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Over the years, I have remained interested in the occult, not ghosts and spirits as in today's popular genre of vampire novels, but in things felt and just beyond reach, like the astral body and ways of connecting with it.

Having had many 'unscientific' personal experiences, I believe that what is unexplained in western scientific terms at the moment and is termed superstition, village lore or grandmother's tales will sooner or later find scientific proof or be disproved. Science has some catching up to do, that we have over centuries forgotten some proofs and continue to follow beliefs.

I have been to psychic healers. I have had Reiki done to me.

I have studied and practiced Pranic healing for two decades. I am aware of liking and disliking people because of their 'vibes'. And like many of us, I wonder what is true and what is imagination led by clever thought manipulations.

A few years ago, I met a friend who spoke to me of Past Life Regression Therapy. She had had chronic pain in her left thigh. Over the years, she had seen a series of doctors, had tests done, been through Ayurvedic treatment and more. The pain remained. Someone suggested a therapist who did regression. She went. After half an hour of deep relaxation, the therapist led her into a visualised hall with many doors, and asked her which one she was drawn to. He then asked her to go to that one, open it and go through. Once there, she was asked to describe images that floated into her consciousness, however random might be. Starting from her feet that maybe bare, in chappals or snow shoes to describing the period, language used and attire, she placed herself firmly in a prior life.

My friend told me how she saw herself. She was thirty in that life, caught under the rafter of a fallen house and how the weight on her thigh was crushing her, how she screamed but there was no one to rescue her, how she saw her slow and tormented death. Once out of the deep state, her therapist discussed how she had found the cause of her inexplicable pain, how she could now, over time, tell herself to let it go. How she had consciously done this to be completely pain free a few months later.

Two days ago, I met a therapist who practised this remedy and decided to see for myself what this was about. The initial stages were very similar to the ones described by my friend. Yes, I could see one door that shone forth light and I went through it. I opened it and seemed to be in a European summer, in a field full of flowers, bare-footed and carefree. The skeptical/practical side of me asked, in a niggling but persistent whisper, 'Are you thinking this or making this up because it is expected of you? Is this really the subconscious?' I decided to give it a fair trial.

Through two lives what became clear was that I seemed to be a woman fulfilled in her, happy in not being in relationships, marriage or family. "Like Shiva Shakti, you seem to have both male and female in you, in your previous lives. You don't seem to need any dependence", the therapist explained when I asked what this could mean.

Other friends who also had sessions on the same day seemed to find past lives of angst and violence, where they had been beaten, raped, killed, strangled, burned. They had found a master in a higher realm, who had been guiding them and with whom they conversed. Alas, no such luck for me. When asked to confront my master, I found myself enveloped in a comforting cloud! No need for questions.

What do I make of this? I don't know. What I do know is that if through this, people can get rid of anxieties, fear or pain, then whether true or imagined, it is worth going for it. After all, psychiatrists too were once stoned!

The writer isanoted danseuse and socialactivist. She can be reached at mallika@darpana.com