Well, once again, it didn’t record. I’d gone in to check on the recording midway through and found no recording, so I hit the record–but it turns out I only taped the show’s conclusion, so did not see the rest of the show. I went back into OWN TV guide and watched all I could find on the show, but it seemed incomplete. I did not find the conclusions segment for the Leininger session.But, I’ve been following this for some ten years, and have read the book. So, I’ll press on.
At the conclusion segment Indre said: 1) it’s easy to interpret a child’s behavior through our own beliefs, especially behavior that doesn’t make sense, 2) Ann (James Huston, Jr’s sister) wasn’t reminded of her brother through James Leininger; she didn’t feel connected, but she could see there might be some similarities, 3) it was hard for Indre to believe this stuff based on everything she knows about how memory works.
Knows.
Apparently, she has left no room for growth? No room for, gee, maybe there’s something science missed? Again I bring up the wave and particle theory of light argument. Just because something behaves one way, does not mean it cannot behave another way!
Yet when Randall and her were talking with Bruce and Andrea Leininger, Indre admitted to having been taken by what was presented: 1) James Leininger’s use of the term “drop tank” at two years of age, 2) flying nightmares and his kicking feet up into the air as if trapped somewhere, 3) James telling his parents about the Japanese had killed him, 4) that he flew a Corsair, and 5) Natoma. Natoma Bay, the WWII aircraft carrier.
And, from the book (and from a previous post of mine), here is a list of some other examples of areas James exhibited similar behavior:
—Shouting “Airplane crash! Plane on fire! Little man can’t get out!” over and over at two or three years of age.
—Knocking the props off every toy airplane he was ever given.
—Insisting on familiarity with Corsair aircraft.
—Signed his name as “James 3” on all his drawings, which were of aircraft strafing and bombing runs.
—Mimicked the act of putting on a leather flight helmet before he’d ever seen one (in this life).
—While still in diapers, corrected his mother about what she thought was a “bomb” was actually a “drop tank.”
—Naming the G.I. Joes he got the names of dead friends of James McCready Huston Jr.; G.I. Joes that also just “happened” to look like these dead men.
—Correcting documentaries about incorrectly identifying a Japanese aircraft being shot down as a “Zero,” when it was really a “Tony.”
But, I’m sure he got all those terms from a Sponge Bob TV show. OR passed a stranger uttering “drop tank,” “Natoma Bay,” and “Tony, not Zero!”….
So I ask this: what’s the more unreal? That the behavior presented clearly portrays something about aircraft and another time, or that a child can just make this stuff up and there’s nothing to it? And if children can just “make this kind of stuff up”–where does it come from?
Or…as Occam’s Razor is applied (and be careful how you apply its actual definition, lest you incur the immediate and vengeful wrath of skeptics galore…), perhaps the best explanation is a past life. It seems to me that it’s obvious this is the case, but “obvious” doesn’t prove anything, and yes it is my own belief. But just because it is my belief, that doesn’t make it false or any less valid. Scientists believe in electricity and magnetism, and I don’t see anyone taking issue with them or those beliefs.
Oh, right–because those beliefs are true. There’s evidence.
So, all the previously mentioned “evidence” is not true?
No proof.
But the proof is the evidence.
I know, I’m getting into dangerous ground here, there are different ways to explain everything, but I don’t want to write a book on this, right now, just a blog post to get people to thinking.
It also seems to me that applying every other argument that “he’s just a boy, playing” is more of a reach. The past life explains everything without leap, except for the “reach” of believing in past lives itself…while the young James’s coming into contact with this material from his environment raises more questions than it answers–how did he come into contact with this stuff, and where–and he “just happened” to catch just the right terms that seem to “go together” for a WWII pilot, and not, say, purple dinosaurs? Why not throw in firetrucks and Sponge Bob into these rants? Why were they just about Corsairs and drop tanks?
Isn’t this exactly how past-life evidence might present itself? How perfect is your memory, what if there’s some kind of “reincarnational filter” that prevents total recall, and how can you expect even past-life memory to be perfect? How much more “perfect evidence” do you all require?
People are going to believe what they believe.