Past Lives, Future Healing

You've got to hand it to the renowned celebrity psychic Sylvia Browne--she gives it straight from the gut and really doesn't give a hoot whether you believe her. As a result, it's hard to not be captivated and convinced by her firm belief in the afterlife, or in this case, the beforelife. Her writing is most riveting when she uses her storytelling voice, relating dialogue from client sessions that include past-life stories. In fact, she opens the book with a scene in which she follows the small clues offered by an agoraphobic to help him reveal that a past-life poisoning (when he was an Aztec ruler) had been crippling his present life. Throughout the book, Brown continues to use real-life client stories to show how past-life baggage can weigh down a present life. The final chapters offer how-to lessons on conducting your own past-life regression and healing sessions. Be warned: Browne's writing sometimes sounds like the channeled writing that was popular in the late 1980's: "The miraculous gift of eternity means that the singular essence that is you will always, always exist." But readers may forgive her these lapses, as she clearly writes from heartfelt convictions rather than a stylized formula. --Gail Hudson