Do you ...

Do you believe in past lives? I'm reading a book by a Psychiatrist...Dr. Brian Weiss...a true story of his experiences with a patient. He has a pretty impressive and long, successful med career. (He went to a great med school and also taught at UM.) He's also recognized by his peers...the works! Well, he put his career on the line to write this book on how through hypnosis (which for many years I did not believe in until I understood hypnosis to be just a very deep state of relaxation...with some of the same physical responses seen in sleep) he was able to relieve the anxiety, depression, and fear one of his patients was experiencing. The patient was young, pretty, educated (a nurse), who was in a bad, mentally abusive relationship. She couldn't really figure out why she was becoming so depressed and panicky..she was beginning to hate herself and life. (Haven't we all at some point in time.) Anyways, through hypnosis she began revealing things that had happened to "her". In her explanations of experiences she would describe the time period she was in (which spanned by several generations in each mtg), she could be male or female and at any point over the course of the life (young/old/just born/dying). With remarkable accuracy she would depict the environment (clothes, events, games, sports, industry) and herself and what she was experiencing. She could also describe and see links among people who were present in her various lives. So the same woman for example could be a best friend, a mother, a sister, a coworker depending on the life. Without me rewriting the book, there are a few themes: past lives exist, we tend to have the same circle of people "travel" with us through our lifetimes, we learn and gain from each lifetime to grow in the next, we are guided in our lifetime by more highly evolved souls who can touch us for brief moments or "see us" through an entire life, and finally we are trying to achieve "Godliness"- or come as close to our spiritual creator in actions and will. The idea of past lives is not new, whole religious beliefs are based on the premise. This MD, who was trained to approach everything from a factual, scientific methodology, encounters a patient with experiences he cannot verify. Oh, the clincher for the MD...he has been present in a few of her previous lives...she knows things about him (both public information and private..even pains and secrets that he has shared with noone). So there it is, what do you think?