Child of Dachau

The place: A country house near York.
The time: 1998
The occasion: A five day workshop covering the principles used when regressing a subject to a past life. About 30 students attended with ages ranging from 25 to 68 years, including doctors, therapists and the curious.

Diana was aged about 32 years. Her student syndicate had problems persuading her to relax sufficiently to move into an altered state of consciousness - that is the same mental state as the driver of a car after about an hours driving on a motorway - the car is doing most of the work. The tutor took charge of the 'case', and suddenly Diana burst into tears and we, the spectators knew that she had hit some distant trauma.

At this stage the practitioner avoids leading the subject for it is accepted that the autonomous unconscious depths of the subject, or the Mind, or Soul or whatever you wish to call it, will take her to wherever she NEEDS to go. We listened as Diana described the ancient drama that was unwinding. She was a small child at Dachau concentration camp. She had just arrived with her parents and was in great fear. There was much terror and weeping about her. Suddenly her parents were taken away and she was left on her own. The adults were taken to one shed, the children to another. She was told to take off her clothes, she went into the shed and the last thing she remembered was a horrible smell which choked her.

This was the drama, but it was unfinished and it was necessary for the tutor (as therapist) to find persuade her to explore the reasons for this particular memory and to encourage her to go through her death time to make sure that it was a complete experience, a finished story, so to speak. After establishing that she realised that she had indeed died she was asked to describe her emotions after lifting out of her body. These were, as they usually are in such cases, negative and very powerful. A mix of residual fear (what is going to happen to me?) and great anger at her parents (why did you desert me?). It was necessary for Diana to recognise and accept these emotions, and then to meet her parents in the 'spirit world'. When the meeting took place she realised that they could not be blamed for leaving her as they had no choice, and it was touching to see the happiness in her face as she met them and realised that their feelings were still of love and concern.

After returning to this 'reality' Diana, who could remember every detail of her experience (as is the usual case) was in a state of tearful and wondrous joy at the great weight of anger, guilt and fear that had been lifted from her shoulders. In this life she had had great problems establishing any form of family relationship both with her parents, and with her children to whom she was over protective and these attitudes had been directly caused by the memories of her terrible trauma which had been sitting in her unconscious like the scar of a great wound throughout her life without her realising it.

When she had recovered and dried her tears, we had to walk her on the lawn in the fresh air as she could not get the taste of the gas out of her throat. I recall being slightly puzzled at the time, for as far as I knew the children and parents were all gassed to death in the same room. Recently I saw a TV programme in which some of the details of those horrific times were revealed - Diana was right and I was wrong! ...Ed