Reincarnation

[zippyt]

Heres mine ,
Diagnosis:
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I do not know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.
You were born somewhere around territory of modern East Australia approximately on 800.
Your profession was map maker, astrologer, astronomer.
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Your brief psychological profile in that past life:
Timid, constrained, quiet person. You had creative talents, waited till that life to be liberated. Sometimes environment considered you strange.
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Lesson, that your last past life brought to present:
It always seemed to you, that you perceptions of the world are somewhat different. Your lesson -- to trust your intuition as your best guide in present life.
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Now you remember?

I can relate to that .

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by wolf
Waitaminnit ... thinks carefully and slowly .... Spaniards make crappy beer.

Yeah, like you know anything, Canuck.

[wolf]

Oh yeah? Well, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STILL DEAD, you sangria-swilling, paella-slurper, eh!

[vsp]

Originally posted by wolf
Waitaminnit ... thinks carefully and slowly .... Spaniards make crappy beer.

Doesn't it make a difference how you ferment them?

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by wolf
Oh yeah? Well, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is STILL DEAD, you sangria-swilling, paella-slurper, eh!

At least we have our own King and Queen.

[Torrere]

I notice that everyone is getting very New Age-y poof-poof past lives.

I wonder if that thing is capable of generating "You were a soldier during World War II, and you died in an airplane bombing Hamburg". What about "You were a Czechoslovakian Jew, a mediocre businessman, and you died in Buchenwald" or "You were a black slave in the Congo who worked the farms of King Leopold", or "You were a slave who died en route to America"?

I suppose that I have the dates a bit off -- no one else seems to have been incarnated in their past life more recently than 1000 years ago.

Can that website say that anyone came from Athens? Rome? Roman legionairre, someone who watched the games in Collosseum?

[Torrere]

Oh. pagansunsite.com?

I suppose that they're catering to their clientele.

[Slartibartfast]

Why limit past lives to just being human?

I bet I was an aardvark in a past life.

I used to enjoy creating poetry, and though it doesn't translate into a human language, it was mostly about snapping up crunchy insects and how that is the true meaning of life.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally posted by wolf
Mine, which is clearly wrong: (I am not now, nor have I ever been a Canadian, dammit).

Neither was any one else in that area, in 975 AD, just Injuns and maybe Vikings.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Diagnosis:
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I do not know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.
You were born somewhere around territory of modern South Japan approximately on 825.
Your profession was trainer, holder of the fine animals, birds, insects.
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Your brief psychological profile in that past life:
Person with huge energy, good in planning and supervising. If you were just garbage-man, you were chief garbage-man.
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Lesson, that your last past life brought to present:
You are bound to learn to understand other people and to meet all life difficulties with joyful heart. You should help others, bringing them spirit of joy.
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Now you remember?
A Japanese female? No wonder I have a sideways slant on things.

[Lady Sidhe]

I was regressed one time...it was interesting...I can't say how accurate it was (yes, I DO believe strongly in reincarnation...it just makes sense to me)....anyway, I saw two situations:

In the first, I was somewhat Victorian-looking....hair up, the clothes, etc.....I was sitting at a roll-top desk writing a letter, and I was waiting for someone who'd gone.

In the second, I was sitting on some kind of couch, and again I was waiting for someone who'd gone away.

*shrug* Apparantly, I'm waiting for someone....I wonder if I've found them yet....?


Sidhe

[Lady Sidhe]

Diagnosis: I do not know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.
You were born somewhere around territory of modern West Russia approximately on 1400.

Your profession was handicraftsman, mechanic.

Your brief psychological profile in that past life:
Seeker of truth and wisdom. You could have seen your future lives. Others perceived you as an idealist illuminating path to future.

Lesson, that your last past life brought to present:
You fulfill your lesson by helping old folks and children. You came to that life to learn to care about weak and helpless.

[Whit]

Here's what I got.
Diagnosis:
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I do not know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation.
You were born somewhere around territory of modern USA North-Center approximately on 1775.
Your profession was philosopher, thinker.
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Your brief psychological profile in that past life:
Artistic personality, always transforming ugly into beautiful, gray into bright colors. You would find an opportunity of creative self-expression in any situation.
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Lesson, that your last past life brought to present:
Your main lesson in present -- to develop magnanimity and feeling of brotherhood. Try to become less adhered to material property and learn to have only as many, as you may give back.
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Now you remember?

      On a related note, back when I was in High School this new age type chic started talking about her past lives. All of them famous of course. So I walked up and said, "I remember my last life."
      She, quite animatedly asked to know more. I said, "I was a potato farmer in Idaho. It didn't go well, as I was a lousy farmer. The farm wound up getting foreclosed on and my wife took the kids and left. I drank pretty heavily after that, which led to my death in a ditch a couple of years later."
      Oddly, she got rather pissed at me. Not sure why, my tale seems rather probable, especially compared to hers...

      Now, by this desription it looks like I was right.

[Beestie]

I don't really care what I was before. Besides, if the thing tells me that I was a short order cook in Cleopatra's kitchen, that just makes me wonder where the hell have **I** been over the last 2,500 years between "appearances."

I'm much more interested in where I'm going to be next so I hacked into the diagnosis engine and made some "adjustments" to redirect the thing to look ahead instead of backwards.

Diagnosis: I do not know how you feel about it, but you will be a female in your next earthly incarnation. You will be born in deep interstellar space approximately 813 years from now. Your profession will be that of an engineer in the floating city you will call home.

** Well that's all well and good, but here's what really got me excited:

Your brief psychological profile in your future life:
Person with huge energy, good in planning and supervising. If you become just a bio-hazard reduction specialist, you will be the Big Kahuna of bio-hazard reduction specialists that successive generations of bio-hazard reduction specialists will honor and respect and build huge stone monuments to. Planets, no wait, entire galaxies will be named in your honor! OK, maybe not entire galaxies but I'm pretty sure that the local deli on deck 6 is going to name a sandwich after you.

Your lesson -- to learn humility and faith in spiritual principles. You should believe in High Reason. Now, will you remember this 813 years from now ?

Oh, well, maybe I was better off not knowing.

[hot_pastrami]

Like so many other "beyond our understanding" concepts, the idea of reincarnation sits in the "possible, but improbable" bin in my brain.

I have known some people who staunchly believed in reincarnation, and who believed that they had vivid memories from past lives, and there are some parallels which tend to peg my skepticism guage at max:

1. Past lives are almost always exceedingly interesting and romantic in some way... heroic, tragic, famous, close to someone historic, etc. As sad as it is, the HUGE majority of people in history are "normal," but no one wants to fess up to having a "normal" past life.

2. People who believe in reincarnation often hold a host of other beliefs which I definitely don't share... like the ability to openly converse with the dead at any time, (a two-way conversation), thinking that drinking water from a colored bottle will cure a particular ailment, astrology, etc.

3. They will become extremely offended at the mildest suggestion of a hint that their "past life memories" are possibly manufactured by their mind. Such a reaction indicates not an open mind, but one which is sealed shut and guarded with deadly Indiana-Jones-style booby traps. Frankly, if somebody believes in something outlandish, but then violently rejects even discussing a possible alternative explanation, delusion is indicated.

4. Sometimes they start telling me about MY past lives, because we knew each other in a past life. Cough.


I like the idea of reincarnation, but today I have no reason to believe that it is a fact. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps in my next life.