I have a teeny-tiny crush on Brian Weiss, MD. Perhaps it is his unbelievable mind: he is a graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School. He is also the Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in Miami.
Or perhaps we had an epic love affair in another life.
You see, Brian is one of the leading researchers in the study of reincarnation. He did not set out to explore this controversial topic, he had a thriving psychiatric practice and only stumbled on the possibility of past lives when one of his clients began to regress in a hypnotherapy session. I think that is one of my favourite things about him: he truly struggled with moving from a resistant scientifically-trained mind to becoming a believer. Even though he is drawn to sharing the concepts of past lives with others, he still retains his practice and maintains a balance between seeking the answers to spiritual questions and being highly functional in the real world.
You see, Brian is one of the leading researchers in the study of reincarnation. He did not set out to explore this controversial topic, he had a thriving psychiatric practice and only stumbled on the possibility of past lives when one of his clients began to regress in a hypnotherapy session. I think that is one of my favourite things about him: he truly struggled with moving from a resistant scientifically-trained mind to becoming a believer. Even though he is drawn to sharing the concepts of past lives with others, he still retains his practice and maintains a balance between seeking the answers to spiritual questions and being highly functional in the real world.
I had the opportunity to meet him in November at a conference in Phoenix. I was struck by his relaxed speaking style, as well as his subtle sense of humour. In his session, he regressed the crowd to a past life using hypnotic suggestions. He warned us that only 60-70% of the people would achieve a hypnotic state, it had taken him many tries before hypnotic regression worked for him.
I had an experience. I was picking firewood in a forest with my brother some time in the 1400's. I don't know whether I visited a past life or had a vivid imaginary fantasy, but I enjoyed the vision and gained some insight into my life. Dr. Weiss addressed the issue of imagination vs. real experience by saying the only way to know for sure is if there are historically verifiable details or if you start to speak another language in which you have no prior life experience. There are documented cases of both, but it was unlikely that each person in Phoenix session would be able to verify their experience.
He addressed the skeptics of reincarnation, citing examples of all the other cultures that commonly believe in reincarnation. Our Western reluctance to believe in reincarnation actually puts us in the minority compared to the rest of the world.
He also acknowledged the difficulty of quantifying this phenomena, but believes that more research is needed, rather than dismissing the idea altogether. To those who question the growing world population as being evidence against reincarnation (where are all these extra souls coming from?) he points to evidence of other dimensions and claims that Earth is a common destination for souls to learn life lessons, but there are many other places in which our souls can visit.
There are some neat experiments with virtual reality that show how easy it is to trick the mind into believing that it belongs to a different body. Researchers have been able to truly convince a person that a mannequin's body was his/her own. They have also measured stress reactions when a knife was held to a pseudo-body rather than the subjects own.
In addition to taking Dr. Weiss' workshop at the conference, I have read two of his books, "Many Lives, Many Masters" and "Messages from the Masters". In Many Lives, he references scientific studies of reincarnation such as the works of Dr. Ian Stevenson, who documented over 2000 examples of children with reincarnation-like experiences. He also cites research by Edgar Mitchell, Professor C.J. Ducasse, Dr. Martin Ebon, Dr. Helen Wambach, Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler, Dr. Frederick Lenz, and Dr. Edith Fiore.
In addition to taking Dr. Weiss' workshop at the conference, I have read two of his books, "Many Lives, Many Masters" and "Messages from the Masters". In Many Lives, he references scientific studies of reincarnation such as the works of Dr. Ian Stevenson, who documented over 2000 examples of children with reincarnation-like experiences. He also cites research by Edgar Mitchell, Professor C.J. Ducasse, Dr. Martin Ebon, Dr. Helen Wambach, Dr. Gertrude Schmeidler, Dr. Frederick Lenz, and Dr. Edith Fiore.
I am interested in some of the research from other countries and cultures that have scientific support for studying reincarnation. I would also be interested to know if Dr. Weiss had made any progress in verifying the historical accuracy of the regressions for any of his clients.
I am intrigued by this idea and intend to research it further. Whether I am a poor girl picking firewood in a remote forest, or the queen of Brian's heart three lives ago, I've grown to enjoy the idea of reincarnation.
