SAME SOUE, MANY
BODIES
45
life. You see all souls and people as equal, connected to each other by the spiritual energy of love." A calm came over her. Apparently, her future life changed completely. She did not find Arab or East African lifetimes but instead: "I'm the manager of a hotel in Hawaii. It's a spa as well. A beautiful hotel and spa. There are flowers everywhere. T h e guests come f r o m all over the world. From different countries and cultures. They come to find recuperative energy. It's easy to find it because the spa is so well managed and its setting is so splendid." She smiled at the vision. "I'm blessed. I get to enjoy the hotel all year r o u n d . " It is, of course, a nice fantasy to imagine yourself as the manager of a great spa in a gorgeous setting surrounded by the smell of hibiscus. W h a t Evelyn saw in this voyage into the future might indeed have been fantasy, projection, or wishful thinking. When I regress someone, it's sometimes difficult to separate actual memory from metaphor, imagination, or symbol. In visualized past lives, however, if a person is speaking a foreign language he or she never learned in this one, that is a sign of authenticity. So is accurate historical detail. If the m e m o r y brings up intense emotion, that is also a sign. But while intense emotion often accompanies progressions, validation is much more difficult. I operate on the assumption that even though a progression can't be checked out, it is still a powerful healing device. Yes, metaphor and fantasy are possible, but healing is the i m p o r t a n t part. In regression and progression, symptoms disappear, illnesses get better, and anxiety, depression, and fear are relieved. N o one has figured out a way to confirm that the imagined future is really going to happen. Those few who have joined me in this field are inevitably faced with that ambiguity. If a patient is progressed to a future time in his present life, you can confirm it when the vision comes true. But even then it is possible for a patient who has seen her future to veer her life in that direction. Just because a vision is a fantasy doesn't mean you can't make it come true.