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Deacon Tom's avatar

Boy, do I have a John Greenleaf Whittier story. (No, really.) A guy started posting in a Charles Dickens group claiming the Dickens had plagiarized A Christmas Carol, and Poe plagiarized the Raven, from Whittier’s younger brother, and the poster was actually his reincarnation. He wrote a book about it! I think it’s called Reincarnation Can Be Proven. (NB: it cannot, and he had no evidence whatsoever.)

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SDG's avatar
Feb 17Edited

I did not see this “That escalated quickly” moment coming! Your anecdote is worth ten of my silly post, and I’m so glad I posted this nonsense so that I could read a bit about that insane book. And you actually encountered this guy online! Amazing.

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Deacon Tom's avatar

He's a psychotherapist. He said there were no documents to prove his claim because they were destroyed in an arson commissioned by Dickens, but his closely argued evidence is in a 110 page paper he wrote proving it beyond any reasonable doubt. I kid you not: I read the whole thing.

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SDG's avatar

WAS THIS INVESTIGATING EVIDENCE FOR REINCARNATION WHILE TAKING A JIMMY AKIN COURSE, because it sounds like investigating evidence for reincaration while taking a Jimmy Akin course

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Deacon Tom's avatar

Ha, no, we didn’t do too much reincarnation in my parapsychology class. I did this all on my own when I encountered the guy. I thought, surely there must be some kind of hard evidence somewhere in all those pages. He eventually admitted that he didn’t have any evidence that would convince someone like me.

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SDG's avatar

Jimmy just knows too much interesting stuff to fit into one class, I know he’s done quite a bit of work on reincaration

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Deacon Tom's avatar

Yes, our class was just an introduction to themes and methodology for research. The man is a marvel.

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Mavis Moon's avatar

Footnote #5: 😂 LOL

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SDG's avatar

I feel like I owe someone a mea culpa!

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Melanie Bettinelli's avatar

When I was in junior high some friends and I filmed ourselves acting out Maud Muller for a school project. I can’t think of the poem but I see my friend Dawn in a skirt and shawl and bonnet pretending to rake in someone’s backyard.

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SDG's avatar

What a wonderful sensory association! So much better than two lines in a complete vacuum!

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Christopher Wilbur's avatar

I'm not familiar with Maud Muller or that line at all but thank you for showing me something new. As for your doggerel, I don't really see how the phrase "I coulda, but I dint" would be gratifying, unless it's meant to be ironic. I'm probably not getting it and/or I'm overthinking.

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SDG's avatar

The key is the idea of the pleasure of canceling plans! :-) Sometimes you’re just glad you didn’t do something, or perhaps got out of having to do something.

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