MANY LIVES MANY MASTERSby Dr Brian WeissA Review As per the information provided, Dr Brian Weiss is a psychiatrist
who lives and practices in Miami, USA. Apart from the above title, Dr Weiss has written three other titles viz. Only Live is Real, Through Time Into Healing and Messages From The Master.Dr Weiss has written “Many Lives Many Masters” based on his supposed experience with his patient Ms Catherine. She came to him to help her to overcome anxiety, panic attacks and phobias which she has been experiencing for quite sometime.Psychiatric treatment could be
psychotherapy, clinical psychiatry and through hypnosis. In psychotherapy, one discusses with the patient over a period of time and suggests methods to overcome the problem. In clinical psychiatry required medicines are prescribed to enable the patient to recuperate.Hypnosis is a wide field. Initially it is subliminal where you take the patient to below the level of conscious awareness. This is akin to psychotherapy but at a different level as the patient tells you more than what he/she tells in psychotherapy. This helps the psychiatrist to apply sympathetic modus operandi.Dr Weiss talks about putting Catherine into deep hypnosis. In this plane Catherine says she was abused in her childhood by alcoholic father to that extent of touching her private parts. Girl child abuse by alcoholic fathers appears to be a common phenomena in America as many writers have used this theme in their stories. May be that Dr Weiss is not immune to this theory.Under deep hypnosis or regression one can touch upon whatever happened in the present life. Hypnotism is akin to parapsychology. Under regression one could go through hallucination or trance and start imagining various aspects of life. Imagination about the past life and transcending to centuries back in time appear to be pondering over imponderables i.e. using a time machine to travel back to centuries like 1863 or 1536 B.C. Even if this is accepted, then relating to the present day people to those in such centuries appear to be more on the suggestion of Dr Weiss.According to Hindu
philosophy, the soul, the size of a thumb, leaves the body as a light which everyone cannot see. Some years back a fully dressed soul leaving a body was shown on the television. This is a very rare occurrence. Again the soul multiplies so that the rebirth cycle according to the karma can be completed as quickly as possible. The philosophy of reincarnation or rebirth is part of Hinduism and Budhhism. Dr Weiss tells us that this is an accepted philosophy in Christianity too and this was removed in ancient time by the Church.Sum and substance is that this work appear to be informative vis-à-vis paranormal activity of an individual and the method of suggestive psychology adopted by Dr Weiss. This work should be read as an exercise into paranormal activities propounded by many others.R Rangarajan