All posts tagged: science

Many Lives, Many Masters

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Whether or not you believe in science, this is one book that’s bound to give you food for thought. Penned by a psychiatrist, Dr Brian Weiss, Many masters, many lives is what he claims to be the true story of one of his patients. Catherine, a young girl troubled by inexplicable phobias, seeks his help, and when typical psychiatric treatments don’t bare results, he resorts to the rarely used practice of hypnosis. What follows is plain bizarre. In her hypnotic state, Catherine appears to visit her past lives, reincarnations of herself in varied geographical locations and time periods. Often, Catherine reaches an in-between stage, where she’s dead but not reincarnated yet, and she communicates to the doctor the messages of highly evolved spirits (called the Masters), including personal details from his own life. I know it sounds like the plot of some psychological thriller, and as I re-read it, even the highly predictable story-line of a horror Hindi movie. But that’s the beauty of it – what you believe is completely your choice. At one point, …

Ignited Minds

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With development, technology and partriotism as dominant themes, Ignited Minds, written by India’s ex-president APJ Abdul Kalam, is dedicated to the youth in India. Contrary to my expectations, it has a strong inclination toward science and a lot of technical jargon. In fact, there’s not even a slight touch upon entrepreneurship and business as driving possibilities towards India’s growth. From an economic perspective, a lot of growth factors for the country have been omitted. I suppose that as a scientist-turned-author, President Kalam retained his primary focus on science as a measure of a country’s progress. I don’t deny that it is one. But it kind of limits the scope of the book in more ways than one. Firstly, the book is more of a theoretical listing of India’s technological achievements thus far, rather than a practical guide to lay the youth on the right track to grow India. Secondly and honestly, I found myself skipping paragraphs and pages of scientific descriptions. Maybe I’m a little late in reading this one. Maybe it would’ve made more sense …