Abstract

Using an in-depth inquiry approach to study transpersonal effects in past-life recall , occurrences of substantial facilitated and nonfacilitated PLR were examined in 12 participants . Initial areas of inquiry included triggers, nature, unfoldment, and psychospiritual effects. Protocols of experiencers' questionnaires and narrative interviews were analyzed using a variation of grounded theory. Questionnaire surveys, together with Ring's Life Changes Inventory adapted for PLR and Elkins' Spiritual Orientation Inventory , also were assessed. Results included descriptions of PLR experience; tangible and intangible factors and emergent characteristics of the PLR phenomena; psychospiritual and transpersonal outcomes; and a statistical comparison of facilitated and nonfacilitated participants. From participants' integrated experiences, qualitative outcomes included life, psychological, and spiritual changes; transformational experiences; and psychospiritual and/or transpersonal shifts in Self, other, and place in the universe. Emergent data yielded existential precursors; identification or disidentification with the phenomenological experience and felt-sense or felt-reality; shifts in concepts related to loss of fear of death; belief in the afterlife; personal acceptance of reincarnation, karma, soul, and its journey; life's purpose; and clarification of individual life lessons. Statistically significant positive correlations were found in psychospiritual domains of the SOI and LCI-PLR . Nonfacilitated PLRers tended to be slightly more spiritual, whereas facilitated PLRers tended to be more religious . There were no substantial qualitative differences in facilitated versus nonfacilitated groups, save for a slight dissimilarity between methods of integration and veridical belief in the PLR experience. In general, PLR experiences ranged from an initial opening, further self-exploration, and spiritual development to awareness of a transformational experience that profoundly shifted psychospiritual attitudes