he week passed quickly. I had listened over and over again to the tape of last week's session. How was I approaching the state of renewal? I did not feel particularly enlightened. And now spirits would be sent back to help me. But what was I supposed to do? When would I find out? Would I be up to the task? I knew I must wait and be patient. I remembered the words of the poet Master.

"Patience and timing... everything comes when it must come.... 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." So I would wait. *

At the beginning of this session Catherine related a fragment of a

dream she had had several nights ago. In the dream she was living in her parents' house, and a fire had broken out during the night. She was in control, helping to evacuate the house, but her father was dawdling and seemingly indifferent to the urgency of the situation. She rushed him outside. Then he remembered something he had left in the house, and he sent Catherine back into the raging fire to retrieve the object. She could not remember what it was. I decided not to interpret the dream yet, but to wait and see if the opportunity would arise while she was hypnotized.

She quickly entered a deep hypnotic trance. "I see a woman with a hood over her head, not covering her face, just on her hair."

Then she was silent.

"Can you see that now? The hood?"

"I lost it.... I see some type of black material, brocade material with a gold design on it,... I see a building with some type of structural points on it... white."

"Do you recognize the building?"

"No."

"Is it a large building?"

"No. There's a mountain in the background with some snow on the top of it. But the grass is green in the valley... where we're at." "Are you able to go into the building?"

"Yes. It's made of some type of marble.,. very cold to the touch." "Is it some sort of temple or religious building?" "I don't know. I thought it might be a prison."

"Prison?" I repeated. "Are there people in the building? Around it?" "Yes, some soldiers. They have black uniforms, black with gold shoulder pads.., gold tassels hanging off. Black helmets with some type of gold... something pointed and gold on the top... of the helmet. And a red sash, a red sash around the waist."

"Are there any soldiers around you?" "Maybe two or three." "Are you there?"

"I'm somewhere, but I'm not in the building. But I'm nearby."

"Look around. See if you can find yourself..,. The mountains are there, and the grass... and the white building. Are there other

buildings, too?"

"If there are other buildings, they're not situated near this

one. I see one... isolated, with some type of wall built behind it... a wall."

"Do you think it's a fort or a prison or something like that?"

"It might be, but... it's very isolated."

"Why is that important to you?" [Long pause}

"Do you know the name of the town or country where you are?

Where the soldiers are?"

"I keep seeing 'Ukraine.' "

"Ukraine?" I repeated, fascinated by the diversity of her lifetimes. "Do you see a year? Does that come to you? Or a period of time?" "Seven teen-seventeen," she answered hesitatingly, then corrected herself. "Seventeen fifty-eight... seventeen fifty-

eight. There are many soldiers. I don't know what their purpose is.

With long swords that curve."

"What else do you see or hear?" I inquired.

"I see a fountain, a fountain where they water the horses."

"Do the soldiers ride horses?"

"Yes."

"Are the soldiers known by any other name? Do they call themselves

anything special?" She listened.

"I don't hear that."

"Are you among them?"

"No." Her answers were again a child's, short and often monosyllabic.

I had to be a very active interviewer.

"But you're seeing them nearby?"

"Yes."

"Are you in the town?"

"Yes."

"Do you live there?"

"I believe so.",

"Good. See if you can find yourself and where you live."

"I see some very ragged clothes. I see just a child, a boy. His clothes are ragged. He's cold...."

"Does he have a home in the town?" There was a long pause.

"I don't see that," she continues. She seemed to be having some

difficulty connecting with this lifetime. She was somewhat vague in

her answers, somehow unsure.

"Okay. Do you know the boy's name?"

"No."

"What happens to the boy? Go with him. See what happens."

"Someone he knows is a prisoner."

"A friend? A relative?"

"I believe it's his father." Her answers were brief.

"Are you the boy?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you know how he feels about his father being in prison?"

"Yes... he's very afraid, afraid they might kill him." "What has his father done?"

"He has stolen something from the soldiers, some papers or something."

"The boy doesn't understand completely?" "No. He might never see his father again." "Can he get to see his father at all?" "No."

"Do they know for how long his father will be in the prison? Or if he will live?"

"No!" she answered. Her voice quavered. She was very upset, very sad. She was not providing much detail, yet she was visibly agitated by the events she was witnessing and experiencing.

"You can feel what the boy is feeling," I went on, "that kind of fear

and anxiety. Do you feel it?"

"Yes." Again, she was silent.

"What happens? Go ahead in time now. I know it's hard. Go ahead in

time. Something happens."

"His father is executed."

"How does he feel now?"

"It was for something he never did. But they execute people for no reason at all."

"The boy must be very upset about this."

"I don't believe he understands fully... what has happened."

"Does he have other people to turn to?"

"Yes, but his life will be very hard."

"What becomes of the boy?"

"I don't know. He will probably die...." She sounded so sad. She was again silent, then seemed to be looking around. "What are you seeing?"

"I see a hand... a hand closing around something... white. I don't know what it is...." She fell silent again, and minutes passed. "What else do you see?" I asked.

"Nothing... darkness." She had either died or somehow

disconnected from the sad boy who lived in the Ukraine more than

two hundred years ago.

"Have you left the boy?"

"Yes," she whispered. She was resting.

"What did you learn from that lifetime? Why -was it important?" "People cannot be judged hastily. You have to be fair with someone. Many lives were ruined by being hasty in our judgments."

"The boy's life was short and hard because of that judgment...

against his father."

"Yes." She was silent again.

"Are you seeing something else now? Do you hear anything?" "No." Again there was the brief answer and then silence. For some reason, this brief lifetime had been particularly grueling. I gave her instructions to rest.

"Rest. Feel peacefulness. Your body is healing itself; your soul is resting.... Are you feeling better? Rested? It was difficult for the little boy. Very hard. But now you're resting again. Your mind can take you to other places, other times... other memories. Are you resting?"

"Yes." I decided to pursue the dream fragment about the burning house, her father's unconcerned dawdling, and his sending her back into the conflagration in order to retrieve something of his.

"I have a question now about the dream you had... with your

father. You can remember it now; it's safe. You're in a deep trance.

Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"You went back into the house to get something. Do you remember that?"

"Yes... it was a metal box."

"What was in it that he wanted so badly to send you back into a burning house?"

"His stamps and his coins... that he saves," she answered. Her detailed recollection of the dream content under hypnosis contrasted dramatically with her sketchy recall while awake. Hypnosis was a powerful tool, not only providing access to the most remote, hidden areas of the mind, but also allowing a much more detailed memory. "Were his stamps and coins very important to him?"

"Yes."

"But to risk your life to go back into a burning house just for stamps and coins-"

She cut me off. "He didn't think he was risking it."

"He thought it was safe?"

"Yes."

"Then, why didn't he go back instead of you?"

"Because he thought I could go faster."

"I see. Was there a risk to you, though?"

"Yes, but he didn't realize that."

"Was there more meaning to that dream for you? About your

relationship with your father?"

"I don't know."

"He didn't seem to be in much of a hurry to get out of the

burning house."

"No."

"Why was he so leisurely? You were fast; you saw the danger." "Because he tries to hide from things." I seized this moment to interpret part of the dream.

"Yes, it's an old pattern of his, and you do things for him, like fetching the box. I hope he can learn from you. I have a feeling that the fire represents time running out, that you realize the danger and that he doesn't. While he dawdles and sends you back for material objects, you know much more... and have much to teach him, but he doesn't seem to want to learn." "No," she agreed. "He doesn't."

"That's how I see the dream. But you can't force him. Only he can realize this."

"Yes," she agreed again, and her voice became deep and husky, "it is unimportant that our bodies get burned in fires if we don't need them...." A Master Spirit had shed an entirely different perspective on the dream. I was surprised at this sudden entrance, and I could only parrot back the thought, "We don't need our bodies?"

"No. We go through so many stages when we're here. We shed a baby body, go into a child's, from child to an adult, an adult into old age. Why shouldn't we go one step beyond and shed the adult body and go on to a spiritual plane? That is what we do. We don't just stop growing; we continue to grow. When we get to the spiritual plane, we keep growing there, too. We go through different stages of development. When we arrive, we're burned out. We have to go through a renewal stage, a learning stage, and a stage of decision. We decide when we want to return, where, and for what reasons. Some choose not to come back. They choose to go on to another stage of development. And they stay in spirit form... some for longer than others before they return. It is all growth and learning... continuous growth. Our body is just a vehicle for us while we're here.

It is our soul and our spirit that last forever."

I did not recognize the voice or style. A "new" Master was speaking, and speaking of important knowledge. I wanted to know more about these spiritual realms.

"Is learning in the physical state faster? Are there reasons that people don't all stay in the spiritual state?"

"No. Learning in the spiritual state is much faster, far accelerated from that in the physical state. But we choose what we need to learn. If we need to come back to work through a relationship, we come back. If we are finished with that, we go on. In spiritual form you can always contact those that are in physical state if you choose to. But only if there is importance there... if you have to tell them something that they must know,"

"How do you make contact? How does the message come through?" To my surprise, Catherine answered. Her whisper was faster and firmer. "Sometimes you can appear before that person... and look the same way you did when you were here. Other times you just make a mental contact. Sometimes the messages are cryptic, but most often the person knows what it pertains to. They understand. It's mind-to-mind contact."

I spoke to Catherine. "The knowledge that you have now, this information, this wisdom, which is very important... why is it not accessible to you when you are awake and in the physical state?" "I guess I wouldn't understand it. I'm not capable of understanding it."

"Then, perhaps I can teach you to understand it, so that it doesn't frighten you, and so that you learn." "Yes."

"When you hear the voices of the Masters, they say things similar to what you are telling me now. You must share a great deal of information." I was intrigued at the wisdom she possessed when she was in this state.

"Yes," she replied simply.

"And this comes from your own mind?"

"But they have put it there." So she gave the credit to the Masters. "Yes," I acknowledged. "How do I best communicate it back to you so that you grow and lose your fears?"

"You have already done that," she answered softly. She was right; her fears were nearly gone. Once the hypnotic regressions had begun, her clinical progress had been incredibly rapid.

"What lessons do you need to learn now? What is the most important thing you can learn during this lifetime so that you can continue to grow and prosper?"

"Trust," she answered quickly. She had known what her principal task was.

"Trust?" I repeated, surprised by the quickness of her retort. "Yes. I must learn to have faith, but also to trust people. I don't. I think everybody is trying to do evil to me. That makes me stay away from people and situations that I probably shouldn't stay away from. It's keeping me with other people that I should break away from." Her insight was tremendous when she was in this super-conscious state. She knew her weaknesses and her strengths. She knew the areas that needed attention and work, and she knew what to do to improve matters. The only problem was that these insights needed to reach her conscious mind and needed to be applied to her waking life. Super conscious insight was fascinating, but by itself it was not enough to transform her life.

"Who are these people to break away from?" I asked.

She paused. "I am afraid of Becky. I'm afraid of Stuart... that somehow harm will come to me... from them." "Can you break away from that?"

"Not completely, but from some of their ideas, yes. Stuart is trying to keep me in prison, and he is succeeding. He knows that I'm afraid. He knows I'm afraid to be away from him, and he uses that knowledge to keep me with him."

"And Becky?"

"She's constantly trying to break down my faith in the people that I have faith in. When I see good, she sees evil. And she tries to plant those seeds in my mind. I'm learning to trust... people I should trust, but she fills me with doubts about them. And that's her problem. I can't let her make me

think her way."

In her Super conscious state, Catherine was able to pinpoint major character flaws in both Becky and Stuart. The hypnotized Catherine would make an excellent psychiatrist, empathic and unerringly intuitive. The awake Catherine did not possess these attributes. It was my task to bridge the gulf. Her dramatic clinical improvement meant that some of this was seeping through. I attempted more bridge-building.

"Who can you trust?" I asked. "Think about it. Who are the people you can trust and learn from and get closer to. Who are they?"

"I can trust you," she whispered. I knew this, but I knew she needed to trust people in her everyday life even more.

"Yes, you can. You are close to me, but you must get closer to other people in your life, too, people who can be with you more than I can." I wanted her to be complete and independent, not dependent on me.

"I can trust my sister. I don't know the others. I can trust Stuart, but only to a certain extent. He does care about me, but he's confused. In his confusion he unknowingly is doing me harm." "Yes, it is true. Is there another man that you can trust?"

"I can trust Robert," she answered. He was another physician in the hospital. They were good friends.

"Yes. Maybe there are still more for you to meet... in the future."

"Yes," she conceded.

The idea of future knowledge was distractingly intriguing. She had been so accurate about the past. She, through the Masters, had known specific, secret facts. Could they also know facts from the future? If so, could we share this foreknowledge? A thousand questions burst into my mind.

"When you find contact with your super conscious mind, like now, and have this wisdom, do you also develop abilities in the psychic realm? Is it possible for you to look into the future? We have done much in the past."

"That is possible," she conceded, "but I see nothing now."

"It is possible? " I echoed.

"I believe so."

"Can you do this without being frightened? Can you go into the future and obtain information of a neutral sort that will not be frightening to you? Can you see the future?"

Her answer was swift, "I don't see that. They will not allow it." I knew

she meant the Masters.

"Are they around you now?"

"Yes."

"Are they talking to you?"

"No. They monitor everything." So, being monitored, she was not permitted to peer into the future. Perhaps we had nothing to gain personally from such a glimpse. Perhaps the adventure would have made Catherine too anxious. Perhaps we were not yet prepared to cope with this information. I did not push it.

"The spirit that was around you before, Gideon..." "Yes."

"What does he need? Why is he near? Do you know him?" "No, I don't believe so."

"But he protects you from danger?", "Yes,"

"The Masters...."

"I don't see them,"

"Sometimes they have messages for me, messages that help you and help me. Are these messages available to you even when they're not speaking? Do they put thoughts in your mind?"

"Yes."

"Do they monitor how far you can go? What you can remember?"

"Yes."

"So there is a purpose in this explanation of lifetimes...."

"Yes."

"... For you and for me... to teach us. To bring us the disappearance of fear."

"There are many ways of communication. They choose many... to show that they do exist." Whether Catherine was hearing their voices, visualizing past images and vistas, experiencing psychic phenomena, or having thoughts and ideas placed in her mind, the purpose was the same -to show that they do exist and, even beyond that, to help us, to aid us on our path by providing insights and knowledge, to help us become godlike through wisdom. "Do you know why they have chosen you..,."

"No."

"... to be a channel?"

This was a delicate question, since the awake Catherine could not even listen to the tapes. "No," she softly whispered. "Does it frighten you?" "Sometimes." "And other times not?" "Yes."

"It can be reassuring," I added. "We know now that we are eternal, so

we lose our fear of death,"

"Yes," she agreed. She paused. "I must learn to trust." She had returned to her lifetime's major lesson. "When I'm told something, I must learn to trust what I am told... when the person is knowledgeable."

"Certainly there are people not to trust," I added. "Yes, but I'm confused. And the people I know I should trust, I fight against that feeling. And I don't want to trust anybody."

She was silent as I again admired her insight.

"Last time we talked about you as a child, in a garden with horses.

Do you remember? Your sister's wedding?"

"A little."

"Was there more to gather from that time? Do you know?"

"Yes."

"Would it be worthwhile to go back now and explore it?" "It won't come back now. There are so many things in a lifetime... there is so much knowledge to attain...

from each lifetime. Yes, we must explore, but it won't come back now."

So I turned again to her troubled relationship with her father. "Your

relationship with your father is another area, one that has affected

you deeply in this life."

"Yes," she answered simply.

"It is another area to explore yet, too. You've had much to learn from this relationship. Compare it to the little boy in the Ukraine who lost his father at an early age. And this loss did not happen to you this time. And yet, having your father here, even though certain hardships were less..."

"Was more of a burden," she concluded. "Thoughts..." she added, "thoughts...."

"What thoughts?" I sensed she was in a new area. "About the anesthesia. When they give you anesthesia, can you hear? You can still hear!" She had answered her own question. She was whispering rapidly now, becoming excited. "Your mind is very much aware of what's going on. They were talking about my choking, about the possibility of me choking when they did the surgery on my throat." I remembered Catherine's vocal cord surgery, which was performed

just a few months before her first appointment with

me. She had been anxious prior to the surgery, but she was absolutely terrified upon awakening in the recovery room. It had taken the nursing staff hours to calm her. Now it appeared that what was said by the surgeons during the operation, during the time she was under deep anesthesia, had precipitated her terror. My mind flipped back to medical school and my surgery rotation. I remembered the casual conversations during operations, while the patients were anesthetized. I remembered the jokes, the cursing, the arguments, and the surgeons' temper tantrums. What had the patients heard, at a subconscious level? How much registered to affect their thoughts and emotions, their fears and anxieties, after they awakened? Was the postoperative course, the patient's very recovery from the surgery, influenced positively or negatively by the remarks made during the operation? Had anyone died because of negative expectations overheard during surgery? Had they, feeling hopeless, just given up?

"Do you remember what they were saying?" I asked.

"That they had to put a tube down. When they took the tube out, my throat might swell up. They didn't think I could hear." "But you did."

"Yes. That's why I had all the problems." After today's session, Catherine no longer had any fear of swallowing or choking. It was as simple as that. "All-the anxiety..." she continued, "I thought I would choke."

"Do you feel free?" I asked.

"Yes. You can reverse what they did."

"Can I?"

"Yes. You are, '... They should be very careful of what they say. I remember it now. They put a tube in my throat. And then I couldn't talk afterward to tell them anything."

"Now you're free.... You did hear them."

"Yes, I heard them talk...." She fell silent for a minute or two, then began to turn her head from side to side. She seemed to be listening to something,

"You seem to be hearing messages. Do you know where that message came from? I was hoping the Masters would appear." "Someone told me" was her cryptic answer. "Somebody was speaking to you?"

"But they're gone." I tried to bring them back.

"See if you can bring back spirits with messages for us... to help us

out."

"They come only when they want to, not when I choose," she answered firmly.

"You don't have any control over it?"

"No."

"Okay," I conceded, "but the message about the anesthesia was very important for you. That was the source of your choking."

"It was important for you, not me," she retorted. Her answer reverberated through my mind. She would be cured of the terror of choking, yet this revelation was nevertheless more important for me than for her. I was the one doing the healing. Her simple answer contained many levels of meaning. I felt that if I truly understood these levels, these resonating octaves of meanings, I would advance a quantum leap into the understanding of human relationships. Perhaps the helping was more important than the cure. "For me to help you?" I asked.

"Yes. You can undo what they did. You have been undoing what they did...." She was resting. We had both learned a great lesson.

Shortly after her third birthday my daughter, Amy, came running over to me, hugging me around the legs. She looked up and said, "Daddy, I've loved you for forty thousand years." I looked down at her little face, and I felt very, very happy.