A Personal Journey Part 1: My Past Life Regression

Had you asked me 30 years ago if I believed in reincarnation, or the possibility that we have had past lives, I would have answered, “I really don’t think so, but, it is an interesting idea, something to think about!”

Things change. As our time on this sphere passes, we learn, and if we pay attention to the lessons so freely given to us, we will grow and our belief systems will evolve.

Over the years, I have been fascinated with the idea of past lives but that’s about where it stayed, a fascination that would surface now and then. In the late 90s, I found myself in the midst of some very deep introspection.

During that time, I began to re-evaluate who I was and why I was here. Part of this involved revisiting many of the things I held dear including my beliefs. I began to allow time in my thinking processes to consider other possibilities and gave priority to the ones that had the most personal meaning to me.

One of these is that since I was about 20, I have had a feeling that I have to go to Wales one day. It is like a quiet voice inside, like a knowledge beyond my life’s experience. Specifically, my feeling is that one day I will have to go to an old forgotten castle in Wales. I will have a nap sack and my guitar which I will play in this place.

Around 1979, I met a wonderful and kindhearted man by the name of Malcolm who is from Wales. When I met him, his accent “sang” to me of home. Other Welsh people I have met have had the same effect on me. I cannot quantify this but I know that the feeling is real and true. There is no immediacy to the call. I suspect that one day I will just feel that the time is right to go. I will know. I do know the name of the castle now. It is called Cymer Castle and one day I will write about how I know this to be true.

Another dynamic I was considering is the one of meeting someone for the first time, looking into their eyes and immediately feeling that you know them. “I know you!” Have you ever had that feeling? I have experienced it often.

In 1993, I was in my office working for a technology company. My receptionist buzzed me to tell me that someone had just come in looking for some information. When I entered the reception area, I made eye contact with the man who was waiting. I cannot even begin to describe the depth of emotion that swept over me. I had never met this person, but I knew him, and it was not a good knowing. Gathering myself, I asked him how I could help. He asked for some specific spec-sheets. I could tell as he answered that he was extremely uncomfortable.

Telling him I would be right back, I left shortly to fetch the brochures for him. When I returned, he had left. Our receptionist told me that as soon as I rounded the corner back to my office, he turned quickly on his heels and left. She and another office worker both told me that they could have cut the air with a knife it was so thick with the enmity between us. Who was that guy?

And so, in October of 2004, I decided it was time to consider a past life regression under hypnosis. But how do you go about finding someone reputable who can do this? While having my hair cut, I mentioned this to my long time stylist Sue to which she replied:

“Gil, I just cut a new clients hair yesterday. When I asked her what she does, she told me she was a Medical Hypnotherapist that does Regressive Therapy. I have her card, I’ll get it for you. Here, her name is Heather Carlini!”

Can anyone say synchronicity?

I called Heather and I had my regression on November 2nd, 2004. To this day, I am still mentally and spiritually processing it. It wasn’t exactly what I expected but it was very interesting, gave me lots of food for thought and some research to do.

I experienced three distinct lives, which I will share with you. These experiences are taken from the notes I quickly penned following our session while it was all still fresh in my mind. I experienced these impressions from both a first and third person perspective. For ease of reading, I have written it all from the first person.

What I saw, or perhaps more accurately visualized, was seen as if through a fog. As the fog would part, I would have strong glimpses and powerful impressions. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like that feeling you get when you smell something that triggers a strong memory from your childhood and just for a moment, you go back there fully.

At the end of each regression, Heather asked me two questions:

1) What was the lesson you learned in this life?

2) What was the primary color of this life?

First Regression: Wales circa 1351 …

My name is Robert Kiln or something like that, the pronunciation is Kilen or Kilner, and I am a 10-year-old boy. I see a great fire in the distant hills, and glimpses of a very big castle bearing many flags. The castle was predominantly red. I am not allowed to go there.

I am alone in a very small village. The name of the village started with an L and sounds something like Lorwich but I can’t pronounce it properly.

The mood is somber. I see glimpses of leather, as if everyone had a lot of it on, boots, belts etc, and my impression of this was how a small child sees things, low to the ground, looking up.

There are big flags that are olive and orange in color and they are flying everywhere above me. I have a sense or impression of dragons. I see lots of wheat, tall wheat, as if I was lying in a field of it. Overall, I see lots of oranges, reds, olive greens and some cold greens.

I also see a man appear in a white robe with a hood whose arms are outstretched. The man is not menacing. Rather he seems a loving and kind figure.

At age 12, there is fire everywhere. The hills in the distance are on fire as is everything around me. People are wandering in fields looking for something, presumably lost loved ones or perhaps something to eat. After that, torrential rains come. There is wet ash and mud everywhere. I find shelter under a bush or hedge and I think I die by freezing to death, perhaps hypothermia, or possibly, some type of plague.

I have no recollection of parents. I am very confused and have no idea why what is happening is happening. I am not afraid however and I seem to believe in an angel who I felt was watching over me. The impression of this angel was like a bright white pure light that appeared several times in the experience, perhaps the man in the white robe.

My sense is that the lesson I learned in this lifetime was not to fear even if everything around you is on fire and falling apart. I believe this life strengthened and developed my belief system.

The overall color of this life was dark gray, like the ashes you find in a fireplace.

Additional Notes:

It turns out the Welsh flag is olive green and has a red dragon but that dragon was apparently more of a golden red dragon back in those days. It is also possible that the flags I saw were not the Welsh flags but perhaps banners associated with the nearby castle or region I was in. Also, it turns out that in 1351, the Black Death hit Wales. It had hit England in 1348.

The Welsh poet Jeuan Gethin paints a vivid picture of the fear the plague engendered in its victims:

We see death coming into our midst like black smoke, a plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has no mercy or fair countenance. Woe is me of the shilling in the arm-pit; it is seething, terrible, wherever it may come, a head that gives pain and causes a loud cry, a burden carried under the arms, a painful angry knob, a white lump. It is of the form of an apple, like the head of an onion, a small boil that spares no-one. Great is its seething, like a burning cinder, a grievous thing of an ashy color. It is an ugly eruption that comes with unseemly haste. It is a grievous ornament that breaks out in a rash. The early ornaments of black death.

Jeuan Gethin died in March or April 1349.

In part 2, I share the next two lives I experienced under hypnosis and offer my thoughts on what it all means to me and what I have come to believe.

Photo Credits

“Cymer Castle Photos” Courtesy Bruce Davies, all rights reserved
“Rhuddlan Castle” Creative Commons
“Flag of Wales” Creative Commons – Public Domain
“Rhuddlan Castle Feature Photo” By Neil Merton – Creative Commons

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