Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

22 Rebirth and the Western Buddhist
standing. But in fact they were dictated in a sort of trance
state in a series of fragments over whose order the author
had no control, but which fitted together perfectly when
rearranged; and Joan Grant had not made any study of
Egyptology. 35 Her series of births in the Egyptian royal
family and nobility, sometimes as a man and sometimes
a woman, was entirely appropriate to her continuing
work for others: she is decidedly not one of the blatant
fantasists to whom Conze's remark quoted above refers.
During this life she works in London with her husband,
the psychiatrist Dr. Denys Kelsey, treating those with
problems rooted in previous existences.41
Another case of far memory is the yoga teacher Elisabeth
Haich, also trained as a princess in ancient Egypt,
but rather differently.42 It is quite possible that, as she
claims, the genetic endowment of the early Egyptian
royalty, besides resulting in the physical characteristics
observable in their statues and mummies, also involved a
particular aptitude for spiritual practice. We shall return
to her in Chapter Six.
Other authors have also claimed to have written books
by far memory. The only one I have read is Guirdharn's
The Island, 43 set in Greece around 1300 BC. In isolation, it
is unlikely to convince the sceptic that it was not cornpiled
from readily obtainable historical information and
sexual fantasies. Perhaps it is more credible when combined
with his other works.
In non-Buddhist traditions, there exist methods by
which less advanced students can gain some recall of
incidents from their recent previous existences. The late
Swami Prajnanpad of Bengal employed such a technique44
to relieve his Western disciples (or rather, "candidate-disciples")
of the strongest impressions from previous
lives that obstructed their practice. It is somewhat
like psychoanalysis, involving a skilled therapist and a
single student in many hours of concentrated effort,