Déjà Vu All Over Again
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The subject of this article was suggested by a reader as a natural follow up to my article on near-death experiences, Do You Believe?, from a couple of weeks ago.
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2024 started out tough for me. As you may know, I lost a very dear friend in February. Striving for answers where there were none, but especially seeking comfort where there was little, I began reading several books on the hereafter.
One book that exposed me to a whole new area of “life after death” studies was Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss, M.D. The book tells how a patient of Dr. Weiss’ was able to describe past lives while under deep hypnosis.
According to Wikipedia: “Reincarnation, also known as rebirth or transmigration, is the philosophical or religious concept that the non-physical essence of a living being begins a new life in a different physical form or body after biological death. In most beliefs involving reincarnation, the soul of a human being is immortal and does not disperse after the physical body has perished. Upon death, the soul merely becomes transmigrated into a newborn baby or an animal to continue its immortality. The term transmigration means the passing of a soul from one body to another after death.”
Belief in reincarnation is not associated with a single religion or doctrine. For example, Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism are classically associated with reincarnation, but there are concepts of reincarnation in Christianity and Judaism plus the pagan beliefs of early Celtic and Germanic people.
While some may believe that lives are reincarnated, beginning with small creatures such as the amoeba and progressing up through the animal kingdom to humans, Buddhists do not.
In Buddhism, for example, beings remain human. Their progression through the various stages of reincarnation is referred to as the cycle of Samsara. Samsara represents the continuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. It is likened to a wheel that keeps turning, trapping souls in an eternal loop of existence until they attain enlightenment and break free from the cycle. This cycle is driven by the force of karma, which accumulates from one lifetime to the next.
Good karma propels beings to a higher level of Samsara, where bad karma moves the being to a lower level, thereby requiring them to restart their journey. The attainment of enlightenment, known as Nirvana, marks the end of the journey and liberation from the suffering inherent in Samsara.
I was reminded of my article Do You Believe where I mentioned Vincent Tolman of Las Vegas who described his NDE: “One of the biggest things I learned is that we've got it all wrong here. We've allowed all of our traditions to convince us that all of us are on some kind of trial. But we're not here on some kind of trial. We're here to learn and to grow. That's it, plain and simple.”
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Dr. Wiess was graduated from Columbia University and Yale University School of Medicine. After completing his residency in psychiatry he joined a hospital in Pittsburgh, ultimately becoming the Chief of Psychiatry at a large university hospital in Miami.
In 1980 he met “Catherine” when she was 27 years old. Catherine worked at the same hospital and she approached Dr. Weiss for help with anxiety, panic attacks and phobias, some of which she’d experienced since childhood.
Over 18 months he had once or twice weekly sessions with Catherine. After all of that interaction, where he delved into her troubled past, he never felt that he’d discovered the reasons for her hurt.
He had suggested regressive hypnosis to her months before, but in the interest of moving forward she finally agreed.
Over the next several months while under deep hypnosis, Catherine described in detail being:
A teenage Egyptian girl with a baby
A fifty-something prostitute in 18th century Spain named Louisa
A young boy named Johan from 15th century Netherlands
Abby, a black former slave in 1870s Virginia
…and dozens of other past lives. A skeptical scientist, after the first few sessions, Dr. Weiss was able to validate some of the details that Catherine described.
Since that time, Dr. Weiss has regressed over 4,000 patients. He has had patients who, under hypnosis, spoke languages they never knew. He’s had patients who could validate their past lives, including one who was able to find children from a past life who, now older, could validate the patient’s past life experiences.
Whether it’s near-death experiences, or past lives being recalled, there is so much we don’t know.
What do you think?