Peter Woodbury

In a recent regression intensive, a student was reliving several devastating lifetimes in world history, such as the horrors during the Crusades and the Holocaust. She kept remarking, in a perplexed sort of way, that Mother Mary was there and just watching, witnessing.  The student remarked that she, too, had been called to witness, in many of her livetimes, including this one.  We were all moved by her experience, and in the post-session discussion, her experience raised several questions.

We were all struck by the idea of the witness. What is the role of the witness?  Since the discussion, I have pondered the roles of Jesus and His Mother in this context.  History is full of compassion for the suffering of Jesus on the cross, but what about the suffering of His Mother, that had to watch, to witness, the crucifixion, the agonizing death of her beloved son?  It sounds like one of those ethics class questions – Who suffered more, Jesus on the cross or His mother having to watch? A lively debate would surely ensue. Continue reading →

I have had the honor to speak on behalf of Edgar Cayce and the A.R.E. for about 15 years now. As I travel about the country, I oftentimes open a talk with a discussion of “Who I am and why am I here?” Occasionally, I’ll have time to explain my view on why the audience is present, and why the New Age movement has become an international sensation. Basically, why you are here. That conversation goes a bit like this:

I moved to Virginia Beach almost 20 years ago to become part of “the work”. I had felt that calling grow in my 15 years in Boston as part of Elena Allen’s long-standing Search for God group. When I first arrived at the ARE, I was offered the job of conference facilitator. It wasn’t the type of work I had in mind, but I came with the intention, “send me, use me”. That was where I was needed. I served in that position for four years. I call that time my metaphysical Ph.D. I attended every conference, indeed every lecture, given in those 4 years! At about 2 per month, that was almost 100 conferences! While the room was always packed for Carolyn Myss or Gregg Braden, I got to hear the lesser known authors, the up and coming, or just those with a powerful message that weren’t quite yet in the mainstream. Oftentimes, those speakers left a deeper impact than the headliners. Continue reading →

Loving indifference does not have that ring of an essential spiritual tool. It rings more as an oxymoron. How can we be loving and at the same time indifferent? Are they not opposites? Let’s see what Edgar Cayce had to say on the matter.

Edgar Cayce gave 18 life readings where he said the individual was close to completion of their lessons on the earth and that reincarnation would be unnecessary. Violet Shelly wrote a book, Reincarnation Unnecessary, based on those readings and Charles Thomas Cayce lectured around the country on that subject as well.  There are many gems in those readings but the most influential for me was the concept of “loving indifference”.

Cayce was speaking to a woman who had been alive at the time of the Salem Witch Trials. He was pointing out how high her ideals had been, that she had put herself at considerable risk in protecting several women that were accused of “witchcraft”, who would have been put to death had they been found.  Cayce affirmed the strength and courage of those actions. But then he went further and spoke to how her consciousness had actually fallen as a result of allowing herself to hate the men who were perpetrating the witch hunts. Better, he said, to have practiced loving indifference, where you keep doing all the right things, fight for good, protect the weak, but do not lower your consciousness to hate anyone.  He emphasized how we are all evolving and we are all beloved of our Creator.  Best, he said, leave the matter in the hands of your God, who understands the big picture in a way we never can while in a finite human body consciousness. Continue reading →

When Edgar Cayce had a lot to say about a particular subject, he would oftentimes respond with “many a book can be written on the subject”.  He said that regularly about the topic of karma. “Karma is the law of cause and effect and much much more.”  I would like  to explore the issue of karma and look at what perhaps might go beyond karma and into soul choice or soul volunteerism.

Let us begin with three cases of blindness.  A couple had twin sons and one was born blind and the other was not.  The couple inquired with Mr. Cayce for a reading.  While in trance, Mr. Cayce referred to a past life the two boys had together, also as brothers.  They had both been charged with the job of blinding individuals as punishment for their crime.  One brother apparently grew to enjoy inflicting the painful punishment while the other did it merely as a job.  The brother who enjoyed the suffering of others was born blind and was told that this was an opportunity to grow in compassion.  The reading referred to the Grace of God, in that this man had enjoyed the suffering of hundreds and was only born blind, not as punishment, but as a means for soul growth.  This is a very straight forward example of the law of karma as retribution, or “reaping what you have sown”.  An eye for an eye, so to speak.

In a second example, a couple had a daughter born blind and they asked Mr. Cayce for a reading.  Again under trance, he gave a different answer to the cause of the blindness.  He said that negligence by the doctor had caused the blindness.  He said that the blindness had been an accident and not a karmic issue, but that the karma would follow the doctor and would need to be met.  It is very interesting that Cayce referred to this case as an “accident”.  When asked further about the matter, Cayce explained that accidents happen throughout creation.  It reminds me of Charles Darwin’s notion of how mutations or genetic accidents steer evolution.  Mr. Cayce went on to tell the parents to not let the child feel sorry for herself, but also see this as an opportunity for soul growth.
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I am just getting back from the Afterlife Conference that was held in Norfolk this past weekend.  There were about 350 people in attendance.  It was a really fun experience and I met some really nice people and got to reconnect with old Boston friend, John Holland.  I had been asked by Terri Daniels to present my work and do a group regression.  The norm with group regressions is that about 1/3 fall asleep, 1/3 get nothing and 1/3 have an experience.  I have been working to expand the latter so that a greater number can have an experience.

I was up against some of the conference headliners so I got about 40 people to my session.  They had the usual sound and electrical problems that seem to follow mediums.  When I mentioned that my great grandmother was a medium, the speakers began to buzz and hum loudly!  It felt like a hello.  But the lecture went very well and the questions and answer session period was stimulating.

The regression session felt very deep and very still.  I was very happy to see no one visibly awake or annoyed and I heard no snoring.  Both good signs.  I no longer have people share their experiences in the group for several reason.  Someone begins to tell a long story of how they saw their first cousin who in a past life was the neighbor of their grandmothers mailman’s uncle.  You can see how fascinating that becomes for the unincluded.  Or someone tells of how God spoke to them directly, Jesus appeared and showed them the meaning of life and all their past lives.  Then someone says that all they saw was a coconut.  You get the point, I believe.  So I have people stay after and share their experiences with me if they like one on one.   Continue reading →

Today is my travel day back to Virginia Beach.  I had another great experience on the road with Mr. Cayce and hypnosis.  The conference drew close to 100 people, and those in attendance were very much in attendance.  We had a very in depth discussion about Forgiveness.

I like to start a discussion about forgiveness with the picture of Pope John Paul shaking hands with the man who shot him.  It’s a powerful image.  There’s not much of my Catholic upbringing left in me, but I admire the pope for that act of forgiveness.  And while it was a public event, I think it was good that it was a public event. It brought forgiveness to the stage.

We oftentimes mistake forgiving for allowing. We think that by forgiving someone we are “pardoning” them and in some way rendering their acts as ok.  We may feel that by forgiving, we allow people to stay in our lives.   Continue reading →

I remember when I picked up Edgar Cayce’s biography, “There is a River” and was absolutely loving it.  I found such an inspiring synthesis of so many difference ideas that I had explored in my years of spiritual seeking.  But then I came across reincarnation and took pause.  I wasn’t born into a belief in reincarnation and in the time when I was reading the book, Shirley MacClaine was being lampooned in the national media for her book “Out on a Limb” and her belief in reincarnation.  I realized that I thought I would also be marginalized if I believed in reincarnation.  But as I thought more about it, I wanted to look at why so many religions include the belief in reincarnation.  What does the belief offer? First of all, if we are going to entertain a belief in God, we want to believe that God is somehow fair and just.  If we look at life in the world today, it seems anything but just or fair.  For example, I have hardly ever missed a meal. But as a child, my parents took me across the world.  I remember as a boy of 6 or 7, seeing a beggar somewhere in North Africa.  What stood out for me was how his eyes were moving.  As I looked closer, I saw that he had flies crawling over his eyes!  That memory has stayed with me since and has taught me that there is real poverty and suffering in the world.  How can life be fair if I am in my privileged life in the United Sates and there are those who are so poor and handicapped? Reincarnation offers the possibility that we have multiple turns in life and that we get to experience the gamut of life possibilities – races, genders, social standing and all the other diaspora.  That can seem to make life seem more fair.

The other belief I had in my upbringing as a Christian was that I had an eternal soul and that my soul would live on after my physical death.  Well then, what does the soul do after death and where was it before birth?  Reincarnation offers some possible answers to those questions. So slowly, though more and more exploration of the Cayce work, I came to believe in the doctrine of reincarnation and have come so far as to become both a practitioner and teacher of past life regression.   Continue reading →

I usually tell my clients that if they hang in with me for a year, they’ll notice I have some basic themes that I repeat.  A year might be long just enough to learn what I have to offer.  🙂  One of those themes is about family being familiar.  Of course, it seems quite evident that our family should be familiar.  The word familiar is derivative from the word family. They share the same root. This becomes a theme in therapy because of the differences in our families and what exactly we become “familiar”/comfortable with.  If we grow up in a healthy loving family, then that is what becomes familiar/comfortable to us.  If we see our parents enjoy each others company, laugh and smile together, then we get familiar with that.  Basically, whatever we see our parents doing, we figure is what adults in couples do, and that is what “love” is.  So if we are exposed to a healthy family environment, then we get familiar and comfortable with healthy.

But if our family life was less that healthy then we get familiar with something else.  If there was arguing, stress, fighting, disharmony and worse, then that is what we get familiar with. In an odd sense, that is what we get comfortable with.  Again, whatever our parents do, on some level we incorporate that as what adults do when they form couples.  Whatever they do must be “love”. So if they argue and fight, we, on some level, take that in as what “love” is.

In my practice, people come in sick over how they are repeating their family dynamics now as an adult. “I’m becoming my mother” or “I’ve become my father” or “I’m in the same crazy relationship I grew up in!”.  I try and help them see that they have gotten familiar/comfortable with unhealthy patterns from their childhood.  As I go back over their relationship history, they will often tell me about a relationship that just didn’t “feel right”, it was “weird” and as they talk more, it becomes clear that the relationship was healthy and thus “unfamiliar”/uncomfortable and they just didn’t know what to do with it.
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Today in session, the theme of impatience came up and the fear that time is slipping away and that it’s getting “too late!”.  I hear this a lot in my work.  The personality, the ego, or the finite part of ourselves knows that time is limited. This creates anxiety and fear, and those are not two mind states are not adept at much creative thinking.  They actually control short term survival and short term thinking.  “Let’s survive this crisis”, is their best domain.  These aspects of mind are not designed to be dominant thought patterns.  They are great in a crisis but not really good for much else.  But we oftentimes get stuck in these thought patterns.  And they are self perpetuating in a way.  If we are convinced that we are in constant danger, then we better stay prepared.  But these mind sets take their toll on us mentally, physically and spiritually. They will run us down.

So, what is the alternative? Well, behind the personality, the ego and the finite self, is the individuality, the infinite part of ourselves or the soul self.  This aspect of us has very long-term thinking and vision.  This part of us always has been and always will be.  It realizes that a life is a mere day in the life of the soul. The soul self realizes that in this soul day or life, we are here to do a few things.  To do in a day what we can in a day.  In response to this, I talk about how much more important it is for us to tune in to the direction and worry less about speed.  Speed is of the ego.  Direction is of the soul. And there is actually no time, so if we stay in the right direction, we are actually already there.   Continue reading →