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Don't want to be deluded again

Hie Persephone and all

I love this thread. Sometimes I wish I could remember my past lives but sometimes, like when I read about sad memories, I wish not.

I am glad you find confort in the forum.

I was also raised in a "born again" household and recently, I told a family friend about my belief in reincarnation and what he said was that all these memories people have are actually "familiar spirits". Spirits that have been around for ages and possess people and make them believe they have past lives.

anyone heard of this before?

Kumoyo
 
Demons?

Hi Kumoyo,

You wrote:
"I was also raised in a 'born again' household and recently, I told a family friend about my belief in reincarnation and what he said was that all these memories people have are actually "familiar spirits". Spirits that have been around for ages and possess people and make them believe they have past lives. Anyone heard of this before?"

Yes, only too often. In the very conservative kind of Christianity that I was raised in, there was a lot of talk about evil spirits and demons. Anything that the authorities felt uncomfortable with was attributed to being led astray by the devil or being demon-possessed. Past-life experiences would definitely be placed in that category by those people.

One of the criteria I personally use when deciding if a belief-system is a healthy one or not, is whether it uses fear or the threat of punishment as a motivator to keep the followers in line, or if it is empowering and based on love and acceptance, encourages the person to grow, and allows them to discover their truth for themselves.

Hope this helps.
Warmly,
Persephone
 
Persefone Quote:

“One of the criteria I personally use when deciding if a belief-system is a healthy one or not, is whether it uses fear or the threat of punishment as a motivator to keep the followers in line, or if it is empowering and based on love and acceptance, encourages the person to grow, and allows them to discover their truth for themselves.”

Wonderful point. I came to the same conclusion. It is hard to accept a theology that claims to have a monopoly on truth and uses that position to denigrate individuals or groups of an opposing or different perspective. I believe that the Christian religion has been heavily modified over the centuries to the extent that the original message has been completely obliterated. Even the concept of Christian reincarnation, taught by Origen, was overturned in 553 at the Second Council of Constantinople and removed from Christian text. Even more interesting, other text was left out of the Christian teachings that discussed reincarnation explicitly. Here are a couple of quotes from the Gnostic text, Pistis Sophia, discussing the soul leaving the body and the soul having their memory erased and being cast into a new body:

Chapter 129:

The Saviour answered and said unto Mary: "If they receive the mystery when still in life, and if they come out of the body, they become light-beams and light-streams and penetrate all the regions until they reach the region of their inheritance.

Chapter 144:

And then cometh Yaluham, the receiver of Sabaōth, the Adamas, who handeth the souls the cup of forgetfulness, and he bringeth a cup filled with the water of forgetfulness and handeth it to the soul, and it drinketh it and forgetteth all regions and all the regions to which it hath gone. And they cast it down into a body which will spend its time continually troubled in its heart.


Sticks
 
Hi Sticks.

You wrote:
"I believe that the Christian religion has been heavily modified over the centuries to the extent that the original message has been completely obliterated."

Yes, I think that is true of almost all belief systems. Over time they seem to 'mutate' due to the conditions under which people are living at the time. Some of the changes are negative and some are positive.

Looking at it this way, Christianity is a 'mutation' of Judaism, so is 'Kabbalism' (a medieval mystical school of Judaism which teaches reincarnation). Inayat Khan's teaching is an interesting 'mutation' of Islam.

It's because of all of this, that I am seeking to find my own truth, by sifting through everything and trying to separate the chaff from the wheat (that which feels true to me) and to know it is just that, my personal truth.

The good news is that since coming here and as a result being triggered into to reliving the childhood trauma of being in the middle of religious conflict as a child in this life, I am finding I am better able to hold an 'open' position now without fear or conflict.

There are a lot of things that I 'don't know' and it feels okay to be in that space without fear or confusion or pain. I always knew that I was frightened by my athiest father and his 'big words', but it was only when I was able to become the little child again, and sob out the words of hurt like a very small child, that I got to resolution.

I believe that 'connected catharsis' is so very important in helping us to heal our inner wounds (this life and before) and so I was glad to see Carol supporting that in her "Return from Heaven", where children were able to express both fear, and sadness, through crying.

In 1989, I spent about 3 to 4 weeks, sobbing almost daily about the murder of a child of mine back in the days of the Spanish explorers. It brought a lot of relief and insight, and I think the breaking of a karmic chain. I would like to share it one day.

Thank you for sharing.
Warmly,
Persephone

__________________________________________

"Tears are truth, waiting to be spoken" ~ Dianea Kohl-Riise
 
Persephone said:
"In 1989, I spent about 3 to 4 weeks, sobbing almost daily about the murder of a child of mine back in the days of the Spanish explorers. It brought a lot of relief and insight, and I think the breaking of a karmic chain. I would like to share it one day."


When you're ready, I would love to hear all about this!
 
Hi Athlynne,

Thank you for the invitation to share. I would like to, but since it covers four life-times, it is quite a long story! I think it would need about a post for each life-time.

I would like to share it though, because I think many people have the misunderstanding (I did) that holding our feelings in (described as 'controlling our thoughts') can actually help us, whereas I now believe it can only do harm.

It is by searching the deepest recesses of our beings, and allowing ourselves to know what is in there, that we find healing. Feelings are neither 'good' nor 'bad' they just 'are'. Also we can't 'control' them, we can only 'own' them or 'deny' them.

What we do have control over is whether or not we act them out. I think if we face them and let them come up to consciousness and embrace them, then we are less likely to act them out unconsciously. I think some of Carol's description of what happened between Chase and Sarah illustrates that very well.

So yes, thank you for the invitation, I would love to share, but not tonight, as it is nearly midnight. I know you are a night-owl too! :)

Warm wishes,
Persephone
 
Sorting out the wheat from the chaff

Dear Everyone,

I have been thinking more about this issue of not being deluded or gullible, while at the same time not being cynical and throwing out the baby with the bath water.

One of the interesting cases of so called 'reincarnation' that I came across, was in one of the earliest books that I read on past lives. The book came out in 1976 and was called, "More Lives than One?" by Jeffrey Iverson, and had the subtitle "Reincarnation: The Staggering Evidence of the Bloxham Tapes".

Basically it is the story of hypnotherapist Arnold Bloxham who put subjects into deep trance and regressed them to former life-times. I believe that they were videoed and shown on the BBC. Bloxham put his subjects into very deep trance, and afterwards they had no memory of the lifetimes they had just experienced.

One of the stories in the book was called, "The Roman Wife" and was told by a woman apparently reliving the life of a woman called 'Livonia' who lived in Roman Britain during the time of Constantine and the lady Helena (who was apparently a Christian). She gave a great deal of detail, including names, dates and places in Britain, which she called 'Eboracum'.

Some time later, a 'debunker' wrote a book pointing out that much of the historical information given about this life-time was incorrect, but that it matched exactly a cheapish novel written in the 1950s, from which most of the information given in this regression seemed to be taken. A photograph of the cover of this book was shown.

The lady who had been regressed, was confronted, and was very upest. After all, she was unaware of what she had said under hypnosis, and she had no intention of deceiving anyone. She refused to be interviewed or to comment.

Later I read another book on the subject where this phenomenon was discussed. It was pointed out that if someone under hypnosis was asked an open-ended question about a lifetime in a certain time period, it would be quite common for them to 'relive' a lifetime that was actually a story they had read in childhood or a film they had seen.

The writer of this book pointed out that these people often were not aware of where the material was coming from, and genuinely believed it themselves. But what he pointed out was, that when someone is hypnotically regressed, they are very suggestable, and will try to come up with information to please the hypnotist.

To get around this problem, he suggested that when someone was deep in trance if we are not sure where the material is coming from, all that is needed is to ask the person. The hypnotist can say, "Where is this coming from? Did you read about this somewhere, or see a TV programme, or is this something that actually did happen to you personally in the past?" He said that the hypnotised person would normally become aware at that point where this particular story was coming from, and is usually honest about it.

Based on this, I have become quite critical of whatever "comes to me". Previously I cited at least 10 past lives that I remembered, but after that I realised that at least two of them could have come from other sources (they never seemed very vivid anyway). One was a life in ancient Egypt, and looking back, I think I may have got that information from Joan Grant's book, "The Winged Pharoah".

So I have discounted that one unless I get a lot more about it that is convincing. Another was a life in Germany somewhere, where I believed that I was the elder brother (who died) of someone I know well. I felt remorse about leaving my younger brother to cope on his own. But in this case, I think a lot of that material came from one of my favourite childhood books, "Heidi."

Both of those just came as 'impressions' anyway, and the story lines were flimsy. That leaves 8, which I am still investigating. Much of what was in them felt very real for me, and if they are not historical past lives of mine, then at the very least, they are a very interesting reflection on my consciousness in this life time, and the things I have learned, which makes them valid for me anyway.

Hypnosis can always be dodgy as the way the hypnotist asks the question, will determine the response of the subject. Sometimes this can confirm the validity of the information, when the hypnotist gets a surprising response from the subject, and then reconsiders the question they have asked.

But this is a totally different phenomenon from children recalling past lives, especially when they do it without any prompting, and are speaking of events of which they have little or no prior knowledge.

Just wanted to share that.

Best,
Persephone
 
Hi Persephone,

I´m sure people, myself included, "delude" themselves a lot of the time about what´s a memory and not. But I can´t see that this is a problem in regards to a question whether reincarnation in itself is a genuine thing .

So we fool ourselves sometimes (or a lot of the time...:laugh: )- but is that a big thing, as long as we stay aware of that possibility and that it may play in...? I mean it´s certainly something one has to live and deal with in day-to-day situations in the present life, where one´s interpretations of things or indeed whole memories may sometimes be way off, so...


One of the stories in the book was called, "The Roman Wife" and was told by a woman apparently reliving the life of a woman called 'Livonia' who lived in Roman Britain during the time of Constantine and the lady Helena (who was apparently a Christian). She gave a great deal of detail, including names, dates and places in Britain, which she called 'Eboracum'.

Some time later, a 'debunker' wrote a book pointing out that much of the historical information given about this life-time was incorrect, but that it matched exactly a cheapish novel written in the 1950s, from which most of the information given in this regression seemed to be taken. A photograph of the cover of this book was shown.

The lady who had been regressed, was confronted, and was very upest. After all, she was unaware of what she had said under hypnosis, and she had no intention of deceiving anyone. She refused to be interviewed or to comment.
Click to expand...

This is interesting... Sure, one possibility is the lady had read the book, forgotten about it, and then sub-consciuosly worked it into the story she told under hypnosis. There are other examples of this recorded and I would think it happens regularly, at least partly.

But let´s just think, what if the writer of the novel was in his/her turn subconsciously remembering details of a former life and the ´incorrcect´ details will, in part or all of it, evntually turn out to be correct (or have already since this was written in the 70´s. The ´facts´ of history and archeology changes all the time...) And that was why the memories of the hypnotized lady and the what was in the book . Or... it could have been a mix of cryptoamnesia and a real PL memory...

All these kinds of things also happen...;) and, as far as I can see, seeing them as possiblities wouldn´t be bending logic as long as reincarnation per se is accepted as a fact. (Dang, was I a lawyer in a past life or what:rolleyes: ...? )

On the other hand I understand perfectly the wish and drive, when it comes to specifically ´remembered´ lives, to find out wether it actually physically happened...:thumbsup:
 
Hi Persephone,
I was thinking a couple of things. The first is that the lady who remembered the life as Livonia would actually have to have read the 'cheapish novel wirtten in the 1950's in order to say her memories came from that. So, if we don't know if she read it or not, its impossible to cite this as a reason that reincarnation as a whole might not be true.
The other thing I was thinking is why did you like the story of Heidi so much as a child? Could it be that the story resonated with you because your past life memory is really a memory?
For example, I have what I think is an unnatural fear of my 6 year old son getting hit by a car. I believe I've had a past life dream in which I was a man and my son stepped off a high curb and was killed by an oncoming car or subway. One could say I had this dream because of some news story I may have read about a boy being hit by a car because certainly I've ready many of those. But one has to ask, why this particular fear? There are hundreds of things you can worry about when you have children. Why don't I worry about him getting deathly ill, falling out of a tree or poking his eye out? I think its because this resonates with me. I believe this is really a memory and the reason I have trouble with worrying about him in crowded streets is because my past life son was killed in this way.
Vicky
 
Hi Vicky,

You wrote:
"I was thinking a couple of things. The first is that the lady who remembered the life as Livonia would actually have to have read the 'cheapish novel' wirtten in the 1950's in order to say her memories came from that. So, if we don't know if she read it or not, its impossible to cite this as a reason that reincarnation as a whole might not be true."

That is correct. The lady was asked (not while regressed) if she had read the book, and perhaps forgotten about it, but she said she did not want to answer any questions. I think that was because she felt upset and invaded. After all, she had no memories of what happened in trance, and didn't want to become the centre of a public controversy.

My understanding of it is also that it doesn't disprove reincarnation, but that it highlights the possible problems that can creep in when using hypnosis, especially that of exactly how the hypnotist frames the questions. So we should build in security checks if we are wanting to do past life regressions for 'research purposes.' Those would include asking the person if there is a present-life source for this memory or if it is coming from a past life lived by the individual.

In "Encounters with the Past" by Joe Keeton", he used this method when famous characters came up, to check that the subject hadn't read any of the books around on the life of he character. Here is an example, taken from a lady called Edna, who was reliving being Nell Gwynn:

Quote:
Q You are Edna... You are Edna in 1978. I want you to go back to a time when you were reading a book called 'Nell Gwynn' by Bryan Bevan...

A (a deep frown... head turns from side to side in bewilderment) Eh?

Q I want you to go back to a time when you read ANY book about Nell Gwynn..

A (same puzzlement... shakes head)

The same technique was repeated for films, TV, plays and the theatre, but all brought the same puzzled, negative response, and eventually a definite denial. Keeton is sure that she would have been quite incapable of lying under the circumstances. (End Quote) From "Encounters with the Past" by Peter Moss and Joe Keeton.

I wanted to share another interesting case with you, but can't find it right now. Also wanted to reply to rest of your post. Having a busy day, so I will do it later.

Thanks for posting back!

Warmly,
Persephone
 
Are they real?

Hej Shield!

You wrote:
"On the other hand I understand perfectly the wish and drive, when it comes to specifically ´remembered´ lives, to find out wether it actually physically happened..."

Yes, I am feeling an interest at the moment to know which of my 'past lifes' is real and which came out of my unconsious memories of this life or are just symbols or archetypes for stuff I am dealing with in my life now.

But that is just a personal quest, started when my therapist discounted them.But having uncovered and resolved what childhood hurts it was triggering for me about 'this' childhood, has made it a matter of interest rather than urgency now.

I don't think the above either proves or disproves reincarnation, and I am not wanting to do either :) Some of the stuff I relived feels very convincing, and some didn't. I feel that some is probably genuine and some comes from symbols and childhood stuff.

What I haven't really shared here yet, is that for years I was regressing people. Some people make good hypnotic subjects and some get very little imagery, if any at all. My best friend is a very good hypnotic subject, and she got some really amazing stuff coming through.

When I was doing sessions for people, it was either that they were interested to know how they were connected with people in the present, or an attempt to work through problelms they were experiencing in their lives, but didn't want conventional therapy.

I always told them before regressing them, that I couldn't 'prove' to them that they had past lives, but that they would probably get vague imagery at the beginning and that it helped to just 'trust it' for the moment, as that often started the flow.

Since I wasn't doing this in order to research past lives, it didn't matter to me at the time whether these memories were historically correct or not. What mattered, was that they were coming from the subconcious minds of the individuals, so they had meaning, and facing and dealing with them often brought resolution to the problems in the present.

This is a valid field on its own (done by people like Edith Fiore, Brian Weiss, Joel Whitton and others) and is very different from actually researching past lives, where one has to be very critical, and do it scientifically. The only people I know who have really done that, are Helen Wambach and Ian Stevenson.

Carol Bowman's work was more in the line of helping children work through problems in their lives, but also come closer to the researcher's work in that children's minds are uncontaminated from books and movies, and when they show precocious knowledge, then a certain amout of research can be done.

Whichever is which, I think we have uncovered a very interesting phenomenon -- the fact that we seem to have consciousness that goes beyond the mere memories of this lifetime, and can often either 'relive' or 'link up with' (via the collective unconscious or 'Akashic records') stuff that comes from other times and other places.

In a post elswhere, Deborah also spoke of the difference of 'subjectively reliving' versus 'memories' (which can just be scenes from the past). I do know that in the former, I am 'back there' and am experiencing from 'inside me' (complete with sights, sounds and moving scenes). In the latter I just see pictures and they are usually static and seen from the outside.

But I don't want to put people off by saying that, because I think the first tiny bits of really connected memory can start that way, and if the person is encouraged to trust it and go with it, full reliving can often follow.

So I think what I am saying is that I feel things are not in black and white, and there is a lot we simply don't know about right now. But we are standing at the beginnings of learning important things, and this is an exciting time.

Varme Hälsningar!
Persephone
 
Hi Persephone,

Thanks for an interesting post! Your discussion of different kinds of PL experiences and ways of working with them was clarifying, I think, and the conclusion inspiring and full of hope :D.

So I think what I am saying is that I feel things are not in black and white, and there is a lot we simply don't know about right now. But we are standing at the beginnings of learning important things, and this is an exciting time.
Click to expand...

And who knows, to put it in an extreme way, maybe we won´t really ever know anything in black or white... observable fact is like deceiving mirages in the desert. And the place to find the stuff that lasts will, in the end, be outside the desert of finite conception.;)
 
Sorting out the wheat from the chaff

Hi Vicky,

You wrote:
"The other thing I was thinking is why did you like the story of Heidi so much as a child? Could it be that the story resonated with you because your past life memory is really a memory?"

In this case I don't actually think so. The only connection I can make is that I liked it because it was about someone who moved from the city and found happiness in the country. In this life I grew up on a farm, and hated the town. I seem to have lived in large cities in past lives though (London and Paris) and didn't seem to mind at all then.

What I got from "Heidi" was just the static images, which Deborah calls, "remembering" rather than "reliving". Also it was very vague and I realise now that I was looking for a connection to the person in this so called 'past life', so this is one of them that I have put on hold unless anything convincing comes through. It is important to me not to try to 'make the facts fit' if they don't flow that way.


You also wrote:
"For example, I have what I think is an unnatural fear of my 6 year old son getting hit by a car. I believe I've had a past life dream in which I was a man and my son stepped off a high curb and was killed by an oncoming car or subway. One could say I had this dream because of some news story I may have read about a boy being hit by a car because certainly I've ready many of those. But one has to ask, why this particular fear? There are hundreds of things you can worry about when you have children. Why don't I worry about him getting deathly ill, falling out of a tree or poking his eye out? I think its because this resonates with me. I believe this is really a memory and the reason I have trouble with worrying about him in crowded streets is because my past life son was killed in this way."

That is the kind of thing that is interesting to follow up, because it sounds plausible and obviously 'feels right' to you, and as you say 'resonates'. (It also sounds rather worrying and I hope it doesn't give you sleepless nights). I would be very interested to hear what comes out of this for you in the future. :)

Warm wishes,
Persephone
 
I don't lose any sleep at all over the crowded street thing. Its just a feeling that I get when we are standing in the same way as my past life son and I did on a high curb. I don't think about it otherwise but I do recognize the feeling I get at curbs with him as something different or more worrisome than other things that a parent might worry about for their child.
Vicky
 
Hi Vicky,

Glad this is not making you lose sleep, but it must be quite a thing to have lost a child this way before, and have echoes of it return now. Have you remembered the details of 'last time'?

It would be interesting to hear how this develops if the child comes up with any memories.

Warm wishes to you,
Persephone
 
Resolution

Hi Everyone,

It is about 6 weeks since I first posted here, and it has been really good to feel the changes that happened in that time. Initially I was thrown into a lot of hurt when my therapist dismissed my beliefs, but working it through back to childhood where my father mocked my beliefs and showed anger too, has helped me to be much freer in the present.

Ironically, at the end of his life, my father became a disillusioned seeker, and I was able to help him some, but that didn't seem to impact the 'inner child' inside me that was still shattered when he did it to me first in childhood. Revisiting that place has brought a lot of healing.

Then I was able to tell my therapist, that what he believes (he's not my daddy!) is not really relevant to me. What is relevant to me is what I have experienced. He said, "Hold on to that. What we have experienced ourselves, is the only thing we really know for sure."

So it feels nice to be able to come back here and say, "Problem solved". I will get involved with some of the other threads when time permits. There are such interesting discussions going on.

Love to all,
Persephone
 
What a great thread. It's wonderful following along as someone is able to bring closure to an episode of their life. Each of us has to accept our own reality, rather than create an artificial reality. Over the years I have remembered 5 PL, and possibly am getting the first inklings of a 6th PL, all through meditation and dreams. Maybe some of this is regression, but since I've never had a professional session, I wouldn't really know. To some degree I think we have to trust our instincts, but be honest enough with ourselves not to accept anything and everything. I've had some powerful dreams about my father lately, and wonder if they tie in with any PL memories, or if they're simply pleasant dreams about my father, who I do miss. I guess only time will tell. I used to believe that reality was whatever we perceived it to be. Now I'm not so sure.

John
 
Hi Persephone,

Was reading through the thread and just realized you asked me some questions that I never got round to answering.

I am very glad for you over the change in what the therapist stated. That's great!!! And yes, so very true...

For me, in particular, what I experienced personally is something I so much wanted others to know about. And in fact this is what eventually brought me here to this forum. I wanted to be able to share my experience with others, and hopefully show to others that reincarnation IS a reality.

In my own case, I was born in Scotland, and named Charles Edward Stuart Boden by my father. Charles Edward Stuart being the name of a Scottish prince born in 1720 who raised the Scottish clans in 1745 in an attempt to recover the British crowns for his Catholic father, James VIII. As a child, my father would sing me a song composed for Bonnie Prince Charlie and I used to have "visions" - two children playing at the back of a palace, a pair of army boots in front of a fire, the entrance to a small town...

At age 15, during a Ouija session that apparently really worked, I was told of this past lifetime. At age 30, this was again confirmed at a place and with a person that had no association with the first event. An impossible coincidence that hit me like a slap in the face. Some years later I returned to Scotland with my father and recognized the city entrance I had seen as a "vision" as a small town near Edimburgh called Biggar, and was able to confirm that Charlie Stuart had indeed camped with his army in that town in 1746, when his army was retreating towards Inverness.

What threw me into deep depression was the notion of how much suffering was caused by that lifetime of mine.

I nowadays know of other past lives: a Knight's Templar in the crusades by the name Ezequiel (seen in a regression), my last lifetime as a German pilot in WWII by the name Karl Hess or Heiss (seen in sequential dreams)...

Amidst all this, I got involved in a spiritualist line of religion of African origin known here in Brazil as Candomblé. The betrayal came from the lady who is like a "high priestess" at this Spiritual Center I used to take part in. A bit complex for me to explain it all here, but it included several lies and manipulation...

This thread has turned out very nicely, by the way...:thumbsup:
 
HI Charles,

I was also "tricked" by people who claimed to know more than I did. A GREAT disappointment, seeing as this person, in particular, was someone I felt I could really TRUST. Even more so, I used to think, because this was a person who dealt with spiritual matters, and my thoughts then were that there could be no error in something related to spirituality.
Click to expand...

I am sorry to hear that about Tia Rita. I know how much respect you had for her. Life is a journey isn't it? And just when we think we have things figured out - here comes the curve ball. :eek:

I hope you are well - and life is good. It is always a pleasure to see you here.

Namaste
 
Hi (((Deborah)))

For a while I have wondered whether it really was "Tia Rita". It seems that what happened came from the medium who incorporated her, whose sole interest in what she does seems to be financial. There is also my own "karma" in all that happened, of course...

Yes, life IS full of surprises. Each day is a different page in the Book of Life.

Lovely to be talking to you again too...;)
 
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