On and off for centuries children have spontaneously spoken of their past lives. Adults often dismiss these memories as fantasies, as their philosophy or religion does not accept that past lives are possible. Even adults who accept past lives are sometimes disturbed by the claims, as they add a complication to family life. Yet children's memories are generally uncomplicated by delusions of greatness. They very rarely claim to have been famous persons. The lives they reveal are ordinary, but often distorted by a violent ending.
Ian Stevenson
Very detailed, high quality research into children's past life memories was performed by the late Professor Ian Stevenson. Stevenson knew that his work was controversial and likely to run into barriers of academic prejudice, so he ensured that it met the highest standards of academic rigour. Stevenson's method was to identify cases when a person could identify his/her memories of a past life with another person who had previously died. It would have to be a deceased person of whom the person or their family and friends could have no knowledge. He would then interview the claimant and their family, and also the family of the person whose life was remembered. These interviews would be repeated several times and cross checked. Any signs that the evidence was being contaminated by interference meant that the case was abandoned. He was left with about two thousand cases that stood up to his rigorous tests.
Recently Edwards of the New York School of Social Research criticized Stevenson on grounds that his methodology was flawed. However, even if Edwards is correct, any flaws will be relatively minor, as Stevenson's rigour was such that they could not be general problems for all of his research, so the objection is being taken too far, even if it has any purchase at all. Edwards himself has been subject to quite strong criticism for flaws in his work on reincarnation.
Strange discoveries
Stevenson looked for paranormal knowledge, by which he means knowledge that the child could not have had by normal means. Examples of such knowledge are the ability to find their way round towns that they have never visited or to recognize individuals in their previous family by name. None of this knowledge is explicable in ordinary terms. Stevenson also observed that birth marks on the child's body sometimes reflect injuries suffered in the previous existence of the character whose rebirth they claim to be. This is, however, a controversial claim and it is difficult to substantiate.
Xenoglossy
This is the ability to know words from another language. It is quite rare but occasionally children seem to be able to recognize words in other languages and even to speak them. Stevenson researched the case of Swarnlatra Mishra, a girl who could speak and sing songs in Bengali, even though she never had any opportunity to learn it. She claimed that she had learnt it in a previous life.
Soul survivor
Soul Survivor is a haunting book that makes grim and compelling reading for any sensitive person, but it is well written and gives what seems to be an honest account of a child's nightmare memories of his appalling death in a crashed and burning aircraft during World War Two. What is significant here is that the memories started about two to three years old, which is the time when past life memories tend to surface. The child displayed behaviour which could be explained by the enduring trauma of a horrific death, trapped in a blazing plane on a reef at Chichi Jima. The presence of unresolved traumas is often the sign of a past life. Maybe a peaceful death is easily forgotten, but a violent one remains in the subsconscious and the memory of it can surface. How this memory is retained is unknown.
Observations
A child's past life memories surface after two years old and fade away later. If a child displays unusual knowledge of places or, occasionally languages, then it may be a sign of past life memories surfacing. Strange, traumatic behaviour may be the result of past lives interfering with this one. Of course, not all childhood problems arise from previous lives. There are enough factors in this life causing problems , even before we look for past life causes.
We should not be overhasty to attribute traumatic behaviour in children to past life causes, but we should not exclude them as influences upon a child. It is not necessary to go looking for evidence of past lives, as many people have no memories of them, but we need to be open to the issue if it arises in specific child's life. In the case of Soul Survivor, the parents were forced to consider past life trauma as a cause of the strange behaviour dispayed by their son, even though it was outside their world-view. Their coming to see the past life dimension contributed to the child's eventual healing progress.
Sources and bibliography
Twenty Cases suggestive of reincarnation, Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia Press, charlottsville, 1980
Soul Survivor, Bruce and andrea Leininger, Grand Rapids, Michigan 2009
Francis Beswick - Religion, history and horticulture are my three great interests and I spend much of my time on them.
Join the Conversation