Posted by boBB on May 23, 2000, at 0:49:01
In reply to Past lives, anyone?, posted by Sara T on May 22, 2000, at 22:49:28
What's wrong with this life?
I have long been a sceptic of past life regression, though for many years I could never put my finger on why. I try to be rigorously open minded about things, and practice some kinds of shamanistic behavior myself.
I might overgeneralize, and leave out some vital points here in describing mysticism, but one kind deals with the world we are part of, and how our mind perceives it, whereas another, probably far more popular kind of mysticism (in America) focuses more on our perceptions as the fabric of the world. Past life regression falls in the later group.
Some practitioners claim that channeled "entities" are real, but many, when confronted, toy with a definition of reality that makes it out to be "whatever we want it to be." Past life "channelers" have told me it does not matter whether the experience is real or not, because it seems to help people. That is a very humanistic view, but I tend to see humans as only a small part of reality, and believe my perception is only a minute fraction of the cummulative pool of willpower that creates the universe.
Ultimately, I find "reality based" magic to be more powerful. It integrates desires and needs into the stage we can all share, rather than sending our minds off into other times and other realms and claiming personal responsibility for every actor, prop and theme on the stage of our lives.
I question the ego needs of past life therapists. Not that they are much different from the wigged-out doctors mentioned in nearby threads, but some critics say channeling serves not only the need of the suplicant to enter into a inferior relationship with a spiritual authority, but that it also allows the practitioner to percieve themselves as an all-powerful and benevolent person. A transactional analysis would reveal a parent/child relationship between the channeler and the supplicant.
Ultimately, the goal of pmedicine is to integrate diverse parts of a personality into a whole person and to integrate a whole person into a concesus reality. While channeling sometimes seems to help people, I think it fragments the person and leaves them grasping for solid ground. Some, it seems, are unable to reach beyond their spirtual practice to afford practical participation in the day to day needs of the "real" world - the one where people get hungry and cold and tired and sick.
While I indulge in a bizarre range of emotional behaviors, and personally practice magical thinking with regard to things I could not have rationally effected (the weather, world events, etc.), channelling is on my list of suspicious practices. I will tell you I have experiences with things beyond my effective realm, but I will seldom ask you to beleive with me in the way I see these magical relationhsips. I might urge you to join me in a political or social agenda, and I might confide my bizare spritual practices, but I won't ask you to agree with me they are real. And I will never accept money for my magical representations. My interpersonal relationships are going to deal with Earth, and with humans made from dirt, sunlight and DNA.
For a well-considered analysis of channeling and other modern new-age spiritual practices, check out The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power, by Joel Kramer, Diana Alstad, 1993.
You might also check out TriCycle magazine, the popular Bhuddist journal. Sometime in 1998 there was an article in there that identified past-life channeling as a distinctly American phenomenon, unique from eastern Bhuddism. I would not do justice to attempt to recall the differences detailed there - my recollection is that the past life belief was something Bhuddism incorporated from earlier traditions as it spread across Asia, but a belief in the ability to channel specific personas from previous lives is not found in eastern practices.
poster:boBB
thread:34275
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000517/msgs/34366.html