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A British boy remembers his past life - Channel 5 reports..

DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
edited March 2011 in Philosophy
David Deutsch a famous Quantum Mechanics professor, has affirmed that human beings have bodies existing in other time-space dimensions simultaneously as our current flesh body...

* Mind Body

[PureInsight.org] Do people really have previous lives and future lives? The Sun,
a UK newspaper, reported a story of a boy who remembers his previous
lives. This six-year-old boy is called Cameron Macaulay. He is not much
different from other boys of his age. What differentiates him from
others is that he likes to talk about his "old mum", his former family
and a white house standing on the bay. But none of them is related to
his current life. The place he is talking about is a place where he had
never been in this life and is on the Isle of Barra, 160 miles away
from where he is living now. These things make Cameron's mother feel
worried.

Cameron's memory of his previous life
Cameron's mother Norma, 42, said that Cameron began to tell tales of his childhood on the Isle of Barra.
Cameron spoke about his former parents, how his dad died, and about his
brothers and sisters in the previous life. He also said that his "old
mum" was the one in his previous life. Cameron believes that he has a
previous life and he worries that the family in his previous life
misses him. His nursery school teacher told Norma all the things
Cameron was saying about the Isle of Barra and how he misses his mummy
and his brothers and sisters there.
Norma said, "He complained that in our house there was only one toilet,
whereas in Barra, they had three. He used to cry for his mummy. He said
she'd be missing him and he wanted to let his family in Barra know he
was all right. Cameron felt very sad. He wouldn't stop talking about
Barra, where they went, what they did and how he watched the planes
landing on the beach from his bedroom window. "

Cameron even said his dad was called Shane Robertson, who had died
because "he didn't look both ways." (It probably means that his father
was hit by a car.)

Norma mentioned that they had never been to the Isle of Barra. At the
beginning, they just regarded Cameron's story as something from his
vivid imagination. Cameron continued to feel sad for leaving the home
in his previous life on the Isle of Barra, and his feeling of distress
lasted for several years.

One day, Cameron's nursery teacher told Norma that a film company was
looking for people who believed they had previous lives. She suggested
Norma talk with them about Cameron. But Norma's family felt frightened
since many people didn't believe in reincarnation. Norma is a single
mother and has another son, Martin, who is one year older than Cameron
and also has been affected by this thing. Meanwhile, Cameron kept
begging her to take him to the Isle of Barra. Norma eventually
decided to take Cameron to Barra, to see what they could find.

Visit the Isle of Barra

Norma contacted the film company. They joined Cameron's trip to Barra.
Psychologist Dr. Jim Tucker from Virginia University in the U.S. also
went with them. Dr. Tucker specializes in reincarnation, especially in
children's cases. When Cameron was told about the trip to Barra, he was
very happy and jumped all over the place. They went to Barra in
February of 2005.

Norma said that Cameron asked her if his face was shiny because he was very happy.

When they arrived at Barra and the plane landed on the beach,
everything was just as Cameron had described. He turned to Martin and
Norma and said, "Now do you believe me?"

When Cameron got off the plane, he waved his arms and said loud "I am
back." He talked about his mother in his previous life who lived at
Barra and told Norma that his mother at Barra used to have long brown
hair down to her waist before she cut it off

Cameron also said that Norma and his Barra mother would like each other and he was eager to have his two mothers meet.

He also talked about a big book which he read and God and Jesus. Norma
said that her family is not religious, but it seemed that Cameron's
Barra family in his previous life was.

In Barra, they lived in a hotel and began to search for clues related
to Cameron's previous life. They contacted the Heritage Centre and
asked if they knew a Robertson family living in a white house on the
bay. The Heritage Centre said no, which made Cameron feel very
disappointed. They then drove around on the island but they didn't find
the white house.

Later, they realized if he could see the place's land on the beach,
they must have driven the wrong way. Meanwhile they received a call
from the hotel with confirmed information that there was indeed a
Robertson family living in the white house on the bay.

Norma said that they didn't tell Cameron about it and drove to the
direction where they were told the white house was and to see what
would happen. When they got there, Cameron recognized the white house
immediately and he was extremely happy. When they walked to the door,
Cameron became very quiet. Norma guessed that he must think that his
Barra mother was waiting for him in the house as he remembered. But it
turned out that there was no one in the house, he looked sad. The
former owner of the house already died. The person who kept the key let
them in.

Cameron was familiar with the house and he knew every bit of the house.
As he said, there were three bathrooms and the sea could be seen from
his bedroom window.

After Returning Home

Researchers also wanted to track down one member of the Robertson
family who owned the house. Norma said that they visited this member at
Stirling. But they couldn't find any information about Shane Robertson.

Cameron was eager to see the photos of his previous life family,
thinking that probably he could find his father or himself. He always
talked about a big black car and a black and white dog. The car and the
dog were both in the pictures. Since they came back home in Glasgow,
Cameron became much quieter.

Norma said that it was the best thing to go to Barra. This trip made
Cameron much happier and he doesn't talk about going to Barra any
more. Cameron now knows that his mother and brother don't think
he is making up stories, instead, they found the answers that they were
looking for. Apparently, memories about previous life will fade away
gradually along with the growth of the person's age. Cameron never
talks about death with Norma. But he told his best friend not to worry
about death, because you will still come back.

When Norma asked Cameron how he came to stay with her, Cameron said
that he fell down and went into Norma's abdomen. When asking him
about his previous name, he said he was named Cameron in his previous
life as well.

Cameron's story has been filmed into a documentary by TV Channel Five in the U.K. called "The Boy Who Lived Before."

Epilogue

There are some stories about recalling one's previous life in Chinese
historical records. For example in the fourth biography of Jinshu
(Book of Jin Dynasty), it records that the well-known militarist and
writer, Yang Hu, had been the son of his neighbor Mr. Li in a previous
life.

There are some scholars who are studying reincarnation in children. Dr.
Jim Tucker mentioned earlier is one. There are other scholars like
Carol Bowman who wrote a book called Children's Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child and Ian Stevenson who is the author of the book Children Who Remember Previous Lives.

Many detailed cases they have collected all prove the existence of reincarnation.

Cameron's story also tells people that our lives are actually
continuous. Living and death are merely a form of existence. As Cameron
told his best friend, don't worry about the death because you will just
come back again.

Bad deeds committed by people will not vanish when evildoers die. People should remember this and never commit anything evil.

Reference:
"The Boy Who Lived Before"
Source: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/17797-a-british-boy-remembers-his-past-life-channel-5-reports/

Comments

  • This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    David Deutsch a famous Quantum Mechanics professor, has affirmed that human beings have bodies existing in other time-space dimensions simultaneously as our current flesh body...
    Way to go, Leon! :clap:
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    So, just to clarify, these other bodies aren't past lives, they're...concurrent lives? Or maybe they're not even solid bodies, they may be energetic bodies of some sort? like spirit forms, or maybe something not even imaginable to us?
  • Great story, fun read but now for the rebuttal.

    David Deutsch is fun to read, but much of his speculation is reported as fact.

    As for Dr. Tucker, he's a disciple of and works for Dr. Ian Stevenson, who can't seem to understand that anecdotes and uncritical reporting of wild claims is not the same thing as research.

    Don't want to rain on anyone's parade, only point out that given the right spin and skillful editing, people can easily be convinced of just about anything.

  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited March 2011
    They're not the only ones publishing studies of children's rebirth stories, Cino. I don't have the name at my fingertips, but there was another MD who published a study, and he explored all other possible explanations for each child's story. I really don't regard these as wild claims. But I haven't read Stevenson's work. Thanks for your input, though. It's always nice to hear from you. :)
  • MindGateMindGate United States Veteran
    David Deutsch a famous Quantum Mechanics professor, has affirmed that human beings have bodies existing in other time-space dimensions simultaneously as our current flesh body...
    ---
    Well, according to string theory, they're infinite us's running all over the place.
  • String theory really opens the door to explaining a number of paranormal phenomena. Like...the spirit world. Mediums say that the spirits of our loved ones are right alongside us some of the time, we just can't see them. String theory could provide the explanation.
  • *cringe*
  • edited March 2011
    Anecdotal reports should not be regarded as fact. Kids could be lying, parents could be lying, kids could be making stuff up or have heard it from a friend or on TV or who knows what. This particular case sounds a lot like coincidence to me - gee, there's a Robertson family on a white house on a beach!
    String theory really opens the door to explaining a number of paranormal phenomena. Like...the spirit world. Mediums say that the spirits of our loved ones are right alongside us some of the time, we just can't see them. String theory could provide the explanation.
    No... no, it can't.
  • *cringe*
    haha! Well, look at it this way, Shift+1--if the "consciousness" (or whatever) of the departed hangs out in Parinirvana or the Bardo, maybe that's what Parinirvana or the Bardo are--a parallel dimension, like string theory says. And some people can see those energies.

  • Anecdotal reports should not be regarded as fact. Kids could be lying, parents could be lying, kids could be making stuff up or have heard it from a friend or on TV or who knows what.
    I like to keep an open mind. Kids can't make up facts about and descriptions of people they've never met, homes in towns they've never visited, etc. And in the cases that take place in Asia, often the families don't have TVs. OK, for those who don't believe in rebirth, I can understand wanting to dismiss this kind of thing. Do you believe in rebirth, Vilhjalmr?

  • CW, parallel dimension is a sci-fi term. What string theory uses to make sense is mathematical dimensions. What it predicts is something that's more along the lines of this:
    image
  • edited March 2011
    OK, tell me more, Shift. My understanding was that beings can (or do) inhabit those dimensions. It's not just all theoretical, it's not just math. Not according to my reading. But you tell me. (Nice graphic, BTW.)
  • I can't tell much more. I only tried to study quantum physics and string theory for a while then gave up 'cause it was all pure maths and boring. I do enough maths in my degree, I am not drawn to learning new concepts yet. Maybe I'll get to study it properly later.

    Pick up a university textbook and see for yourself. "A Unified Grand Tour of Theoretical Physics" by Ian D Lawrie is often recommended. Page 462 talks about string theory and why the extra dimensions are there.
  • Ok, thanks for the reference. But if it's all just math, what does it really tell us about the nature of the universe? I thought the point was to better describe quantum reality and the nature of the universe. :scratch: Maybe it's /explained/ via math, like E=MC 2, but it describes an aspect of reality. It's not just math formulas. I've gotta look this up and get back to you.
  • I claim fair use here...

    One may wonder, perhaps, whether the ideas of this chapter really do tell us anything about the ways of nature, or whether they are merely part of an elaborate mathematical
    game. To me, at least, the answer is far from obvious. As I emphasized at
    the beginning of the chapter, a view of the world that combines a quantum-
    mechanical theory of matter with classical general relativity as a theory of gravity
    provides an adequate means of accounting for all currently observed phenomena,
    but it is not a self-consistent view and is ultimately untenable. One great virtue
    of string theory and its generalizations is that it offers, in prospect at least, a
    fully self-consistent view of the world. It is the only known theory to do so—
    but this does not by any means show that it is the correct theory. A significant
    drawback (to my mind) is that this self-consistency is achieved at the expense of
    postulating an extravagant array of concepts and phenomena which not only have
    no basis in current observations, but may well be inaccessible to any conceivable
    experiments—but this does not by any means show that the theory is wrong.
    It is not yet possible to say whether string (or M) theory is consistent with
    our present knowledge of particle physics. We have seen that string theory has,
    at the fundamental level, no adjustable parameters and that the allowed internal
    symmetries are tightly constrained by requirements of mathematical consistency.
    The same may well be true of M-theory. The absence of arbitrary choices to be
    made at this fundamental level is a second great virtue of the theory. However,
    there are many possible ways in which the extra dimensions may be compactified,
    and many different possibilities for the expectation values of moduli fields such
    as the dilaton # that appears in (15.247). Thus, the theory has many possible
    ‘vacua’, which is to say that there are many possibilities for the effective four-
    dimensional, low-energy theory which, we might hope, would reproduce the
    standard model. It is known that some of these vacua have some of the right
    features, such as the gauge group SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1), but the mechanism by
    which one particular vacuum might emerge as the one relevant to our universe
    (which must, in particular, involve the spontaneous breaking of supersymmetry)
    is not understood. A derivation from the first principles of string/M theory of some
    version of the standard model would, of course, provide a convincing vindication
    of the somewhat arcane ideas that we have touched on, but this is probably
    quite far off. On the other hand, if the brane-world picture is right, then some
    experimental indication of this might appear quite soon. Whether these ideas will
    prove to be the last word in the story of unified theories of the world, I do not
    know, but these remarks must be the last words of our Tour.
  • DaozenDaozen Veteran
    edited March 2011
    Mark me down as 'skeptical' regarding the boy's claims.

    Sounds like a cute 'lil fella tho.
  • TheswingisyellowTheswingisyellow Trying to be open to existence Samsara Veteran
    edited March 2011
    I can relate, as I was an alcoholic dockworker who died of TB in the mid 1800's.
    No frickin joke! I am TOTALLY SERIAL PEOPLE :)
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    edited March 2011
    OK, I'll just talk about a favorite trick of the mind that is used by fake psychics and honest mentalists everywhere to make a living. It's called confirmation bias. This is the tendency of the mind to focus on evidence they believe confirms their beliefs, and ignore or minimize evidence that disputes their beliefs.

    In other words, people don't like to be disappointed. Everyone, even the most skeptical of person, is subject to the same tricks of the mind. You have to be on guard.

    In this case, I did a little digging around the net, and found this interesting tidbit about the famous Cameron reincarnation case: Through a genealogist they trace a Gillian Robertson still living in Scotland. She would have been a child at the time Cameron remembers living there. She confirms that there was a black and white border collie at the house, but says that there has never been a Shane Robertson or any deaths in her family.

    OhmyGod, they had the same breed dog! But what did they not find? The man whose name this boy was certain of, or any death like he insists the man had. Your mind ignores that and focuses on the confirmation. That's confirmation bias, in a nutshell.

    So the boy knows of an island close by whose name had to be spoken around him over and over. He talks about a white house on a shore. Have you been to a shoreline in that part of the world? Stand near the water and you can't throw a rock without hitting a white house near a shoreline. And it seems the most common breed of dog around there is a border collie, most of them are black and white.

    So even without the contamination of coaching and reading into vague statements and discovering early on what to say that will cause people to show him attention, this is only one side of the story. What you don't know is that after the researchers investigated and finally finding one Robertson family that lived on the island for a short time, they discover there was no father or anyone in the family called Shane or anything close to it who could have died by "not looking both ways". Let me repeat that. The really important details that would actually point to more than coincidence and reading too much into his story proved to be untrue.

    So like psychic acts everywhere, the story has enough elements that you can pick through it and find a handful of hits. What he can't do is get the details that might actually prove something to fit. It's disappointing, but also fascinating as a study of how the human mind works. We want to believe "I" survive death somehow, so we look for confirmation but ignore inconvenient truths.
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    I believe I remember watching this documentary.
    Even while the programme was being broadcast, there was a lot of vagueness, and the house the boy had described actually looked very little like the house they visited. A lot of the details were inaccurate.

    In fact, from the above account, I don't recognise much of what is written, actually happening in the documentary itself.

    So either I'm remembering a different documentary - or somebody is 'massaging the data'......
  • edited March 2011
    "So like psychic acts everywhere, the story has enough elements that you can pick through it and find a handful of hits. What he can't do is get the details that might actually prove something to fit. It's disappointing, but also fascinating as a study of how the human mind works. We want to believe "I" survive death somehow, so we look for confirmation but ignore inconvenient truths."

    Absolutely. I don't take much notice of these sensationalist accounts and videos because this kind of speculation doesn't help me overcome dukkha in the here and now and just increases unnecessary mental proliferation.
    :)
  • Thanks for the research, Cinorjer.
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    Good post, Cinorjer. I'll take some of these reports with a grain of salt from now on, but I still believe that kids can remember past lives :)
  • CloudCloud Veteran
    edited March 2011
    @Cinorjer, Seconded/thirded/whatever, great post and absolutely true. Confirmation bias is the mind's way of being happy (or trying to be), focusing on what it wants to believe and ignoring what it doesn't.
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    Thank you Cinorjer!
    Very interesting!
  • I had a REALLY good psychology professor in college who actually managed to make the workings of the mind fascinating and did more than throw a bunch of names and theories at us. Once of the few times I actually learned something for my money, about the new discipline of the time of Cognitive Psychology. That type of teacher is rare, but certainly makes a difference.

    I was just starting Zen Meditation also, and was struck by the similarities between this branch of Psychology and Buddhist philosophy about the mind.
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    I was just starting Zen Meditation also, and was struck by the similarities between this branch of Psychology and Buddhist philosophy about the mind.
    Cool, isn't it!

  • Good post, Cinorjer. I'll take some of these reports with a grain of salt from now on, but I still believe that kids can remember past lives :)
    And that very well may be true. I certainly have events I remember in my own childhood confirmed by the family that are puzzling. If so, it's random and rare enough that it remains beyond study or proof for now.
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    I was just starting Zen Meditation also, and was struck by the similarities between this branch of Psychology and Buddhist philosophy about the mind.
    Cool, isn't it!

    Double that!
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