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

To address the first of your objections: you go on a fishing expedition for any and all "possible" alternate explanations for apparent past life recall information coming out in the utterances of small 2 1/2 - 5 year old children (for example), no matter how implausible. You even don't absolutely rule out coincidence, even though the chances or probability if this is vanishingly low. But anyway, assuming the case was "solved" by the investigators and a candidate past life was found matching this information on the past personality, you suggest that the bare possibility no matter how slight of there being an alternate explanation or explanations for the correlation, constitutes sufficient evidence that the skeptic position that there was no reincarnation phenomenon, but some sort of paranormal information transfer, is the case. In following this path, you ignore the abductive reasoning approach to the best explanation very successfully used in criminal forensics, for instance, where multiple lines of evidence, for example including the evidence of a person's fingerprints and murderous modus operandi and even witness restimony all point to this particular person as being the murderer, are used as sufficient evidence for a murder charge. Following your approach, the police would indefintely keep looking for other candidates, because other "possibilities" still theoretically exist that, for instance, the fingerprint evidence was planted (in the absence of any evidence of that), and the modus operandi was that of a copy-cat (in the absence of any evidence of that), and the witness testimony was simply mistaken or bought-off, also in the absence of any evidence of that. 

In addition: in doing this with the apparent reincarnation cases, you ignore the factor that the apparent past life memories were incorporated into the child's personality as personal memories of a past self, and sometimes accompanied by other abilities that are only accomplished by long practice and enculturation, like aptitude for and enjoyment in playing the piano, or aptitude for and enjoyment of cooking, for example. These phenomena are exhibited as part of the child's persona, not as snippets of information plucked out of the Akashik records for example. In order to take this route of skepticism you need to show how mere information can plausibly be transformed into intimately integrated personality characteristics, without their being in truth personality characteristics of the persistent self of the child entity.  

I submit that this appears to be an example of semi-closed-minded hyperskepticism. Of course you're free to dispute this.

Very good!
Thank you for the debate.
Good points, in particular the personality and skills point. Where we still have no clue where "personality" actually develops from. We can see some awfully bad eggs that are born bad eggs. I wouldn't ASSUME that this bad egg is bad because of past life events, but it is a possible direction TO LOOK.
Evidence is piling up for genetics, even genetic memory. Mostly chemistry imbalances. Nothing magic there.
Add that many people suddenly get the piano playing skill or math skill if they suffer brain damage. Pocket savants and all that. So did these brain injuries open up something they knew in a past life? How would we know except that the person might THINK SO, BELIEVE SO, and be able to say a name and address or other history data? You see where that goes.
It kicks open the door that every possible subliminal piece of information gets used to falsely support the reincarnation theories.
This would include data that I pick up from other people regarding history?
Since a telepath is capable of getting data you have in your mind and repeating it to you, does that make everything you know part of past life memory?
Nope, that's just silly, isn't it?
How do we determine where this data came from? 5 year old or not? We don't know that they aren't getting the data from another source, and did not live that. At the same time, how do we split the telepath data from actual past life data?
Being stuck and not accepting any other explanations EXCEPT reincarnation is an example of being semi-closed-minded, but not as a skeptic, a closed mind makes a person a non-critical thinker. The assignment of the data to nothing but a past life, lumping it all together, this is the mistake. 
Evidence like fingerprints are in no way the same as the evidence for or against reincarnation. I will accept the "idea" but not the example.
Side note: If people had the same fingerprints from life to life, I would be convinced this is great evidence, lol.
If it was solid evidence with no open questions, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Science wouldn't question any of this if the evidence didn't have gaping holes and flaws, or other avenues of perception that are possibly being misinterpreted.
As someone else stated "the experience of Mandela memory isn't proof that reality has changed or that the assumption is correct" and we have no way of really testing that, leaving it wide open for all the woo woo that creeps in the back door, in an area where the woo woo and false information is horrifying and in control.
So we can't afford to assume. We have to have 20 thousand times more proof for everything compared to other science disciplines.
Unless we state the many possible ways this information can reach and influence a child, we are stuck making assumptions and not being critical.
Any paper we write needs to say, we know telepathy can happen and could supply this information. We know psychics can get information, and this child has or has not been tested for these attributes and we are simply ASSUMING they are stating actual memories. We assume the Akashic record might be a source. We assume that the source is an antique found in the attic that belonged to the past life person, etc. We can't stop and rest.
You see what I mean?
If we just railroad the ideas into this funnel, close our eyes and call it good, then your logic is fine. Plenty of evidence, we are done here, never going to find the truth or question this again, never going to update my knowledge, I'm a fan... but that is not a scientist.
Speaking of courts, they railroad everyone, as often as possible, while the wealthy walk away from everything. So nothing about court is factual or real, and it has nothing to do with fair or proper. Everyone knows that, lol.

Another point:
As someone who has tried psychometry with some success, just touching anything that "holds" any information will supply everything as a feeling or memory.
So we need to add psychometry to the list of possible sources.
So I'm not being a skeptic at all.
I'm actually more open to all of the possible explanations AND that they can all exist, at the same time, and likely need to be split up in these studies instead of forcing them to be something they are not.

Another point:
As someone who has tried psychometry with some success, just touching anything that "holds" any information will supply everything as a feeling or memory.
So we need to add psychometry to the list of possible sources.
So I'm not being a skeptic at all.
I'm actually more open to all of the possible explanations AND that they can all exist, at the same time, and likely need to be split up in these studies instead of forcing them to be something they are not.

I think psychometry does need to be studied but I am not sure this falls into the same category as past-life memories...perhaps in some cases with less details it might be a factor.

Very good!
Thank you for the debate.
Good points, in particular the personality and skills point. Where we still have no clue where "personality" actually develops from. We can see some awfully bad eggs that are born bad eggs. I wouldn't ASSUME that this bad egg is bad because of past life events, but it is a possible direction TO LOOK.
Evidence is piling up for genetics, even genetic memory. Mostly chemistry imbalances. Nothing magic there.
Add that many people suddenly get the piano playing skill or math skill if they suffer brain damage. Pocket savants and all that. So did these brain injuries open up something they knew in a past life? How would we know except that the person might THINK SO, BELIEVE SO, and be able to say a name and address or other history data? You see where that goes.
It kicks open the door that every possible subliminal piece of information gets used to falsely support the reincarnation theories.
This would include data that I pick up from other people regarding history?
Since a telepath is capable of getting data you have in your mind and repeating it to you, does that make everything you know part of past life memory?
Nope, that's just silly, isn't it?
How do we determine where this data came from? 5 year old or not? We don't know that they aren't getting the data from another source, and did not live that. At the same time, how do we split the telepath data from actual past life data?
Being stuck and not accepting any other explanations EXCEPT reincarnation is an example of being semi-closed-minded, but not as a skeptic, a closed mind makes a person a non-critical thinker. The assignment of the data to nothing but a past life, lumping it all together, this is the mistake. 
Evidence like fingerprints are in no way the same as the evidence for or against reincarnation. I will accept the "idea" but not the example.
Side note: If people had the same fingerprints from life to life, I would be convinced this is great evidence, lol.
If it was solid evidence with no open questions, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Science wouldn't question any of this if the evidence didn't have gaping holes and flaws, or other avenues of perception that are possibly being misinterpreted.
As someone else stated "the experience of Mandela memory isn't proof that reality has changed or that the assumption is correct" and we have no way of really testing that, leaving it wide open for all the woo woo that creeps in the back door, in an area where the woo woo and false information is horrifying and in control.
So we can't afford to assume. We have to have 20 thousand times more proof for everything compared to other science disciplines.
Unless we state the many possible ways this information can reach and influence a child, we are stuck making assumptions and not being critical.
Any paper we write needs to say, we know telepathy can happen and could supply this information. We know psychics can get information, and this child has or has not been tested for these attributes and we are simply ASSUMING they are stating actual memories. We assume the Akashic record might be a source. We assume that the source is an antique found in the attic that belonged to the past life person, etc. We can't stop and rest.
You see what I mean?
If we just railroad the ideas into this funnel, close our eyes and call it good, then your logic is fine. Plenty of evidence, we are done here, never going to find the truth or question this again, never going to update my knowledge, I'm a fan... but that is not a scientist.
Speaking of courts, they railroad everyone, as often as possible, while the wealthy walk away from everything. So nothing about court is factual or real, and it has nothing to do with fair or proper. Everyone knows that, lol.

Excuse the bluntness, but it is called for. You've produced a dense blizzard of mostly unevidenced reassertions of your previous arguments by assertion (an invalid debate tactic), without really engaging with my argument from the many observations by very careful and thorough investigators of deep and closely past-life related personality characteristics in the apparent reincarnation subjects. Which response needed, (to be plausible), to consist of detailed descriptions with some sort of corroborating data of exactly how transfers of mere information via "Living Agent Psi" (LAP) or super-psi of some kind, along with some other paranormal phenomenon such as the so-called and unevidenced "Akashic Records"), could plausibly mimic personality behaviors of apparent past-life origin. Also needed and not furnished were detailed descriptions of the alleged by you "gaping holes and flaws" in the reincarnation evidence elucidated by Ian Stevenson for instance, a very careful investigator. 

In a related area I might mention that you also didn't address and furnish some sort of plausible detailed argument against the obvious common-sense interpretation of birthmarks and birth defects strongly resembling the traumatic death injuries of the apparent past lives, being the direct and closely related effect on the reincarnated person's body of the past physical trauma that led to the death of the previous personality, an interpretation eminently in accordance with abductive reasoning to the best available explanation given the investigation-derived data. In order to plausibly argue to LAP of some sort as being the cause, you needed some sort of "explanation" of exactly how LAP processes could somehow mimic this phenomenon. With some sort of data to back it up.

And you didn't engage with my observation, in your arguments and re-assertions, of many signs of the fallaceous
closed-minded selective hyper-skepticism mode of argument. In an edit I furnished more information on the nature and signs and symptoms of hyper-skepticism.

The responses on my part in #90 apparently brought on in your #91 the old device of your figuring that if enough lumps of smelly brown substance are thrown at a wall, maybe at least a little might stick. And it is such a multitudinous swarm that it would take an ungodly amount of time to address every chunk individually, more than I have or have the patience for.

And of course all this also constitutes just more examples of the fallacious closed-minded selective hyper-skepticism I pointed out. I notice that you haven't disputed my charge of your flagrantly using this invalid line of skeptic attack, but merely resume it even amplified.

Bravo!
No arguing your points, or debating them. Case closed? 
I have to asssume that since you have taken the time to personally attack me in the past, that this is the continuation of that process.
You are right no matter what, and will argue just for the sake of argument, while you make it all personal and attack other people's intelligence and ram your righteousness up their behind with force.
That is not debating. That is more like politics.

You are obviously not open to anything. What is the point of debating when your mind is closed?

Btw, there is a difference between my being critical as a "defiance disorder", a condition that challenges people to question and think about the conclusions, alternatives, or challenges you to define what is actually fact and fiction, and someone being a negative skeptic.
If you can't see that, well that's not my department.

I am not skeptical of the evidence presented. And you don't get to decide what I do or don't have for reasoning with your bullying.

It is what it is. And you saying that shows you don't care to do much except slam others with your negative comments about them, and not the subject matter. You make it into some personal attack, which it is not.

Very .... never mind.

I am annoyed that it is stuffed into a box as if this were the alpha and omega of all things concerning reincarnation or karma when there CAN be multiple reasons for this information, or other sources where the information originates. To blindly go where all men have gone before, accepting whatever they say, is not what I will ever be about. You go ahead if that is all you wish to see and understand. Erich von Däniken is very convinced of his own arguments, but that doesn't make all of it correct and beyond reproach. It makes him a fanatic.

No amount of your negative demeaning or trying to make my comments into something negative will change that, it simply makes me want to ignore your input.

To ignore telepathic sources or how a chiild might download and experience akashic data is simply being narrow. Who cares if the science researcher is convinced, that doesn't automatically make everything fit into this scenario of everything being reincarnation. 
If you choose to believe that, then it becomes religion, not science.
And we all know you can never challenge a person's religion, in particular in the anything goes world of today.
With the exception of scars, all we have are people with memories, where these come from is not set in stone or science. It is assumption, plain and simple. THESE DON'T HAVE TO BE THAT PERSON'S PAST LIFE, period. Multiple things can account for this knowledge. 

So on this line of thought, How about if I say you are a skeptic of telepathic, medium, psychometry, and many other forms of gleaning information, and insist that EVERYTHING is only reincarnation related? Slam your thoughts and make it personal? 

Not to see other avenues shows something pretty obvious about non-critical thinking and being stuck in your own headspace. Be it that you need to be right no matter what, or whatever this is.

I don't appreciate you trying your best to ram skeptic up my rear at all, and I think you are overstepping out of convenience to your own purposes. You enjoy ramming skeptic up people's behind as some kind of proof of your evidence argument. Making it appear as though you are completely and utterly correct, while slamming people with insults and demeaning them. Not good, you should reconsider the option of inserting thoughtful comments or supportive data?
What is up with that?
Why are you so nasty?

Any paper we write needs to say, we know telepathy can happen and could supply this information. We know psychics can get information, and this child has or has not been tested for these attributes and we are simply ASSUMING they are stating actual memories. We assume the Akashic record might be a source. We assume that the source is an antique found in the attic that belonged to the past life person, etc. We can't stop and rest.
You see what I mean?
If we just railroad the ideas into this funnel, close our eyes and call it good, then your logic is fine. Plenty of evidence, we are done here, never going to find the truth or question this again, never going to update my knowledge, I'm a fan... but that is not a scientist.
Speaking of courts, they railroad everyone, as often as possible, while the wealthy walk away from everything. So nothing about court is factual or real, and it has nothing to do with fair or proper. Everyone knows that, lol.

We've actually gone through a few of these Live Agent Psi vs Survival arguments over the last year, and it seems that Living Agent Psi explanations are almost always found wanting.

Even Braude, a big Living Agent Psi advocate, ended up leaning toward Survival in Immortal Remains.

We've actually gone through a few of these Live Agent Psi vs Survival arguments over the last year, and it seems that Living Agent Psi explanations are almost always found wanting.

Even Braude, a big Living Agent Psi advocate, ended up leaning toward Survival in Immortal Remains.

Any good links there?
Having lived a long time, I am fascinated by this ever-evolving need to rename everything and present old data as new data, old ideas as new, yet never achieving any deeper understanding or real working data that would help define better experiments to prove or disprove things.
The results and facts should speak volumes all by themselves.
Pooling knowledge and resources should lead to a better understanding and not end up in disagreements, which end up in funding being cut and never moving forward. 
Sometimes it feels like they talk themselves into a corner, and keep talking, regardless of the extreme need for factual data and evidence.
Add that they rarely, if ever, consult those who have abilities, or properly recruit them for most studies.
Add that they rarely, if ever, include multiple disciplines in the analysis or experiment creation process, or allow consultation by people with psi abilities.
So, they achieve this personal level of satisfaction, while not really helping to improve the outcome. Put the blinders on and make assumptions.
I presume that belongs to the brainwashing of the educational system, where a scientists philosophy and theory are only accepted if you have the paper on the wall to back up what you say?
I think I mentioned before, they have to earn the respect first, watch out for your career, make sure to brown-nose and play politics, and if you survive that, people might listen to what you say... Lol. I don't have that problem. I can just float around and see what falls out when I turn it upside down and shake it.
For me, the proof is in the pudding. If I can, and they can't, and they are trying to tell me what it is that I experience, and how that happens, without ever having been there and done it, then they are simply the blind men describing the elephant. I can see, they can't. This form of intelligence is not likely to get them there.

Any good links there?
Having lived a long time, I am fascinated by this ever-evolving need to rename everything and present old data as new data, old ideas as new, yet never achieving any deeper understanding or real working data that would help define better experiments to prove or disprove things.
The results and facts should speak volumes all by themselves.
Pooling knowledge and resources should lead to a better understanding and not end up in disagreements, which end up in funding being cut and never moving forward. 
Sometimes it feels like they talk themselves into a corner, and keep talking, regardless of the extreme need for factual data and evidence.
Add that they rarely, if ever, consult those who have abilities, or properly recruit them for most studies.
Add that they rarely, if ever, include multiple disciplines in the analysis or experiment creation process, or allow consultation by people with psi abilities.
So, they achieve this personal level of satisfaction, while not really helping to improve the outcome. Put the blinders on and make assumptions.
I presume that belongs to the brainwashing of the educational system, where a scientists philosophy and theory are only accepted if you have the paper on the wall to back up what you say?
I think I mentioned before, they have to earn the respect first, watch out for your career, make sure to brown-nose and play politics, and if you survive that, people might listen to what you say... Lol. I don't have that problem. I can just float around and see what falls out when I turn it upside down and shake it.
For me, the proof is in the pudding. If I can, and they can't, and they are trying to tell me what it is that I experience, and how that happens, without ever having been there and done it, then they are simply the blind men describing the elephant. I can see, they can't. This form of intelligence is not likely to get them there.

Well Braude's book Immortal Remains is probably a good start.

I think psychometry does need to be studied but I am not sure this falls into the same category as past-life memories...perhaps in some cases with less details it might be a factor.

Having a bit of talent in psychometry, the information can be pretty interesting, depending on how "connected" and "in-depth" the entangled history data is in any particular object. 
Be that object a house, or other geographic locations as well. 
Some of these locations playing history back like a broken record, over and over. Where some people can then capture this with audio and photo evidence. It doesn't make these areas reincarnations of the past. These are reruns that exist just like a hard drive.

I have to combine telepathy and psychometry until they are taken apart properly as separate things.

It also kicks open the door to the Tulpa idea, where only bits and pieces, or parts of a person, parts of data still exist, and these are in no way the complete person, personality, or history of anyone or anything. 

It is also not in chronological order for me, not spelled out.

AND, the big turd in the sky is that I fill in the blanks with my own thoughts, memories, feelings, place holders, etc.

Let us take the pain someone else felt, but I feel that myself when I touch something, and we know it isn't my pain. Does that make this information my own memory? No, it doesn't. But it feels real, and presents itself like a memory being recalled to me.

When I touch an antique object, and feel the memory of someone who cherished it for many years, is that reincarnation? Nope. Yet it is hard to distinguish that "feeling" from my own feelings and memories, because I use my own sensory data, my own memories, my own symbology to reflect what it is I'm feeling.

Can a 5-year old do that properly? I doubt it very much. Can a 5-year old telepath read you like a book and repeat what you want? Certainly!

I could have touched any number of things in my childhood that "supply" me with direct quantum connections to all sorts of actual history, and read plenty of people telepathically that survivied wars and supplied me with very real and horrifying experiences that I then "FEEL" to my core as if they are my own. Does that make these telepathic or psychometric memories my own real history? Nope. 

So, we can never rule out telepathy, mediums, psychics, psychometry or the many other forms of connecting to other people and feelings, memories and experiences.

To do so is denial of other data, other facts, and false assignment of all data to reincarnation, when that is not correct. And this is coming from someone who has experienced memory and pain from living people, knows what it feels like, and can come back and share this. Scientists be damned if they refuse to listen to us.

An example from a gold ring. Touching it gives the visual of a dark haired young man. The ring is owned by a young woman. She can confirm that this is a description of her boyfriend and he gave her the ring. Now, was it the ring carrying the information, or her connecting the ring to her boyfriend in her own mind and me reading her mind for this information? 

In this case, we can't really know. 

We assume it is pyschometry and not telepathy because I feel like the ring supplied me a conduit for the correct answer. 

We have to create a different type of experiment where you remove the other human being from the equation, and nobody else should know the facts of any object, since this would taint the results with the possible telepathic data. 

In remote viewing we get the same thing, past and present are not clear, any disturbance can make the focus change, it is hard to pick your target, etc. 

In AP we might see real places, but we have trouble confirming they are in the present and real descriptions. 
We have no clue if the method of actually seeing something is in our own mind, from our actual astral projection, or if we are reading another person's memory or thought of what we are seeing, or their imagination for that matter. Big point there, if I am reading minds, made up data or imagination should also present itself, and that would be a wonderful test. Too bad I can usually tell when people are lying.

Anyone still alive that might have known this past life person is then capable of supplying this data to any other person, consciously or sub- / un-consciously.

Anyone reading about this dead person or knowing about their lives, even children of the neighbors of this past life person who have heard stories, become possible sources of data.

Most of the crime TV shows with psychics touching objects and getting correct data isn't definitive as to the source. It could be data from the perspective of the criminal, or the victim, or akashic records, or telepathy. 

Most of them claim that it feels like the deceased victim is supplying the information. Yet "they" don't narrate it properly to solve the crime. All the while people claim it is some soul or higher self that should have no boundaries and blah blah. Not buying that BS.

It ends up being this guessing game of bits and pieces that have to be sorted. It also puts any kind of precognition in a poor light. How come this victim didn't see something this important, murder, coming at them?
Why aren't all victims then born with the markings?

So, there are any number of known phenomena that can supply this type of "supposed reincarnation" information. 

So, the argument is, how much of the data is being "forced" into any reincarnation study that could still be from many other possible sources?

And, why are we selecting to do this with this information when we know it isn't correct to do this?

Is it wishful thinking? Grasping for straws?

Is it the same as when the mind plugs in bits and pieces of data to complete visual pictures? 
We do this when people are talking, if they miss a word, we can automatically just plug in what we think should go in that slot, but that doesn't make it correct.

So, as said, I'm not skeptical that reincarnation exists, the data does support this in many different cultures and to include certain belief systems like the well-known and loved Gyalwa Rinpoche.

Scars and other data are very impressive. My own strange memories are very impressive. 

I am still missing any reports of horrible people like Stalin being reincarnated and remembering who they were, and other murdering types, while seeing too many who claim to be Cleopatra. 
We can't allow this woo woo, or assumptions, if this is ever going to be taken seriously.

Then, we get mediums claiming they are talking with a dead person, a spirit, someone known to the person they are speaking to, and at the same time some child is repeating the same memory and claiming it as a past life. 

Yet this spirit can't even tell the medium who the recipient of this information should be. 
They have to start fishing and asking questions to figure out who this "spirit" is even talking to, much like the reincarnation study. Just fuzzy data, find a square hole for this square peg and fill in the gaps with whatever fits our goal. That is simply bad mojo.

So which is it? 

Did this person already reincarnate and the child has the correct memory? 
Or is the medium correct and is talking with a dead person?
Who has the correct answer about the past? If both do, then it is simply reading data in different ways. 
And does it feel real to both, certainly. The mind likes to screw us like this, presenting us with angels talking to us instead of just giving us the data with details like it should.

This version makes the child into a medium who is misinterpreting the memory. In reality they might be in touch with the spirit of this dead person and not remembering anything personal. Perfectly reasonable if you see the studies and data from both of these.
As long as both exist, we can't say for certain what is going on. What we do is to pick a side. What we should do is take the experiments further to exclude and include enough data to determine if they are the same or different. This is not the case with the current evidence, it is simply evidence and can be added to piles of multiple different kinds of interesting phenomena evidence that shows zero continued effort to really understand the "truth" of any of it.

Maybe we can have both the living version of the deceased, and some leftover part of that as a spirit? 

I don't like the idea that we have both, thus we need to include a blind study where the mediums, telepaths, and psychics are included in the reincarnation study. Until they do, and keep all of this separated with blinders on, they are not looking at all the facts or all the possibles and will continue to make assumptions.

As said, much of the evidence can still be moved into categories where there are alternative possible explanations. Until they fix this with proper experiments, they are hurting the study by making assumptions with "could be" data, not "for sure" data.

To ASS U ME can only happen on the way to knowledge.

An addition concerning the Tulpa reference, for those who don't know.

1. (Buddhism, mysticism) A magical creature that attains corporeal reality, having been originally merely imaginary.
   
2. A type of thoughtform capable of independent action, with a persistent personality and identity; a kind of modern imaginary friend.
   

In the same way that a tulpa could exist or be "created" we can have the existing leftovers of any living person or thing still wandering around. Incomplete in memories, it is mainly a reduced and focused version of intent, where the intent decides if this creature is kind, cruel, helpful, or dangerous.

So, there would be no reason not to include these "leftover" possible creations as something that contacts people in dreams or waking life and leaves the impression of memory on that person. In particular if your frequency fluctuations happen to match those of this kind of entity.

See also the Indonesian Kris or Keris, imbued with personality at the time of forging by the blacksmith. Or an object created where a spirit may live and help protect the family it serves. Usually created from meteorite fragments.

I can go on and on with history and magic, esoteric and religion, where objects are supplied with magical properties, or familiars are used, or the genie in the bottle, or oracles, or shamanism, and connect all of that to some form of setting that would match the evidence for reincarnation.

It is all about that question, how do you know this evidence applies to this subject in this manner?