'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.