The Wonder About Past Lives, Dying, Death, and the Afterlife

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” – “Hamlet”

So it may be in psychiatry. In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father, apparently in an afterlife, and realizes there are things not yet understood about human beings.

So it is with me after reading 2 books recommended to me by Al Simon, and then doing my own research as well, such as reading a later book Brian Weiss on the afterlife.¹ I tried to cover what I found and thought in several columns last week. What now do I conclude figuratively and literally?

As many who have studied parapsychology have come to know, and as covered in the January 3, 2025, article in the New York Times “Do You Believe in Life After Death? These Scientists Study It,” you risk looking stupid, irrational, or “doing the work of the devil” if you do so.² Perhaps that is why I did not follow-up on my early career interest in parapsychology until now.

Nevertheless, the related topics are intriguing and have also made their way into the arts, as in the poetry of Walt Whitman, especially his 1855 “Song of Myself” with lines like this one:

“(I am large; I contain multitudes)”

In our time, there are related movies such as “Past Lives” (2023), “Soul” (2020), and Bob Dylan’s song which may be a tribute to Whitman, titled “I Contain Multitudes.”

Parapsychology Surveys

We at Psychiatric Times decided to do our own poll of psychiatric opinions about some aspects of parapsychology, those aspects outside of the usual parameters of mainstream psychology and psychiatry. The poll was posted on June 20, 2025, and titled “Poll: Do You Believe in an Afterlife?”

Although the number of responders was relatively small, the results have some preliminary interest. Trending was that about half believed in an afterlife, but about half also did not believe in past lives. Perhaps that is not surprising given that the largest Western religions of Christianity and Islam generally emphasize an afterlife in a Heaven, but not past lives nor reincarnation. The responses to the other questions trended that half absolutely believe that talking about death helps relieve undue death anxiety, and that more than half talk to their patients about death.

For the public, a 2023 Pew research survey found that about quarter found it likely that people who died could be reincarnated.³

Scientific studies of these related topics are relatively few. The most prominent academic center to do so has been at the University of Virginia, established and led by the Department of Psychiatry’s past Chairman, the late Ian Stevenson.⁴ However, even that center was located off the main psychiatric campus. The September 1977 issue of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease focused on research on reincarnation.⁵ It noted the quality and meticulousness work of Dr Stevenson, but still ended with questions about the reliability and validity of the thousands upon thousands of representative cases. Focusing more on children who seemed to connect with a past life, Stevenson generally was suspicious about any use of the hypnotic regression that was used by the psychiatrist Brian Weiss and others.

Regression Therapy, Death Therapy, and Progression Therapy

The more recent book by Dr Weiss discussed his progression into the future of patients, the public, and himself, including the future in his hypnotic regressions of patients and groups. He noted that here verification was about impossible because unlike past events, there was not any possibility about checking the truth, but instead could produce a self-fulfilling prophecy. He noted, though, that future predictions have been common in history and that in Greek mythology, Cassandra was not believed, with disastrous results. There are also the apparent precognition abilities of some to anticipate the future correctly.

Over time, Dr Weiss came to believe that it was possible to sometimes have the future altered when it was envisioned. That choice can apparently include choosing our parents and partners for what we need to work on in a given lifetime in this world. In processing his own past lives, Dr Weiss reported discovering that his soul was in a Czech resistance fighter who was killed early in World War II, and much earlier as a priest in ancient Babylonia—eerily not all that different from what I have sensed for myself, though mine come from the continuing presence of serendipities. Indeed, increasing research by another academic psychiatrist and others on the earlier concepts of Carl Jung and the new concepts of quantum physics seem to affirm the contribution that serendipities and synchronicity can make to understanding the purpose of one’s life now and extended.⁶

Despite the growing scientific confirmation that there is likely to be life after death,⁷ these conclusions are likely to bring some disbelief. If so, of what general value may be these considerations of past lives, how to die, and afterlives, whatever the truth may be? If there is truth about the occurrence of past lives and future lives, it is likely to change our conception of ourselves, somewhat like the discovery of our unconscious did. Though many of Freud’s specific ideas about the unconscious now seem questionable, that we have an unconscious that influences our immediate responsiveness seems indisputable. One challenge, though, is whether and how the unconscious gets intertwined with past lives imagination.

Regardless, belief in past lives may provide a greater sense of purpose for each of us. This sense of purpose—divine or otherwise—is also a goal of many other concepts of the meaning of life. They include: the ever popular book about finding meaning even in the concentration camps by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl⁸; the book from a Swiss psychoanalyst about learning more about ourselves as we age that was recommended to me by a colleague⁹; and the social psychiatric life stages of the Erikson’s, where a ninth stage of returning to basic trust was added by Erik’s wife Joan.¹⁰ All we can conclude for sure is that this life will end, but perhaps what we call our souls has—and will—continue in a potential unification of past, present, and the future with whatever the ultimate energy source of life in this and other dimensions may be. Or we are left with the unknowns of original creation and the process of evolution. That there are psychiatrists at different places and times who have independently come to similar conclusions may provide its own meaningfulness.

Why is all this speculation necessary? So far, that ultimate answer is unclear; my personal take on it is that it is a grand experiment to see if these breakout souls of ours can contribute to more of our positive characteristics: compassion, empathy, nonviolence, among other things that will eventually lead to a more glorious world future that is envisioned in many of Dr Weiss’s large group hypnotic sessions. Perhaps what this is getting at is a convergence of diverse religious and spiritual concepts: karma, reincarnation, heaven and hell, paradise, and other temporary or lasting places to the souls. It may be where good deeds in this life converge with healing in later or earlier lives. Indeed, it appears that past life regression can be a reasonable option when standards treatments are not working. Quite startling if true, isn’t it? I told you earlier this might all seem like an unbelievable fantasy or wish. I personally am left with wondering awe in my own old age, which can be therapeutic in itself.

Whether true or not, it provides a much wider time frame on our own life, much different than that of genetic ancestry, as personally helpful as that may be. Modern ancestry connections provide certain aspects of physical identities, but not what the lives of those connections were like and meant.

I suppose that we all have the opportunity to try to test these possibilities out for ourselves by going to a reputable and experienced source in this area, like the psychiatrist Brian Weiss, though I am not recommending that. I do recommend carefully exploring this subject matter. The numerous case studies in the books by Dr Weiss and others are fascinating, almost like mystery short stories.

Whether it is just educational curiosity, searching for past lives and personal healing in regression therapy, death therapy as in the periodic processing of dying and the trials of psychedelics for undue death anxiety, or progression therapy for projected future lives, the basic principle is personal autonomy guided by professional expertise in our quest for life’s meaning and healing. Are you interested in that for yourself or your patients?

Addendum: The psychiatrist Brian Weiss, the author of 2 of the books I read (and many more) previewed this column before publication and reported no concerns with the content.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Weiss B. Same Soul, Many Bodies: Discover the Healing Power of Future Lives Through Progression Therapy. Free Press; 2024.

2. Solomon S. Do you believe in life after death? these scientists study it. New York Times. January 3, 2025. Accessed July 3, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/style/virginia-dops-reincarnation.html

3. Spirituality among Americans. Pew Research Center. December 7, 2023. Accessed July 3, 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/12/07/spirituality-among-americans/

4. Arehart-Treichel J. Psychiatrist explores world beyond ‘normal.’ Psychiatric News. 2004;39(23).

5. Brody EB. Research in reincarnation and editorial responsibility: an editorial. J Nerv Ment Dis. 1977;165(3):151.

6. Beitman B. Life-Changing Synchronicities: A Doctor’s Journey of Coincidence & Serendipity. Park Street Press; 2025.

7. Moreira-Almeida A, Costa M, Coelho H. Science of Life After Death. Springer; 2022.

8. Frankl V. Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press; 2006.

9. Quinodoz D. Growing Old: A Journey of Self-Discovery. Routledge; 2009.

10. Erikson E, Erickson J. The Life Cycle Completed (extended ed.). W.W. Norton & Company; 1998.