The Soul
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Yorda said:
past life regression
Past life regression (PLR) is the alleged journeying into one's past lives while hypnotized. While it is true that many patients recall past lives, it is highly probable that their memories are false memories. The memories are from experiences in this life, pure products of the imagination, intentional or unintentional suggestions from the hypnotist, or confabulations.
Some New Age therapists do PLR therapy under the guise of personal growth; others under the guise of healing. As a tool for New Age explorers, there may be little harm in encouraging people to remember what are probably false memories about their living in earlier centuries or for encouraging them to go forward in time and glimpse into the future. But as a method of healing, it must be apparent even to the most superficial of therapists that there are great dangers in encouraging patients to create delusions. Some false memories may be harmless, but others can be devastating. They can increase a person's suffering, as well as destroy loving relationships with family members. The care with which hypnosis should be used seems obvious.
Some therapists think hypnosis opens a window to the unconscious mind where memories of past lives are stored. How memories of past lives get into the unconscious mind of a person is not known, but advocates loosely adhere to a doctrine of reincarnation, even though such a doctrine does not require a belief in the unconscious mind as a reservoir of memories of past lives.
PLR therapists claim that past life regression is essential to healing and helping their patients. Some therapists claim that past life therapy can help even those who don't believe in past lives. The practice is given undeserved credibility because of the credentials of some of its leading advocates, e.g., Brian L. Weiss, M.D., who is a graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School and Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. There are no medical internships in PLR therapy, nor does being a medical doctor grant one special authority in metaphysics, the occult or the supernatural.
reincarnation and PLR
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. Furthermore, Baker demonstrated that the subject's expectations significantly affect the past-life regressive session. He divided a group of 60 students into three groups. He told the first group that they were about to experience an exciting new therapy that could help them uncover their past lives. Eighty-five per cent in this group were successful in "remembering" a past life. He told the second group that they were to learn about a therapy which may or may not work to engender past-life memories. In this group, the success rate was 60%. He told the third group that the therapy was crazy and that normal people generally do not experience a past life. Only 10% of this group had a past-life "memory."
There are at least two attractive features of past life regression. Since therapists charge by the hour, the need to explore centuries instead of years will greatly extend the length of time a patient will need to be "treated," thereby increasing the cost of therapy. Secondly, the therapist and patient can usually speculate wildly without much fear of being contradicted by the facts. However, this can backfire if anyone bothers to investigate the matter, as in the case of Bridey Murphy, the case that started this craze in 1952.
thanks to the skeptic dictionary.
I know of Hindu religious concepts, and no, you would not be the last soul in line, I tell you. God is all merciful. He is willing to wait for everyone, because He loves each soul individually and each soul has its own special place near God in God's realm. As for those on their 'first soul life,' that is not something to 'worry about.' That soul could have good karma and get up the ranks to a human body pretty quickly. So being on your 'first soul life' makes no difference, it's your karma that makes the difference of how quickly and intelligently you pass through birth and death until you reach a human body.
Karma, by the way, is the consequences as result of actions. For example, someone who kills someone in one life may be killed in the next, because it is their karma. Good karma may get one a body of a human, which gives them the chance for spiritual realizations. If, in that life as a human, one learns love of God and becomes unattached to material things, then the soul goes back to Godhead, to God's realm (heaven, you could say).
Hey, if you want to know stuff about the soul, read the BHAGAVAD-GITA AS IT IS, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He knows what he's talking about.
Quote:
"As the embodied soul passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, so the soul passes to another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change."
BG., Chapter 2, Text 13
Quote:
"Know that which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul."
BG., Chapter 2, test 17
As to the size of the spirit soul, you asked, it is said in the Svetasvatara Upanisad:
"When the upper point of a hair is divided into one hundred parts and again each of such parts is further divided into one hundred parts, each such part is the measurement of the dimension of the spirit soul." (Svet. Upanisad 5.9)
In the Mundaka Upanisad it is said:
"The soul is atomic in size and can be perceived by perfect intelligence. This atomic soul is floating in the five kinds of air, is situation within the heart, and spreads its influence all over the bod of the embodied living entities. When the soul is purified from the contaminations of the five kinds of material air, its spiritual influence is exhibited." (Mund. Upanisad 3.1.9)
As for where the soul goes, well, in Indian scripts such as the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, and various Upanisads, there is a cycle of birth and death. The soul is eternal, and goes from one body to another. Many of these bodies are animal bodies, but depending on the soul's karma, the soul may go to a human body.
The soul is not limited by the human senses, such as touch, hearing, smell, etc. Therefore, we can attempt to conceive in these ways - asking questions like "Oh, does the soul have ears?" is pointless, because the soul is not material, but the body the soul is in, and the body's senses, ARE material.
And yes, the soul is eternal. In the Bhagavad-Gita it is said:
"For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor having once been does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."
BG, chapter two, text 20
The purport following this text goes on to say that "The soul is not born, but, because he takes on a material body, the body takes its birth. The soul does not take birth there, and the soul does not die...the soul has no past, present, or future...there is no trace in history of his coming into being."
And yes, animals do have souls, as do humans, and plants. And no, I'm not making this stuff up. It's all from various Indian scripts. The Srimad Bhagavatam has it all, but the Bhagavad-Gita As It Is specifically in chapter two tells about the soul.
The soul's purpose is to love God, and the reason we're down here is because the soul has forgotten its purpose. BG Chapter two, text 20's purport, "The consciousness of the individual soul is prone to be forgetful."
The soul IS made from the same stuff as the Supersoul, or God, however that does not mean we are on equal level with God.
As for 'Heaven', well, when you go up there, you don't keep all your material concepts of what is fun - food, sex, drugs, etc. The soul realizes that that is not what it really wants, and joins God in his realm.
The soul is not judged by what religion one believes, but the soul does go up or down in the cycle of birth and death depending on its actions in its lives. There are modes of Passion, Ignorance, and Goodness. Obviously Goodness is the one to go for.
The reason you can't prove the soul is because you're trying to prove it materially, and by science. Impossible. Ditch science. It won't get you anywhere in understanding spiritual things like the soul.
Karma, by the way, is the consequences as result of actions. For example, someone who kills someone in one life may be killed in the next, because it is their karma. Good karma may get one a body of a human, which gives them the chance for spiritual realizations. If, in that life as a human, one learns love of God and becomes unattached to material things, then the soul goes back to Godhead, to God's realm (heaven, you could say).
Hey, if you want to know stuff about the soul, read the BHAGAVAD-GITA AS IT IS, by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He knows what he's talking about.
Quote:
"As the embodied soul passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, so the soul passes to another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change."
BG., Chapter 2, Text 13
Quote:
"Know that which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul."
BG., Chapter 2, test 17
As to the size of the spirit soul, you asked, it is said in the Svetasvatara Upanisad:
"When the upper point of a hair is divided into one hundred parts and again each of such parts is further divided into one hundred parts, each such part is the measurement of the dimension of the spirit soul." (Svet. Upanisad 5.9)
In the Mundaka Upanisad it is said:
"The soul is atomic in size and can be perceived by perfect intelligence. This atomic soul is floating in the five kinds of air, is situation within the heart, and spreads its influence all over the bod of the embodied living entities. When the soul is purified from the contaminations of the five kinds of material air, its spiritual influence is exhibited." (Mund. Upanisad 3.1.9)
As for where the soul goes, well, in Indian scripts such as the Srimad Bhagavatam, the Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, and various Upanisads, there is a cycle of birth and death. The soul is eternal, and goes from one body to another. Many of these bodies are animal bodies, but depending on the soul's karma, the soul may go to a human body.
The soul is not limited by the human senses, such as touch, hearing, smell, etc. Therefore, we can attempt to conceive in these ways - asking questions like "Oh, does the soul have ears?" is pointless, because the soul is not material, but the body the soul is in, and the body's senses, ARE material.
And yes, the soul is eternal. In the Bhagavad-Gita it is said:
"For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor having once been does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."
BG, chapter two, text 20
The purport following this text goes on to say that "The soul is not born, but, because he takes on a material body, the body takes its birth. The soul does not take birth there, and the soul does not die...the soul has no past, present, or future...there is no trace in history of his coming into being."
And yes, animals do have souls, as do humans, and plants. And no, I'm not making this stuff up. It's all from various Indian scripts. The Srimad Bhagavatam has it all, but the Bhagavad-Gita As It Is specifically in chapter two tells about the soul.
The soul's purpose is to love God, and the reason we're down here is because the soul has forgotten its purpose. BG Chapter two, text 20's purport, "The consciousness of the individual soul is prone to be forgetful."
The soul IS made from the same stuff as the Supersoul, or God, however that does not mean we are on equal level with God.
As for 'Heaven', well, when you go up there, you don't keep all your material concepts of what is fun - food, sex, drugs, etc. The soul realizes that that is not what it really wants, and joins God in his realm.
The soul is not judged by what religion one believes, but the soul does go up or down in the cycle of birth and death depending on its actions in its lives. There are modes of Passion, Ignorance, and Goodness. Obviously Goodness is the one to go for.
The reason you can't prove the soul is because you're trying to prove it materially, and by science. Impossible. Ditch science. It won't get you anywhere in understanding spiritual things like the soul.
T.bol,
Hi and welcome to sciforums.
What you say is beautiful and wonderful fantasy and nothing more.
If it is immaterial then it can have no connection with the material body. If it cannot interact with us and we cannot sense it or detect it then it is effectively a null entity and essentially non-existent as far as we are concerned.
If it in anyway interacts with the “material body” then that will be detectable – such interactions have yet to be detected and as we learn more about how we function through neuroscience it seems increasing unlikely that such interactions will ever be detected. That is not because we can’t find them but that there appears to be absolutely no role for a soul to play given that the material brain accounts for all mental functions, memory, feelings and emotions. What role is then left for this fantasy called a soul?
Hi and welcome to sciforums.
What you say is beautiful and wonderful fantasy and nothing more.
If it is immaterial then it can have no connection with the material body. If it cannot interact with us and we cannot sense it or detect it then it is effectively a null entity and essentially non-existent as far as we are concerned.
If it in anyway interacts with the “material body” then that will be detectable – such interactions have yet to be detected and as we learn more about how we function through neuroscience it seems increasing unlikely that such interactions will ever be detected. That is not because we can’t find them but that there appears to be absolutely no role for a soul to play given that the material brain accounts for all mental functions, memory, feelings and emotions. What role is then left for this fantasy called a soul?
Competition time!
All you have to do is vote on this threads daftest statement. The winner gets a big slap.
The finalists are:
Yorda, (several times over) with:
"The theory of reincarnation is not a mere theory, but an actual fact that is being now established beyond reasonable doubt."
and
the new poster T.Bol with:
"Ditch science".
Cast your votes
All you have to do is vote on this threads daftest statement. The winner gets a big slap.
The finalists are:
Yorda, (several times over) with:
"The theory of reincarnation is not a mere theory, but an actual fact that is being now established beyond reasonable doubt."
and
the new poster T.Bol with:
"Ditch science".
Cast your votes
my vote must be yorda.SnakeLord said:Competition time!
All you have to do is vote on this threads daftest statement. The winner gets a big slap.
The finalists are:
Yorda, (several times over) with:
"The theory of reincarnation is not a mere theory, but an actual fact that is being now established beyond reasonable doubt."
and
the new poster T.Bol with:
"Ditch science".
Cast your votes
I can't imagine a unicorn which is both pink and invisible. So... they don't exist, not even in the mind.
But I can easily imagine that, therefore they must exist. So do fire-breathing dragons.
The point is, Yorda, that which we can imagine does not necessarily exist.
We can imagine gods, reincarnation, souls, etc. but they do not exist.
But I can easily imagine that, therefore they must exist. So do fire-breathing dragons.
The point is, Yorda, that which we can imagine does not necessarily exist.
We can imagine gods, reincarnation, souls, etc. but they do not exist.
Itseemstome
Registered Senior Member
Come on girls and boys, lets stick to science. According to string theory there are 11 dimensions. We are aware of three. I reckon that in 11 dimensions there is room for 8 three dimensional universes which may all be undetectable to each other, or maybe all the others are aware we're here whilst we are not aware that they are. Maybe there are universes of 2, 4 or other numbers of dimensions that we cannot even comprehend. Sticking to three dimensional ones it would mean that we could only detect 11.111% of the universe. This is fairly close to observed fact and is therefore likely to be true. This is scientific method, predict what we will find and then if you find it, Eureka. (yes I know what it's Greek for)
Now, if the mind exists on one or more of the other dimensions and is only connected to the body through the brain ( Descartes suggested via the pituitary gland, although I don't see that as necessary ) we see that if the part that deals with certain aspects of behaviour gets damaged we will lose that ability, which is also what is observed. Eureka.
Science recently found a part of the brain that shuts down during meditation and concluded that here was the part of the brain which gives transcendental experiences. I would suggest that once this part of the brain 'shuts up' for a bit the higher dimensions of the mind can get a word in. Eureka. Thank goodness for science.
Now, if the mind exists on one or more of the other dimensions and is only connected to the body through the brain ( Descartes suggested via the pituitary gland, although I don't see that as necessary ) we see that if the part that deals with certain aspects of behaviour gets damaged we will lose that ability, which is also what is observed. Eureka.
Science recently found a part of the brain that shuts down during meditation and concluded that here was the part of the brain which gives transcendental experiences. I would suggest that once this part of the brain 'shuts up' for a bit the higher dimensions of the mind can get a word in. Eureka. Thank goodness for science.
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Itsemstome,
This "god" spot (discussed here in a number of threads) has two interpretations - your version is where this is the point of contact with some imaginary other diemnsinal intelligence, or the more credible suggestion that this is where spiritual style emotions are generated by the brain. The science tends to support the latter.
This "god" spot (discussed here in a number of threads) has two interpretations - your version is where this is the point of contact with some imaginary other diemnsinal intelligence, or the more credible suggestion that this is where spiritual style emotions are generated by the brain. The science tends to support the latter.
Itseemstome
Registered Senior Member
Hi again Cris, Yes I am new to the sight and am still learning my way around. I hadn't come across the threads mentioned.
Is it science that tends to support the latter or scientists? Surely the occurrence of an event in the absence of a signal would tend to suggest that the signal was blocking the event.
Is it science that tends to support the latter or scientists? Surely the occurrence of an event in the absence of a signal would tend to suggest that the signal was blocking the event.
Itseems,
There are a number of articles on the web that cover this - here is one I just found that seems to cover the basic issues. A lot of the early research arose due to investigations into epilepsy where epileptics often describe intense spiritual sensations during their fits. It looks like a particular area of the brain can be artificially stimulated to generate spiritual like hallucinations. This tends to suggest rather strongly that it isn't a receptor for an alledged supernatural realm but rather a far more mundane function of the brain that genertes these sensations. It is interesting that Muhammed had extreme epileptic fits and it seems almost certain that Islam is the result of these hallucinations.
http://atheistempire.com/reference/brain/main.html
Enjoy
Cris
There are a number of articles on the web that cover this - here is one I just found that seems to cover the basic issues. A lot of the early research arose due to investigations into epilepsy where epileptics often describe intense spiritual sensations during their fits. It looks like a particular area of the brain can be artificially stimulated to generate spiritual like hallucinations. This tends to suggest rather strongly that it isn't a receptor for an alledged supernatural realm but rather a far more mundane function of the brain that genertes these sensations. It is interesting that Muhammed had extreme epileptic fits and it seems almost certain that Islam is the result of these hallucinations.
http://atheistempire.com/reference/brain/main.html
Enjoy
Cris
Itseemstome
Registered Senior Member
I think we're on different parts of the brain. I saw a report on an area that ceases all activity during meditation and the like.