Buddhism and the Flipside

Miscellaneous

Friday

Epigenetics and the Afterlife



Got this email today.  About the study that shows that "cells remember previous lifetimes."

"Rich, Holy shit. Have you seen this study?


So cool. What do you think? Does this provide an alternative explanation for LBL experiences? That rather than remembering past lives, those past lives are embedded in the DNA of our brain when we’re born? Or are there still things that would be inconsistent with LBL?
Do tell…"

Epigenetics.  

They've even got a new science to spend money trying to explain it. Here's Google's tongue in cheek entry:

Epigenetics is the study of these chemical reactions and the factors that influence them. Meet the epigenome and learn how it influences DNA. Change the level of gene expression in a cell with the turn of a dial!

They tortured mice, and then the children of those mice would be afraid of those dudes who tortured them.  That was the first study.  "Mice remember FEAR!"

Well, that doesn't mean that there is only one mode of communication between a mouse and what's been happening to him.  Could be auntie or uncle mouse's ghosts whispering in their ear "Watch out for humans in white lab coats! they'll torture you!"  Could be that the white coated devils thinking of evil torture influenced the mouse.  (I'm just giving you the kind of "super denial" that I've read from scientists about consciousness existing outside the brain. That somehow the "thought" of the action has influenced the action itself.  If that's true, then its true here as well.)

In this case, as I read the study -  they expanded it to smell.  The smell of cherry blossoms.. Okay.  (We had a cherry tree in our backyard, and I can smell it now. My brother fell out of it and broke his arm. I wonder if his arm aches when he sees cherry pies? But I digress).

Is there a possibility that the ghost mice are telling them to watch out for humans who want to torture them again?  It's possible.

And it's also possible that some forms of fear - terror - are passed down genetically into the body.

Which is why I hate kneeling in church pews.  From too many times kneeling and digging up potatoes in Ireland.  My knees are predestined to hate kneelers.

But I digress.

Data is data.

What does this tell us about this test?  That there is a possibility that something gets passed down to the mice.  Could be a smell trigger, could be a sound trigger, or a light trigger - how did humans realize that sharks were dangerous? Or snakes for that matter?  Was it only from watching others get eaten?  Or is there a cell memory of that kind of terror from when we swam alongside them?  I know when I've been in shark cages and I see the open mouth of a shark coming at me, something beyond panic sets in to my "lizard brain."  It feels like memory.  I'm not saying it is.  But it feels the same.  "Oh right, I remember this. Run!"

(I used the term shark cage facetiously. I've been in aquariums where the sharks swim around you while you walk through a glass tube. Sydney Aquarium for example)

There's more - and here's where it gets fun.


Some animals already know the antidote to poison.  They weren't told or taught by their parents - but there's an animal in the bush that after being bitten by a poisonous snake knows to go and rub its wound on a particular shrub that is the antidote to the snake bite.

That's been a known fact for decades.

They discovered that a particular type of female bird "pretends" to mate for life - but actually goes out and mates when anyone who flies by in order to produce offspring.  And.. it turns out the male sperm of the bird doing the flying around has a killer sequence in it - at the end of its output - that is spermicide to any new sperm arriving in its mate.  

Like nature is trying to protect his sperm from other sperm that might (and often does) show up later. So where did that spermicide come from?  Some bird class on safe bird sex?

So let's ask - "What's the difference between animals who use their genetic memory to keep them alive and humans?" 

Animals - human animals included - must have certain "cellular memories" or "epigenetic memories" in order to keep the species alive.  

Humans are NOT ANY DIFFERENT THAN ANIMALS. (Since we can't prove or even define consciousness, we can't rule out that animals are conscious as well, can we?)

So, there's one "how do you do" moment that science has found a way to prove.

But now go a step further.  

Thousands of people - and of course it's 100's of thousands, over the course of history - remember previous lifetimes.  And these previous lifetimes aren't in their same genetic tree - sometimes they remember being asian, african, caucausian, male, female, etc... and if you look hard enough you'll see the forensic research that matches their accounts.  

So they can't be remembering someone in their family tree - if their family tree doesn't include this particular lifetime.  

But what are they remembering?

Science (tries to) tell us that it's a "pool of consciousness" as described by Carl Jung.  This geriatric pool of stored memories, that must go somewhere after someone dies, because energy doesn't die, it just moves elsewhere, so when someone is "remembering" a different lifetime, they're merely remembering "bits and pieces of a particular lifetime that happens to be out in the universe." (I've heard this theory from more than one scientist.)

But that doesn't make a lick of sense either.  Because people don't remember bits and pieces - when they're properly interviewed about their memory.  They remember the death, and then what happens after that.  The traveling back to their "home" - the between lives realm where they get to reconnect with their loved ones who talk to them about information they never knew (New information) where they learn about people who are dead they didn't know were dead (New information) they have life reviews from various points of view not only their own (New information) and they find themselves remembering the conversations they had before coming to this lifetime and why they would do so.

So it's not quite the same as the body flinching when you put a knife to it - or smell the sent of Cherries (unless you were drowned in a vat of Cherries in a previous lifetime, or even choked on a pit) - then you too might flinch the way these mice have flinched.. from their "epigentic memory."

What they're doing is proving that we are human animals - but completely avoiding the research to understand and examine how we are also spiritual creatures AT THE SAME TIME.

We are both animals and spirits.  We are perfect combination of the two.  And one has a physical evolution that requires DNA, requires a safe environment, requires being able to be born, grow up, reproduce and pass away.  And one has a spiritual evolution that includes previous lifetimes, current lifetimes, and future lifetimes, each with its own version of "graduation" from one level to the next.  At least that's what the reports show.  That's what the research shows.

So sure, why not?  We have cell memories.  Might help us in a fight with a poisonous snake (if we can only remember the name of that shrub - which I can't for the life of me.)  And yes, we have spiritual memories that we appear to be able to access on a daily basis - and often on a nightly basis.

OK. I FOUND IT: "The roots of the plant “chota – chand” in Nepal were found to be antidote for snake-bite, a fact learnt after watching mongooses feeding on the plant before fighting cobras. Man may not after all be the only sapient animal."


and that's my two cents for the day.  RM

Monday

Proof of Life After Death via New Information


I'm often asked...

"But is there any proof?"


Usually the question is preceded by swear words, or annoyed reactions.  "Yeah, right" is common. 
So I started thinking about it.  

Where is the proof?


And if it's not something tangible - how could it be? And just what is tangible evidence of there being "Life after Death?"



Waiting for enlightenment at Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica
And it occurred to me, that the proof is in the telling.  

It's in the actual tale that is told by the person who experiences it.

First, allow me to state up front that spirits, ghosts, people who used to live on the planet and no longer do is one particular form of inquiry. 

Then we have people who experience ESP, people who are alive, on the planet and have some kind of extrasensory event occur that isn't easily dismissed.  

Then we have people who have a near death experience, who claim that while they were "no longer in their body" they experience all kinds of events, usually wonderful, sometimes less so. 

And finally we have people who've had out of body experiences, who while they're napping, or sleeping, they find themselves feeling the experience of "leaving" their body and traveling out and around (sometimes into space) and seeing some unusual things.  

We also have accounts of religious people who've had a spiritual awakening or experience where suddenly they feel like they know some of the secrets of the universe, have "spoken to God" or somehow been moved in some unnatural way. 

And then we have people under deep hypnosis who recall a previous lifetime, but beyond that, a life between lives where they report that they travel "back home" where they see and experience a number of various hallmarks that include soul groups, wise elders and other tales.

So is there a working model for all of this other worldly behavior?

I suggest that there is.


Includes interviews with scientists

We find in these detailed accounts from Michael Newton's work ("Journey of Souls") that there's a working model. That we as souls are born from energy, that we're each looked over by a spirit guide, that we live back home with a group of other souls that we normally incarnate with, and that we have affiliated groups around us at all times.  His clients also reported life reviews while visiting back there, meeting spiritual guides, and sometimes visiting a "hall of records" of sorts which contain all the possible lifetimes of everyone in existence.  


Newton had 7000 clients take him to this life between lives arena over his 30 year career before he published the results.  I have investigated 26 cases where I chose the subjects, chose them because of their skepticism, and filmed them having the same results whether or not they believe in an afterlife, believed they could be hypnotized or believe in anything beyond their own reality.  And they all had the same basic experience.

And I've filmed myself having four different LBLs with two different therapists on two sides of the continent. The results from examining these cases, is that they're nearly identical to those listed above, and serve as a model for all of them.



Includes transcripts of LBL sessions

Now he's not the only psychologist to explore this in his work.  Dr. Helen Wambach explores it in her work, that predates his publication by ten years.  She did sessions of people under hypnosis and asked a series of questions that got the same results that Michael Newton's work did.

And he's not the only therapist who has dealt with past life regression - Dr. Brian Weiss has written extensively about his work, Dr. Raymond Moody has written extensively about it, Dr. Bruce Greyson has written extensively about near death experiences in scientific journals, Dr. Jim Tucker has written extensively about the reincarnation cases he's examined, Dr. Gary Schwartz has written extensively about his scientific research into mediums and ESP.

And they aren't all in agreement about their own particular fields, I might add.  But they all appear in some form or another in my book.

Further, the details that these people report, including life reviews, tunnels of light, a feeling of connectedness to everyone and all things, are reported in near death experiences in the same words.  So people who have "died" and come back to report these details are basically saying the same things that Newton's clients are saying.  There are variations, but basically those variations seem to depend on each individual.  In other words, your experience in the after life is unique to you.  


So people who sense ghosts - people who've died but haven't gone home - people who sense events in the future - outside the timeline so to speak - people who speak to and hear from the dead, are all reporting the same thing.



Includes interview with Michael Newton

But is this evidence of the afterlife?

It is if the report includes new information.


New information would be a report of something that the person experiencing it does not know, could not know, could never know.


New information would be a report of a sibling, friend or relative who is dead, that no one else knows is dead.


New information would be a report of meeting or seeing people who are dead, but that this person never knew were dead, or had never heard of before, and yet can be examined because they existed.


New information would be reporting that in a previous lifetime they said or did something that no one over here could possibly know about and upon forensic research finds out to be true.


New information would be someone who has passed on, reporting a piece of information that has occurred somewhere on the planet that this person does not yet know.


New information would be someone who has passed on and reveals a secret phrase or word to someone who is still here on the planet.


I have all of these above reports in the books "Flipside: A Tourist's Guide on How to Navigate the Afterlife" and "It's a Wonderful Afterlife: Further Adventures into the Flipside" volumes one and two.  


For example, Dr. Eben Alexander met a sister he never knew he had during his near death experience, Colton Burpo met a sister he didn't know he had during his near death experience, when my own father passed away, he spoke to me and gave me a list of names to tell my mother that he was currently with - and she recognized them as friends who had died during WWII. Names I'd never heard, could not have heard of.

NEW INFORMATION.

But here are some links - each one has its own form of "New Information." Details a child could not know, never heard and could not access in this lifetime.  So where does that leave us?


Once we realize we may incarnate, that we can incarnate, doesn't it make sense for us to leave behind fresh water, air and land if only so we can use it the next time we're here?















I hear dead people.  On the set of "my bollywood bride."