Magnus (2022-09-28 03:45:10), category: cosmos

Hello Ove
I read your answer to Allis Mind, where you say; <<Now, as far as I can tell, there actually seems to be reincarnation>> Can I ask you to elaborate a bit on this topic? I personally feel that this is true, but its just a feeling. How do you reason your way to this conclusion (or at least tilt in the direction that reincarnation is true)?

Cheers

Ove (2022-09-29 14:36:38, updated 2022-09-29 15:09:32)

There’s more than one way to interpret this question. If you’re asking how I reached this conclusion, it involves several personal things,which I would rather not go into here. But I can say that some of it is evidence I’ve personally witnessed or learned about while learning about spiritual traditions. This type of evidence is typically not recorded or written down because of its personal (and sometimes dangerous) nature. But in these situations, there’s also no reason to record it, because there’s nothing unnatural about it, it’s simply a part of the cycle of life that everyone knows about, and everyone has seen evidence of, and therefore takes for granted.

But what you really want to know, is probably how you can find out. There are a few ways, but the most straightforward way to find evidence of it that anyone can do, in principle, is with the technique of hypnotic regression, which might work if you know someone (maybe yourself) who’s hypnotizable and likely has lived more than one life. (To maximize the chances, choose someone who seems especially wise, as it’s likely their wisdom comes from having lived multiple lives. But I suspect you’ll find that the majority of people alive have lived more than once, anyway.) Then, through hypnosis, gradually try to make your subject remember their past, eventually going beyond the time they were born and conceived. They will then usually remember the “light” and bliss of the afterlife (or, more appropriately, the “in between”), and when you ask them to remember what happened before that, they may then remember a past life. Now, although most people won’t typically lie under hypnosis, you should keep in mind that human memory is never 100% reliable (the way it works, memories can get distorted in certain ways; essentially, the brain usually doesn’t record every little detail the way a camera would, and thus may later need to reconstruct details based on what it does remember, and sometimes gets it wrong — and, obviously, this problem may be magnified when asked to remember things that your current body never experienced). Be careful not to suggest things to the subject that may influence how they remember details, so that you don’t accidentally distort their memories. And it’s always a good idea to try to gather concrete details which can be used as evidence, such as names, places, dates, notable objects, and so on. Things that would still be possible to investigate today.

Even if you do get results, this kind of thing might never be enough to convince a diehard skeptic, they’re experts at finding ways to discredit any particular story (sometimes themselves using flawed logic, ironically). They tend to demand a level of proof that not even science demands for most scientific discoveries; thousands or millions of pieces of evidence from all over the world mean nothing to them. But, the thing about truth, is that it’s true regardless of whether anyone believes it or not, and this method is at least one relatively straightforward way for you to investigate for yourself whether reincarnation might be real or not. (Or, if that’s too much work, you could also just look for books with such stories or something, if you like. But I suspect that’s always going to be less convincing than having seen it for yourself.)