Find current affairs & prompts below.
Mary Lurancy Vennum. a thirteen year old girl, lived in
Watseka, Illinois in 1877. Following a fit, she woke up
claiming to be a neighbour’s dead daughter, Mary Roff.
For four months she literally became the dead girl before
reverting to her former self.
This is one of the most famous cases of reincarnation. Typical was Dorothy Eady, who became convinced she was an ancient Egyptian. She moved to Egypt to live the life of her previous incarnation in a small village until her death in 1981. Jenny Cockell from Northamtonshire had dreams from a child about ‘Mary’ who lived close to Dublin. In the late 1980s she located the woman, who had died in 1932, and met her children.
Reincarnation is the belief that people live many lives, the soul transferring to another upon death. Centred around eastern religions, the belief can be traced back to early tribal societies, who lived according to the cycles of nature.
This understanding of ‘cycles’ could lie at the heart of the belief, with everything in eastern religions being cyclical. Therefore it is obvious that such cycles would intrude upon beliefs in life after death.
Dr Ian Stevenson researched many eastern cases from the 1960s onwards. Typical of such cases is Kumari Shanti Devi, born in Delhi in 1926.As a girl she claimed to be the wife of Kedar Nath Chaubey, a hundred miles away. Taken to his village, she had accurate information about this previous life.
Evidence of reincarnation can come in two forms. Typically, as seen, a child can awake and seem to have knowledge of a previous life. Often the facts are confirmed, but could similarly arise from hearing of a dead person and taking the facts into the mind.
The second form is evidence grasped from past life regression during hypnosis. However, it is often the case that such previous lives are only gained when hypnotized by a therapist who believes in the phenomenon. Has he transferred the belief on?
One explanation for the correct information that can be given is cryptomnesia. This is the ability of the mind to remember facts from films, books, etc, that you seem to have ‘forgotten.’ When remembered, they ally themselves to a believed previous life.
A typical case is that of Jane Evans who, in the 1970s, recounted six previous lives. One was of Livonia from York when the future Constantine the Great lived there. The accurate facts were eventually traced to a novel by Louis de Wohl.
A related phenomenon to supposed reincarnation could be multiple personality. Here, a person’s mind fragments into many different characters which take it in turn to take over the body. A combination of this and cryptomnesia could account for much of what we think of as reincarnation.
First posted: Dec 08. I’ve done two deeper studies on the subject:
Life Before This
BRIT NEWS: So now some candidates
for Speaker face expenses fiasco. Oh, what
have you done to a proud institution you foolish
excuses for Parliamentarians!
GREEN NEWS: Some Big Biz has plans to power Europe from
clean African energy. Seems a good idea, but it does, of
course, guarantee Big Biz stays big.
TV WATCH: I’m fed up of the new ‘family’ on TV,
all PC, never angry, speak to kids like
adults, health freaks. Don’t lie.
They don’t exist!
Carry On Tuesday
Heads or Tails
Poetry Train
FOOLISH
Fiction: Foolish! You would have understood me, had you waited;
given it time – worked it out. But no, you had to go your own way;
express your individuality; do your own thing. Never mind all the
warnings. Never mind the idea that there was more to life than you.
You became the centre of your ‘self’, and that was that. And I was
forgotten, ridiculed – killed off! You had to go your own way. Well, it
has an inevitable outcome – you’ll see that it’s true. Then you’ll want
me back, to care, to cherish you, to be with you. Yes, soon you’ll
need religion once more.
SUMMER YOUTH
Kick the ball, shatter glass,
Didn’t mean to do it, since you asked;
Such an affront, another fight,
Now, now! No need to bite;
A bit of fun, winding people up,
Copper! Thwack! I’ve been cuffed;
Today, I suppose this will all be crime,
In latter days, it was fine
© Anthony North, June 2009
DR ILLYA NESS ON DREAMS
Here, stated briefly, is my basic theory of ghosts. The world is how it is, but how we view it is dependent upon our inner thought patterns. Hence, what we actually ‘see’ in the world is not necessarily what it is really like.
Typical is feeling tired or emotional. At such times our attention on the world lessens, and seeing the mind continues to work, then it fills in the gaps, thus making up its own mind as to what’s out there.
This applies across the world of ghostly experience. 
The aircraft crashed into the field before my eyes. I’d been lazily strolling down a country lane when the jet fighter thundered overhead. And a couple of seconds later I saw the disaster.
I don’t know, but chances were high. And there was little doubt I had had a premonition of disaster. Now, I won’t tell you the type of aircraft, or when it happened.
Knowledge intuited unconsciously can easily produce a premonition.