Soul Retrieval refers to forms of New Age and shamanic practice that aim to reintegrate various interpretations of the soul that might have become disconnected, trapped or lost through trauma. In variants such as Carlos Castaneda's recapitulation technique, fragments of soul are sought solely within the memories of the retriever, making them largely psychoanalytical in nature; in others, the scope extends to rehabilitation of lost souls of the deceased,[1] paralleling the Roman Catholic practice of offering prayer for the dead to assist their progress through purgatory. Robert Monroe explored the concept of retrieval extensively through use of out-of-body and astral projection techniques, sometimes finding the personalities he perceived suggestive of prior incarnations of himself.[2]
Monroe's first exposure to retrievals came about interacting with a channelling subject during a routinely taped exploration[3] at his institute. In this session, he ostensibly found himself presented with the crying soul of a sailor, still clinging to the floating wreckage of his ship and waiting for his first dark night in the water to end more than 100 years downstream from the date he believed was current. Through offering friendship and suggestions of ways to transcend his predicament, Monroe seemed to effect a transformation in the sailor's understanding, freeing him from a century of anguish. The session was subsequently transcribed[4], and Monroe eventually developed a series of binaural frequency sets to assist others in the replication of altered states of consciousness suitable for similar retrievals.