Past Forward Rule: Debunking the Reincarnation Debunkers

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Rules #38: "Empiricism vs Stubbornness": Debunking the Debunkers

"We seem to have here (with reincarnation) one of those problems wherein people readily agree on what it would take to establish something they very much do not want to believe - and then when, contrary to anyone's expectations, the evidence actually emerges strongly supportive of the belief, they return (for no persuasive reason) to add more conditions to what it would take to establish what they very much do not want to accept. And they continue to do so until it is virtually impossible that any such evidence should ever emerge."
- Robert Almeder, Department of Philosophy, GSU

"There is a fine line, Doctor, between stubbornness and empiricism."
- Spock to McCoy ("Star Trek Classic")

The Case Against Reincarnation

When it comes to reincarnation, people can quite stubbornly ignore the growing body of empirical evidence supporting the reality of reincarnation.

There is a simple reason for this: when an individual accepts the facts of reincarnation and karma, they must accept full and complete responsibility for their life. Yet it is much easier to believe that karma falls down on us like rain for then "no one is at fault". In fact, it is one of the jobs of the ego to convince us that "the fault lies in our stars and not in ourselves" (Shakespeare).

It is interesting that the reincarnation debunkers rarely address the strongest proofs of the evidence of past lives (click here). They tend to dismiss déjà vu experiences as daydreams even though recorded cases continue to be verified by subsequent discovery of little known, impossible to fake details. Or they say that spontaneous memories in children must be coached by parents. Or they say xenoglossy is noise that just happens to emulate long, extinct languages known only to a few research scholars. They offer no explanations for the origins of child prodigies, idiot savants, OCD, etc which are easily explainable in the context of past lives.

Here are the "best" of the cases against reincarnation.
Watch as we "debunk the reincarnation debunkers".

#1: CON ARTISTS: WILLFUL & INTENTIONAL FRAUD

Like any other branch of healing, past life therapy will attract it's share of con artists who willfully, intentionally, and, at times, fraudulently distort the truth to bolster the case for reincarnation. When these "frauds" are exposed, the debunkers want to "throw the baby out with the bath water" through a wholesale condemnation of past life healing. Yet like chiropractic, aromatherapy, and herbalism, past life healing has survived it's critics because there are too many cases where it has alleviated otherwise intractable present life problems "unsolvable" by modern medicine.

When someone is hurting, all they care about is ending their pain. If the problem does originate in the past then it will not go away until it is healed at it's source: the past life. Just as we live with the wounds of our childhood, we live with the wounds of our past live(s). The only difference is in the present we can see the linkage between the cause of the wound and it's effect: in past lives we cannot.

#2: FANTASIZING: DAYDREAMS & DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

Critics claim that past life therapy succeeds because it feeds the ego of it's clientele by telling them that, in a past life, they had been someone famous. And yet there was only one Caesar, only one Cleopatra: only one of each person who had lives well documented by history (otherwise known as "historical personalities"). They ignore that fact that past life work reveals that only a handful of people have had historical personalities with the vast majority having led "ordinary past lives".

And they do not account for the reactions of those with historical personalities. Often the person cannot believe it is true because their life is not "as large" now. Or the person often has attitudes about their prior selves because these "personalities" hold up a mirror of what is "worst" about themselves and not just what is "best". Of course, that is not to say people do not daydream or fantasize about themselves in past lives: they do. Those who have "delusions of grandeur" are no different than those who always imagine themselves to be sick. People will be people after all.

#3: PARAMNESIA: EMBELLISHING TRUTH WITH FICTION

Close cousins to the con artists and fantasizers are the paramnesiacs are those who get glimpses into their past lives via regression and choose to embellish on the remembered details through subsequent research. Like old war stories, the past lives become richer in detail and scope with each retelling of the tale. Paramnesiacs are the first to abandon the truth when it "conflicts" with the documented "facts".

And yet one of the strongest proofs of the validity of past life memories is the later verification of remembered past life details that at first somehow conflicted with published historical opinion. As every scholar of history knows, what is published as history is only the current "thinking" about the past as skewed by interpretations made where facts are lacking and as filtered through the prejudices, values, and beliefs of the society writing the history. Of course, critics usually ignore the cases where reincarnation fact precedes published, historical fact.

#4: CRYPTOMNESIA: UNCONSCIOUS FORGOTTEN INFLUENCES

Crytomnesiacs are the "unintentional" kind of paramnesiac. They claim to have lived past lives that bear a striking resemblance to the plots of books or movies. This is because they have unconsciously absorbed the information, forgotten where it came from, and then "remembered" it claiming it to be their own past life memory.

If it is cryptomnesia, when the person is confronted with the "facts" about the source of the "memories", they will disappear. Of course, those critics who use cryptomnesia as the reason to reject all past life memories fail to explain why they exist in individuals who cannot read or have had no exposure to books or movies, like very young children and those in "illiterate" cultures.

#5: CHANNELING DISCARNATES: "GHOSTS OF THE PAST"

Known as the Swedenborg argument, those who do not deny the existence of past life memories claim that "memories of what is now called 'past lives' are the simply memories of those who have gone before us." Swedenborg believed that the "past life was lived, but not by the person claiming more than one life." In essence, he believed that each person only had one life and that memories seeming to be from past lives would actually memories from discarnates (dead people).

Of course, followers of Swedenborg cannot explain the tangible therapeutic results achieved by past life healing. For if past life memories are unrelated to the person experiencing them, there should be no therapeutic result from past life healing… and yet the results from reincarnation therapy are "scientifically" well documented.

#6: CHANNELING ENTITIES: "ATTACHED ENERGIES / ENTITIES"

From time to time, individuals will connect with past life memories that are not their own but are part of the soul history of another discarnate being. This happens because the individuals involved have agreed to co-create the resolution of that past lifetime. For those who believe that all past life memories are just those that are induced by "attached entities", there are several ways to tell the difference between the two (see the "Unique Qualities of Past Life Memories").

Again, the final resolution of the discarnate's past life issues do not heal the past lives of the living being. The main impact on the living is to have finally put the "unquiet dead" spirit to rest, not to heal past lives.

#7: MINORITY BELIEF SYSTEM: "KARMIC URBAN LEGENDS"

These critics will tell you that "reincarnation is incompatible with many well established facts such as population increases, the recency of life in the universe, and the transformation of species." Of course, such "facts" are in the eye of the beholder. The increased frequency of reincarnation and the decreased time between incarnations can explain "population increases".

Life is not so recent in the universe as to preclude the possibility of many past lives. Finally, learning through the cycle of many lives is what the "transformation of the species" is all about. For it is impossible to experience life from every angle and viewpoint in one life spent enmeshed in a single angle and a limited viewpoint.

#8: MASS CONSCIOUSNESS BELIEFS: "OPIATE OF THE MASSES"

Critics argue that reincarnation is just another 'belief' we have created in the 'mass consciousness'. Since reincarnation is no more than a 'belief', information gotten in past life therapy is not actually a memory of past lives but simply a means of getting information needed for healing from the mass consciousness. Yet those who believe this cannot explain why each individual gets different "past life information from the mass consciousness" precisely mirroring their own present day issues.

Karma explains this for as each person sows so do they reap. The "rap" on karma is that it is "the opiate of the masses" as in "it's OK to screw up because you will just come back, so why bother?" We bother to avoid the karma of reincarnating into painful future lives we have created by just such attitudes.

#9: SHARED MEMORIES: THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

Other critics of reincarnation believe it is not a consciously created belief system so much as it is one prevalent in the "collective unconscious". Although there are many definitions of the "collective unconscious", here it means that because we are all connected at the level of Soul, there is no such thing as "individual experience".

If there is no individual experience, there can be no such thing as karma where a "single Soul" goes through cycles of reincarnation. Instead, we all have "shared memories" which appear to us as being our own past lives. Like the "Swedenborg" argument, shared memories cannot explain why past life healing achieves results.

#10: INHERITED MEMORIES: FROM ANCESTORS & CELLS

Inherited memories work like shared memories except that the "past life memories" are passed on through genetics via the cellular memory inherited from biologically related ancestors. If that were true, past life memories should always be coming from earlier generations of the same family.

While this does happen occasionally, it does not do so with the frequency needed to justify that belief that all past life memories are inherited. Edgar Cayce said it best: "Family is but a river through which Soul flows". Time and again, past life work shows that people owe more to who they were in past lives than to either the heredity or the environment of the family unit of their current incarnation.

#11: INDUCED MEMORIES: FROM HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION

Many critics believe past life memories are just the activity of a hyper-active and/or deluded mind that randomly selects common events and calls them past lives. Hypnotists have "successfully" demonstrated how they can "induce reincarnation memories" by telling their subjects that they had a past life as "y" at "x" time.

In looking closer at these inductions, "induced" or "suggested" memories all have one thing in common: they lack the depth and detail common to past life memories. Those being induced will respond to questions asked in a tentative, hesitant way and are clearly "making it up as they go along". This is not so with past life memories: often in regressions and channelings, the subject will be astounded at how quickly the details have unfolded. They will be surprised by their emotional reactions to a "past life tale" and to the parallels between the past and present.

#12: IMPLANTED MEMORIES: THE GREATEST ILLUSION OF ALL

Since all time is now, healing can flow both backward and forward through time. Critics use this fact to argue that there is no such thing as past lives because past life memories have just been implanted in us by the creative force. If that is true, then past memories from the present life could have been implanted as well making them just as unreal as past life memories. Yet, no one doubts the reality of their present life memories. Just as no one, who has connected with the reality of past life memories and has been healed by them, doubts their reality either.

The greatest illusion of all is that we are not the creators of our life and that we are not fully at cause for the consequences of all our actions. For healing only really begins when we can dispel this illusion and take total responsibility for our lives.

Credits: from channeled information.

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