This Doctor Brings You Back to Your Previous Lives

An Interview of Dr. Glenn Williston

by Elinor Rafaelsen

Hjemmet, Oslo, Norway, Dec. 1989

translated from Norwegian

Already over the phone - as I make my appointment with Dr. Glenn Williston, across the Atlantic - do I feel that there is something special about this man. His quiet way of talking has an almost hypnotic effect. It creates trust and safety.

The man who meets me in Lake Tahoe a month later is slim, and towers close to two meters above the ground. This young and attractive man has only one thing in common with the "daddy-type" that I, judging from his voice, expected to meet; the voice and the eyes.

Dr. Glenn Williston has written several books on regression - going back to previous lives by the help of hypnosis. His last book, "Discovering your Past Lives," was published by Gyldendal last spring . The book explains, in an easy, understandable way what a regression really is, and how a person can search for his or her previous lives e by using self hypnosis. Is it not a risky experiment, to try out self-hypnosis? I am trying hard not to think of hypnosis as I ask the question. It is hard. Dr. Williston's, intense blue eyes seem to look straight through me. Glenn Williston shakes his head: It depends on what kind of risks you have in mind. If abused, hypnosis can be dangerous. You can make a person do some something he normally would not have done. But what most people fear is that they shall never wake up again. Never return to the present time. That does not happen. I don't know of any cases where someone under hypnosis has not come out of the hypnosis. That happens automatically. Hypnosis no more dangerous than dreaming

You use hypnosis to bring your patients back to previous lives. Why? Because I feel confident, after having used regression as a treatment for more than 25 years, that a lot of the problems that we are struggling against today have their sources in what we have experienced earlier. In our childhood in this life, but also further back in time. In other, previous lives.

So you believe in reincarnation?

Absolutely.

Does the patient also have to believe in reincarnation in order to accomplish a result?

No. Not at all. I have had faster and better results with patients that have been skeptical. They are more relaxed. They don't produce so much adrenalin as those who believe and have high expectations. Children and teenagers are often those who are easiest to work on. They are more relaxed and have not yet reached too many prejudices.

But if an experience in a previous life has been rather traumatic, which probably is most likely as it is supposed to create anxiety and phobias in this life - can not experiencing this all over again by a regression, become a new, strong and shattering experience?

Of course. I have seen patients go through severe pains and fears during a regression. And that is the whole idea. By helping the patient live through a suppressed or unfinished anxiety, the patient can be freed from his phobia or his unconscious fear.

Is it not a risk that such an experience can lead to injury of a permanent character? To more anxiety later in this life?

Not more that an ordinary nightmare would give. But the whole point with having me put a patient through a regression, is that he shall have a full treatment. Meaning that I don't let go of the person after the regression. We meet and talk about his or her experiences, once or several times. It depends on what is needed. The most important thing has already been accomplished: by finding the origin, the source of the problem. Then we will start working on the material that the regression has given us; by using therapy, we talk about it, or even try repeated regressions.

Regression against anxiety and phobias

Glenn Williston was born and raised in Massachusetts and Rhode Island USA. He first wanted to become a teacher, but found that the profession held too few challenges. So he ventured into psychology.

I did not believe, neither in God nor in reincarnation at that time, he tells me, giving me a tilted, boyish grin. It was friends of mine who finally got me interested. I tried to fight them until the bitter end, but found myself more and more curious. I began to understand that there had to be some truth in this. It could not be just a bluff when men like Tolstoy, Plato, Beethoven, and Alexander the Great believed in it.

How far back in time have you taken people?

To the stone age.

What kind of phobias do you meet with most often?

Fear of people. His answer comes without the slightest hesitation. Definitely the fear of people. Those who suffer from it will most of the time have had bad experiences with other people in previous lives. Maybe she has been burned as a witch, or he has been stoned to death. Do people come to you out of sheer curiosity? Not only for help? Sure. I respect that people are curious. I don't reject anyone. After all, it is their own money they are spending, so why not have some fun? I don't mind having fun! There is this boyish grin again. But he is serious again when he continues..

However, often it turns out, during a "just-for-fun" regression, that the person has problems that he has subconsciously tried to suppress. And the person will continue to see me, to have a treatment for this problem. What then about my previous lives? I must admit that I am curious? According to Dr. Williston I am one of those who should be easy to work on. Why not try self-hypnosis? I have his book. If I read carefully, maybe I will find out how to do it?

Jane Norma - a dream or a distant past?

I try. Over and over again. Confusing pictures make me uncertain. Have I dreamt or been awake?

Then there is a very clear feeling, after the fourth or fifth try, I am not sure. I am standing in small village, between tall and rugged mountains and deep forests. There is a river running through the narrow valley. The place is called Glendale. The time? About 1889 - 1890. My name is Jane Norma Nicholson, but I don't like the name Norma, so I use only Jane. I am dressed in a brown, woolen suit. I am very poor, looking for a job. I have landed in a gold miner camp. There are mostly men.

The scenery changes. I witness a huge avalanche down the mountainside. I am scared, but I am not hit by it. Later I am sent away from this camp by an elderly, motherly woman who wants to prevent me becoming a prostitute for the men at the camp.

But the horse and the carriage, with which I am travelling, falls of the narrow mountain road and disappears over the cliff. Jane Norma dies young. In my present life I have always been afraid of skiing downwards on steep hills... I feel uncomfortable with a lot of snow around me. I am afraid of heights...

When I was back in 1989 again, I was not at all sure if i had dreamt the whole thing or if I really had succeeded in reaching "The other side." According to Dr. Williston this is quite normal. People often think that they have fallen asleep and dreamt during a regression. Bursting with curiosity I started my search for Glendale. I spent hours at a library in Los Angeles, and found that there were at least 20 places in USA that were called Glendale. None of these places were situated near Klondyke or Yukon. However, there is a place in Oregon, judging by the map. It is situated in a valley, surrounded by tall mountains and forests. And there is river. This made me confused. Could my "gold miners camp" have been a "lumber camp"? The environment was much the same. But on the other hand, "my" Glendale was there a hundred years ago. The place could have changed its name.

I concentrated on the gold miner district, and found that in 1898 there was a huge avalanche in Yukon, that took hundreds of lives.

But I found something else too. There was a narrow road through the area, that was called "The dead Horses Trail." The reason it had gotten that name, was that so many horses and carriages had gone off the road and disappeared over the cliffs....

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