Mister Agenda
Illuminator
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Reincarnation Is A FACT!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter Space_Ed
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Space_Ed
Muse
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I really wish that Chris Farely were back.
Unfortunately my brother thought he was a pterodactyl when we were little, does that mean he was re-incarnated? Magic 8 ball says 'Yes'
Lol
Almo
Masterblazer
There is not (and never has been) good evidence for reincarnation.
Space_Ed
Muse
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Hello mate
Yeah unfortunately I couldnt get hold of the 20 cases book so i got the Life Before Life one written by one of his associates.
Id like to see these case dissections certainly.
Being aware of them is not equivalent to guarding against them. That is something Stevenson did not do and something you seemingly are willing to let him get away with.
That said, here is the bulk of my post on another forum dealing with reincarnation. The items come from Montaguu Keen's Million Dollar Challenge to debunk his twenty most persuasive items. Some of them are Stevenson's claims; some are not.
I'm not editing it so there may be typos from the original, and it may sound a bit testy because my debate opponent was extremely testy.
The original post also had my sources, but even that is lengthy so I'm leaving it out. Here goes:
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#1: The Watseka Wonder
The claim: Mary Lurancy Vennum became episodically possessed by the spirit of Mary Roff from February 1, 1878 through May 21, 1878. During that time, Vennum—as Roff—revealed numerous intimate details about Roff, Roff’s family, and Roff’s friends that Vennum could not possibly have known.
The facts:
1. Vennum’s first “fit” came in July 1877; they recurred frequently through January of 1878.
2. Mary Roff had died at the age of 18 when Vennum was 15 months old.
3. The Roffs were long-time neighbors of the Vennums.
4. Vennum had no episodes of possession until she was seen by Dr. Stevens who came all the way from Wisconsin when Mr. Roff insisted on him because Stevens had treated Mary Roff.
5. Mr. Roff was present at the first session with Vennum and Stevens, and he was present at most of the following sessions. Mrs. Roff was present at some of them, too.
6. Vennum ‘brought forth’ numerous unidentified spirits but got no reaction. Later, when she said “Mary Roff,” Mr. Roff insisted that Mary be the one to speak.
7. Between sessions, Vennum—ostensibly as Mary Roff—spent considerable time at the Roff residence, speaking with and learning about the Roffs. The hits came only after several of these visits had occurred.
Debunked.
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#2: Uttara Huddar & Sharada
The claim: Uttara Haddar, at age 22 in 1973, manifested the spirit of Sharada, a Bengalese woman from 400 kilometers away and from the previous century. Haddar spoke Sharada’s language (Bengali) fluently though it was different from her own, and revealed remarkable knowledge about the customs of the times. She also revealed detailed knowledge about Sharada’s lineage.
The facts: Haddar had studied Bengali for years and could already speak it; it was similar to her native language. In addition, later analysis revealed that her use of it was impressive but not native or fluent. Her father had long been an admirer of Bengali revolutionaries and leaders and had studied them. He possessed books on Bengali history and culture. The only genealogical information Haddar revealed was information easily accessible to her in local records; she was not uneducated; she was a lecturer and public administrator.
Debunked.
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#3: Sumitra & Shira-Tripathy
I do not have information on this case and will not spend the money online for it. If, however, it is of the same caliber as the other cases of Stevenson’s, there is little reason to think it will withstand scrutiny.
Feel free to provide me detailed information about the case, if you want me to address it.
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#4: Jasbir Lal Jat
The claim: Like the others of Stevenson’s cases, it involves reincarnation.
The facts: Stevenson violates his own criteria for strong cases of reincarnation. These items are Stevenson’s, paraphrased from Stevenson (1975):
1. The utterances of the person must include “considerable detail.”
2. There must be a written record of utterances prior to any attempt at verification.
3. The utterances must be accurate.
4. The reincarnated person must demonstrate behavioral traits consistent with the known behavior of the reincarnee.
5. There must be birthmarks in the same location as birthmarks or wounds on the reincarnee.
6. The reincarnated person must demonstrate fluency in the language of the reincarnee.
With Jasbir:
1. The utterances are not in any detail at all, and Stevenson attributes to Jasbir utterances which—it is clear from his own text—came from other people with knowledge of who the reincarnee was supposed to be.
2. There was no written record prior to any attempt at verification.
3. The utterances were not accurate; Stevenson glosses over conflicting data.
4. There were no behavioral traits specific to just the reincarnee.
5. There were corresponding birthmarks, but there were other birthmarks, too. Stevenson fails to discuss the probability of birthmarks being in a particular spot, and he uses a very general locale to determine that birthmarks are in the right place.
I have not proven the Jasbir case to be total bunkum. I have shown that Stevenson did not make his case in the slightest.
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#5: Thompson/Gifford
The claim: After the death of Gifford, an artist, Thompson (not an artist) began painting scenes very similar to the paintings of Gifford, whom he did not know, and similar to places Gifford was known to have visited.
The facts: Thompson knew Gifford before Gifford died.
Note: This is one of Stevenson’s cases and demonstrates the unreliability of his work.
Debunked.
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#6: Past-life regression
This is another source (Tarazi) I do not have and cannot get without paying for it.
If you want to discuss it; provide me with the article.
#7: The Palm Sunday Case
The claim: A.J. Balfour loved Catherine Mary Lyttleton. Before he told her so, she died of typhus on Palm Sunday in 1876. From 1912 to 1918, medium Winifred Margaret Pearce-Serocold (that’s her maiden name; married name was Coombe-Tennant) channeled a spirit named Mrs. Willett who provided information about Balfour, information known only to Balfour and Lyttleton.
The facts: The sittings were mostly provided for Gerald Balfour, younger brother of A.J. In 1916, the sittings were held in A.J.’s house and A.J. attended several of them.
None of the impressive hits were made until the sittings were actually in A.J.’s house (including the silver box with Lyttleton’s locket of hair). Other hits were only found to be impressive after the fact by going back and re-interpreting what was said in earlier sittings based on the finding of the silver box. This is quite rightly called retro-fitting and indicates how vague the medium’s statements were and how they cannot be called evidence of an afterlife.
In addition, the medium’s sister-in-law was married to F.W.H. Myers, who was an active member of the SPR, so she was quite familiar with its workings. She met Balfour through the SPR and had ample opportunity to conduct research upon him.
Finally, it was Willett (as her control “Gurney”) who approached Balfour to come to the sittings, and it was Balfour’s sister, Mrs. Sidgwick, who said that Willet’s controls were obviously an extension of Willett’s personality because they uttered obvious lies and they could not respond coherently to direct questions, among other things.
Debunked.
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#8: Mrs. Gladys Osborne Leonard, the book and newspaper tests
The claim: Mrs. Leonard acted as medium for Mr. Thomas who reported that she provided unknowable specific information on the contents of books in other people’s homes and that she predicted unknowable specifics in as-yet-unpublished editions of the London Times.
The facts:
The answer is in Leonard’s own words from Thomas (1935):
I ‘sensed’ the appropriate spirit of the passage rather than the letters composing it.
Italics are in the original.
Another clue is that her “controls” varied; usually it was Feda, sometimes North Star, but for Mr. Thomas it was frequently Mr. Thomas’ own late father.
An additional tip-off lies in the fact that Mrs. Leonard was unable to perform unless her husband was present.
To be specific, though, here is the reading that impressed Thomas the most:
In your study there are books between the window and the fireplace, and a sort of inequality divides the shelves part of the way up. They are a peculiar set of books, and not everyone would read them. I can feel when books are of the popular sort, and those are not. … The fourth book from the left on the second shelf up is one that jumps about in time, skipping from one century to another.”
No text is given; no title; no page numbers. Her comment that it is not a popular book is easily guessable from knowing that she is dealing with an academic. Fireplaces in studies at the time were the norm, and they would never be next to the window. Hence, the logical place for a bookcase is between the fireplace and window. To this rather vague statement, Thomas replies with amazing credulity:
I recognized this description as accurate in each detail.
Wow.
In another book test with Miss Radclyffe-Hall and Lady Troutbridge as the sitters, Mrs. Leonard said that something on page 14 of “the fifth book from the left” there was something that gave a feeling of heat. She said that “heat” might mean fire or great anger.
On page 14, the ladies found the words “ardent patriot” and attributed Leonard with a great hit.
Double wow.
That part (the book tests) is debunked.
The newspaper test is next.
On May 7, 1920, Mrs. Leonard read for Mr. Thomas and told him that the May 9 edition of the London Times would mention his father’s name and the name of a place in which he had lived. This information would be in column one, one fourth of the way down.
On May 8, Thomas found—in the appropriate spot—the name John (his father’s name) and the word “Birkdale” which is what his father called the house he owned.
Impressive?
No. Do you really want me to debunk what amounts to a magician’s trick on a magic forum?
Do you also want me to point out how often people misremember what is actually said during a performance? Note that Thomas does NOT provide the actual transcript in this case. That’s a significant omission.
I would say “debunked” but there is nothing at all to debunk.
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#9: Bim’s Book Test
The claim: This is another Mrs. Leonard book test, but the sitter was not Mr. Thomas. The sitters were Lord Glenconner and his son. Mrs. Leonard—through her control Feda—communicated with the spirit of Lord Glenconner’s other son, Edward (known to the family as Bim). Bim pointed the family to page 37 of a specific book where they would find reference to beetles that ruined trees. Mention of the beetle had personal significance to the family (it’s a digression to explain why; suffice it to say that it did have the significance).
The facts:The item found was not on page 37 but was on page 36. No specific book was mentioned; instead, a location was given in such a way that it could have been a couple of books. Leonard knew the types of books the father had because she had been sitting with them before.
Most importantly, there was no specific prediction. Bim merely said “Bim now wants to send a message to his father. This book is particularly for this father. Underline that, he says…Take the title and look at page 37.”
So if it hadn’t mentioned beetles, it might simply have mentioned trees (the book was, in fact, called “Trees”) which were also important to the family. Or it could have mentioned WWI which was important to the family. Or it could have mentioned a lost son which was important to the family.
This is a classic example of attributing a specific prediction to an action which was in fact very general.
As Johnson (1953) says:
…but we are concerned here with proof of survival, and we must admit that book tests do not help us in this.
Debunked.
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#10: Harry Stockbridge
Another article I don’t have and won’t pay for. Give me details.
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#11: Bobby Newlove
The claim: Mrs. Leonard (again) sat for Mr. Thomas who had received a letter from someone neither he nor Mrs. Leonard knew, Mr. Newlove. Newlove’s son, Bobby (or Bobbie; it is spelled both ways in the literature), died a few months earlier of diphtheria at age 10. Mr. Thomas handed the re-sealed letter to Mrs. Leonard who immediately provided verifiable information regarding the circumstances of Bobby’s death including the previously unknown fact that he acquired the diphtheria from a broken pipe near which Bobby and his friend played.
The facts:The information was not provided in the first sitting. There were eleven sittings in relation to Bobby Newlove and the verifiable information came later.
Remember that Mrs. Leonard always sat in a darkened room with her back to Thomas and with her husband present. Can you, as a magician, think of no way in which she could obtain information from a resealed envelope? Information which she could then use to develop further information over the course of many days?
I can.
Debunked.
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#12: Runki’s Missing Leg
The claim: Medium Hafstein Bjornsson channeled the spirit of Runolfur Runolfsson (Runki) who provided unknowable details about how he died and also pointed the sitters to the home of an unrelated man where Runki’s missing femur would be found.
The facts: Stevenson again. Runki (Runolfur Runolfsson) drowned in 1879. His body washed ashore some time later and was dismembered by animals. His remains, minus a femur, were buried. In 1920, an unidentified femur washed ashore near the same spot. It was passed around and its whereabouts lost.
In 1937, Hafstein holds séances. A spirit comes through who refuses to identify himself and who says his leg is “missing AT SEA.” This continues for over a year.
One sitter (Niels Carlson) invites Ludvik Gudmundsson to join the séances which he does on January 1, 1939.
Runki continues to refuse to identify himself but says Ludvik can help.
Niels and Ludvik demand Runki give more info or they won’t help.
Runki stops appearing.
Several months later, Runki reappears and says he is Runolfur Runolffson. He gives details of his death (all public record in a church archive) and says his femur is in Ludvik’s house.
A neighbor of Ludvik is found who suddenly remembers that a bone was placed in one wall of Ludvik’s house by the carpenter who built it. When this wall is torn down, no bone is found.
A fish factory employee who used to live in Ludvik’s house suddenly remembers that it is another wall that has the bone.
The group finds the bone in the second wall.
The bone is never confirmed as being the one washed ashore in 1920.
The bone is never confirmed as belonging to Runolfur Runolffson who died in 1879.
Runki is unable to say which of several unmarked, jumbled graves is his so that his remains may be reinterred and the found femur checked against his other bones.
Runki went from saying the bone was in the sea to the bone was in Ludvik’s house.
Runki gave no details until he had been missing for a time sufficient to allow Hafstein to conduct secret research.
Hafstein denied visiting the church archives until his signature was found on the visitor’s book, then he remembered that he did visit it, but claimed it was for an unrelated reason.
Debunked.
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#13: Biedermann
The claim: Different mediums were able to reveal the following unknowable information about Gustav Adolf Biedermann: (1) Lived in London (2) House was called Charnwood Lodge (3) Was a German national (4) Known as Gustav though it was not an actual name for him (5) Was a Rationalist (6) Was 70 years old when he died (7) Had his own business (8) Associated with London University.
The facts: The various mediums did not provide this information as a list. There was no “proxy” sitter but instead someone who knew of Biedermann who was also unfamiliar with the techniques of cold reading. In addition, the sittings occurred over a period of time sufficient to allow research into Biedermann. Gauld claims he acquired all the public documents the mediums might have accessed to secretly gain knowledge of Biedermann, but he did not secure those documents in an unknown place; they were accessible to the members of the SPR.
This is no more complicated than watching John Edward at work.
Debunked.
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#14: Gudmundur (Gundi) Magnusson
I don’t have this article. Bear in mind it’s another Stevenson case, and we’ve seen how weak they are.
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#15: Edgar Vandy
The claim: After Edgar Vandy’s death, his brothers asked Mr. Thomas to sit as a proxy for them with five separate mediums. The mediums revealed completely unknowable information about Vandy’s death and the secret machine he was working on.
The facts: None of the mediums gave Vandy’s name; the closest they came was mentioning the letter “E.” None of the mediums described Vandy’s death (he drowned); the closest they came was saying there were some bruises under his chin (there were). The irrefutable hit was supposed to be one medium’s mentioning of a secret machine, the “Lectroline,” Vandy was working on in the back room of a cousin’s house. But no medium ever said “Lectroline.” One medium sad he was involved with “machinery” and had “something to do with wireless or radio.”
There’s nothing to debunk. It debunks itself.
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#16: Oops. There is no #16.
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#17: George Pelham
The claim: George Pelham was one of Leonore Piper’s many “controls” who provided a long string of unknowable information to Hodgson over many years of sittings. Since Pelham was a pseudonym (and Piper never learned the man’s real name), Piper could not conceivably have researched anything about him. Pelham successfully recognized thirty people he knew when he was alive, and never once falsely recognized someone he did not know. The only person he knew when alive whom he failed to recognize was Miss Warner who was a lady when he appeared as a control but who was a child when he was alive.
The facts:
1. Pelham is a pseudonym. In 1888, Pelham sat once with Piper without revealing his real name. In 1892, he died of a fall.
2. While I do not know Pelham’s real name, even the Piper supporters admit he had been a member of ASPR.
3. Pelham appeared through Piper one month after his death and then periodically for six more years. He appeared for over 150 sitters.
4. Pelham was a close friend of Hodgson.
5. It is inconceivable that 30 people could verify that Pelham recognized them without revealing to Piper who Pelham actually was.
6. In addition, Hodgson admits that both he and Piper knew that Pelham had known Miss Warner as a child. This is not possible without Piper knowing who Pelham was.
7. Even Hodgson admits that some of Piper’s other controls were either fraudulent or unknowing extensions of her personality without real paranormal attributes (most notably Phinuit and the “Imperator Band.” Piper also claimed Johan Sebastian Bach as a control.)
8. Of all of Piper’s controls, Pelham is the only one not to speak and the only one to communicate with automatic writing. One could assume this is because Pelham was a friend of Hodgson’s and Hodgson might notice differences in speech patterns.
So the evidence boils down to Pelham recognizing people he knew when alive, but since Piper knew who he was and her primary sitter also knew him, this is no big deal.
There is nothing to debunk.
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#18: Mrs. Willett and her communications with her sons
I don’t have this article, either.
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#19: Airmen Who Would Not Die
The first claim: Captain Hinchliffe, who disappeared crossing the Atlantic in 1928, appeared via Ouija board to medium Mrs. Earl. When this proved too slow, he appeared by speaking to medium Eileen Garrett. He gave unknowable details about his death and life. Hinchliffe also warned that the R-101 was in danger of crashing if it flew in bad weather.
The second claim: First Lieutenant Irwin, Captain of the airship R-101, spoke through Eileen Garrett’s control, Uvani, after R-101 crashed in October of 1930, killing most aboard. Irwin provided unknowable technical detail about the airship and gave the cause of the crash which the Court of Inquiry later verified. (Other crew members were alleged to have also spoken through Garrett, but Irwin was primary.)
The facts:
Regarding the first claim: Hinchliffe provided no verifiable information about his death. None. He provided no information about his life that could not be deduced by a moderately skilled cold reader. He provided no specific information at all about the R-101 except that it was dangerous to fly in bad weather which had already been demonstrated in its trials; in addition, Garrett did not reveal Hinchliffe’s comments about R-101 until after the crash.
Regarding the second claim: This is blatant misreporting of the facts. Garrett (speaking as Irwin) threw out some technical sounding terms, some of which were correct, but the majority was simply a string of things that did NOT match what the Court of Inquiry found.
Garrett said R-101 was unstable, but that had already been demonstrated in its air trials.
She said the engines were too small for the load, but this was untrue and technically amateurish. The engines do not provide the lift; the hydrogen bags do.
She said the ship nearly scraped the roofs of Achy, France, which was not on any maps but which was on the final route of the airship. Regardless if Achy is on a map, R-101 did not nearly scrape the roofs of any village or town in France. It crashed into a hillside near Beauvais.
Before she mentioned any cause of the crash, she was visited by Major Villiers of the Ministry of Civil Aviation who sat with her several times and asked leading questions (check Keen’s sources for this).
She said the added middle section was entirely wrong. (The Ministry had added a third hydrogen bag after the trials). But the middle section had nothing to do with the crash.
She eventually said the reason for the crash was that the engine’s were too small and could not provide enough lift. This could hardly be more wrong. The cause of the crash, as reported by the Court of Inquiry, was that the wind tore back the outer covering on the nose of the airship, thereby letting the hydrogen out. Nothing at all to do with the engines or any other of the seemingly impressive details Garrett spouted.
Debunked.
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[#20: The Lethe case]
The claim: It is best to simply quote Keen (2003):
Leonora Piper channeled F.W.H. Myers spirit. George Dorr was testing her. He asked “Myers” what the word “Lethe” meant to him (because Myers was a classical scholar and Piper was not). Piper came out with “a considerable number of references,” many that Dorr did not know. He investigated and found them to be “references to persons, incidents, descriptions and places found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which gives an account of the mythological Hadean stream of Lethe…”
Later, Sir Oliver Lodge heard what Dorr had done and asked Mrs. Willett, who was also channeling Myers, the same question. Willett gave another long list of references, different from Piper’s. “Virtually all of these were found to derive not from Ovid but from an entirely different account connected with Aeneas’s visit to Elysium with Anchisis, his father, as described in Book Six of Virgil’s Aeneid, on which Myers had once written a scholarly commentary.”
Since neither Piper nor Willett (Coombes-Tennant) were classical scholars, this knowledge, especially across two mediums, is very strong evidence of survival.
The facts:Keen himself said that the references Piper gave weren’t specific at all but were “oblique.” In other words, they had to be interpreted to fit. And NONE of them actually said that Lethe is the stream bounding the shores of the Elysian fields.
Keen also said of the references that Willett gave that they were “allusive,” again meaning that they had to be interpreted. And NONE of the allusions were even to the work in which Lethe is found.
To sum it up: Neither medium claiming to channel Myers gave any information answering the question about Lethe. In fact, the mediums gave distinctly different answers which had to be wildly interpreted to even put them in the same ballpark as the work that mentions Lethe.
Nothing to debunk.
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That’s it for your borrowed list from Keen, unless you want to give me details on the few I didn’t address.
Let’s tally:
Out of the 19 on the list (not the 20 that Keen says there are), I have debunked 15.
On four of them I do not have the required information. If you get it, I’ll look at it.
If they are as weak as the 15 I’ve looked at, I wouldn’t hold out much hope, though. And since two of the four have Stevenson as a primary source, and since hypnotic regression (which is another of your cases) has taken a beating in the literature, I’d really not hold out much hope at all.
But it’s your dime.
ETA: Some of the formatting was lost in copying/pasting, particularly the quotation boxes. I'll not fix it, though, as I think it's decipherable as is.
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Though I'm certain it will be summer again next year, one should be careful of saying science makes "reliable predictions of the future".skeptical
Muse
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The problem with anecdotal accounts, is that the more extraordinary the claim, the less reliability it should be given. That is just common sense. Almost no one takes stories of dragons, fairies or unicorns seriously, even when they are reported as first hand accounts, for the simple reason that we are all but certain that those entities don't exist based on collective experience. If a first hand account, historical or recent, is very extraordinary, then the only reasonable response is to apportion acceptance to the degree of evidence. Extraordinary claims with low quality evidence must correspondingly be viewed with a high level of suspicion.
In this case, the claim is extraordinary for the following reasons:
1) So far as we know, everything about a person's "self" is the direct result of brain processes. Hundreds of experiments show this time after time. If you alter the brain, you alter the person. If you destroy part of the brain, you destroy part of the person's identity. It stands to reason that if you destroy all of the brain, you destroy all of the person's identity.
2) Many alleged episodes of reincarnation have turned out to be false, and most of them rely on "memory regression" techniques which are known to be unreliable. The infamous Bridey Murphy case is a paradigmatic example. These "recovered memories" via hypnosis are known to be constructions of new "memories", and not recovery of actual memories at all.
Based on this, a reasonable approach would require a person to exercise skepticism of any claims of this nature. More than just an anecdotal story would be required. Actual investigation to verify the information given by someone who claims they have been reincarnated would be an absolute requirement. The person would have to be able to give specific details of their past life that could be verified, and it would have to be shown with a high degree of confidence that the person could not have obtained this information through prosaic methods.
To require this sort of verification is just using common sense and experience. We have to ask ourselves what is more likely, that somehow a "person" complete with memories survives their death and then gets implanted into the brain of another person at conception, or that people are either deceiving others or deceiving themselves. We have countless examples of the latter, and none, so far as we know, of the former.
Therefore, it is quite correct to require good evidence, no matter how interesting and marvelous the claim is. If there are good, controlled, studies of this phenomenon, they are worth examining. If there are just stories of people making claims, that may make for entertaining reading but it cannot count as evidence unless the claims have been rigorously investigated. It is simply far too common for claims of this nature to be fraudulent to take them at face value.
As far as I can tell, nothing in the above is "dogmatic".
You've got a very strange view of history; in fact, very little of it is based on uncorroborated firsthand accounts. Most of it is based on written records, multiple firsthand accounts, and archaeological evidence. Single-author accounts are questioned carefully: "Hang on, was Herodotus right or wrong about size of Xerxes' army? Let's look for more information."
But, yeah, there's a tradeoff. If your standard of evidence is too strict, you will fail to accept some things that are, in fact, true. If your standard of evidence is too low, you will wholeheartedly accept some things that are, in fact, false. You have to decide where to place your personal cutoff. You, Space Ed, seem to have set your cutoff way, way too low.
Space_Ed
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I've not read the 20 cases book but if the cases are like this then that is seriously poor. I cannot comment though because I have not read these accounts and cannot comment. If I'd read things about seances and that type of subjective 'evidence' I'd think it was all a pile of BS.
Space_Ed
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No that is perfectly reasonable. Before I bought the Life Before Life book, if I had read the summary that Garette has given of the 20 cases in Ian Stevenson's book I woudn't even have given it a thought.
I am seeing a big discrepancy between how the researchers say they conduct the research and how the debunkers claim they carry out the research.
There is a HUGE difference between the apparent claims in the 20 Cases book and the Life Before Life book. If I got hold of the 20 Cases book and it was like that I'd throw it in the bin. The methods cited in my book are reasonable and aslong as what is being reported is not fictitious then these events are suggestive of reincarnation.
Sceptics are often just like religious people, they will inadvertently make things up or totally miss things staring them in the face in order to verify their claims.
Space_Ed
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I can't say I blame you. People here have done a very good job of making the whole thing seem even more silly and unlikely than it does to begin with. I have made a very poor attempt to counter these arguments with examples of solid research and suggestive evidence. I know that to do so will take a lot of effort, reading and writing and to be honest I can't be arsed. I've got better things to do really.
The book is a well written book despite Garette's very good attempt to make Ian Stevenson look like a fool I am still sitting on the fence. I will get the 20 Cases book to see if his arguments really are as poor as that. I would be surprised if they actually are. Debunkers are often just as silly as other people, often more so.
The Atheist
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Brilliant!
That should have been the end of this thread and discussion.
It wasn't, of course...
Just a tip for, you, Ed: when replying to a comment, it makes everyone else's life a little easier if you don't just quote the entire post when it's a very long one.
Just snip most of it out so it's clear who you're replying to, but having to scroll past it all when you don't even comment on the substance of the post is both annoying and rude. It also demeans your argument when you appear to be not even bothered to show forum etiquette.
Yes. How typical. The ones Garrette debunked were rubbish, but the ones you're now relying on are reliable! We have seen this tactic before once or twice.
So they are.
Fortunately, only a tiny minority of sceptics are like that and if it's tried in here, pretty much everyone else will jump on them like the proverbial ton of bricks. Casting general aspersions like that is another tactic often used by those with cases built of straw.
blutoski
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I think that's a very important point, and it's not a problem that's restricted to reincarnation studies.
Ray Hyman spoke to this when reviewing reports of 19th century spiritualism investigations. All these really smart people went through enough trouble to establish a list of possible confounding elements... and then did nothing about it.
An example with these reincarnation case studies is the rather sweeping claim that information leakage was eliminated as a possibility. On a case by case basis, what this usually meant was that the investigator could think of a million ways for the information to have been passed back and forth, but figured these people wouldn't do that because they're too honest. So, the possibility of leakage was eliminated by mere character evaluation rather than actual apparatus.
The latter approach is scientific; the former is amateurish. We have 150 years of scientific critique of these protocols, and there's nothing much new here, which is why skeptics are cool toward any new pronouncements.
Gravy
Downsitting Citizen
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Stating that debunkers can be silly does nothing to prove reincarnation, and stating that you "can't be arsed" to present specific rebuttals to your critics doesn't encourage me to take your opinions seriously.
The book you're enamored with has not caused scientists worldwide to cry for more study into this remarkable phenomenon. When something occurs to make that happen, I'm sure we'll hear about it. I won't be holding my breath until then.
godless dave
Great Dalmuti
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Nap, interrupted.
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I bought a copy of Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, read one chapter at random, laughed and laughed, and sold it on Amazon. The events were 40 years old and the information was obtained by interviewing the family. Of course they had not colluded on the story, neither intentionally nor subconsciously.Space_Ed said:
I'm told it wasn't one of the better chapters. Whatever.
What if you read one chapter and are really impressed with the information? Would you dare conclude from it anything as astounding as reincarnation?
~~ Paul
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Not even close to being debunked:
"Family friends, including A.J. Smith, editor of the Danville Times, and the Reverend J.H. Rhea, witnessed Mary Roff, heavily blindfolded, accurately ‘read’ to them the contents of a sealed letter in the editor’s pocket, and arrange, correctly, a pile of old letters which she could not see. The amazed editor wrote a long, detailed account of the incidence in his paper . . . [After Mary's death,] Mrs. Roff and her daughter, Mrs. Minerva Alter, Mary’s sister, went to visit Lurancy. Lurancy was looking out of the window of her house at the time and when she saw them coming down the street exclaimed - ‘There comes my ma and sister Nervie!’- the latter being the name Mary used to call Mrs. Alter when a young girl . . . Hoping that it might help their daughter’s recovery, the Vennums allowed their daughter to be taken into the Roff home. When asked how long she would remain there, Lurancy answered that the angels would let her stay until some time in May. She had never been in the house before but, remarkably, seemed to know everything about it. She also spoke almost daily of particular incidents in Mary Roff’s life, she recognized family members and friends, identified her favourite clothes and belongings and recounted past event known only to the family.
"For fifteen weeks Lurancy Vennum lived as Mary Roff among her family and friends, and everything she did convinced people that she was the real Mary Roff, whom she had never known. When Mrs. Roff asked her if she recalled the family moving to Texas in 1857 (when Mary was eleven) the girl responded promptly that she remembered it well, particularly seeing the Indians along the Red River and playing with the young daughters of a family named Reeder, who were among the same travelling party. The Roffs also tested her with a velvet head dress Mary used to wear; which she recognized immediately.
"On 7 May, 1878 , ‘Mary’ told the Roff family that it would soon be time for her to leave, as Lurancy Vennum was getting better and would return. Then, on 21 May, after fourteen weeks, thus fulfilling the prophecy which ‘Mary’ had made when first taking control, she tearfully bade everyone goodbye and left. Lurancy was back for good and she asked Mrs. Roff to take her home. When she arrived she met her parents and brothers, hugging and kissing them in tears of happiness, and was completely content to be in her own surroundings again. She told her family that the past fifteen weeks seemed like a dream to her. Back in her own house Lurancy became, in the words of her mother ‘perfectly and entirely well and natural . . . Lurancy has been smarter, more intelligent, more industrious, more womanly, and more polite than before.’
"Evidence is certainly not lacking in the case of Lurancy Vennum, it attracted wide attention at the time and contemporary newspapers in and around Chicago devoted a lot of space to it. But what really happened? Was Lurancy somehow able to hoax, not only her own family and that of Mary Roff, but the investigators as well? On the other hand, If she was genuine, are the only possible explanations reincarnation or spiritual possession?
"The families involved seemed to think Lurancy was indeed possessed by the spirit of Mary Roff. Richard Hodgson, who worked with Morton Prince in the Christine Beauchamp multiple personality case at the end of the 19th century, suggested that Mary Roff could be a secondary personality of Lurancy Vennum’s. If so, we can discount reincarnation, spiritual possession or any other 'paranormal' explanation for the case. However, the problem still remains of how Lurancy obtained the detailed knowledge she possessed. The same problem applies if the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. Where and how did she obtain the detailed information about people, places and events she knew nothing about? If this mystery could be explained then we would be much closer to understanding this case of alleged 'spiritual possession'."
See http://www.mysteriouspeople.com/Lurancy_Vennum.htm