http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10642842.htm 
Doctor explores belief of "rebirth" in Judaism - Brian Weiss, M.D. 
BY ALEXANDRA ALTER 
aalter@herald.com 

How does a Yale-educated doctor trained in forensic psychiatry become convinced he was a Babylonian priest in a former life? 
By conducting research, evaluating data and approaching results with an open mind, says Dr. Brian Weiss, a Miami-based psychiatrist and the nation's foremost practitioner of past-life regression therapy. 
''I'm supposed to be open-minded because that's what science is: It's keeping an open mind,'' said Weiss, who will explore parallels between Jewish views on reincarnation and his own findings in a dialogue with Rabbi Terry Bookman at Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest on Wednesday. 
Since publishing his bestselling Many Lives, Many Masters in 1988, Weiss has led the movement to popularize using memories from past lives as a form of psychotherapy. Weiss resigned as chair of the psychiatry department at Mount Sinai in Miami Beach in order to pioneer a controversial therapeutic method at a time when few therapists, let alone psychiatrists, were willing to entertain the notion of reincarnation. His work still meets skepticism in the mainstream psychiatric community. 
''In India and Japan, reincarnation has been a doctrine for many centuries, but using it as a therapy was completely new,'' Weiss said at his home in Kendall, his voice hoarse after a demanding multi-city speaking tour. 
Now, his first book, which recounts the vivid past-life recollections of a young patient called Catherine, has been translated into 35 languages and sold more than 3 million copies. Weiss has written six other books, treated 4,000 patients and maintained a patient waiting list that has hovered around 5,000 for more than a decade. 
In his latest work, Same Soul, Many Bodies (Free Press, $25), Weiss ventures into even more tenuous territory in promoting ''progression'' therapy, a practice in which patients under hypnosis are progressed into future lives. Knowing their futures can help patients make decisions in the present, he says. 
''Destiny and free will both exist,'' he said. ``The future is not fixed, but there are possibilities and probabilities.'' 
In contrast to the skepticism in the scientific community, Weiss said religious communities have been highly receptive to his research. 
JEWISH THEORIES 
Raised in Reform Judaism, Weiss said he was surprised to discover a range of Jewish theories on reincarnation, from the mystical concept of gilgul, a Hebrew word for the transmigration of souls, to the Hasidic understanding that sinful souls must return to earth to atone for wrongs. 
''I had to become an educator in a way of the Jewish community,'' he said. 'A lot of rabbis and others said to me, `Well, it's interesting, but it's not in Judaism.' '' 
Reincarnation was a popular belief among Spanish Jewish mystics in the Middle Ages, but has largely been dropped by Reform Judaism, said Rabbi Terry Bookman of Temple Beth Am, the Reform synagogue where Weiss will speak. 
Bookman said Judaism has historically embraced a diversity of views on the afterlife, including rebirth. 
''The only thing Judaism has ever affirmed is that the body's death is not the end, and reincarnation is one of the possibilities for Jews,'' he said. ``In Jewish terms, it's kosher.'' 
Among Orthodox Jews, particularly the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews who kept much of the mystical tradition alive while other sects modernized, belief in reincarnation has persisted, said Rabbi Yonassan Gershom, author of Jewish Tales of Reincarnation. 
''The majority of Reform Jews are completely unaware that Judaism has teachings about reincarnation,'' he said. ``From the Hasidic standpoint, if you're back here on earth it's because you didn't do it right the first time.'' 
SKEPTICISM REMAINS 
''Not everyone in the Jewish world was real receptive,'' he said of Weiss' work, adding that he himself has doubts: ``It's hard for me to believe that we get reborn as an entity and carry those memories around with us.'' 
Weiss spent years researching past lives before becoming convinced of their veracity, he said. He initially resisted publishing his finding after his patient Catherine convinced him that she was communicating with spirits and remembering past lives. 
''I didn't ever get exposed to concepts of reincarnation,'' Weiss said. ``I didn't believe in it, and neither did she.'' 
Weiss was then chairman of the department of psychiatry at Mount Sinai and father to two young children, and he was wary of jeopardizing his job and reputation. So he sat on the research for nearly eight years. 
His claim that his patients could recover memories from previous incarnations drew skepticism and ridicule from the medical establishment. But Weiss went forward with his research, convinced of its validity once Catherine told him details about his dead father and infant son that she could not possibly have known. 
''My world just shifted at that moment,'' he said. ``It changed my whole outlook on life, death and immortality.'' 
Since then, Weiss has amassed more research, trained some 1,000 therapists to perform past-life regressions, and undergone 10 regressions himself. In one of his first sessions, Weiss remembered being a priest standing atop a pyramidal structure in ancient Babylon. A later regression uncovered a life as a Catholic priest who was persecuted during the Inquisition for teaching about forbidden subjects. 
Surveys suggest that a surprising number of Americans are open to the idea of rebirth. In a 2001 Gallup poll of 1,012 people, one in four expressed a belief in reincarnation. 
`PSEUDO SCIENCE' 
Scientists have largely remained critical, however, dismissing Weiss' research as ``pseudo science.'' 
''There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they're remembering anything from a past life,'' said Scott Lilienfeld, a clinical psychologist and professor at Emory University who researches ''pseudo science and mental health practices.'' ``It is virtually unused by any reputable psychotherapist and is not taken seriously by the scientific community.'' 
Lilienfeld said many patients' accounts of their past lives are rife with errors and historical anachronisms. For example, a patient may describe living in Egypt in 2000 B.C. (a time when an Egyptian wouldn't have measured years `before Christ.') 
Weiss counters that the therapy is effective, regardless of one's metaphysical beliefs. 
''Even if you don't believe in past lives, it's still a very effective healing technique,'' he said. ``People were getting rid of their phobias.'' 
Linda Adler, a Miami Beach social worker and past-life regression therapist, sought Weiss' help in curing her phobias in 1988. 
''I did my first regression and was blown away,'' Adler said. ``I had always had a fear of drowning and a fear of heights. In that regression I was a soldier and I was on top of a tower. We were in a battle. I was lanced in the back and fell into the moat.'' 
The vision helped cure her of chronic phobias, she said. 
While he still adheres to Judaism, Weiss said his research prompted him to explore Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism in his search for explanations of reincarnation. His self-study of world religions and his psychiatric research led him to the same conclusion, he said. 
''It really allowed me to see that we're all the same. We have to stop being prejudiced or biased,'' he said. ``We change race, we change religion, we change sex, but all souls are connected.''