[QUOTE=Ladyofone;731008]Has anyone ever read anything on the many years of research Dr. Ian Stevensen has done almost exclusively with children?  In some of the cases the new incarnate has identified and even had relationships with the family from their past life.  They even have birthmarks that resemble the wounds they suffered from their previous life.   I had never even thought about reincarnation at all until I read some of the conclusions of his studies.  I think of all the books I have now read on reincarnation his work is the most convincing.  That's just my take, I'm not sure what I believe, but it makes sense to me that we would have to keep evolving spiritually.  I am of the opinion that the soul and the spirit are two different things, and I'm not clear what it is that reincarnates, but the Bible says the spirit returns to God.  Any input????[/QUOTE]


I'm not familiar with Dr. Stevensen's work but I have read studies by other researchers and some of their reported accounts were quite compelling.  After to listening to some of the stories closely and adding in my own dose of logic, I concluded these people were authentically reporting other experiences ... how and why is the million-$ question.  What's striking to me are the deep-rooted anxieties some of them were coping with and how those anxieties were traced all the way back to their claimed pre-existence via hypnosis... and the recalled traumatic circumstances that may have triggered those conditions....

Read THE LOST SECRET OF DEATH by Peter Novak.  Noval talks about Binary Soul Division, where the soul and spirit devide at death.  The soul enters a "netherworld" while the spirit reincarnates.  Fascinating book that reconciles Near Death Experiences (NDE) with Past Life Memory (PLM).

JimRigas wrote:

From what I have read about his work, his stories relate to children "remembering" details about the lives of people who had recently died and who had lived at a relatively close location. In all cases that he reported these memories disappeared by the age of ten.

In my book I used these findings to substantiate the position I stated above. A packet of memories, just separated from a recently died person, has not recognized yet its newly independent status; at the same time a child whose memory retrieval mechanism has not been fully matured yet accesses these memories and confuses them as his own. Eventually this comes to an end.

In all fairness, it has been also postulated in this forum that as the child grows up it learns that society does not accept reading dead people's memories so he stops doing it.

This conclusion would be apt were it not for the fact that most of the cases studied by Stevenson and now his successors are in locales where reincarnation is accepted. The case reports I've read of Stevenson's work indicate that the adult relatives of these children usually supported the child's having such memories, even to the point of agreeing to take the child to seek the presumed former home and family. Thus, it seems a curious explanation that their societies would be opposed to accessing such memories, unless of course, its adults share the theory that the children are simply accessing dead strangers' memories. A more reasonable explanation seems to me to be that once the child has determined the source of the memories, i.e. seen the former home and met relatives of the dead person, a phenomenon similar to resolution of past life issues achieved via therapeutic recall occurs. The result is that the tension which stimulated recall subsides once the reason for recalling the past life is resolved, and the memories then fade.

The question nonetheless remains, of course, whether the child actually was the dead person or has simply psychically accessed the person's memories somehow.

Whichever it may be, psychically accessing a dead person's memories doesn't seem to me to explain birthmarks consistent with death wounds.

I've not read anything to the effect that Stevenson found that all these children's memories of what purported to be a past life vanished at about age 10. Where did you encounter that, please?

Dot:
The question nonetheless remains, of course, whether the child actually was the dead person or has simply psychically accessed the person's memories somehow.

What does it mean "to be the dead person"? Obviously one is not the same physically dead person. But mentally or spiritually we are what our memories are. So if person A has the memories of person B, then A is B. But supose that person A has the memories of person B plus his own memories. Then you can argue that person A is person B continuing to grow. But if B died some time after A was born, then A is obviously his own person who either has access to B's memories or has mentally merged with him.

Whichever it may be, psychically accessing a dead person's memories doesn't seem to me to explain birthmarks consistent with death wounds.

Unless you believe that the mind can affect the body. A similar example would be the stigmata that some "holy" people get.

I've not read anything to the effect that Stevenson found that all these children's memories of what purported to be a past life vanished at about age 10. Where did you encounter that, please?

This came from Melvin Morse, Where God Lives,
p.70. But it only refers to a single case: the child (Corliss) was born two years after his uncle (Vincent) died. He had birthmarks corresponding to surgical scars of his uncle and his first words (when he could speak) were that he was Vincent. He had many of Vincent's memories but they eventually disappeared by the time he became nine years old.

on p. 66 he says: "Among the childredn he [Stevenson] interviewed these memories were recalled as soon as the child was able to talk, dimming by ages five to ten and then forgotten permanently."

Interesting topic. I do disagree that we reincarnate almost immediately. I think some people wait many years to take another turn on the Wheel. I am not so certain that we have access to memories of previous lives. Perhaps in the unconscious but not in the front of our brains.

Children could be a different matter. Children live in a different world in many respects that do adults. We loose thing like imagination, sense of wonder, a connection with fantasy and the like. Children have a sense of the possible that is just not present in most adults. I think that may be conditioning we receive in the societies in which we are raised..

I also don't think I am the same 'person' that I was in any previous incarnations. I don't have those memories accessible at this point. I am me and will be me until I die. When I die, itty, will be forever gone. The next person I become will be different and unique. I think we have access to memories between incarnations. Perhaps those memories come with us and remain with us to some point. We let them go or as we mature they fade until we don't remember them. Regardless the people we are are unique in this world and when we pass from this world we, this present incarnation, is gone for good. My thoughts.