Past Life Story of John Elliotson | Norm Shealy, MD: Spiritual Communication or Soul Guidance in a Reincarnation Case

How Case Derived: Soul or Intuitive Guidance

Researcher: Norm Shealy, MD, PhD

Article by: Walter Semkiw, MD, from Born Again and Return of the Revolutionaries

Norm Shealy’s Medical Contributions: TENS Unit & Dorsal Column Stimulator

Norm Shealy is a world famous neurosurgeon, writer and specialist in pain management. Norm is the inventor of the TENS Unit, a device that discharges an electrical current through the skin which blocks pain. He also the inventor of the Dorsal Column Stimulator, a device implanted under the skin that has wires that are implanted next to the spinal cord, which discharge an electrical current to block pain impulses in cases that involve severe and intractable back pain. Dr. Shealy also is the inventor of the Facet Rhizotomy, a surgical procedure in which nerve fibers are cut to reduce pain coming from the joints of the back.

Dr. Shealy is also considered the father of modern comprehensive pain programs, which involve multidisciplinary approach, utilizing psychologists as well as physicians. For all these reasons, Norm Shealy is known in the medical community around the world.

Soul Guidance or Spiritual Communication: An Iceberg Sensation goes down Norm’s back when He hears the Name John Elliotson

Norm Shealy has learned about a past lifetime of his in which he was John Elliotson, a 19th century physician in Britain who was also a medical innovator and pain specialist. In his own words, Dr. Shealy explains how he came to learn about this past incarnation. In the text provided below, Snowmass refers to a ski resort in Colorado.

“In January 1972, I was sitting in a lecture at the Neuroelectric Society in Snowmass at Aspen waiting for Dr. William Kroger to finish his lecture. I was a bit annoyed because he was trying to convince us that acupuncture was hypnosis and he suddenly said, “In the last century a British physician demonstrated that you could operate on patients who were mesmerized. His name was John Elliotson.” When he said that, I felt as if someone had thrust an iceberg down my back and I said to myself, ‘My God, that’s me.'”

Soul Guidance & Geographic Memory in a Reincarnarnation Case: Norm Intuitively Leads a Taxi Driver to Elliotson’s Medical Office

“I was neutral about reincarnation at that time. I asked my medical librarian if she could get me any information on John Elliotson and she could not. So in the June of that year, I went to London. I got in a cab and asked the cab driver to take me to the Royal College of Surgeons, assuming that John Elliotson must have been a surgeon.

As we turned down one corner to the right, I was sitting in the back of the cab and suddenly was picked up physically and turned in the opposite direction, again feeling as if there were an iceberg down my back. A block down to the left, instead of the right, was University College Hospital of London (image provided below), where my office had been as John Elliotson. I walked in the building and felt at home.”

John Elliotson’s Medical Contributions to the World

“It turns out that John Elliotson was the first Professor of Medicine at the University College Hospital. He made his reputation in the 1830s giving public lectures on various aspects of medicine. James Wakeley, editor of the Lancet at that time, often published his lectures. During his career as an internist, John introduced the stethoscope and the use of narcotics, both from France where he had studied. He also introduced mesmerism and began to put on public displays of mesmerism in the amphitheater.

He was a bosom buddy of Charles Dickens and William Thackeray. He taught Dickens how to use mesmerism on his hypochondriacal wife. Elliotson was the first physician in London to give up wearing knickers. He had striking black curly hair and walked with a congenital limp.

He also demonstrated that some of his patients who were placed in a mesmeric trace became clairvoyant and easily made diagnoses. Elliotson also inspired James Esdaile to do a large number of operations upon mesmerized patients. Esdaile later wrote a book called Natural and Mesmeric Clairvoyance and mentioned Elliotson’s use of hypnotic mesmerism for inducing clairvoyance. Eventually, Elliotson was asked by the Board of Trustees to stop putting on public displays of mesmerism. Elliotson became angry and resigned.

For twelve years he continued publishing The Zoist, in which he recounted many aspects of mesmerism, including well over 300 patients who were operated on by another surgeon when Elliotson put the patient into a trance. Eventually he was invited by the Royal College of Physicians to give the annual Haverian Lecture because of his contributions to medicine. He gave his lecture on the hypocrisy of science in accepting new thoughts.”

Norm Tears Up his Knickers and Dyes his Hair

“Now to similarities in my own life. At age 9, everyone wore knickers but me. My mother tried to get me to wear knickers and I would have temper tantrums and tear them apart. As a young child, perhaps 4 or 5, I wanted black curly hair so badly that I once went up to an aunt of mine and cut a lock of her black hair. When I was sixteen and just leaving to go to college, I dyed my hair black but I never did it more than once. It was just too much trouble. John was also a Latin scholar and I won the Latin medal two years in high school. When I was 9 years old I had a small stress fracture of the right tibial plateau. It became infected with an abscess. This was before antibiotics and I was told that I would always walk with a limp.

Although from the age four I said was going to be a physician, by age sixteen I always thought I was going to be a neurosurgeon. Between my junior and senior years in medical school, I took a three-month trip to visit various and sundry surgical internship possibilities. I went back to Duke and decided to take an internship in internal medicine instead of surgery, even though I still pursued neurosurgery after the internship.”

Norm Shealy Loves Dickens and Thackeray, John Elliotson’s Old Friends

“Charles Dickens was one of my favorite authors as a child. In 1974, I visited Olga Worrall, the great healer. In a hypnotic trance, I saw her walk across her living room, pick up a book on a table, and put it back down. I later called Olga and asked her what was the book lying on the table in her living room. She said it was Pendennis by William Thackeray. Thackeray dedicated his novel, Pendennis (1850), to Dr. Elliotson and modeled his character, Dr. Goodenough, in that novel, after Elliotson.”

Replication of Talent & Thought in a Reincarnation Case:

Norm Writes the Same Book as Elliotson on Medical Hypocrisy

“I have spent much of this life getting people off narcotics rather than putting them on them. Six months before I heard Elliotson’s name, I published anonymously a novel based on the hypocrisy of medicine in accepting new ideas. I used many of the examples that Elliotson did in his Harverian lecture.

In 1973, again a month before I heard John Elliotson’s name, I received a $50,000 grant from a Fortune 500 company, which had asked to remain anonymous, to study psychic diagnosis.

In 1973, I visited seventy-five individuals who were said to be excellent clairvoyants, and I did a test of medical intuition, or the ability of really untrained psychics or intuitives to do medical diagnosis. We found five who were between 70 and 75% accurate. When I told the seventy-five intuitives I visited that I had this personal feeling that I had been John Elliotson, all seventy five concurred. For some seven years in by life, I published a newsletter, Holos Practice Reports, on alternative approaches to medicine.

In summary, I have never had any question that I was John Elliotson in my last life. John Elliotson was born October 24, 1791. At age 19 he graduated from medical school. Interestingly, I entered medical school at age 19. He died July 29, 1868. Incidentally, John founded the Phrenology Society in London and it is interesting that I went into neurosurgery, which certainly has a lot to do with the skull.”

Reincarnation Case Analysis: Spiritual Comminication or Soul Guidance

Let us briefly review the key features of the Elliotson | Shealy case. When Dr. Shealy first heard John Elliotson’s name, he knew viscerally that he was Elliotson in a past lifetime. This occurred even though Dr. Shealy was neutral about reincarnation, at that point in time. Dr. Shealy had this inner knowing, which was accompanied by a dramatic sensation of an “iceberg” going down his back, before studying Elliotson’s life and without seeing an image of Elliotson. When Dr. Shealy went to London to research Elliotson, he was intuitively guided to Elliotson’s office at the University College Hospital of London (building featured to the right). This event also was accompanied by the “iceberg” sensation.

These Events signify Soul Guidance, that is, Norm Shealy’s own Soul acted to help him discover his Past Lifetime as John Elliotson.

Dr. Shealy then learned that he and Elliotson had much in common. Both share the trait of being medical innovators, in that Elliotson introduced the use of the stethoscope in England and Norm Shealy has invented the TENS unit and the Dorsal Column Stimulator.

Both have demonstrated an interest in the management of pain. Elliotson introduced the use of narcotics in England, while Dr. Shealy has become a world expert on pain management. In his contemporary career, Dr. Shealy has labored to find ways to manage pain so that people can get off narcotics. Elliotson was an internist, who later founded phrenology, which involves study of the skull. Dr. Shealy first chose to go into internal medicine, then switched fields and became a neurosurgeon.

Elliotson was interested in mesmerism or hypnosis, an interest shared by Dr. Shealy. Elliotson was interested in the observation that hypnosis could stimulate clairvoyance. Dr. Shealy has worked with clairvoyants and medical intuitives, including Caroline Myss. Both have been ridiculed by conservative elements in the medical community for their innovative approaches.

Elliotson gave his detractors a piece of his mind when in a Harverian Lecture, he delivered a speech on the hypocrisy of science in accepting new ideas. Dr. Shealy published a novel with the identical message and utilized the same examples that Elliotson used in his Harverian Lecture. Elliotson had striking black hair which Dr. Shealy, in his youth, tried to recreate. Elliotson gave up wearing knickers, which were pants that went down just below the knee. Dr. Shealy had a tantrum when his mom tried to get him to wear the same dreaded piece of clothing.

It is significant that when I first contacted Dr. Shealy in 2002, he was unaware that facial features can remain consistent from lifetime to lifetime. When I asked him whether he looked like John Elliotson, Norm responded, “I don’t’ know!” Norm agreed to send me images of Elliotson and himself as a medical student, which he thought might bear some resemblance. The images, which are presented at the right, demonstrate matching facial architecture. Much as in the case of Robert Snow, the fact that Norm Shealy derived his own past life case in a compelling manner, believed without doubt that he is the reincarnation of Elliotson and did not even focus on common appearance, reinforces that the consistency of facial features from one incarnation to another is indeed a valid phenomenon.

Please note that Norm Shealy can be considered a medical child prodigy. At four years of age he declared that he would be a physician, by 16 years of age he knew he would be a neurosurgeon, which was the same age that he entered college. Norm entered medical school at the precocious age of 19. He taught at Harvard and by becoming a world famous medical innovator and pain specialist, he replicated the career development of John Elliotson. This case demonstrates how child prodigies can be explained through reincarnation.

Two additional cases that were derived in relation to the Elliotson | Shealy match include the case those of Charles Dickens | J. K. Rowling and Anton Mesmer | John Kabat-Zinn.

Principles of Reincarnation & Understanding Past Lives

Physical Resemblance: Norm and John Elliotson have similar facial features, something that Norm did not appreciate until the year 2000, even though he had been convinced he has been Elliotson ever since the early 1970’s.

Past Life Talent: Norm was a medical prodigy, having entered medical school at the age of only 19. He became a medical inventor and innovator, much like Elliotson was. Like Elliotson, Norm has made major contributions to the field of pain management, though he observes that in this lifetime he has tried to get patients off narcotics, while as Elliotson, he was introducing narcotics to England.

Significantly, Norm and Elliotson have both been medical rebels, who both wrote on the hypocrisy of mainstream medicine in accepting new ideas. They both even used the same examples from history to prove their points, though Norm was unaware of Elliotson’s writing on the subject until after he wrote his own treatise. As such, this appears to be a case where an individual unconsciously drew on past life experience and knowledge. This phenomenon was also observed in the case of Paul Gauguin | Peter Teekamp.

Geographic Memory: When in England, Norm was able to intuitively lead a taxi driver to the former medical office of John Elliotson. This is reminiscent of the case of Anne Frank | Barbro Karlen, as Barbro, on her first trip to Amsterdam at age ten, was able to lead her parents from their hotel to the Anne Frank House without directions.

Change in Nationality: John Elliotson was British, while Norm Shealy was born in the United States.

Spiritual Communication or Soul Guidance: It appears that Norm’s own soul or perhaps a spirit guide facilitated the development this reincarnation case by sending the iceberg sensation down Norm’s spine when he heard the name John Elliotson in Snowmass, as well as when Norm was in the taxi looking for information on Elliotson in London.