Michael Sudduth's critique of the Leininger case as reincarnation or psi evidence

 And I really don't want to get into a debate about Christianity. But I do feel compelled to make one point, and I hope we can leave this there, as I'm not really trying to argue, but instead want to make an observation that I hope will not seem unreasonable or controversial.

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If you want some Christians who deal with problems related to the Bible's historicity in a serious way, rather than brushing off challenges and demanding that people just believe, I'd recommend Craig Blomberg and Lydia and Tim McGrew. Blomberg's _The Historical Reliability of the New Testament_ might be a good place to start if you're interested.

Thanks for taking the detour and I agree with you that there are some very clever Christian apologists and I've been particularly impressed by the arguments of Alvin Plantinga although the debates usually focus on Christian Philosophy rather than Biblical Literalism.

Some people have memories that cause them to believe in the Mandela Effect

Incorrect memories, indeed. However, my memories are indelible and not related to particular events. I know without any question that I've been here before but it is only of value to me. I even knew about the life review because during the early part of my life I made a point of being extremely nice and kind to others (because I already knew that we are 'confronted' with it when we return) and then I got bored with that and toned it down to being normal (ie not trying to be a saint). 

And because I knew that "last time" I failed (out of fear) I stood up to the school bully (unlike anybody else) and got a pasting for it, which I knew I would of course because he was a big brute, but it's something I had to do and I did it against all my common sense. 

It doesn't matter to me that you don't believe in reincarnation, Brian, I don't like the idea of it, either, believe me. The thought of coming back here again fills me with dread. I think I'll ask I can skip the next incarnation.

It doesn't matter to me that you don't believe in reincarnation, Brian, I don't like the idea of it, either, believe me. The thought of coming back here again fills me with dread. I think I'll ask I can skip the next incarnation.

I recall talking to a Scottish sensitive* who said she could remember she'd been here 7 times and it apparently hit some limit.

She looked forward to doing something else in the next afterlife she had after this life was done.

*not exactly a medium, she couldn't exactly talk to the dead but apparently could get some information. I can't personally vouch for her but my friends felt she had good hits which was interesting since I was the one who arranged things so only my information could be searched online.

I'm a third the way through it and I am finding the arguments to be pretty strong. The new information Sudduth presents about the musuem and the blue angels film are compelling enough, and that they are given only a few lines dismissal by Jim Tucker is pretty damning (who apparently never watched the film himself). I'm still reading to see where James Leininger got the name and location of James Huston, but it's looking like two attention hungry parents downplayed that the only thing their kid was watching for months was a film about ww2 era and beyond aviation to sell a book which Jim Tucker ate up.

There's a thread on this same topic on the Reincarnation forum.

http://reincarnationforum.com/threads/re...back.9940/

The main contributor, going by the name GuySittingintheStands, has struck me in the past for his meticulous and patient almost forensic analysis of details in some reincarnation cases. In his most recent post he does point out some holes in Sudduth's story.

There's a thread on this same topic on the Reincarnation forum.

http://reincarnationforum.com/threads/re...back.9940/

The main contributor, going by the name GuySittingintheStands, has struck me in the past for his meticulous and patient almost forensic analysis of details in some reincarnation cases. In his most recent post he does point out some holes in Sudduth's story.

I'm still taken aback that Sudduth was allowed to publish his report without any subsequent input from those he was accusing of fraud/incompetence, and that Braude even mentioned it as a challenge to reincarnation studies as a whole prior to the publication itself.

Something just smells a bit fishy here, maybe just the biases of people involved (both being Super Psi advocates)...

That's a great link btw, thanks for that. I liked this post especially by GuySittingintheStands:

Notice in the Black Box Online Radio interview (youtube clip post #7) how Sudduth walks back the claim that James came up with the name Jack Larsen by watching the Blue Angels Around the World at the Speed of Sound video. ( Black Box Online Radio interview -- video in post # 7 at 28:54 - 30:40 ). The interviewer asks Sudduth how the name "Larsen" shows up in the video and Sudduth is forced to admit that the name only appears as a caption ("title") on the screen. Finally Sudduth has to concede: "Who knows where [James] came up with it [the name Jack Larsen]?".

Sudduth's conjecture about the origin of the name of Jack Larsen was always a little strained. James had come up with the name Jack . . . Jack Larsen by the fall of 2000, when James was still only 2 years old. Sudduth was asking us to believe a 2 year old James Leininger read the name "Larsen" off his TV screen while watching the Blue Angels video several hundred of thousands of times. A 2 year old. Really?

But it was Sudduth himself who chastised Bruce for not noticing the name "Larsen" printed as a caption in the Blue Angels video, because it could have been a possible source of the name Jack Larsen. Now we know that Sudduth himself believes that theory to be a bit of a lark.

Also the lack of mention of Anne Barron, who was the sister of James M. Huston. Of course she must also be a fool in Sudduth's opinion, like Kastrup (who largely agrees with Suddth re: Super Psi) and Tucker and from what I can tell most of the human population of planet Earth.

I'm still taken aback that Sudduth was allowed to publish his report without any subsequent input from those he was accusing of fraud/incompetence, and that Braude even mentioned it as a challenge to reincarnation studies as a whole prior to the publication itself.

Is Jim Tucker's response no longer planned to appear in JSE? Or do you just mean that you're surprised that a response wasn't published simultaneously with Sudduth's critique?

Is Jim Tucker's response no longer planned to appear in JSE? Or do you just mean that you're surprised that a response wasn't published simultaneously with Sudduth's critique?

The latter. There seems to be an odd rush to get this out, when it would have been better to wait for Tucker to read the article and give his rebuttal in the same issue.

The latter. There seems to be an odd rush to get this out, when it would have been better to wait for Tucker to read the article and give his rebuttal in the same issue.

My impression from recent issues of JSE is that there is a concerted effort to get more mainstream scientific "legitimacy" for SSE and JSE by featuring a higher and higher percentage of pedantic academic-seeming papers only bordering on the meat and potatoes subjects that used to be SSE's lifeblood. Like UFOs, mediumship, psi and reincarnation. The thinking would be that no journal can acheive academic respectability if it openly publishes research and arguments for the reality of such "impossible" phenomena. It would be expected then that there would be an emphasizing and doubling-down on alternate less paradigm-breaking explanations for such phenomena regardless of the history of such "explanations" failing critical examinatiuon as general explanations for the category of phenomena. Like super-psi or "living agent psi" with mediumship and reincarnation. Hence their giving Sudduth's skeptic revelations such prominence without any reasoned rebuttals in the same issue.

Of course this apparent trend could simply be due to a pervasive drying-up of funding for any research in these areas, and a corresponding lessening of interest.

I'm still taken aback that Sudduth was allowed to publish his report without any subsequent input from those he was accusing of fraud/incompetence, and that Braude even mentioned it as a challenge to reincarnation studies as a whole prior to the publication itself.

Something just smells a bit fishy here, maybe just the biases of people involved (both being Super Psi advocates)...

The politics in all this are new to me.  You have been presenting the work of S. Braude and I didn't get the influence it apparently has.  Thanks for the focus, and maybe you would make some comments as an overview of the effect from your point of view?

I had seen "super psi" as a physicalist-based approach, but it seems to be more of Phenomenalist (and hence more inclined to pragmatic analysis).  From a marketing viewpoint, the statement below is a victory in the long-term arc of Psi.  Actual events, taken one at a time, can become well-formed data and be sorted as being Psi-associated.

Am I way too happy??

  After all, streaks of good or bad luck might still be fortuitous. But if psi functioning does operate in the world on a day-to-day basis, one might reasonably expect it to manifest in these ways, even if it does not do so consistently or often. And in that case, it might be worthwhile to carry out depth-psychological studies of lucky and unlucky people. We could look for connections between their good or bad fortune and such things as their self-image, hidden agendas, and relations with others. Of course (as already noted), no definite conclusions about the presence of psi will emerge from such studies. But occasionally a psi hypothesis might be particularly enlightening or suggestive in the way it systematizes an otherwise motley array of unconnected occurrences, or in the way it makes sense out of otherwise seemingly paradoxical features of a person’s life - Stephen Braude

The Sudduth arguments were poorly executed, I did not get the same openness to the event being a solid Psi data point, with an appropriate margin of error.  Really, that's all he argued.  The boy's phenomenal personal experiences, are unique and meaningful enough to be recorded and considered.