The Modern Prometheus

Confabulation:
A confabulation is a fantasy that has unconsciously replaced fact in
memory. A confabulation may be based partly on fact or be a complete
construction of the imagination.

The term is often used to describe the "memories" of people claiming
to have been abducted by aliens, as well as "false memories" induced
by therapists or interviewers, memories that often involve bizarre
notions of Satanic ritualistic sexual abuse of children.

One of the most popular beliefs in the Pagan community is that of
past lives. An understandable phenomenon when you take into
consideration the fact that many of our beliefs are based on ancient
times. The very idea of past lives gives a spiritual link to the era
and place our minds are most attracted to.

People will swear to the "memories" of a past life to the point of
defensiveness. As ridiculous as the notion is in the modern world
there are some who will turn quite violent to anyone who comes along
with a new version of the truth. There is no scientific evidence that
past life regression is anything beyond imagination. But then again
there is not any scientific evidence for a lot of things.

Technological progressions have enabled us to map the human brain in
ways never done before. And every day medicine and science prove or
disprove old theories. But only in the eyes that subscribe to them.
No matter what the records say. And Pagans are one of the last social
groups to conform to modern scientific explanations.

Our spiritual lives are based largely on mystery. There seems to be
an attractive power in "not knowing." Some say we practice the craft
of the wise while others prove it to be blissful ignorance.

Death and rebirth is a very romantic idea. And aside from a very
small percentage there is the same amount of matter and energy on the
earth as there was when it first formed. The only additives being
meteors and such. And also energy from the cosmos coming in and
bouncing off. The great galactic dance. And the losses are the small
amounts of matter that we send out in satellites of various designs.
Matter and energy are continually recycled on the earth. But when it
comes to life energy, does a soul have the capability of holding it's
form after the container breaks?

If you put water into a pitcher and break the pitcher the water
changes form but it is still water. It can evaporate and become
clouds but it is still water. Could our souls act in the same way
until they find a new container? And if they can are our thoughts and
memories carried with it?

A mysterious and enigmatic explanation for thoughts and memories that
don't seem to be from this life. And in the riddle of it is "magic."
Memories are electro-chemical reactions in the human brain. And we
have even named the various chemicals that create the effect. But if
we place the same chemicals in a beaker are we creating a laboratory
memory soup or just a beaker full of odd-named goo?

The human mind also has the ability to lose memories. Pieces and
fragments of information that we never really process are stored like
any other until there are enough of them to fit together like puzzle
pieces. It is like taking five film strips, cutting them up, and
piecing them back together. The movie plays but it does not make much
sense at all. And this process is one of the explanations for dreams.

A false memory is a memory which is a distortion of an actual
experience, or a confabulation of an imagined one. Many false
memories involve confusing or mixing fragments of memory events, some
of which may have happened at different times but which are
remembered as occurring together. Many false memories involve an
error in source memory. Some involve treating dreams as if they were
playbacks of real experiences. Still other false memories are
believed to be the result of the prodding, leading, and suggestions
of therapists and counselors. Finally, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has shown
not only that it is possible to implant false memories, but that it
is relatively easy to do so (Loftus, 1994).

This is one of the arguments against past life regression therapy.
And it ties in with the dream aspect I just explored.

Reincarnation is the belief that when one dies, one's body
decomposes, but one is reborn in another body. It is the belief that
one has lived before and will live again in another body after death.
The bodies one passes in and out of need not be human. One may have
been a Doberman in a past life, and one may be a mite or a carrot in
a future life. Some tribes avoid eating certain animals because they
believe that the souls of their ancestors dwell in those animals. A
man could even become his own daughter by dying before she is born
and then entering her body at birth.

The belief in past lives used to be mainly a belief in Eastern
religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but now is a central tenet
of such theories as dianetics and channeling. In those ancient
Eastern religions, reincarnation was not considered a good thing, but
a bad thing. To achieve the state of ultimate bliss (nirvana) is to
escape from the wheel of rebirth. In most, if not all, ancient
religions with a belief in reincarnation, the soul entering a body is
seen as a metaphysical demotion, a sullying and impure rite of
passage. In New Age religions, however, being born again seems to be
a kind of perverse goal. Prepare yourself in this life for who or
what you want to come back as in the next life. Belief in past lives
also opens the door for New Age therapies such as past life
regression therapy which seeks the causes of today's problems in the
experiences of previous lives.

Here's a disturbing thought: If you believe in reincarnation then
exactly who is your child? It would mean that in having children we
are doing nothing more than creating a body for some wandering soul
to live in. Our children are nothing more than a house we built for a
soul that we may have never even met before. The same as you are not
part of your parents but just living in the house they built before
you moved in. Perhaps this would explain miscarriages and still
births that the great doctors have no medical explanation for. There
was no soul that wanted to move into the body you made. And there is
not much use for a vacant residence. Kind of a disenchanting thought,
huh?

Past lives, soul mates, immortality of the spirit, all parts of our
basic need for survival. Even if it means survival after death. We
base our lives and religions on these notions. Many of our laws and
morals come from these things. We say we believe in reincarnation but
support the death penalty in heinous crimes. So here we are basically
agreeing to let the soul of a murderer, terrorist, or child rapist
loose to go out there and enter into the body of any unborn child.
And should this new baby retain the memories of their former lives
then what will it do to them in this next one? Perhaps the Christians
thought of this when they came up with their concept of hell. It was
a fitting counter to a disturbing thought. Now only "good souls" are
reborn. Sorry folks but I really don't think the universe is too
concerned with what we do to each other.

Here is a current Wiccan view on how one could reach past life
regression:

Start just as you would for the quiet meditation, get good and calm
and relaxed. Now call your spirit guides to you and ask them to lead
you back in time to a past life that is important to you in this
lifetime. (Note: If you have five or six or seven guides, they don't
all have to be there for this. Usually, one or two of them is
enough.)

Also ask them to allow you to remain, as an observer, for a
reasonable amount of time and then bring you back to the here and
now. Now, as you feel led, visualize yourself rising from your chair
and going out of the door. What happens next will depend on you, your
guides and circumstances.

As you go through the door, you may immediately find yourself in a
past life. Or you may go through the door and find yourself in a
hallway or on a path that leads to another door. When you go to the
end of the hallway or path and through the door, you will find
yourself in the past lifetime. Or you may find yourself walking
beside a stream, walking upstream. If you look carefully, you can see
people and events taking place in the stream. This is the stream of
time. Now as you feel compelled, or when your guides tell you to,
jump in and you will be in the past life.

Um...Okay...I can go with that. Why not? It is mystic enough - how
could one argue it with anything else?

Even in THIS life our minds are so jumbled and fragile that the
influx of information and past lifetimes, with all their ups and
downs, would likely do more harm than good. If past lives are a
reality then there is a damned good reason why we forget them each
time we are reborn. That would be nature's design. Not exactly a
clean slate but a process to keep you from being born knowing every
thought from another lifetime and having to handle even more than you
already do.

Do I personally believe in reincarnation? Sometimes.

Even if it is fiction I don't care. Fiction is obliged to stick to
possibilities. Truth isn't.

Can't say I will be suckered into buying any treatments any time soon
though.



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Footnotes:
www.skepdic.com/pastlife.html

www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt/pastliferegression.html






(Angel Snowden)