Past Lives and Regression

[CatherineW]

Do you believe in reincarnation?

A long time ago I read a book called "Lady of Hay" by Barbara Erskine, i thought it was really good. It was all about characters regressing back to earlier lives of theirs and how their friends were their also friends in past lives.

It made me think and reconsider my beliefs but I want to know your beliefs.

Did we have past lives? Can we regress back to them with hypnotherapy?

:shrug:

 

[John99]

i dont believe in reincarnation because there is too much growth in populations to facilitate such a concept. that is my impression.

 

[John99]

although i have to say that deja vu is pretty strange.

 

[CatherineW]

Yeah I see your point, it's quite an interesting theory though don't you think?

 

[CatherineW]

Deja vu is strange. Cearly it's just a change in the matrix haha.

 

[John99]

he he he...

 

[Oli]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/522/is-it-possible-to-recall-past-lives-through-hypnosis

 

[CatherineW]

Nice link, any thoughts yourself sir?

 

[Oli]

Lots
But on this particular topic: just one word - bunk.
Another link http://www.skepdic.com/pastlife.html gives this:

Psychologist Robert Baker demonstrated that belief in reincarnation is the greatest predictor of whether a subject would have a past-life memory while under past life regression hypnotherapy.

Like all "psychic" phenomena it's willingness to believe that dictates results, i.e. gullibility overcomes rationality (on the part of the regressor AND the regressee), and selective choice of what to include as "evidence".

 

[CatherineW]

Fair point mister

 

[cosmictraveler]

Do you believe in reincarnation?

No and everyone I know doesn't either.

 

[CatherineW]

I bet at least one person you know does, think how many people you must know

 

[cosmictraveler]

I bet at least one person you know does, think how many people you must know

I know a few dozen and NONE of them believe in that stuff at all, thankfully.

 

[CatherineW]

You're being very dismissive, you'd be gutted if when you die you're reborn as a toad ^.^

 

[cosmictraveler]

You're being very dismissive, you'd be gutted if when you die you're reborn as a toad ^.^

I'm being very honest, which many people today aren't.

 

[spidergoat]

I believe it literally. Our atoms used to be parts of the bodies of other living things. Our minds, the ideas within them, are inherited from the humans around us.

 

[Oli]

I know a few dozen and NONE of them believe in that stuff at all, thankfully.

I know far too many people who do.
In fact, even one is far too many, but it's more than one.
Hydrogen and stupidity: the two most common elements in the universe.

 

[kmguru]

Do you believe in reincarnation?

:

It all depends on what you mean by reincarnation? Do you mean that a person's entire life memories move to another living host? Or do you mean ceratin properties get transferred. Because, if the whole memory moves, even if embedded in DNA with fractal mathematics somehow, then one does not need schooling.

Let us first define what the properties are, then we can discuss what is possible and what is not, even if outlandish.

 

[Carcano]

Did we have past lives?

The best testimony comes from those who have died and been brought back to life:

http://near-death.com/evidence.html

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

i dont believe in reincarnation because there is too much growth in populations to facilitate such a concept. that is my impression.

Yeah I see your point, it's quite an interesting theory though don't you think?

There is no point to it.
We don't know what the total number of humans that ever lived on Earth is. We don't know whether reincarnation includes prehumans. We don't know whether it involves previous lives elsewhere in the universe.