Reincarnation

 
Reincarnation
	
	A weird idea of much interest is that of reincarnation.  What is
reincarnation?  Some say it's the fact that a person's soul lives without a
body and throughout the years possesses different bodies.  Is this true or is
reincarnation the result of a mentally unstable person's vivid imagination or
even the result of cryptomnesia, when a person takes something they have
heard or seen, forgets about ever hearing or seeing it and then remembers the
event(s) as happening in another life.  These three hypothesizes each seem
plausible in there own right.  With the help of the SEARCH method it will be
shown which hypothesis fits best.
	Hypothesis 1:  When a person dies the soul undergoes a process called
reincarnation, in which  the soul lives another life in the future.
	The evidence I have to back up this particular claim is that of a story I
read in People magazine awhile back.  In this story a woman, who goes by
the name of Jenny Cockell, claims to have experienced reincarnation.  She
claims she was once a woman, who went by the name of Marry Sutton, who
died 21 years before Jenny's own birth.  Jenny believes this because of
dreams she has had since the age of three.  These dreams were unlike
ordinary dreams in how vivid and real they seemed.  In the dreams Jenny saw
herself in another time and place.  She saw herself as a young mother living
in a small cottage somewhere in Ireland.  In one dream particularly Jenny saw
herself with a terrible fever on her own deathbed, terrified of what was to
become of her children.  One day Jenny decided to find out what had become
of these children.  So Jenny went to Ireland and while looking at a  map of
Ireland she sensed that Mary had lived in the small town of Malahide.  Then
she checked local church records for any mothers of eight named Mary that
had gone there.  Since from her dreams Jenny recalled there being eight
children and the only name she could remember from the dreams was Mary. 
Sure enough Jenny found a Mary Sutton had lived and died in Malahide. 
Mary's children had been scattered among family members and orphanages. 
Then through much search and hard work to find these children Jenny
eventually found all of Mary's children.  Before Jenny met with any of the
children she and the children both agreed to allow a BBC researcher to test
Jenny's memories of Mary and Mary's children  The tests resulted in a 98
percent agreement.  Jenny knew what pictures were on the walls of the
Sutton home, other objects in the house, and even how the house was built. 
This evidence further backed up the fact of Mary Sutton being reincarnated
through Jenny Cockell.  As of today there has been no new evidence found to
discredit the fact that Jenny has experienced reincarnation.
	The hypothesis will be examined using the five criteria of adequacy.
(1)Testability.  This hypothesis is testable.  As in the case about Jenny
Cockell.  Jenny was tested to see if what she "remembered" matched that of
Mary Sutton's life.  (2)Fruitfulness.  This hypothesis is fruitful.  It can be
observed that a person who has experienced reincarnation can tell truthful
information of the person they once were.  (3)Scope.  The hypothesis has a
small scope, in that it only pertains to the person relaying information about
their past life.  (4)Simplicity.  This hypothesis is not simple.  A person has to
presume that the soul lives without the body and can live for an
immeasurable time.  (5)Conservation.  The hypothesis is not consistent with
well-founded beliefs.  Many people believe that the soul goes to heaven or
hell after death and many believe that the soul ends along with the body at
death.
	Hypothesis 2:  Some people think they have experienced reincarnation,
but in fact these such people are mentally insane.
	The evidence used to back this hypothesis is the common knowledge
that insane people create elaborate stories.  Some of these stories are that of
the insane person in question having lived a previous life.  Insane people have
the tendency to think they lived a past life of some famous personality. 
These facts are taken from various books, magazines, and movies.
	This hypothesis will also be evaluated using the five criteria of
adequacy.  (1)Testability.  This hypothesis is testable by means of testing the
individual in question with various test of sanity.  (2)Fruitfulness.  The
hypothesis is fruitful.  It can be observed if the person in question is insane or
not.  (3)Scope.  This hypothesis has a large scope.  If a person is mentally
insane other lies are usually told and many other things can be observed. 
(4)Simplicity.  The hypothesis is simple in the fact that some people are
known to be mentally insane and create stories of having past lives. 
(5)Conservation.  The hypothesis is consistent with well-founded beliefs.  As
said before it is known people are mentally insane and that they create stories
of past lives.
	Hypothesis 3:  Some people think they have experienced reincarnation,
but in fact they are experiencing cryptomnesia.  
	Cryptomnesia is the result of thoughts or ideas seeming new to
memory when in fact they are memories that have been forgotten.  The
evidence for this hypothesis is taken from the book, "How to Think About
Weird Things".  This book contains a story of a woman from Chicago, who
goes by the name of Virginia Tighe, who claims have experienced
reincarnation.  She clams to be the reincarnation of a woman from Ireland,
who went by the name of  Bridey Murphy.  William J. Barker, a newsman
for the Denver Post, investigated Virginia's claim.  He found no correlation
between what Virginia claimed and the truth.  Then the truth of this
"reincarnation" was found.  As a teenager Virginia's one neighbor,  an Irish
woman named Mrs. Anthony Corkell, used to tell Virginia tales of the old
country.  Bridie Murphy was Mrs. Corkell's maiden name.  In addition to
this, Virginia had memorized several Irish monologues as part of being in
high school drama club.  Lastly, Virginia had  more than likely heard stories
about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition from her neighbors and
friends.  In this exposition a life-size Irish Village was constructed in
Chicago , Virginia's home town.  All these things Virginia experienced but
had forgotten.  Then at some point she recalled some of the information and
interpreted it as being from a past life, a classic case of cryptomnesia.         
	To see how good this particular hypothesis is it will be evaluated using
the five criteria of adequacy.  (1)Testability.  This hypothesis is testable.  In
the story of Virginia Tighe a newsman tested Virginia's claim of
reincarnation and found it false.  Then Virginia's background was checked
and the truth of her "reincarnation" was found.  (2)Fruitfulness  The
hypothesis is fruitful.  Cryptomnesia is observable in that many people
claiming to have experienced reincarnation are wrong in many of the facts
they relay.  (3)Scope.  The hypothesis has a small scope.  Cryptomnesia only
explains that what was thought was reincarnation was really just forgotten
facts.  (4)Simplicity.  The hypothesis is simple in the fact that it is known that
some people experience cryptomnesia and claim they have experienced
reincarnation.  (5)Conservation.  The hypothesis is consistent with
well-founded beliefs.  As previously said people are known to experience
cryptomnesia and claim they have experienced reincarnation.
	Of the three hypothesizes the third and final one seems the best.  This
conclusion also takes into account that almost every case of reincarnation has
been proven to be the work of cryptomnesia.  It is also true that insane people
may think they were reincarnated, but these cases represent a small part of
those that claim to have experienced reincarnation.  There is also that case of
Jenny Cockell which seems to prove that reincarnation exists.  That may be
true but these cases are too small to warrant the conclusion.  I am not trying
to say any of these hypothesizes are right and the others wrong.  I am only
stating from my research and the available data that my hypothesis on
cryptomnesia seems best. 
	

 


























Wyszukiwarka

Podobne podstrony:
Reincarnation 2
How We Remember Our Past Lives and Other Essays on Reincarnation by C Jinarajadasa
Ennio Morricone A Mozat Reincarnated(1)(1)
WilliamWalkerAtkinson ReincarnationAndTheLawOfKarma
WilliamWalkerAtkinson Reincarnation Law Of Karma ThoughtAudioTranscript
How We Remember Our Past Lives and Other Essays on Reincarnation by C Jinarajadasa