Reincarnation

[Voice]

I used to date a kinky yoga instructor who told me I was a Roman centurian who raped and murdered her in a previous life.

 

She liked to be choked during coitus.

 

Foxy, could we please not have the graphic sexual detail?

 

Sorry I offend your politeness standards and sensibilities but it is a true story and illustrates the bizarre fantasy world of some reincarnation mindsets. Some people who believe in reincarnation do so as a part of a greater religious belief system based on the idea that a soul is very powerful and moves from body to body intact. Others believe in reincarnation as an escape mechanism for their private fantasies.

 

Foxy, i think she might have been just pulling your leg. She probably had rape fantasies from places all over history.

I didn't take the strangling part as too graphic (sorry Deva). The lead singer of INXS died that way, but i think plastic was involved.

[Deva]

I am really trying to keep this discussion on a serious level, but that requires everyone's cooperation.

[Voice]

I'm the other monkey wrench.

 

Even memories about this life are mostly imaginary. It has been shown time and time again that memories from events that happened years ago differ dramatically from memories of the same events recored within a few hours after those events. We don't really remember but rather we rewrite.

 

In a physical sense the atoms in our bodies were part of many other living things. And after we die the atoms in our bodies will usually become part of the environment again and after time has passed will become part of new living things. However the consciousness of each human is unique and there is no reason to think it survives past death. Even if it did why would it go into the mind of a new human or a new animal? No other animal seems to have the complexity of consciousness that we have. Where does our consciousness hang out when it doesn't have a body? Our population has exploded so that there have been more people alive in the last 100 years than lived in all the years before that. Where does new human consciousness come from to make up for the deficiency? Of course there is much we don't know about the topic.

 

The simplest explanation is that each human brain forms one human consciousness and there is no reincarnation.

 

mm, they would have to come from the future. [LOOKS LEFT, THEN RIGHT, THEN LEFT AGAIN...]

 

For at least 20 years i actually got mad at the idea of reincarnation. Not only because i thought it would be some kind of twisted version of hell, but because of what you're suggesting, that the universe is too vast and diverse to have to recycle souls. How inventive would that be? How creative? Not very.

 

Now i've heard enough accounts to consider it a (dreadful) possibility, and am just collecting more information. It was J's account that first turned me to think, 'hmm, maybe i should give this some attention'.

If i could choose, i'd like to be mold. What passion for life, a will to live so great that i believe it's one of the rare lifeforms we have on this planet that's likely to exist in other world environments and not just here. Those spores are unstoppable.

Maybe i shouldn't be making fun. I could become mold though, if no one finds me right away.

[Voice]

I am really trying to keep this discussion on a serious level, but that requires everyone's cooperation.

 

Bad timing i guess. Sorry Deva

But i am evaluating evidence and trying to help keep it on track.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Let's assume that reincarnation happens. Self, IMO is your ego and your memories. If I existed as someone/something else before I was born, I have no way to tangibly recognize that. Since no one can reasonably recognize this we can safely assume we won't recall in any tangible way our ego or our memories if we are reincarnated after death. In this case, it's not YOU that moves on or that preexisted, rendering the question of reincartion moot from a survival perspective.

 

I think reincarnation is incoherent for reasons similar to yours, Vigile. If some kind of soul-stuff goes on into another body, it won't be the same "me" all over again. It will be a different person. There won't be a survival of the "me" in reincarnation. I don't know about cases where people claim to have remembered past lives, but I'd think an investigational hypothesis would be that they are false, induced "memories." Other people, after all, claim to have near-death experiences where they go to Heaven, see a blue-eyed Jesus, etc. The doctrinal content of these reports is not consistent, so I doubt that the reports are giving information about anything outside that person's brain.

[Voice]

Let's assume that reincarnation happens. Self, IMO is your ego and your memories. If I existed as someone/something else before I was born, I have no way to tangibly recognize that. Since no one can reasonably recognize this we can safely assume we won't recall in any tangible way our ego or our memories if we are reincarnated after death. In this case, it's not YOU that moves on or that preexisted, rendering the question of reincartion moot from a survival perspective.

 

I think reincarnation is incoherent for reasons similar to yours, Vigile. If some kind of soul-stuff goes on into another body, it won't be the same "me" all over again. It will be a different person. There won't be a survival of the "me" in reincarnation. I don't know about cases where people claim to have remembered past lives, but I'd think an investigational hypothesis would be that they are false, induced "memories." Other people, after all, claim to have near-death experiences where they go to Heaven, see a blue-eyed Jesus, etc. The doctrinal content of these reports is not consistent, so I doubt that the reports are giving information about anything outside that person's brain.

 

stryper, i want to quote you here because it's pertinent to what ficino is saying. For those who didn't catch the other thread where this topic started, the quote is from there.

 

 

 

The description from your anecdotal story is a very similar to what the Micheal Teachings say about how we choose lives when between lives. Though the lessons to be learned are only potentials at that point. Once the life starts the personality takes over.

 

[snip]

 

As to always being on earth, there is generally a reason for that. We choose to incarnate in this species. We have lessons to learn. Why would you throw changing species on top of everything else that there is to learn about life? To me it just seems to be adding an additional layer of complication that probably won't add much to the experience.

[JadedAtheist]

The only sense in which I believe reincarnation can and does occur is our offspring. I think a great deal of who we are is due to our parents (i.e. genetics), not to discount parenting but for example, I see so much of my father in myself and he wasn't really in my life until I was 19. It is really uncanny. I guess what I am thinking of is somewhat akin to Assassin's Creed. Your memories are stored in your genes for others to unlock and see. That's the closest thing to reincarnation that I believe is likely.

[Voice]

luna, Margee, Deva,

I don't mean to sound disrespectful. This is how i think about it though, when i'm alone doing dishes or cutting wood in the woods or whatever. I speculate. I weigh people's accounts and experiences and ponder. I think of possibilities.

 

luna, i'm very interested in hearing more detail of your experience with these other people. We have mostly skeptics here and i'd understand if you didn't want to post here. Would you send me an IM if you don't want to?

[Foxy Methoxy]

I am really trying to keep this discussion on a serious level, but that requires everyone's cooperation.

 

Yes, ma'am. If you don't control the message, who will? Anyway, I was being serious. This is a serious topic to me. I see two general groups who believe in reincarnation and they believe in it for seperate purposes.

 

For people who believe the soul is powerful, particularly of mystical and/or magical powers, reincarnation makes sense because a soul with such powers does not die. It simply finds new flesh to empower. This belief requires religious and/or ceremonial practices.

 

However, people who are mentally unstable also gravitate to the concept, using it as a vehicle for their delusional fantasy world. This belief does not require any devotion to a spiritual belief or system and tends to be the sole property of misguided vanity.

 

When speaking with someone on the subject, I ask about their religious beliefs and they quickly reveal themselves to be one or the other.

[Deva]

Yes, ma'am. If you don't control the message, who will?

 

That was really uncalled for. Everyone has expressed their ideas here, many of which I personally disagree with. I called you out on that post only because I could not see any connection between some sexual activity you described IMO rather graphically, and reincarnation. You explained it, I was going to go on, but now you evidently won't let it go.

 

Why can't I ask for a serious discussion on this topic? Should I ask the moderators to move this to the Colleseum?

 

Your position seems to be that it all comes down to ego - either the person is mentally unbalanced or think so highly of themselves they believe they must go on somehow. Maybe that misrepresents what you are saying.

[Deva]

luna, Margee, Deva,

I don't mean to sound disrespectful. This is how i think about it though, when i'm alone doing dishes or cutting wood in the woods or whatever. I speculate. I weigh people's accounts and experiences and ponder. I think of possibilities.

 

Voice, I don't think you are disrespectful. I know that reincarnation is not a generally accepted view here on Ex-C. . I also like to thnk of possibilities and speculate.

[Deva]

Has anyone read "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" by Ian Stevenson? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson

 

Stevenson's work impressed very much as a young person. He did extensive interviewing of young children who had very detailed memories of past lives.

[JadedAtheist]

Yes, ma'am. If you don't control the message, who will? Anyway, I was being serious. This is a serious topic to me. I see two general groups who believe in reincarnation and they believe in it for seperate purposes.

 

For people who believe the soul is powerful, particularly of mystical and/or magical powers, reincarnation makes sense because a soul with such powers does not die. It simply finds new flesh to empower. This belief requires religious and/or ceremonial practices.

 

However, people who are mentally unstable also gravitate to the concept, using it as a vehicle for their delusional fantasy world. This belief does not require any devotion to a spiritual belief or system and tends to be the sole property of misguided vanity.

 

When speaking with someone on the subject, I ask about their religious beliefs and they quickly reveal themselves to be one or the other.

 

I think there is a well known correlation between mental illness and spiritual beliefs, no? I remember as a child I would visit my mother in the mental institution and a good portion of people had religious delusions. I remember one lady pronounced to me that I had a "blue aura" and was protected by angels. Others thought they were reincarnations of Jesus or that God had sent them on a mission.

 

Reading some of the other comments here, I also have to agree with the pointlessness of reincarnation in that it's not really *me* reincarnating. It's like finding out that my left pinky will continue on to live on another person. That's cool and all but I derive no personal satisfaction from it and it would make me no happier than if I was told nothing was to occur at all.

[Deva]

I think there is a well known correlation between mental illness and spiritual beliefs, no? I remember as a child I would visit my mother in the mental institution and a good portion of people had religious delusions. I remember one lady pronounced to me that I had a "blue aura" and was protected by angels. Others thought they were reincarnations of Jesus or that God had sent them on a mission.

 

Considering that the vast majority of people have some kind of religious/spiritual belief, it would not surprise me if there were not a dispropportionate number of them in mental institutions. That all spiritual people are mentally unbalanced and deluded is something we have seen repeated over and over on this site, from many who formerly held such religious/spiritual beliefs. Not sure if that is what you are saying or if you have some other point.

 

 

Reading some of the other comments here, I also have to agree with the pointlessness of reincarnation in that it's not really *me* reincarnating. It's like finding out that my left pinky will continue on to live on another person. That's cool and all but I derive no personal satisfaction from it and it would make me no happier than if I was told nothing was to occur at all.

 

Agreed that if it isn't "you" reincarnating there is almost no point in discussing it. But what if it is "you" reincarnating? What if what you do now influences where you go next life? What if you can choose where you go?

[Margee]

Does anyone who believes in reincarnation think that souls can "go along for a ride" in a body instead of being the animating force behind that life? Would that explain why some people have past life memories and others don't?

 

Actually, J talked to me about that too. She called them "walk-in's". She believed that sometimes a person could get to a place in their life where they would just give up. Die inside from defeat. At that time, another soul waiting in the "station" might step in and take over. She used evidence from accounts where someone was of a certain character into their young adult life, then one day after some events or trauma or something, they would change and seem to become someone else.

 

 

Are you suggesting the possibility of 2 individual souls being in one person at the same time? I know people think of demon possession, that would be more than one.

 

I knew quite a bit about this concept of 'walk ins'. I think awhile back, we posted where we got our forum names and I told you all that I asked 2 years ago for someone else to 'walk in' my body and take over because I felt too tired to go on. I was desperate for any 'magical' thing that could or might happen.

 

I cried my head off that morning when I imagined a beautiful, young energetic girl enter me. I imagined that she told me her name was Margee, and specifically said that the name would be spelled with 2 e's at the end?? Hence the nickname, Margee. I know - it's crazy that I felt so desperate that day, that I would do this .

 

I haven't felt any huge difference since that day. I must say that different things have happened to me that made me want to go on......like finding EX-c, which has brought me total pleasure in the last year.

 

Is there a real 'new' spirit living inside of me called Margee? I don't know, but in a way, I do sometimes classify myself as 'Margee' now. It has become quite familiar to me. I'll be out shopping and see something and silently say: ''What do you think of this blouse Margee?'' LOL

 

I am going to surmise that I made up a wonderful fantasy that day.

 

I don't know...I'm just another sane-insane person on this earth trying to make it!!

[Margee]

luna, Margee, Deva,

I don't mean to sound disrespectful. This is how i think about it though, when i'm alone doing dishes or cutting wood in the woods or whatever. I speculate. I weigh people's accounts and experiences and ponder. I think of possibilities.

 

Voice, I don't think you are disrespectful. I know that reincarnation is not a generally accepted view here on Ex-C. . I also like to thnk of possibilities and speculate.

You're not desrepectful to me either Vioice ....at all........ I am enjoying reading this thread and listening to everyone viewpoints.

[Deva]

I want to share this video of Dr. Stevenson discussing his work. It might make more sense if you read his work, but it is quite amazing - the cases he found and the rigorous way he approached it.

 

[asanerman]

I knew quite a bit about this concept of 'walk ins'. I think awhile back, we posted where we got our forum names and I told you all that I asked 2 years ago for someone else to 'walk in' my body and take over because I felt too tired to go on. I was desperate for any 'magical' thing that could or might happen.

 

I cried my head off that morning when I imagined a beautiful, young energetic girl enter me. I imagined that she told me her name was Margee, and specifically said that the name would be spelled with 2 e's at the end?? Hence the nickname, Margee. I know - it's crazy that I felt so desperate that day, that I would do this .

 

I haven't felt any huge difference since that day. I must say that different things have happened to me that made me want to go on......like finding EX-c, which has brought me total pleasure in the last year.

 

Is there a real 'new' spirit living inside of me called Margee? I don't know, but in a way, I do sometimes classify myself as 'Margee' now. It has become quite familiar to me. I'll be out shopping and see something and silently say: ''What do you think of this blouse Margee?'' LOL

 

I am going to surmise that I made up a wonderful fantasy that day.

 

I don't know...I'm just another sane-insane person on this earth trying to make it!!

 

Margee,

 

Your account reminds me of the night I gave my life to Christ.

 

Not only was I desperate that night, I meant it!

 

I had wept a "river of tears" over my plight, so I ask the Son of God to "drop in" or "walk in" and save my weary soul--relieve my plight!

 

That was forty-seven or so years ago and over the years I have had time to reflect and investigate what might have taken place that night.

 

Derek Wolcott has helped me to describe what happened that "long ago" event.

 

I turn my gaze inward as I write this. As I travel back to that “once upon a time” I know now that what I did that “holy night” (unbeknownst to myself at the time), was to “greet myself arriving at my own door, in my own mirror, and smile to the stranger who was” myself.

 

I took me some twenty years to realize that I had gotten the name of that One I meet that evening misconstrued--a mistaken identity of sorts.

 

It wasn’t Jesus that I meet that night!

 

It was the stranger who was myself! And as Wolcott has taught me in his short and outlandish poem, I give back my heart to itself that night, to the stranger who has loved me all my life, who knows me by heart and whom I ignored for another for so long.

 

By the large graces of the Unknown, that night was the start, although it has been a rough "go of it" since, no less, that event gave me the permission and the authority “to take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes”--to peel my own image from the mirror, to Sit on a holy ground and Feast on my life.

 

My "nickname" used to be Christian until I found myself. I still weep tears and am confused but I found a Friend that "long ago night when my world stood still and I gazed the Wonder. Now and again I catch "glimpses" of the wonder when I am "still" and forget who I think I am!

 

I know that all of "this" is just another illusion--much like all the rest!

[Voice]

Yes Foxy, the ego part didn't ring with me either.

Within the Chakra system (another whole topic for another thread) ego resonates within the 2nd and 3rd Chakra regions, those of reproductive impetus and digestion. It's colors are orange and yellow. In this system it's a manageable component of personality with a proper place in a balanced whole.

 

You may be talking about another kind of ego, could you elaborate?

 

I hope you were in jest identifying 2 types of respondents. I'm neither.

[Foxy Methoxy]

Are you familiar with the term "imbalanced ego" from the Eastern mindset? If you're interpreting my phrasing from a Western point of view, then my words have a completely different meaning, which is unfortunate, but the phrasing I learned from an Indian teacher is not always compatible with the phrasing we interpret in English over a message board due to the many dualities in our language. As often as my words are misconstrued over this board, I'm thinking my attempts to convey what I've learned to be futile. So until I find a better way to communicate, I'll stop.

[Noggy]

I think there is a well known correlation between mental illness and spiritual beliefs, no? I remember as a child I would visit my mother in the mental institution and a good portion of people had religious delusions. I remember one lady pronounced to me that I had a "blue aura" and was protected by angels. Others thought they were reincarnations of Jesus or that God had sent them on a mission.

 

Reading some of the other comments here, I also have to agree with the pointlessness of reincarnation in that it's not really *me* reincarnating. It's like finding out that my left pinky will continue on to live on another person. That's cool and all but I derive no personal satisfaction from it and it would make me no happier than if I was told nothing was to occur at all.

 

People are deemed "crazy" if they see things like this. You'd probably put luna in a mental institution. Some people are just better at not saying things than others. Someone being "crazy" doesn't mean there is something wrong with them, it just means they are different. It possibly means they are in tune with the spiritual world, and you just aren't. So you call them crazy. You have no way of knowing.

[JadedAtheist]

Considering that the vast majority of people have some kind of religious/spiritual belief, it would not surprise me if there were not a dispropportionate number of them in mental institutions. That all spiritual people are mentally unbalanced and deluded is something we have seen repeated over and over on this site, from many who formerly held such religious/spiritual beliefs. Not sure if that is what you are saying or if you have some other point.

 

The point isn't "religious people are crazy" or "there are more religious people in mental institutions than atheists". The point is people who are mentally unstable are drawn to religious imagery in their delusions. I don't know why but it's just something I've noticed. In other words, some crazy people think they're aliens or that they've got psychic abilities or that the world is out to get them but the majority are not these kinds, the majority involve God or angels or some religious aspect. I hope the differentiation is clearer?

 

Agreed that if it isn't "you" reincarnating there is almost no point in discussing it. But what if it is "you" reincarnating? What if what you do now influences where you go next life? What if you can choose where you go?

 

That'd be more interesting but I don't believe any religion teaches that *you* actually reincarnates in the sense that we're meaning.

[JadedAtheist]

People are deemed "crazy" if they see things like this. You'd probably put luna in a mental institution. Some people are just better at not saying things than others. Someone being "crazy" doesn't mean there is something wrong with them, it just means they are different. It possibly means they are in tune with the spiritual world, and you just aren't. So you call them crazy. You have no way of knowing.

 

People can believe whatever they want as long as they're not a danger to the rest of society. They can think they're Jesus incarnate I don't give a shit. If they're crazy or in tune with the spiritual world or whatever doesn't bother me. I have seen mental illness in person, in all forms (including violent ones) so I may be far more biased than others to think people are mentally unstable if they act or think like that, I'll definitely admit that but I don't mind as long as they aren't hurting nobody.

[Deva]

I don't want to get into this whole argument again but as I previously said in another thread, I believe religious belief is delusional in a dictionary sense of the word (i.e believing in something despite evidence or without proof). I've repeated before ALL people hold onto delusional beliefs. Religion is just one of them. That's all I gotta say about that because it's clear by your straw man of what has been said previously you aren't interested in understanding a simple point and rather get upset at being labelled something you deem offensive (despite the fact that I'm saying I'm delusional too) and then twist it to mean more than what was meant.

 

I simply responded with what I understood you to write. You say religous people are delusional - that proportionally there are more religious people in institutions. Did I get that wrong? Then you start explaining here that ALL people are delusional, but that was not your emphasis in your prior post. I am not upset, and I find it to be more ignorant than offensive. I am not twisting it - you were the one who decided to write about religious people in institutions.

 

I am not derailing the subject any further by going into this.

 

Agreed that if it isn't "you" reincarnating there is almost no point in discussing it. But what if it is "you" reincarnating? What if what you do now influences where you go next life? What if you can choose where you go?

 

That'd be more interesting but I don't believe any religion teaches that *you* actually reincarnates in the sense that we're meaning.

 

Some branches of Buddhism and probably some Hindus - there are many schools.

[JadedAtheist]

I don't want to get into this whole argument again but as I previously said in another thread, I believe religious belief is delusional in a dictionary sense of the word (i.e believing in something despite evidence or without proof). I've repeated before ALL people hold onto delusional beliefs. Religion is just one of them. That's all I gotta say about that because it's clear by your straw man of what has been said previously you aren't interested in understanding a simple point and rather get upset at being labelled something you deem offensive (despite the fact that I'm saying I'm delusional too) and then twist it to mean more than what was meant.

 

I simply responded with what I understood you to write. You say religous people are delusional - that proportionally there are more religious people in institutions. Did I get that wrong? Then you start explaining here that ALL people are delusional, but that was not your emphasis in your prior post. I am not upset, and I find it to be more ignorant than offensive. I am not twisting it - you were the one who decided to write about religious people in institutions.

 

I am not derailing the subject any further by going into this.

 

Thanks, I was an emotional idiot bringing it up again and hence why I edited it out. I think it'd be more fruitful of a discussion to move past that point.