Firebird, you're correct that we can't stop unsolicited solicitations altogether. We discourage it, and retain the right to ban any person doing the soliciting who flouts our rules and does it repeatedly. We want to make it hard to get away with. And make it easy for anybody who is bothered to get help enforcing the rule.
That said, if a Member wants to talk to TV producers or researchers, that's their right. But we hope it's the exception, not the rule. We don't want TV people to see our Forum as easy pickings. We want them to leave our Members alone, as much as possible.
There are two additional reasons why we discourage our Forum becoming a ready resources for reporters and TV producers.
1) It can be harmful to the families/kids involved. Carol knows all too well how these producers act (and they're pretty consistent!). They say anything to get cases and material. They're driven by business pressures to fill up their program. Despite what they might say, they don't really care about what the families/kids are going through.
If Carol is involved, she knows how to handle the producers, when to trust them and when not, and the danger signs. Families doing this on their own are babes in the woods.
2) TV producers--anybody publishing these cases for the sensationalist value--will make a big deal out of very flimsy, questionable cases. Carol has seen thousands of cases over the years, and she knows a real one when she sees it. TV producers do not.
The long-term effect is that the whole field of past life research gets polluted with these questionable cases. What p'sses her off most is when the segment is finally aired on TV, they almost always play up the scary, weird aspects, making it look like the kid is possessed, the parents are crazy, that past life memories are dangerous and will scar the kid for life--all untrue. But it makes for good ratings. The family is never privy to what the segment will look like until they see it broadcast, and they have absolutely no control over it.
I think, in addition to our best efforts to enforce our no-solicitation policy, we should all be alert to these dangers and discuss them openly (when appropriate). If a family wants to try the TV route, fine. But it's our responsibility to help them go in with open eyes, armed with lessons from our collective experience. We're an educational support forum, so that's within our charter.
There is a positive side to this whole question. Carol and I would love to see more solid cases of children's past life memories be properly explained and broadcast, without the scary sensationalism. She spends a lot of time (all unpaid!) helping families and, in the most extraordinary cases, ushers them to responsible media. For example, she was the first person outside the Leininger family to counsel the Leiningers (starting in 2001), she advised them all the way, she introduced them to her literary agent, she got them on ABC Primetime. Nobody would have ever heard about it if it weren't for her involvement (and James would still be having the nightmares). Now it's the leading case out there--the case that's fueling all this new interest from TV shows.
(Carol just put up a new video of interviews with the Leiningers on her FaceBook page (Carol Bowman Past Lives) and blog.
www.CarolBowman.com/blog. )
Steve
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