Past-life hypnosis sells itself as therapy — if therapy required less accountability, more incense, and a relaxing nap.
The premise is simple: under hypnosis, you “recover” memories of your previous lives. These memories, conveniently, explain all your modern misfortunes — your fear of water (you drowned as a sailor), your commitment issues (you were a betrayed duchess), your lactose intolerance (you were a medieval cheesemonger who met an unfortunate end).
Past life regression sessions follow a predictable arc. You’re led into a dim room filled with dreamcatchers, scented candles, and someone named Aurora or Cliff who gently tells you to “relax your mind” and “open your spirit’s memory.”
From there, it’s a fast downhill ride into fantasy.
Suddenly, you “remember” being a knight, a midwife, a monk, a warrior queen.
Funny how no one ever recalls being an 11th-century pig farmer who caught dysentery and fell into a well.
Of course, once you “recover” these memories, you’re encouraged to understand that all your current issues stem from karmic scars. Trouble trusting people? That’s not because you picked terrible boyfriends. It’s because your 17th-century spouse poisoned you over an inheritance dispute. Fear of flying? You didn’t read too many plane crash stories. You just happen to recall falling off an ancient zeppelin in 1913.
Past life memories are always suspiciously tidy: filled with karmic symbolism, past betrayals, and cosmic debts that, conveniently, explain why life’s disappointments aren’t really your fault.
Reality check: Not every bad Tuesday is the lingering psychic wound of your 12th-century Viking demise. Sometimes you’re just human, making human mistakes, in real time.
Modern psychology calls this confabulation: the brain stitching together fragments of imagination, suggestion, and wishful thinking into convincing stories. Past life therapists call it insight, and charge you for the privilege.
If your best plan for self-improvement involves excavating a fantasy about being a French countess wronged by a jealous pastry chef, you might want to try regular therapy first.
At least there, the ghosts you’re dealing with are metaphorical — and no one charges extra to interpret your dreams about swords and regrettable wigs.