Dr. Robert James’ first research project was designed as a general inquiry into the past-life memory phenomena, with normal, healthy adults as participants, not in therapy and not suffering from any serious illness.  He worked with 107 people, individually, who had responded to an advertisement.  Three of the participants did not go into hypnosis, however, while in a satisfactory state of hypnosis (meaning a trance depth of at least medium-deep) 81 regressed before birth to two past lives, and to the period in-between their past lives. 

The importance of trance depth in regressions is that in hypnosis a dissociation occurs; a partial separation between the conscious and subconscious mind.  In a light trance, a participant can still analyze, judge and/or distort information, depending on some agenda of their own, if such be their wish.  In a deeper trance state, the likelihood is increased that we are accessing the subconscious mind and possible true past-life memories.

            A large number of the participants regressed to different genders, different races, and different economic conditions from the lives they lead to-day.  The personalities to which they regressed were as varied as that of a woman-of-the-streets in Italy in 1864, a pygmy in the jungle, an early Christian in Rome, a confederate soldier, a convicted murderer who was hung, an Apache Indian, a Chinese man, A Viking, and others.  While in hypnosis, the participants seemed to “relive” their events, rather than just recalling a past life, expressing emotions consistent with their experiences.

            The second research project was designed to (1) regress the participants to the first time they lived on Earth in any form, (2) to explore when the surviving spirit enters its new mother’s womb, and while there, to see if the fetus is aware of its mother’s feelings and emotions, (3) to regress the participants to their past lives just prior to their present ones in an attempt to get verifiable data, and finally (4) if a subject reported while in hypnosis to have ever lived on another planet, to explore those experiences.

            Dr. James also worked with 50 participants, individually.  Forty-four regressed to past lives.  Illustrative of the variety of past lives encountered by the participants, they were slaves, prisoners, spirits, one Catholic Bishop, the wife of a shopkeeper, soldiers, and one was a monk.  Three participants regressed to being Jewish individuals who died in the Holocaust.

            When regressed to the first time they had ever lived on Earth in any form, 30 appeared to be humans although most were in very primitive cultures, five were apparently some form of hominid but not human, two were clearly animals, and two were in spirit form. One was an alien from another planet who was abandoned by his/her/it’s companions

Thirteen participants responded while in hypnosis that they had lived on another planet, and those experiences were examined.  In some instances after coming out of hypnosis, they drew pictures of their life-forms while on the other planets.

Based on the written interviews and histories of the participants obtained before their regressions, and using a statistical analysis computer program, the research clearly indicates that a person’s religious beliefs, religious involvement, belief in life after death, education and whether they expected to recall past lives, has no effect on whether they regressed beyond birth and made contact with a past life.  The phenomena (regressing to a past life) appear to be common among normal, healthy adults.  It’s an area of human experience like any other and is not a unique experience.

While in the regressed personalities, a number of the participants encountered people they had known in other past lives or in their present lives.  With some five and one-half billion people now inhabiting the Earth, the probability of meeting our present friends and mates in another life by chance, is too small to be seriously considered.  This gives rise to some profound questions.  Is there meaning in our interpersonal relationships?  Who or what choreographs these meetings?  And to what end?

As a part of his research, Dr. James examined in detail certain “hard core” cases reported by others of good repute who had good qualifications.

There is no significant body of scientific thought that presents strong evidence that anything else is happening in these regressions, other than that we do survive our physical deaths, and are reborn.

Whatever the truth is concerning the nature and origin of that part of our individuality that survives our physical deaths, the evidence now strongly indicates that it is far more involved, than (1) the traditional view still prominent in many Western religions that each spirit, soul, (whatever term is used to designate that surviving entity) is created new at the time of each human birth, or (2) some “scientific” concept that the matter and energy that comprise our physical bodies existing within the framework of the space-time continuum constitutes the only reality of human existence.