42 pages • 1 hour read
Brian WeissA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Weiss plays the tape recording of the previous session for Catherine, which she finds too weird to listen to. Despite some lingering issues, including her relationship with Stuart, Catherine’s progress continues. Weiss muses that hypnotic regression could be of greater assistance to some patients than traditional therapies, including medicines like antidepressants.
Catherine enters another trance and describes a lifetime in a village where everybody is affected by a leprosy-like illness. Weiss notes that Catherine’s ideas about death and religion inside these various lifetimes vary widely but that in the in-between “spiritual state” there is “a welcome and reassuring constancy” (93). Death comes as a relief for Catherine in this painful lifetime, and before the Masters have a chance to emerge, Catherine jumps right into another past life which appears to be the same ancient Greek one in which Weiss is Catherine’s teacher, Diogenes. The Masters never intervene during this session, and Weiss finally brings Catherine out of the trance.
Weiss reiterates that Catherine is not suffering some sort of schizophrenic delusion and that her experiences appear more authentic with each passing session. The knowledge she shares under trance could not be retrieved elsewhere.