Alternative Explanations for Rebirth Memories from Stephen O'Brien

Questions and Answers:

Q: Do you think we suffer illness as a result of our Karma; that we experience the pain we have ourselves brought about through the universal law of Cause and Effect?

A: Yes, I do. Opinions are divided on this difficult question, but I believe that we attract to ourselves all forms of physical, mental, emotional, and psychic dis-ease through the 'hidden' spiritual forces of Karma at work - no matter how unpalatable this idea might seem to us, at first.

The Law of Personal Responsibility teaches that we must carry the burden of our mistakes, and that we alone must rectify them. There is no 'vicarious atonement'; no one can remove from us what we have done; only we ourselves can do this. This is a Spiritual Law.

If we plant a rose, a lettuce will not grow. If we shine forth Love, love will return to us; and the same law applies when we radiate the negative energies of hatred, anger, intolerance and selfishness.

Q: How far is our freedom curtailed by Karma, by Cause and Effect?

A: Your freedom is 'controlled' by the law of Karma, and the essence of this truth is found in Jesus's words: 'As a man sows, so shall he reap'. We cannot ever escape the consequences of our thoughts and deeds, for we will personally account for them to the God Consciousness which lives within us.

Q: When does Karma no longer operate?

Karma ceases to operate when the soul has reached an advanced stage of evolution, a time in its existence when it is capable of expressing only the Pure Love which comes from The Creator Spirit. Souls who have completely broken all the chains of Karma are unlikely to be found on Earth, but are probably existing within some supernal Inner Realm of the Spirit in a state of spiritual bliss, far beyond our present understanding.

Alternative Explanations for Rebirth Memories:

According to Stephen O'Brien there could be
several other explanations for 'pre-birth' memories
which are 'recalled' by subjects under hypnotherapy,
and he cautions us to remember these. They are:

1 A Vivid Imagination.

2 A Secondary Personality of the subject,
surfacing under hypnosis and claiming to
be a different individual.

3 An ancient spirit entity linking with the subject's
mind and relaying through Thought Transference
or Mediumship its past memories.

4 The subject could be tapping into what Carl Jung
called The Collective Unconscious, referred to in
the East as The Akashic Records (a kind of
complete cosmic library of thoughts, feelings
and deeds recorded since the beginning of time).

5 Remote Viewing (mentally perceiving the Past
then dramatising it as a Living Present)

6 Out-Of-The-Body Recollections, or alternatively
Astral Projection Memories, where the travelling
Spirit Body sees places and people while the
physical body is asleep. Then, when awake, the
subject may 'inexplicably' recognise them again.

7 Genetic Memories. Some people claim that past
ancestral memories may be passed down within
the genes of the body.

8 Cryptomnesia: the recalling of films/TV/all reading
matter/conversations etc, heard or seen when
younger, which now surface as a dramatised
'previous life'.

9 Multiple Personality: a psychiatric condition
in which it is claimed that one person may
express several different personalities that can
manifest at different times; and it's even possible,
they say, for each persona to be ignorant of the
existence of the others and of their acts.

Any one of these alternative explanations for rebirth memories could broadly nullify 'past life recollections', which is why I don't think this issue will ever be resolved - but, having said that, personal conviction is good enough proof for the perceiver.