Why ‘Many Lives, Many Masters’ by Dr. Brian Weiss is a path breaking book
- In Book Reviews
- 12:41 PM, Oct 17, 2017
- Dr.Murali Ahobila
The book was first published 20 years back and translated into 40 languages!
According to Dr. Weiss:
- There were references to reincarnation in the old and New Testaments.
In A. D. 325 the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, along with his mother, Helena deleted references to reincarnation contained in the Bible. The second council of Constantinople, meeting in Ad. 553, confirmed this action and declared the concept of reincarnation a heresy.
Apparently, they thought this concept would weaken the growing power of the Church....
2. The early Church fathers had accepted the concept of reincarnation.
The early Gnostics-Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Saint Jerome, and many others -believed that they had lived before and would again (pp 35-36).
Synopsis of the book
Dr. Weiss specialized in biological psychiatry and uses psychotherapy (regression therapy) and hypnosis to understand and cure the patients suffering from anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, and depression disorders.
Catherine, an extremely attractive woman and a swimwear model, suffering from fears and anxiety disorders comes to him for help.
She was a middle child from a small town, raised to believe in traditional Catholic ideology and never really doubted the truthfulness and validity of her faith. Her life had always burdened with fears. She feared water, feared choking to the extent that she could not swallow pills, feared airplanes, feared the dark, and she was terrified of dying. In the recent past her fears began to worsen. In order to feel safe, she often slept in the walk-in closet in her apartment. She suffered from insomnia, nightmares and sleep-walking. As these fears and symptoms paralyzed her, she became more and more depressed. She landed in a job as lab technician at a large teaching Hospital in Miami and moved from her small town to Miami in 1974 at the age of 21. Her panic attacks frequency worsened with recurring nightmares. Hence, she came to see Dr. Weiss on the recommendation of his doctor friend at the hospital where she worked.
Dr. Weiss felt confident that he could help her and decided to begin delving into her childhood through regression therapy looking for the original sources for her problems. She stretched and strained her mind to remember, isolated memory fragments of childhood memories (at the age of 5 somebody pushed her off a diving board, into a swimming pool, when she was eleven her mother has become severely depressed, he father had long standing history of alcohol abuse, etc.). Eighteen months passed but there was no improvement in her and Dr. Weiss felt frustrated that they both reached a wall and neither of them could climb over it.
And then a strange thing happened. Although she was damn scared of flying and had to fortify herself with a number of drinks while she was on the plane, Catherine accompanied Stuart (her fiancé) to a medical conference in Chicago in 1982. While there, she pressured him into visiting Egypt. She was not a scholar but very much interested in ancient Egyptian artifacts. When the guide began to describe some of the artifacts in the exhibit looked familiar although she had not studied the history of that period she found herself correcting him.....and She was right? She corrected the guide in public? The guide was surprised; Catherine was stunned. How did she knew all these things? Why did she feel so strongly that she was right and corrected the guide in public? Perhaps the memories were forgotten from her childhood.
At her next appointment, she told Dr. Weiss what happened. Months earlier Dr. Weiss had suggested hypnosis for Catherine, but she was afraid and resisted. Because of her experience at the Egyptian exhibit, she now reluctantly agreed.
In psychotherapy, hypnosis is an excellent tool to help patient recall long-forgotten incidents. According to Weiss, there is nothing mysterious about it. It is just a focused concentration. Under the instruction of a trained hypnotist, the patient's body relaxes, causing the memory to sharpen. Dr. Weiss had hypnotized hundreds of patients and had found it helpful in reducing anxiety, eliminating phobias, changing bad habits, and aiding to recall of repressed material. On occasions Dr. Weiss had regressed patients to their early childhood, even when they were two to three years old, eliciting memories of their long-forgotten traumas that were disrupting their lives.
Dr. Weiss traces so many of Catherine's childhood painful deeply suppressed memories in the process for the first time. However, he had forgotten to ask her knowledge of Egyptian artifacts. In the next session Dr. Weiss instructs her to go back to further beyond age two. Then she narrates her story as Aronda living in a valley (1863 B.C) with all the topographical details. She tell her daughter was Cleastra who is Rachel (Rachel is presently her niece). She describes a flood or tidal wave that devastated the village where both she and her daughter were drowning. She can't breathe. She can't swallow.......finally saved by the villagers!
Dr. Weiss was not prepared for this. Her dates, incidents were so vivid. He was stunned. Dr. Weiss clinical mind told that she was not fantasizing. Her thoughts, her expressions, the attention to details all were different from conscious state. She was not delusional nor did she have multiple personalities. There were memories of sort but from where? Dr. Weiss gut feeling was that he stumbled upon something he knew very little about-reincarnation and past life memories. Dr. Weiss scientifically trained mind resisted the thought. But, here it was happening right before his eyes. He asked her to continue. Then Catherine remembered fragments of two other lifetimes... Year 1756 AD. She was Louisa a Spanish lady. She was dancing. She was sick Lots of people were dying ...doctors don't know it was because of water....
Impulsively, Dr. Weiss asks Catherine (because she could recognize her niece) whether he was present in any of her lives. She responded quickly that he (Dr. Weiss) was her teacher, taught her symbols and triangles from books. He was old and had grey hair wore white dress (toga). His name was Diogenes.
Even more amazing things about her past lives at different times are revealed in the subsequent sessions which are chronicled in the book. For example:
- Catherine talks about her 17 previous births!
- In one of the sessions she mentions meeting Dr. Weiss’s father who died at 61 and his infant son that died when he was 27 days old. They both died due to rare heart problems.
- She gives their names and also their heart problems which he and his wife alone knew.
This appears to be his turning point (he talks about karma and rebirth) which you read in this book.
Other Western scientific publications supporting rebirth:
1. You have been Before by Edith Fiore, Ph. D;
2. Past Lives, Future Loves and you were born again to be together, by Richard Stephen,
3. Astrology and your past Lives by Jean Avery.
About the Author: Brian L. Weiss, M. D.
After graduating magna cum laude from Columbia University and receiving his medical degree at the Yale University School of Medicine, Brian Weiss went on to become Chief Resident, Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach Florida.
Currently, he is the chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.
Dr. Weiss maintains a private practice in Miami and conducts international seminars experiential workshops as well as training programs for professionals.
He published numerous scientific papers, lectured at national and international conferences.
He has authored two more books:
1. Same Soul Many Bodies and
2. Through Time into Healing.
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