I acknowledge your key points.  I do not deny their possibility in certain cases.  However, your critique does not address my key points.  You are the one ducking.

I will give you another opportunity.

How do you interpret individuals with uncanny similarities with their "past life incarnations"?  Those who are able to accurately provide details about real individuals who have lived in the past who they claim have been their past lives, and the parallel traits these individuals share, such as nearly identical physical, mental, and emotional traits, including scars, marks, and diseases in the exact locations the "past life" incarnation had a significant injury.  Surely this is more than just a "spirit merger." 

One question for you.  What is the purpose of these spirit mergers, or as ES calls them, possessions.. why do these spirits do this?  And are you saying that every person alive is a "victim" of these spirit mergers/possessions?  Because almost every individual put under hypnosis is able to recall having a past life.

And what of the strikingly identical accounts of the afterlife, namely the life in between lives, which are prevalent among these subjects?  These individuals describe the planning and preparation of beginning a new incarnation after they are through with a previous one.  Although most of these individuals are completely unaware that such a thing even is possible before hand, they all describe nearly identical key aspects of this experience. This is something that neither of your "explanations" prove wrong, and must be taken seriously if one is going to examine this issue honestly.

Dude and recoverer,

Thank you for setting the table for my refutation of reincarnation.  It's fascinating that neither of you can detect your circular reasonsing and, yes, how you both persist in ducking my main points.  I'm swamped with other responsibilities right now, but stay tuned!

Don

Wow, Don.  You are biting off a chunk here.

No one you have ever lived with, who is significant in your current life, who has any impact on you day to day, is anyone you have lived with before?  You are kidding, right? 

What you say is that everyone who perceives any previous life, a significant connection to another soul, is either possessed or mistaken?  Do you not feel the connection to your parents, your siblings, aunts, uncles, wife, children, grandparents, nieces, nephews, co-workers, friends?  If not, I am sorry for you.  The significance these people play in your life is hinging on the connection they had with you in a previous life or lives.

In my own case, devoid of possession or delusion, I have been able to trace those of significance to me back over several lives.  No one I deal with on a continuous basis is someone with whom I do not have a prior affiliation. 

You may make your case studies and promise us that you will soundly refute "reincarnation" but you have yet to refute anything, and what you say and the sources you quote do not alter what I feel to be right. 

I am sorry for those with whom you live your life...your inability to accept the significance they hold in your life must be painful to those of them who see beyond the dogma.  My best wishes to you and to them.

Usetawuz,

It is you who are a bit out of line here.  No one would deny you your right to believe that you have strong connections to your oved ones that transcend this life.  But there are those of differing opinions.   My love for my family is strong - I've told my seven year old that I am convinced that my love for him is so strong, I would volunteer to incarnate to watch over him - were it possible.  Maybe, in fact I did.  However, I have no evidence of this.  Much evidence gathered via hypnosis supports the reincarnation hypothesis (Michael Newton).  However, one experienced hypnotherpist on this forum (Dave-MBS) has said that he believed that Michael Newton led his patients by suggestive questions under hypnosis.  That is why they all gave similar pre-life answers, and found past lives.  He led them to open doors, and look inside, and they had instant tremendous knowledge influxes of a life.  Was it theirs?  It sure felt like it to those under hypnosis.  Could they have had a soul or mind merger and been so blown away that they felt they experienced the "past life" from their own eyes - absolutely. 

We have enough to work through in this life, enough joy, pain, wonder and heartache.  So much so, how sad it is really that many of us lose sight of the present and try to sort through a hypothetical but unproven past life.   Hello?  You are here.  I am here. 

Put another way.  If we do reincarnate and wipe our memories, there is a reason for that.  Almost a tacit agreement.  So to say to a loved one, "ah yes, I am repaying a karmic debt to you from a past life where I did harm to you," is to give more credence to an unproven past and thereby lose opportunities for living in the here and now.

Some argue that we must investigate past lives to heal traumatized aspects of ourselves.  If, after we die, we have the time. and our minds are opened enough to all information that we can actually do this, I say - great idea!  However, it seems that while here on earth, we are meant to live in the here and now.  We shouldn't rob our interactions with our loved ones with speculation about past life interactions with them that are all just speculation.

Explore - yes.  Keep an open mind.  Reincarnation may not be as common as some presume - but either way, explore on your own. 

But live for today.  Hug your loved one because you love them in the present.


Matthew

Brian Weiss is one of the people who helped me understand reincarnation:

http://www.brianweiss.com/

It seems illogical that a "loving" creator would only you one life to "get it right" or damn you to eternal hell for simply being human.

Thanks for pointing out the ELEPHANT in the room, Heisenberg. I hoped someone would.

This may not be pleasing to what some want to hear, but it is in no way meant to be an insult to anyone's belief system:

On looking at things further, it seems to me that belief in reincarnation, and the probing of past lives and karma seems to be feeding an ego-based need.  If we look at all the signs we get from heaven and the afterlife - the golden rule, acting out of love for others instead of personal gain, etc. all those things speak to thought and action in the present, as well as cultivating a certain sense of humility and selflessness with a desire more to serve others than to focus on one's own desires.

If I probe a "past life" in order to understand why I act a certain way now, or what tendencies I brought with me to this life, it is, in some ways indulging my ego based thinking - we are separte from God while incarnate, and my probing of a past life where I willingly separated myself off inside a body may lead useful information to my curious mind/ego.  It does not, however, change the path of spiritual evolution through love of God and one's fellow man.  It does not change the reality that in order to act out of love we must let go of our ego based thinking, in order to become part of the bigger picture.  This doesn't require melting into a mindless void, but many of us suffer from these earthly ego based attachments.  Perhaps, if I may be so bold, the desire to explore past lives and karma is, in some ways holding on ego based attachments.     

So in some ways, perhaps I find myself less interested in exploring potential past lives, because I've seen and experienced enough in this life to know that spiritual evolution moves away from ego based karmic thinking. 

When one acts out of love, there is no negative karma.  The wheel of karma is broken, because one removes the isolated incarnated entity from the game.


Matthew