Another long story, folks.
When I left the wtbts at the age of 30-ish, I was wide open to anything. I had decided I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I was going to massage school, which was full of true believers of every sort from the christians through the eastern religions to the woowoo artists. I was willing to try out everything -- amazing I didn't get into trouble! -- and one of the things I tried was past-life regression. Since I wanted new experiences, and was willing to believe anything if it seemed believable, past-lives sounded intriguing and who the hell knew? Might be true.
So a friend of mine who specialized in them had me lie down, and hypnotized me. She never mentioned past-life regression, just asked me to find myself in an elevator, going up or down, my choice. She asked me to stop at any floor and tell me what I saw when the door opened. It was interesting. At one point I was a little boy during WWII who hid in the Natural History museum in New York. After the museum closed, I wandered around and was deliciously frightened by the scary exhibits.
At another point I was a woman pioneer at the trail beginning in Independence, Missouri. We were loading up our covered wagon to start the trip to California. At some point on the trip I got shot by an arrow in the back, running away from marauding Indians. And so on, up and down the elevator. It was fascinating and I'm glad I had the experience. Did it make me believe in past lives? Well, no. It was pretty clear to me that all the stories were coming from my own mind, and were focused around subjects about which I had some knowledge. My mother brought me up on stories about the pioneers and the wild West, for instance, since she came from Wyoming. The only one I wasn't really familiar with was the museum in NY, which I've never visited, but I imagine it was drawn from some book I read.
It was the same with everything else I tried. I visited a lot of religions. They're pretty much all the same, based on human ideas attempting to explain life. Acupuncture, Acupressure, Ayurveda, various other kinds of massage, crystals, vibrations, essential oils, a bunch of that stuff has some value, but the beliefs surrounding them aren't true.
Too much common sense. I tried out all of it and could see that there are a lot of interesting beliefs out there, but not much basis for any of them in reality.
I even went to watch a Philippine psychic doctor do "surgery." I could see 1) that it was faked with bloody little bits of what looked like chicken skin, and 2) he was doing a damned good abdominal massage which is probably what gave the patient some relief. I've done tons of abd. massage and it has really good results. However, it can't cure cancer or other diseases, which is what some people claim.
It was a lot of fun, but not much of it is true.