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More on Past Lives: Real or Imagined?

Bill - the whole point Ian Stevenson made was that it is provable. Did you read the Scientific American article about him? You should.

Mimsey
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Bill - the whole point Ian Stevenson made was that it is provable. Did you read the Scientific American article about him? You should.

Mimsey
However, there never can be enough proof to those who consider it impossible. There will always be reasons to reject the alleged proof. The basic reason that it (reincarnation) can't be proven is that it is (to some) impossible. Therefore, the proof must be flawed or fake.

Even if you could have people recall a past life and you could verify those facts, there would ALWAYS be those who would say "fake" -- because all the factors cannot be restricted to strict laboratory conditions.

I, personally, know I've lived before, but I don't care if someone else believes it or not. Why do some people get so upset about it?
 
Oh - yes - I totally agree with you. I banged my head against those types till I realized they will never change. There are still people who believe the earth is flat. :confused: Mimsey
 

Teanntás

Silver Meritorious Patron
Oh - yes - I totally agree with you. I banged my head against those types till I realized they will never change. There are still people who believe the earth is flat. :confused: Mimsey
"Both of the two great revolutions in twentieth-century physics—Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and Quantum Theory—revealed that observation played an important role.
They also challenged the assumption that there is a material reality. Previously it was thought that the physical reality existed independent of our observation it. Shroedinger’s wave function and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle revealed this was not the case.
As a result, several physicists of the time—Einstein, Bohr, Shroedinger, Eddington, Pauli—became interested in the role that mind and consciousness played in the cosmos, but this interest faded over time and few contemporary physicists seek to include consciousness in their model of reality.
Most attempts to understand the world of modern physics still assume that the primary reality is the physical reality of mass-energy-space-time (whatever they might actually be). Consciousness is generally regarded as a product of brain activity, i.e. something emerging from the physical reality.
In this article, I argue that consciousness is a fundamental quality of the cosmos, and that what we call the material world emerges from it."

More

https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/the-reality-of-consciousness/
 
Let me mention some key points in the Scientific American article: Ian Stevenson was researching children who recalled previous existences:

1) "The psychiatrist found several patterns in his work on children’s memories of previous lives. First, he was convinced that there is only a brief window of time—between the ages of about two and five—in which some children retain these reminiscences of an earlier self."

2) "Also, as with the Sri Lankan girl, memories of previous lives tend to occur only when something in the child’s current life jars the recollections awake (in cognitive science terms, a form of recognition memory)."

3) "In other words, it’s mostly useless to “interview” a child about his or her past life, since—like remembering one's dream from the night before only while lying in bed tonight—recall can’t be forced on the spot. Stevenson also believed that although past lives may be common, only a small percentage of children retained any memories of their previous existence."

Point #2 is the most important - the need of a trigger to awaken the memory of a past life.

Hubbard was aware of needing a trigger or restimulator to bring a submerged memory to life as in point #2. He did it in old school Dianetics with the use of hypnotic means. Example: he would say I am going count down and snap my fingers and a date will flash. 5, 4, 3, 2,1 Snap tell me the date. Then they would run whatever occurred at that date. Another one he used was: I am going count down and snap my fingers and the engram necessary to resolve the case will appear. 5, 4, 3, 2,1 Snap tell me what you see.

These were artificial triggers which worked sometimes. But - Hubbard wanted something better. so he began to use the e-meter to try and find the charged restimulators (triggers) The big problem is the meter reads on belief as much as the real thing. So people could run an engram that read on the meter but had no charge, and thus the person ran dub in instead of the real thing. You know, like your past life as Jesus? So it lead people into believing that past lives were a hoax.

That is precisely the trap the critic cited in a previous post, James Leininger falls into, He does not understand how the trigger works. He debunks the kid pilot's past life death during WW2 based on the kid seeing a toy plane similar to the one he flew and a few other triggers. However, he can't explain away how the kid knew the name of the carrier he was based on. The links has his attempt at debunkery.

Had he known how that trigger worked (in cognitive science terms, a form of recognition memory) he would have written ( I hope) a different article. One that was not dismissive of the kid's former life.

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/07/reincarnation_a.html

Mimsey
 
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EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
Wow. Who exactly are the "upset" individuals that are all up in arms and unwavering about their stance on reincarnation? It sound like, for one, Mimsey, and Bill too. I don't like being lumped into a group that is so stubborn and narrow-minded that "even if there were proof of past lives" I still wouldn't budge from my position. That's nuts.

People can believe what they want. But no one can tell me that because I look to science to reassess my experiences that I am wrong or bad, or try to shame me for feeling harmed by Scientology.
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Wow. Who exactly are the "upset" individuals that are all up in arms and unwavering about their stance on reincarnation? It sound like, for one, Mimsey, and Bill too. I don't like being lumped into a group that is so stubborn and narrow-minded that "even if there were proof of past lives" I still wouldn't budge from my position. That's nuts.

People can believe what they want. But no one can tell me that because I look to science to reassess my experiences that I am wrong or bad, or try to shame me for feeling harmed by Scientology.
I apologize if anything I said offended you. I was not talking to you and I was, most assuredly, not talking about you. I certainly had nothing to say about shaming you for "feeling harmed by Scientology" nor do I, or would I, lump you into any group at all.

I am most disturbed by all the things you have read into what I wrote.
 
You can look to science without any qualms from me - pseudo, real or otherwise. The thing is about reincarnation, past lives, thetans, OOB, NDEs, spirits - what have you, you are free to believe in them or not. However, my point is: if you say they don't exist and refuse to look at any evidence to the contrary, in my opinion, you are doing yourself a disservice. Even so, I will uphold your right to disbelieve in them.

If you look to science to tell you if such exist - how do you determine which portion of science is correct? Do you believe the portion of science that says they are all charlatans or do you look at researchers like Ian Stevenson who have spent years of careful, painstaking research and have examined thousands of cases, gone into the field to verify the validity of the alleged reincarnations by trying his best to debunk them?

Mimsey
 
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programmer_guy

True Ex-Scientologist
Mimsey,

It looks like you backed off from the specific topic of this thread and are making it about bashing science in general.

Again, here are the two skeptic web pages about two supposed past lives stories:

James Leininger:
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/07/reincarnation_a.html

Bridey Murphy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridey_Murphy

What are your thoughts about the details in these two articles?
My opinion, for what it's worth: Science can't prove that past lives are true. Science can't prove that past lives are not true. That's just the way it is. Same with the existence or non existence of God (or gods). By definition, anything "spiritual" is outside the physical universe -- so science, which is the study of the physical universe, has no bearing.

But what I don't understand is why some people get so upset about it. Person A believes in reincarnation. So? Person B does not believe in reincarnation. So what?

The two articles I pointed to were about fact checking details in stories/claims and not science.
 
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EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
Bill, I was not speaking of you specifically lumping me into a group. I mean that you are agreeing with Mimsey's stance on reincarnation and your belief that if a scientist were given facts to discredit their views, they still would not budge on how they see things. I'll look for the post. (It's post 22)

The thing I was referring to about shaming comes from this post of Mimsey's: More on Past Lives: Real or Imagined?, that one would call their experiences in Scientology "dub in" or having been harmed instead of having had some kind of spiritual gain of some kind. Feeling harmed was listed in her examples, like an excuse.

In any case, it's easy to say these days (I guess, although I don't understand why) that people on the side of science are now wrong and narrow minded, un-open to various other possibilities, many of them wondrous even. To me, science is completely wondrous enough. It is totally open to every possibility possible because we do not know everything. Science begs to be proven wrong. But that's just the thing--if we allow science to wiggle into science fiction based on flimsy evidence, or because of numbers of people's accounts/memories, or theories from people who believe in past lives--and those people are fancy educators that write articles and do lectures, yet still can not produce hard evidence or proof, then where would the world go to for the scientific answers? Science is science and the rest is whatever that is. You can't make that stuff science too. Science is based on observation and getting the exact same results/conclusions from that data . If you insert new data, then the result would change, of course! I don't think science in itself has any "agenda" to block reincarnation or spirituality. I do not see why they can't live together in fact, but there is a difference between faith (belief) and facts. The Pyramids existed and still do. They have been documented visually during their time and years after, and now in every which way. Jesus as a person may have existed. There is written evidence (although indeed debated) that could have been recorded from an elders' eyewitness, or their elders' once passed down to others who may have seen his every move. (?) ...My point is that Jesus being "God" is not a fact, but a belief. Maybe there is/will be evidence that he was here. I doubt you will find evidence that he was God. Science is based on facts, not beliefs and we have to rely on things to be tested under very strict circumstances for a reason. It's not that science is "closed off." There's no conspiracy going on.

By the way. I am not upset or offended. I am just not going to be told (by anyone) that somehow Scientology and past lives are fact and that I was NOT harmed by 20 years of brainwashing. I have read the Scientific American article. I read a ton of stuff like this before. If you knew my story and ME, you'd know that I'd much rather have had my past lives and old ideas of myself be true. Then I wouldn't have to face everything I've had/have to. This thread has been taken over and has put me, and those like me, in a position where we look "upset" or narrow minded if we would start posting scientific or psychological evidence to the contrary of these outside people that are giving legitimacy to reincarnation as fact. That's fine, but to say that this now de-legitimizes science? I will not bother posting any links to the contrary because it would be like talking to a bunch of gorillas.

Sorry, I am just being funny. I don't really believe or have scientific evidence that anyone here is an actual gorilla, except for me maybe.
 

Bill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Bill, I was not speaking of you specifically lumping me into a group. I mean that you are agreeing with Mimsey's stance on reincarnation and your belief that if a scientist were given facts to discredit their views, they still would not budge on how they see things. I'll look for the post. (It's post 22)

The thing I was referring to about shaming comes from this post of Mimsey's: More on Past Lives: Real or Imagined?, that one would call their experiences in Scientology "dub in" or having been harmed instead of having had some kind of spiritual gain of some kind. Feeling harmed was listed in her examples, like an excuse.

In any case, it's easy to say these days (I guess, although I don't understand why) that people on the side of science are now wrong and narrow minded, un-open to various other possibilities, many of them wondrous even. To me, science is completely wondrous enough. It is totally open to every possibility possible because we do not know everything. Science begs to be proven wrong. But that's just the thing--if we allow science to wiggle into science fiction based on flimsy evidence, or because of numbers of people's accounts/memories, or theories from people who believe in past lives--and those people are fancy educators that write articles and do lectures, yet still can not produce hard evidence or proof, then where would the world go to for the scientific answers? Science is science and the rest is whatever that is. You can't make that stuff science too. Science is based on observation and getting the exact same results/conclusions from that data . If you insert new data, then the result would change, of course! I don't think science in itself has any "agenda" to block reincarnation or spirituality. I do not see why they can't live together in fact, but there is a difference between faith (belief) and facts. The Pyramids existed and still do. They have been documented visually during their time and years after, and now in every which way. Jesus as a person may have existed. There is written evidence (although indeed debated) that could have been recorded from an elders' eyewitness, or their elders' once passed down to others who may have seen his every move. (?) ...My point is that Jesus being "God" is not a fact, but a belief. Maybe there is/will be evidence that he was here. I doubt you will find evidence that he was God. Science is based on facts, not beliefs and we have to rely on things to be tested under very strict circumstances for a reason. It's not that science is "closed off." There's no conspiracy going on.

By the way. I am not upset or offended. I am just not going to be told (by anyone) that somehow Scientology and past lives are fact and that I was NOT harmed by 20 years of brainwashing. I have read the Scientific American article. I read a ton of stuff like this before. If you knew my story and ME, you'd know that I'd much rather have had my past lives and old ideas of myself be true. Then I wouldn't have to face everything I've had/have to. This thread has been taken over and has put me, and those like me, in a position where we look "upset" or narrow minded if we would start posting scientific or psychological evidence to the contrary of these outside people that are giving legitimacy to reincarnation as fact. That's fine, but to say that this now de-legitimizes science? I will not bother posting any links to the contrary because it would be like talking to a bunch of gorillas.

Sorry, I am just being funny. I don't really believe or have scientific evidence that anyone here is an actual gorilla, except for me maybe.
Ooog! Let me make one thing very, very, very, extremely clear: Scientology/Dianetics does not work. Scientology's "past lives" is fake, bogus, a fraud. I would not, do not, will not ever claim that Hubbard's "past lives" is valid. Never.

In case I haven't made myself clear: Scientology doesn't work.

That being said, "reincarnation" as a completely separate subject is something else. Long before I ever heard of Scientology, I had some experiences that convinced me that I had memories from a previous existence. I have absolutely no intention of attempting to convince anyone else that this is true. I don't care and it isn't important. It does not bother me that there is a difference of opinion here.

My point and only my opinion is that things that are spiritual are very difficult, if not impossible, to study with science -- not really being manifested in the physical universe. That doesn't say that science is bad (heavens no!) or that all spiritual things are valid (lots of fraud there).

Therefore: (my opinion only)
"Science proves that reincarnation doesn't exist" is not actually true.
"Science shows that reincarnation has not been scientifically proven", however, would be true.
 
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EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
Ooog! Let me make one thing very, very, very, extremely clear: Scientology/Dianetics does not work. Scientology's "past lives" is fake, bogus, a fraud. I would not, do not, will not ever claim that Hubbard's "past lives" is valid. Never.

In case I haven't made myself clear: Scientology doesn't work.

That being said, "reincarnation" as a completely separate subject is something else. Long before I ever heard of Scientology, I had some experiences that convinced me that I had memories from a previous existence. I have absolutely no intention of attempting to convince anyone else that this is true. I don't care and it isn't important. It does not bother me that there is a difference of opinion here.

My point and only my opinion is that things that are spiritual are very difficult, if not impossible, to study with science -- not really being manifested in the physical universe. That doesn't say that science is bad (heavens no!) or that all spiritual things are valid (lots of fraud there).

Therefore: (my opinion only)
"Science proves that reincarnation doesn't exist" is not actually true.
"Science shows that reincarnation has not been scientifically proven", however, would be true.
Okay Bill. Very loud and clear. Got it! :) Sorry that I did not understand this previously.
 
Did you mean 2:08am?
If that post is what you are referring to then that particular post does not address the details about James in:
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/07/reincarnation_a.html
on the bottom right it said last edited at 12:08 Counting this one, it is 11 posts above and says it is post #25 and is nine paragraphs long.

The starting sentence is:

Let me mention some key points in the Scientific American article: Ian Stevenson was researching children who recalled previous existences:

Please read the whole thing so the comments about James makes sense.

Mimsey
 
Well - let me respond to this:
"The thing I was referring to about shaming comes from this post of Mimsey's: More on Past Lives: Real or Imagined?, that one would call their experiences in Scientology "dub in" or having been harmed instead of having had some kind of spiritual gain of some kind. Feeling harmed was listed in her examples, like an excuse."

I was trying to make the point if a person runs uncharged item (in this case we were referring to Dianetics) that here is a good chance that he is running dub in instead of real incidents. I was trying to make the point that he e-meter is an unreliable tool to determine if something is charged or not. It can read on an actual incident, and it can read on a person's belief which may or may not be true.

Ian discovered that you need a "trigger" to get a child to recall an actual prior life. You can't just ask him "who were you last life?" He gives the example of a child seeing the person who killed him in his previous live and running over to the person and physically assaulting the person. The child seeing the murderer was the trigger that awakened the memory of his demise.

Hubbard recognized that same principal and incorporated into his technology. I discussed this above in an earlier post - look there for an explanation.

The above about triggers was in the Scientific American article you read, which I thank you for taking the time to do so. The Hubbard business is found in his tech. For more on what the meter reads on check out Just Bill - ask the real scientologist - he has a couple brilliant discussions on how the meter actually works. (Yes, the same Bill that you posted about)

Now - about this next point:

"In any case, it's easy to say these days (I guess, although I don't understand why) that people on the side of science are now wrong and narrow minded, un-open to various other possibilities, many of them wondrous even. To me, science is completely wondrous enough. It is totally open to every possibility possible because we do not know everything. Science begs to be proven wrong. But that's just the thing--if we allow science to wiggle into science fiction based on flimsy evidence, or because of numbers of people's accounts/memories, or theories from people who believe in past lives--and those people are fancy educators that write articles and do lectures, yet still can not produce hard evidence or proof, then where would the world go to for the scientific answers? Science is science and the rest is whatever that is." snip

Please read Ian's article about science. I think it will shed light on your post quoted above and why I think that perhaps you have an idealized view of how science is done. Your view is very common. However, it's not quite how it works in reality. And he is not even discussing the funding of research issues. That is a whole other quagmire.

http://rebprotocol.net/June2009/Stevenson Scientists with Half-closed Minds 8pp.pdf

Mimsey
 

Churchill

Gold Meritorious Patron
Hey Len - "the needle of my bullshit meter hit the pins." Sounds like a dial wide F/N to me. :yay:

I don't know if I should weigh in on this or not. I have had a few that were so damn real and many that were dub-in, that I can only bet on the real ones. The two that I have in mind didn't occur in session. One of which was very interesting to me, happened to me prior to scientology or for that matter, any exposure to the idea of past lives at all, when I was in 10th grade. The other resulted in a total shift in viewpoint for a couple days until my normal equilibrium resurfaced.

Quien sabe?

Edit - Len - did you watch the video before you dismissed it? I just started it and the speaker, Bob Good that brings up that he, like you, is Jewish, is discussing a data base of some 10k examples of reincarnation. Check out Glen Ford the actor at 16:00 - simply amazing.

Edit 2 There are a lot of interesting points in the lecture, though the section on quantum states and how it relates to consciousness doesn't quite ring true. The part that was truly freaky is the holographic memories being stored in the body's tissues. At 47:00 he discusses this: In 1988 Claire Silvia received a heart and double lung transplant. After the operation she began to have strange cravings (for her) of beer, green peppers, and chicken nuggets - she began dreaming about beautiful women and having sex with them and someone called Tim. She sought out her donor and found out he was an 18 year old boy who liked those things and was named Tim.

Mimsey
We’re worlds apart in our understanding of what constitutes science. Science is not belief. Nor is it anecdote.
There simply is no conclusive scientific proof to support it.
 
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EZ Linus

Cleared Tomato
Mimsey. I'm sorry that you think that I have an "idealized view of how science is done." I am quite sure how it is done, but I'm not going to sit here and type out how and how many and where and who makes the probabilities on which subjects. Bottom line, science is not based on belief and then finding evidence to prove that belief, whereas your little arena of expertise is.

The subject for the thread is: past lives, real or imagined, is it not? And you're trying to push that it's real. Fine. I'm "narrow minded" and have an idealized view of how science is done if I have done 17 years of study since I've been out of Scientology about how powerful ones imagination can be (which is great), but how dangerous that can wind up in the hands of a manipulator. Believing you have lived before, on your own accord, is pretty harmless. It's when someone starts guiding you through a bunch of belief and telling you it is all reality and starts taking you into states of disassociation when it becomes a problem. My opinion, which I have a right to.
 

Teanntás

Silver Meritorious Patron
Good point Programmer Guy BUT! the article I posted was written by IAN STEVENSON who was featured in the Scientific American Article about him and his research into past lives by examining and attempting to disprove childhood past live recall:

"Stevenson’s main claim to fame was his meticulous studies of children’s memories of previous lives. Here’s one of thousands of cases. In Sri Lanka, a toddler one day overheard her mother mentioning the name of an obscure town (“Kataragama”) that the girl had never been to. The girl informed the mother that she drowned there when her “dumb” (mentally challenged) brother pushed her in the river, that she had a bald father named “Herath” who sold flowers in a market near the Buddhist stupa, that she lived in a house that had a glass window in the roof (a skylight), dogs in the backyard that were tied up and fed meat, that the house was next door to a big Hindu temple, outside of which people smashed coconuts on the ground. Stevenson was able to confirm that there was, indeed, a flower vendor in Kataragama who ran a stall near the Buddhist stupa whose two-year-old daughter had drowned in the river while the girl played with her mentally challenged brother. The man lived in a house where the neighbors threw meat to dogs tied up in their backyard, and it was adjacent to the main temple where devotees practiced a religious ritual of smashing coconuts on the ground. The little girl did get a few items wrong, however. For instance, the dead girl’s dad wasn’t bald (but her grandfather and uncle were) and his name wasn’t “Herath”—that was the name, rather, of the dead girl’s cousin. Otherwise, 27 of the 30 idiosyncratic, verifiable statements she made panned out. The two families never met, nor did they have any friends, coworkers, or other acquaintances in common, so if you take it all at face value, the details couldn’t have been acquired in any obvious way." There is more - much more in the link:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...e-we-e28098skepticse28099-really-just-cynics/

Despite the quality of his research - he had his detractors. The author of the article about him further said:

"I’d be happy to say it’s all complete and utter nonsense—a moldering cesspool of irredeemable, anti-scientific drivel. The trouble is, it’s not entirely apparent to me that it is. So why aren’t scientists taking Stevenson’s data more seriously? The data don’t “fit” our working model of materialistic brain science, surely. But does our refusal to even look at his findings, let alone to debate them, come down to our fear of being wrong? “The wish not to believe,” Stevenson once said, “can influence as strongly as the wish to believe.”

So why I posted what I did rather than other similar writings, videos etc on past lives, was his impassioned and well reasoned response to the blind refusal to even look at the body of his work, but dismiss it out of hand. In my mind, perhaps as feeble as this 70 yr old can muster, I reasoned this is the first hurdle to overcome - to be willing to look at the evidence that past lives are real.

I can and have posted many such things here but if no one looks at them because of "I was damaged by Scientology" or "It's impossible, so it can't be true" or "I never recalled a past life" Or "it's all dub in" or a thousand other thought blockers, what is the point? Because the point he makes is this: If you don't look - you will never see the data and you will never know if it is valid or not.

There is plenty of overwhelming evidence showing the validity of reincarnation - enough that it should be scientific fact and yet? It's pseudo science to too many.

Thats why I posted what I did. I thought it was on point - very on point.

Mimsey
'......it is not only believers in the survival of consciousness beyond death who engage in wishful thinking. “The pervasiveness of wishful thinking becomes all the more evident when we realize that it can be negative as well as positive, as our thoughts about philosophical possibility, and our interpretations of empirical data, are sometimes guided by what we hope not to be true.” Hermann von Helmholtz, a nineteenth century scientist, provided an example of such negative wishful thinking when reportedly said of telepathy, “I cannot believe it…[Not] even the evidence of my own senses would lead me to believe in the transmission of thought from one person to another…It is clearly impossible.”
Such stubborn skepticism, an a priori rejection of the possibility of a phenomenon even before either positive or negative evidence is proffered, would seem to be as alien to the spirit of empirical research as a stubborn insistence that the phenomenon is real. It is not that either form of insistence is necessarily wrong; but neither equates to science. Both, rather, are philosophical inclinations, to which one may be drawn for reasons having little or nothing to do with empirical evidence. A peculiarity of the discussion of the survival of consciousness after death is that one such set of assumptions–the negative set–is taken by many to be established science, when the reality is that a variety of possible accounts of reality are logically compatible with our current scientific knowledge........"

https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/why-believe-in-rebirth/
 
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