Commander Salamander. Пафос, романтика, цинизм
Thanks for this good and interesting question, Bruce. First off, we need to distinguish between what are popularly called walk-ins and what in reincarnation research is called replacement reincarnation, anomalous date cases (one of Stevenson's terms for them), possession, or parakaya pravesh (a Sanskrit & Hindi term referring to the possession of a body by a wandering spirit). Stevenson studied several cases of the latter type and published reports on two of them; the others he was holding for a volume he left incomplete at his death in 2007. I discuss this phenomenon here: psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/replacement...
Replacement reincarnation has nothing to do with DID/MPD, because it involves a complete displacement of one personality by another, not the coexistence of personality / memory streams in a given body at the same time. The situation with "walk-ins" is less certain, because although this term is sometimes used as a synonym for replacement reincarnation, in its original definition it was something completely different. The term was introduced by Ruth Montgomery in the 1970s, and referred to advanced beings who took over bodies in order to help humanity advance into a New Age. This was supposed to happen in adulthood, never in childhood or the teen years, as with replacement reincarnation, and did not involve a complete exchange of one personality / memory stream by another. There have been more recent popular writings which describe walk-ins slightly differently, but not in the way replacement reincarnation is known to researchers. None of these popular walk-in cases have been studied by parapsychologists, so we are not in a position to say what exactly is going on in them. Because there apparently is not an exchange of personality in them, it would not appear that DID/MPD is involved in them either, however.
Jim Matlock
www.facebook.com/groups/965923533422836/?multi_...
Replacement reincarnation has nothing to do with DID/MPD, because it involves a complete displacement of one personality by another, not the coexistence of personality / memory streams in a given body at the same time. The situation with "walk-ins" is less certain, because although this term is sometimes used as a synonym for replacement reincarnation, in its original definition it was something completely different. The term was introduced by Ruth Montgomery in the 1970s, and referred to advanced beings who took over bodies in order to help humanity advance into a New Age. This was supposed to happen in adulthood, never in childhood or the teen years, as with replacement reincarnation, and did not involve a complete exchange of one personality / memory stream by another. There have been more recent popular writings which describe walk-ins slightly differently, but not in the way replacement reincarnation is known to researchers. None of these popular walk-in cases have been studied by parapsychologists, so we are not in a position to say what exactly is going on in them. Because there apparently is not an exchange of personality in them, it would not appear that DID/MPD is involved in them either, however.
Jim Matlock
www.facebook.com/groups/965923533422836/?multi_...