Hello from a non-skeptic

[madmonk76]

Does anyone know when they suspended new members from registering on the Past Life Forum? I wanted to go over and have a look at the discussions mentioned previously, but it seems they've closed up shop to new members entirely.

 

[majamin]

I would like to know if anyone from the childpastlives forum wants to tackle this head-scratcher (given the cordiality of JREF representation in that forum):

Open Minded

The Past Life Forum encourages all points of view. It is not affiliated with any religion or philosophy. It is sponsored by Carol Bowman, author of Children’s' Past Lives and Return from Heaven—two books grounded in an empirical approach to reincarnation.

The moderators work to keep every discussion on topic, while encouraging different points of view and different levels of discourse.

(source)

... maybe they meant ...

"Open Minded

The Past Life Forum discourages all points of view, except for the ones that Carol believes in. We cling to our beliefs like white on rice. It is sponsored by Carol Bowman, author of Children’s' Past Lives and Return from Heaven—two books grounded in a woo-tastic approach to reincarnation.

The moderators work to keep every discussion on topic (except when other beliefs encroach on ours), while discouraging different points of view and different levels of discourse. Well, how else would you expect us to make sure that your outrageous, fragile beliefs be kept in tact?"

 

[Emet]

Does anyone know when they suspended new members from registering on the Past Life Forum? I wanted to go over and have a look at the discussions mentioned previously, but it seems they've closed up shop to new members entirely.

Well, at least so far you can continue to read the threads without registering.

I know nothing about forum software; but I know of one forum where they have articles and threads. The threads are not viewable unless you register.

Anyone know if they can close the threads to public viewing?
Anyone think they will? (if they can)

 

[tsig]

Does anyone know when they suspended new members from registering on the Past Life Forum? I wanted to go over and have a look at the discussions mentioned previously, but it seems they've closed up shop to new members entirely.

You meanies broke their forum. Bet you're sad and blue now.

 

[Alice Shortcake]

He's actually claiming both things, and in this case for a change I believe he is honest in saying he believes both.

ETA--See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jacobite/message/8358

Oh God. What a steaming pile of haggis this is turning into...

Those messages are two years old and concern Charles' descent from another Scottish king, James V, via his illegitimate son James, 1st Earl of Moray:

I came, I believe, to the end of my Stewart ancestry search. I will,
of course, be aiming at confirming the info from the official
regisitries, but careful analysis can be confirmed via the IGI.

Note: I've pruned the rest of Charles' family tree for the sake of brevity, and also to remove his mother's name.

F: John Stewart (b. 1676 - Inveravon, Banff, Scotland)

F: Alexander Stewart, 5th Earl of Moray (b. 1635 - Dyke, Moray)

F: James Stewart, 4th Earl of Moray (b. 1603 - Moray, Scotland)

F: James Stewart, 3rd Earl of Moray (b. 1582 - Darnaway, Moray)

F: James Stewart, 2nd Earl of Moray (b. 1568 - Donibristle, Fife)

F: James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (b. 1531 - St. Andrew's, Fife)

F: King James Stewart V of Scotland (b. 1512 - Linlithgow Palace,
Fife) w. Margaret Erskine (b. 1514).

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jacobite/message/8358

The title "1st Earl of Moray" was given to James by his half-sister, Mary Queen of Scots. You won't believe who she removed it from - none other than George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntley! Yes, the brother of the Lord John Gordon who so conspicuously failed to become the ancestor of Charles Boden. What a small world it was in the sixteenth century, and how many thousands of people alive today must be related to at least one royal family...

James-the-royal-bastard died without leaving sons and the title passed to his daughter Elizabeth, who married yet another James Stewart. This James adopted the title 2nd Earl of Moray, but in 1592 he was killed by...George Gordon, 6th Earl of Huntley! Charles, are you quite sure you want to be related to these people? The son of James and Elizabeth, imaginatively called James, became the 3rd Earl of Moray and married Anne Gordon, the daughter of the man who killed his father. No hard feelings there, then.

It all sounds very promising so far but I can't help noticing that Charles' 7xgreat-grandfather is the rather obscure John Stewart, son of the 5th Earl of Moray. All I can discover about John on the internet is that he died before his father - no mention of any children, legitimate or otherwise. It's suspiciously like the situation regarding Janet Gordon, whose marriage to Duncan Stewart of Appin isn't mentioned by Burke's Peerage, even though it does mention that she had an illegitimate child.

I wonder if the official registries and International Genealogical Index supported Charles' research into his ancestry? It may be accurate, but if so why didn't Charles offer this as proof of his royal descent instead of the absurd Stewarts of Appin genealogy that anyone could disprove in five minutes? Why was he so keen to be descended from an illegitimate daughter of James IV rather than an illegitimate son of James V?

If Charles isn't being blantantly dishonest he may be making two mistakes that all amateur genealogists should be aware of:

1) Don't make assumptions. The John Stewart in your family tree MAY have been alive at the same time as the conveniently nebulous son of the 5th Earl of Moray, but that doesn't mean they were the same person. I can see how easy it would be for a Royal Stewart fetishist to make a connection where none existed.

2) Take all family stories about being related to royal/titled/famous/notorious people with a grain, if not a pillar, of salt.

 

[Olowkow]

Poor dlorde is getting beat up over there...I'm concerned for the safety of all members here at JREF.

Originally Posted by Nightrain1
I'm personally not interested in any of your opinions, rants, or insipid conjectures. The information is there for anyone to take home and keep to themselves. So, I wish you would just go home and C**P in your own toilet.

 

[Christian Klippel]

Seems their forum is about to explode. I guess that the recent addition of a few skeptics to their userbase is pure poison:

I'm personally not interested in any of your opinions, rants, or insipid conjectures. The information is there for anyone to take home and keep to themselves. So, I wish you would just go home and C**P in your own toilet.

Oh the irony, given the fact that the thread is called "The Debunkers Quest" (the post quoted is at the bottom of that page)

I'm wondering how that computes with phrases like "Open Minded", "encourages all points of view", "moderators work to keep every discussion on topic, while encouraging different points of view and different levels of discourse."

Oh, and note that the quoted comment was made by a moderator.

Greetings,

Chris

ETA: Damn, Olowkow beat me to it by a second or two....

 

[Apology]

I think the part that's really telling is his refusal to even consider doing the blindfolded Ouija board test. Here's a simple thing to do, choose anyone you want to be the subjects of the test, and have a go at it. Yet nooooOOOoooo, Charles won't do it. Deep down in his heart he knows that the results of the test would be the same as in the Penn & Teller video, and he doesn't want his favorite royal fantasy to be so conclusively shot down.

Well, at least so far you can continue to read the threads without registering.

I know nothing about forum software; but I know of one forum where they have articles and threads. The threads are not viewable unless you register.

Anyone know if they can close the threads to public viewing?
Anyone think they will? (if they can)

They absolutely can close all the threads to public viewing. Here on the JREF, the Members Only section isn't viewable if you're not logged in. Some of the pay sites will temporarily close all of the threads to public viewing in order to encourage people to buy memberships. It may be a matter of the webmaster being unaware of the way to hide threads from public viewing, or it may be that they want their threads to be open to viewing, they just don't want new skeptical members.

It's clear that they don't want us joining up over there, in spite of the cordial invitation extended to us by Charles. I imagine that they're not too happy with Charles right now.

 

[AdMan]

Seems their forum is about to explode. I guess that the recent addition of a few skeptics to their userbase is pure poison:



Oh the irony, given the fact that the thread is called "The Debunkers Quest" (the post quoted is at the bottom of that page)

I'm wondering how that computes with phrases like "Open Minded", "encourages all points of view", "moderators work to keep every discussion on topic, while encouraging different points of view and different levels of discourse."

Oh, and note that the quoted comment was made by a moderator.

Greetings,

Chris

ETA: Damn, Olowkow beat me to it by a second or two....

And... the post has been deleted, as was dlorde's response that something had touched a nerve...

 

[dlorde]

Poor dlorde is getting beat up over there...I'm concerned for the safety of all members here at JREF.

This did come somewhat out of the blue - he'd posted up references to scientific papers and articles as examples of the "numerous... well-ordered and repeatable experiments which give clear indication that there is something beyond what we are able to normally perceive by our senses". I read the first paper ('Extrasensory Perception and Quantum Models of Cognition' from Journal of Neuroquantology [Dec.2010]) and posted a critique of its use of QM (which IMO is badly flawed). I think he took my subsequent comment as suggesting I'd be equally negative about the other references on the list - which wasn't what I'd intended. Although if they were anything like the first one, I would be...

Looks like they're tiring of me before I tire of them. However, if nothing else comes out of it, it's reminded me about the The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study, which should be interesting

 

[Olowkow]

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=629&d=1288164290

I began to read the paper (jse_19_1_keil.pdf) that Sunniva posted, and found that they did not tape record the children because a cassette recorder is disruptive!

I spent almost 3 years taping kids' speech. We used wireless mikes, and "shotgun" mikes, etc. I found that excuse coming from professional researchers to be terminally idiotic. How could anyone ever confirm your data?

 

[dlorde]

http://www.childpastlives.org/vBulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=629&d=1288164290

I began to read the paper (jse_19_1_keil.pdf) that Sunniva posted, and found that they did not tape record the children because a cassette recorder is disruptive!

I spent almost 3 years taping kids' speech. We used wireless mikes, and "shotgun" mikes, etc. I found that excuse coming from professional researchers to be terminally idiotic. How could anyone ever confirm your data?

I decided not to critique that one on the forum (after the previous response ), but if you look at the first case "The Case of KA", you'll see that the interpreter knew the parents in advance, suggested them to the researcher, introduced the researcher to them, interpreted the
communication and had relatives in Istambul (the target town) and knew about the neighbour of the target individual. Possibly all innocent/coincidental, but merited a mention in the discussion that it didn't get...

 

[Loss Leader]

I spent almost 3 years taping kids' speech.

Cool. I just take pictures of them from my car.

Please be advised that The Internet has determined that the above is an Obligatory Joke. No further discussion of any kind is permitted in any and/or all of The Internet until the Obligatory Joke has been posted by somebody. Your poster disavows any meaning, truthfulness, or any other connection between his Real Life and the above-mentioned Obligatory Joke other than that he decided to jump on the grenade and make the stupid joke so we could all just read it and move on.

Free Katie.

 

[Olowkow]

Whoa!! "An Interesting Case", the thread about the Poole case, started by Charles and then closed, is now gone. Charles' last post is now 10/19. I wonder if he will ever be reincarnated on the forum. (where's my thumbs up smilie?)

Also, Carol Bowman has posted, a rare event it would seem. It is kind of an éminence grise, since I have been familiarizing myself with the PLF site.

 

[eerok]

Whoa!! "An Interesting Case", the thread about the Poole case, started by Charles and then closed, is now gone. Charles' last post is now 10/19. I wonder if he will ever be reincarnated on the forum.

Charles sure didn't do them any favors by dragging JREF into their forum. They don't want skeptical scrutiny, they want their own little dream palace. Too bad they weren't more honest about that, or at least self-aware enough to realize that "open-minded" is often code for "willing to uncritically accept whatever bunk the speaker happens to be flogging."

If they were smart, they'd just quietly ban him. Then they could get back to arranging their snugglebunnies all in a row ... which is fair enough among themselves, I guess.

 

[Garrette]

Whoa!! "An Interesting Case", the thread about the Poole case, started by Charles and then closed, is now gone. Charles' last post is now 10/19. I wonder if he will ever be reincarnated on the forum. (where's my thumbs up smilie?)

And suddenly I have no posts left there.

I was a somebody once...

 

[AdMan]

Whoa!! "An Interesting Case", the thread about the Poole case, started by Charles and then closed, is now gone. Charles' last post is now 10/19. I wonder if he will ever be reincarnated on the forum. (where's my thumbs up smilie?)

It looks like they are trying to slowly but surely eliminate any evidence of the skeptic visit over there. They've realized that while stating the opposite, they actually have no interest in attracting or allowing members who question anything at all.

For any members of that forum who may be reading this thread--I hope you have seen and see what is going on in your forum. Talk about being closed-minded...

ETA: If Charles can be rehabilitated/reincarnated as their PR guy, they'll be soon be rewriting history to claim that scary skeptics descended en masse on their forum, threatening not only the forum members but digging up their home addresses and scaring their families and pets.

 

[Olowkow]

It looks like they are trying to slowly but surely eliminate any evidence of the skeptic visit over there. They've realized that while stating the opposite, they actually have no interest in attracting or allowing members who question anything at all.

For any members of that forum who may be reading this thread--I hope you have seen and see what is going on in your forum. Talk about being closed-minded...

This.

I'm a fan of truth, and somehow, it always seems to prevail even when this sort of situation arises. I honestly hope some of their members try out the JREF, particularly the guy that dlorde had a run-in with; he seems very eloquent and bright, but just misinformed. I saw a lot of good and very genuine feelings in all of them, but as they have said, it is first and foremost a "safe haven of sorts" for like minded people. As I have said all along, I have no problem with that.

 

[Senex]

Does anyone know when they suspended new members from registering on the Past Life Forum? I wanted to go over and have a look at the discussions mentioned previously, but it seems they've closed up shop to new members entirely.

I remember when the Randi site closed itself to new members because of an influx of bullying non-skeptics. They used faith based arguments and unfairly used the eloquence of historic speakers they were in previous lives such as Cicero, Patric Henry and Julius Cesar. When the guy who used to be Joseph Goebbels registered the moderators had to close registration down because we skeptics were out gunned.

Or maybe I'm confused with a site I belonged to in a previous life

 

[EHocking]

He's actually claiming both things, and in this case for a change I believe he is honest in saying he believes both.

ETA--See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jacobite/message/8358

It is my opinion that he's merely attempting to prove his reincarnation fantasy using genealogy. I'm not, therefore, entirely confident in the straightforwardness of most of his assertions.