'20 cases suggestive of reincarnation'

[MRC_Hans]

I think it is interesting that it is claimed that in some cases the child "knows things that absolutely no-one else knows". I bet you that I, too, could come up with some information from "a past life" that no one else knows. How would you be able to check me?

To be fair, that was actually covered, it seems. Those were cases of things that were hidden, and were subsequently found by the directions from the child. Of course there could be many ways to cheat with this. And here could me many ways to be honestly wrong with it, as well.

While we wait for the story to discuss, I can give an example of something "unknown" disclosed as an alleged past-life memory (and its debunking, of course ):

There was a (Danish) woman who claimed she had been a French monk. She clearly described several features of the monastry, and its approximate whereabouts. She had never been to France.

The reporters (this was part of some TV feature), went to the designated area in Southern France, and found a monastry. They went in, and found her description of the interiour to be reasonably precise.

Fantastic? Not quite. You will have difficulty finding a district in Soutnern France that does not hold several monastries. And you don't need to go to france to know how a monastry is laid out, because they are all laid out more or less in the same way. Even in Protestant Denmark, you can learn how that layout is.

- I'm quite ready to beleive that this lady was not intentionally making up her story. The point is that she did not need to have been a monk in an earlier life to have this information.

And I have yet to see an account of past life memories where there could not be an alterantive explanation of how the person in question could come by the given information.

Hans

 

[cj.23]

I think it is interesting that it is claimed that in some cases the child "knows things that absolutely no-one else knows". I bet you that I, too, could come up with some information from "a past life" that no one else knows. How would you be able to check me?

No idea. If one wants to allow the possibility of ESP, how can one not just cite that? If anyone has known it and the facts might have been disseminated, cryptomnesia is possible. I have never seen a case which convinced me.

And as Claus says, if there was such convincing evidence of reincarnation, why is no one working on it today? I mean, such a discovery would be life-changing! It is part of the same argument as against psychics, ghost hunters, etc.

There is some research going on. Roy Stenman occasionally seems to be following cases up, and a few other investigators. On ghost hunting, I spent the weekend carrying out a double blind investigation of a purportedly haunted castle using Schmeidler's method which I described on a previous thread on this forum, to allow a quantitative assessment. It won't prove ghosts, but it might give us some insight in to environmental factors which cause people to have these experiences at least.* Research is continuing, it's just not high profile.

(*And no I have no idea what we found on the maps completed by the test subjects yet- the volunteers passed the results to a sceptical judging team to try and reduce confirmation bias, and I will not be involved again until the write up.)

cj x

 

[CFLarsen]

Surely a temporary inconvenience such as death won't stop him.

Maybe he was reincarnated...

To be fair, that was actually covered, it seems. Those were cases of things that were hidden, and were subsequently found by the directions from the child. Of course there could be many ways to cheat with this. And here could me many ways to be honestly wrong with it, as well.

While we wait for the story to discuss, I can give an example of something "unknown" disclosed as an alleged past-life memory (and its debunking, of course ):

There was a (Danish) woman who claimed she had been a French monk. She clearly described several features of the monastry, and its approximate whereabouts. She had never been to France.

The reporters (this was part of some TV feature), went to the designated area in Southern France, and found a monastry. They went in, and found her description of the interiour to be reasonably precise.

Fantastic? Not quite. You will have difficulty finding a district in Soutnern France that does not hold several monastries. And you don't need to go to france to know how a monastry is laid out, because they are all laid out more or less in the same way. Even in Protestant Denmark, you can learn how that layout is.

- I'm quite ready to beleive that this lady was not intentionally making up her story. The point is that she did not need to have been a monk in an earlier life to have this information.

And I have yet to see an account of past life memories where there could not be an alterantive explanation of how the person in question could come by the given information.

Hans

See, this is why we can't rely on memory.

It wasn't a woman, but a man, Erik Peitersen. I know, because I've done a lot of research on that tv series.

In time, it will be revealed. And it ain't gonna be pretty.

No idea. If one wants to allow the possibility of ESP, how can one not just cite that? If anyone has known it and the facts might have been disseminated, cryptomnesia is possible. I have never seen a case which convinced me.



There is some research going on. Roy Stenman occasionally seems to be following cases up, and a few other investigators. On ghost hunting, I spent the weekend carrying out a double blind investigation of a purportedly haunted castle using Schmeidler's method which I described on a previous thread on this forum, to allow a quantitative assessment. It won't prove ghosts, but it might give us some insight in to environmental factors which cause people to have these experiences at least.* Research is continuing, it's just not high profile.

(*And no I have no idea what we found on the maps completed by the test subjects yet- the volunteers passed the results to a sceptical judging team to try and reduce confirmation bias, and I will not be involved again until the write up.)

cj x

That's nice. Show us a case, and let's discuss that.

 

[Rasmus55]

I think it is interesting that it is claimed that in some cases the child "knows things that absolutely no-one else knows". I bet you that I, too, could come up with some information from "a past life" that no one else knows. How would you be able to check me?

And as Claus says, if there was such convincing evidence of reincarnation, why is no one working on it today? I mean, such a discovery would be life-changing! It is part of the same argument as against psychics, ghost hunters, etc.

Of course consider this: If the child knew something that "absolutely no-one else knows," then isn't the "thing" the child asserts as true completely unverifiable? That is, how can it be determined whether the factual claim is true if it is not known to any other living person? So I think this isn't very a very scientific progression at all. The person claiming the past life should be tested on the basis of what today would be considered obscure historical fact but, at the time, general knowledge. Also, language is another way to test some of these BS claims.

 

[Cuddles]

Comments about Stevenson not being a decent scientist are farcical. He was committed to the pursuit of medical science - sure he may well have made errors, but his intent was as far as I can see purely scientific

All the good intentions in the world do not make a good scientist. You are essentially doing the opposite of an ad-hom attack here by saying that because he meant well his results are valid. Even you admit he made errors. If he didn't know about those errors then a good scientist would try to carry out new research having corrected them, and would not rely on the previous work containing errors. If he knew about the errors and did not correct them or at least make it clear that they were there then he is a bad scienctist, simple as that.

Apparent Reincarnation Memories in children ( a new acronyum - ARMC ?) --and remember Stevenson was a scathing critic of ALL recovered memory/ hypnotic regression claims, something his detractors generally overlook-- need an explanation,.

This is a big problem for your argument. The recovered memory nonsense was proved wrong by showing just how easy it is to get people to remember things that didn't happen. My favourite example was one where children remembered seeing Bugs Bunny in Disneyland. If Stevenson agrees that this is the case, how can he possibly argue that some apparent memories are actually from past lives and not just exactly the same thing?

 

[Herzblut]

I think it is interesting that it is claimed that in some cases the child "knows things that absolutely no-one else knows".

What the child knows is either

1. verifiable,
2. unverifiable or
3. falsifiable,

isnt it? Which option does not completely discredit the assertion?

Herzblut

 

[Herzblut]

On the contrary he seems to me to be careful & cautious in his claims, discussing possible mundane explanations, fraud etc. in depth for each case individually and for all collectively - I'd guess a third to a half of the book is taken up with such discussions. (Or is this not so?) And in the title of the book he says no more than that the cases are 'suggestive' of reincarnation (doesn't say they are proof of or examples of or even strong evidence of reincarnation).

Yeah, cautious in his claims. Let's see:

just because detective Stevenson could not find an explanation for the
knowledge of a child, it follows automatically that:

the Flying Spaghetti Monster - which often spends some vacation days in
India - has whispered these things into the kids year. You know, the FSM
feels about the misery in India and helps some poor kids by implanting the
biography of some rich children that died young. You know, the media in
India makes a spectacle out of it, the rich parents are sooo glad they
can embrace their reincarnated son. Finally, the poor parents and their 15
kids - excluding the one they gave away - make a good deal as well.

You see, everybody's happy and the FSM has done good again to us
earthlings.

Oh, btw, this also explains why these "reincarnations", hehe, only happen
in countries where everybody believes in those! Clever FSM!

Herzblut

 

[Herzblut]

This is the central evidence that demands and lacks a conventional explanation.

Absolutely!

And here the Invisible Pink Unicorn jumps in and ..eh.. no sorry its the Flying Spaghetti Monster which .... wait a minute .... now i got it: its God Popobeatle which created the whole Universe, including our false memories, 15 minutes ago!

Now you know!

Herzblut

 

[sophia8]

Of course consider this: If the child knew something that "absolutely no-one else knows," then isn't the "thing" the child asserts as true completely unverifiable? That is, how can it be determined whether the factual claim is true if it is not known to any other living person?

That is the problem with every single "past-life" case that I've read about. The reincarnatee produces all sorts of obscure facts which are then verified by historians, to universal amazement. However, these facts were already publically available somewhere in books and archives!
I'm sure I'm repeating myself here, but I remember one credulous UK TV show about a man who claimed to be a reincarnation of an 18thC British soldier. The TV people took him to his claimed regiment's museum, where he, speaking in character as this dead soldier, impressed the resident historian with his knowledge of some obscure battle.
What amazed me was his accent. The regiment was one of the Lancashire ones; an 18thC Lancashire farm-boy, as this man claimed to be, would have spoken in an almost unintelligible local dialect. Instead, this man (who was from London) spoke perfectly clear modern English with no dialect words - and with a Manchester accent! Certainly the accent would have sounded "Northern" to anybody from the South-east; but to this long-time Lancashire resident, it was laughably fake.
And again, I repeat myself: don't test reincarnatees on facts, however obscure; test them on skills. If they claimed to have been a trumpeter, give them a trumpet and invite them to play; if they claimed to have been a Saxon farmer, give them a knife and a live pig and invite them to produce sausages.

 

[Herzblut]

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

 

[Jeff Corey]

This whole discussion reminds me of a case that was popular over a half century ago. http://skepdic.com/bridey.html

 

[Herzblut]

The reincarnatee produces all sorts of obscure facts which are then verified by historians, to universal amazement.

To my particular suspicion because our memory is notoriously inaccurate and ... false.

And again, I repeat myself: don't test reincarnatees on facts, however obscure; test them on skills. If they claimed to have been a trumpeter, give them a trumpet and invite them to play; if they claimed to have been a Saxon farmer, give them a knife and a live pig and invite them to produce sausages.

I'm afraid this neither proves nor disproves reincarnation or any of the billions of supernatural claims you could make up to "explain" seemingly implausible events.

In terms of verifying the plausibility of the blabber, the best to ask about is just normal day-2-day-live. How old are you? How's a normal day in your life? What do you eat? How are you dressed? What is your work? How to use your toilet? How often do you wash yourself? Where do you buy the things you need?

Herzblut

 

[sophia8]

In terms of verifying the plausibility of the blabber, the best to ask about is just normal day-2-day-live. How old are you? How's a normal day in your life? What do you eat? How are you dressed? What is your work? How to use your toilet? How often do you wash yourself? Where do you buy the things you need?

Herzblut

That's part of my point. To take my example of a peasant farmer, turning pigs into food is a everyday task they are very familiar with. Somebody claiming to be a reincarnated peasant farmer should therefore be able to slaughter and butcher a pig without any qualms, before demonstrating how to turn it into ham and the like.
Just having them answering questions isn't enough - all that information is available in books and on the internet.

Of course, the problem of this approach is that very few reincarnatees claim to have been people with such demonstratable life-skills; most of them were royalty, pharoahs, high priests and so on. What are a King's skill sets?

 

[cj.23]

This whole discussion reminds me of a case that was popular over a half century ago. http://skepdic.com/bridey.html

Needs updating I think. While i'm no way supporting a past life explanation for Bridey Murphy, the claims about the woman living across the street have long been debunked, and the whole thing is rather more complex than that. I can cheerfully put in an afternoon on research and corrections if it will help? Bridey Murphy was "rehabilitated" several times, because to be honest there appears to have been blatant misrepresentation and falsification in the original newspaper debunks, which have then been uncritically circulated by well meaning sceptics. This just serves to provide ammunition for believers, and tends to rather discredit other well researched sceptics. It's a shame, but even the excellent Melvin Harris was caught out by this one...

cj x

 

[cj.23]

This is a big problem for your argument. The recovered memory nonsense was proved wrong by showing just how easy it is to get people to remember things that didn't happen. My favourite example was one where children remembered seeing Bugs Bunny in Disneyland. If Stevenson agrees that this is the case, how can he possibly argue that some apparent memories are actually from past lives and not just exactly the same thing?

Yes, but I'm not arguing the experience is genuinely of past life memory. I'm saying we need an explanatory mechanism. Now sure we have confabulation, false memory,a nd all kinds of other things, but if there is veridical content we need an explanatory mechanism, and even if the whole thing is just confabulation we still need to understand how and why it arises in certain cases - saying its not "real", when to be honest it had never crossed my mind that it could be, in no way explains how it arises. I want a model which explains how the cases arise, how it fits in tot he development of personal identity and if there are other personality, familial or neurological issues at stake.

Worth reading Stevenson though. He was well aware of FMS - hence the rejection of ALL "recovered memory" cases.

cj x

 

[osmosis]

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 which in many (not all) cases they & their families & acquaintances have not (and pretty much could not have) had any connection with.

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.

This is the central evidence that demands and lacks a conventional explanation.

You do know what an anecdote is, don't you? It doesn't even really qualify as evidence.

If even one of these cases could be shown to have more than anecdotes backing it up, a rational person would have reason to give this discussion serious consideration.

But until then, you'll have to pardon myself and the rest of the rational world for not taking this idea seriously.

 

[osmosis]

Surely a temporary inconvenience such as death won't stop him.

Beautiful... couldn't have said it better myself!

 

[Rasmus55]

Yes, but I'm not arguing the experience is genuinely of past life memory. I'm saying we need an explanatory mechanism. Now sure we have confabulation, false memory,a nd all kinds of other things, but if there is veridical content we need an explanatory mechanism, and even if the whole thing is just confabulation we still need to understand how and why it arises in certain cases - saying its not "real", when to be honest it had never crossed my mind that it could be, in no way explains how it arises. I want a model which explains how the cases arise, how it fits in tot he development of personal identity and if there are other personality, familial or neurological issues at stake.

Worth reading Stevenson though. He was well aware of FMS - hence the rejection of ALL "recovered memory" cases.

cj x

Here's a simple way to research why people lie about sensational things. Go talk to the English guys who make crop circles at night for the benefit of the woo community. They do it as a prank. Talk to them about their motivations. You could also talk to people who have reported UFO claims that were later shown to be hoaxes. Barring actual mental/physical illness, it is just lying. Maybe these people want attention or maybe it's much more simple, like some are paid for their stories/activities. Motivation won't be too hard to find, but accepting the fact that they are most likely liars is a tough hump for believers and pseudo-scientists to get over first.

 

[delphi_ote]

Interesting thread. I have a question for less skeptical: if these are not cases of a child picking up memories from some source in the present and representing them to others as coming from a past life, what is an alternate hypothesis for these claims? What other mechanism would put memories in a child's head supposedly from another person's life in the past? Are you suggesting that it is the traditional physics defying reincarnation we've heard about for years? Or do you have another hypothesis?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Needs updating I think. While i'm no way supporting a past life explanation for Bridey Murphy, the claims about the woman living across the street have long been debunked, and the whole thing is rather more complex than that. I can cheerfully put in an afternoon on research and corrections if it will help? Bridey Murphy was "rehabilitated" several times, because to be honest there appears to have been blatant misrepresentation and falsification in the original newspaper debunks, which have then been uncritically circulated by well meaning sceptics. This just serves to provide ammunition for believers, and tends to rather discredit other well researched sceptics. It's a shame, but even the excellent Melvin Harris was caught out by this one...

cj x

Bridey Murphy ?

What a skeptic has to say:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_287.html

Furthermore, in the words of one writer sympathetic to Bridey's cause, "No verification has yet been obtained that a barrister named Duncan Murphy and his wife Kathleen lived in Cork in 1798 and in that year had a daughter, Bridget Kathleen; nor that a Bridget Kathleen Murphy married in Cork a Catholic called Sean Brian McCarthy; nor that she died in 1864 in Belfast; nor that there was in Belfast in her days a St. Theresa's church; nor that it had a priest named John Joseph Gorman who, as Bridey states, performed a second marriage ceremony there."

It may be true, as Bridey proponents point out, that no vital statistics were kept in Ireland prior to 1864. The fact remains that the evidence for Bridey's authenticity consists almost entirely of trivia. If you want anyone besides the New Age crowd to take this stuff seriously, Morey, you're going to have to better than that.

What believers have to say:

http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/books/ducasse/critical/25.htm#conclusions

8. What conclusions are and are not warranted about the case

The outcome of our review and discussion of the Bridey Murphy case may now be summarily stated. It is, on the one hand, that neither the articles in magazines and newspapers which we have mentioned and commented upon, nor the comments of the authors of the so-called "Scientific Report" and of other psychiatrists hostile to the reincarnation hypothesis, have succeeded in disproving, or even in establishing a strong case against, the possibility that many of the statements of the Bridey personality are genuinely memories of an earlier life of Virginia Tighe over a century ago in Ireland.

On the other hand, for reasons other than those which were advanced by those various hostile critics, and which will be set forth in the next chapter, the verifications summarized by Barker, of obscure points in Ireland mentioned in Bridey's six recorded conversations with Bernstein, do not prove that Virginia is a reincarnation of Bridey, nor do they establish a particularly strong case for it. They do, on the other hand, constitute fairly strong evidence that, in the hypnotic trances, paranormal knowledge of one or another of several possible kinds concerning those recondite facts of nineteenth century Ireland, became manifest. This brings us directly to the question of what sort of empirical evidence, if we had it, we would regard as constituting definite proof of reincarnation.

I spent my few minutes on the Internet. Possibly you could follow up your offer: "I can cheerfully put in an afternoon on research and corrections if it will help?"

It would certainly help me.

 

[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.