


She focused on every part of my body, countering breathing exercises with a sedating countdown until every nerve was numb. Her voice was cool and relaxed, and as time went by it started to sound less like a human being and more like the robot AI, a mix between HAL 9000 and voice-over from an instructional yoga video. From there, Barham guided me through an unwinding technique. I put on my optional blindfold and lay down. I could see the reflection of the fire burning in the hearth beside me. A light rain falling against the windows. A possible addiction, maybe? Since I am essentially perfect in every way, I just opted for "let's see what happens."Īfter I sprawled on the floor of the meditation room - white-noise machine buzzing and fake scented candles flickering - we began.įirst, she had me create a mental comfort zone for deep relaxation.

You get it. The questionnaire also asked if I had any fears. Hate cats? Maybe your wife was mauled by a cougar on the Oregon Trail. Claustrophobic? Perhaps you were buried alive at one point.

So I signed my consciousness away.Īlso covered in the waivers was a major facet of Barham's proposed purpose: using the exposition of traumatic past memories to solve current issues. To start my own inaugural session, I brought Barham to Thrillist's brand-new "meditation room" - a dark, decorated zone for uninterrupted prayer, contemplation, or quiet time that progressively and conveniently opened its doors just the day before. Before we began, I signed a stack of waivers to absolve Barham of liability for any lost marbles. And now Barham and many, many other past-life therapists can bring the experience to your doorstep.
PAST LIFE REGRESSION LOS ANGELES SERIES
A recent British television series featured D-list European celebs doing this stuff on camera - opera-pop singer Katherine Jenkins ran an ancient vegetable farm! - blasting the concept into millions of living rooms. Oscar-winner Shirley MacLaine is probably the most firm and noted believer, having written a book on the topic (spoiler alert: She was a medieval warrior and her dog was an Egyptian god). Past-life regression isn't too far outside of the mainstream. Her focus shifted to past-life regression after she took classes on therapeutic imagery and experienced her own intense past-life revelation. Barham - who looks more like a friendly, Bagel Bites-offering mom than a celestial gatekeeper - has been a licensed marriage and family therapist for more than two decades.
PAST LIFE REGRESSION LOS ANGELES CODE
except instead of making you cluck like a chicken at a school assembly, you basically feel like you took ayahuasca cut with Mountain Dew Code Red. This means different things for different people, but Barham doesn't really promise anything specifically. She wants to seize it and plop it in our laps using a combo of practical therapy and metaphysical exploration, to power wash the canyons of our consciousness so we can see clearly. Barham doesn't seek to explain or decode repressed and celestial memory. There are more neurological connections in our brains than stars in the known universe. But the mind is deep and powerful, flush with weirdness. You might consider the concept of "past lives" as plausible as a wife-swap with Bigfoot (which is laughable, since Bigfoots are notoriously monogamous), and I don't blame you. apparently? I actually cried a little bit. Life and death are in the mind, and nowhere else. I was expecting a farce, but I got a full-blown, life-altering hallucination. My brain had seemingly been removed, gently hand-washed, and placed back inside my skull. But when my actual past-life regression exploration reached a crescendo, I opened my eyes and looked at the clock.
