Past Life Regression

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Even if reincarnation is real, it is statistically unlikely than any individual person now living had a string of previous lives

Huh?


Um, just what are the rules about reincarnation, Alex? How does that incarnation cap work exactly?

[€uroMeinke]

I think population growth creates a problem if you believe reincarnation only a human to human thing - if you include the rest of the animal kingdom, there are plenty of extinct populations to draw from. None-the-less, I suppose it does presume some finite number of souls which may come up against ideas you might have about the infinite nature of the universe.

[innerSpaceman]

Besides that it might be folly to apply mathmatics to something as mysterious as reincarnation, the statistical model makes the rather provincial assumption that souls are limited to the place and timeflow of our own Earth.

[JWBear]

Also that new souls aren't "born".

[Alex]

Well, that is what I'd like thecorndogwalker to address. In my reading on the subject I don't come across many reports of people reporting that they were once a groundhog or generic alien entity. But if they were that too would be interesting and then statistically the odds of having twice been a human in the last few centuries are pretty slim.

innerSpaceman, I don't intend to limit it to the place and timeflow of earth, those are just the vast majority of claims I've seen for recovered past lives. I do not intend to impose rules on reincarnation, but intend to respond to the fact that overwhelmingly the reported knowledge of past lives are from one human life to another human life (and generally within the same race). If there are extensive reports of people finding they were aliens in another universe I'd like to be aware of them (and again, if that is the case then statistically being a human twice would be pretty unlikely).

If it is simply immune to any rational consideration, I'd be interested in that claim as well (since PLR is generally presented in at least a pseudo-rational context).

That is why I am taking the opportunity offered by thecorndogwalker to ask him questions about PLR. I can certainly create contextual structures that deal with my questions (particularly if I am willing to put it outside the realm of rational evidence) but I'd just be making **** up. I don't think my questions are unreasonable and presumably the proponents of PLR have spent time thinking about them so I'm curious what their conclusions are.

To rephrase that part again (so that I don't seem to be imposing my own rules on reincarnation):

If cross-species, universe-wide reincarnation is real, it is statistically unlikely than any individual person now living has experienced a past human life. If it is limited to human-to-human transfer then it is statistically odd. So what would explain the claims (in looking around I'm seeing claims of more than 80% when the participants enter into the process believing that discovering past lives is possible) of a vast majority of participants finding just such connections.

If I am wrong and most PLR sessions actually find that nobody present (as statistics would lead us to expect) has previously experienced a human life but rather non-human terrestrial or non-terrestrial life (or if discovery is limited to human-to-human transfer, a smaller than half result, declining the farther back you go) then that is very informative and I appreciate having my understanding corrected, but my other questions are still intriguing to me as well.

[bewitched]

Personally, I think Alex has some interesting questions (and don't you feel validated?).

I'm on the fence about this. I have a hard time believing but then where does deja vu come in? Where do "connections" with other people come in?

On the other hand, I think a lot of "PLR" can be explained by the theory of parallel universes (a subsection of superstring theory) which would confirm the experience of other lives.

[Alex]

I can't read the whole article but at least with the two paragraphs shown the text does not match the headline.

The headline mentions parallel universes but the text is discussing the implications of an infinite universe. Which, I believe, are different things (though maybe they are connected in the full article).

Since you raised it, though, I'd be curious how parallel universes (and which theory of them) would explain PLR? I don't konw where deja vu comes in, having experienced it many times myself I don't find it to be all the bizarre and requiring extraordinary explanation, any more than a mystical explanation is required for the fact that if I stare at stucco long enough I can find faces in it (the human brain is so inclined towards pattern recognition that it is easily fooled into seeing patterns where none exist). I don't know what "connections" with people means.

[flippyshark]

Only slightly on topic: i've never been able to get behind past lives as an explanation for deja vu. The reason? Most of the experiences I've had with deja vu took place when I was at home, at school, at Disney World, in other words, places which did not exist (my house, Disney World) or would have looked a lot different in any lifetime that preceded 1965.

Deja Vu is just an uncanny feeling that seems like remembering things at the exact moment they happen.

[flippyshark]

Only slightly on topic: i've never been able to get behind past lives as an explanation for deja vu. The reason? Most of the experiences I've had with deja vu took place when I was at home, at school, at Disney World, in other words, places which did not exist (my house, Disney World) or would have looked a lot different in any lifetime that preceded 1965.

Deja Vu is just an uncanny feeling that seems like remembering things at the exact moment they happen.

Sorry - couldn't resist

[lashbear]

LOL !