Children's Reports of Past-Life Memories: A Review
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1550830708000943
Children's Reports of Past-Life Memories: A Review
Introduction
In 1960, Ian Stevenson, then chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, wrote a review of 44 previously published cases of individuals who had reported memories of previous lives.1 He then began to hear of new cases and the following year took a trip to India after learning of five cases. He was there for four weeks and found 25. He achieved similar results in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and realized that the phenomenon was much more common than anyone had known.
He took an analytical approach to the cases. Psychiatrist Harold Lief later described him as “a methodical, careful, even cautious, investigator, whose personality is on the obsessive side.”2 He never assumed he knew the cause of the cases but instead simply worked to determine precisely what the facts of each case were. He made no grand claims about the work, as indicated by the title of his first book on the phenomenon, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation.3
Though Stevenson's efforts did not produce mainstream acceptance of his work, it did garner some respect in mainstream circles. The Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed one of his books in 1975 and stated that “in regard to reincarnation he has painstakingly and unemotionally collected a detailed series of cases … in which the evidence is difficult to explain on any other grounds.”4 In addition, Carl Sagan, the late astronomer, was very skeptical of nonmainstream work but wrote, “There are three claims in the [parapsychology] field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study,” with the third being “that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation.”5
Stevenson retired in 2002 but continued to write, including a final paper summarizing his career.6 He died in 2007, but several researchers are continuing the study that he began more than 45 years ago of this phenomenon.7, 8, 9
Section snippets
Typical Features
The subjects in these cases tend to be young children. They typically begin describing a previous life when they are two or three years old, and they usually stop by the age of six to seven. They make the statements spontaneously without the use of hypnotic regression. They describe recent lives, with the median interval between the death of the previous individual and the birth of the child being only 16 months. They also describe ordinary lives, usually in the same country. The one part of
Birthmarks and Birth Defects
In addition to the purported memories, a number of the children have had birthmarks or birth defects that appeared to match wounds, usually fatal ones, suffered by the previous personalities. Stevenson published a 2,200-page work that documented over 200 such cases,13 as well as a shorter synopsis.14 Examples include a girl, born with markedly malformed fingers, who seemed to remember being a man whose fingers were cut off, and a boy, born with stubs for fingers on his right hand, who seemed to
Past-Life Statements
The average age when subjects begin reporting a past life is 35 months. Some make their statements with detachment, but many show strong emotional involvement in their claims. Some cry and beg to be taken to what they say is their previous family. Others show intense anger, particularly toward killers in cases in which the previous personality was murdered. In general, the stronger the evidence for a connection to the previous life, the more emotion the child shows when talking about that life.
Themes of the Past-Life Statements
When the subjects talk about a previous life, they tend to discuss events at the end of the life. Almost 75% give details of the death, and even more if the death was violent. 17 They are also more likely to talk about people from the end of that life than from earlier, so a child who describes dying as an adult is more likely to talk about a spouse or children than about parents.
In addition, 20% of the subjects report memories of events between lives.12 Some say they stayed near to where the
Past-Life Behaviors
Many subjects display behaviors that appear connected to the lives they describe. Some show emotions toward various members of the previous family that are appropriate for the relationships that the previous personality had with them, so the children may be deferential toward the previous parents or husband but bossy toward younger siblings of the previous personality, even though they are much older than the subject. These emotions usually dissipate as the children grow older, but there are
Recent American Cases
After the Division of Perceptual Studies set up its Web site at the University of Virginia, dozens of American parents have sent in reports about their children, usually by e-mail. Most of the cases have not been investigated, and very limited information is available on some of them. Nonetheless, they provide a view of what American cases of this type involve.
The subjects have been boys in 57% of the cases, compared with 54% of American cases reported previously11 and 61% of cases worldwide.
Questions About the Cases
Some have challenged this work and suggested that the children's purported memories are simply fantasies that their parents misinterpret, something particularly likely to occur in regions of the world with a general belief in reincarnation. This possibility warrants serious consideration in cases in which a previous personality was not found, either because the child's statements were not specific enough to produce an identification or because they did not seem to fit the life of any actual
Conclusion
Stevenson wrote that he had become persuaded that “reincarnation is the best—even though not the only—explanation for the stronger cases we have investigated.”17(p254) Reincarnation is a word that has various associations connected to it, but regardless of the terminology used, the cases do seem to provide evidence that memories, emotions, and even physical traumas can, at least under certain circumstances, carry over from one life to another. The processes that would be involved in such a
Statements a Child Might Make
The following list is designed to give an idea of what a parent or caregiver might hear from a child reporting memories of a previous life. This list is not meant to be exhaustive as these statements can be quite varied.
Dr. Jim Tucker interviewing a young child
List of Statement Examples
- “You’re not my mommy/daddy.”
- “I have another mommy/daddy.”
- “When I was big, I … (used to have blue eyes, have a car, worked downtown, etc.).”
- “That happened before I was in mommy’s tummy.”
- “I have a wife/husband/children.”
- “I used to … (drive a truck/live in another town, etc.)”
- “I died … (in a car accident/after I fell, etc.)”
- “Remember when I … (lived in that other house, was your daddy, etc.)”
In Western culture, these type of statements often get dismissed as fantasy even though they might contain something other than pure imagination. It is probably best not to repeatedly question the child, nor try to prevent them from speaking about these topics. For more info, please refer to Dr. Tucker’s Advice to Parents.
Great article, thank you. There exists too much evidence to deny we all have past lives, though the majority of us had the memory wipe device fully functioning. One good movie I recently watched was "I, Origins," which suggested that the retina of the eye holds the unique pattern to determine who you were in a past life. An interesting dilemma.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for your comment. Best regards, db
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