In 1999, I ached with a deep spiritual hunger that I did not know how to feed. Inner peace was a state of mind that seemed unattainable, the equivalent of walking on water or reading minds. I lived in my head and read multitudes of self-help books. Their seven-step strategies provided me with personal growth and comfort, but my spiritual hunger was left unfed. Nevertheless, I continued to buy and read them like an addict who needed another fix. It was a never-ending cycle, a circular ride that I could not jump off, because I was a man with a million questions and few solid answers.

I placed my energy where I could see results: my body and my work. I lifted weights and bounced around from one aerobic fad to the next. I also believed that financial success was the road to happiness. Growing up middle-class poor, my parents’ financial belief systems became my obstacles to overcome. I progressed slowly in these efforts, but regardless of my physical or financial fitness, happiness continued to elude me. Instead, I was filled with worry, stress and fear, and I wondered if I was fulfilling my purpose in life. In hindsight, I now recognize that my discontent stemmed from a skepticism that I adopted during childhood, and this skepticism stunted my spiritual growth.

“Mom,” I said, squirming from the awkwardness of the moment, “Can I ask you something?”

Mom must have sensed my seriousness, as she put down her magazine and gave me her full attention.

“Sure,” she said. “What’s the matter, Bobby?”

“Oh, nothing really,” I said, trying to keep the moment light. I hated that my question had generated such weight that she put down her magazine and faced me. I would have preferred she kept reading while we talked.

“I was just wondering something,” I said. “But I need you to promise that you’ll be totally honest with me.”

“Okay, Bobby. I’ll be totally honest. What is it?”

My mind raced with twenty possible ways to approach the subject, but I decided to just blurt it out.

“Does Santa really exist? Kids at school say he doesn’t.”

There was a painfully unpleasant pause that just sort of hung there in perpetuity. My mother stared at me with her eyes glazed over like a frosted doughnut. I couldn’t decipher what it meant. What I did know was that my question had made her uncomfortable. I now regretted ever asking it. I had essentially asked my mother if she’d been lying to me all my life.

Mom snapped out of her coma and the frosted glaze left her eyes. Then she smiled and cocked her head to the side, giving me a look as if I were being silly.

“Well, Bobby, I believe Santa exits,” she said, with a heavy emphasis on the word “I.” She then patted me on the head, picked up her Family Circle and began reading again as if the conversation was over.

I sat on the couch and stared at our Christmas tree, thinking about what she said. You BELIEVE he exists? You don’t KNOW he exists? This was not the answer I had anticipated. I expected her not to pause, at least not for so long. I expected her to answer emphatically: “Of course Santa exits! I’ve seen him with my own eyes. I caught him leaving presents by the tree one time and saw him flying off a rooftop in his sleigh another time. Your friends at school don’t know what they are talking about.” And I expected her to give me some evidence, something that would prove Santa wasn’t just parental propaganda.

But that wasn’t what I got. I got an excruciatingly long pause and a useless, empty opinion. Quite frankly, that wasn’t good enough. I certainly couldn’t bring that back to Tommy and say, “Look who’s the fool now. I was right and you were wrong. Your uncle is a big fat liar!” Nope. Instead, the more I thought about the Santa story, that tall tale I’d been sold for years, the more I realized that I really was the fool that Tommy and his pals had accused me of being.

We all have childhood experiences that at the time seem harmless, but end up shaping our lives in a significant way. Learning the truth about Santa was one of mine. It taught me to stop taking things at face value. It taught me to never accept anything, ever again, that I couldn’t prove for myself—regardless of the source. And the embarrassment of being made a fool taught me it was smarter and safer to be a skeptic.

About fifteen years later, I graduated from college with a degree in Criminology and became a full-time private investigator. I investigated murder cases, domestic cases, workers’ compensation cases and personal injury cases. I even worked undercover to infiltrate corporate corruption. Eventually I specialized in personal injury and product liability lawsuits because I felt that I was doing something positive in the world—helping wrongfully injured victims get compensated, and helping to get negligently dangerous products off the market or altered for safety. I proudly handled cases for some of Boston’s most prestigious law firms: Swartz & Swartz, Sugarman & Sugarman, and Hill & Barlow, to name just a few.

I thought almost nothing about spirituality for the first three decades of my life. Although I was raised Catholic, my family only went to church on Christmas Eve and Easter. My parents did make me go to catechism classes; but, to my circle of friends and me, catechism was basically a social gathering that was occasionally interrupted by well intentioned, although basically ignored, teachers. In fact, for me, catechism started off bad from my very first day.

I was about eight years old when my parents dragged me to the basement of our Catholic church. After settling in and learning everyone’s name, my teacher began talking about God. I sat at the long cafeteria-style table with about ten other little boys and girls listening to my teacher’s voice echo throughout the church basement. Having learned not to accept stories without evidence, I raised my hand to ask about God.

“Yes, Bobby, do you have a question?” the teacher asked.

“Well, I just wondered how we really know that God is real,” I said.

Right at that moment, this little blonde girl who sat diagonally across from me turned to me with a look of contempt that could have melted the metal buttons on my Roy Rogers cowboy shirt. I hesitated and then continued with my question.

“Is there any proof that God exists?” I asked.

The catechism teacher was kind and patient. I’ll never forget her answer. She said, “Well, Bobby, we know God exists because we know that trees, flowers, oceans, birds, plants, mountains and animals exist. And since those wonders of nature couldn’t exist without God having created them, they are our evidence of God.”

Right then, the little blonde girl looked at me again with a nasty smirk on her face and said, “There, satisfied!” Then she stuck her tongue out at me.

Naturally I wasn’t satisfied with my teacher’s answer. She could have just as easily said Santa Claus created all those things. In fact, my question about God wouldn’t be satisfied despite going to catechism classes for eight more years. But it wasn’t like I continued to seek answers to my uncertainties all this time. I had learned from that little blonde girl that I shouldn’t be announcing my skepticism openly—it wasn’t worth the public disdain. So I only listened to the catechism teachers rather than question them, and I only listened enough to avoid getting into trouble. Essentially, I had stopped thinking about God altogether.

I finally began to ponder God again in my late twenties. At the age of twenty-seven, I fell into a five-year chronic depression. It was a hand-me-down from my father’s genetics. This wasn’t what psychiatrists know as a “reactive” depression, the kind that follows when someone dies, when you lose a job, or when the love of your life stops answering your calls. No, this was a genetic disorder that causes depression for no other reason than a biological chemical imbalance in the brain. I had suffered with periodic depressions all my life, but this one wouldn’t go away. It took five years, three doctors, fifteen failed medications and twenty-one shock treatments before I finally found a treatment that ended my suffering. During those five years, I was out of work for all but one, slept an average of eighteen hours a day, was socially withdrawn to the point where I hated leaving the house or even answering the telephone, and I had frequent thoughts of suicide, often convinced that my wife, Melissa, would be better off if I were dead.

It took this level of suffering to finally make me think about spirituality. Where did I come from? Why was I here? And if there really was a God, where was He during my suffering? Although I never had the term for it, my physical crisis (biological depression) led to a spiritual crisis. It got me to read a few books that I really didn’t comprehend, and I visited a few psychics whom I thought were all phonies. So neither the books nor the psychics answered any of my questions because nothing could penetrate my skepticism. Afraid to be made the fool, I explored with a guarded suspicion. The questions remained, but I surrendered to my skeptical mind as if it were my religion. I didn’t get much further than that before my depression lifted when I found the right medication, at which time my spiritual quest for meaning sort of got pushed to the bottom of my To Do list.

A few years later, when my father died at the age of sixty-four, my grief led to a new spiritual crisis, and my questions took a new turn. Why did he die so young? For that matter, why do children die? What kind of God could possibly allow all the suffering that takes place in our world? And where was my father going, if anywhere? Is there life after death? If so, is there heaven and hell? If so, what causes a person to go to one or the other? With each new question, I found myself more confused. And with my added confusion, I ached for spiritual insight.

By this time, I was thirty-five years old and feeling lost in a world filled with people claiming to be either a spiritual teacher or spiritually gifted. I believed in neither. I was a skeptic, although, even at this stage, I had no context from which to wear such a label. I saw myself as a realist. To me, the authors of spiritual books were new age nutcases, and the people who read their books were naïve believers. I know it’s harsh, but that was my mindset. Yet here lied my conflict. I also wondered if the authors and practitioners in the spiritual field offered the answers I so desperately sought.

This aching curiosity cracked my protective wall of skepticism, and in that hairline crack was born an open-minded skeptic—protected, yet admittedly without all the answers. The grief I felt due to the loss of my father, and the questions that erupted because of it, forced me to consider that there might be more to life and death than I was currently aware. Thus began my spiritual awakening.

The rest of the story is told in my articles, blog stories and websites: OfSpirit.com Magazine, BestPsychicMediums.com, GriefAndBelief.com and BestPsychicDirectory.com.

In 2005, I was talking to a ghostwriting client about my dream of creating a documentary some day. Although I had never made one, I had purchased one of the first video cameras to hit the marketplace in the early 1980s and I was that guy who was in your face with a video camera the second you walked in the door at a party. What I learned during those years as an amateur videographer didn’t necessarily translate into my being a documentary filmmaker, but 20 years of experimenting with an ever-improving flow of new cameras certainly prepared me to learn.

My client said to me, “Listen, Bob, if you ever want to create a documentary of my story, just give me a proposal and we can discuss it. I’d love to have my story told on film.” And that was the end of it. I didn’t expect it would ever go any further, but it was still fun to dream about it.

A few weeks later, my client decided to turn his book from an autobiography (where I interviewed him alone and then wrote the book from his point of view) to a biography (where I interviewed other people, as well, and then wrote the book using all their perspectives). In fact, my client had a list of 17 different people whom he wanted me to interview. And this is when I thought of the documentary again.

JUNE 2, 2008

I Cried, Shivered And Shook During A Past-Life Regression

Recently, I’ve had a lot of people ask me about past-life regression. I’ve had so many, in fact, that I thought I’d share with you the story about my first experience. Because I never expected it to work for me, you may relate to my experience and feel inspired to try it for yourself. It definitely had a life-changing effect on me. 

Like many people, I read Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss in 1996. Dr. Weiss, a graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School, was a bit skeptical when his psychotherapy patient, Catherine, began recounting the details of her past-life traumas. These past-life reviews, however, set Catherine free from the anxiety and nightmares that led her to Weiss’ treatment in the first place. Weiss was then captured by the idea of using past-life regression as a treatment tool, and the world became hypnotized by his best-selling books that retold in remarkable detail the particulars of his patients’ healing journeys. 

I enjoyed, and even believed, Dr. Brian Weiss’ story in his now infamous book. Still, it was a gigantic leap for me to go from believing that Weiss’ patient regressed into a past-life to believing that I, too, could have such an experience. I had explored enough spiritual experiences that I had no doubt other people could achieve hypnotic regression. I just didn’t believe that I could do it. 

So, one day, when I saw an advertisement for past-life regressions by a clinical hypnotherapist named Nancy, a practitioner whom I’d heard positive things about from other spiritual practitioners, I said, “What the heck. Why not give it a shot?” 

I drove three hours from Maine to Cape Cod hoping Nancy could guide me to a new level of hypnotic relaxation far beyond anything I’d ever experienced. With my trusty skepticism still in check, I wondered if I was wasting my time. But as the sun rose from the early morning darkness, my optimism increased. 

Once in Nancy’s office, I lied comfortably on a couch with my eyes closed as she began the relaxation procedure. The first forty minutes of my hypnotic induction were everything I expected. Nancy helped me unwind with guided imagery. She walked me through fields, across valleys, past oceans and individually relaxed every muscle in my body. The visualization calmed my busy mind until I lay in a semi-comatose state. I felt as if my body and mind were one tingling mass of flesh, bones and organs. My breathing became shallow. My heart rate slowed. My intellect stood to the side. It was as if my busy little mind agreed to not interfere, yet kept a protective watch in case it was needed. My resistance to the experience was minimized by my excitement, although not entirely free of skepticism and doubt. 

“Bob, you’re now going to walk down a spiraled stairway,” said Nancy. “It has thirty-eight stairs, one for every year of your life. At certain ages, I’m going to ask you step off the stairway and tell me what you are experiencing at that age. Okay?” 

“Okay,” I said. 

Nancy brought me down the spiraled stairway. When she asked me to step off the stairway and tell her what I was experiencing, for the most part I thought I was experiencing nothing. I expected movies of my childhood to appear in my mind’s eye, but what I saw was a blank screen. A couple thoughts popped into my head as Nancy asked questions about the childhood moment I had stepped into, but I was waiting for the movie and didn’t give these thoughts much consideration. Sensing that I was having trouble, Nancy continued guiding me down the stairway. 

“That’s okay. It’ll come,” she said. “Don’t judge it. Just go with it. It takes a little getting used to. I want you to get back on the stairway and walk down to the bottom step. This is the day you were born. Are you with me?” 

“I guess so,” I said. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, sure that I’d be leaving her office as her worst client ever. 

“At the count of three, you’ll be at the bottom step of the stairway. One… two… three… You’re now on the bottom step, the day you were born. What is happening? You might not see it. You might just know it. Tell me what thoughts fill your mind?” said Nancy. 

Again, I saw no movie, but I now paid attention to the thoughts I had been ignoring. “I think my parents are arguing. My mother seems sad. She’s upset. I don’t see it, it’s just something I feel.” I don’t know how I knew this; I just knew it. 

“That’s good. That’s good. Just go with the experience. Don’t judge it. I’m going to have you go back now just a little to when you are in your mother’s womb. I’m going to count to three, and when I reach three, you’ll be in the womb. One, two, three, you’re now in your mother’s womb on the day of your birth. What do you feel?” 

I tried not to fight the thoughts and feelings, and a few squeaked into my consciousness. “I feel like I’m starving for nutrition. And my mother seems depressed,” I said. 

“Anything else?” asked Nancy. 

I started trying too hard again. Everything went blank.

After I was silent for a minute, Nancy continued. “Just sit with this scene a moment. You feel like you’re starving for nutrition. Your mother seems depressed. Just stay with it, experience it. And let me know if anything more comes.” 

Nothing more came to me. I was still disappointed that I wasn’t seeing anything, so I figured I was definitely failing at the regression. Nancy must have sensed my discouragement, as she decided to move into a past life. 

After further deepening my hypnotic state, which is really just an intensely relaxed state of mind, Nancy guided me into deeper realms of subconscious knowing. She led me down an elevator, suggesting that I feel more relaxed with each descending floor. She then verbally guided me out of the elevator and toward a door. Behind the door was a white light, and apparently a previous lifetime. While I was still hopeful, my inability to see the movie-like visions of my childhood had added to my doubt that this would be a successful regression. All the same, I was able to envision the door she suggested and the white light behind it, at least in my imagination, so I persisted. Finally, at Nancy’s suggestion, I opened the door to discover where I was. 

The following is the actual transcript of this part of the regression, word for word, that was recorded on tape. I’ve added some side comments in [brackets] to help you better understand what is happening in the room and in my thoughts. 

Nancy: “Is it daytime or nighttime.” 

Bob: “I guess it’s daytime. I don’t know if I’m there.” [I still seriously doubted my ability to do this, and I was sure I wasn’t doing it correctly.] 

Nancy: “Yeah, just trust it. It becomes more and more vivid as you go along.” 

Bob: “Okay.” 

Nancy: “Are you inside or outside?”

Bob: “Outside.” [Again, I wasn’t sure how I knew this. I just did.] 

Nancy: “Now I want you to simply look down at your feet and tell me what is covering your feet.” 

Bob: [There was a long pause. I knew what I saw, but I didn’t trust it. It wasn’t like it was something I viewed in a picture or a movie. It was more of a knowing of what was on my feet. But I hesitated because it seemed so cliché—I was wearing sandals.] “I just want to say sandals, I guess.” 

Nancy: “That’s fine. It may not be that you see it. It may just be a knowing. Trust whatever way the information comes. And know that as you continue, it absolutely becomes more vivid and clear. And so now that you look at your life, look down and tell me what is covering your legs?” 

Bob: [long pause] “I don’t think anything.” [The truth was that I saw myself wearing a skirt or kilt, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud. So I told Nancy the truth.] ”There isn’t anything covering my legs.” 

Nancy: “Okay, what is covering your chest or torso?” 

Bob: [Another long pause] “It sounds silly. I think it’s some kind of armor.” 

Nancy: “Uh huh, just go with it. And what is over your head? Do you have anything on your head?” 

Bob: “I don’t know.” [I saw an armored helmet with two bones or tusk-like things sticking out of it; but again, I felt silly saying it. It seemed so fairytale. “I don’t know,” is all I could say.] 

Nancy: “Let your logical and judging mind step aside, and let whatever impressions come to mind. Let it come.”

Bob: “I guess it’s a helmet.” [I also knew that this wasn’t a battle helmet, but rather a costume or some type of formal wear. Again, not trusting my thoughts, I just let it slide without telling Nancy.] 

Nancy: “And about how old are you?” 

Bob: “Forties.” [I got the number forty-three, but told Nancy forties for some reason, still not trusting what I was getting.] 

Nancy: “And at the count of three, the year is going to pop into your mind. Just trust yourself to know it. One, two, three… what year is it?” 

Bob: “1643.” [It came quickly and matter-of-factly. I was surprised.] 

Nancy: And at the count of three, you are going to know the country or geographical location. One, two, three… where are you?” 

Bob: “It seems like some Celtic place. I don’t know the country.” 

Nancy: “And now at the count of three, you are going to know your name. What do people call you? One, two, three…” 

Bob: “George.” [Now if I were making this up, I would have chosen Clint or Dirk or something. I was actually a little disappointed with the name George. There isn’t anything wrong with that name. I just don’t have a good association with it in reference to people I know. So the fact that “George” popped into my head gave me a little more confidence that I was actually doing this hypnotic regression thing correctly.] 

Nancy: “George. Great. Thank you, George, for being here. Tell me, George, why are dressed in armor? What is happening today?” 

Bob: “I guess it’s a celebration of some sort.” [At this point, I didn’t feel like George, but rather Bob sensing myself as George, so I thought it awkward that Nancy was speaking directly to George. But I understood what she was doing, so I just answered her questions without correcting her in regards to whom she was speaking. If you could hear the tape, you would hear my voice as soft and slow. My answers were brief. Normally, I’m fast to respond, more articulate than I was during this regression, and brevity is not generally my forte.] 

Nancy: “George, what kind of a celebration is it?” 

Bob: “It’s a parade.” 

Nancy: “What’s the celebration about? What’s happened?” 

Bob: “We won a battle.” [Nancy was right. Things were becoming more vivid.] 

Nancy: “Who have you been fighting, George? Who is the enemy?” 

Bob: “The English.” 

Nancy; “So that is a good reason to celebrate, winning a battle against those English, huh? Tell me, George, what have you been fighting over? What is the battle about?” 

Bob: “Land.” 

Nancy: “George, what do you do for a living?” 

Bob: “Farmer.” 

Nancy: “Yeah, you’re a farmer. [Nancy seemed to know the answers before I gave them, as if she was seeing them herself. When she said “Yeah,” it was as if I got what she was getting.] Do you have a large farm or a small one?” 

Bob: “It’s a small farm.” 

Nancy: “And what do you raise?” 

Bob: [pause] “Sheep, I guess.” 

Nancy: “Tell me, George, are you married?” 

Bob: “Yes.” 

Nancy: “And what is your wife’s name?” 

Bob: “Linda.” 

Nancy: “And how long have you been married to Linda?” 

Bob: “Twenty-three years.” [Everything was coming really fast now. I was feeling more confident about my answers.] 

Nancy: “And do you have children?” 

Bob: “One.” 

Nancy: “And what is your child’s name?” 

Bob: [long pause] “Jeffrey.” [Or Geoffrey. I didn’t know the spelling. That sounded to me like a really unlikely name for someone of Celtic descent, but what do I know? Maybe Jeffrey or Geoffrey is a Celtic name.] 

Nancy: “And how old is Jeffrey?” 

Bob: “Nine.” 

Nancy: “Hm hmm, Jeffery is nine. [There she goes again, as if she knew the answer before I did.] Tell me, what kind of life do you have? Are you happy, content, sad, disappointed? What is your life like as you look at it?” 

Bob: “I’m happy… proud.” 

Nancy: “And what are you proud of?” 

Bob: “My heritage.” [It was if I were inside of George feeling his pride. It was amazing.] 

Nancy: “Yeah. And what kind of a husband are you?” 

Bob: “I’m a good husband.” 

Nancy: “And what kind of a father; do you spend time with your son?” 

Bob: “Yes. When I’m around.” 

Nancy: “Are you gone much?” 

Bob: “Only when we are fighting.” 

Nancy: “And how do you feel about fighting?” 

Bob: “Ah, I’m proud to fight. They are trying to take our land.” 

Nancy: “Yeah, they are trying to take something from you; that’s wrong. Are you ethical? Do you go by what’s right?” 

Bob: “Yeah.” 

Nancy: “And do you train your son that same thing?” 

Bob: “Yup.”  </