A hairpin and a bathtub.

Day after day I have to bear superficial analyses and preconceived notions from newbies or, even worse, people without past life memories. I’ve talked about the frustration this causes me at great length, so there is no need to rub more salt in the wound. Then, one day comes when, unexpectedly, a new forum member posts something related to his own research that makes me remember an old memory. In this case, a blurred image with deep emotions that left me with some doubts. Well, not real doubts, it’s hard to have doubts at this point of the game, so I’ll just say “memories I left unverified”, but for no special reason, apart from laziness or other things keeping me busy.

I think I’ve talked about that image here before, though I’m not sure of the details I gave. But the scene is clear in my mind: I am in a bathtub, naked. It doesn’t look like a bathtub I’ve ever known in this life. It’s in the middle of the bathroom, it’s white with curves. We don’t have taps, I think we have a jar to fill it. I see the water all around me. I’m holding a sharp hairpin on my right hand, not too long. I use it to inflict some wounds on my left forearm. I see the drops of blood falling down into the water and dissolving, just like my tears. I’m married but my life has become a nightmare. I’m so very young, but I feel so alone and desperate. I feel like dying, with those little bleedings in the white of my eyes and the bruises all over my body.

Back in the waking state, you start to analyze everything with logic and distance. You start to wonder if that was possible or if you are just “fantasizing”, as many of those people who don’t have memories of their own often think. You forget about the emotions, the circumstances you were in, your desires to die. You come convinced that validating a memory is proof of something, if not for you, for everyone else. I’ve never seen a hairpin like that in my whole life, and the ones I have no way could slit anyone’s veins or make deep wounds on the skin. So, you doubt you could have done that in the past, and you doubt your sanity. You don’t give importance to the feel of the instrument in your hand in that memory, the way you gripped it hard with your fingers, with all the tension, pain, rage and hate you were feeling at that moment. It seems the look of it is more important to corroborate that memory and show the world you are not crazy and you really lived that. 

The thing is that months pass, and someone comes and casually talks about hat pins that were used in the Victorian era. You look at them and realize they are really sharp, so much that they were thought to be a good weapon. The truth is it doesn’t matter at all, but you suddenly realize your memory is more likely to be true now: hairpin or hat pin, you did hold that instrument in your hand while you were weeping in a bathtub, feeling like shit, and seriously considering suicide. You were having a quiet day at home, and suddenly such a silly finding, such a small verification, brings tears to your eyes and makes you remember the damned bathtub where you could have lost your life.

I’m not sure which my real intentions were when I hurt myself. Possibly not suicide, even though I did feel I wanted to die. Maybe it was the opposite: I wanted to feel the pain, I wanted to feel alive, as for me living was like being dead. Maybe I thought that’s what I deserved anyway. Probably that’s what my husband had forced me to believe, as I wasn’t the loving wife he wanted me to be.

While I’m thinking about those memories, I also realized a couple of days ago I fell down while I was skating in real life. I could have broken a bone. Luckily, I didn’t, but the following day I was indeed feeling as if someone had beaten me up. Was that the same feeling, the same ache I had when I was in that bathtub, and is that the reason I’m recalling those events?  

If you are unlucky enough, you’ll go to the internet and find some outsiders talking about past life memories, wondering if people just fantasize about it, or discussing the possibility alleged past life memories are just “symbolic stories our mind creates in response to our psychological issues”.

I wonder what kind of symbolism lies on wanting to slit your veins with a hat pin to stop so much suffering and bring oblivion to yourself.

THEN is when you want to cry your heart out.   

Related posts:

Hopeless.

Soul-killing.

  

Reincarnation & past life songs.

It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to do something like this, and now that we’re on a Sunday, I’m not in the mood for a serious talk about anything, and I feel I’ve already turned the page concerning my latest posts, probably today is a good day to start.

Music is one of the greatest triggers to remember past lives. Sometimes it’s the music itself the one that brings you back straight to the past: it can be a military march, the sound of drums, a popular song, an opera. Other times it’s the emotions that music and lyrics cause in you. In my case, old music usually provokes me bad feelings: for example, opera always makes me nervous, I’ve hated it ever since I can remember. I suspect this comes from my WWII life. I remember a gramophone my boss had in the apartment where I worked as a housemaid, though I think the bad feelings come because that kind of music was quite common in that era and I don’t like to remember. But for me, the greatest triggers have been from modern songs with specific lyrics that bring past life emotions. Before I started to remember past lives, I already knew the band Arena and I had even attended a live concert, but I wasn’t a big fan. Some years later I began to delve into their music and discovered a jewel. I regretted I had not done so earlier. Coincidentally, when this happened, I was having my first past life memories, and their music has closely accompanied me ever since. Sometimes the synchronicities have been even a bit weird. For instance, one of his latest songs included a mention to Pandoras’s Box, the title of my reincarnation book. I just love them, because they talk a lot about death... and often you would say they also talk about reincarnation.

Today’s song reflects perfectly the stage I’m in regarding my past life journey. It feels like I’m leaving behind a wonderful introspection time where I discovered the real nature of human beings. This means I had to get through a lot of pain and darkness in my own past lives, things that are not easy to acknowledge and accept. But at the end you realize it was worth the effort. Pieces of the song remind me of certain past life events, other pieces make me picture myself exactly like they describe: someone who has gone a long and dark path and still feels so astounded by everything he encountered in that path.

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

Something now, is something that will always be

           This is far beyond some earthbound human plan

    In this universe we’re merely specks of sand

Nothing more than man

Tell me - How did it come to this?

What we do, may light an unexpected fuse

Every left or right may lead to consequences

If the butterfly should flap its wings

If an angel sings

Tell me - How did it come to this?

Tell me - How did it come to this?

Once a child, I tried to hold eternity

Take a leap of faith and never fear the fall

But as I floated to those distant shores

I would hit the wall

How could I believe...

There was something on the other side of it all

More than any man could truly understand

More than I could comprehend

So how did it come to this?

Honestly, I never thought I’d seek adventure in my life

Never thought that I would walk so dark a road

In this universe we’re merely specks of sand

Nothing more than man

Honestly, I never thought I’d reach such judgement in my life

never thought that I would fall upon this road

And if the butterfly should flap its wings

If an angel sings

So how did it come to this?

How did it come to this? 

I always say one thing is believing in reincarnation, and a very different thing is remembering past lives and be certain of the reality of reincarnation. It doesn’t matter how many times you say this, someone who doesn’t have the same experience won’t ever understand. This verse always makes me think about this transcendental question:  

How could I believe...

There was something on the other side of it all

More than any man could truly understand

More than I could comprehend

Once you remember and verify your own past lives, you pass through this stage of “bewilderment”, when you think: “Wow, so... is reincarnation true?” You also understand how past lives can affect you and others, how your decisions are all that matters in this game. You understand (at least you try, and probably are closer than others to do so) what life really is.   

Never thought that I would walk so dark a road

This sentence here always reminds me of my shadow, how I could have never imagined all the things I did in my past. It’s one of those things about which I often have to remain silent, as nearly no one would understand. Newbies and skeptics love to theorize about the possibility many people just “imagine” their past lives, or it’s all wishful thinking. Yes. It would seem many of us love to relive again and again how we were imprisoned and hanged in our past lives, or how our loved ones were murdered right before our eyes. And yet, I’m pretty sure that without those dark events happening in our lives, we wouldn’t come to appreciate peace, justice, love or other beautiful things on Earth.

So, how did it come to this?

This is quite similar to one question I always ask myself and would like to ask many people I’ve met along my journey: What were you thinking? Life is complicated. You can set off with best intentions, you can even think you’re doing the right things or being as fair as possible, but sometimes things just turn wrong at some point. And though people in general always tend to blame others and find lots of excuses for their doings, the truth is that in most cases, our actions are the only ones to blame. The good news is we always have a second chance (and many more).

Related posts:
Music and resonance.
Suicide (The Great Escape).

Signs of narrow-mindedness and my lack of patience.

Yes, I acknowledge I am guilty of this situation. One of my greatest defects is that I always have hope in people. I tend to think I am the one that is wrong. But sometimes life brings you a surprise.

I really thought it was a good idea to take the course “Signs of Reincarnation” offered by James Matlock in the Facebook group of the same name. I have already talked about him in this blog, though I didn’t give his name back then. Now I do. Well, the reason to take the course was mainly that I always want to know more. I read everything I can about the subject, no matter the source. I thought someone who supposedly has been researching reincarnation for decades could show me something I don’t know. I didn’t see it was a course for newbies anywhere, I thought it was a place to discuss reincarnation in a serious and rational way. How could I imagine I would only find they are making reincarnation a pseudoscience?

And no, it wasn’t planned at all. I am not a troll. I was ready to listen and share my own experience, one I consider quite exceptional. I respect the opinions and experiences of others. But I admit there are a few things I can’t stand: prejudice, preconceptions, rigidity, ignorance, arrogance, and people believing someone is more knowledgeable than you just because he’s older or has published some papers that don’t contribute anything new to the scene. Maybe I am always facing the same issue: I hate sheep-like behavior.  

I know. It is my fault. I should have known better: I have been in that Facebook group for over a year now, and it easy to see where the weaknesses lie. It is a place where only the works of Ian Stevenson matter. The rest is considered little more than rubbish. I thought it was a scientific group. Indeed: they are a bunch of old orthodox “scientists” who will never admit they might be wrong. They won’t look any further than their own navels. It is O.K., you can agree more or less with authors like Michael Newton, but you just can’t ignore him, especially when you are speaking of children’s memories of the time between lives and NDE’s. You can’t throw so much work done with regression techniques to the bin just because, according to Stevenson’s work, those memories are hard to verify (point that, simply, is not true). You just can’t talk as if the only truth is in the statistics obtained through his research. In sum, you just can’t watch the whole world from the high pedestal of your position, degrading the work of many other researches and experiencers who have a different opinion.   

I tried to make a few observations about how biased I felt Matlock’s conclusions were. It is just unbelievable how they talk about the time between incarnations as if it was edged in stone. They give statistics as if they were ultimate facts, not even considering the likely possibility that someone doesn’t remember a life in-between. They never cease to recite over and over again that most children forget when they grow older, without even considering the accounts of adults who claim they already had signs during childhood. Can we know for certain, when most people are not even aware of those signs of reincarnation or discard past life dreams thinking they are just fantasy? It is just funny to see how many statistics are done when you don’t have enough data or the sample is limited to a couple of countries. Yes, it is something, but you just can’t assume you know or even understand how reincarnation works, especially when you don’t have past life memories of your own.

It is so, so funny, to see people judging the quality of past life memories when they don’t even know how they feel, when they don’t even know the difference between flashes in the waking state and visions in the meditative state. Or when they don’t even know what a self-regression is. I explained. I told them about the past lives I remember and how I verified some of them. And were they interested in hearing more? No, the “researcher” seemed only interested in pointing out my misunderstandings, and students only in fighting with poor arguments when I said the belief in karma is inversely proportional to the number of past lives you remember and how "evil" you were in them. They doubt my statements, but they don’t doubt silly statistics done mostly in resolved children’s cases. I asked how can you determine if an adult memory is impoverished or contains distortions in relation to children’s memories, when most of the times those memories are unverifiable. Is it every event of a person’s life recorded in history? According to certain people, yes, and if it doesn’t and you can’t verify it, your memory is wrong. Great. And as you can’t verify it, all your “case” is rubbish and they won’t even bother to ask you about your story. And the worst of it all is they call themselves researchers.

I admit I lack patience these days. Yes, I have come too far in my journey. I have been investigating phenomena related to the survival of consciousness since I was 12. In the last four years I have had intense and personal experience equivalent to several decades of introspection work an average person could have done. The articles in the course were nothing new for me, with a few exceptions about possession cases. The scientific knowledge of the lecturer is conspicuous of its absence, clinging to old terms like unconscious mind or stream of consciousness as if you are saying something with that. Instead of clarifying things, he only brings more confusion talking of juridical karma and dispositional karma. The word karma should be the one to throw into the garbage, not adults’ memories or regression techniques. Quite fed up, I decided to leave.

What a surprise, the next morning I read a new article from the course, and here is what researcher Scott Drogo said in 1991:

“This paper has focused on types of reincarnation experiences usually bypassed by researchers. As already pointed out, traditional reincarnational research within parapsychology has centred on the reports of children who exhibit generally cohesive recollections of their (alleged) previous experiences. To some extent, the successful results of that research have created a bias in some investigators to play down competing research paradigms. A student of contemporary reincarnation research [James Matlock] has stated that ‘arguably, the only evidence for reincarnation worth considering today is that advanced by Ian Stevenson’, which focuses on childhood cases —the reason being the thoroughness of the psychiatrist’s case studies.”

State of Consciousness Factors in Reincarnation Cases.

Dear me! I am not the only one who has noticed... I hardly could believe my eyes. But, here we are, over 25 years later, and the bias is still there. If things haven’t changed, I don’t think they will ever change. What am I doing wasting my time, trying to be heard and bring some sense to current reincarnation research? Adults are mostly ridiculed or aren’t paid enough attention, just because, they say, there are frauds and cryptomnesia is harder to rule out, or because their memories are “impoverished” and can’t be easily verified. I just wonder where we would be if that same reasoning had been applied to NDE research, where their accounts can hardly be verified, unless they had an OBE and could see what was happening in the operation room or the hospital. 

Reincarnation “academic” researchers, as they call themselves, think they are doing a great job, and I only see what they are doing is closer to pseudoscience. Coincidentally, a member of my forum posted an article about it, and many of the symptoms were there. Not that I hadn’t seen them before, but this was a better confirmation. We are in the initial stages of the research. The first step in the scientific method is OBSERVATION, so you just can’t afford to dismiss those accounts you don’t like, for whatever reason. A biased sampling will only take you to a biased result. I tried to explain this too. Of course, I was utterly ignored.

At this point, I thought it was hopeless to keep trying. What was I doing there, involved in the same old silly discussions I have with newbies day after day, like “I’m afraid reincarnation would mean the loss of your individuality”, or the tiring “I can’t imagine a world where bad actions are not compensated in the next lives”? I offer my experience, my knowledge, my techniques. It is all in my book. But did they bother to ask? Not a single question (except someone who showed her own mental blocks to try self-hypnosis).

I can’t get over my amazement.

I think it is time to move on. Something I should have done a while ago. 

Please God save us all and send us new reincarnation researchers. Not academic ones. I want people who know what they are doing and have direct experience. God please.