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Storms wrote:I guess the nature of hypnosis would stick one in another's fantasy.
But if you meant more "stuck in" than "stuck into", that's always a fun thought. There's the idea that PKD played with, that the only Christians that were to ever have eternal life were the earliest Christians, and religion there after served solely to make sure there would always be recipient bodies for the first followers to usurp and live through.
I think to imagine yourself as a component of someone else's mind is a bit unpleasant, but in the same vein, I've whimsically wondered what if we are all sentient eternal beings that signed into a massive, realistic simulation of early life on earth? Kind of like a Total Recall plot applied to gods.
That holds less water than unicorns, I know. But regardless of your take on it, whether your the dreamer or the dream, it's probably best to be nice to those around us.
KIY wrote:I have my doubts about reincarnation. If the material universe arises from consciousness, it would seem likely. If consciousness arises from the material universe, it would be unlikely. If the more "Christian" view of consciousness/the soul and the material universe are two separate things (i.e. the soul is inserted into a material body), it is also a possibility. Currently, the evidence seems to favor consciousness arising from matter, at least as far as I can tell.
Hypnosis has been used for past life regression (as well as future life progression.) Attempts to scientifically prove or disprove the reality of such practices has met with very confusing and contradictory results (see Deborah Blum's "Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death" for a well written account of such studies by some of the brightest minds of the late 1800s.)
Actually, what I find more interesting than past life regression is future life projection, as discussed in Michael Talbot's "The Holographic Universe." A study was done in Europe about this phenomena and found future lives could be categorized into one of four groups: three dystopias and a "new age utopia." The fact that the results fell into four categories is interesting whether or not they are real projections of the future, and I would like to know if the study has ever been duplicated in a distinctly non-Western culture, and what the results were. (If, for example, it was repeated with some stone age tribe in the Amazon, and the results were the same-- well, maybe they ARE projections of actual futures. If not, then something else is going on-- maybe they were recitations of current science fiction stories.)
Michael Talbot also discussions life after death experiences in which people met glowing beings, people planned future lives, and discussed the plans of their current one, etc. Unfortunately, Mr. Talbot died shortly after the book was released, so it is impossible to discuss it with him, since it is nearly two decades old and an update would be nice.
I've never tried past life regression and am not entirely certain I want to know what I've been in the past (if anything, that is.) I have suspicions which are best left unconfirmed.
KIY wrote:From what I gathered, it was more that each individual is an immortal consciousness going through the experience of various lives, and for each life there is a rough outline-- although not all of the experiences during the lifetime are predetermined (or can be changed.)
I'm not at all certain how much, if any, of the theory I believe. The information was gathered via hypnosis, which means that the people may have been giving the information which they felt they were expected to give. I find it an interesting idea to play with. (I don't really see how it could be confirmed or disproved, at least while still remaining alive.)
I would find a study such as I described in the last post-- redoing the future life progression study with some very different cultures-- interesting. If the results turn out similar or the same as the European study, that could be evidence supporting the immortal consciousness going through preplanned experiences idea.
Although most religions have an afterlife of one sort or another, there is the distinct possibility that those arise from the anxiety people as a whole feel at the concept of non-existence-- rather like the anxiety I had as a small child when I learned that there had been a time when I hadn't existed (i.e. before I was born) and spontaneously came up with the idea I had always been around, but I had just been too small to see. (I guess I figured that since I could remember being "littler" maybe I had always been growing-- or something like that.)
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