The Meaning of Life Revealed! Many Lives, Many Masters, by Brian Weiss, M.D.

Many Lives, Many Masters
Brian Weiss, M.D.

As I have said before, I want to believe. Such desire should quickly lead one down faith’s path, but it has had the opposite effect on me. My need to believe makes me more skeptical than ever, and I am wary of believing foolishly or dogmatically.

Life of Pi said that even atheism is better than agnosticism; the hazy non-belief of the agnostic is a sort of indecisiveness, I know, and indecisiveness is one of my flaws. And yet, I can no more not believe than believe. So I read on. Maybe one day, I’ll find something that clicks.

Enter Many Lives, Many Masters, a book which supports many beliefs I would have if I could commit to them. I feel many of its “tenets” to be true, but I stubbornly resist them. Why? Let’s see, shall we?

In the book’s favor, the author is a pretty educated guy. He graduated magna cum laude from Columbia and attended the Yale University School of Medicine. He has worked at several prestigious schools and is well published in his field of psychiatry. So he should have a good idea of what he’s talking about, right? Right?

Many Lives, Many Masters chronicles Dr. Weiss’s work with one patient, Catherine. This troubled woman came to him with many phobias and neuroses. After working with her as he would normally, he decided to try hypnosis to rid her of her deep-seated problems. Upon regression, he realized he was dealing with something far greater than the issues of a troubled woman—he was dealing with her past lives. (He knew schizophrenia or other illness was not at work here.) So their treatment continued for months, and Weiss got to hear about many of her lives. He also spoke through her, to the “masters,” or spirits who guide us from the other side.

Through the course of his therapy, Weiss learned that reincarnation is a fact, as is the immortality of the soul. The purpose of life is to learn, grow, and evolve. During life, we are supposed to solve certain issues. Either we do or don’t—but if we don’t, we carry those unsolved issues into our next life in addition to the new ones we must solve. We choose when we are born and when and how we die. All life is a classroom, every time. The ultimate goal is to perfect ourselves so that reincarnating is no longer necessary.

The purpose of this book is ostensibly to inform the public, so that we might lose our fear of death and make better decisions as we navigate our lives. But I’m troubled by—and this prevents me from believing more in his ideas—seeing how many books the author has published on this subject. You can even get your own cd to help you regress into your past lives! It just seems to me that if the doctor is in earnest, he wouldn’t be capitalizing so much on this profound truth. (Visit his website to see more.) But I’m probably just being judgmental. That’s another of my flaws.

At any rate, the premise of Many Lives, Many Masters seems true to me, that the purpose of life is to learn and love. But it just seems too easy. The “void” – the nothingness of death -- seems rationally correct, if ultimately disheartening. So this got me thinking: presuming (although this is unlikely) that I am able to intuit what to improve during my lifetime, what do I need to work on? Here’s the results of a quick brainstorming session:

I need to learn patience. I need to learn acceptance. I need to learn faith. I need to learn self-discipline. I need to give of myself. I need to not hold myself back. I need to be more social. I need to -- Jesus. I’m going to come back as a slug, aren’t I? Aren’t I????

Bibliolatrist in 100 years

In a nutshell: Comforting, although not entirely believable. Or maybe I want to believe too much. At any rate, it reminds you of what is important in life and directs you to live better.

Bibliolatry Scale: 2 (for style of writing) + 6 (for the potential it has to positively affect your life) = 4 out of 6 stars

Frog King: How not to treat the one you love

Frog King
Adam Davies

Question: What do you do when you find the woman of your dreams?

Answer: Sleep with everyone else in sight. Then cry when she stops speaking to you. Duh.

Well, that’s what you’d do if you were Harry Driscoll, anyway.

Harry is unfulfilled. He has a girlfriend, but a disease keeps her from having sex. He has a job, but his own apathy keeps him from being promoted to a better position. He has an apartment, but his lack of substantial income keeps him from a place that's larger than a closet.

Any normal person would either look beyond the sex or move on entirely, work hard or get a new job, and save up or get out of the city. If you can’t take the heat, get outta the kitchen, you could say. Or: shit or get off the pot. But he can’t seem to do this, either.

And so we have Frog King, the story of Driscoll’s discontent. In an interesting twist, Davies manages to make the reader like an utterly unlikable character. Driscoll is self-absorbed, apathetic, whiny, and dishonest. The reader watches him perform deed after awful deed, and yet, I rooted for him the entire time. In fact—


SPOILER ALERT


—when Evie, Driscoll’s girlfriend, finally wises up and leaves him, I got pissed. Seriously PISSED. She’s coming back, right? I mean, like, in the sequel? Ef her anyway, man. You don’t need that bitch! And yet, Driscoll deserves everything he got.


END SPOILER ALERT


Sidenote: I just have to say how much I love the name Evie. Just say it: EEEEVIEEE. (Evie was also the name of Rachel Weisz’s character in The Mummy, one of my guilty cinematic pleasures. Whatever, the Mummy was hot. Don’t make fun of me.)

Apparently, liking a shaved head is "Freudian"

Mmmmmm, Imhotep. What? Sorry. Back to Frog King.

Overall I liked Frog King; it was well written and nicely paced. The main character was a sleaze, but I liked him too. I do have to say, however, that it makes New York City seem like the most awful place on earth. Not liking most people or tight spaces, I’m already inclined to agree, but Davies paints his city using all of my most hated things: cramped but expensive apartments, the rat race of office work, pretentiousness and snobbery. There were others, but I’ve blissfully forgotten them.

In a nutshell: A fun read that made me root for the main character at the same time I wanted to kill him.

Bibliolatry Scale: 4.5 out of 6 stars

All mail is love (or some other nonsense): Mailman, by J. Robert Lennon

Mailman
J. Robert Lennon

Are you like me, suspecting your wily mail carrier of all sorts of pernicious deeds? I know mine reads my catalogs, my magazines, all sorts of interesting things I receive. Sometimes packages are “poorly sealed.” Sender laxity or carrier curiosity? I beg the latter. I know that several important pieces of mail accidentally “damaged” by “sorting machinery” were really due to some over-zealous mail carrier eager to massage himself to my credit card bill. Is this because I don’t tip at Christmas? It is, isn’t it? But why the hell should I? Aren’t mail carriers just doing their jobs? So if my not tipping means you get to read my mail, go for it, mailman. Anything really important is done over the internet anyway, and we all know that the internet makes spying on another absolutely impossible. Well unless you’re a terrorist, which I’m not, so I can rest assured in the knowledge that my online privacy is guaranteed! Awesome!

My already high-paranoia level was increased by reading Mailman. I was put on alert upon reading the cover, which gushed, “‘Masterpiece’ would be an exaggeration, but only a small one.” Here we go again, I thought. Have the over-hypers struck again? Or would I for once agree with a cover blurb? Surprisingly, I agreed with it! Double awesome!

Well, I agreed that the word “masterpiece” is an exaggeration. Gotcha!

Actually, the middle was pretty good. As long as you skip the beginning and the end, it is a masterpiece indeed.

Mailman centers on Albert Lippincott, our titular Mailman. In fact, he’s referred to mostly by this title and only rarely by his name. Mailman is truly defined by his job, so much so that he often takes his work home with him. Literally. To read other people’s mail in private. In fact, he’s got an entire lab set up at home: he has lots of supplies to perfectly reseal each letter to avoid detection—but only after photocopying each piece of pilfered mail to save for posterity. That’s right, his lab features its own photocopier.

He’s dysfunctional in other ways as well. He can’t maintain a normal relationship. He is alienated from society. He is friend to neither human nor animal, especially felines. He seems to be in love with his sister. And Albert is by no means a young man. For someone closer to retirement than to college, Albert should know better.

Despite these quirks, Mailman was not immediately engrossing, and it took me quite awhile to get into the story. The beginning just seemed to drag on, and I had to force myself just to get through the opening chapters. But somewhere along the way, Lennon’s hilarious prose just caught me. I rarely laugh out loud at a book-—it has to be really funny to elicit genuine laughter from me—-but Lennon’s Mailman (the middle of it, anyway) made me laugh many times. Some passages just begged to be reread because they were so hilarious.

Well, if the book is so darn funny why didn’t I rate it higher, you ask? As I said, the beginning was god-awful boring, but even that could be forgiven if the rest of the novel made up for it. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Mailman’s major flaw, in my oh-so humble opinion, is its ending. Quite frankly, it sucked.

At the end, Mailman’s snarky, hilarious tone derails into a hippie New-Age love fest, which would be fine (not really) if you’re a hippie (which Mailman is most decidedly not) but not if the entire tone of the novel is decidedly not so happy-happy-love-joy. In fact, it is so far from peace and love that it is quite unbelievable that Mailman can attain such growth in such a short span of time. Can he truly learn to accept and love in 400 pages? Is love truly all we need?

Even worse, the novel’s final pages are filled with bland philosophizing about how “everything” is “mail” and all mail is “love.”

Wait.

Huh?

So my car payment, that's love? And my student loan payment? And my insurance? Phone bill? Cable? All love?? I don't need that much love, really. I have dogs. And a cat. I have love to spare. Anyone want some love?

And do such “realizations” redeem Lippincott, cat abandoner, mail thief, eyeball biter? A few minutes of superficial self-reflection about the nature of mail and love? Again, I ask: huh? Lennon would have been better off withholding what seems like a false epiphany in favor of an ending more in keeping with the novel.

In a nutshell: Pretty funny there for a bit. Until it got all silly.

Bibliolatry Scale: 3 out of 6 stars

You can thank these jerks for this cold ass weather

Fallen
David Maine

Is it possible to retell one of the world’s oldest stories and still keep it interesting? I had my doubts, but this is exactly what David Maine does with Fallen, his retelling of Genesis.

We are all at least familiar with the story, regardless of our religion: one man + one woman + a garden + a snake. Typical dumb woman cannot control her urges and does the one thing forbidden to her. As a result, we have to work and suffer and die. Thanks a lot, whore.

Oh right, like you're so perfect

Regardless of our familiarity with the story, Maine adds some spice to what could easily have become a trite retelling by adding depth and insight that is lacking in the original. His ability to maintain the reader’s interest is even more praiseworthy when one considers that Maine structures the novel backwards, removing (one would assume) the potential for surprises. The novel opens as Cain, now an old man, prepares to die, and the novel ends with the expulsion from the garden. Although the reader always knows what will happen at the end, Maine inserts surprising elements along the way. We are able to see how Cain’s act was the result of numerous actions which came long before he decided to murder Abel. We are reminded how even the most inconsequential of actions can have powerful effects.

One surprising element is the depth he adds to the novel’s stars, who are little more than flat characters in the Bible. Each of the novel’s four sections is narrated by a different main character, allowing for greater insight into the actions and decisions of each: first, there is Cain (an alienated and inquisitive boy who does not except the facile answers given to him by his father), then Abel (a bossy momma’s boy who knows everything), then Adam (an indecisive individual who must painfully accumulate experience in order to learn even the most basic of truths), and finally, Eve (a demanding woman soon sapped by age and constant childbearing).

Maine uses his characters philosophical musings to ponder the obvious questions provoked by Genesis. For example, if God is all knowing and all powerful, why would he allow evil into his perfect world? And why would he allow Eve to fall for it? Are we, then, innately flawed? And if so, whose fault is that? The characters themselves arrive at no clear answers; as time passes, God speaks to them less and less frequently until they are completely alone.

For his part, Maine seems to assert that the Fall was all part of the plan. We were meant to fall in order to find our way in the world, to move from caves to huts to cities. We were meant to grow and learn. Spiral out, muthafuckas! Before, we just had a Garden. But now look at us! We have the internet, and celebrity magazines, and SUVs, and fundamentalists, and we make good things with God's creation, like meth and trans fats. See? God always provides. Except, of course, when he doesn’t. But then you can just eat some bugs and think of the first people as they started out in the world. Crazy cave dwellers.

Back off, bitch

In a nutshell: Maine takes a well-known story and adds a depth—and a humanity—that I, at least, have never encountered. Beautifully written and engrossing.

Bibliolatry Scale: 4.5 out of 6 stars