From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: Past Life regression - the proof (was GSI Day)
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 15:39:21 GMT

EC writes in part:
| There are lots of books and articles dealing with past-life research.  I refer
| you to Ian Stevenson's "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" and "The
| Search for Bridey Murphy" which was written (if memory serves) by a Boston
| psychologist who originally set out to debunk the theory, and became a believer.
| --
| Ed Carp			
| 
| Have you ever done any *real* research, or are you just talking through
| your hat?  Ever read J. B. Rhine's studies on the Bridey Murphy case?
| Ever read Ian Stevenson's stuff?  If you haven't done any real research
| into the field, I respectfully submit that your opinion is nothing more
| than that - opinion, and a misinformed one, at that.
| --
| Ed Carp			
As other folks have already pointed out, Ian Stevenson's stuff and
the Bridey Murphy case are VERY well known.  Have YOU ever done any
*real* research and read ANY psychology textbook on hypnosis?  It
doesn't look like it.

Anyway, your call for rational examination of evidence is well taken,
but becomes rather diluted by your later postings, such as:
| 
| Unless backed up by a sizeable body of evidence.  If I say that I have been
| to location X, and seen Y, and ten people also go to location X and agree
| that they see Y, I'd think that's pretty convincing evidence that what we
| have here is a factual record.
| --
| Ed Carp		
If you are claiming this has been done, then cite the record.  So
far as I know, even this trivial level of confirmation hasn't been
established for most cases.  This is due to the undeniable fact that,
in most cases, "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."(quoting Mark Aggar)  This
belief is, of course, a "cognitive illusion", as it is well established
that one's estimate of the accuracy of a recollection is uncorrelated
with the actual accuracy of the memory.   Again, read something about
psychology  (something written in the last 20 years, that is).

| 
| James J. Lippard (lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
| 
| : 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).
| 
| Bridey Murphy was *not* out of a novel or a story told to them when
| they were a child.  That hypothesis was pure speculation.
| --
| Ed Carp   
...which shows that you haven't done your homework.  You really shouldn't
hang your hat on the BM case, as it is very well known to be a classic
case of forgotten childhood memories being recalled as previous lives.
(I wouldn't recommend hanging your hat on ANY of Rhine's cases, as 
most have been discarded or debunked long ago.  This is no reflection
on the character of the Rhines, as they were nice people.  Their data
is simply out of date.)

I support your call for doing some reasearch on this topic before
dismissing it out of hand.  Perahps you will take your own advice
and examine the well known criticisms of the cases you cite as
evidence, and examine what psychologists have learned about memory
and hypnosis.  You may not be aware of the research that underlies
the terms that JJL used ("imagination, confabulation, or cryptomnesia"),
but there is some pretty gosh-durned interesting science about these
things that has been done in the past 25 years.  Check it out.


  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage