Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives

Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives is a new-age, self-help memoir written by American psychiatrist Dr. Brian L. Weiss. Originally published on July 15, 1988, by Touchstone, the book covers a portion of Weiss’s career in which he conducts therapy sessions with Catherine, a patient with symptoms of fear and anxiety. After putting Catherine under trance with hypnotic regression to find the source of her trauma, she gains access to past-life experiences and discovers wisdom from the spiritual world, including insights passed down from spiritual beings called Masters. A natural skeptic at the beginning of the book, Weiss becomes an enthusiastic spiritual practitioner and believer in intuitive knowledge by the book’s conclusion. This guide refers to the 1994 paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material features discussion of sexual assault.

Summary

Weiss and Catherine undergo 18 months of unsuccessful psychotherapy to treat her severe symptoms of anxiety until he decides to try hypnotic regression. Shockingly, these sessions result in Catherine remembering fragments of previous lives. People she knows in the present, including Weiss himself, appear in these memories embodied as others.

Weiss takes an interest in reading all the established literature on the subject of reincarnation and is surprised during the next session when Catherine’s voice suddenly changes, and she begins speaking ancient wisdom from an unknown origin. Weiss later discovers that this is the wisdom of the Masters, a mysterious group of spiritual beings who speak to Weiss through Catherine during their sessions. One of the Masters makes an appearance during a session, and Catherine reveals information about Weiss’s personal life that she could not have possibly known otherwise. This session proves for Weiss that something remarkable is happening.

Weiss invites his wife Carole to attend Catherine’s next past-life regression and decides to tape record it. During the session, Catherine once again channels a Master, who explains that there are many dimensions and planes of existence and that peoples’ vices and natural abilities are carried over between lifetimes. One of the Masters reveals that these sessions are primarily for Weiss’s benefit rather than Catherine’s.

Catherine’s progress continues as she forgives her father for his moral failings when she was a young girl. While she is under trance, Weiss receives more messages from the Masters explaining that souls have a say in the manner of their own deaths and rebirths, and Catherine learns the importance of maintaining faith in the Masters.

Weiss believes Catherine is acting sincerely and is not experiencing a delusion; he finds the evidence she offers for reincarnation compelling. A spiritual being Weiss calls the “poet Master” appears during another session and tells Weiss that life is measured in lessons learned and urges him to have patience as he continues to seek knowledge related to past lives.

Weiss reflects on how much better of a therapist he is now since his sessions with Catherine began. A new entity speaks through Catherine to discuss the seven planes of existence and the importance of paying debts throughout one’s lifetimes. Debts carry over to new lifetimes and accruing them can make it difficult to learn what a person must do to spiritually progress.

Catherine and Weiss agree that more sessions would not be therapeutically helpful for Catherine, as her symptoms are virtually gone. Two months after her final appointment, Catherine visits Weiss to tell him about her visit with a psychic astrologer who was able to independently confirm many of Catherine’s hypnotic regression experiences. Weiss highlights the importance of separating false psychic claims from authentic ones and suggests a scientific method for assessing such claims.

Weiss explains how much his life has changed for the better since his experiences with Catherine four years ago. His intuition has been sharpened, and he has become more compassionate. He experiences vivid dreams involving a wise lecturer named Philo who offers wisdom. Philo urges Weiss to embrace the compassionate and hopeful roots of the psychiatric profession and to reject an over-reliance on technology that only addresses superficial symptoms.