◊ By Melissa Kositzin

Author: Dr Brian L Weiss; Publisher: Touchstone (1988); Price: Rs 200 (Paperback, on Amazon); Extent: 224 pages; Non Fiction

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In short, I loved Many Lives, Many Masters. No, really, I loved it. It was a life changing and affirming read, bringing into complete focus my belief in reincarnation, past lives and soul mates.

In 1980, the author, Brian L Weiss, MD, was an established and prominent psychiatrist in private practice. He trusted the methods he had learned of talk therapy, combined with medication when necessary, to help people overcome their fears and phobias. Then he met a patient named Catherine. As he states in his preface, “For eighteen months I used conventional methods of therapy to help her overcome her symptoms. When nothing seemed to work, I tried hypnosis. In a series of trance states, Catherine recalled ‘past life’ memories that proved to be the causative factors of her symptoms. She also was able to act as a conduit for information from highly evolved ‘spirit entities’, and through them she revealed many of the secrets of life and of death. In just a few short months, her symptoms disappeared, and she resumed her life, happier and more at peace than ever before.”

Thus, we begin our journey with Weiss and Catherine as they explore her past lives and his scientific beliefs, evolving along the way into a belief system that lays the foundation for the meaning of life. In the Afterword to the 25^thAnniversary Edition of the book, Weiss states:

“To paraphrase the mystic Teilhard de Chardin: ‘We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.’ Our bodies are temporary. We are souls. We are immortal; we are eternal. We never die; we merely transform to a heightened state of consciousness, no longer needing a physical body. We are always loved. We are never alone, and we can never be harmed, not at this level.”

We are souls. It’s that simple. If you believe that souls are energy, then even Einstein had it right when he hypothesised that energy never dissipates; it simply changes into a different form.

Weiss also discusses how both he and Catherine became more psychic during the course of their journey together. In one such instance, he recalls:

“Several nights later I was jolted awake from a deep sleep. Instantly alert, I had a vision of Catherine’s face, several times larger than life size. She looked upset, as if she needed my help. I looked over at the clock; it was 3:36 am. There had been no outside noises to awaken me. Carole [his wife] was sleeping peacefully beside me. I dismissed the incident and fell back to sleep.

“At about 3:30 that same morning, Catherine had awakened in a panic from a nightmare. She was sweating and her heart was racing. She decided to meditate to relax, visualizing my hypnotizing her in the office. She pictured my face, heard my voice, and gradually fell back to sleep.”

I believe we are all psychically enabled; some of us have simply developed this skill more than others.

Before I loaned the book to my daughter, I had more than a half dozen post it notes stuck into the book that I wanted to discuss in this review, but I think I’ll leave you wanting more, so you can enjoy the book yourself.

The above review was first published in the blog, www.wanderingvoiceless.com