Many Lives, Many Masters - Dr. Brian Weiss

Reviewer’s Note:

Many Lives, Many Masters is a case study of an American psychiatrist who used hypnosis on a patient to retrieve repressed memories. The first page of dedication to his wife got me hooked. It was an insightful sentence and the most unusual to read. The book discusses hypnosis, regression therapy, child abuse, the alleged recollection of past life memories, and the messages from invisible spirit masters channeled through people under hypnosis. There are many stories about how a skeptic turns into a believer, but this one stands out. The knowledge that the doctor (Brian Weiss) had been her teacher in two of her previous births helped to strengthen their bond.

Book Review:

Psychiatry and metaphysics blend in this fascinating book based on a true case history. Dr. Weiss, who was once firmly entrenched in a clinical approach to psychiatry, finds himself drawn into past-life therapy when a hypnotized client suddenly reveals details of her previous lives. What changed his life was a series of therapeutic sessions with a patient called Catherine. She was suffering from a variety of panic attacks and anxieties. Weiss commenced traditional therapy, but there was limited success. He wanted to try anti-anxiety medication and hypnosis, but Catherine was initially afraid of both and refused.

The turning point came unexpectedly when Catherine accompanied Stuart, a married man with whom she had been having an affair, to an Egyptian exhibit at an art museum. Using past-life therapy, he was able to cure the patient and embark on a new, more meaningful phase of his career. Though it deals with subjects like reincarnation and past life regression, which may be difficult to digest, it falls easy on everyone’s eyes and psyche.

Most of the book is devoted to recounting further sessions with Catherine in which she described other previous lifetimes. Sometimes she was a man, and sometimes she was a woman, but she was always an “ordinary” person and not anyone significant. Important people in Catherine’s present life would appear in her previous lives, but be incarnated in some other person. Most significantly from Weiss’s perspective was that when Catherine would “die” in a previous life, she would enter an intermediate state, in which she would channel other spirits, known as Masters.

Weiss did not investigate Catherine’s precognitive powers further, so we are left with just an intriguing but isolated episode that is not fully documented. There have been so many times when we act negatively, knowingly. Even when we realize we are doing something wrong, we are unable to control ourselves. We hold grudges against others and are unable to let go, for a long time. You may want to get rid of that black cloud but often don’t know-how. The words of wisdom from the Master spirits play the key role. To explain in simple words- those who are obsessed with their body, had at one point in a particular birth been ridiculed for it, those who eat a lot had probably starved to death in a past life, and extra food gives security to them. Now when you come face to face with this fact, you can train your soul to come to peace with the issue and walk by and not linger on it.

Many Lives, Many Masters is truly a spiritual classic. It just teaches you to be simple and to live simply. It has some of the most beautiful, simple yet profound messages I have come across. I know it is the easiest thing for us to follow the messages, but at the same time, it is not. We have built walls around ourselves to survive in this world and often put on masks to remain anonymous.

The book says that it is ‘The true story of a prominent psychiatrist, his young patient, and the past-life therapy that changed both their lives’. It has changed mine. And it can change yours too if you believe.

Happy Reading.