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Does anyone else have this happen?

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patam

Senior Registered
Hello everyone,

It's been some years since I posted here, but I visit the site frequently.

I am writing because I wonder if anyone else feels the same way as I do? Let me explain.

I've spent many, many years reading books on life after death, reincarnation, etc., and had several experiences which in my opinion verify my belief in these. I am very comfortable with my views on what happens when we die. So if anyone were to ask me if I believe in spirits, and life after death, I would answer 'Yes. Definitely.'
If I were asked about reincarnation, I would say that I believe it is entirely possible. After all, I'm here now, why not again, and again, and again...

So why, even when something happens which seems to confirm what I already believe, do I scurry off to get my books to read up on these subjects again?

Recently, a friend visited a psychic, and received validation after validation that the medium was speaking to her deceased husband, her mother, and, very much to her surprise, her father. I was thrilled for her. She had been receiving counselling since her husbands passing, but since the reading, decided she didn't need it any more.

Less than one hour after my friend relayed her experiences, I was back with my head in the books. Why? I seem to feel the need to constantly remind myself that these amazing things can and do happen, and if I don't keep re-enforcing the beliefs that I already have, then the doubts creep in. Yet I know that there is a spirit world. I believe that reincarnation is a fact. Are my beliefs so fickle that I have to keep reminding myself what they are? Or is it that the whole process is so mind-boggling that it just seems to be an impossibility?

Does anyone else find this happens to them?
 
Being an analytical and logical thinking person, I imagine I could easily succumb to moments of doubt when called upon to embrace and accept the phenomena of Reincarnation and Past Lives, not to mention other disciplines.


I used to be (and still am, to a point) of suffering from the disease process called "Whatifitis" ("What-If-Itis"), the malady can be mind numbing at times when faced with, "What If, Reincarnation does not exist" or "What If, there's no such thing as a Spirit World". :confused:


And if I (or you) were to let this line of thinking continue on, one could easily go crazy (or at least I would) with What If, so for the sake of my future sanity, after all was said and done, and all the bets were in, I accepted these theories as true, based on the research on hand so far, so in addition to believing them, I set these ideas in a safe place in my mind, and accepted them.


Some scientific people would say that faith was a cop-out and the more religious minded people would say that faith was good enough for them, so for the time being, I am going to continue to fully embrace the beliefs of Reincarnation and Past Lives based on faith!


The decision on your part is yours and yours alone, I can tell you of MY journey to reach this decision, and help you along part of the path, but sadly I cannot complete your part of the journey. :)
 
My re-reading of my reincarnation library, although often spurred by events and experiences I undergo or hear about, are not a result of doubt. Rather, one of those events/experiences has usually spurred a thought about something I had previously read and I seek to find the similarities and differences between the events/experiences.


To me, reincarnation provides answers I cannot find in any mainstream dogma...I get a warm sense of confirmation when the blocks all fit together and therein lies my answer. The books provide a permanent catalog of experiences and when my own experiences mirror them, I live the wonder of it all, this amazing system of life after life, all over again.
 
It has been suggested by philosophers and scientists that our individual consciousness operates on different levels, sometimes simultaneously; and I have certainly experienced profound conviction of certain beliefs, while, at the same time, being possessed of serious doubts about those same beliefs. This kind of dialogue within one's own mind is quite common, and is, I think, what keeps us learning.


It is also my humble opinion that the attainment of knowledge and wisdom is critically dependent upon doubt; for, otherwise, we would be more likely drawn blindly into dogmatic points of view, which have consistently retarded human development.


Speaking only from my own experience, I have found that doubts increase as knowledge increases. The more books I read on any subject, the more I question things, and allow doubts to send me running and searching for possible answers. My own experience with institutionalized deception has virtually guaranteed that doubt will always play a crucial part in my own search.
 
Does anyone else have this happen?


You may have lingering doubts about whether your friend was really communicating with their deceased loved ones.


In my opinion those doubts are justified.


When people work with someone like John Edward or James van Praagh all they really know for sure is they are communicating with something that knows a lot about them.


People like that charge those who are grieving and gullible tremendous amounts of money to talk to their loved ones who have died.


Not that it's impossible to communicate with someone who has died. I suppose it is possible sometimes. But not very often.
 
Thank you so much for your replies. I've been thinking about them a lot, and they've all helped me tremendously.


Hydrolad, it's not so much that I suffer from 'Whatifitis' but rather, I wish that reincarnation didn't happen. At this point in time, sitting on a fluffy white cloud playing harp music for eternity sounds like a good idea to me! However, reincarnation seems like the only logical explanation for our existence, so I fully expect to put in another appearance on this earth again at some time.


I rejected mainstream dogma many years ago, and even though sometimes doubts surface about the validity of reincarnation, I know that I could never, ever return to the religious views that I was taught as a child. I think you are right Nightrain. For myself at least, if I didn't have doubts, I would probably become lax, and stop reading, and therefore learning, more and more about a subject that draws me back, time after time after time. My views on life after death and reincarnation are so different now to what they were even a few years ago................I'm glad I didn't stop reading when I thought I knew all the answers :-)


So, to return to my friend (I'll call her Jean) and her session with the medium. I attended a John Edward event a few years ago - along with about three thousand other audience members, - but it seemed so impersonal, and it didn't have the same effect on me as Jeans' reading. The idea that her deceased relatives were lining up waiting to communicate with her through a total stranger, at a set point in time - just mind-boggling. It's not as if the medium would be reading Jeans' mind either. She brought in her father, who, Jean had assumed, would be incommunicado. He had been a rather harsh person in life, and Jean had just taken it for granted that he would be in purgatory, unavailable, and hadn't given him a second thought!


The same applies to reincarnation. I have had a few dreams and what I call 'snapshots', nothing so specific that I can say, 'That was my past life as such-and-such'. All very vague and sometimes I wonder if they are a figment of my imagination. However, many of you on this forum can recall vivid details of your past life, or lives, and even have verifiable proof of them. I am envious. I find it difficult to meditate, and often think that I would block past life information anyway, as I don't even like to think about this current life too much.


I am in complete awe of the whole process. I'm still not sure why I find it necessary to keep devouring books and articles on reincarnation, but maybe it's a good thing, because I realise I still have so much to learn.


Thank you once again for your input.
 
Just as an aside in response to your mentioning the "deceased relatives lining up to talk"...in my experience, whether through a psychic or a ghost box or even dreams, we all seem to have a much greater connection to our ancestors than we are usually aware of. In the recent past, I have had contact with my great-grandfather, and also a great uncle (both of whom died long before I was born). It seems strange that these people I'd never met, who barely even knew my father, would surface to speak to me (via a ghost box), but they did. I can only surmise that family plays a very big part in the greater picture, and isn't just some accident or random thing.
 
patam:


You have put into words much of what I have been experiencing. Although I read voraciously and have also concluded that this is the paradigm which makes the most sense, I struggle with reincarnation information , particularly with its impact on my personal life. How refreshing to read your experiences. Thank you.
 
In many ways I experience the complete opposite. I've only read two books related to reincarnation to the end. I find that reading these books often puts me off the topic. Perhaps it's just because of the way they've been written, but I could never make myself read spiritual books. Whenever I do I find myself becoming the greatest skeptic, I find all the flaws and I notice the lack of crucial arguments. Most of what's around is, imo, not even theories, but just speculations.


I trust my own experiences whether PL-related or psychic, but I don't understand them - and I'm not sure I want to. This stuff happens, but in my opinion no one has been able to come up


with a satisfactory explanation.


I don't mean to come across sour this morning :) but it's interesting how differently we work. You turn to the books in need of an explanation, I turn away from them searching for the same.
 
I think that this also applies to how one orients themselves to their experiences and environment. Whenever something interests me I always turn to written material. It has been that way since I was a young child. The internet has just expanded that to realms of endless pages.....


In fact my mother used to say she knew what I was "up to" by looking at my stack of library books.


When the interests used to get a little eclectic I made sure to hide my reading material.
 
I feel a little like Sunniva, I suppose. I know that there are these oddments of experiences, I suppose I can call them, because I’ve had them, and no one can tell me I haven’t. And people I trust and believe have told me of theirs and I accept that, too. Then a cycle starts where I’m fascinated and go searching for explanations. And I have read a lot of books. But before I get very far I find myself somewhere nonsensical, a land of pretension and gullibility and filled with claimants who were Scarlet O’Hara, or Joan of Arc, and those who know they were Cleopatra because they’ve always loved eye make-up and hated snakes, and I end up running away, really fast.


So in the end I’ve decided that perhaps the only thing I know is that there are mysteries and unexplained things in life and that alone is fascinating, and I give up chasing explanations or ‘proof’ of anything. Until the next time, at least.
 
Thank you again for the replies to this thread. It is so interesting to read others' views.


I have quite a lot of books on life after death and reincarnation in my collection, and I know that many of them tell basically the same story. Some of those stories I find hard to swallow. I've lost count of the number of times I've vowed and declared I will never read another book on those subjects again - but that resolve doesn't last long.


I don't really understand myself. I know without a doubt that there is life after death, I believe that reincarnation is a definite possibility.......I don't need books to convince me of those things, but I have to read them. I'm not sure what it is that I'm looking for, but I know reincarnation is never far from my mind. Maybe it's an just overwhelming fascination with the subject - or some personal proof would be good too!


Thank you again. You have helped me to clarify my thoughts on all of this.
 
As much as I love books, I still realize that many of them could be the neurotic fantasies of so many unfulfilled egos. And, when it comes to reading books on Reincarnation, I have no way of knowing whether the author has been duped, or persuaded into believing other peoples' fantasies. In addition, the subject of Reincarnation is one that scientists cannot easily set up experiments for. The few books that I can trust are written by only a handful of people like Carol Bowman, Drs. Ian Stevenson, Jim Tucker and Brian Weiss.


However, there are also very good books written by trustworthy researchers in other areas that can be more easily observed; such as, telepathy, remote viewing, precognition, and verifiable accounts from people who have experienced death. But, what has any of this to do with Reincarnation? I think it has a lot to do with this subject. For one thing, it shows that there is something that exists beyond our normal concept of physical reality. Second, these very real observations reveal to us that we are spiritual beings. And, if this is true, our reasonable assumption could be that one physical lifetime is not enough to fulfill whatever earthly purpose we have.


So, when we read books, we should consider it the same as listening to people at a cocktail party. Some speak the truth, some think they're speaking the truth, and some are practicing the art of storytelling. And, even when we are considering our own experiences, we are known to be sometimes fooling ourselves. So, how can we be sure that our memories, dreams and attractions are related to Reincarnation? We can't. Well, I don't think we can be sure.


I think that all we can really do to keep that option open is to keep ourselves informed with intelligent and unbiased reports from reliable sources in all areas of human existence -- that is; science, philosophy, history and even the arts. I think that any belief should be based on a combined and dedicated study of all aspects of life rather than just a few limited sources.
 
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