Problematica: Starchild

Interesting video about the results of testing of the so-called "starchild" skull. I think it is clear from the composition of the audience that this is not an academic, scientific rendering of the facts around the starchild skull. It is interesting however to wonder what the response will be if the claims made in the video are borne out by reputable scientific investigation of the artefact.

Unusual events relating to fish and animals

This is where I am going to collected links to items on fish disasters and similar.

December 2009
Thousands of starfish washed up in Norfolk.

August 2010
Like this one in Bolivia.

Spheres

I have read a number of articles about mystery spheres - everything from enormous stone spheres in Croatia to small spheres in Peru.

This is where I am going to collect links to anything I stumble over on the internet about spheres.

This story is about spheres in South Africa.

Reincarnation

This is going to be a page of links about Reincarnation stories which appear to have some evidence behind them. I will add links as I find them.

The stories I find most interesting are the ones in which a person not only has a memory of a previous life but also looks like the person they say they remember. It is going to be interesting to see if the children who remember past lives actually look like the person they say that they were.

Reincarnation from World War II
There is an American boy called James, who believes he was a pilot in the second world war, shot down by the Japanese.

Martin Heald memories of Richard Seymour.  Part One.  Part Two.

Reincarnation from 20th century
Child remembers previous life, other family.

Reincarnation from previous centuries
Four cases from Australia, where the hypnotist takes the women to see the places where they say they lived.


Reincarnation of Paul Gauguin and his wife Mette.


Reincarnation from US Civil War
Jeffrey Keene, a retired firefighter, who believes that he is the reincarnation of General Gordon.

Ian Stevenson's work
Video about reactions to Ian Stevenson's work.

Michael Newton's work
Michael Newton is a hypnotherapist who has come to specialise in past-life regression. His website is here.

Work of Joseph R. Myers
Joseph Myers' page of photographs and possible links was the first place that I came across the idea that a reincarnated person might look like the person they claimed to have been in a previous life. Some of these cases, particularly those involving a husband and wife, are pretty convincing.

Echoes of the past

I have always had an interest in reincarnation, since I had an experience myself in which I remembered flashes of a life before my life. I am perfectly prepared to accept that many people would consider that a delusion, and be unable to even contemplate the idea of reincarnation.

It's not a subject that is unknown, even for christians, as despite the best efforts of Constantine to eradicate reincarnation from the bible, there are still numerous references to reincarnation there. Jesus identified St John the Baptist as the reincarnation of Elijah, for example.

A few years ago, I encountered the idea that a reincarnated person might look like the person they claim to have memories of being. Intellectually I find this an interesting idea: how would this work exactly? How would the facial and other characteristics of the person magically transfer to someone who wasn't related to them? What was the role of DNA? When do babies become people? All those things, wrapped up into one.

I have stumbled over a number of sites which claim to have found a link between a person and someone else, and often the resemblance is remarkable. What is even more remarkable is that from time to time, someone has provided pictures of a couple of even a group of people, who all seem to resemble people from another time. One such website is return of the revolutionaries, which I have no doubt you will explore if you have an interest in reincarnation, and which you probably would not otherwise.

However, one of the people on that website who caught my eye was Michael Jackson, because the person he is alleged to have been in a past life is relatively obscure. Charles Dassoucy, was known as the Emperor of Entertainment in his time, was friends with Moliere, and a host of other people, and was successful.

I thought it was interesting, but I wasn't much convinced by the argument that Michael Jackson was trying to return to his previous caucasian incarnation with surgery. I just try to keep an open mind, and I wasn't convinced or skeptical, but balanced somewhere in the middle.

Tonight, I saw the "Who do you think you are?" from the US version of the show, featuring Brooke Shields. I thought her ancestry was fascinating, particularly on her father's side. He was born from an Italian family, with connections to the aristocracy. In the course of the programme, Brooke went to Rome, to trace back the origins of her Italian ancestry, only to find that her Italian ancestor actually came from France.

It was the only frustration of the programme: there was obviously a fascinating and involved story about how he came to move from rural France, freeing an Abbott who was a relative, and fleeing around Europe with him, eventually ending up in Rome, but there wasn't the time within the hour of the programme to flesh out that story.

Brooke visited the small house where the parents of her ancestor lived, and then set off again to research her Royal connection, through Christine Marie, who was born in the Louvre, the daughter of Henri IV of France.

At the end of the programme, I googled Brooke Shields, in case there was additional information that wasn't on the programme, and saw that she had been great friends with Michael Jackson. I thought for a moment that it was an odd coincidence that Michael Jackson should have supposedly been French in a previous life, and Brooke Shields should have French Ancestry.

Then I looked up Charles Dassoucy in Wikipedia, and discovered that one of his patrons had been Christine Marie, Brooke's ancestor. I thought that was an interesting coincidence.

I was intrigued, and thought I would look up the people around Charles Dassoucy and see if I could recognise someone as beautiful as Brooke Shields... I didn't think she would be too difficult to spot.

The obvious first person to look at was Moliere, whose picture you can see here.




Hold on a moment... doesn't he look amazingly like Andre Agassi, first husband of Brook Shields?



I looked for a picture of Christine Marie, Madame Royale, to see if Brooke Shields resembled her at all.



I couldn't see any strong resemblance between Brooke and her ancestress, but when I looked at Steffi Graf, second wife of Andre Agassi... well, call me deluded, but I do think that there is a resemblance.



I've searched for a beautiful contemporary who might resemble Brooke, but haven't found one yet.... I'm entranced by the idea, and how reincarnation might work, particularly in the case of groups of people.

Links to indigo children

This page is designed to be a continually updated list of indigo children. I'm not sure I understand what is meant by indigo children, actually, so this is a selection of links to pages about unusual children in general.

This is a Russian boy who claims to have lived on Mars.

This is an American girl who is a genius for painting and poetry. I must admit I assumed she must have been brought up in a fundamentalist faily, but it appears that this is not true.

A science of reincarnation?

It's an open secret that I consider it possible that reincarnation may be a fact, which is something I have written about before.

Today, during a surf around the outer reaches of the internet, I found a page which purports to link a group of revolutionaries from the American revolution, with people living and connected today.What I find particularly interesting is that the website includes an idea that, if scientists can suspend their disbelief long enough, a scientific investigation into reincarnation might be possible, comparing DNA from people purported to be reincarnated, to see if there is something in the DNA to link a reincarnated person with their previous incarnation.

I find it an intriguing idea. Conventional wisdom on genetics and heredity suggests that we inherit our eye colour and many other traits from our genetic parents. If our facial appearance is roughly the same from incarnation to incarnation, and the two incarnations are not related, how might that work? Can you even consider it as a possibility without being ridiculed as a scientist?

It is certainly striking that often when one member of a couple looks similar to an historical figure, their partner in this life looks very like the partner in the other life. The most famous example of this is Vladimir Putin, wife and dog, and the famous painting of the Marriage of Arnolfini... I was going to put a link to one of the many pages showing the resemblance of all three to the painting, but there are too many crazy and potentially damaging pages out there... I will let you find it for yourself.

I find it fascinating as a mental exercise to consider how this might work in practice... what would the mechanism be? According to the man who wrote the above-linked website, people can vary in sex, religion and colour between incarnations, and a proof that reincarnation is real would mean an end to racism, and end to nationalism and an end to a lot of prejudice between people of different religions. I'm not sure he's right, but it's a fascinating suggestion.