Reincarnation Cases

That's not a scientific view, because it isn't based on anything that has been demonstrated by scientific research. Don't claim science as a buzzword as if it adds something to your statement. That is a purely skeptical view and nothing more. The research was conducted in as scientific a manner as possible given the circumstances. I'm a pretty skeptical person and come from an actual science background; I don't take methodology lightly.

For me, if those are the explanations given for the broad and well documented research by Tucker, Stevenson, and others, I'm perfectly content with that. Fraud, coincidence and false memory can explain some cases; they can't explain them all, and when someone tries to use them to do so, it tells me that they just don't have a good explanation via "ordinary" means. 

Instead of painting with the broadest paintbrush possible, could you tell me your thoughts specifically with regards to the case presented in the OP? Are you personally familiar with the cases and research, or do you take Paul Edwards' word for it?

Edit: Didn't even see Ninshub's "non-moderator" comment, but it seems he caught the same inconsistency as I did.

Let me confine myself to to "proponents vs skeptics" section from now on. Then we can debate the pros and cons of reincarnation if you like. From now on I will only post in that section of the forum. I think it would be easier actually if skeptics were only aloud to post in that section of the forum. Apologies if I broke the rules.

Let me confine myself to to "proponents vs skeptics" section from now on. Then we can debate the pros and cons of reincarnation if you like. From now on I will only post in that section of the forum. I think it would be easier actually if skeptics were only aloud to post in that section of the forum. Apologies if I broke the rules.

I may regret this but....
I for one, have no problem having discussions with folks who may not agree with what I am saying. I guess in my mind there is a difference between a hard core, (and maybe belligerent?) skeptic, and a sincere person who just has a different view to share and discuss, in a productive way.

Am I being totally naive to think that we can have civil discussions without the rancor associated with rampant skepticism?  

If so then yes, maybe dissenters should have a separate place. OTOH: call me a whining idealist if you like, but that doesn't seem like the best solution me.

OK. Now I guess I'll sit back and let people more experienced than me in forum planning, management, and politics figure this one out,, because maybe I just don't get it because I'm over my head... Wouldn't be the first time.

Let me confine myself to to "proponents vs skeptics" section from now on. Then we can debate the pros and cons of reincarnation if you like. From now on I will only post in that section of the forum. I think it would be easier actually if skeptics were only aloud to post in that section of the forum. Apologies if I broke the rules.

I'm not debating the pros and cons of reincarnation, I was asking for you to assess the case I posted, which is one of a very large body, individually. 

Of course you are welcome to do as you please, but as far as I've been told, you're permitted entirely to have legitimate discussion of the merits of cases here. What I believe is unacceptable is blanket dismissals of things, like saying "reincarnation doesn't exist, full stop," with very little elaboration. If you're willing to engage in debate about the specifics and implication of cases here, there's no issue with that whatsoever. But if you'd rather carry out the conversation there, we can do that too.

If we agree that time is an illusion, then how can there be "reincarnation"? Reincarnation requires a death, a release of spirit, a choosing to take on a new energy form (human since we are discussing discarnates), entering that new incarnation...this is the pathway of time. This is what "past lives" and "future lives" as terms requires....time.

Yes time doesn't exist. Id there is no time, then we have the Now, the eternal moment. Where reincarnation cannot be possible.

In your thinking, how do you account for ancestors/parents etc.? I fully expect my grandchildren or great-grandchildren to have their own kids after I'm not around to see them. Doesn't this refute your point?

Pssst Wrote: [url=http://psiencequest.net/forums/post-2232.html#pid2232][/url]If we agree that time is an illusion, then how can there be "reincarnation"? Reincarnation requires a death, a release of spirit, a choosing to take on a new energy form (human since we are discussing discarnates), entering that new incarnation...this is the pathway of time. This is what "past lives" and "future lives" as terms requires....time.

Yes time doesn't exist. If there is no time, then we have the Now, the eternal moment. Where reincarnation cannot be possible.

In your thinking, how do you account for ancestors/parents etc.? I fully expect my grandchildren or great-grandchildren to have their own kids after I'm not around to see them. Doesn't this refute your point?

If you have grandkids or ggrandkids, they exist Now in a parallel reality which is perceived as the future but it is not.

Hey thanks Pssst. 

I looked for this sucker on line for hours a few years back and couldn't find it. I finally gave up and bought the darn thing for $20. It's a little cheesy, but the story is good (I think). And for me personally it hit home because...

 -this is the reader's digest version of the story- 
I had a couple lucid dreams 1-2 years before I read the book or saw the movie and I was shocked when I watch the film... That's because I saw a scene that I had in my lucid dream almost identically. Luckily I journal all my important dreams, and I went back and looked and found the entry, complete with a sketch of what I saw in my dream,, and it was spot on, with the movie. So I know this dream is based on something real, because I experienced it first hand, exactly as it happened in the film...

For those interested in the "Life Between Lives" (LBL) aspect of our existence, this is a great place to get a taste of it. 

Why should anyone be interested in LBL? Because it is your real home or at least more real than this life you are living. If true, this is the place where you were before you came here, and the place to which you will return. It is the place where a more complete you exists. According to most: you exist there at this very moment. The you here in this life is but a fraction, a percentage, of the full you. The rest of you awaits your return. Weird stuff I know but pretty sure that's how reality works folks. And even if not completely true, it is more true than: we are born from nothing, we live for a few decades, and then we die and everything goes black. That is not how it all works.

Yeah, it is cheesy but in a compelling way, it is so very interesting. I could actually overlook the Hell interpretations (very Christian-like in a Portuguese-Catholic kinda way) but it is what is to be expected from a spiritist medium like Xavier.

Book

Hey thanks Pssst. 

I looked for this sucker on line for hours a few years back and couldn't find it. I finally gave up and bought the darn thing for $20. It's a little cheesy, but the story is good (I think). And for me personally it hit home because...

 -this is the reader's digest version of the story- 
I had a couple lucid dreams 1-2 years before I read the book or saw the movie and I was shocked when I watch the film... That's because I saw a scene that I had in my lucid dream almost identically. Luckily I journal all my important dreams, and I went back and looked and found the entry, complete with a sketch of what I saw in my dream,, and it was spot on, with the movie. So I know this dream is based on something real, because I experienced it first hand, exactly as it happened in the film...

For those interested in the "Life Between Lives" (LBL) aspect of our existence, this is a great place to get a taste of it. 

Why should anyone be interested in LBL? Because it is your real home or at least more real than this life you are living. If true, this is the place where you were before you came here, and the place to which you will return. It is the place where a more complete you exists. According to most: you exist there at this very moment. The you here in this life is but a fraction, a percentage, of the full you. The rest of you awaits your return. Weird stuff I know but pretty sure that's how reality works folks. And even if not completely true, it is more true than: we are born from nothing, we live for a few decades, and then we die and everything goes black. That is not how it all works.

What was the scene you dreamed?

I am intrigued, as I have a few dream like memories from childhood that resonate with ideas in this film. They are those weird dreamy type memories that feel more like memories than dreams, but are so weird that they simply "must" be dreams.

One of those for me was being a person who seemed to be in a vast but underground expanse. I remember standing close to a ceiling which was like natural rock, or inside a cave. I know that just beyond this ceiling, this rock, is the world where we all are now, and I yearn to escape, or tunnel out or something.  Although the other world feels so close, as if I could reach it if I tunneled, there is also the sense that it is far away, like in a different dimension. Weird dream. Feels like a dream, because it is so weird, but also feels like a memory, like it happened. It has a certain quality of experience to it, that fantasy lacks. Anyway, I will never know.

It will be Interesting to hear what your dream presented to you.

For those interested in the "Life Between Lives" (LBL) aspect of our existence, this is a great place to get a taste of it. 

Why should anyone be interested in LBL? Because it is your real home or at least more real than this life you are living. If true, this is the place where you were before you came here, and the place to which you will return. It is the place where a more complete you exists. According to most: you exist there at this very moment. The you here in this life is but a fraction, a percentage, of the full you. The rest of you awaits your return. Weird stuff I know but pretty sure that's how reality works folks. And even if not completely true, it is more true than: we are born from nothing, we live for a few decades, and then we die and everything goes black. That is not how it all works.

[quote pid='2646' dateline='1504148872']
Well, you never actually leave spirit but that's neither here nor there. 

Yes, it's that simple, complex but not complicated. We chose to have a physical experience in a physical body because it is one of the best ways to create unique POV. You enter the Earth Plane remembering quite a bit of who you really are only, as childhood passes, you rapidly forget. Society, parents, friends, enemies, all contribute to your belief systems which, as you come of age, must be individually examined for the relevance to your true (spirit) vibration. If they are out of alignment, drop them. As you go this course, you come closer and closer to re-membering the real You, the spirit You.

[/quote]

Pssst Wrote: [url=http://psiencequest.net/forums/post-2232.html#pid2232][/url]If we agree that time is an illusion, then how can there be "reincarnation"? Reincarnation requires a death, a release of spirit, a choosing to take on a new energy form (human since we are discussing discarnates), entering that new incarnation...this is the pathway of time. This is what "past lives" and "future lives" as terms requires....time.

Yes time doesn't exist. If there is no time, then we have the Now, the eternal moment. Where reincarnation cannot be possible.

What do you make of the cases?

Typical Stevenson, clear, undeniable and well researched.

He simply has the wrong terms for the right approach. Or you might could say that he felt it necessary to state his findings by labeling them as "reincarnation" since this is a more familiar response to those in physical, time-based reality. No problems with either discussion, one is more operationally accurate.

Let me say this another way, from a personal POV. Decades back, I began studying reincarnation. Which led to exactly what happens to you (pl) between incarnations. Enter the concept of the spirit world. And on. If there had not been the Stevenson's of the world, and their time-based findings, I might have passed entirely on the entire subject.

Typical Stevenson, clear, undeniable and well researched.

He simply has the wrong terms for the right approach. Or you might could say that he felt it necessary to state his findings by labeling them as "reincarnation" since this is a more familiar response to those in physical, time-based reality. No problems with either discussion, one is more operationally accurate.

Let me say this another way, from a personal POV. Decades back, I began studying reincarnation. Which led to exactly what happens to you (pl) between incarnations. Enter the concept of the spirit world. And on. If there had not been the Stevenson's of the world, and their time-based findings, I might have passed entirely on the entire subject.

Right, I agree with that, at least broadly. Calling it "reincarnation research" is perhaps just the best way to convey vaguely what it's about, even though, if the results actually reflect something real, we don't know the actual nature of that reality. 

I also agree about the importance of the research. Likewise, I would've probably ignored or passed on giving any of this much thought were it not for reading a few of the cases. I found them worth looking deeper into, and I think that they are important, very important even, studies.