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Past livesP
/ looked down at my feet and saw a pair of
old-fashioned, ankle-high button-up boots on feet
smaller than my own. The world of Victorian England
opened up around me. I was eight years old, living in a
house with a high ceiling, with parents, sisters and
servants. I was standing in front of a table full of baked
treats and a stately tea service. I picked up a pastry
and bit into it.
Only a few moments before I had been in Eugene,
years away from 19th-century England.
To have been or not to have been, that is the
question.
Reincarnation — a concept debated by everyone
from theologians to housewives and construction
workers — is one of the ways human beings have
believed they can elude the grim reaper
Others use the past-life concept to learn about
themselves. One’s prior existences can give insight to
the successes or failures of this one, says Laeh
Varada Garfield, who has been a professional psychic
for 14 years.
One of Garfield’s services is guiding her clients
back to their past lives and counsling the clients on
their discoveries. The time voyagers pay from $34 to
$50 for the sessions, depending on the length of the
session and the number of people involved.
"We have memory further than this lifetime,’’
Garfield says. “We are just schooled to forget it.
“Past lives are novels of human life.”
The byword of reincarnation is learning, says
Garfield. Humans come from the “other side’’ to learn.
They die, yet return to earth to learn even more. She
says people learn human foibles, such as arrogance
and hate, on earth.
“We get distracted. So much of the lesson is to
learn to be one-pointed with our minds. It is only when
we learn to be one-pointed that we can acheive
perfect union with God."
Sometimes an individual will learn nothing from a
particular life. “If you refuse to grow while you are
here, you will get a re-run,” Garfield says.
When does one reach the end of the line? Garfield
says it’s up to the passenger. A “discarnate" has the
choice to be reborn or stay put on the other side, but
most discarnates choose to enjoy earthly pleasures
again, she says.
Recently Garfield conducted a "past lives semin
ar” where she led five customers through two of their
past lives. The audience included a University profes
sor, a married couple, Garfield’s apprentice and an
Emerald reporter.
Garfield had everyone lie on their backs on a mat
with knees bent and arms at their sides. "Imagine
yourself being rooted into the bedrock of the earth,”
she instructed. "Now bring in green energy through
your feet, up to the small of your back, up your spine
and out the top of your head "
After a few minutes of relaxation, everybody was
in a trance. Garfield guided the group to the "Akashic
records, where information about human beings is
kept."
Uio, an archangel, is the keeper of the records,
she explained He welcomes and leads the seeker to
his past-life file.
Each file contains scrolls, the records of past
lives. The searcher unrolls a scroll to begin one of his
life stories.
The procedure may sound farfetched to some,
but others feel it is no more bizarre than Christian
doctrine. In fact, says Garfield, only the Christian and
Photo courtesy ot Hanafi Russell
Laeh Garfield
Jewish faiths discount reincarnation.
Why do they find it so difficult to digest?
"Because Christians call it a competitor inspired
by Satan,” says Ray Hyman, University professor and
one of the country’s leading parapsychologists, inve
stigators of psychic phenomenon.
Although unconvinced by religious arguments
against reincarnation, Hyman says there are secular
reasons for being skeptical of seminars like Garfield’s.
He surmises that a past-life experience is drawn
not from the Akashic records, but from a person’s
"unbelievably creative’’ mind.
But such reasons are pipe dreams compared to
the two nightmares that Hyman says such seminars
can become.
Delving into a person’s mind may uncover painful
neuroses, says Hyman. He feels the past-life therapist
usually doesn’t have the long-term relationship with
the client that is necessary to soothe a shaky psyche.
Hyman’s second fear is that those who accept the
therapy without question may be manipulated
“I'm not sure it’s really good in the long run for
people to believe without skepticism," Hyman says.
As a matter of fact, some of the therapists are
skeptics themselves, he says. "I suspect some of them
believe this, I don’t think a lot of them do.”
The debate goes on. But in the midst of all the
chatter, Hyman feels the big point is overlooked.
"What’s sad about these cases is as soon as you
show they have no occult basis, people drop it. But it’s
still fascinating that people can create these things."
I married a banker's son when I was 19. I'm not
sure why I did. I think my parents forced me to. The
marriage didn't work out very well.
By the time I was 29, I felt radical. I met an
American woman named Julia at the theater in Lon
don. She was quite an independent soul who seemed
to have fun. What intriqued me was her cigarette
smoking habit. Cigarette smoking was not something
a Victorian lady did and got away with. So I asked her
for a smoke. My family never forgave me.
Scarlet fever killed me in 1929. I had hoped to
teach my two daughters to be independent.
Unfortunately they resented my outlandish behavior
because it prevented them from finding prominent
places in English society. Who knows what happened
to them?
Story by Caroline Petrich and Jody Murray
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