The simple life

In my recent post "Does Survival Matter?", I wondered if there was any need for the personality to survive death. The responses were very interesting, and after due consideration, I think the points that were made answered my question very well.

There is, first of all, the likelihood that the self continues growing and changing, so that the small, petty aspects of the self that sometimes imprison us now will drop away. More than one commenter observed that the person you are now is not the person you were at age six, or at age one. Yet there has been continuity of consciousness, despite all the changes and personal growth.

Furthermore, it is quite likely, as Art points out, that a key purpose of life on earth is precisely to individuate - to "learn separation," as he says. Learning to be a separate individual would seem pointless if, at the end of the day, we simply merge into an undifferentiated collective consciousness. Presumably this sense of personal uniqueness continues, even as new qualities evolve. Otherwise the whole exercise of living out an earthly lifespan would seem to be a waste of time.

Zetetic Chick expands on this idea:

Suppose that individual selves don't exist. In such scenario, what's important and what's unimportant? For who? For what motive? Who cares?

So, the concept of importance seems closely related with the existence of individual self or identities (given that something is important to some individuals but not for others; but not important in the absence of individuals).

If the individual self is important (since it's the basis of all consideration of importance), then the survival of the personal self is important too (in some sense).

It does seem true that without individual selves, there can't be any values. If we are all fated to merge into an anonymous collective mass, then there is nothing to strive for, to hope to attain or to hope to avoid - nothing to value or disvalue. Then we're faced with the depressing and (almost literally) dispiriting conclusion that nothing means anything, and there are no values. This is essentially the conclusion that some atheistic humanists have reached, and it is responsible for a good deal of the angst and anomie reported by modern intellectuals.

Now, a thing can be depressing and still be true - but if a given line of thought leads us to a nihilism, we ought to retrace our steps and make sure we haven't gone off track. Nihilism, after all, is a moral, intellectual, and spiritual dead end.

ZC goes on,

What will be important in the afterlife? We don't know, but some afterlife communications suggest the spirit cares about his family on earth, or about the evolution of the soul in the spirit world, or about raising the level of consciousness about spiritual matters, etc.

But keep in mind that such interests, concerns, and worries (all of them revealing some "importance" to certain spirits) entails that a certain self/personality exists in the afterlife.

Hence, in my opinion, the survival of human personality is not only important but, maybe, the most important fact about our existence.

I think it's very worthwhile to point out that empirical evidence supports the proposition that discarnate communicators are a) still personalities and b) still deeply committed to certain values. This observation tends to negate the nihilistic conclusions mentioned above.

Ben observes that this bleak, nihilistic mindset may simply be a reaction to hard times, and this rings true for me. Though often we can learn by suffering, sometimes hardship blinds us to truths we have already learned.

DMDuncan suggests that "love is the meaning, the point, and the purpose."

Can you imagine a life totally devoid of love and also imagine in that life some meaning or purpose? I cannot.

When life sucks, death doesn't seem so bad or frightening a thing, but when life is good you do not want it to end. But things change. The wheel turns. But if we have love, then even when things are bad we still have faith that being is better than non being, and that the bad times will pass as the good times did.

Another excellent point. I would define "love" broadly as the love not just of another person(s), but of animals, nature, artistic creativity, scientific knowledge, etc. Maybe we could call it "valuing."

A life spent in a total absence of any valuing would indeed be meaningless.

Hope Rivers adds some helpful thoughts about this:

We are created to experience love by love.

I also had an NDE and there is no word that can express the divinity, the purity, the peace and joyful ecstasy one encounters when basking in God's light (love)....

This life is an exciting journey with all its ups and downs, but one thing that's certain is that we are so loved. We are created out of love, so this makes me feel pretty darn good too know I was thought about and created by "God" to experience the dream called "life," given freedom to make my choices but also to know in my heart that the little voice inside that kept me seeking truth was me being nudged by the creator to not give up. "Love" does not impose, love sets us free. Once the selfishness and ego are stripped, love begins to manifest, you connect with your creator and slowly but surely you can't help but want to love in return, which transpires to all of God's creations, because you realise that all things were created with such care, magnificently beautiful and perfect. Its only evil that perverts and makes us sick, confused, abandoned, fearful and dark.

Many people who have had NDEs, OBEs, and mystical experiences have said love is the beating heart of creation. Although I am sometimes cynically tempted to ignore them because what they're saying sounds too good to be true, I think Hope is right in reminding us to heed their wisdom.

Of course there are intellectual arguments that can be made against the proposition that God is love - for instance, what about all the pain and suffering in the world? - and I've made some of these arguments myself, but in the end the ego's intellectualism must yield to the deeper insights of the spirit.

William seems to agree:

The mystics and most advanced spirits tell us that evil is nonexistent as an absolute reality. For evil to be a reality, there would have to be an aspect of God that is evil, and since God is infinite perfect awareness, there is no evil in God.

But there is evil in ignorance, but then ignorance is not an absolute infinite reality but a temporal reality. Now, that temporal part can be very long as our reality, but to the Infinite, time is nonexistent....

Hope, I cannot speak to your experience as I have not had a NDE, but I do know this - until one experiences such a love or understanding, for the most part you will be speaking to deaf ears. This may explain why we have to experience life to gain understanding.

Cyrus then writes,

Only Van Gogh could paint a Van Gogh painting. Only Mozart could invent a Mozart symphony. Everybody has something to offer to the universe, and only people who are fully realized can begin to enjoy that process.

Which brings us back to the uniqueness of each individual perspective - a uniqueness that seems to be nurtured by the universe. But why is it nurtured? Perhaps simply because a multiplicity of perspectives is more interesting than a single perspective. Individual uniqueness gives rise to dynamic interplays of personalities and ideas that would be impossible if Mind were experienced only as a monolithic whole.

We might ask why there is something rather than nothing. Perhaps because something is more interesting than nothing. So why are there many rather than just one? Perhaps because many are more interesting than one.

This is a rather simple viewpoint, perhaps, and could be dismissed as childishly simplistic; but as William says on a different thread:

I have suspected for some time that the “truth” or truths are much simpler than we can imagine. It may very well be the intellect that makes these truths complex and weird sounding.

He is talking about quantum physics, but the point holds true in general. We humans do have a tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be. Straightforward answers are rejected as "too simple" or "too obvious." And yet as "simple" and "obvious" as they may be, we still have a hard time grasping them in all the fullness of their implications.

It appears that the ego - a clever but shallow aspect of ourselves - rejects anything that seems too "easy," preferring complicated puzzles, riddles, and conundrums that will keep the mind spinning in circles. The irony is that the "easy" solutions may be the hardest ones to wholly absorb and accept, because we must transcend the ego in order to do it. Satori or enlightenment is perhaps the moment when the ultimate simplicity of things becomes apparent to the mind and the ego melts away - two events that must occur simultaneously, since the ego and the clear awareness of simplicity cannot coexist. 

Anyway, it was a very thoughtful and (yes) enlightening discussion. My thanks to all who participated, and my apologies to those I didn't specifically cite. It's not that your contributions weren't appreciated, only that I had to keep this post to a manageable length.

Comments

[william]

“The irony is that the "easy" solutions may be the hardest ones to wholly absorb and accept, because we must transcend the ego in order to do it.”

It appears to be that truths are very simple once we see that truth as a reality. Now the ego; it takes a lot of hard hits from all sides but I suspect it is a very important phase in the development of the soul. Kind of like an important chapter in a book of life.

If we were to write a book after we had “arrived at” a very high level of soul development I suspect we would devote one whole chapter to life as a human and the necessary stages an ego progresses through to advance in love and intelligence.

The other thing I think I have noticed on this blog it appears that the most responses from those that comment are in the area of life after death and the meaning of life. I think survival does matter to most of us more than we care to admit to most people even on the net. Ego thing:

Like a double edge sword the ego is a necessary phase of soul development to expand the self as a Being, but it sure can be troublesome. But even with the troublesome ego it appears that spiritual law has taken care of that state of affairs with something called the fruits of karma.

[Peter]

"My research indicates that everyone, regardless of who you were in life, becomes enlightened upon entering the light."

-The only reason your research indicates this is because all you look at is what agrees with what you already believe! Man, am I ever tired of reading the same bits of Mark Horton's NDE on here all the time. With all the research you claim, you should have MOUNTAINS of supporting evidence WITHOUT ignoring what contradicts what you already believe. Overwhelming suddenly becomes UNDERwhelming...What William has said about various multiple realms and vibration has a MOUNTAIN of support for it...and it isn't Mark Horton's mountain either.

[Art]

"Which brings us back to the uniqueness of each individual perspective - a uniqueness that seems to be nurtured by the universe. But why is it nurtured? Perhaps simply because a multiplicity of perspectives is more interesting than a single perspective." - Michael Prescott
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Perhaps for the exact same reason that a parent chooses to have and to make children? Perhaps like Hope Rivers says "Love?" To have someone to love? We are God's children, spiritual beings that are here to learn what it means and how it feels to be separate, what time and space look and feel like, and imprint memories of our lives.

And yes, I think it's as simple as that. It doesn't matter who you are nor where you live, how smart or dumb you are, what you believe, or what you have read, or even what you've been taught. The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it learns what it's supposed to learn whether we want it to or not.

[Art]

"Man, am I ever tired of reading the same bits of Mark Horton's NDE on here all the time. With all the research you claim, you should have MOUNTAINS of supporting evidence WITHOUT ignoring what contradicts what you already believe. Overwhelming suddenly becomes UNDERwhelming." - Peter
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Ouch! But my soul thanks you for that little lesson in duality and separation! The more emotional the response the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates!

We'll see when we get there who was right and who was wrong....

"I was unique yet I was the tiniest part of the whole." - excerpt from Mark Horton's NDE, http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html

[Carl]

Most of your questions can be answered by reading The Power Of Self Separation. You will learn who you are and about "self"

[william]

“The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it learns what it's supposed to learn whether we want it to or not.”

Actually some of my research does indicate that indeed it is our everyday lives that offer us the most in lessons. But it is not as simple as that as often it is a significant emotional event in our lives that can shake us to the core and often challenge our existing paradigm allow us to see beyond that paradigm.

A quote from the book “the open door” by what appears to be an advanced spirit teacher coming through the medium George Wright.

“My children to him who seeking truth yet holds himself apart from contact with the trivial and common things of life there shall be given little light that illumines the realities and brings into comprehension the true meaning of life”

“To the gazer who ever looks to the heights for the compete realization of the idea the veil shall ever hide and the mists obscure his vision”

“But to the one who shall turn his gaze upon the facts of life that lie all about him………to him shall be given the power to draw aside the curtain to penetrate the mists and behold the beauty and the glory of the truth expressed in life.”

It is interesting to me that this is the exact page (203) open in this book this morning. Coincidence maybe, maybe not.

[william]

“Most of your questions can be answered by reading The Power Of Self Separation. You will learn who you are and about "self"”

Thank you for the recommendation that is what I love about this site those recommended books. Now from my point of view one must be very careful putting all one’s eggs in one basket. We all have our favorite books, myself included, but my approach has been to study many different teachings and attempt to have a cross validation approach but even that strategy can lead us down a preferred path. I.e. we look and read and often accept unconditionally that which agrees with our existing cherished beliefs or paradigms.

As I am sure everyone on here realizes it is incredibly difficult to see our own bias. It is exponentially easier to see that bias in ultra skeptics, religious fundamentalists, or those with political ideologies than our own bias or wishful thinking.

[Ben]

This is another great post, Michael. Even better, in fact!

Interestingly, I'm reading Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy, in which he cites the mystics' insistence that (sorry!) the human personality must be dispensed with. For the mystic, our will must become God's Will. Huxley reminds us that the word "personality" was derived from the Latin “persona” and has acquired a separate mystique. If instead we had adopted the Anglo-Saxon term “selfness”, we might not be so in love with it! Two quotes from William Law are included:

"What could begin to deny self , if there were not something in man different from self?"

"The separate creaturely life, as opposed to life in union with God, is only a life of various appetites, hungers and wants, and cannot possibly be anything else. God Himself cannot make a creature to be in itself, or in its own nature, anything else but a state of emptiness. The highest life that is natural and creaturely can go no higher than this; it can only be a bare capacity for goodness and cannot possibly be a good and happy life but by the life of God dwelling in and in union with it."

Huxley goes on to say that we can identify with the inner self, and be a saint, the outer self, and be selfish, or a meld of the two and be average.

Like you I am not wholly impressed by this. It doesn’t take account of Cyrus’ observation that the ‘melded’ man can make great contributions to culture. However, we should remember that great artists like Van Gogh were often also either tortured souls, self-obsessed, or sinners of the first order. (You might like their paintings, but would you have liked their personalities? Would you have wanted them to marry your daughter?)

You suggest that the ‘multiple perspective’ argument may be nurtured by the Universe because it is more interesting. But it could be something more. If Consciousness is seeking to self-evolve (improve its quality), would it not be wise to try multiple simultaneous experiments, and see which are the most effective, which have the greatest potential? This seems like a credible motivation.

[Michael Prescott]

Most of your questions can be answered by reading The Power Of Self Separation. You will learn who you are and about "self"

A little Googling brought up comments very similar to this one on a wide variety of blogs. Interestingly, many of these comments (including ours) were left by someone named "Carl." The author of this book is Carl Florenco.

Coincidence???

;-)

[Sandy]

often it is a significant emotional event in our lives that can shake us to the core and often challenge our existing paradigm allow us to see beyond that paradigm.

William, someone suggested to me recently that maybe the universe was just rattling my cage to make me rethink my ideas about things. That is why I keep having anomalous experiences. I actually let myself think about that for a while instead of pushing it to the back of my mind to hang out with all the other uncomfortable ideas I’m presented with.
It turns out, he was right.

I have no faith. None. Zip. I can see all kinds of evidence that consciousness persists after our bodies die, but of all people, I have no faith. I guess I figured that I didn’t need any. I get to talk to my Grandmother even though she died years ago. To me it’s a reality, not a manner of faith that she survives. So why would I require any faith?

Many of the ghosts I’ve encountered are just like me in that even when presented with evidence that we survive, they don’t really want to accept their spiritual nature. They don’t believe they are really dead, they just think they are having some sort of mental breakdown. They have trouble accepting that as humans, part of our nature is in fact spiritual. We are not just material beings. Of course, I’m lucky enough to still have my material body to hide behind.

For those of you who think my statements sound pretty delusional, I’m OK with that. They sound pretty nuts to me too. Only a nut would think that she could have intelligent conversations with dead people. And if I am really talking to discarnate entities, then I’m nuts for being unwilling to accept the evidence I’ve been gifted with. Either way, I’m in trouble.

I do believe that we survive. Actually, I know it. It’s a NDEr thing, I guess. But it doesn’t require any faith on my part. So I’m still trying to figure why faith is so important. I’m pretty sure that it is, but I just can’t figure out why. I don’t even know why surviving is so important. If all I got were this simple life with my husband, who I love so much, that would be more than I could ever ask for.

[Art]

The whole purpose of life is to become unassimilated and resistance is futile!

[Bryan.A]

"Another excellent point. I would define "love" broadly as the love not just of another person(s), but of animals, nature, artistic creativity, scientific knowledge, etc. Maybe we could call it "valuing.""

I value my food,does that mean I really Love it?No it means I need it.Needing something is based and acting on that principle is selfish NOT love.

I value my Girlfriend,does that mean I love her?Once again it's a case of needing something and adhering to a specific morality in order not to lose "her" whether I want this or not.

Love transcends this,not acting upon (unconsious)impulses be they biological or psychological(adhering to morality for fear of losing->ego thing)

Also u can value something for whatever reasona nd still treat it wrongfully because you are not afraid to lose it/him/her.Semantics perhaps?

As such I don't agree(for once),it's a subjective thing NOT objective.

"It does seem true that without individual selves, there can't be any values. If we are all fated to merge into an anonymous collective mass, then there is nothing to strive for, to hope to attain or to hope to avoid - nothing to value or disvalue. Then we're faced with the depressing and (almost literally) dispiriting conclusion that nothing means anything, and there are no values. This is essentially the conclusion that some atheistic humanists have reached, and it is responsible for a good deal of the angst and anomie reported by modern intellectuals."

nobody is fated to merge with collective conscious directly in the afterlife.Firstly there are the many spheres in which u have to break down your own ego to advance to real harmony.Then at the very end one would merge with cosmic consiousness.

This process is way beyond anything we homo sapiens deserve after dying on earth.Non,nobody will merge with the cosmic consiouss directly after death.As such there is alot for us to strive for.As such everything gets it meaning.

Consistent bad behavior->Depending how bad->Spheres of darkness.

Consistent good behavior->Depending how good->Spheres of Light.

Cosmic consiousness,PURE harmony,is only atainable at the end of the road.Suffering,all we go through isn't in the hands of God since God,Cosmic Consioussness is the Perfect Creator.Laws of Karma,Cause and effect and reincarnation are fit tightly together to outrule any personal injustice we might misunderstand.

[william]

“God Himself cannot make a creature to be in itself, or in its own nature, anything else but a state of emptiness.”

First off the very word “Himself” tends to make and imagine a God in man’s image. But it is true God cannot make a creature (I prefer entity) to be perfect like itself but it can make an entity in its own nature but of course not identical to itself as God is infinite and Infinite cannot duplicate Infinite; but it can manifest and create life forms with a consciousness that have less than pure awareness.

And the word “emptiness” is a misnomer and quite frankly scares a lot of people, as we may fear we will be heading straight for nothingness. Emptiness can best be described from my point of view as pure awareness and it is anything but empty. It is all and all, that that is, isness, and what some call Cosmic Consciousness but that term may be a misnomer also.

As we climb the spiral ladder to Perfect Awareness we are never less always more in every sense of the word. I.e. more love, creative ability, divine intelligence, compassionate, awareness, etc.

“If Consciousness is seeking to self-evolve (improve its quality), would it not be wise to try multiple simultaneous experiments, and see which are the most effective, which have the greatest potential?”

This statement fails to understand the concept of infinite. Now a lesser god (small g with less than pure awareness) could indeed be improving its advancement in love, divine intelligence, awareness, and creative potential. Of course I could be misreading what you meant by Consciousness.

“I’m still trying to figure why faith is so important”

Faith is very important. Faith is a great comfort for people that cannot talk to dead people or have attained a knowing beyond knowing of life after death. Faith in our divine self can bring harmony to the universe. It is humankind’s lack of faith of their divine self that allows them to harm others not realizing when we harm another we harm ourselves.

As we were not and cannot be created perfect, faith must come before understanding.

Now blind faith that is another story. All blind faith is based in some level of unawareness. You may not need faith in your belief in life after death but there are lots of other needs/reasons for faith in our lives. Some level of faith is needed for the mysteries of life until we have perfect awareness.

“Suffering,all we go through isn't in the hands of God since God,Cosmic Consioussness is the Perfect Creator”

A Creator especially a perfect creator must take responsibility for its creation. Until we understand the origin of ignorance statements like this will continue to be made. The concepts of involution and evolution may help one to understand the origin of our suffering and our ignorance. Or not.

[Bryan.A]

I agree.I the origin of God as a perfect creator with perfect justice is a mystery,the origin as I understand it it's not a he or she.We were "in the past" cosmic consiousness already.So it was OUR choice to manifest ourselves in this way.Now the question should be,why did we all choose to manifest in this way together?

This is one question I cannot as of yet answer.Perhaps due to my own ignorance about it though if u were a part of creation itself u share 1 piece of the blame for whatever good or bad fortune u may experience during physical and spiritual evolution.

[william]

“This is one question I cannot as of yet answer”

The word yet is important here. I agree we are not created not to know so yet is an interesting and I believe correct response.

The best answer I have to date is that this infinite cosmic and intelligent vitality that creates form does so to move from a kind of static infinite awareness to dynamic infinite expressions that can best be explained with the two concepts of involution and evolution.

Maybe what is referred to, as the big bang may have been the beginning of that involution process and nature being the beginning of the evolution of consciousness process? The underlying reality of both involution and evolution is intelligence not chance.

To suggest this is all due to chance has to be one of the biggest misconceptions based in intellectualism ever devised by humankind. And to think this is being taught in our schools as scientific fact by well meaning people is indeed interesting. Truly scientism is action.

“if u were a part of creation itself u share 1 piece of the blame”

Not sure blame is the right word here as I don’t think that we have the free will not to participate but only to express ourselves in our evolutionary journey. Now as far as the fruits of karma depending on the choices we make or what fate gives us I agree it appears to be so.

Without karma not sure there would be an evolutionary journey of consciousness and we would remain in ignorance. It appears that some want to remain in ignorance but that is only appearances and appearances can be very deceiving.

[Peter]

" To have someone to love? We are God's children, spiritual beings that are here to learn what it means and how it feels to be separate, what time and space look and feel like, and imprint memories of our lives."

-Then I suppose it's probably a good thing not to love or demonstrate love to anyone or anything because that would lead to more duality and separation, which is a good thing. I read in another topic, on this site, that you wrote that your sister was going to leave her family to go to some guy from Sweden that she met on the internet. I certainly hope you encouraged her to do that because it would be a TREMENDOUS experience in duality and separation for her, her husband, her kids and the Swedish guy when/if she left him at some other point. If you DIDN'T encourage her, you probably didn't follow your own philosophy. Can you imagine all the wonderful duality and separation all those concentration camp Jews experienced? And the people that Saddam Hussein had killed? And Milosevic? I wish Mother Theresa had stayed out of India and left well enough alone, so they could experience as much duality and separation as possible.

"Laws of Karma,Cause and effect and reincarnation are fit tightly together to outrule any personal injustice we might misunderstand."

-Only if you believe that...you write as though it's a fact when in reality it's based on a Hindu myth.

- Karma is on pretty shaky ground. It all sounds a bit like a convenient way of explaining the unfairness of life. If life seems unfair, its too easy to explain it as a result of something in a past life. As well as creating our future by our words, thoughts and actions, the world creates us by its thoughts words and actions. If we are one with other people, we share their karma and take some of the responsibility for their actions too.

-Karma? Where does the wheel end? You'll come back to pay a debt? Then how is anyone (ie-law enforcement) supposed to know if you are committing a crime or simply paying a debt? Cause and effect is a lot different from the myth of karma, as you seem to understand it. If you eat a hog, that hog will come back and eat you? Such nonsense.

-Further, according to these NDEs, which many of speak as "no time" and "time did not exist"...would you care to explain to everyone how in an eternal "now" there would be "re", "pre" or "post" ANYTHING? Hmmm...the good ship S.S. Reincarnation/Karma just got fatally hit and sank.

-Further...Normally it is supposed that the person who is living out the consequences of karma should do it in a spirit of resignation and submission. But this ideal is far from reality. Instead of adopting a passive attitude when facing the hardships of life (the actual effect of past karma), humans almost always react with indignation, and so accumulate a constantly growing karmic debt. Common human experience proves that evil almost always generates evil and so it is more likely that one will accumulate new karma instead of getting rid of the karma of past lives. As a result, a vicious cycle is generated in which karmic debt is hopelessly growing. This happens with most people of our planet, as it is said that most of us live in ignorance (avidya). From one generation to the next, the sum of karmic debt is growing. Absurd.

-The person of Hitler ceased to exist at the moment of his physical death. Only the impersonal self will reincarnate, accompanied by its karmic deposit. However, there is no continuity between the person of Hitler and that of the individual who has to endure the hardships imposed by Hitler’s karma. The newborn person doesn’t know that he has to work out Hitler’s karma. After the cruel life and death of this person, other millions of reincarnations will succeed with the same tragic destiny. The most intriguing fact is that the person of Hitler, the only one who should have endured at physical and psychical level the results of his deeds, was dissolved at physical death, while other persons, totally unaware of this situation and innocent, have to work out his bad karma.

-As a result of the hardships that have to be endured by the new incarnations of Hitler, it is almost certain that they will react with indignation instead of resignation to their situation, and thus will accumulate a growing karmic debt. Each new reincarnation of Hitler becomes a source of newly acquired karma, initiating a new chain of individuals who have to endure the consequences. Hitler himself was the one that had karmic debts to pay. Whoever he had been in a previous life, he made his karma a lot worse during the years of The Third Reich. Therefore, instead of solving the puzzle of global justice, the problem worsened. Starting with a single individual such as Hitler, we reach a huge number of persons who pay his karma and accumulate a new one. And this is just one case in human history. An attempt to imagine what happens at a larger human scale would reveal a catastrophe that could never be solved.

-Let’s examine how these two points apply in the case of the millions of Jews killed in gas chambers by the Nazis during World War II. First, it would seem absurd to have any feeling of compassion towards them, because they deserved to be killed like that, as a result of the alleged crimes they committed in previous lives. One could conclude that, after all, the Nazis did the right thing against the Jews. The dictates of karma were fulfilled. Following this reasoning, any conceivable crime of the past or present could be justified, which opens a horrifying perspective on the past and future of mankind, with implications difficult to grasp.

-Second, the killing of millions of Jews requires that their executioners should be killed in their turn, in a similar way, in further lives. But this implies that the executioners of the reincarnated Nazis will be killed in their turn, etc., etc. The cycle would never end. Therefore, if reincarnation were a logical concept, it would imply that it has neither a beginning nor an end. This cannot be a solution for justice, but only a kind of an eternally ongoing drama.

-People exclaim with excitement, “How else can you explain why some people are born into horrible conditions on the planet while (read we here) others are born into such abundance?” Surely this explains such inequities! Reincarnationists as usual however again fail to really think this theory through. Did the spirit world make the earth peoples so unequal? Did the spirit world create such inequities as we see between the haves and the have-not on the planet? I doubt it. I think if you’re really honest with yourself you’ll agree that’s an earth plane arrangement. We do that. We construct an earthly existence of haves and have nots. We like that. We’re uncomfortable that we like that so we construct these ridiculous and rather banal explanations for these inequities. If it’s not the Devil making us do a nasty, it’s the laws of the universe at fault.

-The most ancient texts known in India are the Vedic writings, which date from 1,300 B.C. They did NOT refer at any time, to a belief in reincarnation. This may sound shocking to some new age fans. The Vedic writings stated that a person existed as a whole after death. This is why they were buried. Much later, with the introduction of the Brahmanas, man had to face a second death in the afterlife and then return to earth. To break this cycle one had to obtain esoteric knowledge. The Mahatmas' existance has been denied by the Lamas of Tibet, which puts reincarnationists in a terrible contradiction! These 'Mahatmas' were the ones who supposedly revealed the secrets of reincarnation to Madame Blavatski. Then, the Dalai Lama, who supposedly has reincarnated more than 14 times (we're talking more than 1000 years of experience in meditation!), says that there are no such Mahatmas. Of course, if there is no reincarnation, you'll have to search for another belief, because the worthiness of the Lamas of Tibet is based on their reincarnation-based knowledge.
Do you feel lucky?

-Reincarnation is rubbish and before you embrace this theory with relief in your selfish soul, give some serious thought as to why it holds such appeal. Truth is simple but it’s not easy. You are incarnated in physical form once, and yes you will leave it and not return. You are here to experience and to create not to waste your gifts on touting foolish rationalizations and apologies.

-I was a Buddhist and have renounced the Buddhist faith - there wasn't much sense in believing in reincarnation. I live in an environment where many people believe in some form of reincarnation. I have observed that they had accepted it to be so simply because it is the world view of the particular culture. One tends not to ask questions about what he believes in when he has grown up in an environment where almost everyone else take the particular assumption for granted. I would have a really big problem justifying why I should believe in reincarnation. The laws of karma and reincarnation are man made and wretched. If you travel to a places in the world where people truly believe, you will find the true nature of it and how it holds people in it's grip. Thanks to lack of education and with the help of men like Deepak Chopra, Westerners have a very watered down idea of it. There are some people that wear mouth and nose coverings to avoid breathing someone in. (I'm not joking.)

[william]

”-Reincarnation is rubbish and before you embrace this theory with relief in your selfish soul, give some serious thought as to why it holds such appeal”

Reincarnation holds such appeal? What planet do you live on? I have seen time and time again reincarnation used as fear not as an appeal. And we are a selfish soul to believe in reincarnation? What is selfish about a belief in reincarnation?

At a human level reincarnation is anything but an appeal; it appears that at a soul level in another dimension it may be looked upon differently. My research indicates that reincarnation is a reality for most souls but if it is not then I doubt if my soul will be that upset. Most people if not all that I talk to are not anxious to do a human life again.

“We construct an earthly existence of haves and have nots.”

Being a have more can be as much of a lesson in life as being a have not. Maybe more at a soul level.

The world does indeed look like terrible injustices but appearances can be very deceiving. Also there may be a lot of variables interacting in this relative phenomenal world like new souls, old souls, karma, fruits of karma, fate, destiny, and who knows what else is at work that our minds are unable to detect or understand.

The underlying realities of these injustices and indeed all phenomena are seen by very few people. Very few.

“If we are one with other people, we share their karma and take some of the responsibility for their actions too.”

It appears to be so. Their shame is our shame, their crime is our crime, their loss is our loss, and their guilt is our guilt, etc. Spiritual laws exist and without them there would only be chaos and no opportunities for soul evolution.

[Peter]

"Reincarnation holds such appeal? What planet do you live on?"

-I haven't encountered one western reincarnationist who thinks it is terrible. They love it. It's only the adherents to the most ancient and original concept of the myth of reincarnation who are in fear of it...because they don't want to be punished and come back as a lizard. Don't believe me? Just check out some of the forums and blogs to see how many love their false notion of reincarnation.

"What is selfish about a belief in reincarnation?"

-I won't address this again, you obviously didn't read my whole post or you wouldn't have asked this question.

"The world does indeed look like terrible injustices but appearances can be very deceiving."

-Can you give me the deceptive appearance that is being missed in the destruction of the Jews? Or in child murderers? In the cases of clergy molesting children?

"It appears to be so. Their shame is our shame, their crime is our crime, their loss is our loss, and their guilt is our guilt, etc." AND "The world does indeed look like terrible injustices but appearances can be very deceiving."

-Haven't you just contradicted yourself? On one hand appearances are deceiving and on the other their crime is our crime?

-If what you write is true, then there really is no crime committedd when children are murdered or molested...it's their karma. Cause and effect is a lot different from karma, although I doubt you will admit that. Karma is a man made myth. If you really think about it, cause and effect does make sense...karma makes no sense...except to those who want to believe it no matter how ridiculous it is shown to them, to be.

"Spiritual laws exist and without them there would only be chaos and no opportunities for soul evolution."

-Is this an absolute? I thought appearances are deceiving?

[Peter]

Just in case you didn't know...

Cause and effect= retribution and accountability. Dealing with the effect your life had on others/everything.

Karma= if you kill someone you'll have to return and be killed. If you eat that cow, that cow will return and eat you. Just ask any Hindu, they'll tell you.

[Peter]

Eastern and Western reincarnation differ. Basic to the Easterner is karma, the rigid Hindu law of cause and effect. Karma consists of the good and bad deeds one accumulates in a lifetime -- a karmic debt that must be "burned off" through cyclical rebirths. When one has paid his karmic debt, he at last reaches nirvana, the highest spiritual plane attainable.

According to reincarnation, you must undo all wrongdoing incurred in any of your lives -- you cannot be forgiven. You therefore undergo cyclic rebirth into new bodily existences and suffer now because of the past. . . .That is to say, what you do is what you get -- in the next life. No one else can pay your karmic debt for you; you are personally responsible; there is no escape from your karma.

When reincarnation came west, Americans modified it. Many saw the cycle of rebirths as a way to atone for one's actions, rather than as a way to burn off karmic debt. As a person's soul body-hops, he collects primarily good deeds and eventually becomes a good person.

Then the new age people came along and modified it even more. “Sin” was dismissed as a myth so there was no atoning for sins necessary through reincarnation and karma had also taken a back seat, so there was only one place left to go…that place became “experience”. There was no reason or purpose to life at all, no such thing as inappropriate deeds or choices…people were only here for “experience” and “experimentation.” There was no reason to be concerned that someone was murdered because they “chose” that and the murderer actually “volunteered” to perform the murder! No necessity to forgive anyone for anything because it was all “relevant” and all “experience”.

-What planet am I from? This one:
An American newspaper editor who believed that of all beliefs about the afterlife, reincarnation is the "most comforting." [11] When a Dr. brought up the subject of eternity, the editor refused to discuss it because "it was far beyond his conception --too frightening to think about. . . . `I want to come back to this world. I love life, and I don't want to lose it. That's why reincarnation appeals to me.'" As said before, this is an example of the kind of people who push reincarnation, and why they do it. They think very small and cannot conceive of a vast spiritual world…this tiny earth life is the absolute pinnacle of existence to them.

[Peter]

Sorry to repeat myself but there's an elephant in the room, William, that you didn't notice, and this is the elephant:

-Further, according to these NDEs, which many of speak as "no time" and "time did not exist"...would you care to explain to everyone how in an eternal "now" there would be "re", "pre" or "post" ANYTHING? Hmmm...the good ship S.S. Reincarnation/Karma just got fatally hit and sank.

[Raimo]

"Hmmm...the good ship S.S. Reincarnation/Karma just got fatally hit and sank."

Research on reincarnation clearly shows that there is no such thing as karma. It is only a misconception to think that reincarnation must include karma. There is zero evidence for karma and very much proof that it doesn't exist.

Research of children's spontaneous cases has produced very good evidence for reincarnation. Have you even read the case reports or are you just assuming that reincarnation can't happen because it doesn't fit to your beliefs?

Over the years I have read thousands of pages of research and also all skeptical arguments. Thus far I haven't found any other explanation than reincarnation, which could explain stronger cases and also these cases as a whole.

[william]

“They think very small and cannot conceive of a vast spiritual world…this tiny earth life is the absolute pinnacle of existence to them.”

They? Who are they? Do we all fit in one basket of beliefs? As far as the Hindus they use reincarnation as a fear mode to control the population much like the Christians use hell for eternity.

From my point of view I agree there is a vast spiritual world, as least my research appears to indicate such a reality. I am not sure I have met anyone that is looking forward to coming back to earth life.

One more time reincarnation appears to be a reality for most souls but if it is not it will not hurt my feelings. The evidence for reincarnation from my point of view is strong but whatever our beliefs that will not alter the reality of it existing or not existing.

[Jime]

This is essentially the conclusion that some atheistic humanists have reached, and it is responsible for a good deal of the angst and anomie reported by modern intellectuals --- MP

A good example of this is Richard Dawkins. According to him "The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference" (River Out Of Eden, p. 155)

No "purpose" implies no teleology and meaning at all; and "no evil", no "good", implies no objective moral values either. One is almost forced to ask, if there is no evil in this universe, why does Dawkins consider religion and belief in God the root of all evil? After all, such beliefs are part of this universe, isn't it?

Dawkins' worldview entails moral relativism. He has been consistent in his position. For instance, in this interview, he admitted "Now, if you then ask me where I get my 'ought' statements from, that's a more difficult question. If I say something is wrong, like killing people, I don't find that nearly such a defensible statement as 'I am a distant cousin of an orangutan

The second of those statements is true, I can tell you why it's true, I can bore you to death telling you why it's true. It's definitely true. The statement 'killing people is wrong', to me, is not of that character. I would be quite open to persuasion that killing people is right in some circumstances"

Reference:

http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=5&id=102

Killing people is right if we accept the idea that "no evil", "no good" exist in objective terms; therefore, LIFE is not a value as such; but another property of matter that we could decide ("in some circunstances") to eliminate.

Dawkins' wordview, if assumed consistently, push us towards existential despair, moral relativism and nihilism; and in that case, suicide couldn't be discarded as a valid option and selective homicide ("killing people in certain circunstances") is not in itself something bad.

Some materialists-atheists accept Dawkins' premises, but avoid all his logical implications. They stop in the mid of the road, and illogically proclaim something like "yes, there is not purpose nor evil at all in this universe, and my purpose is teaching you that God doesn't exist and belief in him is the root of the evil that you see everywhere"

[Art]

Then I suppose it's probably a good thing not to love or demonstrate love to anyone or anything because that would lead to more duality and separation, which is a good thing. I read in another topic, on this site, that you wrote that your sister was going to leave her family to go to some guy from Sweden that she met on the internet. I certainly hope you encouraged her to do that because it would be a TREMENDOUS experience in duality and separation for her, - Peter
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Actually I told my sister that going to Sweden to live with some guy she'd never met was "wacky" and "kooky." We don't have to do anything to experience duality and separation, they seem to be inherent and inescapable properties of the physical universe and we experience them whether we want to or not. The soul's lessons seem to be embedded in our everyday lives and it is holistically imprinted with what it needs to learn regardless of who we are or where we live or what we believe.

I'm extremely skeptical of free will and lean heavily towards fate and predestination.

[Art]

They? Who are they? Do we all fit in one basket of beliefs? As far as the Hindus they use reincarnation as a fear mode to control the population much like the Christians use hell for eternity. - william
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I remember reading an NDE of this one little 11 year old girl who while on the other side told the "being of light" that she didn't want to go back and she said she pitched a fit, grabbing hold of a fence rail they were standing by. She said the being of light just laughed at her and the next thing she knew she woke up back in her body.

Very few near death experiencers said they wanted to come back. Some come back out of a sense of duty, such as to raise a child and a few children come back because they don't want their mommies and daddies to be sad, but the vast majority of experiencers say that absolutely didn't want to come back to this physical universe. One woman I remember said that she felt ashamed that she so quickly put aside her husband and children when she was on the other side and would not have come back if she wasn't forced to.

I can't imagine anyone willingly wanting to give up Heaven in order to come back here to this world of pain and suffering.

[Art]

Okay, one more and I'll quit (I promise). I remember reading this one NDE of this doctor that had a heart attack in a hospital. A friend of his, "Bob," was the doctor that resuscitated him. After waking up he said to his doctor/friend "Bob, don't you ever do that to me again!"

After I make it to heaven I'm going to do everything possible not to come back. I hope to God there is no such thing as reincarnation. Yuck!

[Pete]

Peter, two ideas you need to consider to escape from your loop:

1. The idea of a Higher Self which sends shards of itself down to incarnate in this school of hard knocks. When you awake in the afterlife, the worst aspects of earthlife can be forgotten like a bad dream if you wish. Incarnations have a large random element, and in the thousands you have you will probably range from a peasant to a superstar like everyone else.

2. Time only appears to be an illusion in the afterlife. Time (as frequency) is the technology that consciousness uses to separate dimensions of "consciousness-space". There is a different sense of time there (because there is no physical universe of space there): your consciousness, by using intent, can access anything which happened or which you believe might happen. There are databases (usually called the Akashic records) you can "enter into" at will. This helps you continue the learning process you started on earth or in another physical reality.

You may also wish to reappraise your understanding of karma. Such karma as exists is self imposed by your Higher Self, not by a judgmental God. If your Higher Self doesn't feel the need to reappraise an experience from a different viewpoint, you won't be obliged to relive it.

All in a Good Cause: Your Higher Self's increasing quality of consciousness.

[Michael Prescott]

Art wrote, "I can't imagine anyone willingly wanting to give up Heaven in order to come back here to this world of pain and suffering."

On the '90s TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there was a story arc in which Buffy died. Her friends were afraid she'd been sent to a "demon dimension," so (after some delay) they used magic to resuscitate her. But for several episodes afterward, the revived Buffy was strangely depressed. It finally turned out that she hadn't gone to hell, after all. She'd been in heaven, and her well-meaning friends had inadvertently pulled her back to earth for more struggles and sorrows.

It was a surprisingly effective storyline, especially because of Sarah Michelle Geller's sensitive performance.

Speaking of Joss Whedon TV shows, the season (and probably series) finale of Dollhouse featured some interesting ruminations on personality and the soul. Those interested can view it online at Fox's website, though the story may be somewhat bewildering if you haven't seen the rest of the series.

Jime, I remember that passage of Dawkins' book. You're right about the contradiction between saying there is no good or evil and saying religion is evil.

I wouldn't necessarily criticize Dawkins for saying that it may be okay to kill people in some circumstances, because in cases of self-defense (whether personal or collective), killing may indeed be the only option. But it is funny that on the one hand he admits to having difficulty justifying his moral opinions, while on the other hand he continues to voice those same opinions rather belligerently.

[Art]

But for several episodes afterward, the revived Buffy was strangely depressed. It finally turned out that she hadn't gone to hell, after all. She'd been in heaven, and her well-meaning friends had inadvertently pulled her back to earth for more struggles and sorrows. - Michael Prescott
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A friend of mine from Church, Todd (real name), told me he spent the first half of his life being angry that he hadn't been allowed to stay in Heaven. He was hit by a car when he was 8 years old and had a near death experience. He said what he remembers most vividly is the overwhelming feeling of love and the Light. He said he spent the first half of his life doing stuff that might send him back into that Light. He is now middle aged (probably early 40s?)married (his wife looks American Indian), with two beautiful sons. His oldest son is probably about 17 years old, tall and very handsome. He told me once he wondered what he was sent back for, and I told him to just look at his two beautiful sons, and his loving wife. Reason enough.

[Art]

My wife and I watched three Netflix movies this weekend. Last night we watched The Civilization of Maxwell Bright starring Patrick Warburton (Puddy from Seinfeld). He gets cancer and dies in the end. This afternoon we watched The Children of Huang Shi starring Jonathon Rhys Myers. He gets tetanus and dies near the end of the movie. And then this evening we watched Seven Pounds with Will Smith. Near the end he commits suicide and leaves his organs to different people.

In all three movies someone died near the end of the movie. All three Netflix movies we watched this weekend left you with a feeling of separation. Was it intentional? No, we didn't know the end of the movies. We had no idea that was going to happen when we put them in our queue. What I did know was that the theme to almost every movie is about some form of separation.

[Paul Welsh]

what a depressing weekend's viewing.

[Sandy]

Art, you should have gone to see the new Star Trek movie instead. It was awesome!

[Michael Prescott]

Lately I've been on a Hammer horror films kick. I've watched Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, and The Mummy. In Curse of Frankenstein, Frankenstein's Monster dies at the end. In Horror of Dracula, Dracula dies at the end. And in The Mummy, the Mummy dies at the end.

All three films are a lesson in separation!

[Michael Prescott]

You may also want to check out the 1964 epic The Fall of the Roman Empire.

Civilization dies at the end.

[Pete]

Civilization dies at the end.

Luckily, that could never happen again. We're enlightened now.

[Michael Prescott]

Another film about separation is the Bill Murray art flick Lost in Translation.

My interest died about halfway through.

[Art]

Art, you should have gone to see the new Star Trek movie instead. It was awesome!
- Sandy
------------------------------------

I'm really looking forward to seeing it. My wife, Bonnie, teaches at Belmont University and will soon be finished with classes, exams, and graduation so we plan on taking in a matinee and seeing the new Star Trek after she finishes for the summer. Two other movies I'm wanting to see are Wolverine and the new Terminator movie. Every review of the new Star Trek movie has been positive.

Art's beloved: http://www.belmont.edu/communication/faculty/more_about_bonnie_riechert.html

[Art]

I'm not near as pretty as my wife.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=748574003&ref=profile

[Liara Covert]

Somebody somewhere coined the phrase, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." When doubt and scepticism fill the mind, it is not up to external views to change the said opinion. That can only occur from inside, with a shift away from the outer, purely linear perspective.

The truth only presents through experience. It is felt, then accepted or rejected based on things a person does not yet fully get about the soul. Whether you are open or closed to possibilities is part of a meaningful process. Only you can choose to evolve, to discern whether what you have been taught to believe about mortality is a lie. Unconditional love and forgiveness lead to healing and opening to unimaginable places.

[dmduncan]

I saw STAR TREK this Friday in IMAX, and with a 96% approval rating, it figures that I'd be in the minority that had issues with the film.

I just wish the plot lines would improve to something less contrived than a mediocre episode.

The new cast was great. I loved all the new actors in their roles. No complaints there. Acting was great all across the board. Special effects were ground breaking, truly huge and mind blowing. Production values also excellent.

And the first 15 minutes were emotionally powerful. Really. Tears down my face and all.

But the writers could have definitely used some help in disposing of some of the unbelievable contrivances they came up with.

Maybe MP should come up with a ST plot?

But problems and all, it was definitely worth seeing. I can't name a single movie in recent memory that was more fun to watch.

[Cyrus]

Sorry for budding in on this thread late, but I wanted to offer a couple of quick perspectives:

What if "the monolithic whole" as you describe it MP does not exist?

I don't think we're all one lonely mind under an illusion of being separate. I think being "individualized" is an act of physics of a higher planar nature.

We are both individualized, but also whole. It's seemingly a conundrum, but we must understand that we are dealing with a topic that involves dimensions we don't understand. Just like we cannot comprehend the 4th dimension and above, so we may not be able to comprehend with our mortal minds certain principles easily fathomed in higher planes.

[Peter]

"Peter, two ideas you need to consider to escape from your loop: The idea of a Higher Self which sends shards of itself down to incarnate in this school of hard knocks."

-Perhaps you need to consider your own loop. What you have missed is that this so called 'higher self' of each person only exists in new age circles! There are no references in spiritualist communications speaking of each individual's higher self. Only the new age believes this...emphasis on BELIEVES. It seems you take the existence of this 'higher self' as factual without reason tod do so. Have you considered that?

-This “oversoul” is one mysterious piece of work. It lives, according to theorists, in the celestial, and from time to time, projects a small portion of itself into materiality, i.e. an incarnation. Jesus, as an example, only temporarily abandoned his “Greater Self”; indeed, it has been claimed that many of the phenomena of the human mind can be explained only by the Overself which is actually the basis of the theory of rebirth.

What is this “oversoul”, anyway? Is there really a Higher Self? Sure, there is a better nature in us, a finer possibility, but shall we partition it from personhood, put it on a pedestal, give it Capital Letters, and assign it an independent existence in the Great Beyond? The minute we do this, giving it a life of its own, the metaphysical conjurer steps in to weave his own fables, spin his own cosmic yarns. Perhaps there is no such thing as this autonomous Higher Self.

Perhaps it is such notional and altogether unproven, figmental ideas as Higher Self and Oversoul that have been seized by the Rebirth theorists to build their castles in the sky. Indeed, the entire fiction of “choosing” our future lives is built on the premise of this Oversoul, this totally imaginary “Eternal Identity,” which now becomes the final authority in the “selection” of an earth life. It may, according to the “law” of reincarnation, override the “consciously formulated choices” made by – by what? – by Lower Self, I suppose – and – for its own good, of course – supplant them with a more suitable life plan.

"Time only appears to be an illusion in the afterlife."

-Really? From what I understand there is no time in the hereafter and no distance either, according to many, including George Rodonaia. How would you arrive at time being an illusion in the afterlife?? If anything, it is an illusion HERE.

"There are databases (usually called the Akashic records) you can "enter into" at will."

-Another problem...LOL, this one's even easier...I'll quote VIctor Zammit: "there is no empirical evidence that the akashic records even exist." I guess that does away with your other explanation, you'll have to find a new one.

"You may also wish to reappraise your understanding of karma. Such karma as exists is self imposed by your Higher Self, not by a judgmental God."

-Really? A higher self that only exists in new age circles and that is conspicuously missing from spiritualist communications? Do you ever deal with facts or simply wishful beliefs? Cause and effect=You reap what you sow....karm=if you kill you will have to come back and be killed...or, if you eat that pig, the pig will come back and eat you. It's a myth! You don't see it?

-Enthralled with this idea, a Cayce advocate declares that the “art of biography,” no less, would be so much more “profound” if we only searched for the “central and unifying principle of a life,” as devised by this “Overself.” The life she selects to illustrate this point is that of George Eliot, the great English writer. Our advocate then assembles a few facts about that author’s life: Born Mary Ann Evans, the person who became perhaps the most scholarly female novelist of the 19th century was a clergyman’s daughter and just a touch puritanical herself. From this, a former life as a medieval monk is adduced. (Isn’t the clergyman dad enough??) However, it is also found that Miss Eliot had a pagan bent: therefore she had, in some other lifetime, been “a voluptuous Greek hetaera, singer, dancer, and mistress to an Athenian statesman”! And since one of Eliot’s contemporaries had observed in the novelist a certain “cruelty of expression,” our analyst then proceeds to infer “some past-life urge…to cold, subtle cruelty.” Noting also that Eliot was possessed of a long nose and protruding teeth, our revisionist now churns out the promised “profound art of biography,” in this manner: George Eliot’s lower self may have selected this lifetime to write books or introduce humanistic ideas through her characters and stories – but her Overself may have planned none of these things. And the “entity” in choosing to be the homely daughter of a Victorian clergyman, may have thus chosen this lifetime to been to transmute cruelty into kindness; or to rectify the sins of sensuality. If there is any match in all the world to this “profound” balderdash and irresponsible drivel, I have yet to see it.

"When you awake in the afterlife, the worst aspects of earthlife can be forgotten like a bad dream if you wish."

-Well, not according to a mountain of spiritualist communications it can't be! According to those communications, you don't change one iota on passing! Doesn't sound like "wishing" it away is a possibility at all! I can see that you must be a new ager, because the only people who write like you have, seem to be new agers.

"Research of children's spontaneous cases has produced very good evidence for reincarnation."

-Why is it only evidence FOR reincarnation and not evidence for something else? I'll tell you why, because you WANT to believe it is reincarnation.

"Thus far I haven't found any other explanation than reincarnation, which could explain stronger cases and also these cases as a whole. "

-Significantly, Prof. Stevenson openly discusses the fact that reincarnation is not reported much in societies that do not believe in reincarnation. Conversely, most of his cases come from societies that DO believe in reincarnation. I’ll say this: those who believe in it do in fact try to come back.

-Maybe you haven't looked hard enough. Also consider this: This is our most telltale statistic: A life cut short; the case histories of so-called past lives are top-heavy with sudden death. If you sampled the literature today, you would find that perhaps seven or eight out of ten such “previous personalities” met a violent or untimely demise. Contrast this 75% with a mere 7% in the general population who expire in a sudden, violent manner. How can reincarnation be natural, as exponents claim, if this lopsided statistic at once puts the lie to its normalcy? Clearly, there is something else at work. That something-else brings us to the unquiet dead, whose traumatic demise becomes in turn, the source of a great array of ghostly disturbances which we shall examine in detail. Perfectly at random, I select a recent book on children’s past lives, written by a psychotherapist. One can scarcely find here a normal sort of death for the various “previous personalities” mentioned – killed in a quarrel, killed by an angry customer, gunshot, killed by the train, fatal wound, shot in the back of the head, killed in a gang shooting, robbed and killed, hit by a car, one of the Marines killed in the barracks explosion in Beirut in 1983 -------- But, truth to tell, this is standard fare in the reincarnation literature! It hardly varies, continually citing past scenes of horrific shock, crime, accident, slaughter. Where is the 93% of natural deaths? It’s not there.

One Oahspe reader has said that she knows of a case where a deceased child was fetaled on to her older brother. The little girl had one thing she liked to do, tear up paper. The angels fetaled her on to her brother who could hear her little songs and chants and words she made up. There is a certain echo of fetaling also in MPD; When Suzanne D., a multiple, was asked to write about her problems, she expressed her chagrin at friends and family who make a game out of which alter did what . The girl insisted she was not joking when she tended to one of her “alter’s” needs. Multiples often host the very young; is that why they are sometimes found by family members gurgling and cooing like an infant? But with the helpless infant, the fetaling is arranged for them; they have no choice. There is no choosing. And it is never done for aught but the very young. I do wonder why we never hear of past lives who died at birth or in infancy. Why not? It seems they would be the most “entitled” to come back. And in fact, they do; but not as reincarnated souls. They come back spiritually only, as fetals - protégés of a living host.

In Prof. Stevenson’s world survey of reincarnation, he found, particularly among the Tibetans and the Tlingit (northwest coast Indians), that the elderly person will select or predict which parents he will be born to in his next incarnation. In such cases, the old person usually hopes for improved circumstances in his upcoming life. Reincarnation American-style also sees rebirth as an opportunity; the choice (of when and where) is seen as a reflection of one’s purpose. Example: A reader of past lives once told the novelist Taylor Caldwell that she had been a writer before, in a previous existence, but not terribly successful, partly due to her gender. This was why (supposedly) it had been decided that in this lifetime success would be hers. And she chose to come back into an incarnation at a time when the work of women is more acceptable. - I do wonder who exactly “decided” on her success in this lifetime. The point, though, is that – we are choosers, at least according to these beliefs. We choose our parents, we choose our century, we choose our circumstances.

TWO big elephants in the room, as I said before:

1-NDEs, which many of speak as "no time" and "time did not exist"...would you care to explain to everyone how in an eternal "now" there would be "re", "pre" or "post" ANYTHING? Hmmm...the good ship S.S. Reincarnation/Karma just got fatally hit and sank.

2-The Mahatmas' existance has been denied by the Lamas of Tibet, which puts reincarnationists in a terrible contradiction! These 'Mahatmas' were the ones who supposedly revealed the secrets of reincarnation to Madame Blavatski. Then, the Dalai Lama, who supposedly has reincarnated more than 14 times (we're talking more than 1000 years of experience in meditation!), says that there are no such Mahatmas. Of course, if there is no reincarnation, you'll have to search for another belief, because the worthiness of the Lamas of Tibet is based on their reincarnation-based knowledge.

Yes...two VERY big elephants in the room for new agers/reincarnationists...very BIG indeed!