Rather than post this in the Weiss thread, thought it deserved a thread of its own. Weiss does not say much related to children other than mentioning that, based on regrssion work his clients give him the impression that the soul does not unify with the body until birth but that the soul/consciousness of the fetus seems to have a foot in both "worlds" until birth and that children seem capable of tapping into the consciousness of their parents more than we realize.

However, there is much anecdotal evidence to suggest that the younger the child the more they seem to naturally tune into what we may term "psychic" realms. For instance, most of the tales of recovered past lives where memory of them is spontaneous seem to occur in young children-much of the late Ian Stevenson's work was in researching past life claims of the young.

In the case of our oldest grandchild, he demonstrated a range of experiences between the ages of 2 and 3 that could be termed "psychic," including some mundane precognitive ability apparently. But 1 experience stands out in inexplicability. My wife and I were driving about town with him when he was little more than 2 and had not actually developed much speech at that time. Somehow my wife and I got on the subject of ghosts of which we had never spoken to him before. He suddenly became quite animated about the subject claiming he saw ghosts, (seemed to know instinctively what the term meant). He chattered animatedly for about 6 blocks until we pulled next to the building where my wife used to have a store-he had never been there before or heard us discuss the place. My wife had told me that previous occupants had purportedly seen a ghost there. As we pulled even with the building, our grandson pointed to it and said a ghost lived there. He had pointed at no other building saying that along the route.

The literature suggests that this may be a rather natural ability that most lose as they age and he remembers nothing of those times nor has he displayed the same abilities since about 3. Perhaps those abilities are there in the first few years of life due to still having some "connection" to the realm from which we have just come where those abilities are coin of the realm. Earl

Very interesting. Many children have imaginary friends. Maybe they are ghosts.

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Just sharing a story on a similar note.

As a family we like to go hiking, and our area has a huge trail that circles the city. While walking on this trail, we came across an old tree that was hollowed out, but still standing. My oldest son was 2 at the time. He was amazed by this tree, even though we have seen others like it before. He said his friend lived there, and we had to visit that tree several times a week. He would play there and seemed to be interacting with someone or something that lived there.

We moved and went back. My oldest is now 9. He immediatedly recongnized that tree, and said "hey, that is my friend's house." It is a bit more damaged, but he went inside the "den" made by the tree, and came out looking very disappointed. He told us that his friend no longer lived there and was very sad for several days.

I am not sure if this stems from a great imagination or if it is something more, but it seemed relavent to your story, earl. Thanks for starting this thread!

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"Philosophy is a walk on a slippery rock
Religion is a smile on a dog."

One cannot discount the possibility that the very young, when conversing with what adults cannot see, may be communing with any number of beings in other realms. It often seems in the literature that the more developed a child, the less access they have so that in essence by the time they have good command of sppech they may no longer have such access. Makes 1 wonder what the very young experience which they are incapable of sharing with adults. Wonder what kind of spirituality we would have if adults were able to learn directly from the very young (or the departed ). Tobin Hart wrote a good book a few years back, "The Secret Spiritual World of Children" that catalogues the natural spiritual/psychic reports by children:
Amazon.com: The Secret Spiritual World of Children: The Breakthrough Discovery that Profoundly Alters Our Conventional View of Children's Mystical Experiences: Tobin Hart, Joseph Chilton Pearce: Books.
Earl

That looks like a very interesting book, Earl. I'll have to get a copy, one of these days. Then find time to actually read it. LOL Ahhh, my someday dreams.

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"Philosophy is a walk on a slippery rock
Religion is a smile on a dog."

I can't remember if I had any psychic abilities when I was little but I do now. My grandmother had them too but her's were dead on. I remember every time my parents used to fight she would call up telling them to calm down. She had no way of knowing about it. She lived a state away. My dad would be yelling and granny would call up to ask what they were fighting about and tell them to calm down. It was kind of cool. One night on my way home from work I had this feeling of my grandma saying,"Good Bye." It wasn't in words. It was more like what I would feel if I was with her standing by her bed as she died. It was just the feeling of good bye. I didn't want to tell my parents about it when I got home because I didn't want to scare them into thinking she was dead. The next morning they told me she passed away. She was a wonderful person and I hope she still is.

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"I fully comprehended the power of the human mind at the exact moment I came to the realization that I'm totally insane and have no idea what I'm talking about."

There seems to be evidence to suggest that psychic ability runs in families. Certainly the purported psychics, Sylvia Browne and Echo Bodine have spoken of the various generations in their families that evidenced it. I got curious a few years ago to see if anyone had ever tried to actually research that and discovered 1 study actually done in England on the subject, (you can imagine how daunting it would be to actually research that issue ) and it confirmed the anecdotal evidence. I've worked as a therapist in a public mental health center for nearly 30 years and over the course of that time a person runs into many interesting phenomena. I once worked with a woman that had some significant emotional problems, (not psychotic or delusional however) but was interesting in that she appeared to have legitimate precognitive abilities. Goes to show that psychic ability and mental health don't always go hand-in-hand. At any rate, after working with her awhile and her learning I did not pathologize that experience and eventually mentioned in passing the familial connection, she brought her 14 y.o. daughter to se me as she was struggling with her own apparent precognitive abilities. When I talked with her I discovered she had other abilities she had never mentioned to her mother-the ability to see ghosts. A that time the movie "The Sixth Sense" had recently come out and she had seen it so all I could do for her is, like her mother, "normalize" her experience by allusion to that movie so she didn't feel quite so nuts. I have witnessed other children brought into our center that my colleagues who are less open to the possibility of such existing have struggled to make sense of from within their more conventional views. Once it was a 5 y.o. girl whose beloved gradnmother had recently died and who she claimed came to visit her at night when she was in bed. Needless to say, I keep my opinions about such to myself as opposed to sharing them with colleagues, though, had that therapist seriously considered medicating the kid for that, I believe I would have shared my alternative theory of that experience, though that colleague would not have likely bought it. Earl

I used to go to a shrink a lot. So, I guess that psychic ability and mental health don't go hand-in-hand with me either. Sometimes it feels like it is the cause of the illness.

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"I fully comprehended the power of the human mind at the exact moment I came to the realization that I'm totally insane and have no idea what I'm talking about."

I believe we all have phscic abilities. It is part of the interconnectedness of our minds. Some people have gotten more in touch with it somehow but we are all capable of it. I use to have a g friend who was really tapped in. She was my best friend and although born here she had lived in Japan for many years. Before she died she amazed me with here abilities.

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RevKathyV

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oh yeah......I do believe that as a general rule children are still so new on this plane that there mind is less cluttered so they are more in touch with these abilities.

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RevKathyV

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