The first person narrative introduces Weiss as a classically trained, scientific doctor. Trained at Columbia University and Yale Medical School and having graduated with several honors.Weiss was Chief of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, when he encounters Catherine.

Catherine is a twenty-seven-year-old woman with major anxiety issues. She also suffers from depression and a wide array of phobias. Dr Weiss suggests her conventional therapy but she refuses afraid of the chemical intervention on her body. She visits an art museum with her boyfriend and corrects the guide when he lectures them about Egyptian history. This is a surreal experience for her and she shares this with Dr. Weiss.

Catherine consents to hypnosis. He asks her to go back to when she was two years old. Instead, Catherine starts talking about walking around a marketplace in 1863 BCE.

The rest of the book follows Catherine’s various lives. In total, there are six-eight lives she recounts. Weiss transcribes them rapidly and records each one, amazed to hear the rich geographical and cultural detail of each of her lives. The story turns around when Catherine starts recalling Dr. Weiss’s personal life and highly evolved souls (Masters of the spirits) who reveal about his dead son, which Catherine would not have known.

Some points from the master of the spirits:

1) Our task is to learn, to become God-like through knowledge… By knowledge we approach God, and then we can rest. Then we come back to teach and help others.

2) There are many gods, for God is in each of us.

3) Everybody’s path is basically the same. We all must learn certain attitudes while we’re in physical state. . . charity, hope, faith, love. . . we must all know these things and know them well.

4) Acts of violence and injustices against people do not go unnoted, but is repaid in kind in another lifetime.

5) After death we get to the spiritual plane, we keep growing there, too. When we arrive, we’re burned out. We have to go through a renewal stage, a learning stage, and a stage of decision. We decide when we want to return, where, and for what reasons… Our body is just a vehicle for us while we’re here. It is our soul and our spirit that last forever…

This book was loaned to me by my friend and I didn’t want to return it to her.

Many lives Many Masters is an irresistible read. We don’t know everything about life and it goes beyond our five senses.

Keep reading, Keep learning and Keep giving.

By Divya Venkateswaran