Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Do you consider that people have past lives?

Like in past life regression.

most definitely.  I have had several that I am very aware of.  I have been a wife and mother in several past lives.  These I have found out through self hypnosis.

And if you find a good regressionist (?), you can explore them.
Janet

Yup, big believer in reincarnation here.
Seeing as everything in nature is re-used and re-cycled, I'd think it logical for souls to go the same route.

I believe that I've "recovered" a lot of memories of my own past lives, even one which I believe was my first life, where in I was not human.
The first memory I recovered was emotional, painful, and rather... horrible, and I wouldn't suggest going about rummaging in the past to most people because the chances are you'll find something you don't want to know.

I do however, also have a hard time believing in most forms of past life regression because there's just so much evidence of people recovering false memories through it.

I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if some of my more weirder hang ups and phobias are from a past life. However, I'm not exactly comfortable with the idea of having a past I don't know about.

i personally think it's all nonsense, utter balls. The soul is not separate to the body.

But it's an interesting fantasy, i like to think i am all the people i admire, though most of them are contemporaneous with each other.

nope

I don't actually believe in it, but I went to a psychic to ask her if Hypatia and would ever get together (it took forever for it to happen). The psychic asked if I was open to past life impressions. I sort of hedged in answering. She said she brought it up because she got a sense that Hypatia and I had been together in a past life.  :icon_love: That's romantic enough for me to be intrigued by the idea.

Definitely a firm believer in reincarnation. One interesting thing about my transition is I thought well if I don't deal with it in this lifetime I definitely will in the next.
Myles

Of course classic theories about reincarnation would say that the reason your life sucks now is that you are paying for the damage you did before. 

Quote from: tekla on April 24, 2009, 09:26:15 PM
Of course classic theories about reincarnation would say that the reason your life sucks now is that you are paying for the damage you did before.

Which is one of the prime reasons I don't believe in it.

The concept of original sin and that paying for what one did in a past life is really distasteful... Thank God we have none of that in Islam :)

No I don't believe in it.
One go and you are gone. wish I could come back but then I wouldn't know who I've been, and that does'nt help the hurt. I have no idea where I read this, and please no one take offence.

Wishes are dishes for the poor


I think we get what our genes and society make us. But there are plenty of people around who disagree. I think regession therapy to be totally fraud.
Same as alternatives to cancer cures.

Don't get me started

Cindy James

It is a nice sounding fairy tale, but no.

There was a short lived medical program about a neurosurgeon who was very matter of fact and regarded life as just "wires in a box".  I feel that is too true.

I'm not saying that there isn't a spiritual component to life and there there is more than meets the eye, but to me, it does not directly imply that there is any sort of corporeal after-life.  No "See you on the other side".

Just here, just now.  That's all.

Otherwise, I could have waited to that post-life review and found out why I had this stone around my neck and that "Next time I would get it right!", or express my true female side as a female spirit.

-Sandy

no. there's no evidence to suggest it.  in fact, the human desire to believe in reincarnation seems to be another aspect of the desire for there to be something more or something more meaningful than a human life. we were all marie antoinette in a past life, and we'll all be dancing with "jesus" (unless we're a member of a religion that forbids dancing) in the hereafter.

just because people like the idea doesn't make it true. indeed, often liking an idea means you should approach it with extra scrutiny. 

I don't know about it. I do beleive in deja vue.

I do believe in reincarnation. :) Not with the karma aspect attached, though.  Just plain reincarnation.  I have seen sufficient evidence to convince me, and I tend to scrutinize my beliefs pretty damn well.

From Hamlet: There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of by your P0hilosophy.  By philosophy, Shakespeare was referring to science by the term it was then known.

That's what I believe.  Some things that science would say do not exist, do indeed exist.  Ghosts, vampires, reincarnation, afterlife, God, space aliens, bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster... I don't know which one(s), but I acknowledge any of them could.

Reincarnation seems more likely than some, since it is believed by so many major religeons, including Judiasm and Native American, which are my ancestral religeons.

There is "evidence" to support theories of reincarnation.

Evidence? I dunno but I saw a very interesting, compelling account televised on BBC News. It was about a boy who at the age of 2 and 3 began verbalising information about a pilot who died in WWII. There's no apparent way the boy could have known some of the facts he was describing without first hand knowledge.  Wicked!

There are also cases of children speaking in languages they've never heard. :) For example, a four year-old raised in an English-speaking household suddenly speaking in Gaelic when neither parent is Irish, ever been to Ireland, etc.

And there's many stories along the same lines of what Pia mentioned.  I remember one where a housewife started talking about her life as a peasant woman centuries ago, but there was no way she could have had any real knowledge about the time period or place she was talking about, certainly not in the kind of detail she was providing- and historians checked around, found old census records, and confirmed her stories.

I also read an article [of semi-questionable veracity, granted] about a little boy who suddenly developed a strong shooting pain in his arm.  Nothing any doctor did ever helped.  Finally his parents were desperate and had heard of past life regression, so they went.  Apparently in the boy's past life, he had been killed via a shot to the arm that became infected.  After this visit, the boy's arm pain disappeared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation_research (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation_research) <= There's been a couple papers released where the phenomena (children recounting information they should not have) has been clearly documented.

Well, according to Jungian psychological theory there exists a collective subconscious. Perhaps these phenomena are in some way connected to this...

why not ask shirley macLaine instead?  ::)

the laws of karma and reincarnation are man made and wretched.  if you travel to places in the world where people truly believe, you will find the true nature of it and how it holds people in its grip.  thanks to lack of education and with the help of men like deepak chopra, westerners have a very watered down idea of it.

see there are many problems with the salvation-by works doctrine of reincarnation. first, there are many practical problems. for example:

1. why does one get punished for something he or she cannot remember having done in a previous life?

2. if the purpose of karma is to rid humanity of its selfish desires, then why hasn't there been a noticeable improvement in human nature after all the millennia of reincarnations?

3. if reincarnation and the law of karma are so beneficial on a practical level, then how do advocates of this doctrine explain the immense and ever worsening social and economic problems, including widespread poverty, starvation, disease, and horrible suffering  in india, where reincarnation has been systematically taught through out its history?

the way i see it..It's just a matter of "faith" that is unprovable, kind of like proving "Jesus' existence" or "resurrection", "santa", "the cookie monster" or "the tooth faerie". so as there's no scientific evidence, except anecdotal, for reincarnation of the "soul" there is little reason to believe in it. and i don't. however the biogeochemical cycle is scientifically true. when i die i'll become part of the sulfur cycle. that's the meaning of "to be made flesh again" that i go by. personally.

I remember reading years ago about children that remember things they didnt had a way to know. And also they had stigma associated with their possible past life injuries.

In any case, im not sure I want to find out about my past life if there was one.

I've had many past lives, will have many more. The ball just keeps on a'rollin.

Quote from: Nero on April 24, 2009, 03:48:59 PM
I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if some of my more weirder hang ups and phobias are from a past life. However, I'm not exactly comfortable with the idea of having a past I don't know about.

Then I think about my fear of motion
Which I never could explain
Some other fool across the ocean years ago
Must have crashed his little airplane
--Indigo Girls, "Galileo"

Did we hide in the Dark Ages from a vengeful God above
Were our names too unfamiliar to ever speak of love
Did I cling to every moment with you, every parting glance
An accidental touch, did we ever take the chance
For more?
I know I've loved you before
--Melissa Etheridge, "I've Loved You Before"

I honestly don't know, and I'm skeptical of all such claims (even though I'm a huge Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge fan). I am a theist (the opposite of atheist) and I pray a lot, but when it comes to the afterlife I'm just a big ol' agnostic.

My girlfriend Starr and I listen to Melissa singing "I've Loved You Before" and imagine we could have been lovers in a past life as we cling to every moment with each other. It's so deeply romantic... but who really knows...

Quote from: Natasha on April 25, 2009, 08:47:33 AM
no. there's no evidence to suggest it.  in fact, the human desire to believe in reincarnation seems to be another aspect of the desire for there to be something more or something more meaningful than a human life. we were all marie antoinette in a past life, and we'll all be dancing with "jesus" (unless we're a member of a religion that forbids dancing) in the hereafter.

just because people like the idea doesn't make it true. indeed, often liking an idea means you should approach it with extra scrutiny.

You act like reincarnation is most certainly a good thing. In many (if not most) belief systems with reincarnation as a tenet, Reincarnation is a bad thing. You don't want it. It's a horrible and terrifying thing. Do those people believe it because they like it? I don't think so.
Even if you try and argue that it's gives meaning... Does it have a meaning? Not necessarily. Such a "system" could just be "how things are". It could just be the way the universe happens to work. It doesn't have to have an inherent meaning. Reincarnation adds no meaning in and of itself. In fact, it only raises further issues of meaning. Such issues are dealt with by attaching things too it like Karmic associations or that it is a mechanism by which were are imprisoned in the physical world. Without those explanations reincarnation is at best a novelty, at worst an example of a meaningless universe. I don't think it's fair to say that people only believe in it because they want to. Maybe some people, but it's not so simple.

Quote from: imaz on April 25, 2009, 03:52:28 AM
Which is one of the prime reasons I don't believe in it.

The concept of original sin and that paying for what one did in a past life is really distasteful... Thank God we have none of that in Islam :)

I'm a Christian Scientist, and unlike most Christian religions, we don't believe in original sin, either, since we are convinced that God is Love.  :)

Quote from: tekla on April 24, 2009, 09:26:15 PM
Of course classic theories about reincarnation would say that the reason your life sucks now is that you are paying for the damage you did before.

I guess that doesn't say anything will be good in my next life either. I was rather hoping this would be it.

Here at another thread, I also mentioned my past lives: https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,22314.msg170939.html#msg170939 (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,22314.msg170939.html#msg170939)

And Ian Stevenson:

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/11/18/28847.html (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/11/18/28847.html)

"Moreover, the author also pointed out the four unique characteristics of children who can remember their previous lives and the special phenomena that frequently accompany the birthmark and congenital defects. Some phenomena are regarded as common sense by reincarnation researchers, yet are regarded as unsolvable mysteries by modern scientists. These include phobias, strange habits, transsexual inclination, irrational loves or hates, as well as a child's unique behavior during play. "

http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/hive/Reincarn.htm (http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/hive/Reincarn.htm)

Barbie~~

No, I do not.