Going into a feeling or using a guiding sentence
This goes back to the induction technique of Morris Netherton, which can also be used as an alternative when there is a block while using another induction technique.

When it blocks, one may ask. “What do you feel now?” and have the client go into that feeling to see where it takes him. Or we could take up a feeling related to the problem, such as a fear: “Allow yourself to feel that fear now (for example remembering when you last had it). It is safe to do so, since there is no danger here now. The fear knows from where it comes. It leads you back to a situation in the past where you already had it, maybe for the first time.” The feeling usually is emotional but could also be physical, maybe a pain.

Alternatively, the client may five times (or more) repeat a guiding sentence that in just a few words describes either the problem or the situation in which it blocks.

“Smoothing” or “beautifying” the situation
This can be seen as a special kind of a block. It happens that a person unconsciously doesn’t want to see a situation in the past as it really was, but makes something else out of it that he likes better. This is, of course, self-cheating. A related case is when he just skips the critical situation and goes on as if it were not there.

If we have the impression that this is so, we have the client ask questions about it to his guide, which we carefully formulate to try to lead him to see a truth that he possibly avoided seeing, without being suggestive or insistent (we could, of course, be wrong about our impression!). We may try to “pin-point” like “Ask the guide what in that life really has to do with your problem to day”. If there at first seems to be little or nothing that really relates to his problem, there most probably will still be something there that he just didn’t like to see yet, or that past life wouldn’t have come up… We could be a bit more direct: “Ask the guide if there is something more in that life that you didn’t want to see yet.”

Clinging to known images
This can also be seen as a special kind of a block. It rarely happens that the client grabs a picture from his life to day that he knows well, simply because he feels more comfortable with it then letting something come that is unknown to his mind. If that happens, I stay with it but find a way out of the well-known scene, such as entering a house where he has never been inside or opening a door he has never opened before. After getting out of the well-known environment, we can go on into the past.

Alternatively we can go to the guide and ask him to show a situation in a forgotten past that has to do with the problem.

Tricks of other authors
If the client says: “I don’t know how it goes on” Ingrid Vallieres [4] asks: “And if you would know, what would it be?” (she will probably have this from Morris Netherton). Marcia Moore [5] asks: “What is the last thing you would want it to be?” – and the last thing he wants is in such a case probably what it was… Garret Oppenheim [6] once let the client switch bodies from the victim to being the perpetrator. It was easier to see it through the latter’s eyes. But in my experience it seems that it is usually not easy to enter a body one didn’t have, yet it might be worth trying if nothing else helps.

Resisting going back into a past life at all
When having the conversation with the guide, we often ask for another past life and that the guide show a scene in it. It could be another past life that also has to do with the problem, or it could be a perpetrator life in which the karma arose which led to being on the victim side in a later life. It then happens that nothing comes, the client sees no scene in that other life, obviously because he unconsciously doesn’t want to see it. I then say. “Ask the guide if you were a man or a woman in that life.” Maybe: “A woman.” – “Ask the guide to show you that woman.” – “I see her.” – “Enter her body.” That often works.

If it is a perpetrator life, there can be a stronger resistance. One likes to see oneself as a perpetrator even less than as a victim… I may then say: “Ask the guide what you should learn from the life we have just seen” (assuming that it was more of a victim experience). Maybe he had suffered from being treated badly and without love as a child and the answer may be: “I should learn that one should love one’s children.” – “Then there must be a life before that in which you didn’t love children, because we don’t have to learn what we already know. Ask the guide to show you a scene in such a life.” Now he may enter a life in which he treated his children like he was treated himself in the other (or this) life…

Using the light circles
In a handout from an earlier Summer School I described a light-circle technique [2] for a reconciliation ritual, seeking reconciliation with another person (soul). It can also be used for reconciliation with oneself, forgiving the person one was in a past life oneself for what he did. This can help in case there is a lot of resistance to entering another life. We have the guide put the person the client was in that life in the second circle to cut symbolical ties (see [2]). We have the client ask the person or the guide what that person did to make a karma for his soul. Once the client knows, he should ask the guide if he still to day has feelings of guilt from that life. He probably has, and we release them (after asking the guide if it is now time to release them, which it usually is). Then we ask the client if he can forgive that person he was, and he probably can. It will now be easier to enter that past life. It could in certain cases even be that what we now did in the light circles is quite enough (we may ask the guide if it is), but in most cases it will be better to enter the life to re-experience it.

Resistance against releasing a negative emotional energy
We ask the client to release his – for example – sadness (I usually have him symbolically burn it’s energy in a fire), and he says: “It sticks. I can’t get it off from me.” This means, of course, that somewhere inside he doesn’t want to let go of it. Why? There are various reasons.

The familiar unease (indisposition)
He had this sadness all his life since he was a child and it has become a part of him. If he releases it, he thinks that he has nothing left but emptiness. “If you release it, it makes room for something new that comes instead. Ask the guide what that could be.” For example: “Joy of life.” – “Do you then really want to keep the sadness” – “No.”

He thinks he gets attention from people around, having that feeling
“Ask the guide if that attention really comes from their hearts, or rather from their feelings of duty.” – “From their feelings of duty.” – “Is that what you want?” – “No, I would like it to come from their hearts.” – “That you can have, but not this way. Ask the guide, how.” – “He says that I must open my own heart and show positive feelings to others, then they will open their hearts, too.” To suffer for attention is really a form of black-mailing…

He wants to blame others for his suffering
If would release the feeling, it would involve realizing that he is himself to blame, too, and not only the others. In the discussion with the guide, he will hopefully realize that and stop playing this game. There will never be a conflict in which only the others are to blame…

He wants to take revenge through suffering
Say that his father treated him very badly as a child. He now wants to suffer, showing “Look what you made out of me!” – “Ask the guide if he sees that.” – “No, that is the last thing he would see.” – “So you suffer for nothing, then… Do you want to continue that?” – “No.”

An unconscious feeling of guilt makes him believe that he isn’t allowed to release that (for example) sadness
We seek the reason why he has the feeling of guilt, for which we first may have to go into another past life. Once we know: “Ask the guide if you really have to have it still to day?” – “He says ‘no’.” Then we can release that feeling of guilt and after it the other feeling, too.

An unconscious feeling of guilt can in rare cases block from the very beginning, so that we cannot get into a life that has to do with his problem. It is, however, often still possible to meet the guide in such a case, and we have the client ask the guide if it is a feeling of guilt that blocks, and if he really needs to keep that old feeling still to day. Probably not, and we can release it. Here we release the feeling without really knowing the cause (since the feeling of guilt even blocks finding that out), which we in this case have to find out later. Or we can use the light circles (see above).

Of course, it isn’t all in past lives, but could just as well be in the childhood.

Blocking influence from an attaching soul or entity
If there is an attaching soul or entity, it happens (though not often) that this foreign presence wants to hinder the regression experience. There are two possible reasons for that: 1. the soul or entity wants to prevent the client from remembering something it doesn’t want him to know, and 2. it wants to prevent being discovered and, therefore, tries to prevent the client from finding a guide.

This case can be difficult, but when it happens for the 1^st reason, it is normally possible to find a guide. We then proceed as I described in the handout for my workshop in Frankfurt 2006 [1]. If it is for the 2^nd reason: see “When he doesn’t find a guide” above.

Since sexual abuse is so terribly common, it isn’t rare that we come across such a case in the regression. More often the client is then a woman. Maybe she in the initial interview says that she remembers that it happened, or she suspects that it did (maybe since she knows it happened to her sister). In the latter case we first have to ask the guide if this is really so, or not. But if it happened only once (or just two or three times) it is often so well suppressed that she as an adult woman cannot even imagine that such a thing ever happened to her. In such a case it is quite likely to come up unexpectedly in the regression. If, however, she says that she hates her father (for example), but doesn’t really know why, and even more if she has serious problems with sexuality, it will not be entirely unexpected…

If the guide confirms a suspicion and says that it really happened, we have him show the situation just before it started and the client enter the body of the girl. If it happened many times (in which case the woman will know, since it then could not well be suppressed), we ask the guide to pick one situation that may represent them all and go there. We then ask the guide if this is enough, or if there is possible another one, from which negative feelings should also be released.

The way of dealing with such cases that I mention with here has shown to be remarkably effective for liberation from such a trauma, which is the reason why I wish to describe it.

It, of course, also happens to boys, and then more often in a homosexual manner. But there are cases in which the mother or an older sister played sexual games with the boy child. In an interview in the Swedish radio in June 2008 a psychologist assumed that such cases could amount to 10-15 % of all cases, even though only 1-2 % are reported. Similar assumptions have been published in articles and were mentioned in a Swiss radio documentary in the 80es. I even had contact with a case of lesbian abuse.

Since many tend to doubt that a mother can do it to a boy, I suppose that I should illustrate this with a few cases I had. A young man had sexual problems. He experienced himself being bathed by his mother as a little boy. The mother somehow got excited, took his penis in her mouth and masturbated herself, which he experienced as something frightening. In another case, the mother undressed herself, took the sibling with her in the bed, pressed it against her breasts and masturbated. The child again experienced it as something frightening it couldn’t understand. In still another case the mother wanted to change the boys pants and had put him on a table. When his lower body was naked, an aunt came and took his penis in her mouth. Then she went out, saying: “When he is grown up he will know how good that is.” The boy felt this as a terrible trespassing into his privacy. The mother was shocked and in her helplessness slapped the boy, which was, of course, the worst thing she could do. The client said afterwards that that aunt also had wanted to seduce him when he was a teenager, but he didn’t let it happen.

So what do we do if such a thing comes up in a regression?
I will now again deal with the case of a girl being abused by a man and not the rare other cases. We let the client experience it just like any other childhood trauma in order to the release all the negative feelings that arouse: fear, disgust, anger, shame, maybe pain, and so on. Then we can do one more thing: “Now you go back into that situation again, but you are the woman you are to day. Only the girl sees you, the man doesn’t. What do you want to do and say to comfort the girl and help her through this?”

Did the girl tell the mother what happened? If so, we have the woman relive that, too. How does the mother react? Maybe she takes the girl in the arms, comforts her and says that she will take care that it never happens again. That is, of course, a relief for the girl. But some mothers in their helplessness and fear to face the situation react remarkably negatively. They blame the girl, as if it would be her fault, and thus add an additional trauma for her. Again there are feelings to release. This is, of course, the worst thing the mother could do in such a case.

And if the girl didn’t tell the mother? We can play it through as it might have been if she had told her. Back to where the abuse situation is over: “Now go to your mother and tell her. How does she react?” Hopefully she comforts the girl. “So you see that it wouldn’t have been wrong or dangerous to tell her! But now we did it this way, instead.” It could, however, happen that mother blames the girl. How can that be? Obviously because the woman in her unconscious self knows that she would have done so. There will be negative feelings to release also in this case. [Cf. discussion added at the end.]

The karma involved
Experience shows that in such cases, too, there will be a karmic reason why the girl should experience that. As one may expect, she could have been a man who did such things to children. But she could also have been a mother who let it happen, who knew what was going on but did nothing to stop it. Such an act of omission also causes karma! Once the client has seen that, she will have another understanding of her childhood experience. She can see it as a lesson her soul had chosen to have. Why is that important? Answer: it helps to be able to forgive the perpetrator in this life! And she will, furthermore, have unconscious feelings of guilt from that life, which can now also be released. Some may think that this goes a bit too far, since that is really a terrible thing to do to a child. And it is! But if the woman actually was a man who did such things to children in a past life, isn’t it the logic of karma that she should experience that herself as a child?

The mother as a pimp…
Well, that really happens… I had several cases in which it turned out that the mother knew what was going on but didn’t do anything about it, with the excuse that 1. then my husband leaves me in piece with such things and 2. the girl will forget it, and then it will not matter to her, anymore, when she grows up. Terribly wrong! It matters very much indeed to her! She grows up traumatized even if she forgets! Because she never forgets in her unconscious self. This is really the very worst thing a mother can do to her daughter… (There even are rare casers in which the mother lets it happen as a more or less conscious revenge on a daughter she didn’t want to have.)

In one rather extreme case the mother used to tell the girl to go and have a mid-day sleep with her father, yet knowing what would happen. One day the girl tried to tell the mother, who said: “That is only something you dreamt!”

How do we know these things? We ask the guide if the mother knew, and – if she did – why she did nothing about it. And/or we ask the mother when she is in the second light circle (see below).

Feelings of guilt
It is not rare that the girl had feelings of guilt for what happened. This will be because she instinctively knew that what happened was wrong, and maybe also because the man threatened her not to say anything about it. It is obvious that these feelings of guilt are wrong, since the girl was the victim, and must be released (feelings of guilt from the perpetrator life is another thing, but can normally also be released).

It does happen that the girl felt a feeling of pleasure, if the abuse didn’t go further than to touching the genitals. Then the girl may unconsciously have made herself feelings of guilt for that: “I shouldn’t enjoy it when my father (uncle, brother…) does that to me! That isn’t right!” In such a case she as a grown up woman probably unconsciously still doesn’t allow herself to enjoy it, even when her husband does it, and she may never have had an orgasm because of that. With the help of the guide I try to make her understand: “It is actually a natural physiological reaction that it makes a feeling of pleasure to be touched there. That was not wrong! What was wrong was that your father (or whoever) did it, but not the feeling in itself.” The guide will agree and she will hopefully from now on keep these things apart and allow herself to enjoy it when the right person does it.

Forgiving
As usual – see my handout about this [2] – the definite liberation lies in forgiving! This is the bottom line under it all. But how can you forgive such a thing? If one has realized the karmic connection, one can! We use the light-circle technique describe in an earlier handout [2] and put the man who did it in the second circle. We cut all symbolical ties (except light rays), heal wounds that may be there from cutting, and then ask the man, how on Earth he could do such a thing! What was he thinking? He will very often deny it and say it is an invention, it never happened. We tell him that we know it did and ask the guide to show him what we know, and that he can’t deny it. He will now have to admit it. But he is living in a pattern of denying it to himself, because no one must know what happened. He, therefore, suppresses it all, along with his feelings of guilt. We may ask the guide to take the mask off of him, behind which he hides himself, and he will stand there as a “heap of misery” and finally show his feelings of guilt. Having seen him like that makes it easier to forgive.

In applicable cases we also put the mother in the second circle (see above).

Forgiving this way will be sufficient. It is not necessary to talk about it with the one who did it, and it will usually not even be possible. If the forgiving is difficult, we may first have the woman forgive herself for the perpetrator life (see above).

And what about being taken to court?
Several years ago a story went through the press about a case in the USA, where a woman in therapy remembered being abused by here father and took him to court for it. The father then took the therapist to court for malpractice and won the case, since nothing could be proven. Here, things went terribly wrong! It is quite obvious that no forgiveness was sought, but the woman was left with all her anger and hatred towards her father. The trauma was rather reinforced than released! If it would have been done the right way, she would never have wanted to take the father to court… [More in the discussion below!]

Oral abuse and bulimia
In some cases of bulimia it turned out that the cause was oral sexual abuse in the childhood.

Leaving the body
It may happen that the soul of the girl leaves the body during the abuse and watches from above what is going on. We should then check with the guide if this was really so, since it could also be an escape reaction in the regression (i.e., a kind of blocking), not wanting to have these feelings again (which, however, must be released!). If it is confirmed that she really was out of the body when it happened, there will nevertheless be feelings in the body which we want to release. Since the soul still has a connection to the body through the so called “silver cord”, one can make the client enter the body and catch these feelings. You cannot be 100 % out of the body unless it dies…

How can a perpetrator do such a thing?
I suppose that there is a combination of various factors. First there will be a sexual urge which combines with sexual stimuli (such as by the media) and a psychological deformation. The latter could have its origin in a trauma in the past, which the perpetrator once went through.

There is a theory that the perpetrator will himself have been a victim of abuse in his childhood (an “abuse survivor”), but I doubt that this is by far as common as many seem to claim. And it also doesn’t fit statistics! Most perpetrators are men but most victims are girls… How could that fit?

Another factor is almost 2000 years of suppressing negative influence by the Churches (and some other religions), which want to declare sex as sin and in the process has gravely injured, crippled or even ruined an uncountable number of marriages… Especially women have been “programmed” to have negative feelings about sexuality so that they can hardly enjoy it. I see this as a policy to brand us as “sinners” in order to have a stricter control for religious dictatorship. A person who believes to be a “sinner” is much easier to control and manipulate… (cf. [7]).

From such influence, a wife may avoid or refuse sexuality with her husband, in which case he may one day flip out and do it with his daughter (maybe even as an unconscious revenge to his wife). This is in no way and never an excuse! This is no defense for such a criminal act! It is only another possible explanatory factor. (He should – of course! – instead have found another way to get what she refuses him, such as prostitution or a lover, which he in such a case is morally allowed to do, since no woman has the right to demand from her husband to live like a monk only because she wants it like that; if she likes it or not: her refusal is her permission… or she should have sought psychological help…).

But there can be still another factor! An attaching foreign soul or being may animate the perpetrator to do such things. If such a cause is discovered, we can strive to free the perpetrator from this influence when he is in the “second circle” (see [1] and [2]). This may especially be assumed in cases in which the perpetrator didn’t know what he was doing when it happened, or (which is very rare) even has a black-out afterwards and cannot remember.

Ritual abuse
This is a most horrible form of abuse which I so far had only once or twice in the many thousands of regressions I have done. There apparently are covens or lodges of black magicians who use sexual abuse of a child in a ritual. One of their aims seems to be to rupture the personality of the child and split off its emotional self, so as to zombify it to become manipulable and obeying. There are reports in the Internet about such things.

DISCUSSION
Why involve the mother if she didn’t know?
Answer: Did she really not know? She will always know what is going on, at least in her unconscious self. She may even suspect it more or less consciously but suppress it, since she doesn’t want it to be true, or thinks she cannot handle the situation, or is afraid what people would say or fears a break-up of the family. The more, or probably rather less, conscious excuse in that case is “If it really is true, the girl will forget it and then it doesn’t matter.” But, as we see, the girl (and later woman) never forgets! Not in her unconscious self. And the traumatization she there carries with her makes for serious problems as an adult.

Mother and daughter are on an unconscious level much more connected than consciously. Therefore, the girl in her unconscious self knows quite well how the mother would react. It will be this knowledge that manifests in the mother’s reaction if we play it through how it would have been to tell her. And because the girl knew unconsciously, and if the reaction would be negative, the girl – again unconsciously – feared that and blamed the mother for it (knowing, or at least believing, that she would get no support). There will accordingly be unconscious negative feelings, which we want to release.

However, if the reaction of the mother turns out to be positive, the client experiences a deserved relief. Of course, again she knew this unconsciously but didn’t dare to tell for other reasons, such as the threat of the perpetrator.

If we play it through like that, the client may tap into other energies that aren’t hers
Answer: Referring to the answer above, I think that this isn’t very likely. And if she does, she will probably already have done so before (through some inner affinity) and then we anyway have something to release here, which it may be important to do.

Is forgiving really important?
Answer: I think it is! See here and here. It is the bottom line under the whole thing and the last part of the liberation. It isn’t done only for the person you forgive, but even more for yourself!

Does a karma really have to be  involved?
Answer: I suppose we cannot deny the possibility, but how do we find out? We can have the client ask the guide, formulating it as openly as possible, and I think it could hardly be less leading than this (if we are to ask at all...): “Ask your guide if this childhood experience has any relation to a past life you had – or not.” Usually the answer is “yes”, so what do we do then? We go for it, of course. And what do we find? In most cases that the client was more or less of a perpetrator, either actively doing something similar to a victim (who in this case will most probably have been a child), or indirectly involved by “act of omission”, letting it happen without intervening or even enabling that someone does it (child prostitution is, regrettably, an age-old business). Doesn’t that make sense? Karma is not punishment, but a lesson the soul has chosen to have. It has chosen to get to know what its victims felt. It learns not to do so again. Statistically the probability is very high that anyone of us has in the past been some kind of a perpetrator! It fits statistics here, too... And if we find that the client has unconscious feelings of guilt from that: did we make her have them now, or has she had them all along since a past life? Why not the latter? In any case, we can now relieve her from these feelings of guilt, and that is the most important thing! Better than avoiding the question and risk that uncovered feelings of guilt remain... (which would be quite antitherapeutic). Cf. here and here. Karma in combination with reincarnation and free will is, after all, the hitherto best known solution of the theodicy problem! That speaks for it, too. But, even though much is, very much, it isn't all from karma! There definitely are other possibilities, too.

Besides allowing us – which is the most important thing – to have unconscious feelings of guilt released, investigating this point also helps to see the childhood experience in a different light, so as to accept it as a lesson that is now definitely over and to be able to forgive, both the perpetrator and ourselves...

Shouldn’t the perpetrator be taken to court?
Answer: Well, I think that depends... If it happened decades ago (which may even mean that the period for prosecution has expired) and there is no reason to expect that the perpetrator would to day do it to anyone else: what for? This is usually the case if the client is an adult woman. His karma (and his hidden feelings of guilt) will take care of it... But if there is reason to expect that he would still do it to others, something will have to be done. But what? We need substantial evidence, or otherwise he could take us to court and win his case, and we would be sitting in the nettles... (see above). A regression experience will hardly be accepted as evidence. But if there is such evidence, one may – or should – report it to the police. If there is not enough evidence, one may inform some social authority, asking to keep a watch and try to find out. This is really a very difficult question, which I luckily enough didn’t have, so far (all cases I had happened decades ago).

Another situation, which I luckily enough also didn’t have, is that we regress a girl and find out that it is happening now. Then something must be done! The first thing will be to talk with the mother. If she doesn’t want to know about it (“I don’t believe that!!”), what then? Again this becomes a question of evidence (see above). Maybe an investigation by a gynecologist could bring evidence, or a more general psychological investigation of the girl’s attitude, fears and behavior. (We may suggest to regress the mother, too, so that she can find out if it is true... if she accepts that idea).

Well, I did have one case many years ago, but it was known before and wasn’t discovered in the regression. A girl had disappeared and was found days later. A man had taken her somewhere, where he had kept her and obviously had done something to her, which the girl refused to talk about. The parents asked me to regress the girl, which I did in the presence of a police psychologist. My aim was, of course, to also have the girl relieve all traumatizing emotional energies, as much as I could. The main aim of the parents and the police psychologist was to find information about the man. The girl was afraid to tell too much, since he had threatened to poison her if she did, which made the regression difficult. But still enough details came out to help catch the man.

References:

__________________________________________________________________________________
* Instead of repeating “he or she”, “his or her”, etc., I write in a male sense, meaning both cases.

About the author
Jan Erik Sigdell is a Dr. of Medical Engineering born in Sweden 1938. Besides R&D work in the application of technology in medicine (see http://www.mediconsult-sigdell.com), especially in dialysis, he discovered regression and regression therapy and accordingly developed a second line of activity. In the 70es he performed a series of experimental hypnotic regressions (the first in 1974). In 1979 he met Bryan Jameison (1933-2002) in Denver and from him learned his non-hypnotic regression technique, which Jameison began developing in 1968. With this, he began a more devoted activity in regression and regression therapy with a practice in Basel, Switzerland (where he lived since 1968). Since in the 70es and still in the early 80es there were no real training opportunities (at least not known to him), he had to make his own way and develop his own approaches and techniques for this work (with experience, inspiration and intuition mainly building upon Jameison’s technique and learning from practical work with clients), which led to very successful results. Since 1997 he lives with his Slovenian wife in her birth village. He still gives workshops in various countries and has written several books and articles, mainly in German.