--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > " I'm always amused by the New Age tendency to claim > > that they were *famous* people in the past. The Rama > > guy claimed he was Cardinal Richilieu; I can't see > > that *at all*. And Shirley MacLaine's been any > > *number* of famous people. Wasn't anyone ever the > > scullery maids and the cooks and the janitors? :-)" > > Not to mention the "math" problem that there are so many > more people alive today than any time in history.
Er, what you'd want to compare is the number of people alive today with the total number of people who have ever lived (including in prehistoric times), not with the population at any particular time in history. <snip> > There is a great story about Bridy Murphy who had gone > to a world's fair and seen a detailed medieval village in > miniature as a child. Years later she remembered details > about her "past" life in those times it was taken as proof > of the theory until the true nature of her "memories" were > uncovered. The Bridey Murphy past life wasn't in medieval times but in 19th century Ireland. I believe you've got her confused with somebody else. The Bridey Murphy case, as it happens, was purportedly debunked as well by "experts," but subsequent detailed examination of the "debunking" has revealed that it wasn't anywhere near as thorough and definitive as claimed. See this chapter in the book by C.J. Ducasse, "A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life After Death," available on the Web at: http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/books/ducasse/critical/25.htm http://tinyurl.com/3544ek Ducasse's summary of his findings on the Bridey Murphy case is that the woman's recollections under hypnosis of her life as Bridey Murphy do not constitute proof, but that they have not been disproved either. (He also suggests that, rather than specific memories of a past life, the information the woman supposedly "remembered" may actually have been a matter of paranormal knowledge of these facts. So he isn't a True Believer in reincarnation per se by any means.) Commenting on the supposed debunking, Ducasse makes an interesting observation: "As repeatedly has been pointed out in earlier chapters, the temptations to wishful thinking and to emotionally biassed [sic] conclusions are even greater on the side of the entrenched religious orthodoxy of the time and place concerned, or on the side of the vested 'scientific commonsense of the epoch,' than on the side of the protagonists of prima facie paradoxical views."
