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For general hypnotherapy please visit The Apple Tree
For general hypnotherapy please visit The Apple Tree
Contributions are invited from all our clients. Due to their intimate nature
they will be published anonymously
In days of yore people used to gather together in the evening, under
a tree or around the fire, and share their stories and their
experiences, both real and imagined, their dreams and their hopes.
Many
things have changed since then, and although electronic communication
might have made us all more physically insular and disconnected, if we
look closely enough into our souls we can still discern their old footprints.
Under our apple tree we can share our stories today as our great-grand-parents did in the past. Here are those donated by some of you for all of us to read. Their interpretation will be personal and each of us will see in them what is best for us to see: a spiritual experience, a subconscious symbolic communication, a fantasy, a past life recall, a dream, a wish or a hope ...
We are all on a journey and we all have some ghosts in the mist waiting for us, some very dear too ...
When I was regressed I found myself at the time of Ancient Rome: I was
a young man called Lucius, from a relatively well-off family and living
in a lively town near the sea (probably not far away from Rome itself).
I was tired of my style of life and I was also very resentful towards
my family for something that had happened. I left and travelled to
Pompeii where I started a business in the market square. I liked to
deal with people and because of my good upbringing I had very good
manners and was well spoken. I made a lot of friends and I was selling
potions and other supposed remedies. People trusted me and bought my
concoctions, sometimes they even came back to thank me. Inside myself I
felt quite contemptuous because I knew the potions didn’t have any
power but I was not bothered by ethical principles: if they wanted to
buy them, I was happy to take their money.
Then I found myself in my early 30s looking at the sea from a cliff. It
was a beautiful landscape in the late afternoon, a breathtaking view
and very peaceful. I was looking eastwards with great longing. I was
soon going to embark on a ship to go to Greece and probably Anatolia. I
was dissatisfied with my life and in search of real answers. I was
tired of those fake creams and potions, I wanted to discover truths.
Then I saw myself in my 50s, in a quite bare landscape of meagre grass,
dust, goats and silent hills. I had a donkey who carried my belongings
and I walked alongside. I was very happy with myself because I had
fulfilled my dream and had already learnt many things.
I didn’t think much of Roman civilisation and I despised its values. I
was looking for esoteric teachings and I seemed to have found them. I
had grown a thick, brown beard and I spoke the language of the place:
no-one would have guessed that I was a Roman.
Later
I saw myself at a campfire in the night, outside a simple hut in the
woods. An old hermit inhabited it and he was sitting there with me. He
trusted me and revealed to me the secrets he knew. He knew how to live
without needing any material food and he was extremely wise. I felt
very proud to have been granted his trust.
I was particularly interested in discovering the true nature of the
material world and physical death, and learning about the spiritual
states that lay behind them, the connections between matter and spirit.
I believed that death, as humans understood it, didn’t exist. I thought
it was a scary tale which had been invented by someone, a long time
ago, to frighten people in order to rule over and control them through
fear. I knew secrets which would have been very dangerous if they had
fallen into the wrong hands and for this reason I kept them in my mind
and never put them in writing. I parted with my body intentionally - as
one discards an old garment which has become useless - when I didn’t
need it any longer to continue my spiritual journey. I saw myself in
spiritual form continuing my journey on a path in a wood, on a hill,
just after having left my physical body in a cave nearby, knowing that
eventually it would be eaten by animals and would disappear completely.
The first thing I noticed once I was in my own past was that a
beautiful, golden lion walked beside me at all times. Whenever I felt
stressed I would stroke the lion’s head. Afterwards I didn’t really
know if this lion was real or symbolic, but he seemed very real during
the session. He kept people away from me, which at the time I thought
was a good thing.
It took place in Eastern Europe, in quite a warm, heavily forested
place, in the early 1800s, and when I was quite a young, Roma woman,
aged about 19, a very traumatic event happened to me. I recalled my
Mother standing outside the family house, and her telling me to get
out, to leave. I really didn’t want to leave, but I felt I had no
choice. Things had gone too far, some kind of argument was apparently
unforgivable. She wouldn’t let me see or speak to the rest of the
family, she just wanted me to go.
I really didn’t want to go, but finally I went out the door and walked
away, my lion at my side. This rejection by my mother shaped my whole
life with regrets.
I walked and walked through woods, feeling scared and afraid, with only
my lion to comfort me. The trees made it so dark. Eventually I reached
a village of small, round huts with pointed roofs. At first the people
ignored me, but eventually a man took me in and I became his wife. I
lived there for some time, walking by the river, enjoying the security
and comfort.
Some years later I found myself living on the outskirts of a town,
alone again. I didn’t even have my lion. I didn’t like the town but I’d
had to move there to survive after my husband died. I felt freer alone,
but not happy. My clothes were dirty and worn by then, though they’d
been quite smart when I came there. I missed the countryside. I was 32
years old.
I was in my late 60s when I died, not of any painful illness. I was
just old, worn out and tired. I just wanted to leave the world.
After Death I was floating above my body. I was glowing all white and
bright, whereas my body and the world below looked all grey and dull by
comparison. I was very peaceful, but I just wished I hadn’t shut people
out during my life.
The regression took me to Eastern France where I was an author, initially sitting quietly amongst the rivers and mountains seeking inspiration for my next story. I felt that nobody took my writing seriously as I was a woman but somehow discovered a job was available at a prestigious university and I applied and was successful. The rest of that life was spent immersed in academia and I loved being around books, colleagues and the students until I died aged ninety-seven. The message I took from this life was that I need to worry less about what others think and have the courage to follow my desires.
Since I was a little child I have had a recurrent dream and - when I
was awake - images floating in my mind which I didn’t know the origin
of. I saw myself as an adult running with great anguish on a bleak
beach with a bare concrete pier protruding into the sea. There were men
in dark clothes running after me, probably with guns.
When I was regressed I discovered that I was born at the beginning of
the XX century, in Koblenz, South Germany. I was a Jewish woman and
because one of my parents was French I was perfectly bilingual. At some
point, when things started to be quite dangerous in Germany I moved to
Paris. Although they were difficult and dangerous times, I was happy in
my private life and Paris was very exciting. I worked for a clandestine
organisation (maybe the Resistance) where my bilinguism was extremely
useful. I remember very clearly a dark blue mackintosh I was wearing
and a strong feeling of happiness and excitement, walking in the
evening in a Parisian street glittering with recent rain.
Some time later I left Paris for North Africa where I stayed with my
partner. We were both working for the Resistance and it was becoming
increasingly dangerous. A friend in the French police told us that the
Gestapo had discovered our identities and we had to escape.
Finally I see the two of us running on a large, white beach, along the
water. The beach ended up against a high flat cliff with a little grass
on the top. There were men in black uniforms with guns running there
and we were trying to escape them. The men couldn’t jump down onto the
beach because the cliff was too high, but we knew that soon they would
be able to reach us with their bullets. I know they wanted to take us
alive to make us betray our friends. We decided to enter the sea which
was very grey and ominous with big waves: it was unlikely we would
survive but although we wanted to save our lives we didn’t want to be
caught and reveal names under torture. I lost track of my partner who
was running behind me. I entered the sea and swam under an abandoned
pier which ended at the water’s edge. By then the men in black had
started to shoot and the bullets were all around me. As soon as I
reached the water under the pier I felt relatively protected, but then
the waves grew higher and higher leaving no space for me to breathe,
trapped between the water and the concrete pier above: I drowned there,
crushed underneath the pier.
I think that I remained floating over the scene in shock at the sudden
end of my life: I didn’t want to die, I was not ready yet. I wanted to
do many more things, I was so full of life, barely in my 30s. I don’t
know what happened to my partner, I know he was farther on in the open
sea but I am not sure whether he managed to escape or if he died (he
probably died). I was looking from above at the place under the pier
where my dead body was.
In the meantime the soldiers had managed to get down onto the beach and
some were ordered to wade into the water to pull my dead body ashore.
They did so, cursing me for having to get their clothes wet. When they
recovered my body, although it was obvious that I was dead they shot me
over and over again, they kicked me, spat on me and insulted me,
calling me names. I was particularly upset by how they treated my
corpse and this seemed to me worse than the fact that they were the
cause of my death. I felt an unbearable pain which the regression
helped me to recognise and release, leaving it behind.
The regression took me to what I believed initially was the Far East,
symbolised by a stylised stone carving of what I thought was a tiger.
The next day I chanced upon a programme about the history of Venice and
I recognised the stone carving clearly as that of the Lion of Venice in
exactly the same pose. Originally I described the carving as being
embedded in the wet earth and leaning over as if sinking. This has
parallels with the situation Venice finds itself in today.
I was shown the exterior of a large mansion style building as seen
through dense trees. The date appeared to be in the 1700s (18th
century). Initially I felt that it was not permissible for me to
approach the mansion, but on being told to, I found myself inside. I
knew there was to be an important dinner or function. Upon being
instructed to engage with someone I saw a footman part way up the
right-hand side of a double staircase that curved up around an entrance
hall to a landing on the first floor. He waved me up the stairs to a
large richly furnished room. Seated
inside; a pleasant young woman is in foreground in a formal (perhaps
ball gown type) dress - light coloured and stiff with large bell shaped
lower section. Very light voluminous (powdered?) elaborate hair, very
white face and red lips (heavy make-up). Smiling. I seem to be there to
give advice. Although I am comfortable and welcome, I am aware of our
relative stations and my role. She has enormous wealth and I do not.
Move on to scene in horse-drawn carriage - expensive type similar to
some used for ceremonial purposes today. The woman is there along with
me and perhaps a couple of men on horseback riding with us. Carriage
door is open and some of us are standing around, though there is no
sense of immediate danger.
Move on. The woman is sitting in the carriage on the right with her
back to the direction of travel. I am on the left facing the other way.
Travelling past trees (through forest?). Sound of muffled flat cracks
of gunfire in the distance. We appeared to have stopped later some
distance from trouble as a precaution. There is no sense of threat or
urgency.
Move to significant event. A crowd of people (mostly women) wearing
Venetian carnival masks (many held up on sticks. All facing me. Dark
behind them (night?). Impression of Venice. Impression that this is
where I met the woman. Asked if this could be France, but I felt it to
be Venice.
General impression of becoming a trusted advisor, perhaps in
security/military matters. Not high born, but earned trust and respect
as someone who would always do what he said he would and would tell the
truth.
Asked what word encapsulates this life: service. I felt that the woman
who was the central figure in this life has reappeared with me in this
current one. The significant difference is that in the 18th century I
served her when she had everything. Today I am doing the same thing
when she has nothing. Although our relative stations have changed, the
compelling underlying sense of duty remains.