Life After Death and Before Birth! Possible?

BrainScience: I have been interested in writing this for some time.We have had blogs related to the energy field leaving the body at death but we have not speculated as to where it goes. Father Joel used to tell me there were certain mysteries about life and religion that we were just not destined to know. Having said that maybe this is one that we should not know about. But it doesn't hurt to try! This blog is about that trying. A couple of weeks ago I bought one of those Time Magazine periodicals Titled "Heaven And The After Life".Subtitle "What Awaits Us?" In the periodical are some good topics such as religion, the Arts, Heaven on Earth. In my opinion it is a good read with the exception of the last topic roughly titled "Heaven on Earth". The one topis though, that interested me was the subtopic on "The Sciences". This blog is based on that topic and research being done at the University of Virginia Medical School Division of Perceptual Studies. That section of the Time publication refers to life at or near death and the suspected after life. This publication discusses two scenarios of near death experiences and reincarnation. (I know we are on weak ground here but let's look at it anyway.) We will do reincarnation first,in this blog, and near death experiences in the another.

Let us initially talk about the whole idea of something after death via Andrew Newberg a neuroscientist from Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital. He believes That the brain changes the sympathetic systems and parasympathetic systems from working against each other to working with each other. He has a big long explanation that this change in the brain brain function creates a different mind set at death. Thus separating the mind from the brain.He also contends that research indicates this move changes our perception of death. He contends that death is not perceived as a negative as with normal flight or fright reaction. This separation of the mind and body thus creates a sense of well being and even a warm light. After the warm light there is some perception of of being outside oneself. This perception is supported by countless studies of near death experiences. He submits and admits that as a scenario, he is guessing, but bases his theory on considerable empirical data.

Dr. Ian Stephenson, who was chairman of the department of psychology and neurology at the University of Virginia., was the first scientist to creditably study the idea of reincarnation. He studied over 3,00 cases. His studies began in 1961. He continued to study and validate the phenomenon until his death in 2007. He studied over 3,000 cases.

Emily Williams Kelly of the "Division of Perceptual Studies", University of Virginia School of Medicine has made her life's research studying how this could happen. She has followed the work of Dr. Stephenson. Dr. Kelly concentrated on the separation and interface between the brain and the mind. She has made her life's work validating that the conscious exists even after death. Kelly co authored a landmark book "Irreducible Mind: toward a Psychology for the 21st Century". It was a landmark book because of the regor associated with the research. The book essentially rebuked the idea that all aspects of the human mind and consciousness are generated by processes occurring within brains. She essentially concluded that consciousness is separate from the brain and is not dependent on the brain..

Dr. Jim Tucker. another researchers following from Stevenson, presents the possibility that after death, that consciousness may move to another body...reincarnation. Both Stevenson and Tucker purposely limited their study to children. We are therefore limiting our discussion to reincarnation effects in children. There have been Netflix, CNN and other programs that detail Dr. Ian Stevenson's work and most notably with DR. Jim Tucker, also of University of Virginia. they have meticulously documented past life memories of children. Stevenson alone has investigated over 3,000 cases. In total researchers have been studyiing children remembering past life experiences for over 50 years. In all of these cases children have detailed memories of legitimate past life memories.

Interestingly, there appears to be some commonality within these studies: Some are listed below:

1. The comments/memories relayed to researchers from children contain details that more likely can be verified and traced back to a deceased person. These children under study can describe a recent other life, many of them giving enough detail so that one particular deceased individual has been identified thus verifying the child's memory. Over 4,000 children displaying this phenomena have been studied and verified.

2. In most cases the evidence of a special child begins about two, when of course, they start talking. A number of these special children have birth defects corresponding to wounds on the body of the previous personality. In 70% of the cases studied the children were remembering deaths of unnatural causes. In some cases the child indicates their parent is not their real parent.

3. Overwhelmingly, these special children's memory fades as they grow older. Usually the memories fadeaway by age 6 or 7.

4. Shockingly, Children are remembering a person who died, on average, 15 months before they were born. In a majority of cases the deceased died of some traumatic occurrence.

As you would expect there are a number of scientists that are critics of this research.However,there is an abundance now, of evidence to support this idea of a before life. Several noted skeptics are now expressing some credibility toward this research. One noted critic physicist, Doris Kuhlman-Wilsdorf claims:'The statistical probability that reincarnation does in fact occur is so. overwhelmingly... that cumulatively the evidence is not inferior to that for most if not all branches of science."

Brain Facts:

• According to a Gallup pole, about 8 million americans claim have had near-death experience.

• 33% of Americans believe in reincarnation. According to surveys, women are almost 11/2 times more likely to hold this belief.

• 65% more people believe in reincarnation now compared to 20 years ago.

• 36% of Catholics believe in reincarnation.

• 70% of people who remember a past life, remember dying a violent or unnatural death.

• 58% of people who remember drowning in a past life have an extreme fear of water.

So What:

A Quote from Jim Tucker, probably the leading and most respected scientist on the phenomena of reincarnation. J

“I understand the leap it takes to conclude there is something beyond what we can see and touch,” says Tucker, who served as medical director of the University’s Child and Family Psychiatry Clinic for nearly a decade. “But there is this evidence here that needs to be accounted for, and when we look at these cases carefully, some sort of carry-over of memories often makes the most sense.”

Tucker details his argument that discoveries within quantum mechanics, the mind-bending science of how nature’s smallest particles behave, provide us clues to possibility of reincarnation.

“Quantum physics indicates that our physical world may grow out of our consciousness,” Tucker says. “That’s a view held not just by me, but by a number of physicists as well.”

Well this changes everything. In this theory consciousness doesn't grow out of the mind but the reverse that the mind grows out of consciousness. If that's the case then it is possible consciousness can go from one mind to another.

Personally, I can't quite go that far! I am intrigued though!

There was a guy I vaguely knew who, when he got drunk, would relive his other life as a pilot during World War Two. He would babel about specific conflicts in the air. He claimed that he was killed in that war. We all ,including me!, thought he was not only drunk but crazy! He was born in 1943! (The average median time between claimed death and rebirth in children is 15 months according to studies) That puts him into the possible 15 month range. Strange!

In addition,just as a side note, after I retired I worked as a consultant to the state of Hawaii. During one of my visits to one of the islands I suddenly perceived that I had been at this building before. I knew how it set in the mountain. What the front entrance was and that the floor was a marron tile. The building now is a extension campus for one of the community colleges. After asking about the building I learned that back in WWII the building was a hospital. I have had this recurring dream about that building and as a continuing dream a house on the side of a mountain with a front porch facing down the mountain to a road or street. These dreams occurred a lot more often when I was young. They are now fading. I was born in November 1944.

Dr. Stephenson himself stopped short of claiming that reincarnation was a verifiable fact of the universe. He simply said that if a person wanted to believe in reincarnation, there was evidence to support it.

What do you think? Is this just a bunch of bunk or is there something to it. Have you had any experiences like this? What year were you born?