In the meantime, while we wait on this thread for the book to get to Big Les, or for Charles to stop being so angry at his biggest literary fans... might I suggest...
What would YOUR reincarnation experience OP sound like if you believed in that sort of thing? I think, if I get the rules of the past life gig now, you have to use actual experiences to base your reincarnation belief upon... So, let's see.......
Hello from a non skeptic!
I know that all of you will mock me mercilessly, and will not believe me (I'm not even going to mention your stupor...) but I wanted to share with you my past life experiences in hopes that you will all stop being so damned cranky and self righteous with your requests for "evidence".... BEHOLD your evidence:
First, and very important for you all to realize, is that I too was once a skeptic. It was when I was in my least favorite life. BORING. Dull. Sad. Cranky. In that life, I had few friends, no one would invite me to Ouija parties because I kept blindfolding everyone and rotating the board. I sat at home, on my pedestal... lonely, sad and smarter than everyone else. I had an eventless, joyless, uneventful life and died in a hospital at age 89. Heart failure or whatever.
And then PRESTO!
Everything changed: I was reincarned as AMELIA EARHART. I know, I know you will scoff, you will say there is no proof- just ancedotal stories... But read carefully and keep an open mind and you will see this as proof, because there could be no other explaination for all of these things.
(BTW: All of the things below are ACTUALLY true about me. The only thing NOT TRUE is that I refuse to draw the reincarnation conclusion.)
1. At a young age, I loved the idea of flying and was interested in planes.
2. When I got older, I started having profound anxiety attacks aboard planes (much to the embarrasment of my family and friends

) and had the complete and utter feeling that I was going to die and never be heard from again on each flight I took. What else could explain this phobia OTHER than the fact that I am the reincarnation of the most famous female pilot ever?
3. I am very judgmental about men who drink too much all the time and lose jobs, homes, families because of it. My father, Edwin Earhart, was an alcoholic who lost our family home and could not keep a job.
4. Amelia described herself as "exceedingly fond of reading" and I too love to read.
5. Even from a young age, I was interested in science.
6. Like Amelia, I feel comfortable with women who have succeeded in male dominated fields and never wanted to feel limited by my gender.
7. Here's one you skeptics will not be able to explain away: I consistently have terrible sinus infections. Additionally, I have asthma attacks pretty regularly (I know, sexy sexy sexy. I'm...too sexy for my inhaler, too sexy for my inhaler...) This must be directly connected to Amelia's bout with sinusitus and pnemonia in 1918 during an outbreak of the Spanish Flu. I have terrible sinus headaches (as did Amelia) and often feel the pressure in my noggin is going to make my head explode. (Thanks to modern "science" however, I, unlike Amelia, can use decongestants and antibiotics so I don't have to keep a freakin' TUBE inserted in my head to relieve the sinus pressure...)
8. I have been in several professions, some of them markedly different than the others. Amelia too, worked in many different types of professions, including social work, teaching, photography, nursing, writing and sales.
9. I love Macy's! Amelia had a clothing line there of clothes that were, "simple, natural lines matched with wrinkle-proof, washable materials..." I too, like wrinkle proof, washable clothes!!!
10. I held an office in an association to promote women in one of my chosen career fields, just as Amelia held an office in the Ninety-nines to promote women in aviation.
11. We won't get into the marriage similarities between Amelia and myself. Trust me, though, it's pretty damned similar... Let's just say...Amelia feels exactly the same about marriage that I do. She took a lot of flak in her day, and in my own lame way, I take some flak as well.
12. Although competent and smart, Amelia was a poor navigator. Here's the best proof of reincarnation that I have for you: I too am a poor navigator. In fact, if I'm going anywhere that I don't go to every single day, I use GPS. No lie. Sometimes I try to test myself and turn off GPS and try to use common sense and this mythical "sense of direction" everyone speaks of... and BOY... let's just say if I was over the Atlantic Ocean, no one would have ever heard from me again.
If I were to take these conclusions to a medium (let's see, who do we have here on the JREF who used to be a psychic? chillzero? Maybe she can confirm this for me.) this feeling, the conclusions I've drawn would have been further drawn out and emphasized, no doubt. Giving me further "evidence" of my past life.
It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to think of Amelia and me being sort of kindred spirits and honestly, I had fun going through her history and cherry picking things that I believe are similar to me. It also puts my faults and mistakes into a nice framework. It's not that FSM is dopey and flighty and can't find her way out of a shoebox...NO, the past life truth is much more exciting and makes my faults foregiveable and understandable. My faults are sort of inherited. And my varied interests seem to make more sense if you sort of think- oh well, Amelia was the exact same way.
Giving myself a past life was fun. Not just because I get to imagine myself as rich, successful, and famous... It was also a nice way to take away some of the more painful, confusing, mysterious things about why I am the way I am. I can absolutely see the psychological appeal to doing this, and I can also see how if you really try, you can quite easily find "evidence" that you might be looking for.
Give a try, you guys. Who were you?
