Episode 209: Past Lives
/We haven’t gotten existential about death in a while, so let’s talk about past lives! We touch upon the religious and philosophical origins of rebirth and reincarnation, and discuss the modern interest and study of past life regression.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, parapsychology, pseudoscience, child death, religious persecution, war, World War II, colonialism/cultural appropriation, mental illness, scientific experimentation, and racism.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Merch: Check out our new digital merch, including the Cool Cryptid Compendium, at spiritspodcast.com/merch!
- Multitude: Check out the other shows on Multitude!
Sponsors
- Stitch Fix is an online personal styling service that finds and delivers clothes, shoes, and accessories to fit your body, budget, and lifestyle. Get started at stitchfix.com/spirits for 25% off when you keep your whole box!
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Find Us Online
If you like Spirits, help us grow by spreading the word! Follow us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. You can support us on Patreon (http://patreon.com/spiritspodcast) to unlock bonus Your Urban Legends episodes, director’s commentaries, custom recipe cards, and so much more. We also have lists of our book recommendations and previous guests’ books at http://spiritspodcast.com/books.
Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast. I try to do a little different inflection every time, Julia, just to really keep it fresh.
Julia: I really appreciate it.
Amanda: A boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: See, I said it more declarative that time.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And this is Episode 209: Past Lives, a fun little roundup.
Julia: See, when you're not here and I do it for you, I always try to mimic the inflection that I think you're gonna do it in, which just very important to me. I was like, “They need to know that, usually, this is Amanda, but they're still getting the same show.”
Amanda: Yeah, I apologize for having an unexpected little element there. I know, when that happens in podcast, I listen to them. I'm just like, “What's happening?”
Julia: It's okay. I'm sure our listeners forgive us for that.
Amanda: Particularly, I think, Julia, our newest patron; Mads, Kristen, Sian and Alex. Welcome. We are so, so happy to have you with us. You joined the ranks of such distinguished patrons as our supporting producer level patrons; Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Landon, Liz, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Polly, Riley, Sarah, and Skyla.
Julia: They are all wonderful, wonderful people in this life and the next.
Amanda: Absolutely. And how about, Julia, those, those real legends that, like, outlast our individual lives? 100 percent true of our legend level patrons; Audra, Drew, Frances, Jack Marie, Ki, Lada, Mark, Morgan, Necrofancy, Renegade, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: What wonderful people. I feel like I knew you in a past life. And I appreciate that you're in my current life.
Amanda: I feel like you are that sort of extended relative that you only see kind of once a year but, somehow, gets you the perfect present.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And you're like, “Whoa. What?”
Julia: You’re like, “Wow. So good. Thank you. Thank you for that. You know me better than I know myself.”
Amanda: Speaking of which, that is how I feel about your book recommendations, Julia. So, please tell me what you have been reading, watching, and listening to this week.
Julia: All right. So, my book recommendation for this week is probably one that I feel like a lot of our listeners have probably read already, but I'm finally reading it after the ongoing recommendation from a friend of mine, Josh Rubino. It is Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. And, oh, boy, if you like Disaster Lesbians --
Amanda: I do.
Julia: -- if you like Necromancers in Space --
Amanda: Indeed.
Julia: -- if you like, like, a haunted mansion mystery --
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Julia: -- this is the book for you. Just read it. I'm not gonna spoil anything for you. Most of the characters are extremely unlikable but in the best way possible. And I feel like you're gonna like it.
Amanda: Incredible. I love that so much.
Julia: It feels very, like, you love a murder mystery, Amanda, and this really fits the bill for murder mystery.
Amanda: Ah, I love it so much. I'm gonna have to do it. I just finished rereading all of Tana French. So, I have to fill that mystery void somehow.
Julia: There you go. Perfect.
Amanda: Speaking of mysteries, we would like to remind you all that we are doing a special urban legends edition coming up where we follow up on ones that we have read in the past. So, if you've had your letter read on the show, please let us know if anything has changed, any updates, how you feel any more or, you know, a lack of paranormal things that have happened to you. And, if you've emailed us in the past and just want to send a follow up, maybe we'll read both letters on the episode. So, just make sure you include follow up in your subject line either go to spiritspodcast.com/contact or email us directly spiritspodcast@gmail.com.
Julia: I really need to know if the ghosts in your life were happy or pissed about being on our show. This is very important information for me.
Amanda: It's very true. And I suppose, if you have additional paranormal things that have occurred while listening to Spirits, that will probably be in scope as well.
Julia: That would be. Absolutely.
Amanda: It's a whole sub-genre. There's an – there's a label for it in the inbox and everything. And, by the way, if you need more and Multitude content to listen to, to walk around late at night in the woods with, you should join the MultiCrew. For just $5 a month, you get access to our weekly friendly debate show Head Heart Gut. What the MultiCrew does for us is help us pay rent on our studio, help us take the time out of the jobs that make us money to try new weird stuff. The pilot for Meddling Adults, for example, was made. It's just like a new weird thing that we did on our spare time. And having spare time under capitalism is a real privilege. And you, being able to show us your support, to give us that little bit of padding in creativity, hopefully, will result in a ton of interesting new stuff for all of you. So, we really appreciate it. You're gonna love Head Heart Gut. It's incredibly high energy but low stakes, which is a great combo. And all of that info is at multiCrew.club to join.
Julia: And we know, since so many of you shared your Spotify unwrapped with us, that you listen to many shows at Multitude. So, we really appreciate that. And, if you're looking for more Multitude content like you have marathon through all of our backlogs and we're very happy that you have, Head Heart Gut is a great backlog to get involved in as well.
Amanda: It's been going on for a year and a half. So, you have, like, 18 months of a weekly show to catch up on.
Julia: That's 72 new episodes for you to marathon through the backlog of. And, trust me, we get a little – a little fun and a little loopy when we do – when we do Head Heart Gut.
Amanda: It's a really good time. So, thank you everybody who is in the MultiCrew. Thank you if you're considering joining. Thank you if you can't join right now but want to one day. We, we are so thankful for you. And we hope you enjoy this special roundup episode, Spirits Podcast Episode 209: Past Lives.
Intro Music
Julia: Past lives, reincarnation, rebirth, transmigration, these beliefs are fairly common across the world in terms of philosophical and religious belief. It's the idea that, when the body dies, the essence of the being, whether it is their soul or life essence or what have you, dies in their physical body and starts a new life in another body. Hey, it's Spirits Podcast. Let's get existential that death.
Amanda: Let's do it. This is one of my favorite tropes to read and mysteries set in the Victorian or Regency eras.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And there's a lot of like, you know, us – there's a murder at a séance and, you know, maybe it's occult. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's supernatural. And just knowing how obsessed, particularly, in this case, you know, Victorians got about death and the occult just makes it something that I know has a huge life elsewhere in the world and throughout history. So, I'm really intrigued to learn more.
Julia: I, I'm excited to talk very little about spiritualism. But I'm fascinated that this is like enough of a trope in mystery novels that you're like, “Oh, of course, yes.”
Amanda: Oh, yeah.
Julia: Fantastic. I, you're – you're my favorite person. People like Socrates and Plato spoke about rebirth in their teachings. Reincarnation is one of the central tenets of Buddhism and some forms of Hinduism as well as in modern pagan groups. So, what I would love to tackle in this episode is sort of the differences between Past Lives and the cultures who talk about them. And then dig into the nitty-gritty of modern interest in the Western world with Past Lives and how it gets a little bit into, like, some slightly gray moral territory. But, before we explore that, we need to talk about the origins, obviously.
Amanda: Let's do it.
Julia: There's so much etymology in this one. You're gonna love it. All right.
Amanda: Oh, my god, my favorite.
Julia: So, in the West, we use the term reincarnation, which comes from the Latin word meaning entering the flesh again, which I absolutely love. It's a very like succinct translation.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: The Greeks use metempsychosis, which comes from the Greek word for change, and the Greek word for to put a soul into, which, again, is very clear as to what the Pythaguras was picturing when he came up with the word.
Amanda: Does that mean that the diagnosis of psychosis, the etymology derives from like another soul or another person in a person?
Julia: So, it's interesting because it's not like – psychosis isn't the exact Greek word.
Amanda: Right.
Julia: It comes right different word, which, also, it gets translated into psychosis. Yeah. So, the word that this pulls from is Empsychon, which means to put a soul into.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: I believe psychon means soul, or spirit, or essence.
Amanda: I’m Googling it now. Yes, it looks like it went from soul to, to put a soul into to animation into psychosis. So, it's fascinating that there's that kind of being animated with something else or having some other person take over your body.
Julia: I mean, like, the soul is not, like, a new term. But it – we do take a lot of words that we don't directly translate and, now, use soul for them.
Amanda: True.
Julia: So, that’s more of, like, a Western translation problem than anything.
Amanda: No, fair enough.
Julia: As a side note, I do love the idea of Pythaguras, you know, of the theorem. He was just like, you know, when people come up with buzzwords, like, advertainment and shit like that --
Amanda: Oh, god.
Julia: That's just Pythaguras but, like, 1000 of years ahead of his time. I really appreciate it.
Amanda: People being people in the past is my absolute favorite part of studying history.
Julia: Yes. The Greeks also used the phrase Palingenesis or to be born again. And that's just the Greeks. Lots of major Indian religions, but please note not all Indian religions, talk about the cyclical nature of rebirth and reincarnation. For example, the word in Sanskrit – and I apologize if I mispronounced this. I could not find a pronunciation for it online – is the Punarjanmam, which means rebirth or transmigration, but there are various other words use depending on whether you're reading texts from Buddhism, Hinduism or Jainism. I could do a really deep dive into these traditions and their beliefs, but, one, I am not a scholar of any of these traditions or nor a practitioner. And, two, people spend years if not decades learning about them and living and practicing them. So, I am not the person to do that. And our slightly under an hour podcast is not the place to have nuanced discussions about this.
Amanda: As always, if you love someone's reading, who has a first person perspective on these traditions, recommend them. We would love to have them on the show.
Julia: Absolutely, we would. But one of the most basic things that we need to understand is that the goal for many of these religions – again, not all of them – who believe in reincarnation as a cyclical thing and part of the Samsara, which is a word for the cyclical nature of all existence, is to break out of that cycle. So, how this is achieved differs depending on belief system to belief system as is usually the case with religious beliefs, but that is the most basic general understanding of it. So, the origins of reincarnation are fairly unknown. Most scholars believe that the theology did, in fact, come out of ancient India. But others argue that the Celtic Druids had traditions of reincarnation as did the pre-Socratic Greeks. But I personally think that this just comes from the nature of human life. Like, we have spent so much of our lives as humans wondering what happens when we die and where life comes from. So, I think that there is a certain level of comfort that comes from the idea of reincarnation and rebirth. So, I can understand how different cultures that most likely did not interact came to similar conclusions.
Amanda: I think it also helps sort of give us a reason to be – to be civil to each other.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: When, you know, if you kind of view life from a very, you know, self-centered point of view, it's like, “Why should I be nice? Why should I put other people first? Why shouldn't I just go after what I want and, like, damn the consequences?” But an idea that – you know, that explicitly, there is benefit to you, yourself, being kind to others and helping to, you know, build your community and not to tear it down might be more persuasive to some people than, “Oh, you should do it for its own sake. You should do it to help those after. You should do it even though you're not going to reap the benefits.”
Julia: Yes, the idea that you probably will live in the society that you leave behind when you die is absolutely. Idea that we think about that. That's a great example of why we should leave the world a better place than we came into it.
Amanda: I also have a small anecdote if that's okay about people being people in the past.
Julia: Please.
Amanda: Which is, you know, I was obsessed with this book about Cleopatra that I, I read by Stacy Schiff.
Julia: I know you do.
Amanda: One of my favorite parts is that, when Cleopatra took trips to places, obviously, she would, like, wear jewels. And they would be, like, barges, you know, covered in, like, agricultural bounty and, like, lots of people, like, dressed sexily. But she would also burn a shitload of incense and incense was – like, certain scents were so expensive that people had never smelled them before. And, so, people would, like, gather on the riverbanks to see Cleopatra go by and be like, “Holy fucking shit. She smells like a smell I have never smelled before.” And people, like, talked about Cleopatra's smell. And that, to me, was just such an amazing – A, I love – I love smells because we don't talk about them enough.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: But, B, I just thought it was an incredible bit of, like, statecraft and mythos building.
Julia: Yeah, that's incredible. And, now, I'm thinking about all the smells in the world that I haven't smelled yet. That's life. Man, someone teach me about smells and, like, the receptors in our brains that understand smells because that is fascinating to me.
Amanda: I know. The first time I smelled a eucalyptus tree, I cried because I was like, “Holy shit, I haven't smelled this before.”
Julia: That's incredible. I’ve – I'm very curious as to, like, if there is a science behind it, where it's like, yes, these limited amount of different, like, molecules create all of the smells. And it's just a combination of all of them. I don't know if that's true or not.
Amanda: Yeah, dude.
Julia: I – in my mind, I feel like science would be like, yes, it is, or, no, it isn't. But --
Amanda: I mean, in the all of – all of the universe is built from a foundation of, you know, whatever it is now, 150 plus elements is incredible.
Julia: That is true. That is true. Yeah, there probably is just a limited amount of smells. And it's just a combination of – fascinating. Okay.
Amanda: Mhmm.
Julia: Besides my point. Let's talk about the Celtic pagan beliefs for a moment because this was something I didn't really know about until I started researching this episode. So, in the first century BCE, the Greek scholar, Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor, which is a great name --
Amanda: Great
Julia: -- wrote that the Gauls were super into what he calls the Pythagorean doctrine. “The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among the Gauls’ teaching that the souls of men are immortal and that, after a fixed number of years, they will enter into another body.” Now, Polyhistor, being Greek would see this as a Pythagorean doctrine, but it is argued by Clement of Alexandria that Pythagoras actually learned his doctrine from the Celts.
Amanda: Hmm.
Julia: Julius Caesar even noted that what he referred to as Metempsychosis – again, remember that Greek word for change and to put the soul into – was a huge part of their beliefs. “The principal point of their doctrine is that the soul does not die and that, after death, it passes from one body to another. The main objective of all education is in their opinion to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another, for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors can the highest form of human courage be developed. Now, I don't know about the development of human courage. But Julius Caesar does bring up what I think is a good point. That knowing you will eventually be reborn, that life does not end at death, does take away some – sorry, Caesar, probably not all – of the fear that comes alongside death.
Amanda: Damn.
Julia: Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I, I still think that, from an individual perspective, even if I firmly believed that I would be reborn or reincarnated or something like that, I still would fear the loss of my individual experiences and memories. Like, there are a lot of cultures where they talk about the fact that we can't remember our past lives very well if at all. And I think I would be afraid of, of the loss of who I was as a person even if I was going to be reborn in another body, you know.
Amanda: Yeah, I think the meaning of a life is the relationships you build, the memories you hold, the, the context of the life. And, you know, if, if life was such a joy that I just want to do it again, it would not be the same life again. It's sort of the same as cloning. Like, you don't get the same person no matter what, or the same dog, or whatever. Because you're inevitably shaped in a profound way from the experiences you have.
Julia: Yeah, I've been rereading the Wayfarer Series by Becky Chambers.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: The first book being The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.
Amanda: Great.
Julia: And two things that you just kind of put into my head by talking about that; one is that we are, as people, formed by our experiences and our memories and stuff like that. Even if we were, say, cloned and born as the same genetically predisposed person, as we grow through life, become a different person because our experiences would be different, which is a discussion that they have based on, like, AI experiences. Creating, like – and another one that I was thinking about was you pointing out that like, yeah, when you mourn a person, they – it is because of who they have become through all of their life experiences. And one of the alien cultures in there talks about how humans tend to mourn younger people more because of the potential of what their lives could have been. Whereas, in this series, the certain alien species mourns those who lived a long life because they touched more people's lives. And, therefore, like their loss is felt more strongly.
Amanda: Mhmm. Yeah.
Julia: Anyway. Spirits Podcast, let's get existential about death.
Amanda: That's all we do. Listen, conspirators, you know what you're getting here.
Julia: Yes. So, shooting over to third century BCE, China, for a moment, Taoism had a interesting cyclical interpretation of life and death as well. The Taoists believe that their founder, the philosopher, Lao Tzu, had appeared in different lives as different people throughout the reign of the three sovereigns and five emperors, which is this folkloric era of two groups of leaders who were probably mythological and are, like, cultural heroes to this day. That were said to reign from around 2852 to 2070 BCE. I'm very bad at reading numbers. So, sorry about that.
Amanda: It makes no sense that we're like, “Hey, numbers? Forget about those. Christ was born. Reset it, baby.”
Julia: Reset it. We're counting backwards now.
Amanda: We're all living in the Christian world. And, so, that's what we're going to do on all our calendars.
Julia: So, in Taoist literature, Lao Tzu said, “Earth is not a beginning. Death is not an end. There is existence without limitation. There is continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time. There is birth. There is death. There is issuing forth. There is entering in.” So, while not exactly a doctrine of rebirth and reincarnation, it does echo the cyclical sentiments of other traditions that we've spoken about this far.
Amanda: Hell yeah. And, as, you know, an adolescent kind of reckoning with the loss of religiosity in my own life, this idea that all matter kind of recycles and exists somewhere in the universe was deeply comforting. And I hear very similar kind of conclusions in the passage you just read.
Julia: And I love that we're kind of figuring that out really early in our history as human beings. That's extremely cool. I love that.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: So, moving on from those less ancient traditions, Europeans kind of flirted with the idea of rebirth and reincarnation starting in, like, the 11th century. But most of the groups that were preaching those philosophies were pretty quickly persecuted for heresy by the Inquisition and the Catholic Church. Classic.
Amanda: Yep.
Julia: The Renaissance and the “enlightenment era” saw a resurgence in the teachings of Plato and Socrates because scholars were starting to translate their work during this time. And it was becoming more readily available for people. And this kind of sparked philosophical discussions rather than religious implications for these teachings. Kind of bringing back the philosophy of things rather than the religion of things.
Amanda: And, actually, this is sort of similar to spiritualism to where the idea was like, “Oh, man, we used to have it right. All we have to do is look to the past, do that again, and then everything's going to be fine. And that was part of what motivated, you know, all of the translation of Greek works because it was like, “Well, they, they knew it. And, so, that's just all we need.” And I'm sure there's lots of complexity that I would love to learn about. But I think, in the way that history only inevitably repeats itself, that is a really dangerous impulse. And it's one that, hey, still happening.
Julia: Yeah. And we'll talk a little bit about that towards the end before we get into our morally gray section. But --
Amanda: Hey.
Julia: So, the 19th century is when Western philosophers started “discovering” – big quotes, big quotes around that – the religious teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and started spiraling out of those beliefs to incorporate them in philosophies like American Transcendentalism. The American philosopher, Francis Bowen, would later incorporate these beliefs into his philosophy which he called Christian Metempsychosis. Again, that same word.
Amanda: Oh, man.
Julia: It was also around this time in the early 20th century that the study of psychology was still kind of, like, getting its legs. And that interest in reincarnation began to seep into it. And we'll discuss the impact of that after our refill. But this is the period in which, especially in America and in Britain, the idea of past lives and reincarnation kind of started to become this cultural phenomenon. Even someone like General George Patton, best known for his participation in World War II, believed that he was the reincarnation of General Hannibal Barca, who is best known for going head-to-head with the Roman Empire. You know, Hannibal, the, the --
Amanda: Yikes.
Julia: -- elephants across the Alps, Hannibal?
Amanda: Big yikes.
Julia: Yeah, he thought that was him. Wild.
Amanda: We – you can just like something. You can just like a person. You can just draw inspiration from their life. You could just carry a little portrait in your wallet maybe.
Julia: Oh, we'll talk about that later. Yeah, you could just do that, wouldn’t you? And, like I said, we're gonna get into the kind of nitty-gritty of past life study. But, first, we're going to need a refill.
Amanda: I sure do.
Julia: Yeah.
Midroll Music
Amanda: Julia, I discovered something that people have known for several years, which is that some leggings have pockets in them. And you can buy leggings with pockets. And we had – the other day, I was wearing leggings that you said you also own it, which is fantastic.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: But I really dislike – it just opens up a whole new sartorial world for me. And, now, I – more than ever, I'm looking for tunics. You know, like tunic-length shirts or sweatshirts that go past my butt. And just stuff I can wear with my pocket leggings. And that is my work uniform now because nothing has any meaning. So, I went to Stitch Fix and I requested tunics for my personal stylist, which is so fancy to say. And what I love about Stitch Fix is, yes, you can get it on a recurring basis. But you can also just order a box when you need it. And, in this case, I really needed it. I let them know my sizes, my styles, my budget, stuff that does and doesn't work well for me. And I was like, “I will never wear a strapless bra. Don't get me one with, like, a halter or, like, spaghetti type situation.” And, so, when I got my box, it was so much fun to try on clothes that I knew would fit, that I knew would be in budget, and that I was just really excited to open. So, that is what Stitch Fix is all about. Every piece is chosen for you and it's an easy solution to find what makes you look and feel your best. You also try those pieces on at home before you buy. You just keep what you love out of the box they send and return what you don't. The shipping is free and returns and exchanges are really easy. A prepaid return envelope is even included with the order. So, you don't have to worry about it at all. Also, no subscription, like I said. And you pay just a $20 styling fee for each box, which gets credited toward any piece you keep. There are no hidden fees ever. It's really easy to understand what you're going to pay, not like your credit card gets charged the next month and you didn't realize it. It's really straightforward. And they've been a great sponsor to us over the years.
Julia: So, if you, like Amanda, have a new piece of fashion that you want to add to your wardrobe, you can get started today at stitchfix.com/spirits and you'll get 25 percent off when you keep everything in your fix. That’s stitchfix.com/spirits for 25 percent off when you keep everything in your Fix, stitchfix.com/spirits.
Amanda: Fantastic, Julia. Your voice always really calms me down. It really makes me feel so tranquil and calm.
Julia: That's a great transition into our next sponsor which is Calm. Amanda, oh, boy, getting a good night's sleep is really hard to come by, especially when you live across the street from a train station like I do. And we are just, like, super over caffeinated. We're addicted to our screens. We're living in a super over stimulating world. So, when you run on too little sleep, it can take a serious toll on your mental and physical health. And that's why we're really excited to partner with Calm. They are the mental fitness app designed to help you relieve anxiety and improve your sleep because improving your sleep can literally change your life. Calm helps you ease stress and get the best sleep of your life. They have a whole library of programs designed for healthy sleep like Soundscapes and guided meditations and over 100 sleep stories narrated by incredibly soothing voices like LeVar Burton, Nick Offerman, and Lucy Lou. And, if you go to calm.com/spirits, you'll get a limited time offer a 40 percent off a Calm premium subscription, which includes hundreds of hours of programming. Over 70 million people around the world use Calm to take care of their minds and get better sleep. And you can get the Calm app and experience a transformation in the way you sleep. It is so nice and soothing when I wake up at 2:00 AM because of the train noises and I can just put on a really nice Lucy Lou sleep story and just fall right back to sleep. So, for listeners of the show, Calm is offering a special limited time promotion of 40 percent off a calm premium subscription at calm.com/spirits. That's 40 percent off, unlimited access to Calm’s entire library. And new content is added every week. Get started today at Calm, C-A-L-M.com/spirits. That's calm.com/spirits.
Amanda: And, finally, we are sponsored by BetterHelp, which is how I get therapy and how you should get therapy. If there is something interfering with your happiness, or preventing you from achieving your goals, or, like me, getting stressed out over small things during my day that I feel shouldn't derail me and, you know, make me so upset, but they really do, therapy is a wonderful way to assess that and to try to get some help and some tools that you can bring with you, not just on that, you know, half hour or hour long call with your therapist but into your life all the time. Yesterday, my therapist and I did a, like, meditation-relaxation exercise, where she was teaching me some strategies. And it was really helpful. Like, you can read about the stuff on the internet. But, having somebody else walk you through it, answer your questions, and me, being able to say like, “Ah, I feel like this is kind of silly and frivolous,” and then have someone allay my fears is really amazing. I really love that BetterHelp is available worldwide. You can start communicating with somebody in under 48 hours, which is awesome. And there's also a broad range of expertise available, which might not be locally available in many areas. Or, like now, if I don't want to do in-person therapy, it is a really wonderful way to make sure that I'm still taking care of my mental health every week. They're also committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches. So, they make it really easy and free to change counselors if needed. BetterHelp wants you to start living a happier life today. So, please visit their website and read testimonials if you'd like to and get a sense of how they have over a million people who've taken charge of their mental health with BetterHelp. Go to betterhelp.com/spirits for 10 percent off your first month. That's betterH-E-L-P.com/spirits for 10 percent off your first month of counseling. Trust me, guys, you deserve it. It's worth it. And, now, let's get back to the show.
Julia: So, for this cocktail, I picked one with a evocative name and one that I think has been kind of making a comeback since its pre-Prohibition birth, which I think makes it a good choice for this episode. And that is The Last Word, which is gin, lime juice, green Chartreuse and Maraschino liqueur. The latter two, I know most people probably don't have stocked in their home bar. But green Chartreuse is genuinely a great and really versatile ingredient.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And I highly recommend picking up a bottle if you don't already have one. A lot of pre-Prohibition and Prohibition cocktails have it as an ingredient. And it's nice and herbal and adds a lot of flavor to things. And it's naturally green, which is very cool.
Amanda: Also, did you know that grenadine is just pomegranate juice reduced?
Julia: What? No.
Amanda: You can make grenadine. It's just like a thing you can make.
Julia: That's wild.
Amanda: Video game correspondent and life partner, Eric, figured that out a few days ago. I was like, “Wait, we you could just --
Julia: What?
Amanda: And I was like, “I don't believe this.”
Julia: That’s --
Amanda: It was just completely something that in the way that, as a kid, you don't think about like where cereal comes from or whatever. I’ve never thought about where grenadine comes from.
Julia: That is buckwild and thank you for sharing that with me. Another fun fact about green Chartreuse, before I forget, this might just be like, you know, a thing that they tell you to sell the thing to you. But it's, like, supposedly, only two monks in the world know the 130 herbal ingredients that go into green Chartreuse and, like, I love that. That's great. It's like pass down the secret knowledge.
Amanda: Yeah, I will – I mean I, I'm very susceptible to, like, branding that evokes patent medicine. You know what I mean?
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Like, the, the Dr. Bronner's soap and the Thayer’s Bitters. Like --
Julia: I get it.
Amanda: I am the – I am the core demographic. And, in that way, when an Instagram ad, like, really sees you and you feel ashamed that you're so predictable, that's how I feel about that.
Julia: Yeah, I get that. That's – that's very good. So, what I was going to start with for the back half of this episode is with a man named, Théodore Flournoy, who was a Swiss psychologist whose area of study would now be referred to as Parapsychology and Spiritism.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: So, we're discussing him because he was notably one of the first people to study what we now refer to as past life recall. This study would then kind of influence the work of Carl Jung, whose focus was on something called Cryptomnesia, which is when a forgotten memory returns to a subject without being recognized by the subject who sees it as a new and original thought rather than a memory.
Amanda: Or when you bought cryptocurrency four years ago.
Julia: And you forgot about it.
Amanda: And then realize that you had it and then figure out how to get into your Bitcoin wallet.
Julia: Incredible. That's also a very good use for that. So, Jung believed that cryptomnesia might be a symptom of past lives asserting themselves on the current. So, here's a quote. “This concept of rebirth necessarily implies the continuity of personality that one is able, at least, potentially, to remember that one has lived through previous existences and that these existences were one's own.” And, from this, came the popular usage of hypnosis in psychology in order to retrieve forgotten memories.
Amanda: Fascinating. I just listened, a few days ago, to the episode of the podcast, You're Wrong About, all about as part of the, like, satanic panic. How there are often or were often examples where psychologists would be, like, assuming that you had repressed memories. And, like, that is definitely true in different extents for different people in different ways. But, when you bring someone back with, like, a ton of therapy and ask them, like, day after day after day, like, “Okay. But, like, what else is there? Like, there must be something worse. There must be something else there.” And you kind of assume and lead a person to believe that, you know, there is yet worse and yet worse things that are just buried in their minds if just they can get to them. Then guess what? People are leadable and you tend to say, like, “Oh, yeah. Well, maybe I do remember something.” And without trying to, you know, the patient may fabricate something that has, you know, bad consequences for, for example, like, legal suits.
Julia: This is a great transition into my, my next paragraph. So, this is where we begin to see the process of past life regression, which I will say outright that I find interesting but do not personally condone as a way of treating trauma. But I do think that, like, how we got to this point is interesting, which is why we're discussing it in this episode. So, past life regression uses hypnosis to recover what they believe to be memories of past lives or incarnations. I'll also state outright that most of the scientific community and medical practitioners have discredited this practice. In a 2006 survey, a majority of a sample of doctoral level mental health professionals rated past lives therapy as “certainly discredited as a treatment for mental and behavioral disorders.” However, many people see it as a spiritual experience rather than a medical one, which is where the line kind of gets a little hazy. Again, this is not encouraging anyone to seek out this practice for treatment one way or another. That's not what this podcast is about, but rather understanding how ancient philosophies and religions are influencing our culture to this day.
Amanda: Well said.
Julia: So, early study of past life regression in the 19th century ties itself, like, inextricably to the rise of spiritualism and séances. There was a clairvoyant in 1923 named Edgar Cayce, who would enter a trance-like state and then answer questions about, basically, his clients’ past lives while in this trance. So, one example was he – some editor went to him and started asking questions about the lives that he experienced in the past. And Cayce was like, “Ah, yes, I got this. Here's who you were,” and just kind of made his claim to fame by doing that.
Amanda: Sounds like a thing that people would certainly buy tickets to.
Julia: Yeah, one of the cases that brought past life regression into the American consciousness was that of the housewife, Virginia Tighe, in 1952. So, a hypnotist named, Morey Bernstein, claimed that he was able to put Virginia into a trance. And she was able to recall past memories of when she was a 19th century Irish woman named Bridey Murphy.
Amanda: That's an Irish name.
Julia: That was a very Irish name. So, his claim was that he was attempting hypnotic regression taking Virginia back through her childhood memories and then, took it a step further, before her birth. And Virginia was then able to remember the life before her birth. So, that was his big claim.
Amanda: Interesting.
Julia: The story was posted in the Denver Post and then in a book that came out in 1956. And this cause, like, a huge sensation here in the US. There were, like, several songs that came out about the story, including The Love of Bridey Murphy and “Do You Believe in Reincarnation?” which is great. However, as one can imagine, people began to kind of look into these claims about Bridey Murphy's life outlined in the book. And it became pretty clear that most of these memories were not based off of, like, true dates that she provided. And there were inconsistencies in her story. A church that she referred to in her memories was not built until, supposedly, after she died. The university that she claimed her husband had worked at also did not exist at the time, et cetera. The likely conclusion that most researchers came to was that Virginia, who had lived with her parents in Ireland until the age of three was recalling childhood memories that she had otherwise suppressed.
Amanda: Fascinating.
Julia: But, like, it was – it was, like, a big boom at the time. Like, there were a lot of, like – I looked this up. There were a lot of, like, newspaper comics about people, like, giving birth and then telling their babies, “Welcome back,” and stuff like that. It's very cute. People in the 50s had funny jokes.
Amanda: And I mean, as – you know, as capitalism provides us with ever more time to consider things and as gender norms forced women into lives of servitude, I don't wonder that there was a boom in therapy, in anxiety, in all that stuff. I'm sure lots of people were returning from war. No mental health treatment. So, I, I think it was kind of in the air.
Julia: Yes, during that period, in particular, that was like people were starting to finally take psychology and psychiatry seriously. And we were starting to get, at least, a little bit better at treating those things. So, absolute.
Amanda: Pendulum, it swings and, sometimes, it swings too far.
Julia: Yes. And, honestly, the interest in past lives has not died down that much since the 50s. There are even still people studying it. One of the more interesting – and I say interesting. Again, I am not condoning this as a scientific or medical practice. But one of the more interesting things that I found while researching this was that the University of Virginia's School of Medicine has a Division of Perceptual Studies. And here is their, their about page. “At the Division of Perceptual Studies, we believe that a revolution in intellectual history is taking place. And we have a unique role to play in bringing it to fruition. Current mainstream science and philosophy portray mind, personality, and consciousness as nothing more than the byproducts of brain activity encased within our skulls and vanishing at depth. Through its research, DOPS strives to challenge these entrenched mainstream views by rigorously evaluating empirical evidence suggesting that consciousness survives death and that mind and brain are distinct, inseparable.”
Amanda: Listen, I think research is great.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: I think more information is good.
Julia: Absolutely. So, the director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at UVA is Dr. Jim Tucker, whose focus is in children who he claims speak about memories of previous lives that they claim to live.
Amanda: I mean it'd be very interesting to know what is behind this. If it's, you know, imagination that strikes adults as creepy, if it's dreams, if it's, you know, picking up on discussions around them that people don't expect them to pick up on, like, that's interesting. And I, I don't think it's a bad thing to – you know, to research it.
Julia: Yeah. So, he wrote a book about this subject called Return to Life, which, among others, outlines the cases of James Leininger, who had verifiable past life memories of being a World War II pilot, and Ryan Hammond, who had verifiable memories of being a Hollywood extra and talent agent.
Amanda: Listen, that sounds like a book people would buy.
Julia: Yeah. From his studies, Dr. Tucker believes that, typically, these children from ages two to five are best able to tap into these memories. But they also seem to fade around the age of seven. Now, again, this is not an area of academia that I am a part of, but I do know that UVA is a very reputable institution. So, I do find it interesting that they have a division like this as part of their School of Medicine. And it does kind of – again, I don't want to make fun of the research that they're doing or anything like that. I think it is interesting research that they're doing, but it does feel like the beginning of Ghostbusters to me in a lot of ways, where they're studying Parapsychology at a school like Columbia.
Amanda: Yeah, I mean we, we see this all the time where, where science follows fiction or where, you know, similar ideas that fascinate people, some might take to research and some might take to, to, you know, artistic creation. And I think that's definitely – I think that happens in the world.
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. Kind of continuing on this, parapsychology may be something that can be studied for argument's sake. But, like many things that kind of enter the popular culture that stem from religious and philosophical origins, it can be twisted into something questionable at best and insidious at worst. During my research, I've unfortunately seen stuff like people claiming that they cannot be racist because they were another race in a past life. And --
Amanda: Not how it works.
Julia: -- hey, don’t do stuff like this.
Amanda: Not how it works.
Julia: If you believe you had a past life, I'm not here to discredit you. But just, like, be cool about it, please. Just be cool.
Amanda: Also, racism is not a tally of virtues and sins.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: It is fact happening every day that is structural.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: So, you know, you can't, like, earn enough on your AP exam. You don't just take math in college. That's not – that's not the same system that’s going to work here.
Julia: That is 100 percent true. That's a good comparison. To kind of wrap up though, I do want to say that several of the cultures that we talked about earlier on that have traditions in reincarnation and rebirth, do have, in some part, like, their own forms of past life regression. So, for example, the Hindu scholar, Patañjali, believed that the Atman or inner self, the essence of a person, can become overly burdened by karma of previous lives and believed that, through the process of prati-prasav, meaning reverse birthing, a person could address problems in the current life through memories of the past life. It was actually a yoga practice.
Amanda: And, hey, like, whenever you think of the – like, validity of these things, the opportunity to address something that you feel is holding you back or to confront and then let go of a thing that is burdening you is, is positive. Like, I, I completely understand why. In the same way that, whether you believe in god or you don't, a time to, you know, kind of reflect and quietly, like, get yourself ready for your day or wind down at the end of the day, whether you call it meditation or prayer, like, there are similarities of why that works in both cases.
Julia: Yeah. And, actually, that brings a, a great other example that I have here, which is Jainism. They also believe that, in order to separate karma from the inner self, which, in Jainism, is called the Jiva. You have to separate that karma from your Jiva in order to be freed from the cycle of life and death. And you must understand what karma is attached to your Jiva – so, like, what past experiences you had – so that you can separate them. And this process of remembering past lives and the karma that's incurred within them is called Jati-Smaran. And I just – I think that's really interesting that, like, what you just said and the idea that, like, you do have to, like, figure out what is causing your problems in order to counteract the things that are causing you problems.
Amanda: Yeah. And, obviously, I think, when the belief in reincarnation or past lives is part of a broader, like, cosmological religious framework, I think that makes a ton of sense and is more kind of understandable. And, you know, a thing that people might accept in their lives than a standalone belief that, like, an otherwise secular person is like, “Oh, yes, that must be true.”
Julia: Yes. Again, these cultures have a lot of nuance to the study of them --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: -- that we can't do in our under an hour podcast. I'm sure that there are great resources out there where they do talk about this stuff and it's not two white people talking about it. And I highly recommend checking those things out. But, to kind of sum up, I do find the idea of the continuation of life and experience after death, comforting personally. I understand the belief and I understand where it might come from. I actually keep coming back to that quote from Julius Caesar in the idea that the belief in a cycle of life does take away some of the fear of death. I, I do always urge caution around these topics, though, in, like, the modern sense because, a lot of time, it ends up leading to people, especially in Western society, viewing it as a novelty rather than an actual practiced religious tradition. So, just be careful of that. But, at the same time, I do get the interest in the phenomenon of remembering things that you shouldn't be able to remember. And brains are fascinating like that. That's such an interesting thing. And I do think that cryptomnesia – not when you're forgetting about your Bitcoin, but the other thing that Carl --
Amanda: Yes. Yes. Yep.
Julia: -- Carl Jung spoke about earlier, is something that I plan to look more into in my own time because I find that and stuff like the Mandela effect very interesting, the kind of cultural phenomenon of us remembering things that we shouldn't.
Amanda: Yeah, I think brains are so good at sort of rationalizing new input in your own worldview or to fit in with things that you already know to be true or have experienced. That is, like, the most powerful, I would argue, part of the human brain. And that's really destructive when you, you know, make stories out of things that are just events, or, you know, when you think of yourself as a protagonist and everybody else is background characters. Like, there's so many things that we talked about and so many things that are out there that are all about just kind of the – our brain applying one lens to a thing that might be not so true, or more chaotic, or more random.
Julia: As a person who has been existing on the internet in, you know, the year 2020, I have seen a lot of stories where it's like, “Oh, my child said this creepy thing. Like, oh, mommy, before I lived with you, I, you know, drove a truck around” or something like that, which, again, children are extremely creepy. We've discussed this on the show before. But I also think that, like, children just say stuff sometimes. And I don't know if that's your child remembering a past life or it was, like, something they saw on TV. And then it, like, in their brain, metamorphosized into an own personal memory that they have. But I do think that we just, like, we need to be a little cautious with the way that we talk about that. I think it's an interesting thing to kind of play around with from a philosophical idea, but just be cautious and aware, I guess, in the discussions that you have about it.
Amanda: Yeah. And I don't – I don't think it's a bad thing necessarily to want to believe in it.
Julia: Sure.
Amanda: Or to hope that it's true or to be like, if this was proven, I would be stoked because I – at least, in my experience, you know, feeling cut off from community or feeling, like, you know, the world is proceeding in a way that I can influence or that, you know, my little life might not have as much impact on the world as I hope it would. Feeling a sense of, like, provable connection to what's come before is fascinating. And, certainly, hoping that your influence lasts beyond your life, I think, is a thing that is not, like, shameful whatsoever to, to want. So, I, I think that's something that, you know, more people should give themselves permission to, to want things that they – that they know are not true. Or to say like, “Yeah, that'd be really tight.” And, like, I – to be curious about your attraction to stuff or the fascination you think when you learn about something. You don't have to adopt it, coopt it, practice it, you know, pay somebody to, you know, do something that they probably are just doing for money, but, instead, you can say, like, what is behind that. You know, why do I feel this way? And treat yourself with curiosity and not as a thing that you have to, like, immediately, you know, put money behind or reject.
Julia: Yeah, I think that is something that we often try to encourage our listeners to do. It’s to practice what feels true to you. And just be respectful of the ancient traditions and still practicing traditions that came before you and, and that you might be taking philosophy from. But, yeah, I think past lives, super interesting. We’d want to do more research onto it. I’m very curious about Dr. Turner's book and I'm gonna – I'm gonna look more into that.
Amanda: Right on. Well, thank you for this survey. I feel like there are a lot of subjects that I want to do more research into now.
Julia: I love – I love piquing people's interest in things. That's what I'm here for.
Amanda: That's what we're here to do.
Julia: And talking about death and stuff.
Amanda: Talking about death and stuff. That version of, like, seeing a related page in Wikipedia where you're like, “That's interesting. That's what we hope to do.”
Julia: But, yeah, listeners if you – I guess, maybe I'd want to hear, if you think you personally have a past life story, I'd be interested in hearing that. That'd be fun. I don't mean to discredit you or your personal beliefs, but I would be very curious to hear about your past life stories
Amanda: And know anybody who has – who grew up in a tradition that incorporates past lives or reincarnation in some way, I'd love to hear either recommended reading or your personal experience as to what that means to you and your practice.
Julia: Heck yeah. And remember, listeners, stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.
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Amanda: Thanks again to our sponsors. At stitchfix.com/spirits, you will get 20 percent off when you keep everything in your fix. At calm.com/spirits, you will get 40 percent off a Calm premium annual subscription. And, at betterhelp.com/spirits, you'll get 10 percent off your first month of counseling.
Outro Music
Amanda: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allyson Wakeman.
Julia: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website as well as a form to send us your urban legends at spiritspodcast.com.
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Julia: Thank you so much for listening. Till next time.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil