The meaning of personal existence : in the light of paranormal phenomena the doctrine of reincarnation and mystical states of consciousness / Arthur W. Osborn. 6

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Bibliography: p. 215-224.

Foreword / by Ian Stevenson -- Author's foreword -- 1. The Attitude of others -- 2. Individuality and personality -- Life and its manifestations -- The Origin of the individual -- Body and mind -- Parallelism -- Interactionism -- How may the relationship of mind to body be conceived? -- Limitative function of the brain -- Definitive function of the brain -- The Response function of the brain -- 3. Survival after death -- False assumptions concerning the personality -- Psychical research and survival -- What is proof? -- Types of evidence for survival -- Procedures for obtaining evidence of the post mortem existence of a particular personality -- 4. Types of paranormal phenomena -- 5. The Implications of paranormal phenomena -- Is survival more likely in the light of paranormal phenomena? -- Cross correspondences -- Manifestation of diverse personalities through one physical organism -- Mediumistic phenomena -- The Watseka wonder -- Drop-in communicators -- Xenoglossy -- speaking in languages unknown to a medium -- The Rosemary case -- Another Egyptian manifestation -- A Case of responsive xenoglossy suggestive of reincarnation or discarnate influence -- Out of the body experiences -- Are out of the body experiences evidence for survival? -- The Circumstances which precede out of the body experiences and their relation to the experience 6. Apparitions : are they evidence of survival? -- Why are apparitions experienced? -- Phantasms of the dead -- The Wilkenson case -- The Clothes of phantoms -- 7. The Phenomena of materialization and telekinesis -- Ectoplasm and poltergeist phenomena -- Dr. Osty's experiments -- Other experiments and investigators -- General description of ectoplasmic phenomena -- Fraud : two types -- 8. Speculations about ectoplasm in relation to survival -- An Exercise in imagination -- Tactile clairvoyance or psychometry -- How are physical objects the carriers of psychic impressions? -- Do ectoplasmic forms provide evidence for survival? -- Rods and embryo limbs -- Animal forms -- Faces and human forms -- Are materialisations evidence for survival -- Evidence for survival essentially psychological -- A Legitimate deduction from the data of ectoplasmic forms -- One or many brains to a person? -- 9. Precognition -- Attempted explanations -- Subconscious latency and other theories -- The Reception of the PK theory of precoginition -- The Brain-computer theory -- 10. Has precognition any significance for survival? -- Some conclusions regarding survival in the light of precognitions of death 11. Survey of paranormal phenomena and some conclusions relevant to survival -- What psi phenomena demonstrate -- Intellectual difficulties in accepting survival -- A Reconsideration of the nature of non-physical bodies -- Subtle bodies : are they objective and detectable? -- The Meaning of objectivity in general -- Perception of the aura -- The Aura as dramatization of subconscious impressions or external reality? -- An Example of aura perception -- Correspondance of descriptions with published accounts -- Disappearance of the aura in one case of a medium in trance -- Aura and psi phenomena in general -- Attempts to detect the aura -- Survival in the light of subtle bodies -- Conclusion of our survey of psi phenomena -- 12. Ambiguities in the doctrine of reincarnation -- Everyman's questions -- Reincarnation and single-birth doctrines compared -- The Linkage between lives : an example -- The Mystery of memory -- Memory -- a mental event -- The Unique character of memory -- Supposed mechanisms for memory -- Memory and the causal body -- 13. Do some people remeber their past lives? -- Attempts to explain -- So-called illusions of memory -- An Example cited as an illusion of memory -- Precognitive paramnesia -- Investigations of ostensible past-life memories in children -- Cases from the superphysical -- The Shanti Devi case -- Scientific investigation of past-life memories -- A Modern examination of the data of claimed memories of past incarnations -- 14. An Examination of the doctrine of karma -- Action at a distance -- The Law of karma -- Karma and precognition -- 15. The Idea of a separate self and its destiny -- The Yearning for a background philosophy -- The Buddhist doctrine of rebirth -- The Buddhist anatta dogma -- Change and changelessness in relation to Buddhism -- The Notions of a causal-stream and a soul-entity, compared -- Selfness -- universal and particular 16. A Reconsideration of reincarnation and alternative theories -- Types of alternative theories -- After-death compensatory theories -- Community wholes and group-souls -- 17. Individuality and time -- The Universal self of the vedanta -- Reflection of the universal process in our personal lives -- Our mes -- Re-statement of the reincarnation doctrine -- Reappearances or multiplicity of individuals? -- The Place of individualisation -- Reincarnation or recurrence -- A Metaphysical objection to reincarnation -- Further remarks regarding the first reincarnation -- What is re-born? -- 18. The Transcendental -- Mysticism and religion -- Paradoxes of mystical experience -- The Nature of mystical experience -- Two questions -- Relative reals -- Mysticism and practical affairs -- Conditions in which mystical experience occurs -- The Achievement of mystical experience -- Psychedelic drugs -- 19. Wisdom in living -- Diagnosis of egoism -- The Perennial paradox -- The Mystical expression of individual dissolution unsatisfactory -- A Basic philosophy for living -- Some general rules for daily living -- Personality types in terms of natural interests -- Relationship of personality-types to the search for truth -- The Classical disciplines -- 20. Evil -- God and evil -- Relative evils -- Some meditational practices -- 21. Final comments on the doctrine of reincarnation -- Reincarnation : three levels of assessment -- The Personal aspect -- Is belief in reincarnation beneficial? -- The Spiritual aspect -- Four propositions -- The World-process as one of actualisation.

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