Vistas: A Theologian in Past-Life Therapy

About the Book

In this memoir, the author describes his transition from the role of Catholic theologian to that of a participant in a very different tradition. After a brief account of his struggles as a gay youth with the frustrated desire to “only connect,” and his entry into Roman Catholic religious life, we are quickly brought to the recent past, as the author finds himself in a moment of near-despair. More or less on a whim, he tries a past-life regression during which the powerful experience of the opening of his heart leads him to a serious study of the writings of psychic Jane Roberts. In turn, these channeled writings (“The Seth Material”) bring him into conversation with a community of non-traditional spiritual seekers and further adventures.

About the Author

After entering a Catholic religious community in 1964 Paul Giurlanda assumed his life path was set, but after decades of teaching theology, a startling experience of past-life regression forced an exploration into new views of life, especially those found in the writings of Jane Roberts. Roberts’s “Seth” wisdom figure provided a metaphysical perspective at once compelling and almost impossible to accept: that your will, your intent, even your semi-conscious thought patterns, fashion and form the world of your experience. In some ways this is obviously true. But how literally—and how far--can one take it? Is there nobody left to blame, ever? In a new community of spiritual seekers, Giurlanda found that, just as was true in Catholic theology, there were no easy answers.