'20 cases suggestive of reincarnation'

[The_Animus]

I have only read one of the books that talks about some of these cases. I believe it was called "Old Souls - The evidence for reincarnation". First about the population increase. People constantly use this and only this as their reason for throwing out reincarnation as a possibility. Let us assume that there is only a set number of souls and that no new souls can be made. Does the population increase then disprove reincarnation? Not at all. If there is a soul and a person dies, where does it go? It certainly isn't visible or 'here' in the sense that we can see it or measure its existence. So let us say that here in the physical is Side A and that where it goes is Side B. So who can say how many souls are sitting on side B waiting for a body to attach themselves to? Even if the population rises 5 billion in the next 50 years there could be 20 trillion waiting on the 'other side' so to speak. I would also like to state that lack of evidence or understanding of how the process of reincarnation occurs is not sufficient reason to disregard it as a possibility. At some point in time we didn't know exactly how gravity works, in fact we still don't fully understand why it is so much weaker than all other forces, but that doesn't mean gravity doesn't exist. It just may be that the process has yet to be discovered.

I assume the people who have nothing more to add than that it is only lies and delusion haven't even read any of the cases in depth or much on this topic at all. I'm not going to give the evidence or explain the case studies. If you are unfamiliar with them you probably shouldn't even be posting in this discussion.

Anyone who is familiar with the many cases, for which I believe there are over a thousand now, knows that an explanation of lies and delusion simply don't cut it. And lies and delusion don't explain the birthmarks or physical abnormalities in some of the cases. So then what is the explanation? Some people say its the cultural belief that spawns it, which is why the cases are mostly in areas which have that belief. The only problem with this is that there are cases everywhere. The reason that there are not as many reported cases in places such as the United States is that the parents simply ignore the children and tell them thay are wrong repeatedly until the child grows up and the memories fade. That reincarnation is thought absurd by most americans results in less cases found in the US. It is not because they aren't there. It is because in the US when a child tells their parents that they aren't his parents, or that he lives in another city, the parents think nothing of it and simply tell the child they are wrong and that they are his parents and that he lives in this city. In some other countries, however, the parents are more willing to believe their children and investigate the claims made by them to see if they are true. This is why there are still cases in places like the US, but why there are fewer of them.

Unless another explanation can be given which fully explains the incidents of these cases, then reincarnation cannot be simply denied. There may be another explanation, it may not be reincarnation, but this means we have to continue to study more cases and build up a larger base of information so we can determine whether there is any other explanation besides reincarnation which fully and accurately addresses the evidence.

 

[Skeptic Guy]

Maybe you can provide a case that you consider with merit? If there are thousands of cases, surely there is one that is compelling.

 

[The_Animus]

Perhaps you can read the books that this topic are about? If you haven't read about any of the stronger cases why are you even joining this discussion?

 

[Cuddles]

Perhaps you can read the books that this topic are about? If you haven't read about any of the stronger cases why are you even joining this discussion?

You misunderstand. Many people here have read about the relevant cases, but do not consider them in any way strong. What is being asked is for you to state what you consider a strong case so we can discuss that. If we were to simply debunk cases that we chose we would be open to accusations of attacking straw men since they might not be the cases you consider strong.

 

[JoeEllison]

The reason that there are not as many reported cases in places such as the United States is that the parents simply ignore the children and tell them thay are wrong repeatedly until the child grows up and the memories fade. That reincarnation is thought absurd by most americans results in less cases found in the US. It is not because they aren't there. It is because in the US when a child tells their parents that they aren't his parents, or that he lives in another city, the parents think nothing of it and simply tell the child they are wrong and that they are his parents and that he lives in this city. In some other countries, however, the parents are more willing to believe their children and investigate the claims made by them to see if they are true. This is why there are still cases in places like the US, but why there are fewer of them.

How is this completely unfounded assertion on your part any more likely than the more sensible assertion(with at least some evidence) that the whole thing is false? Clearly, from your own posts, it is apparent that believers are willing to twist the evidence until they find the shape pleasing to them. Is that not the most likely explanation for all these "thousands" of cases, many of which you've simply imagined to exist with ZERO evidence, and none of which you choose to discuss specifically?

 

[The_Animus]

Cuddles - I understand now. Thank you for the clarification.

I do not have the book with me. I borrowed it from the library and returned it months ago and as such I cannot give you full accurate case details at the moment.

JoeEllison - I think my assertion is far more sensible. I would also like to add that I explained myself. You provided no explanation, or evidence for your opinion and simply chose to insult me. I suggest you learn to post explanations of your opinions instead of purposeless insults.

There are a few things you have to keep in mind when looking at this.
1. These children are around 1-2 years of age and in many cases speaking their first words when they start giving information related to their previous life.
2. These children do not know their parental or cultural beliefs, nor have the brain capacity to understand them or their significance.

Now which makes more logical sense?
1. These children are picking up their parental or cultural beliefs. This results in more of these cases being seen in areas with these religious beliefs, and less in places such as the US where these beliefs are uncommon.
2. The children with parents or a culture that believes in reincarnation is more likely to believe the child and explore and examine what the child says. The children with parents or a culture that doesn't believe in reincarnation is less likely to believe the child and less likely to explore or examine what the child says. This results in many more cases in a reincarnation based culture and far fewer in a non-reincarnation based culture.

In the few American cases I've read about the parents would say that they ignore what the child said and told them they were mistaken. Sometimes it was only by sheer chance that they came across information related to what their child said and thus became interested. Can you imagine how many cases there could be in the US that are never known about simply because our culture and thus most likely their parents disregard it completely until the child grows up and their memories of their previous life fade?

I don't see how you can reasonably deny that a culture that does not believe in reincarnation would REPORT less cases than a culture that does believe in reincarnation.

 

[someone11]

Hi,

I think that even if the cases were verified rigorously, that wouldn't prove that there is some entity which goes from one body to another, a soul, or even a mental cause-and-effect as buddhists would say. Other explanations, metaphysical and not-metaphysical can be offered.

For example, a special ability to know the past by supernatural means. Or, an ability to read the minds of other people, inferring from that what would the life of a diseased person look like. I am not actually suggesting these explanations, just saying that they are not neccessarily worse than reincarnation. Do you agree?

(I don't what natural explanation can be offered for a verified case. )

 

[RichardR]

Much of the above discussion is worthless (if I may be so bold!) because lying, cultural conditioning etc. in no way explains how the children are able to provide large quantities of accurate information about people, past events & locations...

Correction - the children are claimed to have been able to provide large quantities of accurate information about people, past events & locations...

Stevenson spoke to the children long after they supposedly started "remembering" their previous lives. In some cases many years after.

E.g. the child is able to identify names & relationships of people in an unconnected family & location, knows how to navigate around towns he/she has never visited, can identify and provide the history of possessions of the dead person, knows very intimate details that almost no-one else knows (e.g. what someone's dying words were), in some cases demonstrably knows things that absolutely no-one else knows (e.g. that the dead person buried such-and-such in the garden which is then dug up, or knowing that such-and-such is written on the back of a clock). In the stronger cases there are 30 or 40 individual items of this kind.

Examples please.

I recommend you read Ian Stevenson's books for more details.

I did. I was unimpressed.

 

[RichardR]

In the 20 Cases book Stevenson himself devotes a substantial part of the book to considering possible prosaic explanations (involving fraud, self-delusion, coincidence, etc. - even exotic explanations such as telepathy), concluding that these could explain some aspects of some cases but by no means all.

Really? How about the case of Michael Wright?

A young girl has a childhood sweetheart who dies in a car crash. She would have married him but for this car crash, but now marries someone else. She then has a child who she thinks is the reincarnation of her sweetheart. The child’s mother and grandmother strongly believe in reincarnation, and they are the only ones who have witnessed the child "remembering" his previous life.

There is really no need to propose reincarnation to explain this. And yet Stevenson does, which tells us a lot about Stevenson’s credulity.

Rockley would I think hit trouble if he focussed on a single strong case and tried to explain all aspects of it (rather than effectively saying 'we can explain some aspects of some cases, ergo they must all be entirely explicable in a somewhat similar way').

What are you babbling about? I addressed all cases in the book – including the strongest ones. None of them are convincing.

I think Rockley's parting shot is quite bogus:
With these comments I believe he blows his credibility as a serious scientist. In my view this casts doubt on all of his work.

Which I translate as:
Ian Stevenson has funny views on consciousness, materialism, etc. - so we can safely ignore all his reports of apparent reincarnation cases.
Which is just an ad hominem attack (Rockley seems very fond of classifying his arguments).

No – an ad hominem is where you attack the person making the argument INSTEAD OF attacking their arguments. I dealt with all his arguments first, and explained why they were unconvincing. After I had done that, I also examined several of Stevenson’s other statements. Specifically this one:

"If materialism... were true, telepathy should not occur; but it does occur, and so materialism must be false."

…and pointed out that this blows his credibility. And it does – as does the rest of his work that I also examined.

 

[CFLarsen]

I did.

You sure did:

Book Review: Children Who Remember Previous Lives, A Question of Reincarnation, Ian Stevenson
Some of the perhaps best cases for reincarnation are investigated. How do they hold up to reality?

The Apparent Belief System Of Ian Stevenson
This is a follow-up to the book review of Ian Stevenson's book "Children Who Remember Previous Lives, A Question of Reincarnation".

 

[JoeEllison]

JoeEllison - I think my assertion is far more sensible. I would also like to add that I explained myself. You provided no explanation, or evidence for your opinion and simply chose to insult me. I suggest you learn to post explanations of your opinions instead of purposeless insults.

No one insulted you. If you feel insulted by an accurate description of your posts, maybe you need to take a closer look at your position, and how it looks to people who think critically and skeptically at such matters.

There are a few things you have to keep in mind when looking at this.
1. These children are around 1-2 years of age and in many cases speaking their first words when they start giving information related to their previous life.
2. These children do not know their parental or cultural beliefs, nor have the brain capacity to understand them or their significance.

So, it seems more rational to assume that they parents are feeding them the information, as no one year old child is really speaking in ANY WAY that could legitimately be able to convey complex information of the sort that would suggest reincarnation. The more likely explanation is that foolish people who believe in reincarnation will pretend that their children are showing signs of it, the way that they pretend that gassy kids are smiling, and that baby babble sounds like "mama" and dada". Parents teach their kids to say certain things, by assuming that they are saying those words and reinforcing it through repetition. Later on, they misremember it as being all from the child, when it reality it all came from them, and from their imagination.

 

[The_Animus]

And what reason do they have for doing this? This occurs in all walks of life. It occurs with parents who believe and those who don't. It occurs in cultures that don't persecute people for those beliefs and those that do. It occurs in people who can benefit from it and in those that are harmed by it. So why do parents who do not believe in reincarnation, can be persecutes for even being affiliated with this belief, and have no financial, or personal benefit from programming their children, do so? There are a thousand reported cases, and as I said it stands to reason that there are many times more that are not reported or publicly known. And your answer is that everyone single one is lying or delusional.

Well time will tell. Even though Ian Stevenson is dead, there are other scientists who continue with his work and continue to research the cases. Perhaps in 50 years they will find out that it is indeed all fraud, but I don't think so.

 

[RayG]

Unless another explanation can be given which fully explains the incidents of these cases, then reincarnation cannot be simply denied. There may be another explanation, it may not be reincarnation, but this means we have to continue to study more cases and build up a larger base of information so we can determine whether there is any other explanation besides reincarnation which fully and accurately addresses the evidence.

A half-dozen years ago, in my quest for further info of the scientific kind about reincarnation, I read a number of books by proponents, visited websites, and even joined a message forum. At no time did I read or see anything presented that could be considered as scientific proof for reincarnation.

In fact, I found no agreement over what reincarnation is, or the method and medium by which the knowledge from one person would be transferred to another. What I found instead were arguments, opinions, excuses, and statements from proponents, but no valid evidence.

These proponent arguments can be found in my article here.

I also reviewed some reincarnation books, and could dig those up if someone were really interested.

RayG

 

[Paul2]

There are a thousand reported cases, and as I said it stands to reason that there are many times more that are not reported or publicly known. And your answer is that everyone single one is lying or delusional.

Are you saying this as if it's somehow one small piece of evidence for reincarnation? Don't you think that if reincarnation was false, we'd still see thousands of these instances?

 

[RichardR]

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n5_v18/ai_16334412/pg_1

Empirical evidence for reincarnation? examining Stevenson's 'most impressive' case

Ian Stevenson's conduct of the Imad Elawar investigation, considered among the strongest of his cases, fails on six fundamental grounds.

Herzblut

WOW! From the link:

[The parents] believed that he was claiming to have been one Mahmoud Bouhamzy of Khriby who had a wife called Jamilah and who had been fatally injured by a truck after a quarrel with its driver.

[Snip] Amazingly enough, the boy's memories are in the end held to be good evidence for reincarnation in spite of the fact that the best past-life candidate Stevenson found was not named Mahmoud Bouhamzy, did not have a wife named Jamilah, and did not die as a result of an accident at all, let alone one that followed a quarrel with the driver.

 

[The_Animus]

That isn't good evidence. That is a weak case. There are numerous much stronger cases where the names, memories, and even cause of death are accurate.

 

[RayG]

Which specific 'stronger cases' are you referring to?

RayG

 

[RichardR]

Which specific 'stronger cases' are you referring to?

Yes. Which stronger cases, specifically, are you talking about, Animus? Do tell.

 

[Cuddles]

That isn't good evidence. That is a weak case. There are numerous much stronger cases where the names, memories, and even cause of death are accurate.

What is being asked is for you to state what you consider a strong case so we can discuss that. If we were to simply debunk cases that we chose we would be open to accusations of attacking straw men since they might not be the cases you consider strong.

Do I get the million now?

 

[The_Animus]

...

I do not have the book with me. I borrowed it from the library and returned it months ago and as such I cannot give you full accurate case details at the moment.

Please read the posts next time. I do not appreciate having to post things two or more times. Choosing a case where the person got none of their information correct is obviously a weak case. How about you choose one where they got pretty much everything right? Perhaps if I have time on Thursday or Friday I will see if I can borrow the book again or search online for one of the stronger cases. That way I can give a full accurate case detail.