skunkape
Paranormal Maven
I'm a 170 lb Irish/German/Choctaw built WMD...Weapon of Musical Delight. Know any good agents?
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
-
NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!
born again
- Thread starter threed
- Start date
Free episodes:
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
skunkape
Paranormal Maven
My little brother did that when he was about 5. He ended up with stitches in his brow from a broken vase he assumed the towel would help him fly over. The time he tried to play Hulk and jumped through a window ended poorly, also. Super-Heroes suck. They hurt the children.
<input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><!--Session data--><input onclick="jsCall();" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
I don't know about the whole eincarnation thing, but I remember having a dream a couple of years ago that was unlike any I have had before or since.
It was like I was fully immersed in the experiences of another person. Here is what I know. It was America, somewhere hot, maybe a century (or two) ago. I was a black man, and I was standing in front of a group of people in what seemed like a church. I was being sentenced for something I did. Only a nearby priest seemed sympathetic. I remember just looking around at all their expresionless faces (as if it didn't matter that I was about to be hung) and feeling pure hatred towards them all (except the priest for some reason). I remember thinking that I did nothing wrong.
During the dream, I didn't see myself as you sometimes do. You know, as if you were the director and actor. It was more like a memory. I'm not saying that's what it was, but you never know. No dream has stuck with me like this one has.
Anyway, on to the second part, and I flashed forward to the actual hanging. All my feelings of anger and hatred were replaced by pure determination not to actually get hanged, and a little desperation. I remember at the last moment thinking that if I put my hands between the noose and my neck that I'll somehow survive. Anyway, they hung me. The next bit was the strangest bit yet. I "heard" a crack, and was extremely surprised at how little it hurt. Then I wasn't experiencing things from a single perspective any more. It was like I was experiencing things from the outside. I seemed to instinctively "know" all the people who were there watching the hanging. When I say know, it was like I could feel them. I felt sympathy for them. It was like I had a bird's eye view, and not just of the physical scene below me, but the mental scene. What they were thinking and feeling. I remember thinking that these people didn't really comprehend the fact that someone just died at their hands.
I distinctly remember feeling sorry for them all.
Then everything faded to white, and remember thinking I'm going to a better place. Then I woke up, freaked out as I was! The first thing I thought was that people aren't supposed to die in dreams. Anyway, never knew what to make of that one. I'm from Ireland, so the whole slavery thing isn't part of the history of my country, but I was aware of it, and at around that time I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird (one of the best books ever written, incidently), which is all about prejudice in the deep south, and centres on the trial of a black man for a crime he obviously didn't do.
Make of it what you will, fellow paracasters:
It was like I was fully immersed in the experiences of another person. Here is what I know. It was America, somewhere hot, maybe a century (or two) ago. I was a black man, and I was standing in front of a group of people in what seemed like a church. I was being sentenced for something I did. Only a nearby priest seemed sympathetic. I remember just looking around at all their expresionless faces (as if it didn't matter that I was about to be hung) and feeling pure hatred towards them all (except the priest for some reason). I remember thinking that I did nothing wrong.
During the dream, I didn't see myself as you sometimes do. You know, as if you were the director and actor. It was more like a memory. I'm not saying that's what it was, but you never know. No dream has stuck with me like this one has.
Anyway, on to the second part, and I flashed forward to the actual hanging. All my feelings of anger and hatred were replaced by pure determination not to actually get hanged, and a little desperation. I remember at the last moment thinking that if I put my hands between the noose and my neck that I'll somehow survive. Anyway, they hung me. The next bit was the strangest bit yet. I "heard" a crack, and was extremely surprised at how little it hurt. Then I wasn't experiencing things from a single perspective any more. It was like I was experiencing things from the outside. I seemed to instinctively "know" all the people who were there watching the hanging. When I say know, it was like I could feel them. I felt sympathy for them. It was like I had a bird's eye view, and not just of the physical scene below me, but the mental scene. What they were thinking and feeling. I remember thinking that these people didn't really comprehend the fact that someone just died at their hands.
I distinctly remember feeling sorry for them all.
Then everything faded to white, and remember thinking I'm going to a better place. Then I woke up, freaked out as I was! The first thing I thought was that people aren't supposed to die in dreams. Anyway, never knew what to make of that one. I'm from Ireland, so the whole slavery thing isn't part of the history of my country, but I was aware of it, and at around that time I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird (one of the best books ever written, incidently), which is all about prejudice in the deep south, and centres on the trial of a black man for a crime he obviously didn't do.
Make of it what you will, fellow paracasters:
Schuyler
Misanthrope
Would you care for NSA or CIA agents? Oh, wait!! The NSA has 'analysts,' which I suppose some of us could use after this.
skunkape
Paranormal Maven
A little of both...medium-rare.
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
As a kid, some 30 years ago, I watched a documentary about a case of alleged reincarnation here in Germany. A little boy with a strange birthmark on his neck was uttering cries in his dreams that sounded like a foreign language. A psychologist made a tape of this and sent it to a language expert who thought it was Thai. The boy then began to talk about what seemed to have been a former life, ended by a brutal murder (a knife to the neck). Eventually, his family went to Thailand, where they (allegedly) found the boy's former family members.
A sceptic even at that age (I must have been around 10), and not knowing anything about the work of Prof. Ian Stevenson, I thought that was all wishful thinking, because if something like that really occured, there should be a lot more babies with strange, woundlike birthmarks.
Fast forward approx. 10 years. Accidentally, I step into a room where a mother is changing the diapers of an infant and I notice a big red birthmark (not an injury or something) on his chest, under the left ribcage, looking very much like blood seeping from a wound. I'm kind of astonished but I'm told that the doctors had said these birthmarks would occur more often than one would think and that they tend to become less prominent over the years (during a garden pool party I found out that that's true, the boy in question is now 18 years old and the mark now looks like a straight white line or a scar, although, as I said, it hadn't been caused by an injury).
Of course, that didn't make me reconsider my opinion. I'm not a religious or spiritual person and until recently I tended not to think about subjects like what happens after death. For me, it was quite obvious, that all theories about that again were nothing but wishful thinking.
But as soon as this boy could speak, he would make some very strange remarks and show some unusual behavior (like calling his mother by her first name and at times stating that she was not even his real mother), eventually telling me (when he was about six years old) that he had been murdered in what he called his former life.
Now, that got my attention. But unfortunately, I couldn't find out much. His family has decided to keep all this under wraps and not to stir things any further, I guess for fear of being ridiculed. Even showing an interest in strange phenomena can seriously endanger your social status where I live, so that was that.
So now I started looking into reincarnation and soon I found the work of the late Prof. Ian Stevenson, which I find just remarkable and not at all esoteric (although on the library bookshelves here you will find his books with the usual psychedelic covers in the esoterics department). I read of the 2000 + cases he investigated, mostly in Asia, but many also in America and Europe. Some cases involve the soon-to-be mother having a dream in which a dead relative seems to announce his rebirth in her child. Which at that point I found rather unconvincing.
A few years ago, a very dear sister-in-law died of cancer at the age of 47. I had known her before she had become family and I had always felt a little more for her than is usual among relatives. I won't go into details, but we always were kind of close (platonically speaking). Shortly after her burial, my sister, who was a few weeks pregnant (and with whom I had stood before the grave that day), told me of a dream she had had of the deceased. She could not remember any details, but she had woken up with a feeling like "wouldn't it be cool if she reincarnated in my daughter?"
Now, I had never told my sister about my interest in the subject, she had never felt an interest in that either and she knew nothing of the earlier case I had stumbled upon (as I said, the boy's family kept it a secret and I sure didn't tell anybody back then) or about my feelings regarding my sister-in-law (that was obviously a well-guarded secret too).
I decided to still say nothing, but as you can imagine, I watched the kid from the first day on (it was indeed a girl). Which was kind of difficult because my sister lives an hour's drive away. EDIT: I did make it a point not to let her sense that I was somehow expecting her to do or say anything unusual, just in case you wondered. I talked to her and acted just as I would have with any other kid.
Okay, to make a long story short, the girl soon showed an unusual affection with me (whereas she was utterly shy with others). Often, since she started to talk, she will whisper like we had a secret or something. And then, not more than a year ago, (she had hardly learned to speak) she looks at me as if she wanted to say Now pay close attention, this is important. And she comes up to me and whispers "I am forever here".
At that point I'm thinking, well, that's probably her lining up words, learning to talk. So I ask "What do you mean, here? Here at this place?"
And she shakes her head, frowning like she wants to say "Man, don't you get it". Gets a little closer and puts her hand on my chest "Here," she says, "here with you."
Man, I'm getting the shivers just remembering that. This is actually the first time I'm telling anybody about this. I can't risk the story to become known here. And there were other, even more baffling "statements", but most of them rather personal, so I won't write them down here.
EDIT: I don't expect anyone to believe a word I'm saying. Heck, if anyone had told me that story a few years ago, I myself would have thought, "well, he's misinterpreting or over-interpreting perfectly explainable remarks and behaviours of kids, who have no idea what they're talking about and just throwing words around." But the thing is, with both cases, the kids are unusually aware of things concerning life and death. They absolutely did seem to have an idea what they were talking about.
I guess you really have to experience something like that yourself to begin to believe it. I know that in my case, it is against everything I have learned (in a western materialistic upbringing) about the brain generating consciousness and the world not being a paranormal place in general. For my own part, these views are really starting to wear off and the world is beginning to look a much deeper and broader place than I had thought.
A sceptic even at that age (I must have been around 10), and not knowing anything about the work of Prof. Ian Stevenson, I thought that was all wishful thinking, because if something like that really occured, there should be a lot more babies with strange, woundlike birthmarks.
Fast forward approx. 10 years. Accidentally, I step into a room where a mother is changing the diapers of an infant and I notice a big red birthmark (not an injury or something) on his chest, under the left ribcage, looking very much like blood seeping from a wound. I'm kind of astonished but I'm told that the doctors had said these birthmarks would occur more often than one would think and that they tend to become less prominent over the years (during a garden pool party I found out that that's true, the boy in question is now 18 years old and the mark now looks like a straight white line or a scar, although, as I said, it hadn't been caused by an injury).
Of course, that didn't make me reconsider my opinion. I'm not a religious or spiritual person and until recently I tended not to think about subjects like what happens after death. For me, it was quite obvious, that all theories about that again were nothing but wishful thinking.
But as soon as this boy could speak, he would make some very strange remarks and show some unusual behavior (like calling his mother by her first name and at times stating that she was not even his real mother), eventually telling me (when he was about six years old) that he had been murdered in what he called his former life.
Now, that got my attention. But unfortunately, I couldn't find out much. His family has decided to keep all this under wraps and not to stir things any further, I guess for fear of being ridiculed. Even showing an interest in strange phenomena can seriously endanger your social status where I live, so that was that.
So now I started looking into reincarnation and soon I found the work of the late Prof. Ian Stevenson, which I find just remarkable and not at all esoteric (although on the library bookshelves here you will find his books with the usual psychedelic covers in the esoterics department). I read of the 2000 + cases he investigated, mostly in Asia, but many also in America and Europe. Some cases involve the soon-to-be mother having a dream in which a dead relative seems to announce his rebirth in her child. Which at that point I found rather unconvincing.
A few years ago, a very dear sister-in-law died of cancer at the age of 47. I had known her before she had become family and I had always felt a little more for her than is usual among relatives. I won't go into details, but we always were kind of close (platonically speaking). Shortly after her burial, my sister, who was a few weeks pregnant (and with whom I had stood before the grave that day), told me of a dream she had had of the deceased. She could not remember any details, but she had woken up with a feeling like "wouldn't it be cool if she reincarnated in my daughter?"
Now, I had never told my sister about my interest in the subject, she had never felt an interest in that either and she knew nothing of the earlier case I had stumbled upon (as I said, the boy's family kept it a secret and I sure didn't tell anybody back then) or about my feelings regarding my sister-in-law (that was obviously a well-guarded secret too).
I decided to still say nothing, but as you can imagine, I watched the kid from the first day on (it was indeed a girl). Which was kind of difficult because my sister lives an hour's drive away. EDIT: I did make it a point not to let her sense that I was somehow expecting her to do or say anything unusual, just in case you wondered. I talked to her and acted just as I would have with any other kid.
Okay, to make a long story short, the girl soon showed an unusual affection with me (whereas she was utterly shy with others). Often, since she started to talk, she will whisper like we had a secret or something. And then, not more than a year ago, (she had hardly learned to speak) she looks at me as if she wanted to say Now pay close attention, this is important. And she comes up to me and whispers "I am forever here".
At that point I'm thinking, well, that's probably her lining up words, learning to talk. So I ask "What do you mean, here? Here at this place?"
And she shakes her head, frowning like she wants to say "Man, don't you get it". Gets a little closer and puts her hand on my chest "Here," she says, "here with you."
Man, I'm getting the shivers just remembering that. This is actually the first time I'm telling anybody about this. I can't risk the story to become known here. And there were other, even more baffling "statements", but most of them rather personal, so I won't write them down here.
EDIT: I don't expect anyone to believe a word I'm saying. Heck, if anyone had told me that story a few years ago, I myself would have thought, "well, he's misinterpreting or over-interpreting perfectly explainable remarks and behaviours of kids, who have no idea what they're talking about and just throwing words around." But the thing is, with both cases, the kids are unusually aware of things concerning life and death. They absolutely did seem to have an idea what they were talking about.
I guess you really have to experience something like that yourself to begin to believe it. I know that in my case, it is against everything I have learned (in a western materialistic upbringing) about the brain generating consciousness and the world not being a paranormal place in general. For my own part, these views are really starting to wear off and the world is beginning to look a much deeper and broader place than I had thought.
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
Thanks for the comment. I'll have to look up "blindsided" but I guess I get your meaning. That's a nice way to put it. In my case, though, the train has been a rather slow one. Blown away piece by piece, you could say. If not for the first "chain of evidence" (the boy with the birthmark), I probably wouldn't have thought much about these strange remarks of the girl.
The feeling of "Holy crap this stuff is real" took a while, but when it hit... man that's hard to describe. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I have to hold my breath thinking about it.
It's not like, say, seeing a UFO, I guess, where your eyes show you things the brain refuses to accept (as it has been described by some witnesses). I'm still asking myself "Can it be? Am I fooling myself here?" every day, each time coming more firmly to the conclusion that yes, it can and no, I'm not. All those 20 years of my looking into the subject of reincarnation, I have always watched myself so as not to be biased. I always expected another explanation, such as the kids having been influenced by movies they saw, esoteric upbringing or whatnot. But I looked into these alternatives and they just don't hold water.
but I guess I get your meaning. That's a nice way to put it. In my case, though, the train has been a rather slow one. Blown away piece by piece, you could say. If not for the first "chain of evidence" (the boy with the birthmark), I probably wouldn't have thought much about these strange remarks of the girl.The feeling of "Holy crap this stuff is real" took a while, but when it hit... man that's hard to describe. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, and I have to hold my breath thinking about it.
It's not like, say, seeing a UFO, I guess, where your eyes show you things the brain refuses to accept (as it has been described by some witnesses). I'm still asking myself "Can it be? Am I fooling myself here?" every day, each time coming more firmly to the conclusion that yes, it can and no, I'm not. All those 20 years of my looking into the subject of reincarnation, I have always watched myself so as not to be biased. I always expected another explanation, such as the kids having been influenced by movies they saw, esoteric upbringing or whatnot. But I looked into these alternatives and they just don't hold water.
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
Here's a nice documentary I just found on Youtube. I think it shows rather well that what Dr Jim Tucker (continuing Ian Stevenson's work) is investigating is a real phenomenon that should be studied but at the same time isn't the indesputable proof of survival of consciousness that some people would like it to be.
I had my difficulties understanding the Scottish English, but I think I got most of it. Come to think of Scotland, maybe goggs knows something about the case.
EDIT: the videos I linked here originally have been taken offline, but it was the same documentary which is discussed in this thread:
The Boy Who Lived Before - Documentary about a childs memories of another life | Page 15 | The Paracast Community Forums
I must say that I don't find Chris French's explanation of false memories induced by movies etc. very convincing. Still, when I was faced with a case that was quite similar to this one, that was my default explanation, too (back then I was quite convinced that I knew how the world worked, and that religious, spiritual or even paranormal stuff was all wishful thinking and nothing but). I thought that movies he had seen, stories he had been told, maybe one of the parents "imprinting" his or her esoteric beliefs on the child were responsible for the strange things he was saying (of course these couldn't explain the quite peculiar birthmark) and some of his behaviours. But knowing the child and their parents and talking mainly to the mother, I think, these explanations are not applicable. Both parents had never heard of Prof. Stevenson's research and never had given reincarnation a second thought. The boy grew up very protected and wouldn't be allowed to watch any potentially "harmful" TV (anything that was remotely seen as violent or frightening), no one would have told him stories about past lives etc.
I had my difficulties understanding the Scottish English, but I think I got most of it. Come to think of Scotland, maybe goggs knows something about the case.
EDIT: the videos I linked here originally have been taken offline, but it was the same documentary which is discussed in this thread:
The Boy Who Lived Before - Documentary about a childs memories of another life | Page 15 | The Paracast Community Forums
I must say that I don't find Chris French's explanation of false memories induced by movies etc. very convincing. Still, when I was faced with a case that was quite similar to this one, that was my default explanation, too (back then I was quite convinced that I knew how the world worked, and that religious, spiritual or even paranormal stuff was all wishful thinking and nothing but). I thought that movies he had seen, stories he had been told, maybe one of the parents "imprinting" his or her esoteric beliefs on the child were responsible for the strange things he was saying (of course these couldn't explain the quite peculiar birthmark) and some of his behaviours. But knowing the child and their parents and talking mainly to the mother, I think, these explanations are not applicable. Both parents had never heard of Prof. Stevenson's research and never had given reincarnation a second thought. The boy grew up very protected and wouldn't be allowed to watch any potentially "harmful" TV (anything that was remotely seen as violent or frightening), no one would have told him stories about past lives etc.
Last edited:
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
Here are two other documentaries about cases which I think are well worth looking at, especially if you've had similar experiences yourself or at least (as I did) with other members of your family. Maybe someone knows more details of what has become of them.
Nathaniel
Paranormal Maven
Polterwurst, this is a story I can relate to entirely. If you haven't already, I would recommend checking out the books 'Journey of Souls' 'Destiny of Souls' and 'Memories of the Afterlife' by Michael Newton and also 'Many Lives Many Masters' by Brian Weiss. All of which I read only a couple of months ago and the information contained is astonishingly similar, in some cases exact, to what Jed has described to me.
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
Yeah, that's what I thought. 
" Logically, this shouldn't be happening". But fact is that sometimes small kids who have just learned to talk will make these strange remarks that seem to imply they have memories of a deceased person. Even if you haven't had this experience yourself, reading the books of thoroughly scientifically minded researchers like Ian Stevenson or Jim Tucker IMO leaves you with no other choice than to admit that.
So how should such a memory transference take place? Genetically? That would only leave room for such memories turning up in generations of the same family, whereas in reality it's mostly memories of unrelated persons, many of which can be verified. Besides, how would genetic transference of memories account for the fact that these children mostly can give detailed descriptions of how the "past life" ended (which is in almost every case an unexpected, violent or traumatic death)? How could the genes that person has passed on contain that information?
So maybe it's something like information stored in the "collective unconscious" or the "holographic universe", kind of free-floating and not connected to any consciousness or personality, which for some reason end up in a newborn's brain. But that wouldn't really explain why sometimes the "reincarnation" seems to be purpose- and meaningful, as if the deceased person had made a decision to "reincarnate" in the vicinity of a living person.
Which I have no doubt any more happened in the second case I related above. The example I gave for the strange remarks of my niece is only the one which I can write down without it being to close and personal fo me to be comfortable with. As I said, there were other, more baffling ones and in toto they leave me with no rational or logical explanation.
But I see why this would be hard to comprehend as long as you haven't had some similar experience. I don't really understand it myself. It's neither rational nor logical, but it happens.
" Logically, this shouldn't be happening". But fact is that sometimes small kids who have just learned to talk will make these strange remarks that seem to imply they have memories of a deceased person. Even if you haven't had this experience yourself, reading the books of thoroughly scientifically minded researchers like Ian Stevenson or Jim Tucker IMO leaves you with no other choice than to admit that.So how should such a memory transference take place? Genetically? That would only leave room for such memories turning up in generations of the same family, whereas in reality it's mostly memories of unrelated persons, many of which can be verified. Besides, how would genetic transference of memories account for the fact that these children mostly can give detailed descriptions of how the "past life" ended (which is in almost every case an unexpected, violent or traumatic death)? How could the genes that person has passed on contain that information?
So maybe it's something like information stored in the "collective unconscious" or the "holographic universe", kind of free-floating and not connected to any consciousness or personality, which for some reason end up in a newborn's brain. But that wouldn't really explain why sometimes the "reincarnation" seems to be purpose- and meaningful, as if the deceased person had made a decision to "reincarnate" in the vicinity of a living person.
Which I have no doubt any more happened in the second case I related above. The example I gave for the strange remarks of my niece is only the one which I can write down without it being to close and personal fo me to be comfortable with. As I said, there were other, more baffling ones and in toto they leave me with no rational or logical explanation.
But I see why this would be hard to comprehend as long as you haven't had some similar experience. I don't really understand it myself. It's neither rational nor logical, but it happens.
Polter - that's some story. There doesn't seem any easy way to explain the little girl's words. As long as you never reveal anything to her, it may be the case that more comes out as she get's older?
A bit like you are coming to believe, I believe that there is indeed much more to our reality than what we can sense normally and that not everything works in the way we expect, in a scientific sense. Randall has said reincarnation is not logically possible, but for me, a universe popping into existence, or always existing, isn't logically possible either. I'm not sure logic even has to come into it. Randall is nuts and bolts UFO (he won't mind me saying that) and although I do think there are nuts and bolts UFOs, the more time that goes by, I'm starting to think there is a psychic/mental aspect to some UFOs and abductions and a heck of a lot of other paranormal stuff.
I'll try find time to watch the documentary - let me know if you need any parts translating! give me times on the videos and I can check it out for you.
A bit like you are coming to believe, I believe that there is indeed much more to our reality than what we can sense normally and that not everything works in the way we expect, in a scientific sense. Randall has said reincarnation is not logically possible, but for me, a universe popping into existence, or always existing, isn't logically possible either. I'm not sure logic even has to come into it. Randall is nuts and bolts UFO (he won't mind me saying that) and although I do think there are nuts and bolts UFOs, the more time that goes by, I'm starting to think there is a psychic/mental aspect to some UFOs and abductions and a heck of a lot of other paranormal stuff.
I'll try find time to watch the documentary - let me know if you need any parts translating! give me times on the videos and I can check it out for you.
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
In most of these cases, these children, as described by Stevenson, Tucker and others, seem to stop making these remarks around the age of six to eight years. In the "material west" probably earlier than in the asian cases because these remarks are much more difficult to integrate in the belief systems here and the children mostly get warned to not talk about this stuff. It seems that not only do they not talk any more about these memories or whatever they are but that they eventually suppress and forget them. The "here and now" becomes the only reality, as it probably should. In Ian Stevenson's cases, as far as I've read them, there was only one young man in Asia who would still talk of these memories when he was 21 years old, but he seems to have been an exception.
My niece is now six years old and I guess more and more removed from whatever induced these remarks and behaviours, so I'm not expecting any more "evidence", and I'm not going to tell her anything as long as my sister doesn't agree. I have told my sister about my observations now and although she seems to be accepting that there might be something to this, I doubt she'll allow me to ask some questions or even show her a picture of our sister-in-law.
good point.
Thanks for the offer, but I'm quite hopeful I've got most of it correctly (I have to deduce most of the contents of the Scottish parts from what the narrator says, though).
Just in case you had known anything about the case or find out that evidence for or against it has turned up, I'd appreciate a link.
Polterwurst
Paranormal Adept
From your reaction I'd say you've never heard of the case before? Wouldn't come as a surprise.This stuff is just too crazy to make big news.
If they've got no own experiences, people just dismiss these cases. Probably the kid's making it all up, that's just what kids do and if there was something to this, why don't we hear about cases like that more often?
Well, both arguments are valid. Kids do have vivid imaginations. But if their stories are consistent instead of just free-roaming fantasies, if they come up with names, places and events which later can be verified, that's a little harder to explain.
And I think there are indeed more cases like that (albeit in total obviously still very few), it's just that most never get reported. That's what happened in the first case I stumbled upon, the boy with the birthmark. That was just hushed up by my relatives and the boy - now around 20 years old - stopped making remarks long ago. Probably, if I asked him about the things he said to me and others, he wouldn't even remember much.
These "memories" or whatever they are seem to begin to fade around the time the kids leave the relative isolation of their home and have to learn to cope with the here and now, getting sent to school all on their own etc. I'd compare that to a dream that one might remember for a bit after waking up, but by the time one is fully awake, it's already forgotten. As I said, according to Ian Stevenson, in all the cases he investigated, the kids seemed to remember lives that ended traumatically, so one might conclude that this is the factor that induces these "memories" in the kids. And, strangely enough, it's not the harmless, nice or senseless dreams we remember the longest, but only the most dramatic ones and the nightmares.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
If we say it isn't logical but it happens then we're probably making some false assumptions and/or asking the wrong questions. So let's clarify what it means when you say "it happens". First we discover that how memories are transferred isn't relevant to a validating the concept of reincarnation. Logically it works out like this:... But I see why this would be hard to comprehend as long as you haven't had some similar experience. I don't really understand it myself. It's neither rational nor logical, but it happens.
Given that:
- Alice = A
- Alice's Past Memories = Am
- Bob = B
- Alice = Alice ( logical )
- Bob = Bob ( logical )
- Alice ≠ Bob ( logical )
- Alice ≠ Bob + Alice's Memories ( A ≠ B + Am )
- However ( B = B + Am ) is logically possible to some limited extent.
This is remarkably similar to the effect that alien abduction has on some people. The overwhelming nature of the experience leads them to blindly believe what they are told, even though it's completely absurd. These inconsistencies lead objective researchers to doubt the veracity of the claims, and rightfully so. However at the same time, there is no doubt in my mind that strange things happen. People may be able to acquire memories from other people by way of some sort of unexplained memory transference, and people may have real abduction experiences in which they are deliberately deceived. Perhaps the two phenomena are even linked.
Nathaniel
Paranormal Maven
Ufology, this may sound kooky to you but I'll go ahead anyway.
My belief (based on my experiences and further research) is that the physical body is a vessel, an avatar if you will, for who you really are. So when Alice dies she will awaken as her true self (having accumulated all the knowledge and experience she gained in her life as Alice) and can then decide whether to return to a physical world in another vessel.
So Alice was never truly Alice to begin with. Alice was an avatar projected by her core entity.
My belief (based on my experiences and further research) is that the physical body is a vessel, an avatar if you will, for who you really are. So when Alice dies she will awaken as her true self (having accumulated all the knowledge and experience she gained in her life as Alice) and can then decide whether to return to a physical world in another vessel.
So Alice was never truly Alice to begin with. Alice was an avatar projected by her core entity.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
At one time I also believed something similar. Today I still think it might be possible, but not in the way you probably imagine. The first and largest error in the "body is just a vessel" theory is in dismissing the role that the body plays in defining who we are. To begin with, our bodies are biochemical in nature and that biochemistry has a measurable and significant impact on our personality, and our personality is indistinguishable in every measurable way from the concept of a "soul" or "spirit". If we were merely remote control operators, then the biochemistry of our avatars wouldn't affect our personalities, which allegedly reside safely in another environment.
But for the sake of entertaining the concept, lets assume that the personality we display here is only our "non-local personality". Now in addition to that, all evidence indicates that our identity consists primarily of our physical makeup, height weight, fingerprints, eye color, hair color, skin color and so on. If you were to suddenly wake up tomorrow to find that you had become an elephant, could you really claim to still be your same old self? Obviously the answer is no. At that point you're not even human. Yet believers in reincarnation would have us believe otherwise.
Often those who say they believe in reincarnation will argue back that their belief in reincarnation doesn't cross the species boundary. But if our bodies are merely vessels then why not? You can't have it both ways. We should have talking elephants and snakes and all the rest. In the movie Avatar we see the species barrier crossed, but isn't it convenient that the alien species also has two legs, two arms, an intelligent brain and is for all intent and purposes humanoid? Apparently the body plays a much more important role in our identity than believers in reincarnation care to admit. But again, for the sake of entertaining the concept, let's call this our non-local bodies.
Now for the last bit: Intelligence and memory. All evidence suggests that intelligence is the product of a functioning brain, and that it responds to local stimuli through sensory input devices connected directly to it. There is no evidence that these input signals are shunted first to some remote location and back to the brain where instructions are carried out. We can even trace the signals with scientific equipment as they move from our sensory input regions through our brains along the neural pathways to the various processing centers and motor regions. Furthermore we know that our brains have local memory storage. There is no "remote operator" between these signals, and no need for a remote memory. We appear to be self-contained units. But again for the sake of illustration let's suppose that this is simply an autopilot of sorts that represents a "non-local intelligence and memory".
So now what do we have? We have a non-local body with it's own non-local personality and non-local intelligence and memory. In essence we have a completely independent non-local entity. And if we assume one more time that this remote operator also exists, now we have not one, but two independent living, intelligent entities, each with their own memories and personality. This presents a number of problems for the purveyors of reincarnation, which is probably why they never bother to bring them up.
But let's return now to our original example ( Alice & Bob ). According to the evidence, if Alice never returned to the world by inhabiting "another vessel', that "vessel" would be born and grow up and have it's own perfectly normal life without Alice. Furthermore, as we have just illustrated above in some detail, even if Alice did "return to the physical world", she would not be the same person. She would simply be invading "the new vessel" (Bob), who has his own memories and personality and body. So the theory that "our bodies are merely vessels" is actually much more complex than is typically put forth. At best it's more akin to possession or multiple personality disorder, and ultimately it falls apart under continued reflection.
The bottom line of all this is that true immortality requires a holistic approach. In other words what you term your 'true self" requires a continuity of not only your consciousness, but of your personality, intellect, memories, and physical self. It means that in 10,000 years when you look in the mirror you will still see the same person ( you ). You would be more akin to the character in the movie Highlander, and not merely someone else with a few of your old memories.
Burnt State
Paranormal Adept
Well I know we've had the conversation before, ufology, regarding non-localized consciousness, or better, a place outside our body personality, that is just a radio receiver for a core identity being broadcast from who knows where. Reincarnation is a fairly common historical way of thinking about identity as a combination of some core identity, Z, that is repeatedly coloured by different body personalities over lifetimes. In this way we all play out our bits of karma in the grand dance of experiencing reality as a phyical being: Bob, Alice, Jesus, Genevieve - they're all just different robes for the soul (spirit, core being, whatever).
Some NDE & reincarnation stories are highly compelling. They all point to a reality about life, death, consciousness and existence that is much more surreal than anything the athiest confirms as conviction; in fact it looks a lot more like, dare i say, religion. If we believe that UFO's are quite possibly something beyond our comprehension then IMHO we might want to be more considerate of life, death and identity as being something equally as mysterious. At least I find karma to be one more reason to be a moral person in a world where there are no real foundations for being good in the first place. After all where's the logic in goodness?
I take a lot of solace from the high percentage of NDErs who come back to not only report that being good matters, but that death is nothing to be feared; it's just a bridge to another place they say. Sure, it's not logical to think like this but then look at what gets said about people who report close encounters of any kind.
Some NDE & reincarnation stories are highly compelling. They all point to a reality about life, death, consciousness and existence that is much more surreal than anything the athiest confirms as conviction; in fact it looks a lot more like, dare i say, religion. If we believe that UFO's are quite possibly something beyond our comprehension then IMHO we might want to be more considerate of life, death and identity as being something equally as mysterious. At least I find karma to be one more reason to be a moral person in a world where there are no real foundations for being good in the first place. After all where's the logic in goodness?
I take a lot of solace from the high percentage of NDErs who come back to not only report that being good matters, but that death is nothing to be feared; it's just a bridge to another place they say. Sure, it's not logical to think like this but then look at what gets said about people who report close encounters of any kind.