reincarnation

[Elaine]

this may be an odd question, maybe even stupid, but since I've been studying Wicca I have been trying to figure out my thoughts about reincarnation....and in thinking about it, this question came into my mind.....I've heard people use as a joke or an expression "I must have been a cat in my past life because I sleep so much" and things of the sort...can people ever know what they were in their past life?....I know that there would be no way to actually prove something like that, but I just wanted to know what other people thought about this subject......

[Ari]

It's pretty much impossible to objectively prove, but I think people can know what they were in the past, although most people only pick up fragments. Sometimes something triggers a 'memory', or for some reason they need information from a past life or experience. When I go shuffling around in the 'records' I occasionally get impressions and things, or I'll be reading something or be in a place that resonates with me to an unusual degree. I've never had (or known anyone who has had) a complete, detailed recall of a past life though.

[Lilu]

I have once spontaneously regressed during a guided meditation before and met my twin brother from a past life (who is now a spirit guide of mine) and learned a few things from him. After that I had a series of dreams that were like "flashbacks" from that lifetime, but I never had a complete recall of the life - just little memories and insights.

I have also used a regression meditation and seen part of another past life where I was actually a male! (That was weird. LOL) And another life came to me in a dream, but it was no ordinary dream, more like a recollection of memories. I have had some flashes in dreams pertaining to much older memories - I believe them to be of Lemuria, but I can't be positive, that's something I would LOVE to explore further as I have a deep connection to Lemurian legends and have read a book written by woman who did regression to Atlantis (around the same time of Lemuria) and designed crystal healing tools based on the Atlantean tools they were seeing in the regressions. These tools you can make yourself and I have made a wand which is very comfortable to me and feels like I've known how to use them FOREVER! So who knows?

I used to belong to a meditation group back home and one night we did "sand impressions" where you put your hand in the sand and everyone touches the imprint to see what they pick up from it. The woman who runs the group is VERY psychic in this sort of stuff and she saw visions of different solar system, and a planet of water, and was "looking" through the eyes of an amphibious being who was underwater and staring up at the sun above (I'm sure you know what that looks like, with the ripples of water overhead). She was convinced I'd actually lived ages before on another planet! hehe It was fascinating, though I've never had any sort of memories to prove or disprove that one.

But I do believe it's possible to recall past lives, I also believe that many of us have lived on other planets (we aren't the only habitable planet out here with a sentient race!) in past lives. I'm not sure whether I believe we would choose to incarnate as an animal, though I certainly see where it could happen. I believe in India it's thought that we begin on the lowest of all existances (a rock, a flower, etc) and work our way up through incarnations to human. But I don't subscribe to this way of thinking simply because I'd have to have been a rock in the dinosaur ages for this to be possible!

BB
Lilu

[Elaine]

thanks for your thoughts.....the reason I ask is that I just wonder why some people are just drawn to certain things, whether it be an animal or a deceased famous person....I mean, everyone has their own likes and dislikes, but I just wonder why some people are total fanatics about some things....I was just thinking that maybe those things are clues to those peoples past lives...

[bluecat]

Not a stupid question. A very valid one as a matter of fact. :cool:

Many people, like myself believe in reincarnation. I can tell you this, though if someone offers to tell you about your past life and he or she wants money and tells you that you were a Cherokee Princess or some such nonsense as that, you have just been fleeced, and fleeced good. There is no such thing as a Cherokee Princess, too many people think they were some sort of royalty in a previous life, there is just not that much royalty to go around, okay? :D

Now I have done what is know as past life regression and have also had the experience of meeting someone, on more than one occasion, that I knew instantly and still know them to this day. It is a possibility that we MAY be a part of some sort of continuous family unit or group, but don't take that to the bank. My regressions usually resulted in my being some sort of everyday guy or gal, yes cross gender reincarnation. There is nothing that says we have to be a man or a woman every time.

Now we get into the question of cross species, I don't know, however, the center of my belief is that we are just a part of the Universe and with that in mind who is to say that I was even on this planet every time or was even human. Now don't go thinking I am saying that I was from somewhere else or that I can remember being a farmer on a distant planet on another galaxy or some sort of resident of some sort of "Star Wars" reality. You should understand that once we are no longer part of this corporeal body I tend to call a "Waterbag" we are again part of the Universe and as energy can go literally anywhere.

I know the power of suggestion is very powerful and I have read a few articles in SEDONA magazine that even studied this in detail where people were having past life regressions and were making all kinds of what I felt were outlandish claims, perhaps they were, I believe that a certain percentage of them were due to the power of suggestion that resulted in a really good fantasy. It is possible that some of them may have been real, but for the number involved, I kind of doubt it.

Bottom line, yup, I think it's real and I also think we are not limited to being people or even here, but let's not all go saying we were royalty, I mean how many people can be Napoleon?

Blue :cool:

[sherry]

I had a past life reading once in Daytona Beach Florida (and spent way to much for it I might add) this lady said that everyone in our group was of royalty of some era!!
The only thing I felt was true was my being drawn towards castles, gargoyles and knights!!

But just an hour or so from there is a town of Cassadega, Florida now that town is amazing,many pagan and cult types there I had the urge to visit one that my best friend wouldn't even go into the house. This gentleman was truly great.

He explained that my being drawn to the castles was because for 2 lives I worked there!! now that explains why I can get the floor that clean !! I was never a queen or even the princess but took my job serious of attending to other peoples children and cleaning and this is not far off of what I am doing in this lifetime too

[Mairwen]

We teach reincarnation and transmigration. Why? Because the core of our Tradition is "Oneness" ~ that we're all made up of the same stuff, and that when our body "dies", our spirit lives on, free to incarnate as it pleases ~ we never truly die, we just change shape, so to speak. I think next time, I'd like to be a grand Oak. :D

[Elaine]

everyone keeps bringing up this past life regression....what's involved in that.....and how do you know that what your seeing isn't just some kind of fantasy or daydream, or something? I'm not trying to be rude or disrespectful...I'm curious ...I'd like to know more about that! Please help if ya can....thanks:)

[Amora]

I believe I am a very old soul and have been reincarnated many times. Recently I was able to do a past life regression and discovered some of the lives I led. It was an amazing experience!! I highly recommend doing it for yourself...but be careful who leads you through it there are a lot of people who charge a lot and are not legitimate.

[Vinga]

I think the closest thing to 'proof' that science has, is some very extensive studies made by Dr. Ian Stevenson. He is the head of the department of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine (*phiew*), and has documented thousands of children who spontaniously remember past lives, since 1961.
These studies are very scientific though and not exactly a good bedtime read. I don't think he has ever published anything for the general public, just academic books.

I have done a few regression meditations and found out some of my past lives. I must admit that sometimes I wonder if they are truly memories or if I just made it all up, but I wholeheartedly believe in reincarnation, so why not :).
I have also travelled to a new place where I had never been before and all of a sudden just felt 'at home'. I had no problem finding my way around and after I left I felt almost homesick.

[Elaine]

so do you do it just by meditating and having that in your mind while you meditate? or is it something more involved.... is it something that just comes to you in meditation and you realise afterwards what happened? (errrr....please excuse my mindless thoughts ....I'm trying to ask my question the best I can but considering it's 3:38am I am not able to function correctly!! please understand!!!) :rolleyes: :crazy: :cool:

[idusty88]

I don't know if reincarnation is real.
I not sure if it can ever be scientifically proven one way or the other. How could you design an experiment to test this? Even the studies made by Dr. Ian Stevenson constitute merely anecdotal evidence; which in science is the same thing as circumstantial evidence in a trial, it doesn't really prove anything.
If you feel inclined to trust that reincarnation actually does happen, then perhaps one way to get an intellectual handle on it would be to postulate that since conservation of matter and energy is a constant in the universe, why not conservation of consciousness.
Exploring past life memories, real or created(?), may help a person get a better handle on their indentity, in which case more power to them. But don't let who you may have been limit who you are or can be now.
I have two distinct memories I chalk up as past lives. Both memories were recalled in childhood. I was only a few years old the first time. I suddenly got up out of my seat and wanted to go out the door to my car and go to the hamburger shop. I couldn't open the door and was completely dumbfounded. It was very confusing coming to terms with not being who I thought I was. I drew lots of pictures and tried explaining to my mom. I don't think she ever understood, I was the muscular guy in the suit. Over the years until an adult, I occasionally got flashes of this life in dreams.
The other past life first hit me when I was ten years old. This one came more frequently and was always the same exact scene unaltered. It was probably shortly before my death. One thing that sits them apart from dreams or daydreams is the sheer intensity of the experience. I'm talking multi-sensory.
It would be just as easy to say these memories are the result of a fertile imagination as it is to say they are past lives. For me, seeing myself as a big strong fighting man has helped me in understanding why I sometimes react the way I do and how I could come from the background I do yet be who I am. It's all good!

[Kaylara]

Well, I have seen two past lives. Neither one was glamorous, and both ended badly. The older one, I was a wise woman in the middle ages and I think that I was killed because the plague struck the village, and the church needed someone to blame. The more recent life, was sometime in either the late 1800's or early 1900's. I was ice skating with my husband, and was about 1 month pregnant. I fell through the ice, and the last thing I remember from that life is seeing my husband trying to break the ice to save me.
Now, like other people have said, this may just be an over-active imagination on my part. I don't know for sure, but the experiences in these flashes are so vivid and multi-sensory, that I can rule out daydreaming.
I can also sense how old a person's soul is just by looking at them, and know that I am an old one. I think it's the eyes of a person. To me, the eyes reflect all of those things conciously or unconciouslly known. (that is why they are called the window of the soul.) It's the same for me as seeing energy and auras, I can't explain how, I just know.

Well, just figured I'd through my two cents in.

Kaylara

[idusty88]

I agree Kaylara. The connection is visceral; I KNOW that was me and not just a dream.
There is no science (yet) to explain it and I don't expect anyone else to accept it as fact, but I know and maybe that is enough.

[bluecat]

Originally posted by idusty88
I agree Kaylara. The connection is visceral; I KNOW that was me and not just a dream.
There is no science (yet) to explain it and I don't expect anyone else to accept it as fact, but I know and maybe that is enough.

Some things cannot or have not been explained or fully explained with science, for example, how does a living being occur from a few dollars worth of chemicals, some water (okay, a lot of water) and a little electricity? This can't be duplicated in a lab without the use of actual tissue from the living being, just mixing up the appropriate chemicals in water and adding a spark get's you a vat of dirty water.

Some things are best left a mystery, IMHO.

Blue

[bluecat]

:eek: But I don't want to come back as a can of CONDENSED MILK !!! :eek:

:bigredgri Oops, sorry, wrong dimension! Darn! Which button was that? :bigredgri

All kidding aside, I do believe in reincarnation. At the end of the day, it's a personal belief choice . This thread has had some very good discussion and there have been some very valid viewpoints made. In the end, just like everything else, we should respect each other's personal beliefs. I think that has been done here, even though the opinions may have differed.

Blue :cool:

[Lilu]

I agree Blue, it is a personal choice. And I believe that our core beliefs can effect these things. I mean, to a Christian who completely believes that they are going to Heaven and remaining there forever, who is to say that wouldn't happen, even if there are others flitting from life to life? I think we create our own reality.

As to the questions people asked about how do we know we aren't just making it up or have an overactive imagination, my answer is that it's an inner knowing. I get a distinctive feeling when I have a past life recollection. It is very different to when I'm just dreaming or day dreaming. But it's probably different for everyone. I just *know* when it's real and when it's not.

Regarding Past Life Regression - the ones I am familiar with are usually like hypnosis. The regressor will send you into a deep unconscious meditation and *talk* you back through this current life, and into an older one. Then they will ask questions like "What are you seeing?" "What do you look like?" "Do you know your name?" stuff like that. In the regression I had where I spontaneously regressed, we weren't planning on doing a regression, but my friend sensed that I had someone wanting to "get through" to me, so we did a meditation, and the next thing I knew I looked completely different, and was walking into the past and finding my "brother". It was amazing! My advice would be to have someone with you if you do a regression, sometimes the memories coming back can be upsetting, so it's useful to have someone talk you through it back to the present.

BB
Lilu

[idusty88]

Originally posted by bluecat
:eek: But I don't want to come back as a can of CONDENSED MILK !!! :eek:

:bigredgri Oops, sorry, wrong dimension! Darn! Which button was that? :bigredgri
Too funny!!!:D

[Tigerwallah]

Here's an easy one. Sit in a completely dark room - no light source at all - that half bath with no window is perfect for this one. Light a candle and keep it in front of your face (blue if you like for knowledge, but it doesn't matter). Stare into a mirror for as long as it takes - for me it took almost 20 minutes. You will begin to see the faces of your past lives. It worked for me and was very very cool.

I also had a great book that taught how to make a casette tape to hypnotize yourself for a past life regression, but I lent it to a friend and never saw it again. If anyone has read that book, please post the name and author. It was very easy, and also worked for me.

[Elaine]

that mirror thing sounds amazing....I can't wait to try it...:D

[Tigerwallah]

When you do the mirror thing - look into your eyes and not at your image in the mirror. The face around your eyes begins to change.

[Elaine]

I'm glad you said that...otherwise I'd be looking all over the place wondering why nothing is happening:) I'd be staring at the scar on my face....my eyebrows...my lips....all over the place...(I'm kind of a flake who has trouble sitting for too long) :)

[Tigerwallah]

Originally posted by Elaine
I'm glad you said that...otherwise I'd be looking all over the place wondering why nothing is happening:) I'd be staring at the scar on my face....my eyebrows...my lips....all over the place...(I'm kind of a flake who has trouble sitting for too long) :)

Wish I was like that. I tend to zone out all of the time thinking and doing nothing. I swear that I'm one of my cats.

[Mairwen]

Originally posted by Elaine
everyone keeps bringing up this past life regression....what's involved in that.....and how do you know that what your seeing isn't just some kind of fantasy or daydream, or something? I'm not trying to be rude or disrespectful...I'm curious ...I'd like to know more about that! Please help if ya can....thanks:)

Depends on the route you take. There's hypnosis, there's trance-work, there's God and Goddess Rapport (which is what we use in our Tradition) ... Then, there's being in a place and having memories and feelings so vivid that you cannot dismiss them. It's happened to me. I know exactly who I was in my last life. In fact, I still having living family from that life.

[Earth Walker]

I have one woman who is determined (naggingly) to have
me believe that she was an outhouse in her past lives. ???
All I can say is that she had shitty lives.
What a way to live, taking crap from people.:D :bigredgri 8O

[Mairwen]

An outhouse? LMAO! 8O Now, a tree I can see and understand. Perhaps she was a tree what was turned into an outhouse? I mean, after all, everything has a beginning ..... 8O ..... :crazy:

[Yvonne Belisle]

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!

[bluecat]

Originally posted by Mairwen
An outhouse? LMAO! 8O Now, a tree I can see and understand. Perhaps she was a tree what was turned into an outhouse? I mean, after all, everything has a beginning ..... 8O ..... :crazy:

Poor woman was probably a Cottonwood tree from Albuquerque ...

Blue

[Elaine]

Mairwen....that's interesting...do you know those people..or do you just know that their still alive?

an outhouse huh.....rofl......I'm still not 100% sure of my outlook on reincarnation...but I definately don't know about that!!:D....to each his own I guess:)

[Mairwen]

I looked them up in the phone book ~ they're like 2 hours north of here, in Northern Kentucky and in Cincinnati. One of the people is my brother from then.

[Elaine]

that's wonderful Mairwen...:D I think that's cool...as more and more time goes on I am slowly forming my thoughts on reincarnation...I believe in it but only to an extent....I believe in coming back as another person....but I'm still not sure what I think about reincarnating into like a dog or something like that...and I definately do not believe in reincarnation from inatamite objects like rocks or outhouses or things of the sort!!:) if anyone knows of a site that talks about reincarnation that might give me some more information to help me form my opinion I would appreciate it...thanks:)

[Celtic_Angel]

Originally posted by Elaine
everyone keeps bringing up this past life regression....what's involved in that.....and how do you know that what your seeing isn't just some kind of fantasy or daydream, or something? I'm not trying to be rude or disrespectful...I'm curious ...I'd like to know more about that! Please help if ya can....thanks:)

Honestly my dear, I don't know. I was raised to believe that we have one chance to live, but that doesn't always seem right. There are times when I feel like I've been places before or I meet people that I don't recognize physically, but I still know them. There are times when I daydream about what I might have been in the past and when I discuss it with my best friend, he fills in the details for me from daydreams he's had. I try to live my life fully as if there is no tomorrow, just in case. I guess I'll find out the truth when I die.

[Elaine]

that's the only way we'll ever know for sure....but I'm not in a hurry to find out:)......that's the way I was raised as well...but like you, it just didn't seem right to me sometimes....like, why would this be the only plain of life.....(I feel the same way about aliens...why would we be the only ones put in into existence???...but that's a whole other conversation!!!) :)

[Rick]

I have what I can only term as "memories" of being a gray shape in a silent, midnight, snow-covered forest, with other gray shapes around me; following a fresh trail of blood; the smell of the blood is maddening, driving us on...

I have other "memories" of bits & pieces of what I believe are past lives, even at least one other as an animal. These images did not come from dreams, or occur in my present life (I know for sure I've never drowned in this lifetime, or run as a wolf, or sailed in a longship down the Volga).

My two cents worth.

[Mairwen]

Originally posted by Elaine
that's wonderful Mairwen...:D I think that's cool...

I've thought about picking up the phone and calling him, but that would be too creepy for some people. LOL!


but I'm still not sure what I think about reincarnating into like a dog or something like that...

In the Gwyddoniad, we teach transmigration, so it's possible to come back as a rock, a tree, a turtle, a god. The universe and everything in it is made up of the same stuff, so why not?

[Mairwen]

This may seem strange, but I'm going to share it anyway. In 1992, I met a person I felt I'd known forever, and we moved in together.

For about 6 months before I met him, I'd been having these dreams (memories?) of being on a ship, standing on the back, with my hands on the rail, crying my eyes out as the ship sailed off into the night. The ship was leaving a small bay, and there was like a castle off to my right, built so that it looked like part of the cliffside. There was a man standing on the docks, his shoulders bent over, and I couldn't tell if he was watching me go or what ~ you know how you can stare at nothing?


Well, this man and I were sitting on the riverbank one evening, chatting and carrying on, and he told me about this dream he'd been having for some time. You guessed it ~ the same one I'd been having, only from his perspective.

After the relationship went on, I began to wonder if it was a pastlife memory ~ because he kept saying he didn't want to lose me "again" ~ or a premonition of things to come, because we did end up breaking up, badly.

[Tigerwallah]

I had a very similar thing happen with a man. It was through past life regression that the story of who we were to eachother in the past unfolded. We were married, and he was a lord. He owned a large keep with a few small villages. I was having problems conceiving, and when I finally did get pregnant I fell down a stone staircase inside of the castle. To this day I am terrified of open staircases. A fear I did not understand until the regression. Well, I could not conceive again, and he had to look elsewhere for an heir. It was a very painful situation. The woman had his child, and I felt pushed aside. At my deathbed, many years later, I remember the woman and her son taking my things as I lay dying. They were saying such hateful things to me.

When I did this regression, he was dating me and another girl, who I knew to be this woman from the regression. The funny thing was that neither of us could give him what he wanted - he needed us both. Eventually we broke up, badly, but regained a friendship that I only just let die after 11 years.

[Earth Walker]

Reincarnation in the different lifetimes is like putting new beads
upon a necklace. And you know how different necklaces can be.
There is the necklace that features all the same matched pearls.
Then there are those with one pearl and one glass bead; some have apple seeds and some have acorns. Lifetimes can be that
varied. There may be no connection between them other than
the impulse to live, the thread upon which the beads are strung.
Do we need to know what other beads are on the thread?
Not really? If we did, Mother Nature would have arranged it so that, for example, on our 31st birthday we could recall the whole
thing! Much as menstruation happens naturally to women, so
would reincarnation recall. But it isn't so.
Nature shields us, blocks out this information so we don't get
confused about the importance of our present tense.
She is wise to do so.
For artists, it's different. Those lifetimes could have information
that would improve their art perceptions. Writers in particular get
a lot out of past lives; many interesting books have been written
about the subject.

For those who love, time is eternity....

[Elaine]

and I may have already asked this but I'm going to anyways....

could this be why some people have a fascination with things and maybe even fobia's?? Like I have this fascination with the 60's and a fobia about not being able to move my legs....I always believed that those things came because of my past lives..like maybe I was a hippy or something like that and maybe in one of my past lives I was paralized or got stuck underneith something and that's how I died..enough of my babbling...what are some thoughts on this? thanks:)

[Yvonne Belisle]

It's actually one of the more common beliefs. It's also something I myself believe.

[Elaine]

wow that was a quick reply......:) thanks....I just never knew where some of these things came from....I mean...I was born in 1979...why such a fascination with the 60's.....I've never broken a bone or anything...my bones and muscles are all very healthy...why would something like not being able to move my legs worry me?? I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way!! It makes me feel better to know that this is common!! thanks again:) :D

[Mairwen]

Originally posted by Elaine
could this be why some people have a fascination with things and maybe even fobia's??

Oh I agree 100%. Like a fear of closed-in spaces, or of being left alone ~ or of car wrecks and/or paralyzation. Yupyupyup. :p

[Tigerwallah]

Originally posted by Mairwen


Oh I agree 100%. Like a fear of closed-in spaces, or of being left alone ~ or of car wrecks and/or paralyzation. Yupyupyup. :p

I agree, as well. We're always working out Karma and fears left unresolved from past lives. My only fear is one of heights, but I'm starting to deal with that one now. In a past life regression I saw I had fallen down a flight of stone steps in a midevil castle and lost a child. All of my life I've been dealing with fears of things like bleechers and stairs without raillings. Only now, at 33, am I working these things out. I'm a faux finish artist, and sometimes need to be up on a ladder or scaffolding to do my craft.

[Elaine]

my fobiawith my legs is pretty bad....and it only developed once I turned 18 (I think...somewhere around there anywhere!!) Even if it's my husband immobilizing my legs I freak out....like if I'm laying on the bed he'll come over and sit on my legs because he feels he can help me get over this....I know that he's not going to hurt me...but I start moving around trying as hard as I can to get away...and I start crying very quickly....he lets me go right away....but he can't understand why this upsets me when I know that he won't hurt me!! anyone have any ideas on how I might get over this....would a regression be a good thing or a bad thing for me...considering my experience in the craft...???

[Yvonne Belisle]

If you are going to do it and you aren't sure of yourself have someone you trust with you. Get books on self hypnosis and make yourself a tape then go from there. You can also check with hypnotherapists if you have the funds and can find one that believes in the validity of past life regression.

[Elaine]

are you able to do regressions on your own.....my problem is...#1 I don't have the funds #2 the only people I trust enough either don't know and don't need to know, about my path...don't agree with my path and think I'm a weirdo satan worshipper, or live across the country at the moment!!! I will check out some books on self-hypnosis...I just don't know alot about it all yet and if I do it ...I want to do it right without hurting myself in the process!!

[Yvonne Belisle]

You can do it yourself and there are many ways. Tigerwalla mentioned using the mirror that's a good one that is safe to do alone. I'm not too sure how safe it is to do self hypnosis without someone to check on you. You'll have to read up on that. You can also try meditating and see if you can focus on seeing the past.

[Elaine]

Thanks for the advice Yvonne.....I'll try that mirror thing.... I think that's probably the only one I'd be comfortable doing without someone else around me...just in case.....(not that I really know the other methods....) :) but it seems like it could be overwhelming if something comes to me....