Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives by Brian Weiss Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives
Book Review: Why can't I select 0 stars.
Summary: 1 Stars
I generally don't read this kind of books but I have been urged by a friend to read this one. "You can't keep ignoring the facts", he told me. "Here is this serious scientist who writes about facts and you just ignore them because your mind is not open and you want to preserve your old beliefs". So, reluctantly, I made the effort and started reading this book.The author describes his experience with a patient he calls Catherine. When, on page eleven, I encountered the sentence "I have slightly changed Catherine's identity to ensure confidentiality" I said to myself "here it starts, the well know pattern of these books, making criticism impossible by making the facts the theory relies upon inaccessible to others". I almost stopped reading the book since I knew that through this sentence it declared itself as unscientific and I would have no way to find out whether or not the facts my friend said I was ignoring were, indeed, facts.
But, a couple of days later I decided to go on reading, at least some pages, and see if I find something I could relate to. I'm glad I did!
On page 27, the author describes his first encounter with a previous life cycle Catherine was able to recall under hypnosis. I'll cite only a few sentences from her testimony: "We live in the Valley.... There is no water. The year is 1863 B.C. The area is barren, hot, and sandy" See what I mean? Am I the only person who read this book with a mind open enough to understand that people in this time could not use the term B.C. to designate dates? Even if she really wanted to translate some other date representation to the terms we use today, how could she do it? No way! I only had to read 27 pages to find out a statement that, logically, cannot be true. There are many such statements in the sequel...
Book Review: This one will open your eyes!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I would definately recommend this book to anyone and everyone, especially those like myself who are new to the subject of past lives. I haven`t read any other books so I can`t make a comparison but I certainly hope they`re like this one. Dr Weiss has an easy going, open and honest writing style which makes this book very compelling. The bulk of the book of course is taken up with the account of how he came into contact with past lives and what it meant to himself, Catherine and what indeed it means to everyone. The two or three references to how knowledge of past lives has seemingly been withheld from the masses throughout history are almost as much food for thought. How unaware we all are.......and why?Book Review: You will want to buy it for everyone you love
Summary: 5 Stars
This book has got to be the best informative read that my eyes have ever looked upon.So many authers have told tales and given advice in so many different ways but at the center of them all, they are saying the same thing!
Many lives Many Masters, allows you to read a gripping story and at the same time teaches basic rules of how to live a beautiful life with minimum effort.
It is a book that contains knowledge that you will want to share with every one you love and care for.
Book Review: Claiming scientific standards, but doesn't use them
Summary: 2 Stars
Sorry, but this book just plain fails to deliver, especially on the science side of the author's claims. Having had a powerful previous life experience myself, and being scientifically trained (Ph.D. in Pure Math), I was hopeful that this book would give me some insight into an experience that I couldn't easily explain away. While Weiss may claim scientific method, he doesn't actually use it as far as I can tell. There are numerous dating inconsistencies, as could be easily expected, but much more importantly no effort was mentioned in the book of searching the historical record for context validity, as would have seemed possible with some of the lives discussed. The abrupt appearance of the Masters at a point in the narrative where the plot becomes slow and repetitive seemed suspicious to me, especially later when I read of the Seven levels. Sounds too much like an initiation process to me. Weiss's personal tradegy may well move him subconsciously to invent reasons for his son's death, but the psychotherapist doesn't explore this possibility. And, finally, Weiss accepts apparently unconditionally the existence of telepathy and other paranormal behavior. He references the experiments Prof Rhine at Duke University (and others whom I don't know) as proof of the paranormal. Unfortunately, Rhine experiments are now accepted by the scientific community as experimentally flawed -- and when repeated showed no evidence for the paranormal.Sadly, without my own experience to give me pause, I would dismiss this book out of hand as literary invention. The message is good and can do no harm, but scientifically based it is not.
Book Review: Easy reading, but lethal !
Summary: 1 Stars
This book is truly lethal to the gullible reader. It is unbalanced throughout. Moreover, there is something terribly wrong with the narrative. The central figure, a beautiful young woman, is directed under hypnosis to many 'former lives'. And one of such lives is dated around 1863 BC! This gives me a headache. How can any subject under hypnosis speak in the present tense of an event that occurred almost two millenia BEFORE the birth of Christ? What kind of calendar was in use at that time?The author must be misled throughout. Just as with Neal Donald Walsch, who has his terrible conversations with the 'Almighty', people under hypnosis are tapping unconsciously in the astral atmosphere which is infested with evil so called 'elementals'. It is a base spiritual atmosphere where nothing can be trusted. Theosophy teaches that the average time between two incarnations for ordinary persons must be calculated about 100 years for each lived year, with the exception of young children and idiots. This is because we all accumulate spiritual aspirations that have to be assimilated in heavenly surroundings before a new incarnation can follow. And trust me, a person who once has tasted of devachan, or the 'heavenly' sphere, would not be so willing to return to this terrible Earth with its many pains, before his or her time is due. As a parallel one could ask if one would be willing to rise very early, far before sunrise, when there is no necessity at all? No certainly not, each likes to enjoy his undisturbed sleep. But in this nevertheless easy reading book, we come across one 'life' that ended in flames, when the central figure dies as a German officer during W.W. II. The subject was then a young pilot who had a moral aversion to warfare. Such a person can according to occult tenets never be born within a couple of the alleged years, but should rest some (25 x 100 =) 2500 years first!
The encouraging "Master"spirits who continuously "support" the author with the help of the subject are mischievous throughout. People are much better off with forgetting their personal self, so their Higher Self's is not hindered in finding the right karmic road. Real Masters strongly discourage anyone to find out about former lives.
My advice: forget all attention and interest in ones little self. Do not try to glue wings on your shoulders with wax, as Icarus did, but live the Life and reliable wings will grow in the appropriate time without. It also saves you the money for this terrible book.