For millennia mystics have accessed higher states of consciousness, spiritual understanding, and profound inner encounters with the Divine that were experienced or thought attainable by a rare few. For the majority, spirituality was consigned to prayer, reading from holy books, participation in religious services and ceremonies, and the hope that the afterlife would bring true and everlasting awakening. And yet, if we are all created in the same likeness, if we were apportioned a spark of divinity at the time of our creation, why is it that spiritual realization is assumed to be available only to a few, and not to the rest?

Perhaps 40 years ago it might have been difficult to find an acceptable answer to this question. But since that time much has changed. In 1977, Dr. Raymond Moody published the international best seller Life After Life which summarized his findings derived from hundreds of interviews with men and women who were revived following clinical death. His subjects repeatedly described experiences of being out-of-body, traveling through a dark tunnel to a place of great peace and tranquility, and an encounter with one or several brilliant beings of light whose very presence engendered feelings of indescribable love and comfort. Since then, largely due to advances in emergency medical intervention, tens of thousands of people have been pronounced clinically dead only to return to live and breathe again. Truly re-born, a significant percentage of these individuals retained conscious memory of their soul's out-of-body experiences. Since Dr. Moody's landmark findings other researchers such as Drs. Kenneth Ring, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and Gary Schwartz have also made important contributions to further understand the Near-Death Experience (NDE).

Another approach to the study of our own multi-dimensional nature has been advanced through practitioners of Out-of-Body Exploration (OBE). Robert Monroe, in his first book (Journeys out of the Body, 1971) recorded his own OBEs over three decades, providing further details about the far reaches of human consciousness. He later founded The Monroe Institute which dedicated itself to education, exploration, and research into practical methods of expanding consciousness into realms beyond the physical creation. Others researchers such as William Buhlman, Robert Peterson, and Charles Tart have offered additional theory and methods of how practitioners can accomplish self-initiated OBEs.

Paralleling these developments are the contributions made by hypnotherapists who specialized in Past Life Regression (PLR) such as Drs. Dick Sutphen, Hazel Denning, Winifred Lucas, Helen Wambach, Edith Fiore, Joel Whitton, and Roger Woolger. Perhaps the most well known of these pioneers is Dr. Brian Weiss who, in 1988, published Many Lives, Many Masters. The technique these hypnotherapists utilized, Hypnotic Regression, can be likened to a type of "psychological archaeology" that may be applied to cut vertically through time and horizontally through "layers" of consciousnesss" to promote within clients a deeper, more complete understanding of themselves as spiritual beings engaged in a physical experience. Hypnotic Regression permits access to memories that are not limited to the brief span of time that consciousness has occupied the present physical body. These include remembrance of past lives lived and of the experiences and lessons accrued in what has been termed "Between Life" states.

Regression to Life-Between-Lives (LBL) is a technique developed by Dr. Michael Newton and is described in his books, Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls. These books summarize Dr. Newton's findings with clients who have been hypnotized and, following an abbreviated PLR, they continue to progress into the "interlife" wherein they perceive their experiences as soul-consciousness following the death of a past life. While in a super-conscious state LBL clients report their experiences of the spirit world. Based upon his hypnotic regressions with over 7,000 LBL clients, Dr. Newton has described a realm of spirit which is consistent with, yet far more elaborated, than that found in the NDE and OBE literature. His writings are among the most significant, in terms of both the depth and inspiration, of any you will find in the metaphysical and spiritual literature regarding the Path of the Soul and life after death. Dr. Newton writes in the Conclusions to Journey of Souls, "To those readers who find the material offered in this book too unprecedented to accept, I would hope for one thing. If you carry away nothing except the idea you have a permanent identity worth finding, I will have accomplished a great deal."

It is recommended that before attempting an LBL, individuals have first experienced hypnosis (ideally PLR) because LBL requires a deeper state of trance which is more likely obtained by having had some prior exposure to the trance state. My experience is that some individuals, based upon their questions and interests, profit most from PLR. Other clients find LBL more suitable to their needs and goals. Both offer incrediblly transformational experiences; neither is "better" than the other. What is most important is that each individual receives the experiences that offer the greatest potential for healing and understanding; the method is secondary.