Interesting comments by Bruce Greyson

"Beyond Human Personality"  was written by the spirit of F. W. H. Myers through the medium Geraldine Cummins.

IV Reincarnation
I Am quite clear that those human beings who live almost wholly in the physical sense while on earth, must be reborn in order that they may experience an intellectual and higher form of emotional life. In other words, those human beings I have described as "Animal-man" almost invariably reincarnate.

'Reincarnations' are not required to spiritually advancing akin to a ladder.

Thought everyone would enjoy the input of someone more "up" on reincarnation cases as a whole, so I emailed my question in the OP to Titus Rivas. Who, with all respect to Bruce Greyson, had this to say about his comments:

This is really nonsense. There are no reliable cases in which two children remembered the same past life and both showed clearly paranormal knowledge about it that cannot be ascribed to normal factors, such as prior (normal) knowledge of their parents etc. This is simply not true. The rest of what he is saying is explicable by the fact that reincarnation does not have to take place at conception or birth, and reincarnation scholars, including myself, usually explain such cases by a type of possession or replacement reincarnation. For instance, in the case of Jasbir, the child seems to have died, after which a different personality takes over. There is no question of a child living this life and at the same time recalling a life in which it would have been conscious simultaneously. 

It would seem Greyson isn't as up on the evidence as he could be, and that his concerns are far from "troubling" for reincarnation

'Reincarnations' are not required to spiritually advancing akin to a ladder.

In my experience, they certainly can be required, depending on what the individual Soul's will is. Reincarnation and experiencing through different egos can provide specific experiences that we simply could not learn through any other method. Ignorance, limitation and struggle, in the particular ways that physical existence and human ego can provide, can push us to grow in ways that we just could not, otherwise. I don't really understand why, not from this ego-perspective, but I know it to be intuitively true.

I have very limited knowledge of some of my previous incarnations, but only because I must have deemed these snippets necessary. They have helped me understand the gist of what this lifetime means for me, but knowing more would make the bitter struggle less entertaining. Entertaining, as in, providing challenges that I will later relish having overcome.

I prefer the gestalt soul idea. Each personality has individual validity within a greater entity - a gestalt of all those once incarnated personalities. No reason, then, that the gestalt (higher self or soul) could not incarnate two personalities in contemporaneous earth time. In the bigger picture, however, (and in ways I can't grasp intellectually) all these lives are simultaneous if earth time is an illusion.

Linear physical time isn't an illusion to the perspective of our egos that are bound to it, though. I see no reason why past incarnations cannot take place in the future of our current incarnation. Different times for different needs? I don't think that all lives are quite simultaneous, though... or if they are, I struggle to understand why.

As for two personalities... you've heard of the "Twin Flame" concept? Seems to be a similar, if not the same, idea.

Thought everyone would enjoy the input of someone more "up" on reincarnation cases as a whole, so I emailed my question in the OP to Titus Rivas. Who, with all respect to Bruce Greyson, had this to say about his comments:

This is really nonsense. There are no reliable cases in which two children remembered the same past life and both showed clearly paranormal knowledge about it that cannot be ascribed to normal factors, such as prior (normal) knowledge of their parents etc. This is simply not true. The rest of what he is saying is explicable by the fact that reincarnation does not have to take place at conception or birth, and reincarnation scholars, including myself, usually explain such cases by a type of possession or replacement reincarnation. For instance, in the case of Jasbir, the child seems to have died, after which a different personality takes over. There is no question of a child living this life and at the same time recalling a life in which it would have been conscious simultaneously.

It would seem Greyson isn't as up on the evidence as he could be, and that his concerns are far from "troubling" for reincarnation

Interesting!

This makes me wonder ~ despite various people claiming to have been a past reincarnations of the same person, this doesn't make it true. Only one Soul can live an incarnation, from everything I understand. Many of these various people may just be unconsciously tapping into the Akashic Records, most likely.

Interesting!

This makes me wonder ~ despite various people claiming to have been a past reincarnations of the same person, this doesn't make it true. Only one Soul can live an incarnation, from everything I understand. Many of these various people may just be unconsciously tapping into the Akashic Records, most likely.

Most of them will simply be fantasizing, I'm afraid ;-)

I guess the question is - what is the evidence for it in each instance?

Interesting!

This makes me wonder ~ despite various people claiming to have been a past reincarnations of the same person, this doesn't make it true. Only one Soul can live an incarnation, from everything I understand. Many of these various people may just be unconsciously tapping into the Akashic Records, most likely.

Alternative solutions to this conundrum have been proposed.

For example, one suggestion is that a 'soul' (for want of a better term) may sub-divide and inhabit multiple individual earthly bodies for a later incarnation. Whether these soul-segments are proposed as later re-combining, or proceeding to each evolve separately thereafter is not clear.

I don't say I support this idea, however in my view so little is known of existence beyond this physical life that it is difficult to be certain of anything.

One thing I would say, is that it is not sufficient to be in possession of facts or information regarding some other person who lived previously. What really counts is the state of being. How to test or define that I'm not sure, but to me it is the only thing which matters with regard to reincarnation. For example I am who I am today. If I forget the names of my schoolteachers, or other details from this current life, I am still who I am. Possessing or not possessing those facts doesn't affect one's state of being. Likewise if one completely forgets all details from a previous existence, that does not mean there was no such existence.

Likewise if one completely forgets all details from a previous existence, that does not mean there was no such existence.

I should have added also, lack of factual recall does not mean that one is not impacted by previous existence. One does not start afresh in each lifetime as a blank slate, but as a fully-formed consciousness with its own history from the outset. I use the word 'history' loosely here, it may be more of a metaphor for what I'm trying to express, since in a timeless eternity history would not make semantic sense, there is only being.

We hear from science the question of heredity or environment as the only two factors affecting us. They may each play a rather minor and superficial role, rather than comprising the entirety.

[url=http://v-j-enterprises.com/myers/BeyondHumanPersonality.pdf][/url]You gather the wisdom of the ages, not through the continual "Sturm und Drang" of hundreds of years passed in the confinement of the crude physical body, you gather it through love which has a gravitational pull and draws you within the memories of those who are akin to your soul, however alien their bodies may have been when they were on earth.