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Life between life – Dr Joel Whitton and Joe Fisher

Now that Michael had seen the terrifying results of Hildebrandt's failure to control his temper, his fears about becoming uncontrollably angry gradually abated. So did his tendency to be startled awake by the slightest sounds. Michael had observed that loud noises from the courtyard didn't disturb the sleeping Hildebrandt who, perpetually wary of assassination, was always roused abruptly by the most surreptitious of sounds. Michael was Hildebrandt - and yet he didn't have to be.

He didn't have to hold on to the knight's patterns of behaviour. Dr Whitton, meanwhile, had every intention of continuing to tug at the curtain drawn across Michael's repertoire of previous existences. First he decided on another approach . . . 'Go back,' he urged his hypnotized subject. 'Go back to the time just before you were born as the knight.' Michael was speechless for a long time. From the sporadic twitching of his facial muscles and the flickering of his eyelids, he seemed to be in thrall to vistas of this other world, the mysterious void between incarnations. When at last he spoke, his words recalled the old adage about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. For his life as Hildebrandt had been planned as an infinitely more positive and enlightening experience than the heinous incarnation that followed. Michael's voice rang with ardent optimism . . .

'I am one with the universe. I am one with the stars and am very excited about being born. I will attempt to build . . . a land without a boundary. I will be a fine king with wise advisers and I will encourage barter and study and travel.'

As he heard himself make this pronouncement, Michael realized, with some relief, that Hildebrandt was no Adolf Hitler after all. Through sheer impulsiveness, the knight had surrendered his lofty aspirations. Possessing high ideals, yet being pathetically incapable of living up to them, Hildebrandt degenerated into a driven and tortured human being rather than an essentially evil one.

Now Michael was instructed to vault forward to the inter-life that succeeded the death of Hildebrandt . . .

 'What do you see?' inquired Dr Whitton.

Silent at first, Michael soon began to sob uncontrollably. He mumbled about his wrongdoing as Hildebrandt, touching on the time he impaled the mother and child on his lance. This only provoked more sobbing of heart-breaking intensity. His self-reproach was beyond the reach of reassurance.

'What do you see?' Dr Whitton asked once more.

Slowly, painfully, Michael replied . . . 'It is black and I will not look. There was much I could have done, but I did not. I could have done so much good, but . . I did not.