Book Review: Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss

Before I get into this review, I thought I’d share how I heard about this book. With the amount of free time I have these days, I’ve found it refreshing to catch up on old books, to start up new ones or to try out ones I’ve never gotten around to reading. In this case however, this book is something that caught my attention because someone on YouTube mentioned it (she also made a review for it on her blog). I’m not someone who easily buys into supernatural or drastic events of one’s life being changed, but I guess after hearing Erin’s thoughts, I wanted to see for myself how good it was.

Dr. Brian L. Weiss has all the credentials and achieved great success in his field of psychiatric therapy. This book is told in his perspective, and while he considers himself a mild skeptic, his life is changed after meeting one patient who’s able to claim vast spiritual knowledge and recall past-life experiences while being under hypnosis. Throughout the book, there are several tellings of detailed events, most of which are experienced in a period where wars are held, or when poverty, sickness and death is all that was known. Through these different tellings of past lives, the patient (known as Catherine) starts to drastically heal from her crippling symptoms of anxiety. 

What’s interesting to me about this book is that while psychiatry or psychology in general is known for a number of traditional therapy practices, this unique form of therapy is able to reach the patient in a way that seems so ethereal. As someone who’s gone to counseling for a little over a year, this book mainly rubbed me in a way that kept me reeled in, even if my skepticism wasn’t fully eroded. I was just as fascinated as Dr. Brian was, and one thought I kept having throughout the book is that these past-life encounters must be a manifestation of her subconscious mind, as well as remembering certain people in her life that are important to Catherine. 

Whenever Catherine had experienced a death in one of her many lifetimes, she was taken to a place afterwards that was peaceful, and soon after realizing that she’s floating, she’d see a light. Before reaching that light however, she would hear voices from what she calls “The Masters”. These masters held a lot of knowledge, and sometimes in those moments, they would connect to Dr. Brian through Catherine’s voice and body. Some of the messages that he was given really struck something within me, but you’ll have to read for yourself to see which messages left that effect. 

So overall, I’d say this book is definitely unique. Dr. Brian’s storytelling of this event is done in a way that keeps you on your toes, so that made the experience enjoyable. If there’s anything that I have taken away from this book, it’s that life is not permanent, and we should always remember what matters most to us and make time for that.