Updates

I have recently learned that "Paranormal TV," an online channel which carves out a niche for itself on other online channels--including those which pay a certain amount of money per x-number of viewings--appears to have been scamming me.* Some two years ago, I gave them the go-ahead to represent "In Another Life" without getting a contract first--an impulsive gamble, based on the statement that they usually pay 25% of gross earnings, and that "Jeff Sagansky" (former Tri-Star Pictures head) had "asked" the writer to contact me with an offer of representing my film.

Subsequently they were very difficult to get in touch with--I never got a formal report, a financial statement, or a check from them. They never established their own online station so far as I know. So far as I know, they never sold my film for broadcast distribution overseas as they claimed to be trying to do. If they did, I wasn't paid any royalties.

What they did do, was to post my film on numerous internet stations around the world--something I could have done myself if I'd been so-inclined. Apparently, they hoped if they did this with enough films, they'd have a steady source of income. I don't think it worked for them, because the business model, basically, doesn't work. You can't get enough viewings on your program to earn more than pocket change, if you're lucky.

Still, it's annoying to be scammed. These people had online credentials as producers. It must be hard times when such people have to resort to things like this.

Of course, I could be wrong. I could have been wrong about my last girlfriend, too--but that's another story.

Notice I didn't say I could be wrong about reincarnation. That's not because I'm dogmatic. It's just because I'm strictly honest, and I can't honestly say there's any reasonable doubt about reincarnation. If I could, I would.

The person I've speculated I could have been in a past life, Matthew Franklin Whittier, was known within his family and circle of friends as being naive. There's a story about him, as a young man, buying a cow because the farmer told him how pretty she was. When she didn't give milk, he tried to take her back. The farmer (supposedly an upright Quaker), joked with him that he had said the cow was pretty, not that she was a good milker. From this incident, I think, came a lifetime of rebellion against hypocrisy for Matthew in his published letters to the editor as the character "Ethan Spike" (the name Ethan means "hard" or "firm"), which also led him to a lifetime of poverty.

Sometimes I think I'm an unlucky gambler. I do like to gamble on things--not money, not card games, but situations. But my percentage is really awful, when I look back on it. Bad karma, I suppose.

I have no way to tie this in with reincarnation, except that one is here to learn certain lessons, and naivete seems to be one of mine. It goes back, I suspect, to a Celtic life as a priest when I believed that spaciness was spirituality. It didn't end well for me then, either. Matthew was worked to death in the job his brother finally procured for him through influence, by people who didn't want him there. As near as I can tell, he never "got it." When he was forced to retire due to illness--caused, I believe, by stress--he got a watch and a ceremony, and he was proud of it. The irony sickens me, in hindsight. How could someone so astute be so gullible?

And yet, this is how I find myself today. My ex-girlfriend was using me as a temporary, good-enough-for-now weekend date for six years, pretending to be in a full relationship (and making a plethora of far-fetched excuses for not being), until she lost enough weight to be attractive to the kinds of men she really wanted. I guess it took her a bit longer to lose the weight than she expected. I didn't get it until she ended it. I was ridiculously naive. I also "went" for that one, at the start of it.**

So, I think the tie-in is, am I doing the same thing as regards naively believing in the evidence for reincarnation? I can be objective about this--and the answer is, no. I've looked at it from all sides. I've entertained every alternative, normal explanation. In order to do this, I had to set aside what I'd learned through Eastern philosophy, and just look at the evidence. It's not only "suggestive" as Dr. Stevenson said; it's not only strong. It's air-tight. There are too many cases, coming from too many different people. They are too consistent, and the "evidentials" are too many and too solid.

If you watch Dr. Tucker's interview on the Interviews page of this website, you will see him mention a case in which a little girl remembered 25 names from her previous incarnation, along with their correctly-named relationships.

Not three names, or five names, or six names. Twenty-five. And she knew how each of them was related to the other. (I had earlier written "first and last names," but in recent correspondence with Dr. Tucker he corrected me.--SS)

This is just too much. And it isn't the only case by a long shot. Ordinary people have been writing me, sending in their own cases for years, for me to post on this website. You can read them in the two Personal Accounts pages. A few of them have evidential aspects; one or two even have small incidences of "xenoglossy." But the most impressive thing, to me, is how consistent they are. Many of these people had not studied the subject when they sent their account in to me. They didn't know that all the other people were saying similar things (until, presumably, they read the accounts on my page--but I don't get the sense they embellished their stories at the last minute to match the other ones). Certainly, most of these people didn't know the landmarks I look for--vivid, repeating dreams starting early in childhood, or waking flashbacks triggered by a scene, or by a scent. People they felt they had always known when they first met them; things they had "always liked" or "always felt." Statements in early childhood like "when I was big." I see the same kinds of stories when answering questions on reincarnation for "AllExperts.com".

So, no, I'm not being scammed into believing in reincarnation. Nor am I trying to scam anyone. I've mentioned it on this website and I'll mention it again, that I started a personal policy of strict honesty back around 1973, when I read Stephen Gaskin saying "truth will get you high." I decided to try it. I never stopped. So I am not trying to scam you now.

If I'm not being fooled, and I'm not scamming you, what's left? What's left is that I'm dead-on about reincarnation--no pun intended. It just remains for me to maintain this website and make the documentary available. I do it as a kind of hobby, without expectation of results. Okay, I do kind of wistfully check the numbers to see how many hits I've had, or how many people have watched the program. But mainly I just enjoy keeping it going.

I've learned one thing from the skeptics, however. They manage to create the impression that they've "debunked" a case or a person by saying the same thing over and over and over until it sticks. They did that to the Bridey Murphy case; and they did it to John Edward (both were genuine).

But two can play that game. I will keep on saying the same thing over and over: "reincarnation has been proven, it has a rational basis, society is in denial...reincarnation has been proven, it has a rational basis, society is in denial..." And I can keep this up as a hobby without any funding and without any results, indefinitely. I get approximately 250 visits per day on this website--but I think many of them are in academia, which means it is affecting a lot more people down the line, and for the future, than you'd ever guess.

*As of 1/26, the new manager has sent me a financial summary, one of the three things I requested (I also asked for a report on where they placed my film online, plus confirmation of Jeff Sagansky's role). As expected there wasn't much income. Although the original offer was for 25% of gross revenue, specifically stating that the company would pay for encoding, this manager wants to put my profit toward the encoding costs. I'm telling him I won't quibble about it. Whether this new fellow would have sent even the financial report if I'd just been more patient (instead of writing online stations requesting them to remove my film) I don't know. Another source tells me that Sagansky has a financial interest in the company--perhaps he gave them some seed capital? I still very much doubt he's at the helm or involved in managing it at any level.

**Reading this, she contacted me in protest. All I can say is I'm sharing my experience, and what I've learned from it, by way of example, showing a pattern that appears to extend to past lives. If I had any real doubt about this I wouldn't say it; even then, I leave the door open to being wrong, but there's really no question she settled and took advantage even though she didn't reciprocate my feelings on a romantic level from the beginning. Six years is way too long to claim she let it go on to keep from hurting me. And the timing of the end was clearly self-serving, i.e., when I was losing my business at the very start of the recession in early 2007, and would have become a burden. I think if someone else can't face reality, that's okay, but they can't reasonably expect to silence you into going along with that. I forgive her as much as you can forgive anyone who remains in denial; but I reserve the right to use the experience for purposes of illustration, to show a pattern.

Music opening this page: "High Landrons," Eric Johnson (Ah Via Musicom album)
All I can say is, if you have a chance to see Eric in concert, don't pass it up...
sell the car and hitch to the concert if you have to.