Customer Reviews

The Phenomenology of Past-Life Experiences (Mellen Studies in Psychology, V. 5)

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After reading this book, and the previous review by a professor who wrote Miracles...I am left with no indecision. In fact, I agree with Dr. Winn. What is disturbing is that there is so much compelling evidence now, and so many academics who believe the "absence of evidence is evidence of absence". How many things do we know to be true that cannot be empirically tested? And In fact, do you know the meaning of empirical? Look it up, you will be surprised as one definition has much to do with experiential information. Frankly, this critic holds an archaic view of the world. PLE'S are no more difficult to believe than many things that are shoved down our throats in academia, some of us who cannot even stand to write in academic terms anymore. This is not a subject amenable to academic debate, because academic debate is way too limited...limited by man, and I mean MAN made stringent guidelines. These "rules" have stripped the heart and soul of what it means to be alive. I may never know what is true or not true about this book, but I am sick and tired of male academics who think they know it all...you continue to remain unconvinced...I prefer to believe in possibilities, I believe in the realizable.. I believe. Take your academic stringent guidelines and put them to good use. Dr. Sydney Carroll Thomas, Ph.D. who has also published many a peer reviewed article, and book chapters, and is now commissioned to write a book about the liberation of scholarly writing.

This book, presented to me by the author herself, has lain on my shelf of must read books for about two years. Finally, I set aside the time I though was needed to give it the attention it deserves. The book titled The Phenomena of Past Life Experiences is a record of several women who, with the assistance of Dr. Winn explored what they understood as Past Life Experiences or PLE's. As an academic, with an excellent psychology background, as well as advanced clinical training in hypnosis and regression theory, Dr. Winn has the credentials and the experience required for a foray into the realm of past life work. But what does that mean truly? After reading the accounts, or rather, the conceptualizations of the accounts, I was led to the conclusion that the interviewer, in this case, Dr. Winn, had a pre-conceived belief, or perhaps need, to accept these things as real rather than products of the active imagination. For example, in one account we read that a person has experienced a P.L.E. that is strikingly similar to a dream this person had just the night before. The conclusion drawn was that the person had had a PLE in their dream. Rather I would say they were simply recounting the event from the dream in the hypnotic state. There are a few things we must keep in mind as we begin this short work. First, that all persons involved had, to a varying degree, a belief in PLE's. Second, that guided imagery is a relaxation technique that has been used for a number of reasons, from hypnosis to therapy for PTSD to parlor room shenanigans. Thirdly, and most importantly, I believe all the participants were fully expecting the outcomes of this study. It is interesting to note that all but one person suffered being murdered, usually very violently, in their past life experiences. They were often very remarkable persons in these past lives, rather extra ordinary characters who met their ends violently. Not just in one past life, but in several. If a person could in fact experience a past life, I find it difficult to believe that they could have lived such violent lives repeatedly. It is far more likely that these persons had a romanticized idea of what an exciting past life might have been, and either subconsciously or consciously manufactured the events. Is that to say that such things do not occur? Hardly. Nevertheless, this book, much like my own work MIRACLES is the reported experiences of individuals with their own minds, thoughts and ideas. The difference is that I did not believe in Miracles before I wrote the book and am still undecided. Winn seems to have accepted their factuality from the beginning. Are PLE real? Perhaps, but this book, well written though it is, certainly left me unconvinced.