Ghosts, Spirits & Reincarnation - Understanding how the invisible affects the visible by Chaitanya Charan

2. Guardian headline
Pakistan cling to the
spirit of Miandad,
not the ghost of
Sharma –

3. Ghosts
Eerie things that
possess people and
haunt places

4. Spirit
Something higher that
inspires and empowers
Eg. “That’s the spirit”
The holy spirit in
Christianity

5. Is there something invisible?
How can children know that
which they don’t know?
Spontaneous past-life
memories

6. Past-life memories
Dr. Ian Stevenson
- BG 2.22
Four types of evidences:
• Recollections
• Recognitions
• Behaviors
• Birthmarks

9. Naresh Kumar Raydas’ Case
• Born in Baj Nagar, UP
• Past-life as Mushir Ali Shah in
Kakori 5 km away
• At age 2, started saying
“Kakori”, “Kakra” & offering
Namaaz

10. Naresh Kumar Raydas’ Case
• Called Fakir as Abba (not
Baba), identified as his son
• Recognized mother Najima,
brother Nasim, even unborn
sister Sabiah
• Depression in chest

11. Parental disapproval
“Hindu parents of a child who claimed to be a Moslem
generally tried to take measures which they hoped would
erase the child's previous-life memories. The techniques
used included simply ignoring the child's claims, teasing,
piercing the child's ear, turning the child on a potter's
wheel, and taking the child to an exorcist out of fear that
the child would go mad. One Moslem family tried a
combination of rotating the child counter-clockwise on a
millstone (to "undo" his past-life memories), tapping him
on the head, and beating him.”
- Antonia Mills, Journal of Scientific Exploration

12. Fraud? Motives?
Money?
Fame?
Religious belief?

13. Fraud? - Counter-motive
Embarrassing
behavior of
children eg Jasbir
Singh

14. Pseudo-Science?
[Stevenson had] “painstakingly and
unemotionally collected a detailed series of
cases, in which the evidence for
reincarnation is difficult to understand on
any other grounds. He has placed on record
a large amount of data that cannot be
ignored.”
- Journal of the American Medical Association

15. The White Crow?
“If you wish to upset the law that all
crows are black, you mustn’t seek to
show that no crows are; it is enough to
prove one single crow to be white.”
- Harvard psychologist William James

16. Soul
Subtle Body
Gross Body Three levels
of being

17. Soul
Subtle Body
Gross Body: dead
on the departure of
the soul
Ghost: Soul with
subtle body
How a person
becomes a ghost

18. Soul
Gross Body
Possessed
person
Soul
Possessing
ghost
How possession
works

19. Why does our past last?
Why do we do the things we
do?
Most new resolutions aren’t
new

20. The power of harmony
Spirituality –
harmonize the soul
with the whole
Access the power of
the whole

21. Make things better
Science can make
things better
Spirituality can make
people better