Book Review : Many Lives Many Masters

Title : Many Lives Many Masters

Author : Brian L. Weiss

'Many Lives Many Masters' is an interesting, engaging and enlightening read. The subject addressed in the book is the one greatly written about and well debated upon. It can be termed as theory of rebirth, reincarnation, after life, permanence of soul, many lives etc.

Through this book, Dr. Weiss describes his own experience with Catherine who was 27 years old when she came to him for the psychiatric help regarding her anxieties, panic attacks and phobias. While the doctor tried all possible conventional methods to cure Catherine but nothing seemed to work with her until she transitioned to hypnotic trans state wherein she could recall her past-life memories and experiences which clearly indicated the causes of her present life specific symptoms. The treatment worked with her so well that she started showing immediate improvement in her overall approach towards life, and her issues just vanished completely. Her hypnotic states not just were improving her condition, they were in fact a great learning experience for Dr. Weiss himself wherein he could get to decipher the secret messages from the spirits belonging to the other world regarding life and death.

The author is an acclaimed graduate of Columbia university, a M.D. from the Yale university School of Medicine and Chief Psychiatric at a major hospital and has over 37 papers and many book chapters that are published in this field to his credit. He is an expert on brain chemistry. So he was rightly surprised and skeptical about what his experience with Catherine was leading him to believe. But his skepticism started losing its ground when over and over again he witnessed the miracle this process was bringing in Catherine's life and how everything seemed to fall in just the right place and of course the extremely significant messages relayed to him from the other world with Catherine as a conduit.

This book brings to fore the age old belief that there is a supreme authority who is behind the existence of every single thing in this world and good or bad, our actions stay with us and to settle the accounts of our previous incarnations we need to keep coming in the world. Many religions have already been imparting the knowledge of the theory of cause and effects through our karmas and the subsequent births but the cases like Catherine reinforce this philosophy. The author highlighted another very significant point that the exercise with Catherine made him realize that the fear of death which scares almost all living individuals can be overcome to a great extent with this knowledge simply by being aware that we were there before this and we will be there after this life too, its just that we move from one state to another and in this process attempt to gain wisdom and learn for the benefit of our soul.

Found some repetition of text - specifically when the author is trying to explain the authenticity of what Catherine was saying while being regressed - she was not an actress, didn't do drugs, had not read anything about afterlife and after death experiences. Almost verbatim passage is repeated on a couple of occasions.

Overall a very gripping and engaging read and readers will find answers to some of their own personal questions. This book can serve as a great introduction for the readers who are new to this field of knowledge and research.