So I haven't even finished listening to the whole interview yet (I know, bad form) and I haven't read all 8 pages yet (but I will, probably after I write this) however I was on a bus and felt the need to stick my oar in regarding this parallel lives/serial experiences thing.
I think a lot of the confusion comes from our seemingly hard-wired (or is it culturally specified) urge to view time itself in a one-dimensional manner. Of course, if time were 1D, we could only have discrete serial experiences as souls but that is not the case. I keep visualising a loaf of bread - a 3D one - and I think we only need 3 dimensions to explain the issue. Imagine a loaf of bread, except a loaf of bread whose dimensions are either infinite, or sufficiently large enough to seem infinite from our limited perspective. Each finite 'moment' of time (yes I know there are about 70 problems with this example already, just hear me out) is a slice in the loaf. Each soul can 'consume' one crumb out of one slice, and another from the next and so on and so on - that's one life, one timeline. When we finish one life, we can go back - or forward - in the loaf, and start consuming another time'line of crumbs'. Now... there's no need to fight over these crumbs. Each soul can certainly experience a crumbline that overlaps with other crumblines... it's no problem. It's not an issue because time is not one-dimensional. It just has to seem that way to us in our largely 1D brains... it's the only way to make sense of an incarnate life.
As you are Skeptiko listeners, I don't need to point out how there are many different disciplines coming back and telling us that time doesn't necessarily run in a one-dimensional 'line of discrete marbles' ('that's my marble, I spent it, you can't spend the same marble') configuration. Actually, what am I saying. Not "doesn't necessarily"... it doesn't.
I am enjoying this interview immensely and can't wait to catch up on other episodes. I consider myself to have an intuition that goes ever so slightly beyond the purely intellectual, and I felt like Marisa was bang on everywhere except where she said the word 'impossible'. I've yet to encounter anything that I would necessarily say is impossible. 'Not likely to happen now or later in this lifetime' is the closest I can get to impossible. So when I hear it, my intuition alarms start going off.
Lastly I apologise if I have just restated ideas that are likely to be in pages 2-7 of this thread, as I say I'm off to fill out my profile, read this thread and some more, and get fully comfortable in the Skeptiko forums. However, I also need to tidy the house and sort out a lot of stuff before the owners of the house get back from their holiday and say WHAT THE FLARP HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR LOVELY HOME CHRIS
Infinite love and blessings, especially deep thanks to Alex, for Skeptiko and his open and welcoming attitude towards us his listeners (and worshippers in my case, yes, get that bunny in the pot Alex) and Marisa, clearly someone with a wealth of compassion and wisdom who doesn't hide her light under a bushell (even though she initially would have loved the simplicity of that, ha ha! Unlucky Marisa!! :D)
[edit: Yes. so I do think we can go backwards or forwards in time when we choose to incarnate. I believe that I could 'have a go' being Freddy Mercury or Shakespeare... actually I'm not sure about that. Actually yes I am. All I am really sure of is that thinking things impossible, or as anything less than infinite, is a really quaint human delusion. Remember that if you take all the atoms in the known universe, it's a big number. And you calculate all the different positions they can have relative to one another, it's another huge number. Something like a googolplex. BUT IT AIN'T INFINITE! So everything we could ever imagine, have, do be or see fits comfortably within the realm of the Infinite.]
Oh and I noticed that Marisa may be reading this thread... can I ask her, or anyone who has an intuition on this question, is it okay to be cremated? Because from the first 'murder victims' story right at the beginning of the interview, it sounded like it was more of an issue to the spirit that her old body parts be recovered. Why is that? For closure of the people she left behind? My intuition tells me there's nothing we can do in 3D physical reality that will prevent our souls from their spiritual inheritance/nature and crossing over, but I do worry, especially as someone who struggles with mental health issues, suicidal ideation blah blah blah O N E L O V E