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Young children and past lives

senorpogo

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senorpogo
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http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2232830&page=1

Jim Tucker, a child psychiatrist and medical director of the Child and Family Psychiatric Clinic at the University of Virginia, is one of the few researchers to extensively study the phenomenon of children who seem to have memories of past lives.

He says James' case is very much like others he has studied.

"At the University of Virginia, we've studied over 2,500 cases of children who seem to talk about previous lives when they're little," Tucker said. "They start at 2 or 3, and by the time they're 6 or 7 they forget all about it and go on to live the rest of their lives."

Tucker — the author of "Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives" — has seen cases like James' where children make statements that can be verified and seem to match with a particular person.
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Is anyone familiar with Mr. Tucker and his research? They don't detail what these statments really are or what the kids know that they shouldn't really know. Logically, wouldn't any random statment probably correspond with someone's life? I could just make something up any death scenario and find someone who died in that manner.
 
Let me guess, they were all Princes or Princesses with their own pony and parents that were nice to them.
 
[sigh] I remember an incident that happened when I was four years old: My family was in the car on vacation and my older sister (then nine) was talking about how something we saw reminded her of something that happened years ago. She started every other sentence with, "When I was five..."

I was always a sarcastic kid (my parents have amusing stories of me mocking my sister in sarcastic tones even before I could say complete words), and I was at the age when kids just like to hear themselves speak. It wasn't long before I started my sentences with, "When I was five..." This practice stopped abruptly when my sister realized she was being mocked and snapped, "You were never five! You're only four!"

I wonder how many less-observant and more... woo-bent parents might have heard my "When I was five" stories and determined that I was talking about being five in a past life. Some kids that age really love to talk just to talk; I remember doing it, and I hear my five-year-old nephew do it.
 
From the link:

From the ages of 2 to 6, James Leininger seemed to recall in striking detail a "past life" he had as a World War II Navy pilot who was shot down and killed over the Pacific.

The boy knew details about airplanes and about pilot James Huston Jr. that he couldn't have known.
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A more prosaic version of James Leininger's story.
 
Anytime my wife and I talk about an experience that occured before his birth our six year old will swear he remembers it.

So does anyone have the number of the therapist I am supposed to call....
 
When very young my mother had me tested at the University of Virginia for ESP. Apparently I have extraordinarily high telepathic and precognitive powers. *9_9* Funny, when I returned as a student about a decade and a half later I wasn't able to read professors' minds or guess exam answers. =@.o=

Even as a kit I could tell that "Okay, we'll call that one a warm-up. Now let's do another run for real. Ready?" was wrong, and invalidated what they were trying to say I could do.
 
Children have stunningly good memories. My niece regularly amazes me by remembering minor details about things. The effect is even greater because they are usually talking about stuff that is beyond their comprehension. But it's just a parrot effect. The kid was obsessed with planes and remembered a few things. Now, obviously, he's forgotten but parents have a hard time accepting that their kid is "just" normal.
 
Rodney said:
If you believe the "prosaic" version, you must believe that all 18 month-old children who visit museums with WWII vintage planes have nightmares about being killed while flying those planes.
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No.

I just have to believe that it's possible with some children, and I have to make the daring assumption that it is a more likely explanation that memories from a past life.
 
Rodney said:
If you believe the "prosaic" version, you must believe that [some] 18 month-old children who visit museums with WWII vintage planes [can] have nightmares about being killed while flying those planes.
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Fixed.
 
Rodney said:
If you believe the "prosaic" version, you must believe that all 18 month-old children who visit museums with WWII vintage planes have nightmares about being killed while flying those planes.
Click to expand...

Like to explain the logic behind that statement, or are you making things up again?
 
These kinds of stories remind me of the McMartin preschool case:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_mcmar.htm

Pretty much all of the students told stories of horrible things going on at the school, so awful that they couldn't possibly have made them up. The kids even swore there were underground rooms were abuse took place. This went on for quite a while until the police got around to looking for physical evidence that would back up the children's stories. That's when the truth began to come out:

Children were pressured by parents; CII interviewers used leading, suggestive, and repeated questions. These are the precise techniques that almost guarantee the implantation of false memories in the minds of children.

The false memories were caused by the investigators who were looking for evidence of child abuse. It isn't very hard for me to suspect that an investigator looking for evidence of past lives is using techniques that create false memories of past lives, just as the McMartin students believed they had been abused.
 
Given the apparent abundance of psychic gifts, I wonder why nobody ever remembers future lives?
 
Mary Roach covered the idea of children remembering past lives in her book Spook, although she talked to a researcher in India. The research seemed to amount to: "My son is afraid of tractors" "Why, a man in the next village was run over by a tractor about the time your son was born! What are the odds!" After a "link" like that was established, the kid's imagination could easily take over.
 
The only part of Jame's story I find the least bit interesting is the historical connection to Iwo Jima. I did find the similarities rather creepy - beyond coincidence. But, as is pointed out in the link, we don't know details regarding how this information was revealed.

So I did some research of my own. And guess what? The casablanca class USS Natoma Bay (CVE 62) escort carrier DID provide air combat support during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

But that's where it all falls apart.

No F4U Corsairs were ever flown from the deck of USS Natoma Bay during World War 2. At Iwo Jima the ship's composite squadron (Escort Carriers only had a single composite squadron consisting of fighters and torpedo aircraft) was VC 81, who operated off the ship from September 1944 until March 1945.

VC 81 consisted of:

16 - 24 General Motors FM-2 Wildcats (fighters)
(The FM-2 was an improved version of the Grumman F4F Wildcat which was used until the end of WW2 on escort carriers where newer, heavier, and larger aircraft could not be used.)
9 - 12 Grumman TBF/M Avengers (torpedo bombers)

So basically, we have a series of events that are entirely explainable in other ways, combined with only one specific historic instance that supports a paranormal explanation. And that one specific historical instance proves to be BS.

Obviously the father is a pretty lame researcher.

-Andrew
 
BronzeDog said:
Fixed.
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Yep, the "prosaic" version's logic is impeccable: "However, although he was excited by the planes, the images of WWII battles also frightened him, and they soon began to give him nightmares about being trapped in a plane on fire." So parents beware: Don't take your young children to see WWII planes!
 
gumboot said:
The only part of Jame's story I find the least bit interesting is the historical connection to Iwo Jima. I did find the similarities rather creepy - beyond coincidence. But, as is pointed out in the link, we don't know details regarding how this information was revealed.

So I did some research of my own. And guess what? The casablanca class USS Natoma Bay (CVE 62) escort carrier DID provide air combat support during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

But that's where it all falls apart.

No F4U Corsairs were ever flown from the deck of USS Natoma Bay during World War 2. At Iwo Jima the ship's composite squadron (Escort Carriers only had a single composite squadron consisting of fighters and torpedo aircraft) was VC 81, who operated off the ship from September 1944 until March 1945.

VC 81 consisted of:

16 - 24 General Motors FM-2 Wildcats (fighters)
(The FM-2 was an improved version of the Grumman F4F Wildcat which was used until the end of WW2 on escort carriers where newer, heavier, and larger aircraft could not be used.)
9 - 12 Grumman TBF/M Avengers (torpedo bombers)

So basically, we have a series of events that are entirely explainable in other ways, combined with only one specific historic instance that supports a paranormal explanation. And that one specific historical instance proves to be BS.

Obviously the father is a pretty lame researcher.

-Andrew
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, your research came up much shorter than the father's. See this article -- http://www.ntcsites.com/acadianhouse/nss-folder/publicfolder/AP/cover_feature_24_3.htm -- which notes that James didn't explicitly state that he died on a Corsair -- only that he flew Corsairs. Specifically, according to his parents, Andrea and Bruce, James stated: “Airplane crash on fire, little man can’t get out."

". . . However, Bruce still had hope that all of this talk about spirits was wrong. After vigorously checking into the squadron’s aircraft action records, he found out that Huston was shot down in a FM2 Wildcat fighter plane – not a Corsair – and no one at the reunion mentioned anything about Corsairs taking off from the Natoma Bay. Bruce says this apparent inaccuracy gave him hope that all of this was just a series of coincidences.

"Just to make sure, Bruce tried to find members of Huston’s family. In February of 2003 he made contact with Anne Huston Barron, Huston’s sister, who now lives in Los Gatos, Calif. Through several phone conversations, the Leiningers and Ms. Barron became friends, and she agreed to send Bruce photos of her brother during his military service. The packages of photos arrived in February and March of 2003.

"In one of the packages was a photo of Huston standing in front of a Corsair fighter plane – the same kind of plane James had mentioned over and over. According to Bruce, interviews with past servicemen and declassified U.S. military records, before Huston joined up with the Natoma Bay and VC-81, he was part of an elite special squadron, the VF-301 Devil’s Disciples, from January to August of 1944.

"The elite squadron test-flew Corsairs for carrier use, and only 20 pilots were selected for this assignment. However, the VF-301 squadron was disbanded after eight months and Huston was then transferred to VC-81 on Oct. 8, 1944."
 
Rodney said:
Yep, the "prosaic" version's logic is impeccable: "However, although he was excited by the planes, the images of WWII battles also frightened him, and they soon began to give him nightmares about being trapped in a plane on fire." So parents beware: Don't take your young children to see WWII planes!
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:jaw-dropp
Yes, and children can also have nightmares about dogs, cats, movies, cars, tigers, thunderstorms, grizzly bears, TV shows, trains, etc, etc, etc. Welcome to the real world.

When a child goes to a museum, and is told about fighter pilots being killed in combat, is it too much of a stretch to imagine that a child could have nightmares about this?? No really, is it?
 
Is it me or do the parents seem to think that their child is a dingbat?

He knew what a drop tank was. Big ****ing deal. I knew someone who could give the Latin names of the all plants in their back yard when they were a kid. Why do people always think that children are complete idiots?

Hmm...on second thought, they do make him watch teletubbies. Isn't he a bit old for that "show"?
 
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