In 1981, the course of Dr. Brian Weiss’s career changed dramatically when one of his therapy patients, “Catherine,” suddenly recalled details of her past lives while under hypnosis. Though Weiss, like many scientists, is a natural skeptic, his experience with this patient convinced him that reincarnation is real, human souls are eternal, and there are spiritual “Masters” providing help and guidance from beyond the veil. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, Many Lives Many Masters is a fascinating account of an experience that changed both Weiss and his patient’s lives for the better.
In this guide, we’ll explore some of the past lives that Catherine recalled under hypnosis. Then, we’ll dig into the lessons that spiritual “Masters” delivered to Weiss through Catherine. Finally, we’ll learn how the experience radically altered the course of both Catherine and Weiss’s lives. Throughout the guide, we’ll round out Weiss’s account by providing outside evidence both for and against the possibility of reincarnation.
Weiss’s first encounter with the idea of past lives started when he began treating “Catherine” (a pseudonym Weiss uses to protect his patient’s real identity). Catherine was in her late 20s when she first came to Weiss seeking treatment for her severe, lifelong phobias as well as insomnia, recurring nightmares, anxiety, and depression. At the time, she worked as a laboratory technician in the same hospital where Weiss worked. She had a troubled relationship with her family and was pursuing an ongoing affair with a married man. Finally, Catherine was a practicing Catholic who had no prior interest or belief in the idea of reincarnation.
Could Catherine’s Story Be a Case of Cryptomnesia?
The real “Catherine” has never come forward, so the few details Weiss provides here are our only source of context for her life. This lack of context is important because many other cases of past life regressions have turned out to be the result of cryptomnesia, or false memories spun from forgotten details of a person’s life experiences.
For example, while under hypnosis in 1952, a Colorado housewife named Virginia Tighe recalled a past life as an Irishwoman named Bridey Murphy. The story collapsed, however, when researchers discovered that Tighe had lived across the street from an Irish immigrant named Bridie Murphy Corkell as a young child. They concluded that she must have stored this name as a buried memory, which was later unearthed and spun into an entire “past life” story under the suggestive power of hypnosis. Similarly, without knowing more about Catherine’s life, it’s impossible to rule out such an explanation for her past life memories.
After treating Catherine for 18 months with traditional talk therapy and making very little progress, Weiss began to suspect there might be repressed memories of trauma in Catherine’s past that were causing her current mental health issues. Weiss believed that if they could unearth those buried memories through hypnosis, Catherine would be able to confront her trauma head on and cure her present-day phobias. Catherine, though skeptical about hypnosis, agreed to try it.
(Shortform note: Using hypnosis to recover repressed memories, including repressed trauma, was a popular therapeutic technique in the early 1980s, when Weiss treated Catherine. However, psychologists are now split on whether this is a valid therapeutic practice. Some psychologists condemn the practice because research shows it’s possible for therapists to implant false memories in the minds of hypnotized patients. These false memories often feel so vivid that the patient fully believes they’re real, which is especially dangerous when the false memory relates to abuse.)
According to Weiss, hypnosis is simply a state of intense relaxation that allows the mind to open more than usual. The process went like this: First, Weiss had Catherine focus on breathing slowly and calmly. Then, he helped her concentrate on deliberately relaxing each part of her body, one at a time. Once she was fully relaxed, he counted backwards from 10 to put her deeper into a trance state.
(Shortform note: The hypnosis process that Weiss describes here is fairly standard among hypnotherapy practitioners. Why is relaxation such an important part of the process? Weiss doesn’t say, but according to other hypnotherapists, focused relaxation lightly sedates the conscious mind, allowing the therapist direct access to the highly-suggestible subconscious mind. Note that the conscious mind is merely relaxed during this process—it doesn’t shut down entirely, and the patient can still choose to consciously reject the therapist’s suggestions if she chooses.)
While she was hypnotized, Weiss directed Catherine to go back to where her current symptoms started. He assumed Catherine’s mind would naturally regress to a buried trauma in her early childhood. Instead, however, Catherine began describing her first past life memory: She was a young woman living in a hot, dry climate in 1863 BC. In vivid detail, she described drowning alongside her young daughter; the memory was so intense that Catherine began to choke and gag while describing it.
Weiss was stunned. He immediately thought up—and ultimately rejected—a host of rational ways to explain what Catherine described. He realized that, beyond that incident, Catherine showed no signs of any psychological disorders that could cause hallucinations, nor was she taking any drugs that could cause such an effect. Even more shocking to Weiss: The next week, Catherine reported that after recalling her death by drowning in a past life, she was no longer afraid of water in this life. Her recurring nightmares of drowning had disappeared entirely.
(Shortform note: Weiss assumes that processing a past-life memory of drowning is what cured Catherine’s nightmares. However, it’s also possible that merely being under hypnosis alleviated her nightmares, regardless of her specific memories; studies show that practicing relaxation techniques—such as hypnosis—can alleviate adult nightmares.)
Fact-Checking Catherine and Weiss’s Claims
How likely is it that Catherine was describing an actual past-life experience? Let’s evaluate the evidence.
First, Catherine specifically named the year of the first past-life memory she recovered as “1863 BC.” Some reviewers took this specificity as a sign that Catherine (or Weiss) lied about her experience. If Catherine were truly speaking from the viewpoint of someone in that time, she would have no reason to add “BC,” as scholars wouldn’t begin dividing history into “BC” and “AD” until more than 2,000 years after that supposed memory.
However, this argument assumes that, while under hypnosis, Catherine was not at all aware of her present reality (and her knowledge of the BC/AD divide). When Catherine recalled other past lives, she withheld certain embarrassing information in the moment and only disclosed it to Weiss later on. This indicates that Catherine’s conscious mind was still somewhat active and able to intervene during hypnosis, which means she theoretically could have interpreted the memory through the lens of her modern conception of time.
Second, Weiss claims he ruled out any other possible explanation for Catherine’s past-life visions, yet he failed to consider that anxiety and depression (both of which Catherine struggled with) can sometimes cause hallucinations, even in the absence of other psychiatric disorders.
However, to Weiss’s credit, these causes are unlikely to fully explain Catherine’s experiences, since the hallucinations caused by depression tend to be brief, and Catherine’s visions often lasted over an hour. Furthermore, hallucinations caused by anxiety are more likely to be auditory than visual, and Catherine’s past-life memories focused on visual information. Therefore, while Weiss didn’t consider Catherine’s anxiety and depression as possible explanations for her experience, they’re still unlikely to be the root causes.
As Weiss and Catherine continued their past life regression therapy, Catherine revealed that she had experienced 86 lifetimes on Earth; however, during therapy, she only recalled details from about 11 lifetimes. Additionally, her past life memories were not limited to one geographical region or even one gender—she remembered living all over the world at various points in history, having various professions, and being both male and female.
(Shortform note: Even though Catherine only remembers a fraction of the 86 past lives she claims to have lived, the fact that she does remember several lives is unique: In most cases where people claim past life memories, they only remember details of a single past life. Even people under hypnosis tend to only remember one lifetime per session, whereas Catherine frequently remembered several per session. However, according to noted psychic Sylvia Browne, it is common for people to remember past lives in other countries and other genders.)
As Catherine’s therapy progressed and she recalled more past lives, Weiss noticed a common thread: While Catherine had different beliefs about death in each of her past lives, she always recalled her death itself in the same way: She left her body, floated above it for a time, eventually saw a bright light, and then automatically passed into the light.
(Shortform note: This progression matches the steps that Dr. Raymond Moody describes in his 1975 book, Life After Life. Moody interviewed people who came back to life after being pronounced dead and found that almost all of them described floating outside their body before being drawn toward a bright light. However, Weiss admits that he studied Moody’s work, so it may have influenced how he interpreted Catherine’s experiences.)
Catherine also recalled events that took place after her past deaths. As she recalled those experiences, Catherine’s voice changed in tone and volume and she began speaking about profound metaphysical ideas. Afterward, she had no memory of these moments, despite remembering the details of the past lives she recalled before and after them. Weiss realized that, in those times, Catherine wasn’t speaking her own mind: She was acting as a channel, allowing other spirits to speak through her. Catherine later identified these spirits as highly-evolved “Masters” whose goal was to reveal divine truths to Weiss through Catherine.
(Shortform note: Weiss’s use of the term “Masters” and his description of Catherine channeling these spirits is reminiscent of Theosophy, an occult religion. Theosophists believe in different degrees of “Master” spirits, including “Ascended Masters” who have transcended the need for physical bodies and permanently reside in the spirit realm, where they act as spiritual teachers for embodied humans. These Master spirits convey these messages through human mediums—like Catherine. Despite these similarities, Weiss has never explicitly linked his beliefs to Theosophy.)
After making contact with the Masters, Catherine began to channel their words more frequently. In this section, we’ll explore their messages as they relate to four themes: the nature of life, the purpose of life, the nature of death, and the structure of the afterlife.
The first message from the Masters is that life is eternal—human spirits are not born, nor do they permanently die. Instead, human souls cycle between being embodied in the physical realm and living as pure spirit in the spirit realm.
(Shortform note: Critics of reincarnation have highlighted a logical problem in this idea: Namely, that human consciousness relies on a living, physical brain. Since the brain dies when the rest of the physical body dies, they argue that there is no way for consciousness (or the “spirit”) to survive physical death, which makes it impossible for the same spirit to reincarnate into a different body.)
Furthermore, the Masters say, we accumulate abilities and talents—and, sometimes, vices—over the course of lifetimes. This is why some people have natural abilities or struggles from birth.
(Shortform note: In Past Lives of the Rich and Famous, Sylvia Browne also argues that talents accumulate across lifetimes until they become almost habitual. In fact, many of the celebrities whose past lives she explores started honing their skills in previous lifetimes; for example, she relates that Jimi Hendrix was a gifted musician in almost all of his 39 lifetimes.)
Despite our varying talents and struggles, the Masters also related that everyone is inherently equal; however, some people’s natural gifts and beauty are obscured. The process of evolving through lifetimes is partly about learning to find those inner qualities and bring them out into the light. (Shortform note: There is another way to think about the process of revealing natural gifts, outside of reincarnation: In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert argues that this process is the basis of all creativity. To develop this creativity, Gilbert recommends pursuing your natural interests until you discover your hidden talents.)
Finally, the Masters gave insight into the nature of human unhappiness. They argue that humans are unhappy because they’re constantly focused on accumulating wealth and haven’t learned the value of balance, which the rest of nature intuitively understands.
(Shortform note: Other authors agree that humans focus on accumulating more wealth than they need to be happy. For example, in David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell argues that more money does make you happier—but only up to a family income of $75,000, after which happiness begins to decrease. In other words, once you have enough money to meet your family’s basic needs and even spring for a few luxuries, striving for more will only make you miserable.)
The Masters also delivered many messages to Weiss about the purpose of life—the reason that immortal human souls periodically take on physical bodies. According to the Masters, the purpose of life is to learn. Specifically, every human spirit is primarily focused on learning universal values like “love and hope, faith and charity.” Though these seem like simple concepts, each is multifaceted, and it can take many lifetimes to learn all the nuances of them.
(Shortform note: Many world religions emphasize the importance of these same values. For example, the Bible stresses the importance of “faith, hope, and love”; charity is one of the five fundamental Pillars of Islam; and charity and love are central tenets of Buddhist ethics. The fact that religious people from all over the globe have spent centuries pursuing the same values speaks to their universal nature and the fact that they are difficult to fully embody, as the Masters say.)
According to the Masters, we have to learn these values while physically embodied because intellectual knowledge is not the same as true wisdom. It would be impossible to fully grasp these values in the spirit world because to truly learn something, you have to embody it physically and put it into practice in your own life. (Shortform note: In Conversations With God, Neale Donald Walsch argues that we become physically embodied not necessarily to learn, but to “experience” first-hand the knowledge that we already possess. He believes that we already know everything we need to before we become corporeal, but being embodied allows us to experience this knowledge more viscerally.)
However, learning lessons isn’t the only purpose of life on Earth. According to the Masters, many souls also choose to become embodied in order to pay off the karmic debts they owe to other souls. These debts rack up when we wrong other people—and if we don’t pay them off before death, they can accumulate across lifetimes.
(Shortform note: The Masters mention these karmic debts as just one reason a soul may choose to incarnate—however, in Hinduism, karma is the driving force that keeps all souls tied to the cycle of reincarnation. In other words, you won’t be free to stop reincarnating and remain in the spiritual realm until you completely balance your cosmic tab and owe no karmic debts to anyone.)
Finally, the Masters also related a message about Weiss’s specific purpose on Earth: Namely, that the best way for him (and, presumably, any medical or spiritual practitioner) to help people while they are physically embodied is to help them move past their fear of death. This is crucial because fear wastes energy and prevents us from doing what we came here to do.
(Shortform note: This may sound like a futile mission since many people assume the fear of death is a fundamental part of being human. However, in Antifragile, Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that the fear of death is actually a historical anomaly. Until the Enlightenment, people were often more concerned with dying in an honorable way than with avoiding death in general.)
The Masters also relayed messages about the nature of death. They argue that dying is just another transition between phases of life, much like moving from childhood to adulthood. (Shortform note: This idea of death as a spiritual transition mirrors the physical transition our bodies undergo. After death, our bodies decay, transitioning from one cohesive body into a loose collection of atoms that eventually become part of the surrounding ecosystem.)
Furthermore, the Masters say that people who have near-death experiences will only be allowed to fully cross over if they have learned all the lessons they set out to learn in their current life. Otherwise, they will be sent back to continue living.
(Shortform note: Dr. Raymond Moody echoes this sentiment in Life After Life. All the people he interviewed who had survived near-death experiences described being “sent back” to their physical bodies at a certain point. However, they disagreed on why they’d been sent back: Some believed it was because they still had lessons to learn (as the Masters said), while others believed it was simply because they chose to return of their own free will.)
Weiss also learned about the structure of the afterlife during his sessions with Catherine. As Catherine began to remember more detail from her past visits to the spirit realm at the end of each past life, she told him that the afterlife has three stages. In the first stage, souls simply rest and recover from the trauma of living an entire lifetime on Earth. In the second stage, each soul reviews the lifetime they just completed and processes all the lessons they learned in that lifetime. Finally, in the third stage, spirits decide where to reincarnate next and what lessons they want to learn in the next life.
Later, Catherine channeled another Master spirit who confirmed this description. The Master provided more detail: There are actually seven spiritual planes in the afterlife, each of which is further divided into subplanes. The Master also related that souls experience these planes differently depending on how experienced they are: For example, while the average spirit can only review the lifetime they just completed, more experienced souls can review all of history.
(Shortform note: The specific reference to seven planes is another link to theosophical ideas: Theosophists specifically believe in seven planes divided into various subplanes, just as Weiss describes here. While other esoteric religions discuss the idea of planes of existence, they’re usually divided into different numbers: For example, three (or 14) in various sects of Hinduism and four (or five) in Kabbalah.)
The Master spirit also confirmed a particularly notable feature of the afterlife: Spirits who are not currently embodied can indeed send messages to embodied people. This interaction takes place on a specific plane, which spirits can visit to communicate with embodied people to whom they still owe a debt. This communication can take place in many forms: Spirits might reveal themselves in the form of apparitions, or they may choose to communicate through other means.
Other Perspectives on the Other Side
Other writers describe people’s initial experiences in the afterlife in similar ways. For example, in Life After Life, many of the interviewees described being surrounded by their deceased loved ones after leaving their physical bodies. Almost all the interviewees also described meeting a being of pure light who surrounded them in a sense of comfort and peace, similar to the first stage that the masters describe here.
Similarly, in Life on the Other Side, Sylvia Browne describes “the scanning machine,” which spirits use to review their recent lives, and the “orientation room,” where they plan the details of their next life. These areas of the afterlife map onto the second and third stages that the Master described to Weiss.
In the same work, Browne also confirms the idea that spirits can communicate with embodied people. In addition to appearing as apparitions, she argues that spirits can communicate by manipulating physical objects—knocking over framed photos of themselves, turning TVs on and off mysteriously, or dropping coins in strange places.
After a few months and many revelations from the Masters, Catherine elected to end her sessions with Weiss because her symptoms were fully cured and she was healthier and happier than she’d ever been.
Weiss was similarly thriving. He found that he was more patient, intuitive, and loving than he had been before working with Catherine. He also helped his family develop their own psychic gifts. After Catherine, Weiss went on to treat an additional 12 patients using past life regression therapy—all of whom saw their psychiatric symptoms reduced.
(Shortform note: We don’t know anything further about Catherine’s life after her therapy with Weiss; she remained anonymous. Weiss, on the other hand, became a well-known public figure after publishing Many Lives, Many Masters. He has now regressed thousands of patients, both in individual therapy and group presentations; he published an additional six books on the subject of reincarnation and past life regression therapy; and he’s appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show multiple times.)
Weiss’s experience with Catherine opened his eyes to a new approach to therapy. While he doesn’t necessarily think that past life regression therapy is the right treatment for everyone, he wants psychiatrists to be open-minded and keep it as an option for those with disabling psychiatric symptoms.
(Shortform note: In the decades since Many Lives, Many Masters was published, the psychiatric establishment has not heeded Weiss’s call. While scientific research on past life regression and other metaphysical topics remained popular into the early 1990s, its popularity has waned and is now mostly relegated to niche journals. However, while the American Psychological Association hasn’t endorsed past life regression therapy, they also haven’t condemned it, leaving the door open for potential future research.)
The concept of reincarnation can be quite controversial. Take a moment to reflect on where you stand after reading this guide.
Before reading this guide, did you believe human souls could be reincarnated into new bodies? Why or why not?
Did your beliefs about reincarnation change at all after reading this guide? If so, how? If not, why not?
Regardless of your beliefs about reincarnation, do you think past life regression therapy could be a valuable therapeutic practice? Why or why not?