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Ancestral memories(?)

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Ankhe

New Member
My friend suggested to me that past life memories could in fact be ancestral memories passed down somehow through genes, how true is this statement?
 
I personally discount genetics and hereditary info from past life and metaphysical stuff. Having said this; I am very interested in how karmic family (genetics) and spiritual family(reincarnation) mixes and mingles.

Ankhe said:
My friend suggested to me that past life memories could in fact be ancestral memories passed down somehow through genes, how true is this statement?
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Yes, I agree. I tend to think this is not a valid theory. A lot of people try to find some kind of rational explanation for why past life memories exist. Since they believe that life is generated by the cells of the body, and memories are stored in the brain like biscuits in a tin, they find it hard to grasp that memories, and indeed 'life', might exist independently of the physical body. However, I don't see why this notion of 'genetic memory' is any less fantastical than the idea that we have a soul which retains our identity and individual memories from one body to the next.


That said, people do often reincarnate with members of the same ethnic / family and / or friendship group, so there may be some element of genetic inheritance in there somewhere that is little understood, as AOSpare mentions.
 
I agree with AOspare and Tanguerra in most respects, buffered with I really don't know. I have a very dear friend who proposes your same theory and his arguments are certainly interesting. He is a botanist and explains our genetic memory as being similar to the seeds of living plants and trees. I love to hear him speak with such conviction, but I'm certain (in my own mind) that our soul moves beyond this physical bag of bones and migrates for some divine and cosmic purpose... reincarnation.


Tman
 
My Mom brought this theory up to me when I was 15 in 1975. She explained it to me and what I couldn't understand is - if the 'genes' got passed on during the 'mating' sessions - how is that I had memories of 'dying' in past lives? How did that get passed down to me by ancestors? Not only did I have memories of the 'death' scenes - but I had memories of passing into the spirit realm as a spirit - and returning to a different body. I had many memories of being a spirit 'unattached' to any physical body. How did those memories get passed on in a 'physical gene' pool - if it wasn't a physical memory?


Another argument I had with her against this idea is the 'race' I could recall being associated with in a past life. There was no trace of one particular race (Asian culture) in our family tree.


I looked at her as if she was 'grasping' for straws - trying to rationalize something she had no idea how to explain away because she didn't want to 'believe' in reincarnation.


Sincerely,


DKing
 
Well that answers my next question about race and reincarnation. What is peculiar to me is that we apparently resemble our past life, is this true? If so why?
 
Ankhe said:
Well that answers my next question about race and reincarnation. What is peculiar to me is that we apparently resemble our past life, is this true? If so why?
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But not always. It seems we might resemble who we were most recently, but maybe not before that. This will be harder to research because photography is only 150 years old. Before that only wealthy people could afford to have their portraits painted. And cheap photography has only been around since about 1910 when Mr. Eastman invented his "Brownie" box camera that the average person could afford.
 
I've had both, past life experiences and ancestral, I can tell the difference. Ancestral is like "knowing" someone's experience, but somehow distant, and PL feels more like "being" there in person.
 
Ankhe said:
Well that answers my next question about race and reincarnation. What is peculiar to me is that we apparently resemble our past life, is this true? If so why?
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Nobody really knows why. If I would guess I would say that our appearance has a lot more to do with our 'soul' than modern science would have us believe. Sure, our bodies are made of carbon and DNA and all that, but I'm sure there must be something else going on as well. I doubt any scientific research has been done about this in any serious way.


There is a lot about our facial expression and the way we dress and wear our hair that influences our outward appearance. Those are things we can control, regardless of our genes, and many people do tend to adopt the same habits with their hair and dress from one life to the next, give or take historical and cultural fashion trends.


They call the eyes the 'window of the soul' and somehow, regardless of colour, the eyes tend to look much the same from one life to the next, even if we are shorter or taller, or have slightly different nose, ears and the like. I know when I meet someone I might not have seen for many, many years, in this life, even if they have put on a lot of weight and aged a great deak, the eyes are always unmistakable once you look into them. I don't know how it works, except that there must be 'something' going on with soul recognition.
 
argonne1918 said:
But not always. It seems we might resemble who we were most recently, but maybe not before that....
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True, it's hard to tell from photographic evidence, but we can use what we remember. In my case, my friend X, who I've known again and again over a period of hundreds of years, as a male and a female and even different races, looks more or less the same from one life to the next.


He has kept the same skinny build. He often has the same 'pointy' sort of nose. He's had bright blue eyes more than once. Of course, there are subtle changes from one life to the next. I guess our appearance 'evolves' as we go along? Changing gradually from one life to the next?
 
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