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Post by Blarney Rubble on Nov 27, 2013 19:02:20 GMT -5
This phenomenon is actually very common, and I'm personally convinced there's something in it. I don't believe in "past lives" as such, but there's definitely some kind of unidentified mechanism at work in these cases. My own daughter used to say things like this - totally beyond the range of her experience - when she was barely able to talk. altering-perspectives.com/2013/11/10-amazing-things-kids-said-past-lives.html |
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Post by debutante on Nov 29, 2013 17:36:00 GMT -5
Dear Zak:
I don't think past lives can be proved. There's some psychologist who does these elaborate regressions and photographic comparisons -- but I don't think he's credible (only because he claims both Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe) were past lives of two of his patients. It seems to me a bit of a stretch that two reincarnated movie star sex symbols would just happen to wander into his life.
There's a cop who thinks he was a painter named Caroll Beckwith who seems more credible. And of course, everyone has heard about the little boy who believed he was James Huston (a WW pilot shot down).
The problem is that only people who remember being someone famous could be traced. And then, because they're claiming to be someone famous -- they become harder to believe.
I've seen what look like past lives, only one of which could possibly be traceable. But even so, what would the point of tracing it be? I imagine there could be a real problem with being so wrapped up in who you "were" that you would lose track of who you "are" in the present.
I agree that just because something seems like a "past life" doesn't necessarily mean it is one.
Still -- you've brought up a fascinating topic.
--Debutante
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2013 17:58:16 GMT -5
I found that psychologist that you mentioned, Deb, that wrote about the reincarnations of Marilyn Monroe and Jean Harlow. Here's the website of Dr. Adrian Finkelstein. There's videos and radio shows on the site. I took a brief glance. www.adrianfinkelstein.com/ |
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Post by debutante on Nov 29, 2013 18:14:34 GMT -5
Dear Lily:
I actually bought his books on Kindle (they weren't too expensive). In the Jean Harlow book, he claims he was Paul Bern. Everything he says was already published in another book "Deadly Illusion: Jean Harlow and the Murder of Paul Bern". I'm inclined to think he lifted his "memories" from that source. Plus, his long suffering wife has to contend with his "past life relationship" intruding as a present life relationship with the woman who thinks she's Jean Harlow. His wife ought to smack him one upside the head. What an excuse for philandering (of course, he doesn't call it that precisely)! He's more or less: "It's like this dear, she WAS my wife in a past life and so that somehow makes my pursuing a relationship with her in this life perfectly normal." Yeah, right!
Neither book was particularly well-written, or at least I didn't think so. Plus, none of the material in it was something that one couldn't find in another source. I don't think most people would notice it -- but "Old Hollywood" is a hobby of mine and I've all kinds of books on the subject. So, I pretty much don't believe this guy at all.
The Beckwith case -- well, that fellow seems a little more credible.
Edited to add: Oh, and in the Harlow book he claims the woman resembles Jean Harlow with this elaborate face matching process. I hate to tell him, but if anybody looks EXACTLY like Jean Harlow -- it's Honey Boo Boo. She's a dead ringer for Harlow as a child and with her bone structure will end up looking like the grown up Harlow as she ages. And mmmm.....her mom is known as Mama June. Harlow's mom was known as Mama Jean. Mmmmm.... could Sugar Bear be Mario Bello? I'm being a snot here. But that's the logic the author uses throughout the book. I was hard pressed not to write the guy (as a joke) pointing out Honey Boo Boo's resemblance and screwing with his head by mentioning the Mama Jean/Mama June coincidence in names. I wonder what he'd do....
--Debutante
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Post by Blarney Rubble on Nov 29, 2013 19:04:37 GMT -5
Ach, I don't give any credence to all that reincarnation and past lives guff. That's all baloney. What I'm talking about is the phenomenon whereby young children - sometimes as young as one or two years old - exhibit knowledge (which often appears to originate in a past life, but there are various possible explanations for that)far beyond their actual knowledge or experience.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2013 20:29:20 GMT -5
Ach, I don't give any credence to all that reincarnation and past lives guff. That's all baloney. What I'm talking about is the phenomenon whereby young children - sometimes as young as one or two years old - exhibit knowledge (which often appears to originate in a past life, but there are various possible explanations for that)far beyond their actual knowledge or experience. What possible explanations did you have in mind? |
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Post by jem3 on Nov 30, 2013 8:27:47 GMT -5
Hi All,
I find the subject of reincarnation and past lives so very interesting. And I have so many books on the subject. Probably my favorite is "Journey of Souls"... a case studies of life between lives, by Michael Newton.
Haven't been doing any writing on the Interenet, so I feel very rusty.
-jem2/3
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joan
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Post by joan on Nov 30, 2013 10:14:30 GMT -5
hi jem!
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Post by faskew on Dec 1, 2013 12:24:20 GMT -5
Lily - If I may give a partial answer for Mr Rubble, a good example is the Bridey Murphy case. It's a long story, but the basics are that someone Virginia Tighe was hypnotized and came up with details about another life (Bridey Murphy) in Ireland. Much money was made off books and a movie. Further investigations revealed that many of the stories about Ireland were inaccurate, that as a child Tighe had lived across the street from an Irish immigrant named Bridie Murphy Corkell, that she had lived with her part-Irish parents until the age of 3, etc.
In other words, the information about a previous life in Ireland that she couldn't possibly know about probably came from her family and neighbors when she was a young child.
Hypnosis does not produce the truth. When someone says, "tell me about your previous lives" the subject will make up stories to please the hypnotist. In Tighe's case she used memories of her early childhood to weave a tale that seemed very impressive to the poorly trained hypnotist.
There are all sorts of ways that people can know things that they supposedly couldn't. This is especially true of children, whose brains soak up everything around them with little effort. Parents often don't remember that they watched a documentary while little Johnny was playing in front of the TV and, years later, they have no idea where he learned that phrase in Navajo. 8->
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Post by Blarney Rubble on Dec 1, 2013 16:29:24 GMT -5
I agree that cases like the "Bridie Murphy" case are baloney. And also about hypnosis and "past lives".
And yes, children soak up information from TV, overheard conversations etc. But I don't think any of these facts explain the type of cases I'm talking about, where very young children describe situations or events that they clearly identify as being part of their own identity/experience. I think it's far too glib to dismiss this phenomenon - and it is a very common phenomenon - simply by pointing out that children "soak things up".
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Post by faskew on Dec 1, 2013 18:15:25 GMT -5
Well, how about back to the basics?
(1) If you don't know what something is, you don't know. Stop.
(2) Some things are more probable than others.
With what we know about the universe and how it works, the most probably explanation is that very young kids are exposed to many, many different things by parents, relatives, friends, TV, etc., and they are very unlikely to be able to accurately sort out where all their experiences or memories came from, and can easily become confused about what memories are theirs and what memories belong to someone else. I've had kids confidently tell me about an experience that clearly came from a TV show, but they were certain that it happened to them.
This doesn't mean that this is "the" explanation, but for anything to be true you need to find something that rules out the ordinary events of children's minds.
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Post by raybar on Dec 1, 2013 18:53:55 GMT -5
Well, how about back to the basics? (1) If you don't know what something is, you don't know. Stop. Yes, stop. It's OK to say "I don't know." But a many people seem uncomfortable with that. They want an answer, any answer. "I don't know" simply won't do. "I don't know." "Well, what do you think?" "I just said I don't know." "Well, what's your guess?" "I'm not guessing." "Well, ...." I wish Mr. Spock would beam down and say "Insufficient data." |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2013 19:59:40 GMT -5
Are we all on the same thread? Seems to me, if I'm reading and comprehending correctly, that not one poster on this thread has said that they believed in reincarnation. What was said was merely questioning of what some children say that makes it seem that they are remembering another lifetime. And what we are doing is coming up with explanations.
I don't think that just because something seems unanswerable it should just be dropped as a matter of inquiry, i.e., some form of scientific research. If toejams can be researched, why not this?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2013 20:04:46 GMT -5
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