A diversion from Simon Weil to B. Weis; Simon has complications that will be explored through further readings - directions that fly in the face of many religions and mystics alike. Disturbing, and - who knows? - perhaps with grains of truth. For now, a comment on a new book, Same Soul, Many Bodies, by B. Weis.
I have mentioned it before - there is something shallow that I find in New Age type literature, but something that always draws me back. For one, most are easy to read, a relaxing stroll into the evening that does not require a wrinkled brow. For another, they offer endless hope - that not only does life have intelligible meaning but that life is essentially GOOD. In both of these, Weis does not disappoint. I love it. I have read him before and so have many others - he is the famous psychiatrist who has for years championed past-life regression and therapy. He will take a patient, for instance, who has anxiety and terrible pains in her knees. He will induce hypnosis, where the patient will find that she has done something horrible, or has had something horrible done to her, to cause this physical, and by extension, this mental agony. In so realizing the source, the patient often becomes healed. Underlying it all is his belief that our souls are immortal and pass through experiences meant to teach us the meaning of life (for those of us on the earthly plain), and that is: that we are meant to love, that we ARE loved, and that we are all united. In this, he is unabashedly an evolutionist. We are ALL going to get it sooner or later; his therapy only quickens the process.
In all this, can I disagree? He does strike to the core of many religions on this, and his therapy is not made from abstractions. He treats real people and gets real results - including undeniable regressions where the people can speak a dead language and often know things that later can be and are verified. This is not taffeta. And it gives such hope! Hope that, as I said earlier, we are under the guidance of supreme intelligence that only has our good in mind, and which will lead us to a glorious end. I believe it.
And yet, these works always strike me as too good to be true. For those who have been following the blog and essays, you will know that this writer is impressed with how difficult and bleak life often is; that the mystics always have to travel through hell to get to heaven, and that the road is hard, very hard, so hard that few can accomplish much in this life. One has to lose everything to get everything, as did Christ on the cross, or the yogis in the Himalayan caves, or so many others who suffered agonies of mind and flesh to reach a higher level. Weiss does not contradict this view; but it appears to me that he makes it seem too easy. Flash back for a life review - or, in some instances, for a look into the future - find the source of discontent, and you're on your way. Wouldn't it be nice? I think he might agree with me that the road continues for most of us for a long, long time. To use rebirth as an example, the time it takes for a soul to surpass the physical realm will take millennia, just as the Hindus believe, and these lives will more often than not have intense suffering. So there is nothing ridiculous about his beliefs; rather, it is the impression that it is all so easy that is misleading. I believe he wants to be our therapist and give us hope and love. In that he does - this is one of the reasons I am drawn to read Weiss and others like him - but I cannot shake the impression that he is making us all feel too good about a process that is long and arduous. As all the true religions have always known, the very ones we are abandoning exactly BECAUSE they offer too difficult a road.
Still. The regressions are often hard to refute, and because of this, so is the idea that we are reborn multiple times. He has found that in the interim, we are lead by beings more advanced than us who point us to new lessons to be learned on earth. In fact, we are never left alone - those helpful entities - angels, as the old religions called them - are always there to help us, even during our hardest lessons. I like it, believe it, and want it. This, too, rings true. But I, for one, will never forget that we must often suffer not only pain and loss, but bouts of meaninglessness that can be almost as bad. And in all this we seldom get what we ask for,something that Weiss would agree with but does not emphasize. Believe in the best, he would say, but we must be prepared for and expect bleakness and disappointment. New Age brightness and enlightenment can sometimes make us forget this. FK
I have mentioned it before - there is something shallow that I find in New Age type literature, but something that always draws me back. For one, most are easy to read, a relaxing stroll into the evening that does not require a wrinkled brow. For another, they offer endless hope - that not only does life have intelligible meaning but that life is essentially GOOD. In both of these, Weis does not disappoint. I love it. I have read him before and so have many others - he is the famous psychiatrist who has for years championed past-life regression and therapy. He will take a patient, for instance, who has anxiety and terrible pains in her knees. He will induce hypnosis, where the patient will find that she has done something horrible, or has had something horrible done to her, to cause this physical, and by extension, this mental agony. In so realizing the source, the patient often becomes healed. Underlying it all is his belief that our souls are immortal and pass through experiences meant to teach us the meaning of life (for those of us on the earthly plain), and that is: that we are meant to love, that we ARE loved, and that we are all united. In this, he is unabashedly an evolutionist. We are ALL going to get it sooner or later; his therapy only quickens the process.
In all this, can I disagree? He does strike to the core of many religions on this, and his therapy is not made from abstractions. He treats real people and gets real results - including undeniable regressions where the people can speak a dead language and often know things that later can be and are verified. This is not taffeta. And it gives such hope! Hope that, as I said earlier, we are under the guidance of supreme intelligence that only has our good in mind, and which will lead us to a glorious end. I believe it.
And yet, these works always strike me as too good to be true. For those who have been following the blog and essays, you will know that this writer is impressed with how difficult and bleak life often is; that the mystics always have to travel through hell to get to heaven, and that the road is hard, very hard, so hard that few can accomplish much in this life. One has to lose everything to get everything, as did Christ on the cross, or the yogis in the Himalayan caves, or so many others who suffered agonies of mind and flesh to reach a higher level. Weiss does not contradict this view; but it appears to me that he makes it seem too easy. Flash back for a life review - or, in some instances, for a look into the future - find the source of discontent, and you're on your way. Wouldn't it be nice? I think he might agree with me that the road continues for most of us for a long, long time. To use rebirth as an example, the time it takes for a soul to surpass the physical realm will take millennia, just as the Hindus believe, and these lives will more often than not have intense suffering. So there is nothing ridiculous about his beliefs; rather, it is the impression that it is all so easy that is misleading. I believe he wants to be our therapist and give us hope and love. In that he does - this is one of the reasons I am drawn to read Weiss and others like him - but I cannot shake the impression that he is making us all feel too good about a process that is long and arduous. As all the true religions have always known, the very ones we are abandoning exactly BECAUSE they offer too difficult a road.
Still. The regressions are often hard to refute, and because of this, so is the idea that we are reborn multiple times. He has found that in the interim, we are lead by beings more advanced than us who point us to new lessons to be learned on earth. In fact, we are never left alone - those helpful entities - angels, as the old religions called them - are always there to help us, even during our hardest lessons. I like it, believe it, and want it. This, too, rings true. But I, for one, will never forget that we must often suffer not only pain and loss, but bouts of meaninglessness that can be almost as bad. And in all this we seldom get what we ask for,something that Weiss would agree with but does not emphasize. Believe in the best, he would say, but we must be prepared for and expect bleakness and disappointment. New Age brightness and enlightenment can sometimes make us forget this. FK
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