I begin by exploring the legitimacy of past life regression.  I only ask that posters confine their comments to this practice until I shift the focus of this thread to other flaws in alleged past life recall.
Two of the poster boys for alleged reincarnation evidence are Michael Newton’s hypnotic regression technique and Dr. Ian Stevenson’s research on the past life recall of young children.  Future posts will discuss fatal flaws in Stevenson’s own research .  But even he dismisses past life regression of the sort performed by Newton.  Newton admits his patients have some sort of psychological disorder.  His claims do not follow the pattern established by other researchers on NDEs and past life recall, not even reincarnationist Joel Whitton’s “Life Between Life.” Nor have his findings been replicated in controlled studies.  Nor has Newton has not published his findings in any scientific journal subjected to peer review by experts in clinical hypnosis. 
More importantly, as a psychiatrist, even Dr. Stevenson is well aware that it is illegitimate to use hypnotic regression techniques in support of reincarnation: “In my experience, nearly all so-called previous personalities evoked through hypnotism are entirely imaginary and a result of the patient’s eagerness to obey the hypnotist’s suggestions.  It is no secret that we are all highly suggestible under hypnosis.  This kind of suggestion can actually be dangerous.  Some people have been terribly frightened by their supposed memories, and in other cases the previous personality evoked has refused to go away for a long time (Omni Magazine” (1988).”  Thus, it comes as no surprise that even Sigmund Freud abandoned hypnosis as a treatment method when he discovered so many cases of false memories. 
In fact, scientific research at Harvard and elsewhere has repeatedly demonstrated that “people with memories of false lives are less able to discriminate between imagined and real events both inside and outside the laboratory.”  Thus, respected organizations like the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Australian Psychiatric Association express dismay that hypnotic regression is misused to recover adult memories of childhood sexual abuse!
Yale psychology professor, Dr. John Kilstrom, summaries the consensus of the experts surveyed in Fromm and Nash, “Contemporary Hypnosis Research:” and Barnhardt and Kihlstrom’s review in Wegner and Pennebaker’s “Handbook of Mental Heath.”   “Everything we know about hypnosis tells us that hypnosis is first and foremost and experience of the imagination.  The analogy is to hypnotic age regression where we suggest to adults that they are children once again….If regression to age 5 doesn’t produce the real thing, why should anyone expect more of past life regression?
Many New Agers lamely claim that their regression “helped” them. Of course, any cultist can claim that experiences that support their dogmas “helped” them.  But as Dr. Kihlstrom observes,  “There is not even a single clinical study with anything like an acceptable design—showing the past life regression has positive therapeutic effects.”
Less important but more amusing is a report I read of a study of 500 subjects who experienced mass hypnotic regression to past lives.  There were several Napoleons and other famous dead worthies.  At least New Ager Helen Wambach’s parallel study offered avoided this comedic expose.
I also read a study on several past life readers.  These readers were confronted with the inconsistencies among the readers.  They dismissed this objection on the grounds that each reader might have tuned in to a different life.  So researchers shifted the study to immediate  past lives.  This approach exposed their delusions.  Each reader imagined a different past life for each subject!

Don

Where is my delusion based when I undergo self-hypnosis and am taken to amazingly detailed past lives?  Methinks you doth protesteth too much.

Don,if I were you I would not ask god if you had a past life.I think if you do you will regrett it.

usetawuz wrote on Mar 7^th, 2010 at 7:59pm:

Methinks you doth protesteth too much.

Sorry, I know that is incorrect...but whether it should be "Methinks you protesteth too much", or "Methinks you doth protest too much", I do not know...

Me thinks THOU DOST protest too much.

Don-

One of the few things in ACIM that I agreed with was what was said about reincarnation.

Namely, it really doesn't matter whether a person believes in it or not.  What matters is how a person lives his/her life.

R

Beau wrote on Mar 8^th, 2010 at 11:04am:

Me thinks THOU DOST protest too much.

Thank you, Beau...

With many who claim past life regression experiences, they do come up with grandiose claims of being powerful or important people during that past life expearence. Not all of believe we have had such important past lives. In fact it is highly unlikely. We would be far more likly to be slaves, workers, farmers, even your neighbour, etc. When I hear stories of these other regressions, and also with the many people who call themselves clairvoyants, it separates the truthful from the bull.
Now, I personally believe that I have lived a number of times before. My last death was Aug 24, 1952. Of that I know. Death in the water. Drown. Ibelieve off of California.
When Don brings up group regressions, and a number of people believed themselves to be Napoleon, there still might be some connection to an event or timeline surrounding living at the same time as him. Perhaps a person wishing to emulate him. Or someone who fought in one of his many armies. But as I know I have lived past lives, I would never dismiss the expearence of the person outright.
That opinion of Don that past life, and current life regression is "amusing", hypnotism and regression therapy, "cultest" and that it "exposed their delusions" is not surprising coming from someone with a religious background. Perhaps there is some sort of delusion going on here. Could it be that it stems from a desire to not believe adults that have been hypnotised and now remember the transgressions of their molesters? Or those who enter into a memory of a past life and no longer can except a fear based religion that insisted that if you dont follow their rules and obey their leaders you will be cast in a pit of fire and suffer damnation forever. Dosent surprise me that Don dosent beleave in it.

george stone wrote on Mar 8^th, 2010 at 1:10am:

Don,if I were you I would not ask god if you had a past life.I think if you do you will regrett it.

Hi George. Of all the answers, yours was the best! ...Don! That intellectual religious guy, will never acknowledge reincarnation. His whole christian belief system will collapse upon this physical and spiritual truth and reality! And that's not counting on his present delicate mental-emotional state if it were confirmed to him from supernatural sources within himself, this truth, which he will dismiss as false revelations as usual. Regards. Carl.    

Hey hawkeye,I can see the the outline of a mans face on the right,and a womans face on the left.Can anyone else see it.in your post.George

I am not seeing it George, but you did say you were having some interesting things going on with your PC. Or it could be that your picking up on a vibration. I prefer to believe that if that is the case it is because you see me as one with All, and not that my comments are two faced. ;) Take care George.

Hawkeye.if you look in the spaces between your words,and than lean back from a bit from your message,and focus,I think you will see the outline.

I'm not seeing it, but I tend to only see things that are dumped into my head...

Not seeing it either, but I'm not very visual when it comes to stuff like that, and when I am, it's in the evening when I'm relaxed.  Now you've got me curious.

Quote:

Hey hawkeye,I can see the the outline of a mans face on the right,and a womans face on the left.Can anyone else see it.

It depends on the width of your browser window. If you want us to see what you're seeing, tell us how wide your window is (or something like maximized at 1280x800 screen resolution)

take care,
Vagabound

Stand away from your computer and you will see it,my cleaning lady could see it.its all on the left side of the message.George

Well, you're saying the spaces between the words make the pictures.
These pictures will disappear if you resize the window, because the words will be at a different spot.
That's why we can only see the picture you're describing if our browser windows have the same width as yours.

As a psychiatrist, Dr. Ian Stevenson has studied the research showing that hypnotic regression is not a reliable tool for regressions to early childhood, let alone past life recall (see my first post).  But he is also aware of the fascinating sources of false memory of past lives.  For example, he points to a  case in which a woman vividly remembers a past life in detail.  In fact, her past life recall drew the name and details from a novel in her house whose pages she had flipped through, but which she denied reading.   What started the New Age past life craze" was a book entitled "The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956)."  The subject, Virginia Tighe, both scored hists and made errors.  But cryptonesia is again involved because it was later discovered that a woman named BHridely Murphey Corkell had lived across the street where Virginia had grown up. 

Neither do Stevenson's own cases of the past life recall of young children fare any better.  In 2 of his cases, it can be shown that the prior personality was still allive AFTER the birth of the child who alleges past life recall.  Nor will it do to invoke the dubious notion of parallel incarnations to escape the force of this criticism.  This alternative misses the point that the deceased personality had just died recently and this suggests that 2 newly dead people wanted to almost immediately re-enter earth life and so they did so through possession and not through reincarnation.  Remember, it is widely recognized that the memories of possessing entities seem to the possessed to be their own memories!  This insight vindicates Swedenborg's astral discovery that astral past life recall is rather a case of spirit merger in which the explorer is unaware of the invasive discarnate spirit's presence and that spirit's memories are mistakan for past life memories. 

Don
 

I remember an interesting story of someone who recalled an attack from an airplane in WWII back when he was a boy. It had been a single fighter shooting at him with a machine gun, and he hid in a ditch beside the street. Many years later he went to a cinema to watch an old movie. How baffled he was when he saw this very scene in that movie! He figured then, he had seen this movie earlier, not long after WWII and this scene of the movie melted together with a real attack. So, hidden memories, and even false memories are a factor.

However, when we furthermore consider the possibility that so-called past-life memories could be actually picked-up memories of someone else, then a proof of reincarnation is impossible, as I can't see how one discerns an own memory and a memory of someone else which appears as an own memory.

Spooky

spooky2 wrote on Mar 21^st, 2010 at 11:02pm:

I remember an interesting story of someone who recalled an attack from an airplane in WWII back when he was a boy. It had been a single fighter shooting at him with a machine gun, and he hid in a ditch beside the street. Many years later he went to a cinema to watch an old movie. How baffled he was when he saw this very scene in that movie! He figured then, he had seen this movie earlier, not long after WWII and this scene of the movie melted together with a real attack. So, hidden memories, and even false memories are a factor. However, when we furthermore consider the possibility that so-called past-life memories could be actually picked-up memories of someone else, then a proof of reincarnation is impossible, as I can't see how one discerns an own memory and a memory of someone else which appears as an own memory. Spooky

That's pretty interesting. This kind of strikes a chord with me. Back in 2007, I was sleeping and had my very first lucid dream. In the dream I was in a large city and visited a sports bar. I can remember pretty vividly the way it looked. The first floor included a dancing area, tables to eat at, and a large bar. The top floor was more of a lounge area with rooms which included traditional games, arcade games, and a TV room. You could also order food from up there. I'll skip the other details of the dream.

But towards the end everyone started running and screaming. I was on the top floor which could actually lead outside to a balcony. We all looked up and saw jets flying over our heads and lots of explosions going on. The last thing I remember was looking at a single object flying directly up and exploding bringing chaos down upon all of us. I woke up at that point so out of breath I fell into my wall when I got up. It was intense.

Later that day I went to see Transformers and it featured a trailer for Cloverfield, which had a scene in the trailer that looked so much like the end of my dream that it sent chills through me.

Just wanted to share.  :D

With the frequent dogmatic allusions to "the Jesus Disk,' this seems a good time to revisit the discussion of my critique of past life recall as evidence for reincarnation. 

People have dogmatic viewpoints partly because they listen to what other people have to say without having any experience that collaborate such viewpoints. It is easier to get people to follow such dogma if in some way you fear them into doing so.

On the other hand, some people believe in the Disk viewpoint because they "had" experiences that collaborated such a viewpoint.

Regarding such experiences being nothing more than imagination that is triggured by what somebody like Bruce has to say about the matter, it is possible to have the viewpoint validated in a way where it seems clear that this isn't the case.

There is also the matter of Bruce having a Disk vision before reading of such a thing. Ron Kruger had an NDE where he experienced his greater self in such a way, even though he didn't read or hear about such a thing beforehand. P.M.H. Atwater and Tom Sawyer experienced their greater self in such a way during their NDEs.

I know of another man, I can't remember his name at this time, shortly after World War two he also had a vision where he found out  about things such as Oversouls without having first read or heard of such a thing.


Berserk2 wrote on Jan 30^th, 2015 at 2:14am:

With the frequent dogmatic allusions to "the Jesus Disk,' this seems a good time to revisit the discussion of my critique of past life recall as evidence for reincarnation.

recoverer wrote on Jan 30^th, 2015 at 2:42pm:

People have dogmatic viewpoints partly because they listen to what other people have to say without having any experience that collaborate such viewpoints. It is easier to get people to follow such dogma if in some way you fear them into doing so. On the other hand, some people believe in the Disk viewpoint because they "had" experiences that collaborated such a viewpoint. Regarding such experiences being nothing more than imagination that is triggured by what somebody like Bruce has to say about the matter, it is possible to have the viewpoint validated in a way where it seems clear that this isn't the case. There is also the matter of Bruce having a Disk vision before reading of such a thing. Ron Kruger had an NDE where he experienced his greater self in such a way, even though he didn't read or hear about such a thing beforehand. P.M.H. Atwater and Tom Sawyer experienced their greater self in such a way during their NDEs. I know of another man, I can't remember his name at this time, shortly after World War two he also had a vision where he found out  about things such as Oversouls without having first read or heard of such a thing. It might've been difficult for Jesus to speak about reincarnation to the masses in a truthful way because he would've had to do so in a Disk way, and not many people in his day would be open to such a way of understanding. Berserk2 wrote on Jan 30th, 2015 at 2:14am: With the frequent dogmatic allusions to "the Jesus Disk,' this seems a good time to revisit the discussion of my critique of past life recall as evidence for reincarnation.

recoverer wrote on Jan 30^th, 2015 at 2:45pm:

recoverer wrote on Jan 30th, 2015 at 2:42pm: People have dogmatic viewpoints partly because they listen to what other people have to say without having any experience that collaborate such viewpoints. It is easier to get people to follow such dogma if in some way you fear them into doing so. On the other hand, some people believe in the Disk viewpoint because they "had" experiences that collaborated such a viewpoint. Regarding such experiences being nothing more than imagination that is triggured by what somebody like Bruce has to say about the matter, it is possible to have the viewpoint validated in a way where it seems clear that this isn't the case. There is also the matter of Bruce having a Disk vision before reading of such a thing. Ron Kruger had an NDE where he experienced his greater self in such a way, even though he didn't read or hear about such a thing beforehand. P.M.H. Atwater and Tom Sawyer experienced their greater self in such a way during their NDEs. I know of another man, I can't remember his name at this time, shortly after World War two he also had a vision where he found out  about things such as Oversouls without having first read or heard of such a thing. It might've been difficult for Jesus to speak about reincarnation to the masses in a truthful way because he would've had to do so in a Disk way, and not many people in his day would be open to such a way of understanding. I agree that information received through hypnosis isn't fully trustworthy and that some Ian Stevenson's cases might've been possession cases. Berserk2 wrote on Jan 30th, 2015 at 2:14am: With the frequent dogmatic allusions to "the Jesus Disk,' this seems a good time to revisit the discussion of my critique of past life recall as evidence for reincarnation.

Please read my last post rather than the one before. The edit feature isn't working correctly.