Reincarnation Multimedia Resources Thread

[Ninshub]

I am working on a lecture series for adult education and as part of the process of building the curriculum I shot some video. I am intending this to be just a series of videos to be used for my course planning and so it is not ready for prime time, and the lighting and editing is very rough, but since some have found the content useful I thought I'd share it.

https://youtu.be/rXv65KC36VI

Starting to watch it now. Great idea and it's cool that you're doing it - I wish you a lot of success with it.

[Ninshub]

BBC documentary.

Anthropologist James G. Matlock joins Jeff Mishlove for the first of several interviews about reincarnation:



Matlock is the coauthor (with Erlendur Haraldsson) of the book,
I Saw A Light And Came Here: Children's Experiences of Reincarnation.

James G. Matlock discusses patterns found in reincarnation cases:



One pattern I find interesting is the median intermission time (time from previous death to rebirth) for the published cases varies among cultures. It ranges from about nine months for Indian cases to 35 years for western cases.

James G. Matlock discusses patterns found in reincarnation cases:

[video]

One pattern I find interesting is the median intermission time (time from previous death to rebirth) for the published cases varies among cultures. It ranges from about nine months for Indian cases to 35 years for western cases.

I seem to remember reading in the Seth material that the time often varied from 3 to 300 years of Earth time with the typical intermission being about 30 years. But I believe there are extreme cases, some being only minutes and other being thousands of years. Then there are those who choose not to reincarnate on Earth but jump to another physical location or to another spiritual realm or dimension.

I have to admit that my grasp of the whole subject is tentative at best - all to do with the altered nature of time, space and access to other dimensions, none of which it is possible for me to understand fully from this earthly perspective.

On the subject of duration of between-life intermission, and possibly on cultural effects, the work of Dr. Helen Wambach may shed some additional light. There is the idea that the larger present-day population, compared with previous centuries, may be one factor affecting this intermission. I suppose one might infer that the different rates of population growth in different parts of the world may also play a part.

Her approach is based around gathering statistics, rather than on individual cases, and she presents arguments as to why this approach (using hypnotic regression) is valid. I'm aware that some have doubts on anything involving either hypnosis or regression, but given the relative paucity of serious research of any kind at all on reincarnation, it seems a valuable resource which should be studied.

Thanks to Steve for bringing this to my attention originally in a Skeptiko thread.



Part Two:
Dr. Helen Wambach - Regressing into the Past and Progressing into the Future, Part 2

The Science of Reincarnation



(Thanks Wormwood!)

A video promoting a new book,



Book: 100 Reincarnation Cases In Pingyang: Extraordinary True Stories of Kam People Who Recall Past Lives

Although it is available in English translation, apparently the translation is ongoing, currently about 85% complete.

In what Jeff Mishlove says is the eleventh in a series of twelve interviews about reincarnation, James Matlock claims the evidence for karma is remarkably weak in the 1700 solved cases in the UVA database. Instead, it looks as though particular thought patterns often play out over more than one life. I found this interview quite fascinating :

I found that discussion of reincarnation and the idea of karma mostly very interesting. I did feel it fell short in a couple of areas.

I do agree that the very word 'karma' may mean different things and when we use it may actually cause confusion rather than clarity since the meaning intended by the speaker may be completely different to the meaning held by the listener. For that reason I have dropped the word completely myself, it may still crop up in something I say, but I think it is such a muddied concept that it may be best replaced by different terminology.

As for the discussion, at the start I was trying to urge them both to bring up the ideas of the NDE and associated life-review, which was in fact discussed. That I feel was a positive. Well, there were a number of other positives, I didn't take notes while I was watching, so can't list them all.

A couple of things I didn't like much was (If I recall correctly) the use of the idea of cause-and-effect and then linking it with the idea of reward-and-punishment. To me the latter is mostly a useless remnant, it is I feel an idea worth forgetting. Another idea which was mentioned, that of using the concept of karma as a means of social control - ugh - another idea worth forgetting.

One major omission. Once we take the concept that our actions (or even thoughts) have consequences, why is it necessary to wait until either a life review, or a successive lifetime, in order to resolve them? Why not start right now? Following on from this, in terms of acquiring data, each of our own lives can be considered as a laboratory experiment, where these things can be studied directly. I've certainly observed cause-and-effect play themselves out within this single lifetime, sometimes directly, within seconds, or a few hours, a few days, or even a number of years. I don't see this as conflicting with the idea of free-will, rather it tends to support it.

The preferred model which I use is that of 'no separation'. By that, I mean that the concept of other people or creatures as separate from ourself is misleading. In that sense, one might even argue that all love is self-love, and all harm is self-harm. At least this is the way things seem to play out for me. (I'm well aware that others may disagree or argue against this.)     

I have sometimes mused upon what sort of a life-review I might have. I was reminded of that on reading an NDE account recently:

But, then came the "other side" of my life. To my surprise, I was not subjected to all of the lying and deceit that I would expect to see from my youth or all of the sexual trysts and dalliances from my college days.

The acts that were thrown into my face were those that seemed inconsequential and trivial.

https://iands.org/ndes/nde-stories/iands...asure.html

Back to the subject of reincarnation. It was some sort of concept of karma which led me to dig more deeply into the subject. I had (many years ago now) started to hypothesise that I must have been some sort of terrible person in a previous lifetime. What I eventually discovered was something else. It was more along the lines of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While the earlier existence I found was no saint, it wasn't some cosmic retribution, reward and punishment which was thrown upon me. No. More simply it was a continuity, so that issues remaining unresolved were eventually to be picked up and dealt with. I've often thought of this lifetime as a time of healing, as the former damage is gradually dispelled.