reincarnation of the soul

• Swinburne's mention of moving a soul from one body to another brings us to the concept of what?

  reincarnation
• this view is generally associated with Eastern thought, what do most Hindu's believe?


  after this life, the soul enters into another body (either a human, God or animal) - the nature of which is determined by karma
• what is reincarnation compatible with?

  physicalist/ materialist views that see the self as necessarily embodied
• what does support for reincarnation come from?

  past-life regression and direct past-life recall
• what is past-life regression?

  a technique used in hypnotherapy
• what does the therapist do?

  uses a variety of techniques intended to locate the causes of a patient's present mental stress in a supposed past life
• what is the general assessment of past-life regression?

  that its best explained by cryptomnesia
• what is cryptomnesia?

  where a patient experiences a forgotten memory and doesn't recognise it as having being experienced before
• when does direct past-life recall most often occur?

  in young children, who may confuse their parents
• for example...?

  by apparently remembering a different set of parents
• what is an example of a child that past-life recall happened to?

  Cameron Macauley
• explain it:

  Macauley remembers another life before his current one - he is insistent that he really lived this other life and he longs for it terribly
• ever since he was two and first started talking, why has Macauley told of?

  his life on the island of Barra (but he lives in Glasgow and has never been to Barra)
• what is the problem with cryptomneisa?

  it shows that people can believe that they remember events, whereas, in reality they are forgotten memories that have resurfaced