Geetanjali Saxena would know if you were a Nazi in a past life

Dr Geetanjali Saxena would make a great cult leader. Her confidence is infectious. By the time she’s done talking, you’re willing to sign over your life and troubles to her care. She’s definitely not on the Charles Manson path, in fact, quite the opposite. Despite degrees across the board – B.Sc., B.ED, M.A. and PhD in Psychotherapy and Counselling – Saxena’s approach to healing is far from conventional.

For one, she’s trained under Dr Brian Weiss, the famous psychiatrist and hypnotherapist who specialises in Past Life Regression. She tells me about one patient who suffered from severe anxiety, OCD and a fear of death. During a session, he regressed into a past life and saw himself as a senior officer in Hitler’s Third Reich, responsible for the killing of thousands in the Nazi concentration camps. “During the healing phase of the session, his soul was given this insight, that his current fear is associated with a past life,” she shares. 

Spending clinic hours unearthing past lives sounds like the job of a pulp fiction writer, but Geetanjali Saxena isn’t one to tie herself up in existential knots. With an astrologer mother who encouraged her interest in the spiritual realm, she’s balanced her legally recognised degrees with over two decades of expertise in hypnotherapy, theta healing, tarot reading and past life regression, to name a few. Training in multiple modalities under various international trainers and professionals has helped her develop a multicultural perspective. She even established the Institute of Holistic Sciences.

Still, spirituality is a polarising subject. The group of believers who accept that we are part of something bigger than ourselves is equally matched by the other side of the spectrum which scoffs at Saxena’s work as dubious pseudo-science. Her rebuttal? There is no ‘science vs spirituality’ debate to be had here because they’re deeply related. “Spirituality is extremely scientific because it wants to examine the world and its nature, just like the scientist. It wants to observe the world and see it for what it is,” she says. “It’s quite normal to be doubtful if you have not had any experience of healing before. I don’t persuade cynics with words. I’d rather just demonstrate and let them see for themselves.”

So can she convert every cynical black heart? Maybe not. Like with most ‘mind over matter’ disciplines, it helps to be receptive. As Saxena says herself, if they’ve made the effort to seek her out, a part of them is already open and willing to heal, otherwise, why would you bother? If nothing else, you’re left with a mind that’s a little more open to the grey area between belief and proof and a willingness to explore it for yourself.