In "2026 Is a Rebirth Year," Billy Carson argues that the turn of every year is a genuine rebirth, timed to the winter solstice and the return of the light, and that 2026 can be the best year of a person's life if three things are cleared first: old energetic attachments, unforgiven mistakes and a neglected body and mind. The talk walks through a cord cutting ritual, a mirror exercise for self-forgiveness and a set of spoken commitments to physical and mental health, framed by his story of nearly dying of pneumonia in 2024.
The topic matters because most New Year resolutions fail within weeks, and Carson offers an explanation for why: there is, in his words, no space for the new version of a person while the old one is still taking up the room. Whether or not a reader accepts the energetic language, the practical core of the talk lines up with ideas psychologists also study.
What the video covers
Every year is a rebirth (from about 0:50)
Carson recorded the talk at dawn the day after the December 2025 winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. His point is that "every year is a rebirth": from the solstice on, the days lengthen and the world moves back toward the light, which is why people feel the urge to eat better, exercise and chase their goals as January approaches. In his reading, people are literally being born again every year, with a fresh chance to become a better version of themselves.
Cutting the cords (from about 2:50)
The first practice is cutting cords. "We have to cut cords from everything that's not serving us," Carson says, describing energetic attachments to old relationships, old ways of thinking, friends who offer only the illusion of support, situations that keep a person in debt, the habit of not working on oneself and, above all, self-punishment for mistakes made a decade or two ago. He compares these patterns to alcohol, which is called a spirit, arguing that habits carry a spirit of their own.
The machete visualization (from about 5:00)
The ritual itself is a visualization. With eyes closed, in a quiet place, over five to ten breaths, the listener pictures cords running from the head to every person, place, situation and mistake that no longer serves them. Then a large machete comes down above the head, never touching the body, and slices every cord so the ends drift off into space. The rule Carson stresses is that once a cord is cut, it is released for good: nobody goes looking for it again.
Spiritual alchemy and the fifth world (from about 7:35)
Carson ties the ritual to alchemy. The philosopher's stone was meant to turn base metals such as mercury into gold, and he says scientists have now done exactly that in a laboratory. Because everything, in his view, is a fractal, what is possible physically is possible spiritually, so the dark corners of the heart and mind can be converted into light and trauma used as fuel. He places 2026 at the start of the Age of Aquarius and says humanity is leaving the fourth world for the fifth, citing the Hopi, the Lakota, Aboriginal Australians and African traditions as sources that, by his account, describe the same sequence.
Self-forgiveness in the mirror (from about 9:50)
The biggest cord, Carson says, is a person's own lack of forgiveness. His method has four steps. Stand at a mirror and say out loud exactly what you did wrong and what your part in it was. Then say "I forgive myself" while looking into your own eyes and feeling the gratitude of that release. Next, ask what you learned and what good came from the situation, and say it aloud. Finally, commit never to repeat the mistake. Done fully, he argues, the exercise reprograms the subconscious and marks a fresh start.
Born again without water (from about 11:10)
Carson reads the religious idea of being born again in the same way. Adults who are baptized are clearly not newborns, he points out, so the ritual must be about tearing down an old way of thinking and bringing in a new one. In his view no water is required: a firm commitment not to repeat the old pattern moves a person onto what he calls a new timeline.
Health is wealth (from about 12:10)
The second commitment is health. "Health is wealth. Health is abundance," Carson says, and he explains why with his own story. In 2024 he fell seriously ill with pneumonia while leading a tour in Turkey, finished the tour rather than abandon the travelers, and was admitted to hospital on his return. He describes that night as a near-death experience: being told he could stay or go back, choosing to return because his mission was not finished, and hearing the heart monitor speed up as he came back. Waking the next day too weak to reach the bathroom alone, he says, taught him that health comes first.
The full cup and mental health (from about 16:05)
Carson's image for why resolutions fail is a cup already full of pain, trauma and illness: nothing new can fit, so the new self never arrives. Emptying it means steady physical habits (exercise, avoiding processed food, sugar and smoking) and equal attention to mental health. He likens Earth to an asylum, saying everyone, himself included, is dealing with some form of mental strain after long programming, and that the work is to become aware of where each person is lacking.
Spoken commitments and ancient prompting (from about 18:55)
The talk closes with a set of repeat-after-me commitments: to work on physical and mental health, to put exercise on the calendar, not to delete it and to treat whatever is on the calendar as something that must be done, ending with a statement of readiness for the new version of oneself. Carson calls this a form of prompting, a practice he says is ancient rather than an invention of the AI era, found in old texts because there is nothing new under the sun.
Key takeaways
- Carson treats the winter solstice and New Year as a yearly rebirth and the right moment to reset.
- His cord cutting ritual is a short visualization in which attachments to people, situations and past mistakes are cut and never revisited.
- Self-forgiveness, in his method, means naming the mistake, forgiving it aloud, stating the lesson and committing not to repeat it.
- He describes health as the foundation of manifesting, using his 2024 pneumonia and near-death account as the reason.
- Resolutions fail, in his view, because the cup is already full; old patterns have to be cleared before new ones can take hold.
- Practical commitments, such as putting exercise on the calendar, are the bridge between intention and action.
Billy Carson's reading
Carson's framework is that reality is fractal, so physical processes have spiritual counterparts: alchemy that turns mercury into gold mirrors the inner work of turning darkness into light, and the sun's return after the solstice mirrors a person's own rise. The cord cutting ritual, the mirror exercise and the spoken commitments are all, in his terms, ways of reprogramming the subconscious so that intention and action line up. This connects directly to his wider teaching on manifestation, set out in how to manifest what you want, the Billy Carson method, and to his fractal holographic model of reality. The emphasis on cutting ties with draining people echoes his talk on frequency parasites and energy vampires.
The Age of Aquarius and the fifth world are his reading of astrological and Indigenous traditions, offered as a frame of meaning rather than a forecast, and his near-death account is his own testimony.
What mainstream scholarship says
On alchemy, the record is more specific than the video. Turning mercury into gold is possible only by nuclear transmutation, not chemistry: in 1941 Rubby Sherr, Kenneth Bainbridge and Herbert Anderson at Harvard produced tiny amounts of radioactive gold isotopes by bombarding mercury with neutrons, and particle accelerators have since produced trace gold from other elements. The quantities are minute and the cost far exceeds the gold, so it is neither a recent breakthrough nor the alchemists' philosopher's stone.
The Age of Aquarius is an astrological idea based on the slow precession of the equinoxes; astrologers do not agree on when it begins, and using the official constellation boundaries the March equinox point does not enter Aquarius until around the 2600s. Hopi tradition, as it is usually recorded, places humanity in the Fourth World, with a coming Fifth World in some prophetic tellings, and other cultures, such as the Aztec Legend of the Suns, count world ages differently, so the sequences are not identical across traditions. On mental health, the World Health Organization estimates that about one in eight people worldwide lives with a mental disorder, a large number but not everyone. Near-death experiences are widely reported and studied, but researchers continue to debate whether they reflect anything beyond the brain under extreme stress; see near-death experiences explained.
There is no scientific evidence for energetic cords. The practical side of the talk fares better: psychologists who study self-forgiveness, such as Everett Worthington, distinguish healthy self-forgiveness, which starts by accepting responsibility, from simply excusing oneself, and research on implementation intentions by Peter Gollwitzer finds that concrete plans about when and where to act make follow-through more likely, much like scheduling exercise.
Watch, read and go deeper
For the psychology behind changing ingrained patterns, read how to reprogram your subconscious mind, and for a structured approach to the darker material Carson asks viewers to face, see shadow work explained. The wider collection of articles on intention, belief and practice sits in the manifestation topic hub. For guided practice that pairs well with the cord cutting visualization, the Meditation show on 4BK TV is a natural next step.
Frequently asked questions
What is a cord cutting ritual?
A cord cutting ritual is a visualization in which a person imagines energetic cords linking them to people, situations or past events and then imagines those cords being cut. In this video, Billy Carson uses a large machete coming down above the head, done over five to ten breaths in a quiet place. The key rule in his version is that a cut cord is released for good and never sought out again.
Why does Billy Carson call 2026 a rebirth year?
Carson says every year is a rebirth because the winter solstice marks the return of the light, with days lengthening from that point on. He adds that 2026 sits at the start of what he calls the Age of Aquarius and a shift from the fourth world to the fifth, an astrological and traditional framing rather than a scientific one.
How do you forgive yourself, according to the video?
Carson's method is to stand at a mirror, say aloud what you did wrong and what your part was, then say "I forgive myself" while looking into your own eyes. Next, state what you learned and what good came from it, and finish with a commitment never to repeat the mistake. Anyone dealing with serious guilt, trauma or depression should also speak with a qualified mental health professional.
Did scientists really turn mercury into gold?
Yes, but only through nuclear physics. In 1941 researchers at Harvard produced small amounts of radioactive gold by bombarding mercury with neutrons, and accelerators have since made trace gold from other elements. The amounts are tiny and the process is far too expensive to be practical, so it is not alchemy in the traditional sense.
Sources mentioned
Carson draws on the alchemical tradition of the philosopher's stone, the biblical idea of being born again from the Gospel of John, chapter 3, and the line "there is nothing new under the sun" from Ecclesiastes 1:9. He cites Hopi, Lakota, Aboriginal Australian and African traditions for the teaching of successive worlds, and the astrological Age of Aquarius. For context, standard references include Frank Waters's Book of the Hopi, the World Health Organization's World Mental Health Report (2022), Raymond Moody's Life After Life on near-death experiences, and the work of Everett Worthington on forgiveness.
This content is for information only and is not medical advice.
