Posted on 08/29/2009 12:07:45 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
It sounds totally beyond belief. But read the tantalising evidence from this boy's family and you may start to wonder...
The agonised screams pierced the air. 'Plane on fire! Airplane crash.' In the dark, a two-year-old boy was just visible, writhing on his bed in the grip of horror. 'He was lying there on his back, kicking and clawing at the covers like he was trying to kick his way out of a coffin,' remembers the boy's father.
'I thought, this looks like The Exorcist. I half expected his head to spin around like that little girl in the movie. But then I heard what James was saying.'
Over and over again, the tiny child screamed: 'Plane on fire! Little man can't get out.'
For his shocked parents, these nightly scenes were traumatic.
For experts, they were baffling.
As the nightmares became more terrifying, the child started screaming the name of the 'little man' who couldn't get out of the plane. It was James - like his own name. He also talked in his dreams of 'Jack Larsen', 'Natoma' and 'Corsair'.
James Leininger's father, Bruce, was flummoxed. In a desperate attempt to find an answer to his son's troubled nights, he embarked on an obsessive three-year research project, armed only with the outbursts and names his son had been shouting in his disturbed sleep.
What he discovered astonished and perplexed him, and drove him to an extraordinary conclusion.
A lifelong Christian, it was not the answer he had sought for his son's behaviour. But he came to believe James was the reincarnation of a World War II fighter pilot; a man who had been shot down in his plane and struggled to escape as it caught fire; a hero.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“Reincarnation is not Christian and isn’t possible.”
Is the Resurrection not a form of reincarnation?
The night my ex-wife passed away, one of my cats suddenly jumped up and stared straight ahead, as if something or someone was in the room. The cat wasn’t scared, just very alert. She kept staring at that spot for a couple of minutes. A short while later, my ex-wife’s brother called and told me she had just died.
In Christian theology and psychology, there are other spiritual phenomena (obsession, possession) which would explain the evidence perfectly. The boy should be sent to a trained exorcist for healing, which is after all more important than understanding the frightening phenomena. When the exorcism is successfully performed with the authority of Christ and in His Name, then the father will have proof of the truth of the Christian religion.
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
No, the Spirit entered the same Incarnate Body.
We had a couple of colorful characters, but mostly, just the masses.
Agreed. I’m also a Christian, but do not necessarily reject this. He said he died and went to Heaven and met his friends who also just died. OK so far - who knows what God has in mind for some or all.
Exactly!
While the answer is still No, my explanation was deficient. I apologize. Here's a more complete explanation:
- Resurrection of the Body - a transition from mortal life on earth, through physical death, to a new, completely different, spiritual form of life:
- The English word "resurrection" is derived from the past participle of the Latin verb resurgere, "to rise again."
- In many biblical texts, Jesus is the subject of his own action: "he will rise from the dead" (Mark 8:31; 12:25; John 11:23-24; etc.).
- In other passages, Jesus is the object of God's action: "he will be raised from the dead" (Mark 12:26; 16:6; Luke 9:22; etc.).
- Resurrection is not the same as the "resuscitation" or "reanimation" of a body, nor the "reincarnation" or "immortality" of a soul.
- Resuscitation - the restoration or revival of a person from a coma, unconsciousness, or apparent death back to the same earthly life.
- Reanimation - the rejoining of an earthly body with the same soul (or a new soul?) after a temporary separation.
- Reincarnation - the rebirth of a soul into a new & different but still physical & mortal body (common idea in some Eastern religions).
- Immortality - the inability to die; life continuing forever (esp. a soul after its separation from a dead body).
- Eternal Life - life with God forever, not interrupted by death; it either continues or starts anew after death.
- Mortal Life - normal human life on earth, ending in death (Latin mors); any life subject to suffering, death, and decay.
- Christians believe in the "Resurrection of the Body," not merely the "Immortality of the (disembodied) Soul"!
- What this new (spiritual) body will be like is unknown, since it will be radically different from our present (physical) bodies.
- St. Paul describes the dialectic of continuity & difference with the analogy of sown seeds & grown plants (1 Cor 15:35-50).
- Thus, "resurrection" can be thought of as the reunification of the spirit or soul with a new immortal body.
- Even if our mortal body is buried or cremated, we will receive some type of "resurrected body."
- Ascension - the resurrected Jesus' return to God in heaven:
- Described only in Luke 24 and Acts 1, as preparation for the sending of the Holy Spirit.
- Traditionally thought to have occurred near the town of Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, just East of Jerusalem.
- Cf. Genesis 5:24, the story of Enoch, the seventh Patriarch who does not die, but is "taken" by God.
- Cf. 2 Kings 2:1-14, the story of the "assumption" of the prophet Elijah, taken to heaven on a fiery chariot.
- Note: Matthew 28:16-20 could be called an "anti-Ascension"! Instead of departing to heaven and promising to return, Jesus tells the disciples, "I am with you always..." (cf. Matt 1:23 - "Emmanuel" = "God with us")
Out of memories, dreams, imagination, some leading questios by the folks and an eager-to-please child ... yes, anyting is possible and a lot of wacky stuff can happen.
I remember reading this story several years ago and finding t fascinating — so much so that I tried to talk my “wing-nut” brother into helping me novelize it. (We didn’t, BTW) IIRC, the father had taken the boy to an aviation museum sometime earlier.
Our angle would have been demonic oppression.
I remember seeing a movie about the WW2 battle of London that gave me nightmares. I could probably do a pretty good job of dredging those movie scenes up and convincing someone willing to believe that I was the reincarnation of someone who died during the Blitz.
To the Christians with profound objections to the idea of reincarnation, there may be an explanation that is compatible with Christianity, and makes considerable sense. Call it parallel or resonant lives.
That is, not the same soul, recycled, but communication between similar souls over time. An excellent example is going to church. People have been going to church for a very long time. And in the last, say 50 years, doing pretty much the same things at church all that time.
Nothing unnatural, here, or even unusual. Different people thinking the same thoughts and doing the same unchanged rituals. It is not hard at all to strongly empathize with people doing the same thing, in the same place, 50 years ago. It’s so normal that it is hardly worth mention.
Now introduce the element of terrifying trauma. Say the pilot and the little boy are very much alike as people, or as souls, but not the same one. Somehow the pilot’s last moments are picked up by the little boy like a radio receiver. It doesn’t mean they are the same person, just that they are on the same “frequency”.
In some situation, similar strong events can be tied to a place, an object, or a repetitive action. Note the picture of the little boy sitting on a toy aircraft. That may be like the antenna from those events long ago.
Of course this sort of thing is a rarity. For which we are probably fortunate, or we would get deluged by information from all sorts of people doing similar things in years past. Whenever we would pound a nail with a hammer, we would gets lots of impressions of people hitting their thumb by accident.
So in this situation, I would tell the small boy that many years ago, there was a man who was a lot like him in personality. So much so, that when something bad happened to him, he gave out a shout so loud that even now just you can hear him, because you are so much alike. It doesn’t mean that anything bad is going to happen to you, any more than if you watched it on TV.
But it would probably mean a lot to him, that somebody eventually heard him, even many years later. So let’s wish him well and hope he found peace.
God allows demons to act in order to try us like gold in the furnace.
Straw men can have souls too.
Or at least brains.
Wow.
A gal from our church related the story of when her husband died. Shortly before he died the ghost of his dead father showed up in the hospital room with the dieing man and his wife. He stayed for awhile and then left, leaving the wife in a comforted state. (Can’t recall if she said “he” spoke or anything.)
She was a bit in wonderment about what, or if, it had really happened. Until the nurse came back in and said something like “I came by earlier but didn’t want to disturb you when you had a visitor.”
I believe it to be true, but who knows.
When it comes to paranormal experiences and abilities, it seems there are two kinds of Christians: those who assume they’re witnessing demonic activity and want to get as far away as possible, and those believe they might be witnessing a blessing from the Holy Spirit. I guess I’m just one of the latter. Just because something seems eerie or frightening to us doesn’t mean it’s evil—as the Bible says, the shepherds’ immediate reaction to seeing the Angel of the Lord was intense fear. If we ran away from everything that seemed unnatural, we’d miss important signs and messages from God. It seems only wise to approach these things with an open mind (and with a prayer for God’s protection).
If this story is true (it has a kind of chain-letter quality to it), perhaps James had a gift of visions, or was in communion with a good spirit who had an important message for us. I don’t think it’s unlikely that God would use living people as mediums through which spiritual messengers speak to us.
Screaming “strawman” for every argument that one is incapable of refuting, is an illegitimate debating technique.
A friend of mine had a theory that ALL knowledge is in ALL people (the “we only use 2% of our brain” thingy). Just like God knows all things - we “know” all things, but don’t have the ability to tap into it. I’m not so sure, but an interesting concept. Perhaps could be viewed as created in the image of God, but then sin messes it all up?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.