There is a fairly simple mechanism in the way the human mind deals with certain extremes of experience in which one's own persona seems untenable, because it has failed, or is being badly overwhelmed by someone else, and that is to take on a more successful peronality. This is emotionally kind of unhealthy in the long run but it provides a way out in the short term. And very often what happens is one takes up a winning personality of which one has some impressions from recent experience -- such as a violent father, or, just as easily, a dominant leader.

This leads to all kinds of personal problems, so it is not a recommended solution to stress, but it is a pretty basic impulse when things get unbearable. And I propose that it is not uncommon for someone delving in to the subject of past identities to not want to get too close to those that were highly painful (the peons, foot-soldiers, starving children and battered women, whipped slaves and disemboweled bystanders). It would seem natural to come up with a more tolerable overlay.

But this tendency no more invalidates the premise of past lives than the complexities of of molecular motion invalidates the theories of thermal energy transfer. You just gotta take the variables into account.

There are some people -- usually the young and creative of any age -- to whom the alternative proposition -- that they are solely composed of molecules and electronic surges, with no true qualitative difference to account for their awareness, intuition, ability to understand and sense of viewpoint, none of which seems explainable by molecular theory -- is the most ridiculous and superstitious proposition that could possibly be entertained by anyone with half a heart. It is unfortunate how strong our culture bends in the direction of that class of explanation, though.

A