Reincarnation Exploration with Jessica Adams
Memories of the 14th Century: A Past Life Regression Dialogue
This weekend, I was having an email conversation with my friend and colleague, author Jessica Adams. We had been following up on recent New Year’s readings that we exchanged with each other, as we have done in previous years. This time, our conversation turned to past lives. Unexpectedly, a past life regression developed. Jessica asked me questions about specific past lives after sharing with me about one of hers. I went under self-hypnosis that night (night for me in Canada and morning for Jessica in Australia). I responded to Jessica’s insightful questions by email. In our emails that followed, we continued to explore and discover more about these lives. It was a healing experience for me, and completely unplanned.
What was so extraordinary about this exchange, besides how it answered so many questions about my present life and gave me a new perspective on the past, is how it all happened through email. I have never done a past-life regression by email and this one was very detailed. I should mention that this technique required self-hypnosis, but if you also have a trusted guide and experience in self-hypnosis (or if you decide to learn), I believe you can do this, too. It is my hope that sharing this exchange might inspire insight into one of your own previous lifetimes.
Overall, I discovered specific reasons for some of my most baffling and unusual karma in this lifetime, gained insight into why I am drawn to certain objects and interests, and healed from recent grief. As you may know from reading these posts, I lost many important people in my life over the last few years. I know that some of you have, too.
Thanks to this session with Jessica, I was able to get closure on the loss of people from this life who I also knew centuries ago. I am sure we will connect in future times just as we did centuries ago and in this lifetime. There was a gap then, and there is a gap now, but we will meet again as these separations and reconnections are part of the cycle of life. Ultimately, past life regressions are a reminder of our unbreakable connections with the ones we love.
About Jessica
Jessica Adams B.A.. has written horoscopes for Elle, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Bloomingdale’s and Marie Claire during a global career as a professional astrologer. Her astrology books include Modern Astrology 2050, Astrolove, Handbag Horoscopes and 2020 Vision (Penguin) and the #1 Amazon bestseller 2020 Astrology – Your Five Year Horoscope Guide. Jessica is also a novelist published by Penguin. She lives between Australia and Britain and edits The Holiday Goddess Guide to Paris, London, New York and Rome (HarperCollins). You can subscribe to Jessica’s astrology and tarot articles and predictions on her website and Substack.
The following dialogue contains excerpts from our recent emails…
“Memories of the 14th Century”
KO: Based on more than one past life regression, it seems I had at least four lives in England. In one of those regressions, I was visiting the…Parliament building and it seemed like I worked there in some capacity. I was definitely male. I knew details about the building during my regression before I looked them up or saw photos of the interior (like how to get around and what it looked like inside). I was poor and obscure for many lifetimes. I was [also] a doctor during the Black Death in one of the regressions. So this is not my first pandemic.
JA: Being in the…parliament (and knowing your way around) and healing people during the Black Death sounds like the old City of London.
KO: Yes, the lifetime I saw at Parliament under hypnosis was centuries ago. I was something like an entry-level clerk, at least early in my career. I got the impression I only had the job because someone taught me to read and many people were still illiterate at the time. I was simply lucky by being in the right place at the right time and having a needed skill.
JA: I am always asked about past lives, which are the North Node and South Node, and hypnosis is the way.
KO: …Well, that didn't take long! I put myself under and the name I got was Sébastien Emmanuel. But it was also Sébastien Emmanuel O'Leary. Apparently, my father must have had French heritage or lived in France (Burgundy/Bourgogne region) and my mother's surname was O'Leary but Anglicised…to "Leary". She was from Cork but it wasn't called "Cork" at the time. The name sounded similar but was Gaelic. It seems she worked as a maid in England, at least at first. It is strange that someone who was French and Irish would have been allowed to work in…Parliament at the time. This makes me think that I may have adopted a pseudonym. I need to go back under and find out the name that I used publicly. I wonder if my mother and I were cosplaying as a family from England for employment purposes. She adopted the dialect as a survival mechanism and it seems I was raised there.
The time period I picked up on was the 1300s. I had two brothers who also survived past childhood. There were a few sisters but it's almost as if I didn't know them as well. I believe that was due to the customs of the times, as genders were so segregated in their activities. This was one of only two lifetimes I can recall where I did not live in total obscurity. Thanks for encouraging me to look into it more deeply. If I pick up on the pseudonym in my next self-hypnosis session perhaps I can check out an archive someday to confirm or learn more.
…Even more strange, now that I think about it, is how England and France were engaged in the Hundred Years' War during this time. Was my father a diplomat? Or was he also pretending to be English? It seemed…that he helped get me the job at Parliament so someone must have known where his family was from. Was he spying on the French for England, or playing both sides?
P.S. I meant to write English Parliament since the name has changed over time.
P.P.S. Here it is, I received more information about how the name changed:
Sèbastien Emmanuel Deleuze Bourgogne O’Leary [O’Leary would have originally been a Gaelic name]—>
Sèbastien Bourgogne —->
Sebastian of Burgundy —->
Sebastian the Timid —->
Ian the Timid
I think it’s interesting that the maternal names were also acknowledged. Of course, this was an evolution of the Anglicisation of my name. Apparently, I was nicknamed “The Timid” because I was so quiet, introverted, and dutiful. A lot has changed in 600 years!
JA: That's so funny that you ended up as Ian the Timid! Pythonesque. Can you pick any tastes and preferences from 2023 that you had, when you were Sebastien and/or Ian?
…If you were picking up on the 1300s, then this ties in with the Black Death at the end of that century. Same cycle as now. I wonder if your problems with heat and hot temperatures are related to your incarnation?
KO: It really is funny! I laughed when I read your description of this name change as "Pythonesque", which is so accurate. I was generally regarded as "Sebastian of Burgundy" but the people I worked with and some friends (although jokingly and tongue-in-cheek) called me "Ian the Timid".
Like you, I have lingering cultural appreciation from this past life. I love medieval music, I prefer men's clothing stores even though I cannot fit into the clothes but this is where I will get hats and scarves (the quality of men's clothing is usually better and longer-lasting anyway), have imagined what it would be like to meet up with friends in the first taverns of England (I was probably there as I have seen them under hypnosis from the end of the 14th century through the beginning of the 15th), and have thought about what it would be like to attend one of the first universities in England. I don't know if I was actually enrolled but I remember walking down the halls and exploring a campus with medieval buildings and vast sections of greenery.
…You're right, this was towards the end of the century. Exactly, the same cycles then are coming up now and some of us returned. I am trying to figure out if I had a shorter life as a plague doctor just prior to that. I was an adult in 1347 and when I worked at Parliament, it was close to the end of the century. If I went out to treat patients and died of the plague myself, it would make sense that I would be timid in the next life as my risk-taking in the previous one got me killed.
I had a generally happy and comfortable life, especially for those times, but under hypnosis last night I explored what happened as I got older. You asked about my issues with heat and I did see this in a previous past life regression years ago but forgot about it. As I became older, I was given a role as one of the legislators. I wasn't comfortable with decision-making but this felt hereditary, based on my father's position. At some point, a bill was introduced in Parliament to enact executions by burning at the stake. Having had somewhat of an education in philosophy and law, I argued against it along with others.
This is when it overlaps with a dream I had a few nights ago…I was tortured and threatened with execution...in the late 14th century I was aware that I would be killed if I kept speaking up. So when the vote came before Parliament, I did not vote against it as I did not want to be executed myself. The same thing happened to my brother and the closest friend I went to school with at the time. We all went to school together. My brother then was my father this time, and my friend at that time was someone else…We were all born with…severe heat and sun illness…
While we weren't the ones advocating for this method it seems we didn't use our position to stop it. We chose to live rather than vote against it since we were also condemned to silence under threat of execution. I guess this is how some of the more insidious laws made their way through Parliament.
So while our karma is not like those who were behind it, there is still karma for not preventing harm when someone is in a position of power. Considering that I spoke up and then backed off without an explanation, it is no wonder I was labeled as "timid". Sometimes karma can be worked through more quickly by helping others. Perhaps I've been unconsciously guided to do that by climate striking and speaking up about global heating. It is also interesting to note how someone's supposed[ly] negative karma can be used to help others when opportunities arise to work through those debts more quickly. It makes me think about the positive side of cosmic balance.
I think that if I write a short story about this it will help me discover more details. Writing about a past life but thinking of it as "fiction" can be a technique for combining self-hypnosis with automatic writing.
P.S. The bill was not introducing a new form of capital punishment. Instead, it was an expansion of reasons for condemning someone to this method of execution. It seemed that someone stood to gain something financially from this expansion. It was an insidious form of business that also prevented further peasant uprisings against the King. This was not long after the Peasants' [Revolt] of 1381 so the fear arising from that uprising was presumably why those who spoke against it were threatened. This all leads back to Richard II, so it's fascinating that you brought him up in my reading. As well as how you saw the connection between the karmic theme of heat in that lifetime and this one. Your intuition makes you a splendid past-life reader…
P.P.S. A moment of synchronicity just occurred. Right after I wrote about these two lives, I logged onto Facebook…and at the top of the feed was one of those announcements where the system reposts something you posted years ago. It's kind of blurry but this is the photo they posted…:
You can see that I was wearing a replica of a medieval headpiece in my hair. That site has never reposted this photo before.
JA: Wow, Kyra. Yes, you are back from The Black Death. Back then it was the Little Ice Age. Plague killed so many, trees replaced people, and the temperature dropped as you probably know. Now it's Covid and Climate Emergency. I would say your sensitivity to heat and activism about the climate is 100% karmic settlement. Also using your ability to publish the truth about (say) Trump so people vote against him. Back in the day you could not speak your truth.
The synchronicity of your medieval hair decoration turning up, is part of the mystery. The lunar nodes in the natal chart, aspects to them and transits to them are often the moment everything becomes clear; remind me of your nodes by degree and sign. I don't know if you already have the book but the node tables are at the back [Jessica is referring to a copy of her informative book, Modern Astrology to 2050].
KO: Yes, it does help to see it as karmic settlement. It helps to feel I am making progress by paying off the debt. It is a reminder that even standing by and doing nothing can create karma. Karma doesn't seem to judge intentions, only the repercussions our actions or lack of actions have on others.
You are so right, we live in a time and in places where we can speak our truths and that is something to be grateful for. I almost forgot to mention how I sometimes used Middle English spelling when I was a child. I would try to spell in a modern way but sometimes slipped back into the old (olde!) forms of spelling. Another hangover from another century!
…I love that you went back centuries with the North Node tables because that makes it possible to find out North Nodes from previous lifetimes. I am going to keep using this chart as I go back to every lifetime and explore my previous birthdays. I was able to trace my birthday from the plague lifetime (b. 1327) and see that I had my North Node in Virgo, which makes sense as I was a doctor (no matter how inept doctors were back then!) I can also see that my birthdate from the Parliament lifetime was 1368 (and I lived into the early 1400s), which meant that I had my North Node in Gemini. This time, my South Node is in Gemini.
Based on this reversal of Nodes between these two lives, I think that this could be a sign that I have been given an opportunity this time to pay back my karma from that lifetime and somehow through Sagittarian traits (such as higher education or something else). It all makes sense. I would like to recommend this book to my readers in a post where I mention past lives…[This is the post. I am recommending Jessica’s book now!]
JA: …Kyra, the Sagittarius-Gemini nodal axis makes perfect sense. It was triggered by the transiting nodes in Gemini-Sagittarius when you left America for Canada, and radio for academia…It's too much fun to look at the tables (Zane Stein generated them) so you can then go to the history book and find out if your hunch is correct. The Parliament lifetime you had - Gemini/Sagittarius - is also about freedom of speech and speaking up, this being part of the signs. Also code, I should have thought, codes being v. popular then…
KO: I think it would be interesting for people to know that it is possible to discover past lives with the help of an intuitive guide. I have never done this with someone through email before and I love that it is possible…
Stay tuned for more episodes of “Reincarnation Exploration with Jessica Adams”
For questions and answers about past lives, please check out my 2015 interview with Priekavos Magazine. I also answered questions about past life regressions and hypnosis when I was interviewed by Riyaana Hartley at Mystic Journey Bookstore:
You can reserve private past life regressions, hypnotherapy services, and psychic tarot readings with Kyra here.
*Psychic readings are for entertainment purposes only and are not performed by a licenced medical practitioner. Please consult with a medical doctor regarding all health concerns. Please consult with your financial advisor regarding all financial decisions. Any consultation you receive is subject to your own interpretation and you agree to take full responsibility for your interpretation.
when asteroids approach certain points (natal Moon, S Node, Asc, natal asteroids) in my chart, i re-member past lives... are you aware of transits that may have activated your experience? have you contemplated how the stars impact spontaneous regressions? thx for sharing!
In a way, I would rather not want to come back. Not because the world isn't a wonder but one might want to quit while more or less ahead, considering the terrible short straws that so many poor new born/reborns can and do draw. However. Not up to us one way or the other. I was cooking late lunch one day, stirring a pan on the stove when suddenly the walls "zoomed out" and I was in an altogether kitchen. The walls were stone, there was a large wooden trestle table. door to my left that stood open and the sun was lowish in the sky, streaming in. I knew that I was upstairs and that a steep set of steps led down to a shared cobbled courtyard. I was wondering where "Pietro" was, and thinking to myself that he should have been back by now and I don't know anyone who has that name. I felt somehow that I might be in Siena. Then it faded and I have never seen it again since. Strange. I guess I was in alpha state, or maybe deeper, stirring that pan.