Reincarnation

[Judith]

Years ago I had a girlfriend and a friend of her family did the whole past life thing. Anyhow it turns out that in several previous lifes I was a woman. Have any of you any views on whether a past life as a female could be a factor in some peoples need to xdress?

[Carol Ann]

No never lived before.

[Carolynn]

Uhmmm, nope, don't think I have ever lived before. Oh yeah, I did live a past life as a guy, but SRS and hormones along with a name change took care of that problem.

So no, not a fan of re-incarnation.

There is being mad about something that made you angry before, but that is re-intarnation!!!

[DonnaT]

No idea whether or not I've been reincarnated.

[Paula G]

No, generally I consider myself rational ~ said the guy in a dress...........

[Paulette]

I'm familiar with past-life exploration, memory mutability, and false memory construction. The reality is that "this" is the only reality we can ever know. And even here, memory sucks for those not blessed or cursed with perfect, eidetic memory. I can forget what I was doing when going from one room to the next.

We can create or enhance wishes into believably realistic memories, but there has never been any clear proof that past lives exist or that it's possible to access them. Still what one believes to be true is true for them.

[Anthony Simon]

Well, I don't believe in any of these things. Like I don't believe in God or life after death or anything like that. Or that's what I tell myself. And then I find myself responding to astrological signs like I believe in them.

[Anita]

Oh yeah, I did live a past life as a guy, but SRS and hormones along with a name change took care of that problem.

No, generally I consider myself rational ~ said the guy in a dress.....

This thread brings out the stand-up comedian in everybody, is what I see.

We can create or enhance wishes into believably realistic memories, but there has never been any clear proof that past lives exist or that it's possible to access them. Still what one believes to be true is true for them.

Thing is, Paulette, I have a really good imagination. I can create songs and stories that have very believable characters, and they have a reality for me and for others. But I have had at least four instances of "memories" that came to me in flashes, that had no resemblance to what I know how to 'wish' or imagine. They brought immediate recall (like the way you sometimes know in dreams exactly what's going on), and the emotion in at least one was overpowering.

I have nowhere to place these incidents in my regular life. They don't prove reincarnation, but they are also not part of anything that I recognize in my day-to-day routine. A physical therapist was working on my left wrist several years back. Suddenly I "saw" Mongolian men on horseback, surrounding me and my (Caucasian) calvalry, and I 'knew' that what came next was that my sword arm was cut off, and then we were all slaughtered. She had to stop working on me--I yelled and started crying, right there on the table.

Only one of the four times was I a woman. I saw my then-girlfriend as a big farmer, and I was "his" petite wife. We were living in a sod house, in Nebraska. I only put these out as experiences I've had, and if they happened all the time, I'd probably not be able to function very well. Once every four or five years, well, I can handle that.

[Judith]

In the 1970s there was a report on the look news about a boy (aged 11) who had from his early childhood always claimed to have been a Germany pilot during WW2. He lived in the NE of England (South Shields I think), had never studied German, didn't have any German speaking friends, family or neighbours nor had he ever visited Germany, yet from childhood he could speak German fluently. He'd never studied aircraft, aeronautics or ever had a flying lesson, yet had intimate knowledge of how to fly, the controls, etc, of a ME-109 fighter. He had intimate details about that pilots life, where was born and raised, his praents, relatives, friends, his squadron, the type and serial of the plan he flew, where and how he was shot down and in which military hospital he died.

This lad had never undergone hypnotic regression and there was internet. Yet everything he claimed was proven by British and German military records, explain that one.

[Anita]

This lad had never undergone hypnotic regression and there was internet. Yet everything he claimed was proven by British and German military records, explain that one.

When a story like this comes along, supporters point to it, but it's too rare an occurrence.
If it were happening to many, many people, then it could be studied and documented. An occasional case like this one may be puzzling and hard to explain, but it doesn't really prove anything as an isolated case.

I wanted to reiterate--my experiences don't prove anything, either. But having experienced them, I understand why people think that reincarnation might be so. Whatever is happening to me at these times, it's "outside" the kinds of memories that I have of this particular life.

[Sarah Ann]

I bear an open mind on this. What I know of reincarnative memory is a mixed bag. I have seen some totally bogus regressions, but I also am familiar with cases like Anita's experience and the boy with the WWII memories. What can't be ruled out from an occult standpoint is memories being channelled from an outside source like the so called "Akashic records". Whatever, as noted above, it's a low probability occurrence. Maybe God rolls dice when you croak

Some notes about reincarnation: It's accepted as real by Hindus, Buddhists, most neopagans, New Agers in general, and a sizeable chunk of Orthodox Jews, chasids in particular (A rabbi in Israel got in very hot water a while back by blaming the Holocaust on the victims' bad karma). It has a seldom considered social downside as doctrine; in the majority Hindu/Buddhist countries it's been used politically as an excuse to ignore issues of charity and human rights on the grounds that the poor/disabled/etc. are simply enjoying the fruits of their past lives. It's been implicated in higher suicide rates as well.

BTW, "Defending Your Life" was a mordantly funny movie. Anybody else see it?

[Leeza]

Some notes about reincarnation: It's accepted as real by Hindus, Buddhists, most neopagans, New Agers in general, and a sizeable chunk of Orthodox Jews, chasids in particular

Reincarnation was also a belief of the Christian religion till about 800 AD.

There are many things that when we close our minds we cannot see even if it hits us over the head.

Do I think I have had a past life? I don't know, but I did have a friend tell me he was sure I did,

I do think there is far more than what we know or can see.

[DonnaT]

Many have a hard time believing in something they've never experienced.

Plus everyone's mind/memory isn't the same, so remembering a past life can be very difficult to impossible for many. Heck, I can't even remember much of this life, which I regret.

Is it reincarnation or possession by one who has passed. I do believe in ghosts, but I didn't until my Grandma visited me. Could a ghost implant memories into someone still alive? Who knows!

[Judith]

Thing is people believe in the existence of the soul and an afterlife, so why should it be viewed as impossible that a soul can return into this world to live another life in a different body, or that a spirit (ghost) can visit this world.

But there one theory I heard years ago. Basically, it goes that if our universe is one of an infinite number of parallel universes existing on the 3rd dimension, of a multiverse of 136 dimensions of time and space. Whilst within this multiverse there are an infinite number of different versions of each of us, some living a similar life and others living a vastly different one, each within a different time period relative from our own.

If this is the case then does each version of us each have their own soul or does each version of us share the same soul, but one which exists on a infinite numbers of parallel dimensions?

If so then past lives, deja vue, precognition, that feeling somes walked over your grave, etc. are the result of our soul allowing us to be temporarily connected with another of version of our self? Sort of in the same way that late a night you could once tune a radio for one station, but get interference from another.

[Carol Ann]

Judith,

You said something in your last post that really got me thinking, deja vue.
There have been a few times the wife and I were out somewhere and we went somewhere and low and behold I told the wife "I have been here before", but when I have no idea.

This has happen more then once and I have no explainsion and the wife tells me "deja vue.