Past Life Regression

Rebirth beliefs in Indian and other traditions

Belief in rebirth is much older than the modern therapeutic practice and belongs to several distinct traditions. An entry on saṃsāra in the Encyclopedia of Religion, by Brian K. Smith, describes the cycle of birth, death and rebirth driven by karma and says that by the sixth century BCE the doctrine was nearly universally accepted in Indian religions. The entry says scholars disagree about its origin, that Buddhism teaches no enduring entity passing between lives, and that Jainism describes a soul bound by karmic matter.

An article in the Psi Encyclopedia of the Society for Psychical Research, written from a parapsychology standpoint, adds that reincarnation ideas appear in Greek philosophy and in medieval Jewish Kabbalistic writing, and that the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, shaped modern Western ideas of reincarnation. These traditions differ in what is thought to continue between lives, so the sources reviewed do not support treating them as a single doctrine.

Hypnotic regression and the Bridey Murphy case

Hypnotic regression to supposed previous lives reached wide public attention through the Bridey Murphy case. The Psi Encyclopedia article on past life regression says the Colorado businessman and hypnotist Morey Bernstein published the case of Virginia Tighe in 1956, in which she described a nineteenth-century Irish life under hypnosis, and that later investigation found possible ordinary sources for the details.

The Gale Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained gives 29 November 1952 for the first formal regression session, publication by Doubleday in 1956, and press inquiries in early 1956, by the Chicago Daily News in January and the Denver Post in February. Gabriel Andrade, a medical ethics author, reports that Tighe had an Irish neighbour named Bridie Murphy Corwell in childhood and treats this as a likely source; he takes the point from a 1957 book by Martin Gardner that this record has not opened.

Later practitioners and the move into therapy

The Psi Encyclopedia article lists later hypnotists and researchers and gives figures that have not been checked against other sources: the Welsh hypnotherapist Arnall Bloxham (1896-1980) with more than 400 regressions, the psychologist Helen Wambach (1925-1986) with more than 1,088 subjects, and Joe Keeton (1920-2003) with more than 8,000. Andrade describes the psychiatrist Brian Weiss as a bestselling author and dates the use of regression as psychiatric therapy to the Bridey Murphy case of the 1950s.

Ian Stevenson's work on children who report previous lives is a separate line of enquiry. The Gale encyclopedia gives 1966 for his book Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, and Stevenson wrote that nearly all previous personalities evoked by hypnosis are imaginary. The sources reviewed do not document a continuous line of transmission from the Indian or Greek traditions to modern regression therapy.

Names and abbreviations in use

The practice is called past life regression, past life therapy or regression therapy, and usage varies. The International Board for Regression Therapy (IBRT), a United States certifying body, uses Past Life Therapy and Past Life Research for two kinds of work and abbreviates them together as PLT/PLR, so the abbreviation PLR is not used uniformly. Andrade defines the therapy as resting on the view that mental health problems can originate in traumatic events of past lives, and notes that regression may also be directed to infancy or to the period before birth.

Research papers generally treat the content as claimed or constructed. Pyun and Kim write of past-life memories produced in hypnosis, Spanos and colleagues of the social construction of memories, and Meyersburg and colleagues of improbable memories of past lives. A 2026 review of hypnotic age regression excluded studies of past-life, between-lives and prenatal regression, treating them apart from regression to events in the present life.

Reincarnation, rebirth and related terms

The Psi Encyclopedia distinguishes four terms: reincarnation, a Latin-rooted word it says was coined in the mid-nineteenth century; rebirth, used where continuity is meant without a persisting person; transmigration, the passage of a soul between bodies; and metempsychosis, an ancient Greek doctrine. Smith's entry makes a related point for Buddhism, where continuity is explained through karmic causation and not through a soul. Whether the phrase past life fits a given tradition therefore depends on whether a continuing self is assumed.

Hypnotic regression and previous personality

A 2025 narrative review uses hypnotic regression for the use of hypnosis in autobiographical recall, and says the use has been accused of favouring false memories. Stevenson's statement calls the figure that emerges under hypnosis a previous personality, a phrase that does not assume the figure was a real earlier person.

Session features described in the sources

The Psi Encyclopedia article says subjects enter a deep hypnotic state and report vivid sensory experiences, and quotes a therapist who likens the memory to a vivid film with real emotions. Spanos and colleagues describe the elicitation of such scenarios as frequently involving hypnotic procedures and structured interviews that make repeated demands for the required experiences and then treat them as real memories.

These are descriptions from an encyclopedia and a critical review. The sources reviewed contain no independent observation of typical sessions, and none gives a standard session length, sequence or fee.

How sessions were run in experiments

In 2009 Pyun and Kim screened 64 men aged 21 to 23 with the Korean version of the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility and a belief-in-past-lives scale, then gave each three hypnotic past-life regression sessions. In 2015 Pyun reported two experiments, made at the request of Korean national television companies, in which a regression suggestion was given after induction and the name of a specific historical or fictional identity was interspersed three times during a backward count. These were research procedures and should not be read as a clinical protocol or as typical of how practitioners work.

Reported therapeutic purposes

Andrade writes that some physicians have used past life regression for anxiety disorders, mood disorders and gender dysphoria, on the assumption that these reflect problems in past lives, and that Brian Weiss has recommended hypnosis, with regression to supposed previous lives, as a way to overcome phobias. The Psi Encyclopedia article says therapists report benefits such as release of trauma-related fears and an understanding of life purpose. These are practitioner claims as described by others, and none is a finding from a controlled study.

Andrade accepts that many patients report some relief but argues that this does not justify the procedure. Stevenson's statement attributes symptom improvement after regression to general psychotherapeutic effects and not to genuine recall of past lives. These are the authors' arguments and not trial results.

Use as a research tool

Regression sessions have also served as an experimental procedure. Pyun and Kim used them to examine how hypnotisability, belief and culture relate to the production of past-life memories, and Pyun's 2015 experiments tested the role of suggestion in the identity produced. Their abstracts report no treatment outcomes, so these studies do not bear on the therapeutic claims above.

Searches and the absence of clinical trials

No randomised trial or systematic review of past life regression as a treatment for a health condition was found. The searches run for this record on 5 October 2026 were a PubMed title-and-abstract search for the phrases past life regression, past-life regression and past life therapy, which returned six records, none a trial of the practice, and a Consensus literature search, whose top ten results included no controlled outcome study. This is an absence of evidence in the sources searched and not evidence of no effect, and other databases were not searched.

A 2026 integrative review in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis synthesised 241 primary studies from 2015 to 2025 on hypnotic age regression and excluded studies of past-life, between-lives and prenatal regression because of insufficient empirical support and methodological concerns. For age regression to events in the present life it reports small samples, varied methods and limited long-term follow-up, and concludes that the evidence does not allow definitive conclusions. Those findings should not be transferred to past life regression.

How past-life reports arise in experiments

In the Korean study of 64 men, the rate of past-life responses rose with hypnotisability and was not significantly related to belief in past lives. Content analysis found that cultural background and religious concepts influenced the memories produced; animals appeared as past-life identities, whereas all identities were human in a Canadian study the authors compared with. In Pyun's 2015 experiments five of six subjects produced the identity that had been suggested, and the author concluded that suggestion has a crucial role in forming past-life memories during hypnosis.

Both studies were small, used volunteers in one country and, on their abstracts, describe no control group, so they show how reports can be shaped and not how often this happens. Spanos and colleagues reviewed research on past-life experiences, claimed alien abduction and recovered memories of ritual abuse, and concluded that it supports the view that recall is reconstructive and organised by current expectations and beliefs.

People who report past-life memories

Meyersburg and colleagues compared people who reported improbable memories of past lives with controls who reported living only one life. The first group had higher false recall and recognition on a word-list task and higher scores for magical ideation and absorption, and the groups did not differ on correct recall, recognition or intelligence. This compares existing groups on a laboratory task and is not a test of regression sessions.

Hypnosis, suggestion and false memory more broadly

A 2021 systematic review of 59 experimental studies and two qualitative sources found that guided imagery and suggestive statements induced false beliefs or memories in about 20% to 50% of participants on average, and that false belief induction after dream interpretation or hypnosis occurred in more than 50%, with heterogeneous results. These studies concerned false past events in general and not past lives. A 2025 narrative review found contradictory results on whether hypnosis improves memory and advised caution with hypnotic regression and guided imagery.

In 1985 the American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs concluded that recollections obtained during hypnosis can include confabulations and pseudomemories and appear less reliable than nonhypnotic recall. Its context was recollection by witnesses and victims in legal proceedings, so it is background and not a finding about past life regression.

The reincarnation question is separate

None of the studies above tests whether reincarnation occurs. Andrade argues that the reincarnation hypothesis is not supported by evidence and faces conceptual problems, and criticises Stevenson's case collections on grounds that include reliance on interpreters and testimony and the delay before investigation. Stevenson's statement holds that hypnotic regression rarely yields evidence of real memories. These are argued positions, and this record does not adjudicate them.

Risks stated in the sources

The main risk named is that regression may produce false memories that a person comes to feel are real. Andrade argues that a hypnotist may implant false memories, causing harm, and that a patient not told there is no scientific evidence for reincarnation cannot give informed consent. Muschalla and Schönborn note that false memories of earlier events can cause real suffering similar to that from actual traumatic memories. None of these sources gives an incidence for past life regression.

Stevenson's statement adds that in rare cases the previous personality evoked under hypnosis has not gone away when told to, leaving a person in an altered personality state for days. It also opposes promises of access to real previous lives and the charging of fees for such access. These are one author's observations and views, and the sources reviewed contain no systematic adverse-event data.

Professional positions

Andrade writes that past life regression is not supported by psychiatric associations although few medical associations have condemned it as unethical. This record located no statement specific to past life regression from a psychiatric or psychological association. The closest professional-body statement found is the 1985 American Medical Association statement on hypnotic recall, which concerns legal testimony.

Training and regulation

IBRT says its accredited training programmes include at least 50 hours of interactive instruction in past life regression and a significant supervised practicum. It states that professional titles and scope of practice are governed by local law, that its certification does not supersede licensing requirements, and that in some jurisdictions the title therapist may be restricted to licensed mental health professionals. The sources reviewed do not establish whether past life regression is regulated in Ireland, the United Kingdom or the United States.

IBRT's Standards of Ethical Conduct have five parts covering competence, honest representation of qualifications, protection of the public, confidentiality and public information. As published on that page they do not mention suggestion, leading questions or false memory. A certifying body's standards are a form of self-regulation and have not been independently audited here.

Care boundary

Past life regression is not a substitute for assessment or treatment by a qualified health professional. The sources reviewed give no basis for using it in place of care for anxiety, mood, trauma-related or physical symptoms, and persistent or worsening symptoms warrant assessment in the usual way. A person considering a session can ask about the practitioner's training, whether recalled scenes are treated as literal history, and how consent and stopping a session are handled.