Past-Life Regression

Great Debates
1

Discussion in the Hypnosis thread led to this one: Polycarp said:

David, I’d be interested to hear about this. I was into reincarnation pretty hardcore in high school after seeing Kenneth Branagh’s attempt at mass appeal, *Dead Again *. I remember reading something about a psychologist who tried to disprove it by going to India and interviewing children who claimed to remember their past lives. Some he was able to discredit, by merit of the villiages being close enough for the kids to hear the stories through gossip, or the like. But there was one kid who remembered his old name, the name of his old villiage, and his murder. The villiage turned out to be hundreds of miles away by way of mules. The likelyhood of this kid hearing stories of the murder was low. The psychologist’s theory was that a passing merchant had told the story, the kid heard it. But no one else in the villiage claimed to have ever HEARD of the villiage the kid mentioned, much less of a greusome murder. The psychologist later traveled to the named villiage, and sure enough, someone by the name the kid mentioned HAD died there, by…you guessed it, murder.

But I think hypnosis is a crock, so I think past life hypnotic regression is a crock, too. Anyone with any thoughts?

One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzche

2

I would also add that the popular movie “SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET” makes reference to the Dalai Lama of Tibet, as being reincarnated. If you read Heinrich Harrar’s book, he says that the boy remebered his life as an aged monk, and the memories were corroborated. Was Harrer telling the truth? I don’t know, but most of these cases seem to come from Tibet or India, where belief in reincarnation is strong.

3

Both Buddhism and Hinduism rely heavily on the concept of reincarnation. I beleive in order to become a lama, you have to be a reincarnated lama. Anyone remember a movie a couple years ago about a kid who was a lama and went out to find the reincarnated leader of the monistary? Something to that effect.

One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzche

4

Don’t have time for a full response right now, but here are some links you might find interesting:
http://skepdic.com/reincarn.html http://skepdic.com/pastlife.html http://skepdic.com/bridey.html

5

Really useful threads, David, and thank you. One quick comment: in my experience, many of the Skeptic’s Dictionary entries tend to conflate the totally off-the-wall with the merely unproven. Consider the following two allegations:[list=a][li]The supposed fossils in the Antarctica “Mars” meteorite and the changing color of the planetary surface, combined with the inconclusive results one of the three lander tests, suggest to me that there may be microscopic life on Mars.Hidden Martian adepts are behind the construction of the Great Pyramid, the ruins at Tiahuanaco and Nan Mahol, and other archaeological mysteries.[/list=a][/li]
I think there is an smidge more probability to the first hypothesis than the second. Properly, the Skeptic’s Dictionary would give no credence to both. Legitimately so, since both are unproven hypotheses. But what concerns me about it is that it tends to throw the most far-fetched hypotheses in as what appear to be “typical” examples of the general subject matter being covered.

If I were, for example, to hypothesize that there are regularities in geophysical process X with 690-day, 12-year, and 30-year cycles which may or may not have some relation to the synodic periods of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, this would be a legitimate hypothesis, with even a mechanism (tidal pull) supporting it. But it would be lumped in with Madame Vavavoom’s Sun Signs in the astrology page (and Madame Vavavoom would get the lead role – easier to debunk!).

If there are any evidences of past-life regression, to avoid totally hijacking this thread, (and based on the comments re hypnosis, I suspect there are not), they would be “buried” by the Edgar Cayce clairvoyant garbage and Bridey Murphy 1950s media hype. I suspect this would be true of any possibly valid evidence that may exist in any of the fringe-y topics. By being of a similar nature to the overwhelming mass of gibberish fed by the unscrupulous to the unwary, they are victims of the “once bitten, twice shy” syndrome and may never get proper examination.

I am aware that you, David, are not the keeper of that board. But you are respected among the skeptical community. Would you give thoughtful review to my comments and if appropriate pass them on?

6

My opinion is also that hypnosis is a crock, and that “hypnosis” is mainly a term that refers to susceptible/gullible people who are willing to play along.

7

The problem in this case (and probably others as well), Poly, is that Bridey is often given as “proof” of reincarnation. You may know it’s a crock and think they’re just using it 'cus it’s easy to debunk, but the simple fact is that many other people don’t know this. When there are 15 books out referring to the Bridey case as proving reincarnation and past life regression, and one book out showing it’s a crock, which do you think most people are going to see?

Incidentally, this past Tuesday’s episode of Exploring the Unknown (a skeptical Sightings-type show on the Fox Family channel) discussed a case of past live regression. It was so obviously bogus that it was ridiculous, and they didn’t even shoot it down as well as they could have! (I notice them often backing off a bit more than, say, Skeptical Inquirer so as not to totally alienate the audience.)

It all centered around one hypnotherapist (alarm #1) who had a group of people in the same area who were all reincarnated from another small town (alarm #2) in Virginia around the time of the civil war. They gave detailed discussions of their lives there and it was obvious these people believed what they were saying. It was equally obvious that they had been led into belief by this woman. When they showed one hypnosis session, the therapist asked a woman about a secret door in the floor. The woman agreed it was there. The therapist asked if there was a handle sticking up; the woman said no, there was a hole to pull it up. The therapist said that the woman had previously stated she had to use a knife to pry it up and then pull a rope; the woman changed her story about the hole and agreed. Whoa! (massive alarm bells ringing) The show had a psychologist on to point this out, but of course the therapist denied she was leading anybody.

The part the show didn’t go after was when the therapist asked the woman why the door was there. She said it was to an underground room. Why was there a room? To hide people. What kind of people? “Black people.”

'Scuse me? If she was speaking as the person of the time (which was the claim), there is no way in hell she would call them “black people.” She would have called them “niggers” or, at best, “negroes” or “slaves.”

The show did hit some good points, like a local historian checking the census from that time period and not finding the people these folks were supposedly reincarnated from. He also checked all the records they had to see if there was any mention of a brutal murder that one woman said she suffered at the hands of her husband – zilch.

But, of course, these folks continue to believe…

Ignorance is Bliss.
Reality is Better.

8

The western mind set about religion/faith/reincarnation is based on the idea that one simply believes it exists or believes it does not.

I am in the camp that thinks that the current crop of reincarnation cases are probably crap. At least the new ones have moved past Cleopatra, Caesar and Napoleon to Irish peasant children and the like.

Apparently, the language ability of the former “host” does not get carried to the new life, nor does any vision of text of the ancient language, nor any type of phenomenon that are outside the modern persons casual scope of knowledge, such as views of strange contraptions, cultural customs, language, devices, etc. Most modern Americans are worefully ignorant of history and the similarities and differences between their lives and those of previous generations. Their recollections reflect this.

Perhaps that is the nature of the beast.

THe preponderance of reincarnation stories from Tibet and India neither confirms nor denies the reality of the phenomenon, any more than the preponderance of visions of the Virgin in Catholic countries proves the divinity of Jesus.

In Tibet there may be a difference. Reincarnation in a specific body, which is predicted before the death of the first host in question, is the result of years of what the Tibetetans have called the “science of mind” - meditation and suppression of the grasping desires of the self, to create clarity in seeing the continuity of existence.

I am still skeptical and was glad to read an American who became a lama say that belief in reincarnation (which is not unheard of in Zen either) may not be expected in what is now evolving as an “American Dharma”.

9

It might be true, but I won’t believe it until I die and get reincarnated with perfect memories of this life, but I won’t expect anyone else to believe me (except the gullible people who, if Darwin was right and my hopes are too, will eventually be bred out of the population).

That’s my view on pretty much everything of this sort. It might be true, but I won’t believe it.

10

Let me throw out an observation, though:

The Bridey Murphy case was debunked as reincarnation because it was someone she had known in childhood. The ‘past life’ experiences were actually confused memories of her childhood.
But as I understand it, the accuracy of the details, accent, stories, etc that this woman ‘remembers’ as her past life were apparently fairly accurate memories of her childhood acquaintance. So, is this actually a demonstration of how hypnotherapy can facilitate ‘recovered memories?’ (tying back to two threads previous…

Felice

“There’s always a bigger fish.”

11

There was a study done looking a supposed hypnotic regression to childhood. The therapist was directed to regress the person back to his or her third birthday and then ask for details, including what day of the week it had been. All the subjects came up with a response. Trouble is, they were usually wrong and–this is the kicker–when you ask real three-year-olds what day it is, they generally have no idea.

12

It’s funny how these cases, can live on in infamy long after they have been proved false. Remember Sybil, “proof” for muliple personality disorder? How many people remember that after her therepist died, a collegue going through the therepy tapes came to the conclusion that Sybil had been manipulated into believeing she had 24 personalities? She was debunked, yet she’s still what people think of when they hear MPD. Same with Bridey.

Does anyone on this board believe in hypnosis as anything else than a relaxation device? (it seems our ‘debate’ has gone the way of a lot of people nodding vigorously…)

One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. -Nietzche

13

Hypnosis may be more than a relaxation device, much in the way mediation is.

The mysticism of Buddhism is INSIDE, not necessarily OUT-THERE.

Like meditation, I think hypnosis can reveal much interior goings on, but is subsceptible to suggestion by the hypnotizer and past influences. The first to look at is an internalized belief in reincarnation, before one assumes that what appear to be past lives are really OUT THERE, or BACK THEN. They may just be IN THERE.