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How Reincarnation Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:14
Speaker 1: With me is always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant, as
0:17
Speaker 1: far as I known as first incarnation as a podcaster,
0:21
Speaker 1: or at least right possibly before you were a dolphin.
0:27
Speaker 1: I know I was a podcaster in the Ming Dynasty.
0:29
Speaker 1: A little known fact there. Really, huh when was the
0:33
Speaker 1: Ming Dynasty? It was when the first podcast was created
0:37
Speaker 1: by me. Do you know who created the first podcast?
0:39
Speaker 1: Don't you? Oh? That guy from MTV? Yeah, Adam Curry.
0:44
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy? A pioneer in our field? Yeah, we
0:49
Speaker 1: should jump him and beat him up, give me the
0:50
Speaker 1: old pillow case treatment. No, we should salute them hats off.
0:54
Speaker 1: Yeah that too. By the way, Chuck, did you notice
0:56
Speaker 1: in iTunes that you and I are in a special
0:59
Speaker 1: room where we are basically referred to as pioneers? Yeah?
1:05
Speaker 1: Podcast turns five? Yeah? Awkward? Yes, So Adam Curry started
1:13
Speaker 1: what twenty years after Ghostbusters? Very nice? No, twenty one years?
1:19
Speaker 1: Nice work. Let's get to it show. I Yes, have
1:23
Speaker 1: you heard of a kid named um James Lenninger? No,
1:28
Speaker 1: so let's see he's eleven now, I guess, and he
1:32
Speaker 1: lives in the United States. I don't know what state.
1:37
Speaker 1: I'm sure we could find out one of the fifty. Yes.
1:41
Speaker 1: Um and he around the age of two started having them,
1:45
Speaker 1: these crazy nightmares. And uh, he always had an affinity
1:49
Speaker 1: for airplanes. But around the age of two, things turned
1:52
Speaker 1: a little bit dark, and he started, you know, waking
1:55
Speaker 1: up screaming things like, UM, plane on fire, plane on fire,
1:59
Speaker 1: or something like that. That the kids sitting next to
2:01
Speaker 1: you when he flew to New York. No, that kid
2:04
Speaker 1: was he was just a punk. This kid was was traumatized.
2:07
Speaker 1: You could say he knew a lot about planes. His
2:10
Speaker 1: parents started noticing that he UM would do kind of
2:14
Speaker 1: pre flight checks when he was playing with his airplanes.
2:17
Speaker 1: He he could point to parts of his mom thought
2:20
Speaker 1: a UM a fuel tank called the drop tank was
2:24
Speaker 1: a bomb attached to the belt of a toy plane.
2:27
Speaker 1: And he's like, no, that's a drop tank. And he
2:29
Speaker 1: was just a little kid at the time, right, UM.
2:32
Speaker 1: And after a while his his the things he was
2:35
Speaker 1: he was talking about Sarah to get a lot more specific, Chuck.
2:40
Speaker 1: He talked about Um going down in a Corsair that
2:44
Speaker 1: he used to fly bless you with this is headed.
2:47
Speaker 1: He talked about how Corsair, the Corsair he flew, his
2:51
Speaker 1: tires would always go flat, which it's kind of a
2:55
Speaker 1: little known fact unless you're a World War Two pilot
2:57
Speaker 1: or worked on a flight deck. Sure. Uh. And then
3:00
Speaker 1: he finally said that he went down near Iwajima in
3:04
Speaker 1: a plane and that his plane had gone down from
3:07
Speaker 1: taking a direct hit in the engine. And by this time,
3:09
Speaker 1: this kid's like five, right, um, and so he said
3:15
Speaker 1: that he had been flying off of the Natoma right. Uh.
3:19
Speaker 1: So his father started to get a little bit obsessed
3:21
Speaker 1: with this and started researching the Natoma and found that
3:24
Speaker 1: there was a Natoma bay an aircraft carrier UM that
3:27
Speaker 1: was off the coast of Ewagima during the raid on
3:31
Speaker 1: Iwagima UH in March of nine. And there was indeed
3:36
Speaker 1: a guy whose name was James M. Houston Jr. And
3:41
Speaker 1: he was the only one to die uh in this
3:44
Speaker 1: raid on Iwagima from hitting the engine direct hitting the
3:48
Speaker 1: engine went down in his course air Is that a
3:51
Speaker 1: movie yet? Not yet? Should be? So the kids getting
3:54
Speaker 1: owners his um, his memories are fading. That was this
3:58
Speaker 1: was two thousand five. The article his memories were already fading.
4:01
Speaker 1: Apparently they hit their pinnacle at about three two to
4:04
Speaker 1: five something like that. Crazy, uh, And a lot of
4:08
Speaker 1: researchers are saying, you know, the parents have diluted themselves,
4:11
Speaker 1: they've deluded him, they've really kind of encouraged this, and
4:15
Speaker 1: they're seeing things that aren't there. But obviously as parents
4:18
Speaker 1: think that this kid is the reincarnation of this other
4:22
Speaker 1: guy named James, the one who went down in ninet
4:25
Speaker 1: and his course, their right sounds plausible to me, it is.
4:30
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people out there that would say
4:32
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound plausible, especially people in the Western world.
4:36
Speaker 1: But you go a little further east, a little past
4:40
Speaker 1: the Greenwich date line, right right, uh, and you will
4:48
Speaker 1: find a billion and a half two billion people who
4:52
Speaker 1: believe in reincarnation. Right yeah, Well wait, is that a
4:56
Speaker 1: billion and a half that's just Hindus and Buddhist right,
4:59
Speaker 1: you're at everybody? No, No, that's just there's like a
5:03
Speaker 1: billion people in China alone, right, Yeah, but I don't
5:06
Speaker 1: know that all of them are Buddhists. Yeah, but many
5:09
Speaker 1: more people believe in reincarnation than the Hindus and Buddhists.
5:11
Speaker 1: So you cross the International date line. Go a little
5:14
Speaker 1: further east, you're gonna find billions of people, billions of
5:18
Speaker 1: people starting in Central Asia and moving eastward, and us
5:23
Speaker 1: Stagi Westerners are always the ones going I don't know
5:26
Speaker 1: about that folksy remedy, or I don't know about that
5:29
Speaker 1: coming back as someone else. Well, one of the reasons
5:31
Speaker 1: why is because we view time as in a linear motion.
5:36
Speaker 1: There's no going back, there's no there's no coming back
5:40
Speaker 1: to do it again and again. You know, there's no rebirth.
5:43
Speaker 1: Most of the religions over here are monotheistic. You got
5:47
Speaker 1: a heaven after you die. Your life on earth is
5:50
Speaker 1: too sort of gain entry into heaven. And on the
5:54
Speaker 1: on the other side of the world, um in in
5:58
Speaker 1: among cultures that believe in reincarnation, time is generally viewed
6:02
Speaker 1: as cyclical, which makes for you know, coming back again
6:07
Speaker 1: and again as a lot more plausible, right, Yeah, I
6:11
Speaker 1: did find a thing about Christianity though. There are some
6:14
Speaker 1: people who think that reincarnation may have been an early
6:17
Speaker 1: tenant of Christianity, but it was misinterpreted and or just
6:23
Speaker 1: flat out kind of lost over the years. Yeah, are
6:26
Speaker 1: you talking about the Cathars. Well, it's just I mean,
6:29
Speaker 1: none of it can be proven obviously, and then parts
6:31
Speaker 1: of Judaism, the Kabbalah, and Hasidic Jews believe in reincarnation. Yeah,
6:35
Speaker 1: let's talk about that first. Let's talk about Asian views
6:40
Speaker 1: of reincarnation. All right, there's a lot of really interesting
6:44
Speaker 1: similarities across cultures as far as reincarnation goes in the
6:49
Speaker 1: earliest well, the oldest active religion right now is Hinduism,
6:56
Speaker 1: oldest surviving religion, right. I think you can make a
6:59
Speaker 1: case that's Zoroastrianism is older, but I don't know that
7:04
Speaker 1: you could say that that's actually surviving. Yeah, at the
7:08
Speaker 1: very least, it's not thriving like hindu is. Um. Right,
7:11
Speaker 1: So Chuck, how long has reincarnation been around. It hasn't
7:15
Speaker 1: been around forever like people would think it's. Actually it's
7:19
Speaker 1: fairly new, right, Yeah, the fifth and seventh century BC. Yeah. BC.
7:29
Speaker 1: We get yelled at every time we use that, don't
7:31
Speaker 1: sometimes Okay? And they were in the apon A Shads, right,
7:34
Speaker 1: which were these Hindu ancient Hindu texts where reincarnation is
7:38
Speaker 1: first really spelled out right, right, And they don't think
7:42
Speaker 1: that it was around prior to this, because um, there's
7:45
Speaker 1: a lot of evidence that in like burials, that people
7:49
Speaker 1: believe that this individual person went on to another life,
7:53
Speaker 1: so they would bury like um, their hunting materials, or
7:57
Speaker 1: arian societies would burn the wife alive when they cremated
8:00
Speaker 1: the husband, so they were together in the next life.
8:04
Speaker 1: So then reincarnation first pops up around you know, the
8:07
Speaker 1: fifth and seventh century or the seventh and fifth century BC. Right, yes,
8:11
Speaker 1: So what are we talking about when it comes to Hinduism, like,
8:15
Speaker 1: what are what's the basis of of reincarnation? Well, I
8:18
Speaker 1: mean and its original Latin translation, it means entering the
8:21
Speaker 1: flesh again, so that pretty much speaks for itself, I think.
8:26
Speaker 1: And Hinduism it's all about, uh, the acceptance of sam sara,
8:31
Speaker 1: which uh that literally means wandering on and from when
8:35
Speaker 1: I gathered. It's more of an answer to what are
8:37
Speaker 1: we doing? Like the eternal question is what are we doing?
8:40
Speaker 1: No way, not where are we? A lot of people
8:44
Speaker 1: think it's like you know where you are at your station,
8:47
Speaker 1: but it's really what are you doing? And so uh,
8:51
Speaker 1: basically it's um and it's sort of the same in Buddhism.
8:54
Speaker 1: We'll get into that, but it isn't there it's not
8:58
Speaker 1: in a continual cycle for all of eternity. There is
9:01
Speaker 1: a goal that you eventually want to break the cycle
9:04
Speaker 1: and reach an endpoint. And and Hinduism it's called moksha.
9:10
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah, that's how I took it. Yeah,
9:13
Speaker 1: And that's that's salvation. Right. Yes, it means release literally released,
9:18
Speaker 1: So to be released from your cycle is how I
9:20
Speaker 1: took it. So with Hinduism, you achieve moksha through karma, right.
9:26
Speaker 1: And karma is that it's this very it's that's as
9:30
Speaker 1: misused as socialism these days, I think, at least here
9:33
Speaker 1: in the West. Right. Um, If karma is basically this
9:38
Speaker 1: impersonal law where if you carry out good actions, you
9:43
Speaker 1: become good, If you carry out evil actions, you become evil. Right, So,
9:49
Speaker 1: according to how you live your life is the kind
9:52
Speaker 1: of karma you accrue in this karma accumulates from life
9:55
Speaker 1: to life. And ultimately, when I guess the good enough
9:59
Speaker 1: of the good karma is accrued if you will, um.
10:04
Speaker 1: And I don't think it's as black and white as
10:06
Speaker 1: good or bad karma necessarily, But but once you crew
10:09
Speaker 1: this this type of favorable karma, um, You're you're ultimately
10:15
Speaker 1: loosened from your human form and you're not going to
10:17
Speaker 1: be reborn again. You're gonna go join the Brahma. Right, Yes,
10:22
Speaker 1: that is the absolute god of the Hindus. Big cheese,
10:25
Speaker 1: you become one with I guess a part of it. Yeah, yeah,
10:30
Speaker 1: but karma is not controlled by that. God is not
10:33
Speaker 1: controlled by any god. No. Right, it's this like universal
10:36
Speaker 1: law like thermodynamics or something like that. Yeah, it's not
10:39
Speaker 1: like God says I'm gonna you know, you've earned this
10:41
Speaker 1: or you haven't earned that. He's just like he's like
10:44
Speaker 1: a dealer in Vegas, Like, I've got nothing to do
10:46
Speaker 1: with this, buddy, this is all about It's the second
10:48
Speaker 1: time we've done that called clearing your hands or tapping out.
10:52
Speaker 1: Um chuck. I find that really really interesting and kind
10:56
Speaker 1: of um uplifting that there is this um god, this
11:02
Speaker 1: almighty powerful god in the Hindu religion, and then there's
11:05
Speaker 1: of course like tons of other gods. Right, um, but
11:09
Speaker 1: the this this all powerful god can't do anything about
11:13
Speaker 1: this cosmic law of karma. It's up to the individual's actions.
11:18
Speaker 1: I just find the endlessly appealing that it's up to
11:21
Speaker 1: you how you live your life, whether or not you're
11:24
Speaker 1: going to achieve moksha or not. That's I just think
11:27
Speaker 1: that's super cool, absolutely, you know, because your actions should
11:30
Speaker 1: reflect you know, how you end up, and I think
11:33
Speaker 1: it creates your station in life as well. Right. Well, yeah,
11:37
Speaker 1: if you do enough, I guess, if you accrue enough
11:40
Speaker 1: good karma, you may end up in a higher cast,
11:43
Speaker 1: in another incarnation here on earth. Right. But then there's
11:47
Speaker 1: no heaven or hell or anything after after you do
11:52
Speaker 1: hit moksha, right, it's just being a part of the
11:55
Speaker 1: brahm one right, okay, which is the Buddhist equivalent of
12:00
Speaker 1: the Hindu equivalent of the Buddhist nirvana. Right. So moksha
12:03
Speaker 1: is one of four primary Hindu goals, right, Yeah, the final,
12:07
Speaker 1: that's the final, the first one, and it's almost kind
12:10
Speaker 1: of like this um this transcendence, and it starts with
12:14
Speaker 1: this very basic goal of desire where you want to
12:18
Speaker 1: have sex or you want wealth or you want fame
12:21
Speaker 1: or something like that. Uh, And then you move to wealth. Arthur,
12:25
Speaker 1: which actually is ka was the first one. I'm sorry,
12:28
Speaker 1: K And like you're saying c O M M A
12:31
Speaker 1: r K A M A uh. And then Arthur A
12:34
Speaker 1: r T h A is wealth and it's not like
12:38
Speaker 1: a bad thing. It's not like our concept of wealth.
12:40
Speaker 1: It's you want to accumulate wealth so you can take
12:44
Speaker 1: care of your family or do good for other people,
12:47
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So that in the Western concepts
12:51
Speaker 1: of wealth are not necessarily one of the same. Then
12:53
Speaker 1: you have dharma righteousness, right, and then after that you
12:58
Speaker 1: achieve moksha. And I think there's an interplay. I don't.
13:01
Speaker 1: I don't think it's necessarily graduated. There's that linear thought
13:06
Speaker 1: progression again right in the West. I think they're all
13:09
Speaker 1: kind of intertwined. Right. I think so too. But you
13:12
Speaker 1: led us to Buddhism and I trampled all over that segue.
13:16
Speaker 1: So let's go back to it, buddy. I believe that
13:20
Speaker 1: we said that moksha would be the Hindu equivalent of
13:22
Speaker 1: the Buddhist nirvana. Excellent segway, Chuck, And Buddhism is about
13:28
Speaker 1: years old, and uh, it's kind of their concept of
13:32
Speaker 1: reincarnation and is much the same as Hindu in fact
13:35
Speaker 1: that they got it from the Hindu. So they believe
13:38
Speaker 1: in karma. They believe in good karma and bad karma.
13:41
Speaker 1: They believe in uh sam Sara and rebirth and UH.
13:46
Speaker 1: They also believe in the in between, which is UH,
13:51
Speaker 1: between the afterlife, after death, and before birth. Right, that's
13:56
Speaker 1: actually Bardo in the Tibetan tradition. Okay, is it? So
14:00
Speaker 1: there's a there's a it's basically yeah, you can't really
14:04
Speaker 1: call it an afterlife, right if you call it an
14:06
Speaker 1: in between life? And so chuck this this thing that
14:10
Speaker 1: exists in between life and also in life and what
14:15
Speaker 1: dies as well? Um. Buddhists consider a germ of consciousness
14:19
Speaker 1: and I just made air quotes right, right, so that
14:22
Speaker 1: starts in the womb um, and you live, you die,
14:26
Speaker 1: You generate karma based on how you live. But the
14:31
Speaker 1: point of life to Buddhists is suffering. Yes, that's part
14:39
Speaker 1: of the fore noble truths, which is uh, suffering exists.
14:43
Speaker 1: Suffering arises from attachment to desires. Suffering ceases when attachment
14:47
Speaker 1: to desire cease, and freedom from suffering is possible by
14:51
Speaker 1: practicing the eight fold path. Right, And the eight Fold
14:54
Speaker 1: path was um something that was um created by the Buddhists.
14:59
Speaker 1: That Arthur Right who was born around five sixty three BC,
15:03
Speaker 1: and he was born into a life of opulence and
15:07
Speaker 1: wealth and privilege and had it very easy but he
15:10
Speaker 1: noticed fairly early on. I get the impression he was
15:14
Speaker 1: something of a prodigy, um that he wasn't achieving much
15:19
Speaker 1: spiritual progression through this life of wealth. So he went
15:24
Speaker 1: off and he did what Chuck, Well, when he was
15:27
Speaker 1: twenty nine years old, he left and said, I'm gonna
15:31
Speaker 1: practice yoga training and he basically abandoned all that and
15:36
Speaker 1: sat under a tree and he lived the life of
15:39
Speaker 1: a hermit. Yeah, so you know me, Chuck, You know
15:42
Speaker 1: how I feel about Buddhists going off and living in
15:45
Speaker 1: the cave by themselves and not contributing anything to humanity. Right,
15:50
Speaker 1: And this is what Siddartha tried. And did he gain
15:53
Speaker 1: enlightenment from this? No, he was I guess you could
15:57
Speaker 1: say he was in your camp. He didn't. Um. I'm
15:59
Speaker 1: not gonna say he didn't much out of it, because
16:00
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. But he ultimately did not gain enlightenment
16:03
Speaker 1: that way. And he thought, you know what, maybe a
16:06
Speaker 1: mix of both is a good thing, and maybe we
16:09
Speaker 1: should call that the middle way, and maybe that's the
16:11
Speaker 1: way to be right, and it's called the eight fold path. Right,
16:14
Speaker 1: So he achieves enlightenment and he immediately starts telling other
16:17
Speaker 1: people about it, and he said that there's this eight
16:20
Speaker 1: fold path that is basically it's in the middle between
16:24
Speaker 1: excess and self deprivation. Right, right, So what are the
16:28
Speaker 1: eight the eight parts of the eight fold path. Well,
16:32
Speaker 1: this is broken down into three qualities. Uh, the wisdom
16:35
Speaker 1: or panna is right view and right thought. Okay, You've
16:40
Speaker 1: got morality, which is right speech, right action, and right livelihood.
16:45
Speaker 1: Then you have meditation which is right effort, right and
16:49
Speaker 1: mindfulness and right contemplation. Very nice. So basically, you put
16:53
Speaker 1: all this together, you are living the right life that's
16:57
Speaker 1: going to deliver you to nirvana. Right, yeah, which is
17:01
Speaker 1: the middle way? Sounds pretty easy. I bet it's extremely difficult.
17:07
Speaker 1: I think so too. You know, well, there it's it's
17:09
Speaker 1: difficult because there's something called hindrances and they actually list
17:14
Speaker 1: these out, which in you know, it's probably no surprise
17:16
Speaker 1: that one of them is lust, one of them is
17:19
Speaker 1: aversion to ill will. You have sloth and torpor, which
17:23
Speaker 1: you know, who wants to be involved with torpor? Restlessness
17:27
Speaker 1: and worry and skeptical doubt. And then there are seven
17:30
Speaker 1: factors of enlightenment, which are mindfulness, investigation, energy, rapture, twan quility, concentration,
17:39
Speaker 1: and equanimity. So yeah, not so easy. No, I wouldn't
17:44
Speaker 1: think so, I mean think think about avoid those and
17:47
Speaker 1: then do those though it does sound easy, But but
17:49
Speaker 1: how life is. I'm sure if you like, you know,
17:52
Speaker 1: zig to the left, you zag right into you know,
17:56
Speaker 1: some sort of temptation or you know, if you close
18:00
Speaker 1: yourself down to the possibility of you know, um, being
18:07
Speaker 1: exposed to wealth or whatever, you're missing out on being
18:10
Speaker 1: able to help other people. Yea, you know, there's there's
18:14
Speaker 1: probably a lot of pitfalls to that that way of living,
18:18
Speaker 1: which is why I issue the whole thing. Yeah. Well,
18:20
Speaker 1: sid Heartha believe that he wandered in around India for
18:24
Speaker 1: like forty five years teaching this and until he died
18:27
Speaker 1: at the age of eighty. And you know what his
18:29
Speaker 1: last words were, Tell him I said something cool. Now
18:33
Speaker 1: he did say something cool. He said impermanent or all
18:36
Speaker 1: created things strive on with awareness. Party on is basically
18:42
Speaker 1: what he said, party on garth. Wow. Yeah, nice last words. Huh, yeah,
18:48
Speaker 1: they are. Have you ever wondered about yours will be? Uh?
18:53
Speaker 1: I have a feeling mine are gonna be holy to
18:58
Speaker 1: be my last two words mineld b probably you got me, Copper,
19:05
Speaker 1: you're gonna revert back to your bad boy ways just
19:08
Speaker 1: for one list and tying to shoot out suicide by cop.
19:12
Speaker 1: It reminds me the end of Royaltanon Bombs when they
19:15
Speaker 1: showed it said he died heroically saving his family from
19:19
Speaker 1: a sinking ship. Um all right, Chuck, some of the
19:24
Speaker 1: stuff that we've been talking about may sound kind of familiar.
19:27
Speaker 1: If you live the right way, you can stop coming
19:30
Speaker 1: back to this existence that you know, we call earth
19:36
Speaker 1: life on life on this planet. Right. It kind of
19:41
Speaker 1: bears a striking resemblance to the Judeo Christian ethic of
19:45
Speaker 1: you know, if you live this right life, if you're
19:48
Speaker 1: good to other people, you don't hurt other people or
19:51
Speaker 1: other things, you're not a cruel person. Um, and you
19:54
Speaker 1: kind of it's not you don't pursue worldly objects, you're
19:58
Speaker 1: going to uh have a better afterlife, right, Yeah, But
20:03
Speaker 1: it's you know, Christianity obviously it's a permanent afterlife, right
20:07
Speaker 1: because reincarnation. Here's the thing, like there's a there's a
20:11
Speaker 1: very there's a similarity between the Judeo Christian outlook and
20:16
Speaker 1: Muslim as well, because they believe in the afterlife as well,
20:19
Speaker 1: that the soul is immortal, that there's something in us
20:23
Speaker 1: that lives on after the physical body dies. Where it
20:27
Speaker 1: differs and disagrees is specifically with reincarnation, where you come
20:32
Speaker 1: back and you inhabit somebody on this earth again. That's
20:38
Speaker 1: the that's the difference. That's reincarnation right there, right has
20:41
Speaker 1: something to do with the immortality of the soul. Well,
20:43
Speaker 1: has everything to do with the immortality is soul. But
20:45
Speaker 1: as far as comparative religion goes the differences, you don't
20:49
Speaker 1: keep going straight. You come back because you screwed up.
20:53
Speaker 1: I took a comparative religion class in college. And here's
20:56
Speaker 1: a little secret, Josh, don't tell anybody, but they're all
21:00
Speaker 1: kind of the same. I know. And do you want
21:02
Speaker 1: to know why I have my theory? Let's hear it.
21:06
Speaker 1: Are we gonna go there? Here's my here's my theory.
21:11
Speaker 1: Man evolved into man from whatever, and man started to
21:17
Speaker 1: as soon as man could think, Man started questioning why
21:20
Speaker 1: they were there on earth looking for a purpose. And
21:24
Speaker 1: that's where religion sprung up. And that's why they're all
21:27
Speaker 1: very similar. When you break down the tenants of world
21:29
Speaker 1: religions is people fractured and split off in different areas,
21:32
Speaker 1: and they evolved differently. But at the root of it,
21:35
Speaker 1: I think it began with man walking upright and looking
21:39
Speaker 1: at you know, the sun and saying, why son there? Yeah,
21:43
Speaker 1: I think I subscribed to something very um. Why river run? Right?
21:48
Speaker 1: I think I think it was um born the chuck
21:51
Speaker 1: out of the first time somebody witnessed someone else die
21:57
Speaker 1: and realized that that's going to happen to me one day?
22:01
Speaker 1: What happened to talk talk? Right? Now, there's a if
22:04
Speaker 1: you if you look at um religious scholars work, most
22:09
Speaker 1: of them will tell you that reincarnation was born out
22:13
Speaker 1: of um watching the seasons change, especially for because because
22:18
Speaker 1: these were agricultural societies that started giving rise to religion
22:23
Speaker 1: like this right when the whole cyclical thing, it makes
22:25
Speaker 1: sense the earth rotates, the seasons rotate in a cycle,
22:29
Speaker 1: so it makes sense the I guess the commonality, like
22:33
Speaker 1: you said, people started to split up. I don't know
22:36
Speaker 1: that it's necessarily that it happened. And then I see
22:39
Speaker 1: what you're saying, Like with religion in general, but with
22:42
Speaker 1: something like say reincarnation and these really you know, lead
22:45
Speaker 1: a good life and the reward after this. I think
22:48
Speaker 1: it was from cultures having an influence on one another
22:52
Speaker 1: by living near one another. Remember we did UM that
22:55
Speaker 1: podcast on whether the Greeks got their ideas from the Africans. Well,
23:00
Speaker 1: this apparently is another example of that. The African mystery system,
23:05
Speaker 1: the comedic mystery system that we talked about in Egypt.
23:09
Speaker 1: Um one of the big guys who formed a mystery system, well,
23:15
Speaker 1: one of the big cult founders UM. His name was Pythagoras,
23:21
Speaker 1: remember him the Paean theorem. So we're gonna get into
23:24
Speaker 1: the mystery religions a little bit. Yeah, he spent several
23:27
Speaker 1: decades in Africa and came back and the next thing
23:30
Speaker 1: you know, he's founding mystery cults. Orpheus, the orphic Um,
23:35
Speaker 1: the orphic mystery cults founder. Well, he's supposedly a mythical figure,
23:39
Speaker 1: but they also think he may be an actual historical
23:42
Speaker 1: figure the music legend if he was real. There's part
23:46
Speaker 1: of his legend is that he went and spent twenty
23:48
Speaker 1: years in Memphis studying from the Egyptian So you kind
23:52
Speaker 1: of get the idea that a lot of the Um
23:55
Speaker 1: ideas of rebirth and reincarnation went from UM. The Hindus
24:01
Speaker 1: to the Egyptians to the Greeks. And then remember we
24:05
Speaker 1: talked about the Jefferson Bible being written or the Bible
24:08
Speaker 1: being written by the Platonics. Yes, that plato uh was
24:13
Speaker 1: derived from these mystery cults who believed in reincarnation, and
24:17
Speaker 1: actually some Catholic cults, early Catholic cults um believed in
24:21
Speaker 1: reincarnation as well, like the Cather's. Yeah, well, orphanism sounds
24:25
Speaker 1: a lot like heaven and hell to me, because he
24:28
Speaker 1: believed or they believe that leading a correct life leads
24:33
Speaker 1: you to elysium, which is like a paradise, and if
24:35
Speaker 1: you're evil, you'll get to a hell, right, but you
24:39
Speaker 1: can die in the afterlife as well. Yeah it doesn't.
24:42
Speaker 1: That's that's the main difference. You have to lead three
24:44
Speaker 1: good orphic lives to get out of there. And what
24:49
Speaker 1: what is leading a good orphic life? Chuck with this horrible,
24:53
Speaker 1: horrible orphic life. Uh well no, no wine, no sex,
24:58
Speaker 1: no meat. Vegetarianism is good. Yeah. So yeah, those are
25:03
Speaker 1: a few of the tenants. Which is strange because this uh,
25:07
Speaker 1: this is this orphan cult was actually an offshoot of
25:11
Speaker 1: the Dianicing colt and they believed quite the opposite. They
25:14
Speaker 1: would rip a goat um to death, to shreds a
25:19
Speaker 1: live goat to shreds with their teeth as part of
25:22
Speaker 1: their sacrifice, their ritual sacrifice. They get drunk as they
25:25
Speaker 1: could on wine. They have sex and orgies, and they
25:28
Speaker 1: eat everything right. And he and apparently Orpheus went to
25:32
Speaker 1: Memphis and came back and said, Hey, I know what
25:35
Speaker 1: you guys are trying to do, and that's a good idea,
25:37
Speaker 1: but you're doing the opposite of what you should be doing.
25:39
Speaker 1: Let's start leading this puritanical life. And that led to
25:43
Speaker 1: this this um kind of idea that denying yourself was
25:48
Speaker 1: a good way toward being a pure person. I think
25:53
Speaker 1: you were starting to lead us down the road a
25:55
Speaker 1: minute ago about Jiinism. Yeah, there's a couple of other
26:00
Speaker 1: Indian religions jain is Um, and I always thought it
26:02
Speaker 1: was Sikhism, but also saw something that said that's a
26:05
Speaker 1: common mispronunciation. And then it's like say it, say it chisum. Nice.
26:10
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's right way to go. The
26:11
Speaker 1: extra mile checkers, Well, who knows, you know, it's on
26:13
Speaker 1: the internet. Might not be true, but jin is Um
26:16
Speaker 1: they think that your soul accumulates karma as a bad thing.
26:21
Speaker 1: It's an actual substance, physical substance, and that karma is
26:25
Speaker 1: never good. Karma is always bad. It's your goal is
26:28
Speaker 1: to rid yourself of karma on here on earth. Yeah,
26:31
Speaker 1: and if you have these karmic particles, then your soul
26:33
Speaker 1: is always going to bind to a body. Right, yes,
26:37
Speaker 1: So if you can get rid of the karmic particles,
26:40
Speaker 1: you're all right. Um. I also mentioned the Cather's right,
26:44
Speaker 1: these were this was Um. They were from South France
26:48
Speaker 1: and Spain, I believe, and they're the reason the Spanish
26:51
Speaker 1: Inquisition was founded because they were considered this the heretical
26:57
Speaker 1: sect of Catholicism, when basically they were vegetarians, they believed
27:02
Speaker 1: in reincarnation. They were highly they followed this highly neo
27:07
Speaker 1: Platonic tradition UM, and they accused the Roman Catholic Church
27:12
Speaker 1: of being Um, the antichrist branch of Catholicism. The Roman
27:18
Speaker 1: Catholic branch proved stronger, started setting up steaks, burning Kai
27:22
Speaker 1: Thur's at them and basically ran them out of um existence.
27:27
Speaker 1: But they believed in Um. You know that you shouldn't
27:30
Speaker 1: eat me, that you could come back as as a
27:32
Speaker 1: human or an animal. Um, and that they were just
27:36
Speaker 1: kind of a kinder, gentler version of Catholicism, a little
27:40
Speaker 1: less bloodthirsty. So chuck um. We talked about the West
27:46
Speaker 1: being generally incredulous of this kind of thing, right, there
27:49
Speaker 1: is a sterling exception as far as Westerners go, of
27:54
Speaker 1: you know, believing in reincarnation, and that exception took the
27:58
Speaker 1: form of a guy named Dr Ian st Evenson, Right. Yeah, well,
28:02
Speaker 1: he studied it. He never said that he believed it
28:04
Speaker 1: was true. He just wanted to believe it was or
28:07
Speaker 1: wanted to prove that it was at least a possibility.
28:10
Speaker 1: So he spent his life pretty much until he died
28:12
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven trying to do so. Uh. Founded
28:16
Speaker 1: the Division of Personality Studies at u v A. Right,
28:20
Speaker 1: which became I guess it was originally called the Division
28:24
Speaker 1: of Perceptual Studies, right. Well, now it later became the
28:28
Speaker 1: Perceptual Studies I get confuse them. It was originally personality studies.
28:32
Speaker 1: And he was a Virginia cavalier. Yeah is that right? Huh? Okay,
28:38
Speaker 1: go caps and uh. He had a lab basically where
28:41
Speaker 1: he studied near death experiences. He studied children, mainly two
28:45
Speaker 1: to five young kids who um you know to to
28:49
Speaker 1: kind of like your a kid that you talked about
28:50
Speaker 1: at the beginning two to five who had these stories
28:53
Speaker 1: that um, could not be explained in ways that made
28:57
Speaker 1: sense other than perhaps they were reincarnate. Did Yeah. Um,
29:01
Speaker 1: there's there's been tons and tons and tons of cases.
29:04
Speaker 1: Some are easily explained away, others aren't. But Stevenson apparently
29:08
Speaker 1: investigated about him, Yeah, over forty years, but he was
29:13
Speaker 1: pretty much shut down by mainstream his peers. He was
29:17
Speaker 1: and he he was a true Fordian actually he was. Um.
29:22
Speaker 1: He wanted to apply the scientific method to uh, the supernatural, right.
29:29
Speaker 1: He just basically believed things that were considered supernatural were
29:32
Speaker 1: just things that couldn't be explained by science right now.
29:36
Speaker 1: But like you said, he was basically pushed to the
29:38
Speaker 1: friends just because of his studies. But there's a lot
29:41
Speaker 1: of people out there. I think he was successful in
29:44
Speaker 1: in proving that it is possible for reincarnation, like the
29:48
Speaker 1: kid who thought it was the World War two pilot's.
29:51
Speaker 1: Stevenson would never say, like whether he believed in reincarnation
29:56
Speaker 1: anything like that, but um about and like I think
30:01
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven he went out and bought a lock,
30:04
Speaker 1: a combination lock, and set the combination himself, and then
30:09
Speaker 1: used a mnemonic device to remember the combination, and he
30:12
Speaker 1: stored the lock away. And he always said that the
30:15
Speaker 1: reason why he did this he wanted to see if
30:19
Speaker 1: he could um transmit the information thenemonic device to somebody
30:24
Speaker 1: who could then go unlock this lock after he died.
30:29
Speaker 1: And so far nobody's unlocked the lock in three years.
30:32
Speaker 1: But oh, no, that disproves anything to you, No, of course,
30:35
Speaker 1: not that it proves that no one's unlocked the lock. Yet,
30:40
Speaker 1: that's diplomatic. I mean, get you a job in the
30:43
Speaker 1: foreign service. Have you got anything else? Reincarnation? Yeah, the
30:49
Speaker 1: Chinese government. Did you know they banned reincarnation without permission
30:52
Speaker 1: from the Chinese government. I think I have heard that.
30:55
Speaker 1: Actually when was this like a few years back? Yeah?
30:58
Speaker 1: They China like to ban things, as we all know,
31:01
Speaker 1: and they banned reincarnation without uh consent from the Chinese government.
31:06
Speaker 1: And basically, basically it's a way to keep the Dolli
31:11
Speaker 1: llama from reincarnating and saying this is the next dolli Llama.
31:17
Speaker 1: Basically he won't have permission to do so, so China
31:20
Speaker 1: will be able to choose the next DOLLI Llama, and
31:22
Speaker 1: the current Dolly says obviously, he said many times, I
31:26
Speaker 1: Am not going to come back as long as uh
31:30
Speaker 1: China is in power. Over to bet, he's boycotting reincarnation.
31:36
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's so much boycotting it, but
31:38
Speaker 1: he's um he's gonna end up here. Well, I guess
31:41
Speaker 1: he is boycotting. He says he refuses to be reborn
31:44
Speaker 1: until that happens. But what's happening is I mean when
31:48
Speaker 1: he dies, it's gonna be a little hinky because potentially
31:50
Speaker 1: there might be two Dolly Llamas, the one China appoints
31:55
Speaker 1: and the one, you know, the the real one. I
32:00
Speaker 1: would call it. That will be awkward if they over
32:02
Speaker 1: me or if they met Charley McLean remember that stuff. Sure,
32:06
Speaker 1: And she claimed that she was reincarnated and she had
32:08
Speaker 1: sex with Charlemagne. I didn't hear about the charm Charlott
32:12
Speaker 1: magine part. Yeah, well, she said she she actually did
32:15
Speaker 1: have an affair with the Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palm
32:19
Speaker 1: and he she said he was Charlemagne reincarnated, so supposedly,
32:25
Speaker 1: she says she got it on with Charlemagne. Well, if
32:28
Speaker 1: you want to know more about Charlemagne or reincarnation or
32:32
Speaker 1: the Dolly Llama, we got tons of those articles. Um,
32:35
Speaker 1: just come up with some good keywords and put them
32:38
Speaker 1: in the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com,
32:40
Speaker 1: which means it's time for chuck is it listener mail?
32:43
Speaker 1: Are we back to listener mail? We are, all right,
32:46
Speaker 1: it's time for the listener mail. Uh, quickly. We want
32:51
Speaker 1: to support our Kiva team real quick. Beforehand, we need
32:54
Speaker 1: to mention this because it's been a while. We're trying
32:56
Speaker 1: to get to two hundred and fifty thou dollars um
32:59
Speaker 1: by August. Oh, I don't know August. Let's stay in
33:04
Speaker 1: the end of August. I think it was just at
33:07
Speaker 1: the end of August, right, um, and we are plugging along.
33:12
Speaker 1: I think we're at about one seventy right now, a
33:14
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy hundred and seventy thousand dollars raised by
33:18
Speaker 1: the stuff you should know Kiva team, right, which is
33:21
Speaker 1: far and away all stats aside, far and away the
33:24
Speaker 1: greatest Kiva team ever assembled. All right, agreed, So we're
33:28
Speaker 1: trying to get the two This is not an exclusive team, uh,
33:33
Speaker 1: so if you want to join, you can donate in
33:35
Speaker 1: increments of twenty five dollars. You um donate as a loan.
33:39
Speaker 1: It's repaid. You don't make any interest back. But I
33:41
Speaker 1: mean you get your twenty five dollars back UM and
33:44
Speaker 1: it's pretty addictive in it. Chuck, I'm pretty hooked. Yes,
33:48
Speaker 1: you can go to www dot kiva dot org slash
33:53
Speaker 1: team slash stuff you should know right join or check
33:58
Speaker 1: it out or whatever. Josh, I'm just gonna call this
34:01
Speaker 1: one question that has been answered many times, but Sean
34:06
Speaker 1: doesn't know the answer. That's a great title for this one, Chus, Chuck, Chuck, Josh,
34:11
Speaker 1: and Jerry. I missed a Facebook questionnaire because I was
34:13
Speaker 1: at working. My job prohibits Facebook. Thank god for s
34:18
Speaker 1: Y s K, ABC News and Yes Stuff Mom Never
34:21
Speaker 1: Told You podcast. It helps this twenty four year old
34:24
Speaker 1: newlywed understand his smart, wonderful, beautiful, but very complex wife
34:30
Speaker 1: a little better the best kind. His question is this,
34:33
Speaker 1: who the heck is Hippie Rob. I'm pretty sure I've
34:36
Speaker 1: listened to all the podcasts you have, not even the
34:39
Speaker 1: ones before, Chuck, So which one explains Hippy Rob and
34:42
Speaker 1: all my cube mates? Who also listen are wondering the
34:45
Speaker 1: same thing we need to know is not a word,
34:48
Speaker 1: Otherwise it's just a boring inside jokes joke that drives
34:52
Speaker 1: us nuts. So sucks to be you pal Ps Jerry
34:57
Speaker 1: at least cough or something. No, s I sk listener
35:00
Speaker 1: believes you're real, and we wouldn't put it past Chuck
35:03
Speaker 1: and Josh to make you up. This guy is really
35:05
Speaker 1: suspicious one and demanding to Sean of Virginia Beach, little
35:10
Speaker 1: bossy Sean, get with the program, buddy. Yeah, answers are
35:13
Speaker 1: out there, Sean. We're gonna do a reverse on you.
35:18
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say who Hippie Rob is or
35:20
Speaker 1: where the origin is, so Sean, Actually, instead of telling
35:24
Speaker 1: you who Hippy Rob is, where he came from, et cetera,
35:28
Speaker 1: We're going to put a request out to our listeners.
35:31
Speaker 1: The first person who sends us an email and tells
35:34
Speaker 1: us we're a Hippie Rob, first appearance, what episode, and
35:37
Speaker 1: in what capacity that he's described? Right? Yeah? Uh. If
35:42
Speaker 1: you do have that info, send it to stuff podcast
35:46
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this
35:54
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
35:56
Speaker 1: dot Com? Want more how stuff Works which I got
36:00
Speaker 1: our blogs on the house stof works dot com home
36:02
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