Chapter 17
Confronting the Skeptic
I share my story with a friend who scoffs, forcing me to defend my experience and question whether truth requires proof.
The morning sun slanted through the café window, catching the steam from my cup in a lazy spiral. I had chosen this place deliberately—neutral ground, familiar, where the clatter of dishes and murmur of conversations could anchor me if the conversation grew too heavy. My friend Sarah sat across from me, her fingers wrapped around a mug of black coffee, her eyes sharp with that analytical glint I had come to know over years of friendship.
“So,” she said, setting the mug down with a soft thud, “you’ve been disappearing into that dusty bookshop again. And now you want to tell me about a past life regression?”
I had rehearsed this moment a dozen times in my head, but the words still felt fragile, like glass I might shatter with a careless breath. I told her about the hypnotist’s office, the slow descent into that velvet darkness, the emergence of a life that was not my own. I spoke of Marie Leveau’s voice, the scent of incense and river mud, the cold weight of Aleister Crowley’s challenge. I tried to paint the vividness of it—the way the past had breathed through me, the way my skin had prickled with a fear that was ancient and immediate.
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