“I am aware of a bright light. It’s wonderful you get energy from this light.”
She was resting, after death, in between life-times. Minutes passed in silence. Suddenly she spoke, but not in the slow whisper she had always used previously. Her voice was now husky and loud, without hesitation:
“Our task is to learn, to become God-like through knowledge. We know so little. You are here to be my teacher. I have so much to learn. By knowledge we approach God, and then we can rest. Then we come back to teach and help others.”
Brian L. Weiss, M.D., Many Lives, Many Masters, Pg 46.
What is the purpose of life? This age old question will always spur up good conversation during a lunch outing. IF you have guests that are bold enough to ever truly express their feelings.
And, the answer will vary greatly… depending upon where you get your information.
The quote above comes from the tremendously popular book Many Lives, Many Masters, written by then Head of Psychiatry of Mont Sinai Medical Center in Miami, Brian Weiss MD. The book retells life-changing experience D. Weiss had after encountering with one of his client’s, “Catherine.” After bouts of traditional psychotherapy yielded no improvement to Catherine’s tremendous anxiety, phobias, night terrors, and debilitating emotional and psychological troubles, Dr. Weiss decided to try hypnotic regression therapy. After putting Catherine into several trances to recall her childhood, even the uncovering of past instances of abuse still did not result in any healing. “Could there be,” though Weiss, “an even earlier entrenched wounding, one earlier than the age of 3?”
Pressured by curiosity, Dr. Weiss decides to go deeper. After asking her to go back farther in her memory, his jaw drops when Catherine begins describing an ancient world, a foreign landscape, a new family, and speaks as a different persona through a first-person perspective. Catherine has begun to recall memories of past lives. In fact… Catherine’s “super consciousness” informs that she has 83 of them!
The more past lives (especially the ones filled with abuse and especially grim endings) Catherine regresses into, the more her psychological symptoms disappear. In the place of phobias and emotional paralysis Catherine finds healthy self-confidence, a bright demeanor, and a reinvigorated life. Yet, perhaps the most fascinating discovery in these sessions are the voices of “the Masters,” powerful overseeing spirits that float about in the spiritual dimensions. Weiss explains that these Masters oversee the process of lives being reincarnated to learn new lessons so that they can transcend to the next plane. The sapiential quote channeled through Catherine above is the teaching of one such Master. For months and months, Dr. Weiss write about being drawn into the fascinating dimensions and doctrines gleans through his sessions with Catherine.
Why talk about this? In brief, because this best seller has become a sort of modern reincarnationalists Bible. And I can see the appeal- it’s a true page turner. A commitment to read one chapter turned into a single session cover to cover read. Catherine’s story is eerie, and Dr. Weiss’s description of the spiritual and paranormal activity they experience (both in session and later out of them), leaves the reader forced to reconcile Weiss’ testimony with his or her world view.
Why talk about this? Personal reason number two- because I was asked by a respected successful acquaintance, an aspiring professional and leader in his field, to read this book. He embodies the kind of person the church finds most difficult to reach- living and engrossed in metropolitan ideology, sympathetic to the trends and thoughts of progressive culture, and carrying hidden hurts from traditionalist pasts and experiences of being disdainfully outcast by institutions of “religion.” He, along with those wrestling with their own gender identity, with those now pariah’s of their first or family’s religion, are desperately searching for answers to their own injuries, and to the world’s broken problems. They crave solutions that their father’s beliefs and customs clearly could not cure. And now, they flock to the mystery of new-age reincarnationalist teaching. The allure of inner healing, of freedom living, and of awakening to a life purpose as a vessel for peace-making, for harmony, for forgiveness, and love across the globe, has helped to warm and to nurse a soul distraught angry with the world of pain around them.
In summary, the ever shifting “spiritual topography” of America demands that disciples of Jesus be able to critically engage the tellings put forth by Dr. Weiss.
So, if such a testimony is true, what should one think about it? Is the narrow-pathed Gospel of an all-powerful creator God who brutally killed his own Son, to be replaced by this second-chance giving, virtue loving, and universalistic understanding of the soul’s reincarnate journey throughout time and space?
Unlike many, I am in no rush to dismiss Catherine’s prior life visions as conjectured fantasy. In fact, I challenge believers to acknowledge it is possible (I would even say most probable!) that her stories do actually retell the events of real lives in history past. I also would give validating plausibility to Catherine’s demonstrated psychic abilities that accompany the weeks of her therapy (on one instance, Weiss records how Catherine proves this ability by predicting all the winning horses during a visit to the track). And (perhaps most concernedly), I’m inclined to be open to the fact that the husky voiced “Masters” with whom Weiss becomes consumed with channeling with are in fact real spiritual beings.
However… if these Masters exist, they are not the spiritual beings that Weiss, or any human, should dare to pursue. I say this because the Bible itself discusses situations that bare many striking similarities to Catherine and Weiss’s experience. We cannot forget that psychic prophecy and connecting with the dead are tools of seers, mediums, and the occult. And I see no reason the Christian should labor to deny their existence.
In fact, the apostle Paul encounters a slave girl with just such a “spirit of divination” who seeks to interfere with his ministry (Acts 16:16-17). Likewise, the demons that oppose Jesus in his incarnate ministry use the shock of divulging special, secret knowledge (Mark 1:21-28; 5:1-13). And, as for past lives, one of the most curious passages in the OT recalls when King Saul visited a medium to summon the Spirit of deceased Samuel to give him (of all things) direction from God on what to do about the mounting Philistine army front (1 Sam 28:5-20). Furthermore, today’s Christian authorizes on practical spiritual warfare ministry affirm that paranormal activity such as rooms growing cold (Lives…Masters, pg 54, 83), and spirit’s ability to talk of secrets no one could possibly know (54-56) can all occur during demonic activity. [1]
Ultimately, the great threat of any invitation to spiritual influence (other than the Holy Spirit) is not the threat of “possession” or physical affliction from other spirits (although, history and third world cultures contain plenty of evidence to the devastating harm these spirits can cause), because suffering doesn’t need to accompany every situation of spiritual warfare. In fact, if we look at Catherine’s case, regression into these encounters brought relief of her symptoms, and a happy and more fulfilling life!
But I would contend that even here, we have the enemy working his favorite tactic- that of deception. Satan, and his servants, work not by presenting themselves not as pitch-fork wielding, red-horned and spade-tailed minions, but as appearing as angels of light, and servants of righteousness. Although the new-age doctrine of peace and love may seem harmless and ideal, the great threat that this doctrine steals the allegiance of man away from the God who came from the Father, that we might know the Father, and to provide the revelation for life eternal, and life of true happiness by realizing man’s purpose to delight in Him. Instead, it affixes it upon another “savior” or spirit, besides Jesus. Just as many a witchdoctor, curandero, or other cultic religion (in Jesus’ time, I think of the healing cult of Asclepius)[2] may provide deliverance and healing from the curses and affliction of another spirit, the enemy of God is fine with seeing man find physical heath and meddle in other pleasures, if it means that his soul is safely stolen from being a Spirit-sealed worshipper of God, and blinded from the deeper pleasures accompany it.
I make no claim to definitively interpret what happened within the lives of Dr. Weiss and Catherine. However, its reading convinces me that the church, if it cares for the sub-classes of our culture which it is sociologically dispositional the farthest from, and dares to love them into disciples, the church should seek open dialogue about this books claims, and should equip believers to discuss new-age narratives with serious-hearted compassion, and with the humble perspective of a fellow truth journeyer. Because the search for truth is the motivating void at the core of every new-age wanderer.
May those journeying on the road of discipleship be caring enough to invite these wanderers onto the narrow path, and to the treasure of truth their heart truly longs for.
[1] Anderson, Neil. The Bondage Breaker. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1990. Arnold, Clinton. 3 Crucial Questions About Spiritual Warfare. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997. Kraft, Charles. Deep Wounds, Deep Healing. Gospel Light (Regal). 2010. Payne, Karl, Spiritual Warfare. Christians, Demonization, and Deliverance (WND, 2011). MacNutt, Francis. Deliverance from Evil Spirits. A Practical Manual. (Chosen, 2009). [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepius
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