--- In [email protected], wrote: > > > Re [empty's statement that]: "The residual effect was that I taught myself how to conduct my conscious mind to see into past lives.": > > Look - if you and others could really access past-life information you could tell the rest of us stuff that wouldn't otherwise be explicable. The fact that you can't demonstrate such knowledge shows that your supposed "recollection" is a construction. I mean, think about it: if you could tell us (say) the true identity of Jack the Ripper you would get the Nobel Prize for Physics for overturning the current scientific paradigm.
I think you're letting your Western sensibilities lead you astray. There *are* techniques for accessing memories of past lives, but don't confuse them with New Age Bullshit and I-Wish-I- Had-Been-Cleopatra-So-I'll-Claim-I-Was fantasies. Such real techniques tend to be taught only privately to students who can be trusted with them, and are usually preceded by a warning similar to "Whatever you find out is likely to be interesting, but essentially a waste of your time, because it's all about the past. It's what you do Here And Now that is important, and counts." I have been exposed to such teachings, but didn't pursue them because frankly I wasn't interested. My personal past-life recollections always "came upon me" rather than me search- ing for them, and they always "came" in such a spectacular fashion that it was difficult to confuse them with fantasies I made up or "wanted" to be true. (My flashbacks always happened during waking state, and involved actually *seeing* and *being part of the scene* from the past, not imagining it. As entertainment goes, they were just great. But as far as having any value, I think the jury is out on that. :-) As for the Jack The Ripper thang, how could anyone's past- life recollection shed any light on that unless they happened to be there, and in a position to have witnessed the events? > Did you ever come across people who said they were a different sex (gender) in a former life? What I *have* come across (mainly among the New Age (rhymes with 'sewage') is at least a dozen people who claim to have been Cleopatra or Napoleon or someone famous. One supposes they were "time sharing" these incarnations with each other. :-) Why doesn't anyone who claims to "remember" their past lives ever claim to have been one of the scullery maids or janitors? Howcum they're all famous? Can you say "self importance?" I think you can. :-)
