173. Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson Studies Reincarnation and Children?s Memories of Past Lives (Podcast)

[anonymous]

Originally Posted by phs1it

The basic idea is that, in order to manage persons on earth from the spiritual world, there are several 'associated spirits' who temporarily forgo having a separate memory of their own existence. To these people, it really looks like reincarnation, even though the new person on earth had not himself or herself lived before.

The occurrence of birth marks at locations of injury in the past life is better explained by the hypothesis of reincarnation than by the hypothesis of spirit influence because the birth marks can be supposed as due to characteristics of the spirit body obtained in a previous life influencing the physical body in the current life. It seems to be the same spirit body reincarnating.

During hypnotic regression, subjects often recognize several other people currently alive as having been incarnated with them during multiple past lives in different roles. Sometimes two individuals may incarnate in different lives as father-daughter, wife-husband, or two friends. This phenomenon is also best explained by reincarnation.

Evidence for reincarnation:

http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8p..._reincarnation


However, reincarnation is not as simple as it seems because our experience of individuality is not exactly the same as the way spirits experience individuality:

http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8p..._reincarnation

Silver Birch had this to say:
http://www.angelfire.com/ok/SilverBirch/lights.html

[anonymous]

This source explains that normally a person reincarnates several times. However a soul also learns from the experiences of other members of it's group soul while retaining their own individuality. Sometimes a newly incarnating soul will take on the karma of an older soul in the soul group.

http://www.trans4mind.com/spiritual/.../cummins2.html

BEYOND HUMAN
PERSONALITY
Being a detailed description of the Future life

purporting to be communicated by the late

F. W. H. Myers

[Frederic William Henry Myers, 1843-1901]

Containing an account of the gradual development of

human personality into cosmic personality

through
GERALDINE CUMMINS

http://www.trans4mind.com/spiritual/...#Reincarnation

I Am quite clear that those human beings who live almost wholly in the physical sense while on earth, must be reborn in order that they may experience an intellectual and higher form of emotional life. In other words, those human beings I have described as "Animal-man" almost invariably reincarnate.

Some of the individuals I have designated by the term, "Soul-man," also choose to live again on earth. But metempsychosis does not involve a machine-like regularity of return. I have not noted any evidence of a continual progression of births and deaths for any one particular soul. I do not for a moment believe that the individual returns a hundred times or more to the earth. This is indeed, a wrong assumption. There may, of course, be certain exceptions which you are more likely to meet with among those primitive beings who seem incapable of aspiration - of desire to rise above their physical nature. But the majority of people only reincarnate two, three or four times. Though if they have some human purpose or plan to achieve they may return as many as eight or nine times. No arbitrary figure can be named. We are only fairly safe in concluding that, in the human form, they are not doomed to wander over the space of fifty, a hundred and more lives.
...
However, it is well to be agreed that, even if we run, the race of life on earth six times, we touch but on the fringe of human experience. We have obtained only a certain discipline. We have not plumbed the depths or scaled the heights of being; we have not covered all the space of human consciousness, of human feeling. Yet I can assure you that until we have harvested many times the fruits of lives spent on earth we shall not, save in exceptional cases, live on the higher planes beyond death.

It is not necessary for us to return to earth to gather into our granary this manifold variety of life and knowledge. We can reap, bind and bring much of it home by participating in the life of our group-soul. Many belong to it and these may spread themselves in their journeys over past, present and future. Indeed in the Group, we speak of the life of a man as a "journey." Very well. I have not, at any time, been a member of the yellow races, but there are souls in my Group who have known and lived that eastern life, and I may, and do, enter into every act and emotion in their past chronicles.
...
You will recognize how greatly power of will, mind and perception can be increased through your entry into the larger self. You continue to preserve your identity and your fundamental individuality. But you develop immensely in character and in spiritual force. You gather the wisdom of the ages, not through the continual "Sturm und Drang" of hundreds of years passed in the confinement of the crude physical body, you gather it through love which has a gravitational pull and draws you within the memories of those who are akin to your soul, however alien their bodies may have been when they were on earth.
...
A soul that, for the first time, enters a material body is, usually, related spiritually to some member of its Group and, so close is its relationship, it may take on the karma of the older soul. The latter has, perhaps, experienced four or five incarnations on earth. It is not yet wholly purified, has not gained all the terrestrial experience necessary to its spiritual evolution. It acquires it, however, in two ways: (1) through its entry into the group-memory, the conditions of which I have described: (2) through its psychic connection with a young soul which takes up the karma, takes on the pattern created by its previous earthly life or lives.

[Raimo]

Originally Posted by anonymous

The occurrence of birth marks at locations of injury in the past life is better explained by the hypothesis of reincarnation than by the hypothesis of spirit influence because the birth marks can be supposed as due to characteristics of the spirit body obtained in a previous life influencing the physical body in the current life. It seems to be the same spirit body reincarnating.

I agree. There are also cases, where the subject remembers his life as a discarnate spirit and he remembers how he chose his parents or was drawn to them. These cases cannot be explained by spirit influence or morphic resonance etc.

[DanBoothCohen]

Originally Posted by Michael Larkin

The association with violent death is also intriguing. One notes that other reported phenomena such as poltergeists/ghosts may also be associated with traumatic events. As if trauma could create some tendency for memories to be localised and to some degree or other persistent.

...links in with Sheldrake’s morphic resonance idea. The closer the similarity, the greater the resonance, and the closer the fit of the child’s report. It then wouldn’t necessarily be a time/distance related phenomenon, but one would perhaps expect greater similarities in the same geographical areas.

The genome of the child in the womb could in some way resonate with persistent memories. Localised epigenetic effects could be postulated.

In my clinical work as a psychologist who uses Systemic Family Constellations exclusively, I have come to see Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance confirmed. It certainly explains neatly the phenomena I work with daily which otherwise is inexplicable.

I agree that the genome of the child in utero resonates with persistent memories of traumas that occurred in the biological lineage. Very often, there are congenital physical markers of these traumas. The signature of an inherited trauma versus an experienced trauma is that those which are inherited are very resistant to treatment or resolution. This is why Constellations are so beneficial; they can release and resolve physical, emotional and behavioral disturbances that fit the habits and patterns of the family system. Sheldrake explained this eloquently at the 2011 IONS Conference.

If we accept Sheldrake's model and recognize the validity of Constellations, the phenomena of children remembering traumatic events from before their birth is not so strange. It is an anomaly, but not unexpected in this context.

In this view, it is not the "soul" of the deceased being reincarnated into a new body. Rather, the mind of the new body is in resonance with the morphic field of habits and patterns that surround it.

[phs1it]

Originally Posted by DanBoothCohen

In my clinical work as a psychologist who uses Systemic Family Constellations exclusively, I have come to see Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance confirmed. It certainly explains neatly the phenomena I work with daily which otherwise is inexplicable.

I agree that the genome of the child in utero resonates with persistent memories of traumas that occurred in the biological lineage. Very often, there are congenital physical markers of these traumas. The signature of an inherited trauma versus an experienced trauma is that those which are inherited are very resistant to treatment or resolution. This is why Constellations are so beneficial; they can release and resolve physical, emotional and behavioral disturbances that fit the habits and patterns of the family system. Sheldrake explained this eloquently at the 2011 IONS Conference.

If we accept Sheldrake's model and recognize the validity of Constellations, the phenomena of children remembering traumatic events from before their birth is not so strange. It is an anomaly, but not unexpected in this context.

In this view, it is not the "soul" of the deceased being reincarnated into a new body. Rather, the mind of the new body is in resonance with the morphic field of habits and patterns that surround it.

What you have just suggested means that it is quite possible for there to be birthmarks in a young child, without that person being the identical to the person who previously lived.

Moreover, it seems that the birthmarks are much more common when there is both (a) a cultural expectation to reincarnate after you die, and (b) a violent death which leads to an extreme desire to reincarnate (for various reasons).

All I am saying is that the evidence from past-life memories, from birth marks, from children remembering past lives, from 'between life' memories are not conclusive evidence of a one-soul + one-body reincarnation pattern. As I argued in Beginning Theistic Science: Appearances of Reincarnation, there are for the evidence alternative explanations which need to be considered. The issue is whether a new-born child has a new soul (one which can be associated with soul groups, of course), or whether the new child's soul must be entirely 'old'.

And I am talking here about evidence, not about relying on authorities. That is the scientific way.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by anonymous

However, reincarnation is not as simple as it seems because our experience of individuality is not exactly the same as the way spirits experience individuality:

good point... thx. so we again have move from these narratives/accounts to some kind of semi-scientific understanding of the paranormal (reincarnation in this case)... I love this process... it's fun.

[alextsakiris]

Originally Posted by anonymous

Beyond Human Personality-Frederic Myers via Geraldine Cummins FREE ebook

great stuff... thx.

[Michael Larkin]

Originally Posted by DanBoothCohen

In my clinical work as a psychologist who uses Systemic Family Constellations exclusively, I have come to see Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance confirmed. It certainly explains neatly the phenomena I work with daily which otherwise is inexplicable.

I agree that the genome of the child in utero resonates with persistent memories of traumas that occurred in the biological lineage. Very often, there are congenital physical markers of these traumas. The signature of an inherited trauma versus an experienced trauma is that those which are inherited are very resistant to treatment or resolution. This is why Constellations are so beneficial; they can release and resolve physical, emotional and behavioral disturbances that fit the habits and patterns of the family system. Sheldrake explained this eloquently at the 2011 IONS Conference.

If we accept Sheldrake's model and recognize the validity of Constellations, the phenomena of children remembering traumatic events from before their birth is not so strange. It is an anomaly, but not unexpected in this context.

In this view, it is not the "soul" of the deceased being reincarnated into a new body. Rather, the mind of the new body is in resonance with the morphic field of habits and patterns that surround it.

Very interesting, Dan, and gratifying that my speculation has met with some agreement from a professional psychologist. I'm not, so far as I can recall, conversant with Sheldrake's contribution at the 2011 conference--is there an online video of that? Nor am I quite sure what "constellations" refers to. Do you have something on the Web you can point me to?

I am interested in epigenetics, which increasingly is indicating that life events, either of the parent or the child during its own maturation, can alter genetic switches. There is a very interesting video pertinent to this that was recently transmitted by the BBC. See:

BBC - The Truth about Fat - 1/5 - YouTube

As I recall, the relevant part of the video is in part 3, here:

BBC - The Truth about Fat - 3/5 - YouTube

In studies on obesity, pairs of discordant identical twins have been observed. Usually, identical twins are physically similar, but occasionally, one will be obese and the other, not. Results are tentatively indicating that trauma can lead to the difference. For example, one twin (the obese one) may have moved away from the home area after marriage, and this may have switched on one or more genes that can affect the tendency to be obese.

[Raimo]

Originally Posted by phs1it

[url=http://blog.beginningtheisticscience.com/2012/04/appearances-of-reincarnation.html]

Your article doesn't explain cases, where subjects remember time between lives. You wrote about hypnotic regression, but I'm talking only about children's spontaneous cases. There are cases where the subject remembers how he chose his parents or was drawn to them. Your article is also very speculative and far-fetched. There is no evidence to support your theory.

[phs1it]

Originally Posted by Raimo

Your article doesn't explain cases, where subjects remember time between lives. You wrote about hypnotic regression, but I'm talking only about children's spontaneous cases. There are cases where the subject remembers how he chose his parents or was drawn to them. Your article is also very speculative and far-fetched. There is no evidence to support your theory.

At the end, I do discuss scenarios where people do remember times between the periods in which the appear to reincarnate. I say 'appear to reincarnate', because I refer to periods during which they become closely associated with living persons, and have their own personal memories put aside. The point is that this process looks to them like reincarnation.

As for evidence: I am a theorist, and am looking at what evidence exists, and what it might or might not indicate. For new evidence and testing, I can refer (for example) to the suggestions at Subversive Thinking: More on reincarnation and spiritualism and experimental testing

If it sounds far-fetched, then consider the alternatives. Can there be a first incarnation that is not a reincarnation? If reincarnation is everywhere true, how do souls get started without a first incarnation?