So psychiatrists get the best stories. This is a book about how a typical, atheist, psychiatrist, Dr. Brian Weiss, discovered something extraordinary while treating a patient who seemed to suffer from several phobias.
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The patient, whom he calls Catherine for the sake of anonymity, seems like a pretty typical, albeit strikingly beautiful woman. She was a middle child, raised in a conservative catholic family in Massachusetts and had an older brother and a younger sister. But when she started talking about her symptoms, she became noticeably tense and nervous. This chick was afraid of everything. She was afraid of water, couldn’t take pills because she was afraid of choking, [honestly, I think this chick would have annoyed the fuck out of me] she was afraid of airplanes, the dark – sometimes she would just sleep in the closet. Not only that, but she was getting worse; she wasn’t able to sleep that well, so her life was kind of in shambles.
So, Weiss listens to all of this, and he’s sure he can help her. He’s had many patients just like her before, and he’s been able to come up with some sort of treatment for them. He says that his standard practice at the time was to use some sort of pill, like an anti-anxiety med, or a tranquilizer, but he says that his practice now has changed to use these things only sparingly. What i find interesting, is this statement
No medicine can reach the real roots of these symptoms. My experiences with Catherine and others like her have proved this to me. Now I know there can be cures, not just the suppression or covering-over of symptoms.
Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss, MD
I would imagine most experienced psychiatrists would think that a bold statement.
Anyway, as Catherine is talking about her past, she really doesn’t remember a bunch of disturbing stuff which happened to her as a kid. She remembers being pushed off the diving board; but she was pretty scared of water before that incident. Her father was an alcoholic, and would fight with her mom – not cool, but not something which one would expect to have caused the crippling fear Catherine is experiencing.
As far as religion is concerned, she basically was a Catholic, didn’t really question the belief system. She thought that when you die you either go to purgatory or hell. The idea of reincarnation wasn’t really in her sphere of belief – she didn’t really think about it.
So, how did Catherine end up on Weiss’ couch? Or in Weiss’ office is probably a better way to say that. Well, she went and got a technical degree after high school, and then moved to Miami to work in a hospital there at the age of 21. She knew quite a bit of the staff there, and had good rapport with many of them; and one of them, a surgeon, noticed that she seemed a bit off – maybe depressed or something, but he didn’t say anything to her about it. Then, he was driving somewhere and saw her driving as well, and he must have just been overcome because he literally waved her down, so she had to stop her car, and he said to her, “I want you to see Dr. Weiss, Now!” I’m guessing Weiss had a good reputation in the hospital, but this was surprising even to the surgeon. He couldn’t believe how emphatic he was being. So finally, Catherine decides to schedule an appointment with Weiss. At this point, she was having terrible nightmares about being on a bridge when it collapsed and drowning, as well as being trapped in a pitch black room unable to find a way out.
So she starts seeing Weiss on a regular basis – once or twice a week – ka-ching! And this goes on for 18 months, but Weiss is surprised at how she doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Then, something really strange happens. She goes to Chicago with her married boyfriend (as you do), and convinces him to go see this ancient Egyptian exhibit – she likes Egyptian stuff. So they go, and the guide is talking about a particular artifact, and she just speaks up and corrects him about it–but she has no idea how in the world she knew what she knew. So this entire time, Weiss has been suggesting that they do hypnosis, since he’s found that he’s better able to help people remember repressed memories from very young ages, and this can be useful for curing all sorts of problems, like bad habits, or phobias. But up until now she’s been too nervous to even try it. But after this Egyptian artifact incident, she realizes that there could be quite a lot of info hidden inside her mind, so she finally decides to do it.
So he takes her back in time through hypnotic regression, and she remembers a bunch of things that happened to her when she was young, and then she remembers something really awful that happened when she was 3 years old, basically her father drunkenly molesting her; and once she gets to this memory, Weiss is like, alright, now we’ve got it; and he basically thinks his work with Catherine is going to be essentially done. He talks with her about the memory after she wakes up, and sends her on her way to integrate. But what surprises him is that she’s not fixed at all after this. Normally, this kind of dredging up of a repressed memory would significantly help his patients. So he thinks maybe something else was hidden, even before she was 3 years old, so back into hypnosis she goes…but here’s where it gets interesting:
She starts describing walking up to this tall white building with an open front and pillars. She says that she has long, braided, blond hair and is walking up to a marketplace. She’s 18 yo, and her name is Aronda. Weiss is very confused by this. His perspective at this time is that of a scientist, very 3 dimensional in his thinking process – if he can’t see it taste it feel it, it doesn’t exist – so spiritual stuff is not a part of his wheelhouse. He’s freaked out as she’s talking, the room gets cold for him, which is hilarious because the psychiatrist is not the one who is supposed to lose it during a therapy session. But he’s fascinated by what’s going on, so he keeps asking her questions. She remembers when she had a daughter named Cleastra, and she says that Cleastra is now her niece Rachel – with whom she has always had a really close relationship. Sadly, she remembers when huge tidal waves came and swept the village away, and she was holding her baby as they both drowned, but then she remembers the same event but after they were all dead – she was up in the clouds looking down – no further description of what happened after that.
She then describes a few other lives–hey, why stop at just one?–, and the session ends, and she goes home. Now, he doesn’t know what to think, but his curiosity is piqued to say the least. He’s a trained psychiatrist, and he can’t help but notice how clear and detailed her memories of these past life events are – something you wouldn’t expect from someone who is just making something up or imagining it. He’s really hoping that she’ll come back and do some more regressions, but he knows that it would be unprofessional to press her, but thank goodness, she’s starting to experience some significant benefits – he can see when she comes back the following week that she’s just glowing. She’s been getting better sleep, no longer these nightmares of a collapsing bridge. And consider what all this is like from her perspective – she must have been around 30 yo when all this happened, and did not believe that reincarnation was even possible. But her memories of these events are so real and vivid, that she’s sure they happened. And…praise hallelujah, she’s totally down for some more regression sessions!
One more interesting detail is that along the way as she remembers various people from her past, she recognizes some of them as people who are a part of her current life – she even sees previous lives of Weiss. One thing that I didn’t mention earlier was that when she first came to Miami, she started having an affair with this married dude with 2 kids; and this went on for years. And in one of her past life regressions, she’s actually a young man named Johan. And this seems to be a really primitive time. She, as Johan, is wearing a lot of animal skins, and sleeping in really dirty conditions. But she, as Johan, is sent off to war and she has a knife but doesn’t want to kill anyone. Suddenly, she’s grabbed from behind and her throat is slit. She is able to see her killer, and who is it, but none other than philandering Stuart. That dude seems to not have gotten much better over the years.
OK, after I read this next bit, I decided to schedule a past life regression session with this lady. Apparently, after Catherine had been through several of these sessions, her psychic powers just came fully online. She would know questions Weiss was going to ask before he asked it. Her parents came into town to visit, and her dad was skeptical about what was going on, so she took him to the race track and guessed every single winning horse correctly – every single one. Then, she gave the winnings to a homeless person because she didn’t feel right about using her psychic abilities for this type of financial gain. I wonder how she would feel about other people using her abilities for financial gain…
During these sessions, Catherine is going in and out of different previous lives, and each time, she basically ends each life by dying – no way to really avoid that one. And each time she sort of floats out of her body, and she can go silent for a while before entering a different life. So what is going on in between states? Here’s a quote from the book:
She again floated out of her body after her death, but this time she was not perplexed or confused. “I’m aware of Bright Lights. It’s wonderful; you get energy from this light.” She was resting, after death, in between lifetimes. Minutes passed in silence. Suddenly she spoke, but not in the slow whisper she had always used previously. Her voice was now Husky and Loud, without hesitation. “Our task is to learn, to become God-like through knowledge. We know so little. You are here to be my teacher. I have so much to learn. By knowledge we approach God, and then we can rest. Then we come back to teach and help others.”
Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss MD
WHAT THE EFF!?! This is an unbelievable spiritual insight! Weiss is just floored. Hilariously, he wants more, so during future sessions, she’ll be talking about a past life or other, and he’ll be like, “ok, now skip to where you die.” because he wants to hear more in between spiritual stuff. Now at this point of the doctor patient relationship, I really believe that Weiss should have started paying Catherine for these sessions.
So she goes through a previous life, and then another; and when the second one ends, she’s back in the “in between.” Her voice changes back to that husky, loud sound – not the same as when she’s just recalling a past life. Here is what she says:
They tell me there are many Gods, for God is in each of us.
Your father is here and your son, who is a small child. Your father says you will know him because his name is Avrom, and your daughter is named after him. Also, his death was due to his heart. Your son’s heart was also important, for it was backwards, like a chicken’s. He made a great sacrifice for you out of his love. His soul is very advanced… his death satisfied his parents’ debts. Also he wanted to show you that medicine could only go so far, that its scope is very limited.
Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss, MD
So, there was simply no way Catherine could have known any of this information. Dr. Weiss just goes completely cold out of shock. Now he had actually had a son, named Adam, who lived for only 23 days, due to this very rare condition of having a heart which was basically turned around backwards. He and his wife didn’t talk to anyone about this – it was very devastating to both of them; and he ultimately decided to go into psychiatry instead of internal medicine because of it. His father’s real name, Avram, was also a secret – he was called Alvin, and he did die of heart troubles; and his daughter had been named for him when she was born 4 months after he died.
Weiss is just giddy with this information, and very hungry for more:
Who tells you these things?
The Master Spirits tell me. They tell me I have lived eighty-six times in physical state.
She goes through another lifetime and then dies again. He can tell that she’s getting tired, it’s getting close to the end of the session, so he’s not expecting much when she says that Robert Jarrod needs his help. Now, who is Robert Jarrod? He has no idea.
Catherine continues to improve in all areas of her life. She’s still with the married guy, but other than that she seems to be doing well, and her intuition and psychic powers get stronger and stronger. She describes this dream she had which she didn’t remember much of, but she remembers a red fin kind of being embedded in her hand. Later, during the regression session, she remembers being a sailor on a boat, and hot metal slicing into her hand. And she ends up living quite a while in this lifetime, and ends up dying as an old man of a heart attack. And while she’s going through this heart attack, she’s really displaying all of the concerning symptoms of a heart attack. Weiss is sitting there wondering what to do since there’s no evidence to say that it’s safe to re experience a heart attack from a previous life. SO he just figures, what the hell, I guess we’ll see. Fortunately, she’s ok. The next thing you know, she’s in the In Between, and once more, I realized I could not leave this out of the podcast:
There are many souls in this Dimension. I am not the only one. We must be patient. That is something I never learned either… There are many dimensions… I have been to different planes at different times. Each one is a level of higher Consciousness. What plane we go to depends on how far we progressed…
I asked her what lessons she had to learn in order to progress she answered immediately
That we must share our knowledge with other people. That we all have abilities far beyond what we use. Some of us find this out sooner than others. That you should check your vices before you come to this point. If you do not, you carry them over with you to another life. Only we can rid ourselves… Of the bad habits that we accumulate when we are in a physical state. The Masters cannot do that for us. If you choose to fight and not to rid yourself, then you will carry them over into another life. And only when you decide that you are strong enough to master the external problems, then you will no longer have them in your next life.
She then talks about how we should not only go to people who have the same vibration as us – but we should also try to help people who aren’t on our vibrational level. Then she says that we have intuitive powers and it is important to pay attention to them in order to avoid danger. So there are some people on this planet who have greater intuitive powers than others – this is clearly the case, but she says that eventually, we will all have similar powers.
More and more therapy sessions go by, and during several of them, the Masters show up – the spirit guides which Catherine channels in the in-between state. Sometimes, though, the Masters will show up to answer a question, and Catherine will still be experiencing a past life. Meanwhile, the entire time, Catherine is not interested in hearing back what she has channeled as the Masters, and she doesn’t remember any of it. She remembers the past lives, but not the in-between.
At one point, the Masters basically tell Weiss that they are showing up for him, not Catherine. It’s almost as if Catherine was guided to Weiss so he could have these conversations with the Masters. In fact, this is almost certainly the case! The Masters give Weiss advice about how to treat patients with various issues; and I agree mostly with the below, but not completely, but here’s what they say:
You were correct in assuming this is the proper treatment for those in the physical state. You must eradicate the fears from their minds. It is a waste of energy when fear is present. It stifles them from fulfilling what they were sent here to fulfill. Take your cues from your surroundings. They must first be put into a level very very deep… where they no longer can feel their body. Then you can reach them. It’s only on the surface… that troubles lie. Deep within their soul, where the ideas are created, that is where you must reach them.
So if becoming more psychically attuned was not reason enough to attempt regression therapy, this is another reason – it seems to be the only way to eradicate fear, and the only way we can accomplish what we want in life?!? This seems to be a bit of a steep requirement; I think there must be other strategies for overcoming life hurdles, but it’s quite possible that this message really was just intended for Weiss since regression therapy would, I am assuming, eventually become his primary mode of psychotherapy.
This is basically where I am going to leave it. Weiss has more conversations with the entities through Catherine which he calls the Masters, but he has conversations with other entities, some even on lower dimensions than the Masters. I wondered if these entities could be trusted to provide advice which was in our best interest. At one point, some lower level entities say that if you have debt that you incur in one life, then you have to pay those in another life–this sound like Karma, basically, which is pretty interesting. They also say that if you have a vice in one life, you carry it to the next. This made me really think about my own bad eating habits. I really have to put this in check or I’ll get even fatter in my next life.
Anyway, I highly recommend picking up this book. It was a very quick read, and there were more lessons from the Masters which I think are fascinating, but I just didn’t have time for…also, I didn’t want to paraphrase them, so I would have had to have just read aloud huge chunks from the book which just didn’t seem to make for professional podcasting–no matter how dulcet and sweet sounding my voice.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time!