How is it possible to remember Past Lives? A Reply to the Sceptics
- Thread starter Teanntás
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Royal Prince Xenu
Trust the Psi Corps.
I can't without being libelous.
Royal Prince Xenu
Trust the Psi Corps.
Even after leaving $cn, I still retained my interest in SF, and was one of the subjects in a short story. As someone who has reproduced props from TV and movies (or created new ones entirely), a group of us are walking down the street in the middle of Sydney when a spaceship lands beside us.
This is treated entirely without surprise and we spend the entire time that it is present discussing the detail, paintwork and mechanics under the natural assumption that it is a prop instead of the real thing. After it takes off, we walk away impressed at how cranes or helicopters go completely unnoticed.
My first-hand experience of this phenomenon was in relation to prosthetics. Having made, observed and worn so many one doesn't get surprised as easily by something unusual. So when I was tapped on the back and turned around to see a gorilla thrusting a pamphlet at me, I failed to give the "startled" reaction that I realized much later had been expected. Thank me that it wasn't a $cn brochure!
And lastly, yes, I have seen a UFO. It was a bright green flare that looked like it was going to impact on a local airport. I rang the police and reported it. They rang me back later and said it was a flare from Army exercises at which point it became an IFO.
Cat's Squirrel
Gold Meritorious Patron
OK, maybe I was unfair but those kinds of friendly skeptics don't seem to me to be the norm. I actually have every time for friendly sceptics if and when they exist.
The trouble with past lives is that most of this is weak evidence, and nearly all of it is anecdotal.
Give you an example - there was a radio program recently in which the disk jockey was discussing past lives, and a woman recounted a story of how she used to sit her daughter on her knee every morning and comb her long hair straight with a big-toothed comb, just as her late grandmother had done when she was a girl herself.
One day when she was doing this, her daughter said to her, "Do you remember when I used to do this to you?"
That would probably not convince a sceptic but would be seen as supporting evidence by those who were already predisposed to believe in past lives. What you need is some anedcdotal equivalent of metastudies, where you find some way of pooling very large agglomerations of similar stories and see if it leads anywhere.
Why, particularly when I was young, was it my natural inclination to open books from the bottom cover and flick back towards the middle, for example? Could it be because in the East books are written that way (my mother reported having done the same thing herself)? Just on the basis of that it doesn't prove anything, but if enough people, especially people drawn to spiritual subjects and disciplines, do the same thing it just might tell you something.
Right now, this is a story told on a radio program (no specifics) by an un-named woman, and then recounted on a blog.
So no...this would not convince a skeptic.
Royal Prince Xenu
Trust the Psi Corps.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get a significant group of people together to do mass studies on these phenomena because of another documented meta-physical observation: morphic fields. The concept of morphic fields is similar to the hundredth monkey principle except that it has been tested.
If you bring a group of people together then it will become more and more likely that more and more people will start manifesting more and more past life memories and in the end you'll be so overwhelmed with bogus memories that the real ones will go unnoticed. This would then give you such wonderful junk that you could publish a book called, "Have You Lived Before This Life?"
KissMyStats
Patron with Honors
Past lives has been a subject that I have been interested in since I was a small child. I have believed in it for my whole life, before Scn and up until recently. Now, I'm not so sure.
I have many friends from all walks of life and religions, atheist to born-again. All of them have had the experience of, for lack of a better term, picking up other's mental pictures. We've talked about it and shared different stories.
Let's say I get a picture or concept about great sadness and see yellow flowers or something. It's with me all day. I don't think anything about it. Then I find out that someone close to me was extremely sick and I visit them and they have yellow flowers next to their bed. Ok, so my explanation is that I must have just perceived this somehow, I am a spiritual being or soul and I perceived this.
So my question (to myself) has been that maybe the pictures or concepts that one sees could just as well be things that are perceived that belong to others. If you perceive a picture of a WW2 soldier fighting in the war, maybe it's coming from just "picking it up" from someone who did fight in WW2. Why does it have to mean that you are remembering a past life ? Maybe the perceptions the person is picking up are not past lives, but just perceptions of mental pictures from others, as in my example above.
And the shows where the guy talks to people and supposedly gets into communication with their dead relatives and brings up things that are familiar,
like "I see a red car" or "is there someone named Judy?" ...... stuff like that. And the person thinks that he is contacting their dead relative. I think he's just picking up that own person's pictures or concepts....or concepts from the person's sister sitting right next to him !
I want to believe in past lives and future lives because ....... the alternative is not a happy thought. I want to think I keep going and don't just turn to dust, so to speak. But now I'm not so sure.
The bottom line is that I think we all have experienced perceiving other's thoughts and mental pictures and ideas and this is a normal activity and has nothing to do with being "OT" or past lives. It's just the nature of being a spirit. I am interested to hear other opinions about this. I was in the cult from an early age so the mindfuck began when I was at my most vulnerable !
In the meantime, I'm just trying to keep looking forward, quit regretting the wasted years in the cult and create a good life for what's left of it. I do believe in Karma, so I figure, if I create a good life and help others and be a decent person it'll all come back to me. But that's not why I do it. I do it because it's the only way to live and be happy.
I have many friends from all walks of life and religions, atheist to born-again. All of them have had the experience of, for lack of a better term, picking up other's mental pictures. We've talked about it and shared different stories.
Let's say I get a picture or concept about great sadness and see yellow flowers or something. It's with me all day. I don't think anything about it. Then I find out that someone close to me was extremely sick and I visit them and they have yellow flowers next to their bed. Ok, so my explanation is that I must have just perceived this somehow, I am a spiritual being or soul and I perceived this.
So my question (to myself) has been that maybe the pictures or concepts that one sees could just as well be things that are perceived that belong to others. If you perceive a picture of a WW2 soldier fighting in the war, maybe it's coming from just "picking it up" from someone who did fight in WW2. Why does it have to mean that you are remembering a past life ? Maybe the perceptions the person is picking up are not past lives, but just perceptions of mental pictures from others, as in my example above.
And the shows where the guy talks to people and supposedly gets into communication with their dead relatives and brings up things that are familiar,
like "I see a red car" or "is there someone named Judy?" ...... stuff like that. And the person thinks that he is contacting their dead relative. I think he's just picking up that own person's pictures or concepts....or concepts from the person's sister sitting right next to him !
I want to believe in past lives and future lives because ....... the alternative is not a happy thought. I want to think I keep going and don't just turn to dust, so to speak. But now I'm not so sure.
The bottom line is that I think we all have experienced perceiving other's thoughts and mental pictures and ideas and this is a normal activity and has nothing to do with being "OT" or past lives. It's just the nature of being a spirit. I am interested to hear other opinions about this. I was in the cult from an early age so the mindfuck began when I was at my most vulnerable !
In the meantime, I'm just trying to keep looking forward, quit regretting the wasted years in the cult and create a good life for what's left of it. I do believe in Karma, so I figure, if I create a good life and help others and be a decent person it'll all come back to me. But that's not why I do it. I do it because it's the only way to live and be happy.
Teanntás
Silver Meritorious Patron
I would say that science is well on the path to understanding the physical/chemical/biological effects or impingments of consciousness
Teanntás
Silver Meritorious Patron
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Mark A. Baker
Sponsor
Here's a 'followup' thought for you to consider.
What, if anything, is the precise functional difference between having lived a previous life and being able to directly access the memories and experiences from that previous life?
If you lived a life as 'mike' and came back as 'hilda', then 'mike' no longer exists within the present time-space construct as an 'independent entity' (if indeed he ever did). Moreover, "hilda's" life behaviors & interests may well be influenced by "mike's" life experiences & decisions without an other direct transmission between the identities involved.
The person having direct access to memories of "mike's" life, in this instance 'hilda', might be viewed in some degree as a present time manifestation of the 'mike entity'. OR, the 'hilda' entitity might be accessing some archive of life data. OR, both the 'hilda' & 'mike' entities may themselves be viewed as some sort of artificial construct and 'presence' (i.e. avatar) of another form of incompletely understood manifestation of consciousness. OR, both. Or, neither. OR, all of the above.
Various alternative philosophies or spiritual practices speak of 'oversouls' where individual identities are in some fashion viewed as part of a greater 'complex' of spirit. Some spiritual traditions, notably the tibetan, suggest the possibility that more than one individual at a time may represent a current life incarnation of what is understood to have been a prior entity.
The difficulty in coming to grips with the idea may not lie in the idea of 'reincarnation' as such so much as it may be a confusion arising from the possibly false consideration of the defining reality of what a person thinks himself to be in this life.
The concept of reincarnation is an attempt to make sense of what appears to be anomalous information arising during the course of what is assumed to be the very real present life time. What is often overlooked is that much of the reality of the present life as it is commonly understood is in fact assumed to be real on the basis of one's own subjective life experience.
When the idea occurs that the present life experience may not be that which people commonly assume it to be, then the concepts of identity, life, beingness, consciousness, manifestation, and reincarnation all become more fluid and far less fixed & definitive.
Consider for example the world views suggested in the films 'Inception' & 'The Matrix'. Both films sought to challenge their respective audience's assumptions about the nature of reality with regard to their lives and what is to be looked upon as really real.
Or, then again, maybe not.
In fact, a conflict of views on the nature of personal reality is a theme commonly addressed both in traditional philosophy and science fiction media. That is so precisely because it is a topic which on a cursory examination gives the appearance of being obvious in its character but upon a closer & more detailed logical examination reveals itself as being not at all well understood.
Reincarnation may or may not be true. What is true is that living beings experience phenomena consistent with some concept similar, although not necessarily identical, to the simple idea commonly understood as reincarnation.
The idea of reincarnation may not be exactly correct from the perspective of truth, but it is an excellent learning tool. As with many other intellectual ideas used to facilitate the growth of learning the absolute truth of the proposition is not actually required.
Mark A. Baker
KissMyStats
Patron with Honors
To Mark A Baker:
Thank you for your response. You have given me a lot to think about and consider. I read your answer twice and will again. A lot to digest there. Some very good points and examples. Wow. Cool. I agree with one thing for sure, that a reality for me doesn't mean it is a reality for others. And where I get my realities could be from other identities. I'm going to have to read your response a few more times. Thank you so much, you are helping me.
Thank you for your response. You have given me a lot to think about and consider. I read your answer twice and will again. A lot to digest there. Some very good points and examples. Wow. Cool. I agree with one thing for sure, that a reality for me doesn't mean it is a reality for others. And where I get my realities could be from other identities. I'm going to have to read your response a few more times. Thank you so much, you are helping me.
Mark A. Baker
Sponsor
Pip
Patron with Honors
Yes of course it is possible to remember past lives, but although they are real they are not true. Without time there are no past lives for the simple reason there is no past!
Time is the basic lie and is the illusion that underpins reality. So to remember past lives or not to remember past lives, both are a subjective reality but neither are true.
Time is the basic lie and is the illusion that underpins reality. So to remember past lives or not to remember past lives, both are a subjective reality but neither are true.
Teanntás
Silver Meritorious Patron
Journey of souls: case studies of life between lives By Michael Newton
Available for free on Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/673utjd
Available for free on Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/673utjd
Reasonable
Silver Meritorious Patron
I am getting a feeling that I am dealing with a person (you) who has very little scientific education.
What do you mean “You can’t put mathematics under a microscope? Math is the microscope. Math is the very language of science. As I have tried to teach you in a previous reply, all science can be explained in its basic form by physics and math it the lets you express physics.
When you say “You will never be able to put past lives under a microscope” you really show that you don’t understand science at all. You can examine anything with science. We may not have discovered how to do that just yet or our science may not be good enough yet. However to say that you will never be able to examine past lives with a scientific method just shows that you really do not understand science.
And when people do not work hard enough to understand science they turn to faith.
Then they think that if they can’t understand science then no one can.
You obviously believe in past lives (you may be or may not be correct) but you do so on faith.
So don’t call me a skeptic because I do not share your faith.
What do you mean “Scientists enjoy the journey. They don't sit back and wait for any final proofs” ? Scientists enjoy the journey and YES THEY DO WANT A FINAL PROOF.
Do you even read what you write before posting it?
As to what would constitute proof to me: How about 10,000 past life incidents where people told where they buried things and they found them to be true, or described places they never saw or never were and were correct. How about people remembering old languages that they used to speak.
How about 10,000 different people saying who they were and where they lived and matching it up to the census.
How about 10,000 cases where someone described their whole family, names dates etc.
Again this is not proof but at least this is a lot of evidence. That would impress me.
And I don’t mean 10 or 20 vague recollections. I want data in mass.
And if you can not do that yet then develop your past life regression methods to the point that you can show this kind of data. Until then all you have is faith.
Again I am not even saying that past lives are true or not I am just trying that there is no scientific proof.
From what I have seen you post you have a lot more passion than data.
You sound like a know it all who knows very little.
And the reason I am being so harsh is because this string is very offensively titled (to those of us who do understand science) “A reply to Skeptics”
uniquemand
Unbeliever
Here's how it is possible to remember past lives: the same way it is possible to think you ARE your character in a video game.
ClamSource
Patron with Honors