Treating patients by guiding
them through recollections of their previous lives is
just about the last thing Dr Brian Weiss thought he
would be doing.
A prominent South Florida
psychiatrist, before the age of 35 he was the first
Chief of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center, and a
professor at the University of Miami's medical school.
He was publishing papers and becoming a nationally
recognized expert on psychopharmacology and considered
himself the kind of guy who rarely gave much thought to
anything mystical, philosophical or spiritual.
One patient changed all that.
Weiss calls her Catherine in his first best-selling
book, Many Lives, Many Masters (1988), eight years after
he began treating the young woman.
He had been using routine
psychotherapy to treat her and after 18 months with
little improvement, Weiss finally put it very simply to
her one day while she was under hypnosis: "Go back to
the time from which your symptoms arise." She did.
Back to the year 1863 BC when
she was a 25-year-old named Aronda. Since treating
Catherine, he has researched reincarnation, Eastern
religions, mysticism, quantum physics, intuition and
everything in between. He exudes an air of wise counsel,
but does not come across as some kind of guru.
Much to his surprise, Weiss's
work has been taken seriously by many in the medical
community.
Shortly after his first book
was published, the former president of the Dade County
Psychological Association said: "Those of us who do
hypnosis are not all that shocked by Dr Weiss's book.
Many have had patients who have gone back to
something-I'm not prepared to say it was a previous
life. I think we are very interested and very afraid to
talk about it…"
Weiss says his work on past
life therapy has helped not only his patients and
readers, it has also helped him. It has led him to
explore a great body of knowledge, and to look inward as
well. The following has been excerpted from Nina
Diamond's Voices of Truth-Conversations with Scientists,
Thinkers and Healers.
Are we just vessels that hold
the soul?
Dr Brian Weiss: Yes, exactly.
We are vessels, and we contain this eternal and
immortal, much more knowledgeable part of ourselves.
Now, probably as you get more mystical you find out that
these souls, as well as the bodies, are connected to
everyone else's, because really everything is of the
same substance.
Why do people find
reincarnation a difficult concept to accept?
People fear the unfamiliar.
If only they would keep an open mind. Not just
scientists, but everybody. Just observe it, watch it.
Meditation can teach people to do that. If they can let
go of their fears.
Philosophers and mystics once
incorporated reincarnation into their explanations of
life, and Plato wrote about soulmates.
Yes, Plato wrote about
reincarnation. So, the Greeks believed in this too. And
so did ancient civilizations.
Reincarnation is in all
religions. Where did this knowledge come from?
It comes from so far back
that we don't even know where it comes from. We only
lost it recently. I think we lost it for political
reasons.
In Judaism, belief in
reincarnation or gilgul is not just ancient, but existed
until early in the 1800s, and it was only with the
migration out of Eastern Europe to the West, and the Age
of Enlightenment and science, and the need to be
accepted, that the belief went underground.
But not in the Chassidic
(Ultra-Orthodox) populations. They still believe in
reincarnation. In Christianity it went underground much
earlier, in the 6th century at the Second Council of
Constantinople where reincarnation was officially
declared a heresy.
Christianity was becoming a
state religion, and the Romans felt that without the
whip of Judgement Day people wouldn't behave, they
wouldn't follow.
They would think: "Well, I'll
do it next time around." And so reincarnation was
consciously made a heresy. But this was at the Council,
centuries after Jesus.
How is the time period
between lifetimes determined?
People who die violently, or
children who die, often come back faster. And people who
live longer lives, and die more peacefully, there can be
a much longer time between lives, a hundred years or
more.
How many past lives do people
generally have?
That varies, but the numbers
that come up most (in my work) is about 100. Not the
thousands and thousands that the Buddhists talk about.
Is there a finite number of
souls?
To me it doesn't matter
because ultimately we're all connected.
Are new souls being created?
I'm not sure, but my
inclination is to say no. We're probably all ageless and
have been (around from the beginning).
Are families more spiritually
connected from life to life than strangers are?
Yes, and I do think that
people come in groups for the working out of debts and
responsibilities, the concept of karma. These are the
people that we're learning and growing with. I even put
love at first sight, or hostility at first sight into
that category, a recognition of souls.
I know the old saying: blood
is thicker than water. Well, I mention in Through Time
into Healing that spirit seems thicker than blood.
So people can be male in one
lifetime and female in another, and vice versa?
Yes, there seems to be
frequent switching. You may have a preference, but
you've tried out the other to see what it's like. This
is also true of races and religions.
How do you explain souls that
occupy bodies that are biologically damaged?
If this is all to learn-and
this is what my patients keep telling me-to grow, to
become more and more Godlike, then whatever experience
you have is a learning experience. Sometimes, though,
it's a teaching experience as well, so you may come back
into this for others, maybe as an act of charity.
How do pre-determination and
free will co-exist?
Someone told me this once:
Life is like being on a bus. It has a certain
pre-determined route. But the person you sit next to,
how you act, what you say, that's all the free will
part.
Why don't we automatically,
consciously remember our past lives?
For one, more and more people
are remembering. Through therapeutic techniques such as
hypnosis, but also through dreams, spontaneously,
through meditation, déjà vu. When they're in a place
they have never been before and they know their way
around.
This may be an evolutionary
shift. I don't know why we don't all remember. The
Greeks had a myth that when you were born again you
drank from the River of Lethe, so you would forget your
previous lives.
So you think some of us are
born with certain values and ideals?
Yes, that's the whole
purpose. That it gets ingrained at a deeper level. At
the level of the heart and the soul-where the real
learning takes place so that you're not dependent just
on what your parents teach you.
If one's parents were bigots,
and the child is able to overcome that, this is a degree
of independence that transcends what we're taught.
This is your soul saying:
"You know it's not right to be a bigot, despite what
your parents, what the church or temple is telling you.
You know better. Follow your heart." And when you're
doing that, you've really learnt it. This is the soul
memory.
When we're 'out there', will
we be with all the people we knew here?
I think so, and even with
those who are still here. The vision is better coming
from the other direction. They're aware of more because
they are not limited by a body and the brain. But we
are.
What's the state of
reincarnation research today?
There are physicians doing
this. Raymond Moody, the psychiatrist who coined the
phrase Near Death Experience, is now writing about his
research with past life therapy. Then there's the
Association of Past Life Research and Therapy (APRT).
They publish a journal. It's a mixed group, so it's hard
to characterize them as representative of the scientific
community.
How can reincarnation be
validated? Do you look for supporting information?
It's difficult to prove
reincarnation scientifically because of what we consider
scientific. As a psychiatrist I'm interested in my
patients' clinical improvement, in their welfare, so I
look at two levels: of therapy and helping people, and
then the other level, that of validating, or proving.
Both are vital.
But I function more these
days at the therapeutic level. There's no question in my
mind, or in the minds of all of these physicians and
psychotherapists who are writing to me, that this has a
therapeutic effect. It's quick, it's vivid, it's
relatively inexpensive, and people get better.
Physicists are now
researching how one subatomic particle/wave in one
location senses instantaneously what's happening to
another one. Is it similar to psychic phenomena?
Yes, and physicists have
proof that these particles exist, that they travel at
the speed of light, and time is relative, and can stop.
It's just that we have difficulty in letting go (of our
old concepts).
If I told you that you're
really, physically, a mass of electrons, protons and
neutrons and energy, and wave/particle phenomena, you
would say, "but I'm solid", and I would say, "yes, but
that's not really true, because at a deeper level you're
energy".
Scientists talk about things
being connected at a sub-atomic level-what we would
consider ESP-between these subatomic particles. Since we
and everything in the universe are made up of these,
does this explain how people can have 'paranormal'
abilities?
Yes, that summarizes the
millennia of mystical knowledge, and solves the problems
of the universe! It's true. We need to develop the
skills. How to do this, how to be aware. Mystics have
always been saying that there is no time, it just
appears that way to us.
And when you start talking
about other states, there is no space, there is no time.
It's all happening now. This is our conception of God
and of nature beyond the three-dimensional. That's the
fascinating correlation that physics is starting to
prove.
In mystical Christianity,
Buddhism, Hinduism, this is all part of the esoteric
tradition: There is not time, no space, we're all
connected.
Do you believe that
physicists will find that science, mysticism,
spirituality, religion and parapsychology are connected
through quantum physics?
Physicists are the mystics of
the 21st century. They've begun to study consciousness,
time moving backwards, all of these phenomena that were
called occult or esoteric. I believe they'll be found to
have their roots in nature, in science.
As we begin to use more of
our brains through meditation and other ways, we're
going to find that these things do have their basis in
science, in nature. To discover the truth you have to
throw out your old assumptions and old knowledge.
You wrote in Many Lives… that
the most important lesson you learned with past life
therapy is that there is no death. How has this changed
your life, and how can this change everybody's life?
When you stop fearing death
you start to live more. What I value now that I perhaps
didn't value as much before are love, relationships,
family-not just in the genetic sense, but in the larger
sense. And what I value less now are material things.
You can't take it with you. That's a cliché, but it's
true.
How do our past life
experiences and relationships affect our present life?
They affect us in every way.
Many of your most meaningful relationships are not new.
That's how you connect. Past lives also affect us in
symptoms, both emotional and physical. Certain fears and
anxieties carry over. Physical symptoms, where one may
have been wounded or hurt in a previous life frequently
come up. It affects us psychologically, emotionally,
even in obesity.
Have you had patients who,
while reliving a past life under hypnosis, had
detailed/technical knowledge about something they know
nothing about in this life?
Yes, that happens a lot. One
of Dr Jarmon's cases is one of the best. A woman was
seeing him for hypnotherapy for weight loss. He didn't
believe in past lives. This was his first case (of past
lives), and it happened spontaneously.
A Jewish woman in her 30s,
she started to develop a new symptom while she was
visiting him. Her periods had stopped and she developed
lower abdominal tenderness, and she was becoming more
anxious.
He was alarmed and thought
she might have an ectopic pregnancy (in a fallopian
tube), which can be dangerous because it can burst. So
he referred her to a gynaecologist. She tested negative.
But she continued to see Dr
Jarmon, and they were working on her anxiety, and he
said: "Go back to the time from which your symptoms
first arose."
His patient went back to the
Middle Ages. She was five months pregnant with an
ectopic pregnancy. In that life she was Catholic, and
she was with a priest who wouldn't allow abortion or
surgery, and so she died.
And just before she died she
repeated the Catholic act of contrition to the priest,
word for word. Dr Jarmon is Catholic and recognized it.
It's what Catholics say to atone for their sins.
The Jewish woman had never
heard of contrition. This happens all the time, but
again, it's hard to prove because you can say they
probably read this in school, picked up a book or
learned this while they were overseas.
If we can go back to past
lives, can we go forward to future ones?
There are people who are
doing this work, such as Chet Snow, the president of the
APRT Society. I haven't found it, and probably the
reason is I'm not looking for it.
Many look at God as a force
outside the universe that regulates everything.
Instead of within. I say:
"Why limit God?" Perhaps God can listen to all of our
prayers, all at the same time and pay infinite attention
to it, because God isn't a human being.
So, you're saying that if
there are an infinite number of possibilities, then
nothing is impossible, and therefore, God can be
everywhere.
Yes, and we can all be part
of God, and yet be separate, in our own perspective. But
we are all connected.
So, if we're all connected to
everything, then by definition aren't we connected to
God, too, since God, or a higher being, created all of
this?
Yes. Now you're approaching
my very simplistic way of viewing everything. That
God-love-is an energy that is in everything.
Intelligence, wisdom, love, compassion and more-that's
all we're made of.
Tell us about your past
lives.
The first time I remembered
was during an acupressure massage for an old neck injury
that was flaring up. At that point, Many Lives… had been
written, but wasn't published yet.
And I wasn't telling a soul.
I was afraid for my reputation and career. So I
mentioned nothing to the therapist. I would go into this
very relaxed, almost meditative state, and during the
third or fourth one-hour session I saw this image.
It was me, taller, thin,
wearing a multi-coloured robe, standing in a large
geometric shaped building. I knew I was a priest of some
sort, very powerful, with the ear of the royal family. I
had some psychic abilities in that life, too.
And I was misusing it to gain
more power, sex, greed, things like that. It was a very
good life! Very easy, but wasted. The word ziggurat kept
ringing in my head. I had no conscious memory of ever
coming across that word.
It doesn't prove that I
didn't, in college or something, but I didn't remember
it. I didn't say anything to the therapist, went home
and looked up ziggurat. It's a word for architectural
structures, temples of the Babylonian era, like the
hanging gardens of Babylon.
I had another experience
years later. I had this dream of being imprisoned in a
European dungeon, my arm chained to the wall. I was
being tortured for teaching about my religious beliefs,
which included reincarnation. And I died there.
I became aware, as I died, of
a message: "When you had the chance to teach it, you did
not." I knew that was referring back to that episode
with the ziggurat. "When you didn't have the chance, you
did."
And I knew that meant that I
should have taught about love. I didn't have to teach
about reincarnation and get killed for it. I went too
far. The implication was: "Now you can have both. You
have the chance, and you can teach about it." It's as if
those two were the important past lives.
Who are The Masters?
This is what Catherine
described as the source of the information coming to
her. She would hear them, and then tell me. But she had
no memory of it when she woke up.
When she was in-between
remembering past lives she would go into this state. She
said this was coming from the master spirits, The
Masters. And out came knowledge that was very unlike
her. Even the phonetics, grammar and style were
different.
And she wasn't an actress, a
multiple personality or schizophrenic. I've had other
patients tell me things-it's coming from a more pure
source that's not contaminated by our brains. I've had
much contact with The Masters, but they're not
identifying themselves by that name anymore.
