CHAPTER 1
Introduction
The Beginning
When I was doing my psychiatric residency, there were times when I felt very discouragedbecause there was no single treatment which worked for every patient. Medication works,but not in every patient; and it can make some patients more dysfunctional because of theside effects. Traditional talk therapy helps only a small percentage of patients. I sawpatients who suffered for years, going from doctor to doctor and from hospital to hospital,searching for relief from their symptoms.
During my residency, I strived to learn different types of available treatment methods. Ilearned individual psychotherapy, family therapy, group therapy, psychodrama,transactional analysis, hypnosis, and hypnotherapy so I could use these varioustechniques with different patients to suit their needs for healing.
Medication, in some cases, does correct the chemical imbalance in the brain; in othercases, however, it just pushes the problems back into the subconscious and covers themup. The patient feels better temporarily but the problems continue to surface. More andmore medication is required over a long period, restricting patients' day-to-day functioning.In some cases, patients become addicted to these medications, creating additionalproblems.
With talk therapy, whether individual, family, or group, patients deal with only theconscious mind. They relate to the reasons of which they are aware, consciously andintellectually. As a result, months and years of talk therapy can work to some extent, butthis is only a Band-Aid approach. The problems keep recurring.
Traditional talk therapy has its successes; it also has its failures. Unfortunately, thenumber of failures in any given period far exceeds the number of successes. Even whenaugmented by psychotropic medications, the success rate of traditional talk therapyremains low.
Dismayed by the lack of success of traditional talk therapies, I decided to utilize othertechniques, especially hypnotherapy, in combination with the traditional talk therapies.Hypnosis allows patients to uncover the underlying subconscious reasons for theiremotional and physical problems. The unresolved problems are brought from thesubconscious mind to the conscious mind. By recalling, reliving, releasing, understanding,and resolving the unresolved traumas and issues, patients can be freed from theirlongstanding problems in just a few sessions. Very little or no medication is required andthe time involved is relatively short. I have used hypnosis effectively for insomnia, anxiety,habit control, pain control, positive suggestions for day-to-day functioning, and inhypnotherapy to uncover the underlying problems to help people.
Over the years of my psychiatric practice, I always felt good about the quality of my workand the results I had with my patients. I was able to help people with combinations oftreatment modalities depending on the patients' needs. But still, at times, there werepatients for whom I could not do much except use medications and supportivepsychotherapy. I continued to search for ways to help my patients.
My Accidental Discovery of a Past Life
About eleven years ago, I saw Martha, a thirty-four-year-old housewife and mother ofthree children who was suffering from a longstanding claustrophobia, which crippled herdaily life. The problem was getting worse and as a result she was becoming severelydepressed and at times suicidal.
She had severe panic attacks, several times a day, every day. During these panic attacksshe had difficulty breathing, palpitations, dizziness, feelings of intense fear andapprehension, and fear of dying. I began to treat her with medication and traditional talktherapy. These helped her to some extent, but her claustrophobia and panic attackscontinued.
During a session, I asked her about the last time she had a panic attack. All of a suddenshe became anxious and said, "Doctor, I am having one right now," and she started togasp for breath.
I asked her to close her eyes, focus on her emotional and physical feelings, and allowthose feelings to take her back to another time, to the source of her problems when shefelt the same way. Martha slipped into a self-induced trance state. I thought she wouldprobably remember a childhood incident when she was being locked in a closet, attic,bathroom, or other small room from where she could not get out.
Instead, she said she was in a different time, different life, and in a different body as ayoung girl. "I am in a coffin," Martha cried. "They think I am dead! They are closing the lid.I am afraid to die but what if they close the lid of the coffin and I do not die? Then what amI going to do?"
I was taken by complete surprise, but I let her continue the story and release the emotionsassociated with it. When she came out of this self-induced trance, she looked puzzled butrelaxed. I did not know what to make of that session. To my surprise, her panic attacksdisappeared right after the session. In the next session she reported that she was free ofher crippling claustrophobia, depression, and panic attacks.
I was pleasantly surprised. I had not had such a miraculous result before. Many thoughtswent through my mind. I wondered if any other psychiatrist or psychologist had similaroccurrences where a patient spontaneously regressed to a past life and had suchdramatic results.
None of my patients had ever before regressed to another life. I had heard of anaccidental regression into a past life during a hypnosis conference and had seen a personbeing regressed to a past life on TV. I found the concept interesting, but I had not thoughtof utilizing it in the treatment of my patients.
I was impressed with Martha's cure. I started to search for literature on the subject of pastlife regression. To my surprise, there were many books written on the subject. There weremany psychologists, psychotherapists, hypnotherapists, and a few psychiatrists who wereusing what they called "Past Life Regression Therapy."
I was upset with myself, thinking, "Where was I all this time? Why didn't I find out about itbefore?" I began to utilize this method in combination with other traditional therapies, oftenwith fast and dramatic success in relieving patients' crippling symptoms.
What amazed me even more was that later, while working with other patients withclaustrophobia, "being buried alive" is one of the most common themes presented by mypatients and by recalling, reliving, releasing, and understanding the event, they were freeof their symptoms too.
I realized that past life regression is an extension of age regression, only it takes thepatient back into another life to a traumatic event that caused the problems in the currentlife.
Another patient, Connie, suffered from asthma. She also could not stand anything close toher neck. Under hypnosis, I asked her to move back in time to the source of her problems.She instantly found herself regressed to the time of her birth. The cord was wrappedaround her neck and she could not breathe.
During the next session, Connie told me that her asthma was better but she still could notwear anything around her neck. I asked her, again under hypnosis, to go to the source ofher problem and she found herself in another time and another life, when she was a manwho was hanged. After releasing the emotions and the physical feelings associated withbeing hanged, she was completely free of her asthma and was able to wear necklacesand button her blouse all the way up to her neck.
I found that when I ask patients, under hypnosis, to "go to the source of the problem," theyfind themselves going to a trauma in the present life at a younger age or at the time ofbirth or in the womb. At other times they find themselves regressing to another time andanother life. I realized that a person's subconscious mind often has the answers to his orher problems and if I allow the patient to recall, relive, release, and resolve it, he or shecan be free of the symptoms.
This realization marked the beginning of an exciting journey, looking deep into thesubconscious and seeking the reasons for mental illnesses. I began to understand thatthere are several sources of patients' problems, i.e., present-life traumas, including birthtraumas and traumas in the womb, and also traumas from one or more past lives. Theprocess is like an onion: we need to remove the reasons for the problems layer by layer.
My Discovery of the Earthbound Spirit (Entity)
After Martha was regressed into her past life to find the source of her claustrophobia, Ibegan to use past life regression therapy effectively for treating patients with emotionaland physical problems.
One day Breana, a fifty-year-old female, came to me for treatment of depression andchronic abdominal pains, which she had suffered off and on for several years. Herphysical examination, laboratory tests, and gastroscopy were all normal. She wanted to tryhypnotherapy to see what was causing her abdominal pain.
Under hypnosis, when I asked her to go back to the source of her abdominal pain, shefound herself in another time and another life. When patients find themselves in anotherlife, I usually ask for identifying information, such as the name, age, sex, what year it is,and what country they are in. When I asked Breana these questions she said, "I am a fifty-five-year-oldwhite male, I live in Pittsburgh, and this is 1974."
I realized that this information could not be correct because Breana was fifty years old andwas born before 1974. So it could not be her past life. I asked Breana to check again andsee what was going on. She became emotional and said, "This is my father John. He diedin 1974 of stomach cancer. His spirit is here with me and I can see him clearly." I was verysurprised. While reading different literature on past life regression therapy, I had noticedIrene Hickman, D.O., mention in her book, Mind Probe Hypnosis, about the spirits ofdeceased people possessing her patient, but till now I had never come across one.
I was curious about why and how he came into Breana. So I asked him the followingquestions.
Dr. Modi: "John, why are you here?"
John: "I love my daughter. After my death, she was having problems so I came in to helpher."
Dr. Modi: "How have you helped her?"
John: "Not much; she does not even know I am here. She is suffering with my stomachpain because I died of stomach cancer, but she thinks it is her pain."
Dr. Modi: "Tell me, exactly how did you come in?"
John: "After my body died, she was sad. I just came in to comfort her but then I couldn'tleave her. I got stuck here."
Dr. Modi: "Since you are here, look inside her, and tell me who else is there."
John: "There are many people here inside her, but I do not know who they are."
Breana could not recognize them either. They were strangers. I wondered what to do withthese spirits of different people in her. During past life regression therapy, my patients hadoften reported seeing angels and their departed loved ones in the bright white Lightcoming to help them after the death of their physical bodies. So I asked John to look upand tell me what he saw.
John [surprised]: "I see a bright white Light filling the entire room and my deceased motherin it wearing a white flowing gown. She does not look sick or old as she was when shedied. She is smiling and asking me to come with her. There are also many beautifulangels in the Light."
John and the spirits of other people who were inside Breana were sent into the Light withJohn's mother and angels, after saying goodbye to Breana. After the session, Breana andI were both surprised. Breana was very emotional about seeing her father andgrandmother. On one hand, she was sad, but on the other hand she felt happy and atpeace, knowing that they were really not dead and that they both were in heaven. Breanahad no doubts whatsoever about what she saw during the session. She did not think thatshe was making it up.
During the next session, Breana reported that she was free of her longstandingdepression and stomach problems. She recalled that her father had cancer of the stomachand he had been very depressed after he learned of it.
I was surprised to find that spirits of deceased people can come on board in patients andaffect them physically and emotionally. Many questions ran through my mind. Breana'sfather and the other people in her: were they real or was she fantasizing about himbecause she missed him? Maybe this was her way of grieving and letting go of her father?But why the strangers? And if it was all her fantasy, then how was it that her longstandingdepression and stomachache were completely relieved after that session?
If the spirits were real then why was it that none of my patients ever reported them before?Could it be there were spirits in other patients too, but we had not recognized them? I didnot know. All I knew was that my patient was free of her longstanding symptoms in justone session, and that was good enough for me.
After that session, many of my patients, under hypnosis, reported having spirits ofdeceased people inside them. Some they knew and some they did not. Releasing thespirits released their emotional, mental, and physical symptoms in just a few sessions.Sometimes in just one or two hypnotherapy sessions patients' long standing psychologicaland physical symptoms started to disappear.
About one and one-half years after I began to work with these earthbound spirits, apsychologist, Edith Fiore, published a book, The Unquiet Dead, which had information andtechniques similar to those given by my hypnotized patients.
I do not know whether these spirits are real or not, or if my patients' subconscious mindsmade up these fantastic stories. It really does not matter to me. All I know is that releasingthese so-called spirits relieved my patients of their symptoms. As a psychiatrist workingwith patients who are suffering with their psychological and physical symptoms, results aremore important than the proof.
My Accidental Discovery of the Demon Spirit (Entity)
A few months later, I was surprised and shocked when a patient under hypnosis told methat he had a demon inside his head. It would perhaps be logical for a person raised in theAmerican culture to describe his problem as being demoncaused because of cultural andreligious beliefs; but I was at a loss. How do you deal with a demon? The only exposure Ihad was through the movie The Exorcist and my patient was not acting and behaving likethe character portrayed in that movie.
This patient, Nick, a thirty-five-year-old man, had a history of frequent migraine headachessince he was a teenager. He also described suffering from depression and chronic fatiguefor several years. I explained to Nick about hypnotherapy and the different reasons mypatients in the past have given for their physical and emotional problems, including theproblems caused by the current and past life traumas and the earthbound spirits. Nick waswilling to try it.
As we began the session, Nick started to experience severe headaches. I asked him tolook inside his head and tell me what he saw. As Nick looked inside his head he said hesaw nothing except darkness. As he continued to focus on the darkness inside his head,he said that it was kind of moving around and it looked like a black blob. I thought theremight be an earthbound spirit in his head trying to hide, as I had found this phenomenonmany times in the past with other patients. So I tried to communicate with the one whowas moving in his head. The following is the transcript of what happened.
Entity in Nick's head: "I am a foul one. Why do you want to bother with me?"Dr. Modi [in an effort to establish a dialogue with the entity]: "Tell me, are you a male or afemale?"
Entity [arrogantly]: "Why would I want to be a human?"
Dr. Modi [surprised]: "What do you mean? If you are not human, then who are you?"
Entity [laughing arrogantly]: "I am a demon. I am a disciple of Satan. He is my master andhe sent me to torture this person."
I was shocked and surprised. The only change I saw in Nick was a change in the tone ofhis voice and angry expressions and arrogance on his face. Nick normally spoke softlyand was gentle and polite. At this point the only logical step, it seemed to me, was tocontinue the dialogue to find out more about this so-called demon.
Dr. Modi: "How old was Nick when you joined him?"
Entity: "Fifteen, when this dumb kid was using drugs. This opened him up and I came in."
Dr. Modi: "You said you are here to torture Nick. How did you torture him?"
Entity [laughing]: "Now lady, why do you think he is having the headaches? I am doing it. Ialso siphon his energy so he feels tired and drained all the time. I can create any type ofproblem for him. It is fun."
As this so-called demon talked more, Nick's headaches became worse. Nick stated thatthe whole room was filled with brilliant white Light and many angelic beings were there. Hesaw the angelic beings surrounding this black being, the so-called demon in his head, withthe Light. The being was reacting very violently to the Light and screaming, "Take thisLight away from me. It will destroy me; it will kill me."
