Some years ago when I was a journalist I was asked to cover
a session with hypnotist Joe Keeton* in which a number of invited readers were
asked to undergo initial tests to see if they were suitable candidates for
hypnotic regression.
Joe, from Meols on the Wirral, was at that time featured in
a TV series and had brought out a book based on some of his more involved
cases. Before we started Joe warned that
people who claim to be descended from Julius Caesar or Marie Antoinette were frequently
disappointed to find that actually the lives they remembered were ordinary,
humdrum and often squalid.
We persevered and a small group of us – myself included –
met whatever standards Joe was looking for. We actually met up with him several
times and underwent hypnosis about five or six times in all. Each of us was
hypnotised and “taken back” to a time before our current life’s birth.
Before I go any further let me explain how it went… We all
gathered in a small room and went through some exercises – mainly visualisation
– and Joe would decide who was most receptive and that person would be
hypnotised with a particular phrase. (I can still remember mine and it still
helps me get to sleep some times) Then we were asked to go back to a particular
time, either a date given by the group or to a significant event in the
character’s memory.
In my case I had three sets of memories that emerged. One was (I think) Victorian but I never
really managed to get past a rather scary memory of a fire. The “group” interpreted it as my having died
in a fire but actually it seemed more like some sort of public bonfire and I’d
been pushed to the front and I was just scared. A second character was the one previous to
my present life (Going back to five years before my “current” birth takes me to
the last few years of the previous life)
That one would say nothing but answered every question with a giggle or
a strange noise. I THINK I was in a lunatic asylum and shut away by myself but
I don’t have terribly clear memories of that either.
Number three was more interesting. She was daughter of the
gamekeeper on an estate somewhere in Surrey – near Farnham – and the first time
we encountered her she was cooking rabbit in the kitchen of the house she
shared with her father. One of the group
suggested that maybe she shouldn’t be eating rabbit but she was quite indignant
and insisted that they were “allowed rabbits”.
She also fancied the squire’s son who was a hunky blond guy in a scarlet
army uniform. Some romantic suggested
finding out if there was a happy ending and we went to the squire’s son’s
wedding day – sure enough he was walking out of a house by the church with a
very beautiful dark-haired beauty befitting his station. And my character was standing in the crowd
watching, like the good estate worker she was!
The bit that fascinated me most, however, was actually a
mistake. For some reason the group
wanted to find out where she died. The breathing got very rattling and uneven
and everything was quite dark and they mistimed it. Joe actually let her die.
Yes – I really got as far as walking along that corridor with all the hands and
the light at the end. Since which time I
really haven’t been scared of dying. I
still wonder if I’d have come back if I’d been allowed to walk all the way.
Maybe not.
*Sadly Joe died in 2003. I'm sure he's sadly missed by everyone who ever had the opportunity to work with him. If you'd like to know more about him you can read it here.
