despite the three-week hiatus, Catherine had quickly lapsed into a deep

trance. She was enmeshed in another body, in another time. "There are different oils in the pots. It seems to be some type of storehouse or someplace where they store things. The pots are red... red, made out of some type of red earth. They have blue bands around them, blue bands around the top. I see men there... there are men in the cave. They're moving the jars and the pots around, stacking them up and putting them in a certain area. Their heads are shaved.

. . they have no hair on their heads. Their skin is brown... brown skin."

"Are you there?"

"Yes... I'm sealing up some of the jars... with some type of wax... sealing the top of the jars with the wax."

"Do you know what the oils are used for?"

"I don't know."

"Do you see yourself? Look at yourself. Tell me what you look like."

She paused as she observed herself.

"I have a braid. There's a braid in my hair. I have some type of long... long-material garment on. It has a gold border around the outside."

"Do you work for these priests-or the men-with the shaved heads?"

"It is my job to seal the jars with the wax. That's my job."

"But you don't know what the jars are used for?"

"They appear to be used in some religious ritual. But I'm not sure...

what it is. There's some anointing, something on the heads... something on your heads and your hands, your hands. I see a bird, a gold bird, that's around my neck. It's fiat. It has a flat tail, a very flat tail, and its head is pointing down... to my feet." "To your feet?"

"Yes, that's the way it must be worn. There's a black... black sticky substance. I don't know what it is."

"Where is it?"

"It's in a marble container. They use that, too, but I don't know what for."

"Is there anything in the cave for you to read so that you can tell me the name of the country-the place-where you live, or the date?" "There's nothing on the walls; they're empty. I do not know the name." I progressed her in time.

"There's a white jar, some type of white jar. The handle on the top is gold, some type of gold inlay on it." "What is in the jar?"

"Some type of ointment. It has something to do with the passage into the other world."

"Are you the person to be passing now?" "No! It is no one I know."

"Is this your job, too? To prepare people for this passage?"

"No. The priest must do that, not me. We just keep them supplied with the ointments, the incense.... " "About how old do you appear to be now?"

"Sixteen."

"Are you living with your parents? "

"Yes, a stone house, some type of stone dwelling. It's not very large.

It's very hot and dry. The climate is very hot."

"Go to your house."

"I'm there."

"Do you see other people around in your family?"

"I see a brother, and my mother is there, and a baby, somebody's baby."

"Is that your baby?"

"No."

"What is significant now? Go to something significant that explains your symptoms in your current lifetime. We need to understand. It is safe to experience it Go to the events."

She answered in a very soft whisper. "Everything in time.... I see

people dying."

"People dying?"

"Yes... they don't know what it is."

"An illness?" Suddenly it dawned on me that she was again touching on an ancient lifetime, one that she had regressed to previously. In that lifetime, a water-borne plague had killed Catherine's father and one of her brothers. Catherine had also suffered from the illness, but she had not died from it. The people used garlic and other herbs to try to ward off the plague. Catherine had been upset because the dead were not being properly embalmed.

But now we had approached that lifetime from a different angle.

"Does it have something to do with the water?" I asked.

"They believe so. Many people are dying." I already knew the ending.

"But you don't die, not from this?"

"No, I do not die."

"But you get sick. You become ill."

"Yes, I'm very cold... very cold. I need water... water. They think it comes from the water*.. and something black.... Someone dies." "Who dies?"

"My father dies, and one brother dies also. My mother is okay; she recovers. She's very weak. They must bury the people. They must bury them, and people are upset because it's against religious practices."

"What was the practice?" I marveled at the consistency of her recall, fact for fact, exactly as she had recounted the lifetime several months ago. Again this deviation from the normal burial customs greatly upset her.

"People were put in caves. The bodies were kept in caves. But first, the bodies had to be prepared by the priests. They must be wrapped and anointed. They were kept in caves, but the land is flooding.... They say the water is bad. Don't drink the water."

"Is there a way of treating it? Did anything work?"

"We were given herbs, different herbs. The odors... the herbs and... smell the odor. I can smell it!" "Do you recognize the smell?"

"It's white. They hang it from the ceiling."

"Is it like garlic?"

"It's hung around... the properties are similar, yes. Its properties... you put it in your mouth, your ears, your nose, everywhere. The odor was strong. It was believed to block the evil spirits from entering your body. Purple... fruit or something round with purple covering, purple skin to it...."

"Do you recognize the culture that you're in? Does it seem familiar?"

"I don't know."

"Is the purple a fruit of some sort?"

"Tannis."

"Would that help you? Is that for the illness?"

"It was at that time."

"Tannis," I repeated, again trying to see if she was talking about what we refer to as tannin or tannic acid. "Is that what they called it? Tannis?"

"I just... I keep hearing 'Tannis.'"

"What in this lifetime has buried itself in your current lifetime? Why do you keep coming back here? What is it that is so uncomfortable?" "The religion," Catherine quickly whispered, "the religion of that time. It was a religion of fear... fear. There were so many things to fear... and so many gods."

"Do you remember the names of any gods?"

Many Lives, Many Masters

"I see eyes. I see a black... some type of... it looks like a jackal. He's in a statue. He's a guardian of some type... I see a woman, a goddess, with some type of a headpiece on."

"Do you know her name, the goddess?" "Osiris,,. Sirus... something like that. I see an eye... eye, just an eye, an eye on a chain. It's gold." "An eye?"

"Yes.... Who is Hathor?"

"What?"

"Hathor! Who is that!"

I had never heard of Hathor, although I knew that Osiris, if the pronunciation was accurate, was the brother-husband of Isis, a major Egyptian deity. Hathor, I later learned, was the Egyptian goddess of love, mirth, and joy. "Is it one of the gods?" I asked.

"Hathor! Hathor." There was a long pause. "Bird... he's flat... fiat, a phoenix...." She was silent again,

"Go ahead in time now to your final day in that lifetime. Go to your final day, but before you have died. Tell me what you see."

She answered in a very soft whisper. "I see people and buildings. I see sandals, sandals. There is a rough cloth, some type of rough cloth."

"What happens? Go to the time of your dying now. What happens to you? You can see it."

"I do not see it... I don't see me anymore."

"Where are you? What do you see?"

"Nothing... just darkness.... I see a light, a warm light." She had already died, already passed over to the spiritual state. Apparently she did not need to experience her actual death again. "Can you come to the light?" I asked.

"I am going." She was resting peacefully, waiting again.

"Can you look backward now on the lessons of that lifetime? Are you aware of them yet?"

"No," she whispered. She continued to wait. Suddenly she appeared alert, although her eyes remained closed, as they always did when she was in hypnotic trances. Her head was turning from side to side. "What are you seeing now? What's happening?"

Her voice was louder. "I feel... someone's talking to me!"

"What do they say?"

"Talking about patience. One must have patience...."

"Yes, go on."

The answer came from the poet Master. "Patience and timing... everything comes when it must come. A life cannot be rushed, cannot be worked on a schedule as so many people want it to be. We must accept what comes to us at a given time, and not ask for more. But life is endless, so we never die; we were never really born. We just pass through different phases. There is no end. Humans have many dimensions. But time is not as we see time, but rather in

lessons that are learned."

There was a long pause. The poet Master continued.

"Everything will be clear to you in time. But you must have a chance to digest the knowledge that we have given to you already." Catherine was silent.

"Is there more I should learn?" I asked.

"They've gone," she softly whispered. "I don't hear anybody."