Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.alien.visitors,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Past Life regression - the proof (was GSI Day)
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 19 Nov 1992 10:48 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
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In article <mark.722078548@uk96sup>, mark@uk96sup.uk.haus.com (Mark Aggar) writes...
>In <BxK8r5.6MG@acsu.buffalo.edu> v462etnn@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (David L Anderson) writes:
> 
>>In article <69301@cup.portal.com>, John_-_Winston@cup.portal.com writes...
>>>Subject: Where We Came From. 
>>>  I have found out what I have been it more than 14 lifetimes. One was as an 
>>>American Indian and one was on the planet Venus.
>>>John Winston
> 
>>You offer so many points to refute.  I'll start with this one:
>>do you have anything other than anecdotal (ie. empirical)
>>evidence to indicate that you've lived past lives?  Are you
>>aware of studies done by scientists into past lives and the
>>lack of empirical evidence to support this kooky hypothesis?
> 
>The only way, at this moment that you are going to prove for _yourself_ 
>whether or not the "past life experience" is a reality, is to go and have 
>yourself hypnotically regressed into a previous incarnation.
> 
>With everything that I have read on this subject, each subject who has
>undertaken this regression *knows* that the images they are seeing or
>remembering are _NOT_ produced due to a vivid imagination - they are
>memories.

Regression subjects do not *know* that their recollections are not
produced due to vivid imagination, confabulation, or cryptomnesia.
Further, many subjects who believe that this is the case have had their
recollections investigated and the sources have been found to be novels,
stories told to them as children, and so forth (e.g., Bridey Murphy).
   Mike Stackpole of the Phoenix Skeptics was on a radio show with a
woman who did a hypnotic regression on the air of another woman, who
recalled a past life in China under some specific name I forget.
Mike pointed out that what the woman had just described was an episode
of the TV show "Kung Fu," at which point the hypnotic subject realized
that she had indeed seen that episode.
   In order for the evidence to support a past life, you must be able to
show (a) that the recollections are independently supported by other
evidence (e.g., records showing that the person recalled did exist and
did do the things that were recalled) and (b) the person doing the recalling
did not have access to that information.  It is better to check (a) before
(b) because the latter is harder to verify and the former usually fails.
   It should be further noted that (a) and (b), if both verified, do not
necessarily mean that the person in question had a past life, because
there are other logically possible explanations (e.g., obtaining the
information by psychic means).  (This has recently been discussed by
Ian Stevenson and Stephen Braude in the _Journal of Scientific Exploration_.
It's not clear that there is any evidence which can discriminate between
psi and survival of death.)

>With this in mind, I am going to get myself regressed shortly and I will 
>give you an honest account of what happened (barring all the gory and
>personal details).
> 
>So go on, you skeptics, If you don't believe a word of what is being written,
>either butt out or go and do some personal research!
> 
>>I'll leave the ad hominem out this time, but you've opened
>>holes so big one could route an interstate through them.
> 
>...but to construct an interstate, you normally have to do some surveying
>of the land first.
> 
>Mark Aggar
> 
>>David Anderson

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.alien.visitors,sci.skeptic