How to explain reincarnation and past life memory?

Let me show you an article, I hope it will help you.

study

A new york policeman, alias John, often tells his daughter, alias Doreen, "No matter what happens, I will take care of you." 1992, John was shot in a robbery. He was shot six times in the body, one of which was fatal from the back. This shot cut the left lung and heart, causing the pulmonary artery to rupture.

Five years later, Doreen gave birth to a son, alias William. William was born with defects. His lung diaphragm is underdeveloped, and sometimes blood can't enter the lungs. One of his ventricles is not well developed. After several operations, William still needs to take medicine for life, but other than that, he is a quite normal child.

One day when William was three years old, Doreen told him not to make trouble, or he would be hit. But William said, "Mom, when you were a little girl, I was your father. I never hit you!" " "Doreen didn't take it seriously at first, but William always told her that he used to be John. He talked a lot about John, including the gunfight. He remembered Doreen's cat when he was a child, and some habits were the same as John's. But what shocked Doreen most was that William once said to her, "Don't worry, Mom. I will take care of you. "

It is not unusual for such children to recall their "past lives". Maybe everyone has heard of it from time to time. There is no direct ghost, which is equivalent to paranormal and supernatural phenomena. On the contrary, it is more suitable as the research object: "reincarnation" and their families, even their families in their previous lives, which researchers can visit at any time. The University of Virginia School of Medicine has a perceptual research department that specializes in such events. In 2005, researcher Jim Tucker published a book "Life Before Life: An Academic Investigation of Children's Past Life Memories", which introduced their achievements to us.

In the field of medicine and psychology, if scientists want to study the influence of a factor on people, such as whether smoking is harmful to health, or whether the crime rate of abused children is higher when they grow up, they often can't do experiments, so they can only take the method of collecting cases for statistical analysis. This method is called epidemiology. The epidemiological results are far from the final scientific conclusion, but this method is still a scientific method, which can be said to be the most scientific method you can use without other methods. Tucker and others use this method to study children's recurrent memory. They have collected more than 2500 cases.

Reincarnated

Most of these children began to tell their parents about their past lives between the ages of two and four (according to the scientific spirit, quotation marks should be used here, but they are omitted for the convenience of writing). They often give many details of previous lives, even including specific places and names, and they ask their parents to lead them to visit their families in previous lives. If, according to him, the family of the child's previous life is really found, the researcher calls the case "solved", otherwise it is "unsolved". Once they know of such an event, the researchers will try to get there as soon as possible. Many cases occurred in Asian countries, especially India, Sri Lanka and Thailand, so American researchers need to establish local informants to keep abreast of new cases. In most cases, when the researchers know, the case has been solved. However, in some cases, researchers followed the child's current family to visit his former family. Such a case is obviously more reliable.

A particularly important point in William's previous case is that William's birth defect happened to be in the same place as John's fatal injury. In fact, researchers have collected 225 cases of past life memory and birth defects, and birthmarks are more common. If their previous lives were violent, the birthmarks or birth defects of these children happened to be in the same place as the injuries they suffered in their previous lives. Another situation is that some Asian regions have the custom of marking the dead with paint, and their reincarnated children will have a birthmark here. Compared with memory and narration, birthmarks and birth defects are hard physical evidence, so researchers pay special attention to such cases. They will personally look after the children, go to the local institutions to find the doctor's certificate when they died in their previous lives, and compare the two things. Sometimes as children grow up, the position of birthmarks will change slightly and the color will fade, but the corresponding relationship is still obvious.

Some children have a strong emotional dependence on their families in their previous lives, and even let their relatives in their previous lives visit them regularly. Some have retained the habits of past lives, such as alcohol and tobacco hobbies, but none of my family has this hobby in this life. Some people will do the actions of their previous lives (such as striking the iron). Some even simulate the process of their past life death in the game, including pulling out a gun and committing suicide! In India, a child born in a low caste family thought that his previous life was a high caste and refused to eat food at home when he was a child. The neighbor helped the high caste cook for a year before changing it. Several children born in Myanmar claimed that they were Japanese soldiers who died here during World War II. They like Japanese food, refuse to wear local clothes, and are very afraid of airplanes. In my last life, 35% people died abnormally, especially water. Among the 53 drowning people, 3 1 were afraid of water, and some even had to be held down by two people to take a bath. There was a girl who drowned in a pond in her last life because she avoided the bus. As a result, she was afraid of cars and water all her life. Those who change their gender during reincarnation are very uncomfortable, for example, girls strongly demand to be boys.

And all this, whether it is the memory of reincarnation or the influence of previous lives on this life's feelings, will gradually fade away or even be forgotten after the age of seven. These children are no different from other children when they grow up As soon as a girl can speak, she urges her parents to find her family in previous lives, including her husband and children. She asked them to visit her every week, so her ex-husband's wife has resigned now. But when the girl was seven years old, she felt that her former family had become a burden to her:) But there was also an extremely rare case in which a boy found his ex-wife and loved her until he grew up, regardless of the age gap, and remarried her!

ask about

How to reasonably explain these events? Of course, one possibility is that all this is purely accidental. Children can say anything. If they are real and do as they say, maybe they can really find such a dead man, just in line with what he said. It is mentioned in the book that RichardWiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, holds this view and organized an experiment to test it. He found several children to fabricate previous lives and then found the corresponding death records. Wiseman's best case is a three-year-old girl who said that she was bitten to death by a monster when she was three years old in her last life. Wiseman found a girl who was kidnapped and killed. The girl's hair and eyes are the same color as those in her previous lives. She even wears pink clothes with flowers and lives by the sea.

However, compared with the case of reincarnated researchers, Wiseman's fabricated case lacks some important things, such as specific names and places. In fact, some children will not only say the names of their family members in their previous lives, but also point out the storage locations of some items that others can't know after returning to their previous lives. Sometimes, without asking, they will tell their families in their previous lives that their family situation was different before they died. In one case, a child pointed out to his brother that he had given him a gun in his last life, and the model of the gun was very rare in the local area, not to mention that only the two brothers knew about it. In a case identified by a researcher, the child not only correctly told everyone in the last village, but also met a person who moved here after his death and said that he didn't know this person. In many cases, the current family and the previous family don't know each other at all, and part of the work of finding the previous family is entrusted to a third party by the current family. This case involving many people is more credible. The truly valuable cases all have such a feature: the child said information that he could not know.

So is it possible that it is a false memory of the child's family? For example, maybe the family wants to believe in reincarnation. Children actually say a lot, but parents remember those words that have been confirmed deeply, and even take the initiative to use their own brains to count the wrong ones as right. But in more than 30 cases, parents wrote down their children's statements about past lives, and then took this written record to find and solve them, which greatly reduced the possibility of false memory. The researchers compared the cases with and without written records, and found that the accuracy of children's statements in advance was 76.7% and 78.4% respectively, which was very close. The average number of statements with written records was not less, but more. This accuracy of over 70% seems acceptable. Even if we adults recall our early years and there is no difference between life and death, we may not be able to say that 100% is accurate.

In order to avoid memory errors, the researchers also thought of another method. They will ask another researcher to visit the family again in a few years without looking at the original case records. If it is a memory error, the intensity of this situation will increase with the passage of time (because it is wishful thinking for reincarnated family members to edit in a "strong" direction), but the result is just the opposite. After a long time, the case will become less vivid, just like a real memory.

Another possibility is fraud. But for families with children and memories, it doesn't seem good. Researchers will not provide them with any "interview fees", but they will take pains to accept strangers' questions at home. In most cases, the current family did not ask for any property from the previous family. Many times, today's families don't want to find any previous families at all, and they often have to go because their children strongly demand it. For example, a girl's previous life was a craftsman's wife, and her status was low, but her current family status was high, which led her father to resent her talking about past lives.

Of course, it is also possible that the researchers are faking. We can completely imagine that it is impossible to gain any real academic prestige by engaging in this kind of research, and the researchers are really not academic giants, and the journals that publish papers are not "international mainstream journals". Maybe they-not one or two people, but an entire department-faked all this in order to be famous or get funding (the funding for this project comes from private donations, not government grants). But as the author said, they kept thousands of documents.

There are still some other places in the whole study that need to be spit out. A big weakness is that there are too few cases in the United States, and a considerable number of cases come from Asian countries. Perhaps it is because only about 20% of Americans believe in reincarnation, so it is not reported very much, or even that reincarnation does not happen often in the United States. But there is also a possibility that Asians exaggerate the case intentionally or unintentionally because they believe too much.

On the other hand, birthmarks and birth defects are quite conclusive evidence, which cannot be explained by false memory and other theories. If it is a coincidence, it is an extremely rare coincidence. If it is fraud, it is very difficult fraud.

So maybe reincarnation is really worth taking seriously. In fact, carl sagan should be one of the leading "popular scientists" against pseudoscience, but in his book The Devil's Haunted World, which strongly criticizes superstition, he also admits that children's reincarnation memory may be a problem worthy of serious treatment.

Then we might as well look at these cases with a serious attitude. Maybe we can be bolder and assume that these reincarnation cases are all true, and they are all true reincarnation.

New friend

A good study should not only confirm what people have in mind, but also tell us something we didn't know before. The researchers found some very interesting conclusions from these cases.

Among those cases in which the way of death in previous lives is now known, 70% are unnatural deaths, that is, deaths caused by murder or accidents. Many people in the remaining 30% died of sudden causes, such as heart attacks. In other words, most of these children with memories of past lives did not die in bed as flatly and predictably as ordinary people. In addition, 75% of all cases talked about the death process in their previous lives, but only 57% died normally-violent death is more likely to talk about their own way of death. This seems to give a clue to the question "Why not everyone has memories of past lives". Maybe everyone dies quietly under normal circumstances, and then there will be some mechanism (such as "Meng Po Tang") to erase the memory of past lives and then reincarnate. But for people who died unexpectedly, because it was an accident, this mechanism was destroyed, so that the memory of past lives was still preserved after birth. Jim Tucker assumes that ordinary people may not be reincarnated after death, and only those who want to come back because of some unfinished business will be reincarnated. But there is no record of these people retaliating.

I have read many "experience posts" in the ghost story forum before, and once suggested that reincarnation has a "soul localization principle": people are generally reincarnated nearby after death. Some people object to this and think that every soul should be reincarnated around the world by a central system, regardless of geographical restrictions. But judging from the cases given in this book, the "soul localization principle" is generally established. It is mentioned that the longest distance between the previous life and the present family is 400 miles, but the interval is more than 40 years. Many cases are reincarnated in neighboring villages within dozens of miles. This distance is enough for India, Sri Lanka and other countries to go once, but it can still be connected through a third party.

Not only that, in many cases, the two families still have some kind of relationship. The book introduces the statistics of 97 1 case, and finds that:

-195 cases were reincarnated in the same family;

-In 60 cases, two families were closely related;

-In the case of 1 15, the connection between the two families is very weak;

-In 93 cases, two families knew each other, but there was no contact;

-Of the remaining 508 cases, two families were complete strangers, of which 239 cases were solved;

-Of all the 97 1 cases, 232 are still unresolved.

The interval between death and reincarnation is uncertain. Statistics show that the median (half longer than this time and half shorter than this time) is 15 to 16 months. What happened during this time? In a study of 1 100 cases, 2 17 talked about what happened between his death and his birth, including things on the earth such as funeral, pregnancy and childbirth, and things on the "other world", such as heaven. It seems that no one mentioned hell, and maybe no one who has been to hell has been reincarnated:) Some people only talk about one or more of their experiences. Among them, the descriptions of funeral and prenatal fetal status have been confirmed, so it seems worthy of serious consideration. In contrast, researchers are very cautious about what they say about the "other world" and even unwilling to discuss it-not because of religious reasons, but because things in the other world cannot be verified. But they did some statistics.

Do you want to be reincarnated directly after death, or do you want to meet the relevant personnel or departments in a place like heaven and reincarnate again? I think maybe many people will choose the latter. Natural deaths are slightly more likely to report "another world" than unnatural deaths, with the ratio of 19% to 13%. However, people who die suddenly are more reluctant to report the experience of another world than those who die suddenly. 12% vs. 22%. This result seems to be more in line with people's understanding that "natural death is a blessing".

So what kind of people have the opportunity to visit the "other world" before their death? I am afraid this result will disappoint some religious people. As far as possible, the researcher counted the following characteristics of the past people in the case:

-Is he rich?

-Is he a criminal?

-Is he charitable?

-Is he keen on religious activities?

-Is he a meditator?

-Does he live a holy life?

It turns out that all the above features have nothing to do with whether to report the earth activities between the two worlds or whether to report the experience of the "other world", except one feature: meditation. Only the meditator is more likely to report that he has traveled to another world.

The result of "meditation" does not mean anything. Perhaps everyone's chances are similar, only the meditator observes more carefully and remembers better. But more importantly, this statistical sample is really too small, and only a part of past lives are counted. For example, in 1 100 cases, there are actually only 33 meditators. However, it is still quite amazing that people who are keen on religious activities are not more likely to go to heaven than criminals.

We laity are more concerned about the influence of past lives on this life, that is, what do we need to do in this life to make the next life better? The researchers also investigated the relationship between the above projects and the economic and social status of the family where the child lived. The result is: "The saintly previous personality has a strong correlation with the economic status of the subjects, and has a significant correlation with the health status of the subjects. The social status of the subject. " The holy life in previous lives is very helpful to the economic status born in this life, and it is also helpful to the social status born in this life. But this economic and social status refers to India's substantive status, which has nothing to do with the caste of Indian society. In other words, a holy life does not guarantee that the next life will be born in a high-caste family. As for all other projects, it doesn't matter. So those who believe that charity in this life will lead to being born in a rich family in the next life may be disappointed. What is holiness? I haven't found the exact definition of researcher yet. Maybe it's honesty and integrity in private life.

Therefore, judging from these extremely limited statistical results, it seems that the "law of cause and effect" that Asians generally think is of little effect. Not only that, but we can also see from the case that several Japanese invaders were reincarnated as human beings (instead of going to hell or becoming "beasts") in Myanmar, and the suicides were reincarnated as before, which is different from what some religious people said. In addition, Tucker's book points out that birthmarks and birth defects do not conform to causality: why is it the victim who carries birthmarks and birth defects in the next life, not the murderer? Maybe what works here is not the law of causality, but some kind of natural law, such as consciousness affecting the body.

discuss

These studies may make some readers believe in reincarnation more, but they are far from "proving" reincarnation. We don't know what mechanism can make consciousness separate from physical existence, which can't be explained by any existing scientific theory. Epidemiological studies usually do not involve mechanisms, but even according to epidemiological standards, the number of these cases is not enough.

Perhaps more importantly, as stated at the beginning of this article, the existing scientific theories have given a fairly good explanation to the world. A world view without reincarnation has never bothered any scientist. I think if reincarnation exists, it should be everywhere. Even with the "Meng Po Tang mechanism", we should be able to measure the "reincarnation of ordinary people" by what means. Furthermore, supernatural phenomena should be everywhere, and there should always be some phenomena in our lives that cannot be explained by modern science. The fact is that paranormal phenomena are rare.

I admire the courage of the researchers to do this research. They are not influenced by "mainstream science" or religion. They don't believe in theism or atheism. They only look at evidence. In fact, they don't seem to be suppressed by the "mainstream" too much, except perhaps the behind-the-scenes comments of university colleagues. The method they use is scientific. There is nothing strange about these simple methods to verify facts, statistics and find connections on the spot, but they have done everything they can under the existing conditions unless they do a reincarnation experiment.

Therefore, a great significance of this study is to tell people that even if you are concerned about the issue of "soul reincarnation", the only correct way for you to judge is still the scientific method.