Chapter Five

Reincarnation

Introduction

A belief in reincarnation is common amongst Eastern religions and cultures, but many Western religions also have historical traditions and sects that incorporated reincarnation in their canon.  Mainstream Islam, for example, does not accept the precept of reincarnation but certain Shiite sects do; pointing towards passages in the Koran that imply the validity of reincarnation such as the Koran’s Sura 71:17-18, “And Allah hath caused you to spring forth; from the Earth like a plant; Hereafter will He turn you back into it; again, and will bring you forth anew.”

Judaism also has minority sects that believe in reincarnation, such as Kabala.  The Zohar, a central text of Kabala from the mystic tradition of Judaism provides,

The souls must reenter the absolute whence they have emerged.  But to accomplish this end they must develop all the perfections, the germ of which is planted in them; and if they have not fulfilled this condition during one life, they must commence another, a third, and so forth, until they have acquired the condition, which fits them for reunion with God.

Ancient Judaism, dating before the first century AD, had a much wider acceptance of reincarnation, which influenced early Christians to accept that the cycle of rebirth could only be transcended by following the teachings and inspiration of Jesus of Nazareth.

Judaism’s Torah and Christianity’s Old Testament asserted Elijah would reappear before the coming of the Messiah.  In the Christian Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 11, Jesus identified John the Baptist as being Elijah reborn.  Thus, Jesus asserted the passage from the Jewish holy book had been fulfilled through Elijah’s rebirth as John.  Failure to accept the validity of Elijah having been reborn as John would also undermine the claim Jesus was the Messiah, thus showing both early Christians and Jews – since Jesus was a Jew – believed in reincarnation.

Indeed a belief in reincarnation continued in the theology of Christianity for centuries.  One of the most prolific writers about Christian theology, the Catholic Priest Origen, who lived around 200 AD, was an ardent proponent of reincarnation.  Origen could not believe a just and loving God could create humans and then summarily condemn them to eternal damnation if they had not lived righteously.  Origen believed in the precept of universal salvation, and reincarnation as the primary tool for humans to work through spiritual evolutionary issues from one life to the next.  In De Principiis, Origen’s major work and the first systematic theology of Christianity, he wrote, “Every soul…comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life.  Its place in this world as a vessel appointed to honor or dishonor, is determined by its previous merits or demerits.  Its work in this world determines its place in the world which is to follow this.”

However, believers in reincarnation stood as impediments to the Catholic Church’s absolute authority.  Those early Christians who believed in reincarnation were neither induced by promises of heavenly bliss nor intimidated by threats of hellfire in the afterlife.  By implication, they did not need ordained Catholic priests to administer sacramental rites such as Confession and the forgiveness of sins in order to ‘earn’ eternal rewards in the hereafter.  Their spiritual self-reliance was anathema to Catholic leaders, as their subservience could not be guaranteed.⁽¹⁹⁹⁾

In 553 AD, Roman Emperor Justinian called the Fifth Ecumenical Council to rectify early Christian Church teachings into a single, universally accepted theology.  Fifteen teachings were thereby declared anathema and heresy, including the concept of the preexistence of souls and reincarnation.  However, belief in reincarnation did not merely die because of Justinian’s Council.  Rather, the belief had to be forcibly rooted out and purged, as was accomplished through the Inquisition’s use of organized torture and state-sanctioned terror.  Through such, the Inquisition sought to frighten people into following approved Catholic orthodoxy as non-conformers were systematically tortured and killed by the hundreds of thousands in order to achieve this state- and church-sanctioned goal.  Still, it took another three hundred years before the Inquisition almost successfully rooted out the connection to and belief in reincarnation from Christianity, the primary Western religion, and Western culture by extension.

Since then, reincarnation has survived only on the fringes of Western society; a concept understood but generally discarded from plausible acceptance in Western scientific, cultural, and religious bodies.  However, evidence for reincarnation is continually being experienced and expressed throughout the world, which has caused some scientists to reevaluate and explore the validity of this body of evidence.  Examples include spontaneous past-life recall, as well as biological connections between successive lives, reported cases of xenoglossy (speaking foreign languages for which one has no prior experience), and hypnotic past-life recall.  The evidence has attracted a growing cadre of scientists with medical and advanced research degrees, including amongst many others, Ernest Pecci, M.D.; Chet Snow, Ph.D.; Ian Stevenson, M.D.; Helen Wambach, Ph.D.; Brian Weiss, M.D.; and Roger Woolger, Ph.D.

These scientists and many others have sought to find proof to support or terminally disprove the concept of reincarnation.  One might even consider all that would be required to prove reincarnation existed would be to find a single case of definitive evidence.  This mimics Dr. William James’ famous observation one does not need to show that no crows are black to defeat the law that all crows are black; rather it is enough to merely find one crow that was not.⁽²⁰⁰⁾

The late Dr. Ian Stevenson, former professor of psychiatry and director of the Division of Personality Studies at the Health Sciences Center, University of Virginia, was one of the premier scientists in this regard.  Dr. Stevenson researched children worldwide who had and talked about spontaneously recalled past lives.  During his career, Dr. Stevenson assembled more than 2,600 case studies, many of which were published in exhaustive tomes that included in-depth discussions of his research methodologies to aid academic peer reviews of his research and conclusions.

One of Dr. Stevenson’s harshest critics was ironically, himself.  Despite spending an entire career focused on researching a phenomenon that continually pointed towards the validity of reincarnation, Dr. Stevenson never accepted the precept of reincarnation, but rather allowed some of his case studies seemed to indicate the evidence was merely suggestive of reincarnation.  Dr. Stevenson claimed some type of flaw existed in every case he had ever investigated, which prevented him from being willing to declare any of the work over his entire career could prove reincarnation. However, he did admit the body of evidence was growing in quantity and quality over time, thus increasing the plausibility of the concept of reincarnation.⁽²⁰¹⁾

I would suggest Dr. Stevenson was overly humble at the quality and implications of his work and findings.  Indeed, much of his casework is widely quoted by many authors on the subject of reincarnation and many cases in this genre seem stronger than merely suggestive.  However, only a tiny fraction of those cases could be considered in the limited space provided herein.

Case Studies of Spontaneous Past-Life Recall

Dr. Stevenson felt it was particularly appropriate to research children in regards to spontaneous past-life recall because children were too young to have acquired any preconceived notions of the validity of reincarnation, or substantive information about a deceased person who had lived in another location for which their memories might correlate.  Additionally, the occurrence of delusions and psychotic conditions in children is rare thus virtually eliminating the possibility of hysterical dissociation or split personality disorder on the child’s part.⁽²⁰²⁾  Also, in many cases in which a child in Western Society remembered living a previous life the family often found such claims to be a baffling and unwelcome event that was not condoned by their Christian-based culture.  Thereby, a child’s verbal recollections were often met with active dissuasion, reprimand, and even scolding by parents who did not wish to take the child’s statements seriously, or have neighbors, friends or other family members know about and potentially ostracize the family because of the child’s culturally unacceptable claims.⁽²⁰³⁾

Dr. Stevenson found if a child was going to speak about memories from a spontaneously recalled past life, the child nearly always began doing so between the ages of two and four.  In most cases that Dr. Stevenson researched, the child continued to talk about the previous life until somewhere between ages five and eight, at which time the memories gradually began to fade and the child began to focus on their current life instead of the past life.⁽²⁰⁴⁾  Many times, these children would recall the manner in which the previous personality had died, particularly if the death had occurred following violent circumstances.⁽²⁰⁵⁾  This memory in particular could aid Dr. Stevenson’s research to identify the previous personality, and then verify the manner and circumstances of death, and other aspects of the recalled personality’s life against the child’s proclaimed memories.

In the next section, we will explore some of Dr. Stevenson’s research in which the manner and circumstances of death impacted the newly born personality through the location and appearance of unique birthmarks and birth defects that eerily corresponded with wounds received at or near the time of death by the previous personality.  More frequently, however, the child could recall a number of proper names, places and other specific details from the deceased person’s life that were then researched by Dr. Stevenson’s team to determine not only the correlation of those statements but also how obscure such information was; the objective being to determine how plausible it was for the child to have acquired the information through normal means.⁽²⁰⁶⁾  In those cases where the information recalled was specific, accurate and truly obscure, little could account for how the child might have acquired such information or memories from a previous life other than through the concept of reincarnation.

Though Dr. Stevenson researched and assembled thousands of case files on instances of spontaneous past-life recall, he never obtained enough information to convince himself, definitively, of the validity of reincarnation despite the fact he could not account for how such memories, emotions, and other phenomenon he researched might have occurred.  Hemendra Banerjee, an “extracerebral memory” investigator similar to Dr. Stevenson but without the medical credentials, noted he was personally convinced of an investigated case’s validity when he witnessed spontaneous emotional recognition.⁽²⁰⁷⁾  Spontaneous emotional recognition occurred when a child claiming to be reborn visited an area or people meaningful to the previous life and then expressed an intense emotional reaction in their presence.

The following are a few of the thousands of cases Dr. Stevenson, Hemendra Banerjee, and others have investigated that highlight this unique body of evidence.

The case of Jagdish Chandra of India⁽²⁰⁸⁾

Jagdish Chandra was born in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, in 1923.  When Jagdish was three years old, he began speaking of a previous life he had lived in Benares, another Indian state.  Intrigued by these stories, which were culturally acceptable to most people in India, Jagdish’s father began keeping written notes on the boy’s memories.  Jagdish claimed his ‘real’ father was named Babuji Pandey, had two sons and a deceased wife, and had owned an automobile, a rarity for Indians at that time.  Jagdish further described his mother and some family relatives, and provided explicit details of his former home, including the location of a safe hidden in a wall in an underground room at their residence.

Jagdish Chandra’s present father located Babuji Pandey and took Jagdish to Benares to meet him.  Babuji Pandry tested Jagdish’s proclaimed memories by asking the boy to direct them to his former home as they walked through the maze-like streets of Benares.  Jagdish did so despite having never been there in his current lifetime.  Jagdish also recognized some relatives he had known in his previous life, and displayed a detailed knowledge of the religious and dietary customs of his former family.

Dr. Stevenson noted these recalled memories were from a very young child who lived far from the location of the recalled past life and in a separate caste so that his current family, neighbors and associates would also have had no natural exposure to information about the previous life.  Most of Jagdish’s claims proved true upon investigation, and the child also exhibited behavioral traits appropriate for the previous life.  As with all of Dr. Stevenson’s cases, however, the professor was reluctant to claim sufficient evidence was present to serve as definitive proof Jadgish was Babuji’s deceased child reincarnated.

The case of Kumkum Verma of India⁽²⁰⁹⁾

Kumkum Verma also began speaking about a past life in India at age three.  Kumkum recalled living as ‘Sunnary’ in a neighboring town.  She also recalled being married to a man in the blacksmith caste, having a son named Misri Lal, a grandson named Gouri Shankar, and two daughters-in-law; one of whom had caused her death by poisoning her food.  Kumkum described Sunnary’s home as having a pond near the house and an iron safe hidden inside for which she kept secured by harboring a pet cobra near the safe.  Interestingly, Kumkum also exhibited no fear of snakes as a child and had once even stroked a cobra that had fallen from a tree near her.  Kumkum further described an orchard of mango trees near Sunnary’s home and stated Sunnary’s father had lived in the town of Bajitpur.

Kumkum’s aunt carefully recorded Kumkum’s memories as Sunnary though her parents dismissed the stories for some time.  Kumkum repeatedly asked to return to Sunnary’s home in Urbu Bazar but her parents refused.  At age four, a friend of Kumkum’s father had occasion to follow up on the story’s details and located Sunnary’s son, Misri Lal, in the city of Urdu Bazar, as well as Sunnary’s grandson, Gouri Shankar.  Misri confirmed most of the claims made by Kumkum about his mother’s life, including her death following a sudden, unidentified illness, though at the time he had suspected his mother had been poisoned.  Unfortunately, relatives had dissuaded him from performing an autopsy so there was no confirmation concerning Kumkum’s claim Sunnary had died of poisoning.  Much of the other confirmed information, however, was obscure, personal information, that would only have been known by immediate family members so there was no logical explanation for how a three-year old in another town, who had never had contact with their family, could have known such information.

The case of Corliss Chotkin of Alaska⁽²¹⁰⁾

Before he died in 1946, Victor Vincent, a Tlingit Eskimo in Alaska told his niece, Corliss Chotkin, he would be reborn.  Victor asserted Corliss would recognize him because the baby with Victor’s reborn soul would have the same two scars Victor possessed: one on his back and one at the base of his nose.  Eighteen months after Victor’s death, Mrs. Chotkin had a baby with two birthmarks that matched the scars Victor Vincent had borne.  Because birthmarks are generally not inherited, the presence of two identical birthmarks at identical locations is of some note.⁽²¹¹⁾  As the child grew older he spontaneously recognized people and places known previously to Victor Vincent, and he told his parents of incidents in Victor’s life that the child would not have otherwise known or heard.  The child also displayed personality traits and mechanical skills previously exhibited by Victor Vincent.  At one point as a small child, he asked his mother if she did not recognize him, and then asserted he was the re-born spirit of Victor Vincent.

The case of Shanti Devi of India⁽²¹²⁾

Shanti Devi was born in Delhi, India, in 1926 and began describing memories at age four of her previous life as ‘Lugdi,’ a woman who had lived in Mathura, a town some 80 miles away.  Lugdi had died the year before Devi was born of complications during childbirth.  Devi’s memories of the birthing process seemed quite unnatural for a child of such a young age to conceive, and caused her parents to take particular attention of further descriptions of Lugdi’s recalled life.  For example, Devi also described various benign aspects of Lugdi’s life, commenting on her home, garden, husband, children, food, etc.  By the time Devi was eight, people were taking her story seriously.

Upon request, Devi provided the name and address of Lugdi’s husband and an inquiry found the man did indeed live where Devi had claimed and his previous wife, Lugdi had died in 1925, a few days after the birth of their son.  When they met, Devi’s recollections of her previous life as Lugdi and the emotional reaction she had with meeting Lugdi’s son, only one year older than Devi, his reborn mother, convinced all present Devi was Lugdi reincarnated.  When Devi later visited Mathura, she directed the driver to Lugdi’s home, pointed out several landmarks on the way, recognized and identified Lugdi’s parents and other members of her family, and described how Lugdi had hidden 150 rupees under the floor of the home.  Lugdi’s husband admitted he had found the hidden rupees and removed them after Lugdi’s death.  Altogether, Devi made at least 24 correct statements about Lugdi’s life and apparently gave no incorrect information.  Quite uniquely in this case, Devi retained her memories of Lugdi’s life and maintained a personal conviction she had lived this past life throughout her own life.  Devi died at age 61 in 1987. 

The case of Romy Crees of the USA⁽²¹³⁾

“Extracerebral memory” investigator, Hemendra Banerjee, investigated more than 1,100 spontaneous past-life recall cases in his career, including the case of Romy Crees, a toddler in Des Moines, IA, born in 1977, who claimed she was Joe Williams, a husband of Sheila Williams and father of three.  Romy described in graphic detail her death as Joe via motorcycle accident and exhibited a phobia of motorcycles.  Dr. Stevenson found that phobias almost always corresponded with the manner of death in the previous life, and might occur in about one-third of the case studies.⁽²¹⁴⁾  If the phobia were to manifest, such would occur before the child had begun to speak and would tend to diminish as the child grew older.

Romy recalled attending school as Joe in Charles City, a small city approximately 140 miles from Des Moines.  Romy asserted Joe had lived in a red brick house, and provided descriptions of Joe’s mother, including the fact that she had leg pains, had burned her hand following a fire caused by Joe, and liked blue flowers.

When Banerjee and Romy visited Joe Williams’ seventy six-year old mother the woman disavowed knowing anyone in Des Moines and was quite disbelieving of the little girl’s story until the girl correctly identified everyone in a family portrait taken in December 1974.  Joe Williams and his wife had died in a motorcycle accident in 1975, and his last present to his mother had been a bouquet of blue posies.  Joe’s mother also confirmed she had leg pains, had burned her hand from a fire caused by Joe, and many other details Romy had provided, which convinced her personally that Romy was not lying about being her deceased son, Joe.

The case of Mahavir Singh of India⁽²¹⁵⁾

Mahavir Singh (pseudonym) was born in 1982 in the Agra district of Uttar Pradesh, India.  At age two, Mahavir told his mother he had seen the son of his brother, Pathi Ram, from his previous life as ‘Khem Raj,’ passing by outside.  Mahavir later expounded he personally had five children and a wife; an odd assertion for a toddler to make.  But Mahavir made many other statements about his family, business and financial situation, and dying near the Ganges River.

Though unrelated, living in separate communities and castes, and previously unfamiliar with the other family, Pathi Ram eventually heard of the story of the boy who claimed to be his brother and came to investigate.  Pathi Ram revealed he had a brother, Khem Raj, who did have five children and had indeed died near the Ganges.  Mahavir further recognized the businessman, Teja, who had owed Khem money.  Mahavir made at least 15 other statements about Khem’s family that were confirmed to be true by Pathi Ram, which convinced Pathi that Mahavir was Pathi’s brother, Khem, reincarnated.

The case of Dilukshi Nissanka of Sri Lanka⁽²¹⁶⁾

Professor Erlendur Haraldsson of the University of Iceland investigated the case of Dilukshi Geevanie Nissanka who was born in Sri Lanka in 1984.  At less than two years of age, Diluksi started talking and began describing a previous life she had lived near Dambulla, some 80 miles from her own village.  She made about 30 statements concerning this previous life including the circumstances of her ‘death.’  By age five, Dilukshi had finally impressed upon her family the need to check the validity of her facts and visit the area where she had remembered living previously.

Dilukshi led her family to her former home at Dambulla, some four miles from the town proper.  Dilukshi’s definitive statements of her previous life as Shiromi and her emotional reaction at recognizing former family members and objects in the family’s home caused her former family to recognize her as Shiromi, their former daughter who had died from drowning.   Professor Haraldsson concluded at least 12 of Dilukshi’s statements about Shiromi’s life were proven while some others may have been near hits or near misses with variances attributed to the inexact quality of language translation or changes to area scenery that may have occurred over time, thus hindering the process of proving statements referring to historical descriptions that could no longer be confirmed.

Biological Indications of Reincarnation

Amongst the more than 2,600 case studies Dr. Ian Stevenson researched of spontaneous past-life recall were at least 225 case studies of possible correlations between a child’s birthmarks or birth defects with the child’s memories of past-life events of physical trauma.  Dr. Stevenson’s book, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, summarized 112 of those cases.  The birthmarks in these cases were not similar to normal moles – areas of increased pigmentation, or ‘nevi’ in medical terminology.  Instead, they were usually hairless areas comprising a mass of puckered, scar-like tissue, generally raised above or depressed below the surrounding tissues.  Some were even bleeding or oozing as open wounds when the baby was born.⁽²¹⁷⁾  Dr. Stevenson was particularly interested in the potential correlation between these types of birthmarks or birth defects because they might be able to provide an objective type of evidence to prove the validity of reincarnation.⁽²¹⁸⁾

Birth defects, for example, may be caused by genetic disorders, toxic chemicals ingested during pregnancy, uterine conditions, and/or certain infectious diseases.  However, a large number of birth defects still have an unknown cause, ranging in frequency from 43% to 70% of all birth defects that cannot be otherwise explained.⁽²¹⁹⁾  Thus, birthmarks and birth defects that correspond with the location for which a child specifically recalls being critically wounded in a past life might be able to suggest a deceased personality either influenced or was associated with the later-born baby.  This could potentially help researchers understand why, at least in some cases, people may exhibit unique birth defects at certain locations.