Direct Evidence for Reincarnation
Children Who Seem to Remember Past
Lives as Monks:
Details Verified
A file photo of a young monk.
(Volare2004/iStock)
Dr. Erlendur Haraldsson, professor emeritus at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, has examined cases of children who seem to remember their past lives. In some of the cases, the children remembered lives as Buddhist monks. Furthermore, in some of these cases, the memories were recorded right after the children recalled them (without time elapsing in which the memories could be distorted), and they seemed to correspond to historical information about real monks who had died.
Cases in which children remember details that can be, and are, verified against factual reports of the life of someone who has died are known as “solved cases” among researchers. Cases in which the memories are too vague or the details too imprecise to be verified are known as “unsolved cases.”
The solved cases of these children who remember being monks stood out to Dr. Haraldsson for another reason. “What makes these … cases particularly interesting is not only the alleged memories but also the behavioural features that the children display. Each child shows behavior that is considered appropriate and even ideal for monks,” wrote Dr. Haraldsson and Godwin Samarartne in a 1999 paper titled, “Children Who Speak of Memories of a Previous Life as a Buddhist Monk,” published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.
Far from being happy about this behavior or encouraging it, the childrens’ parents seem to have been concerned and distressed by it.
The Case of Duminda Bandara Ratnayake
Some of the details Ratnayake reported about his past life, when he began to talk about it around the age of 3, include:
1.
He
had been a senior monk at Asgiriya temple, about 16 miles from his current
hometown.
2.
He
had a pain in his chest and fell, then died; he used the word “apawathwuna,”
which is only used for the death of a monk.
3.
He
owned a red car.
4.
He
taught apprentice monks.
5.
He
had an elephant.
6.
He
had friends in the Malvatta Temple he used to visit.
7.
He
had a money bag and a radio in Asgiriya he wanted back. (His mother was
embarrassed to report this, because these are not items considered appropriate
for a monk to possess.)
He displayed no interest in playing with other children, only in becoming a monk. He recited Buddhist stanzas in the ancient language of Sinhalese Buddhism, only used and learned by monks. He lived his life like a monk, carrying his clothes the way a monk does, attending the temple and placing flowers there in the Buddhist fashion, and displaying similar behaviors.
This permeated his life. He was calm, serene, detached. He told his mother she shouldn’t touch his hands (women are not supposed to touch a monk’s hands).
A local monk whom Haraldsson interviewed in addition to the boy’s family members had observed the boy’s behavior and felt his parents could not have taught him these behaviors.
Did His Memories Match a Real Monk’s Life?
He didn’t have a radio, but he was the only one of several possible monks Haraldsson had narrowed the search to who had something resembling a radio—a gramophone. It is possible Ratnayake did not know how to describe a gramophone as anything other than a “radio.” Ven. Gunnepana was particularly fond of music. He was remembered as a virtuous monk who strictly observed the rules. All of these facts seem to correlate to the boy’s behavior and personality traits as well as his memories.
Haraldsson thought it unlikely the boy learned any of this from his family or others he came into contact with. For example, though there is a slight chance he may have learned the religious stanzas from the radio, as they are broadcast very early in the morning, locals told Haraldsson that no other children they know have learned the stanzas in the ancient tongue and it is extremely unusual.
The Case of Gamage Ruvan Tharanga Perera
The boy said the temple had a clay monkey, a very unusual and specific statement that was later verified. It is not at all common for the temples to have monkey statues.
Some of the monk-like behaviors he displayed included knowing how to sit in lotus, how to wear a monk’s robe, and how to hold a fan when chanting, all of which he had not been taught. He did not want to eat in the evenings (monks are supposed to stop eating after noon), did not want to sleep with his mother (telling her monks do not sleep with women), and in the evenings he would perform a ceremony of worship with recitations. He encouraged his family members to follow all of these behaviors themselves, and even scolded them for not doing so. He scolded his father when he brought liquor into the house. Though he scolded, those who knew him told Haraldsson he was never angry, but always serene.
He led his classmates in religious ceremonies, acting like an abbot. They all respected him, his teachers and some of his classmates later told Haraldsson. As with Ratnayake, Perera could chant stanzas in the ancient language of Pali, which he may have learned from the radio or television—but his parents think that very unlikely.
His parents were not interested in his memories, nor did they encourage him to talk about them. Haraldsson discovered the case when a local reporter learned of the boy’s memories from the family’s neighbor.
He was disinterested in playing with other children, would request pictures of Buddha instead of toys, would draw pictures from the life of Buddha in school, and wanted to dress like a monk.
His parents later took him to Pitumpke temple. He quickly pointed out the clay monkey he had told them about, which was not displayed prominently. Some there became convinced that he was the reincarnation of the previous abbot of the monastery, Ven. Ganihigama Pannasekhara (1902–1986).
Ven. Pannasekhara and his family were all vegetarians for religious reasons, which is rare in Sri Lanka. Perera also insisted on a vegetarian diet. Ven. Pannasekhara became chief abbot of the Colombo district in 1972, which fits with Perera’s behavior as an abbot. Ven. Pannasekhara died in January 1986, 17 months before Perera was born. Perera’s personality traits match those of Ven. Pannasekhara, including strong leadership qualities and a zeal for chanting in public. Some at the temple remained skeptical, however, as Perera did not recognize the people Ven. Pannasekhara had known.
Perera was not brought up in a religious environment. Haraldsson and Samarartne conclude, “We find no easy explanation for his unusual and distinct behavioral characteristics which are so atypical for a child.”
From
The Epoch Times @ http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1371469-children-who-seem-to-remember-past-lives-as-monks-details-verified/
Children’s Reports of Past Life Memories
by Jim B.
Tucker
These cases occur worldwide, and although they are easiest to find in cultures with a belief in reincarnation, many cases have been found in the West as well. This review explores the facets of this phenomenon and presents several recent American cases.
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. 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. 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.
Though Stevenson’s efforts did not produce mainstream acceptance of his work, it did garner some respect in main- stream 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.”
In addition, Carl Sagan, the late astronomer, was very skeptical of nonmain- stream work but wrote, “There are three claims in the [para- psychology] 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.”
Stevenson retired in 2002 but continued to write, including a final paper summarizing his career. He died in 2007, but several researchers are continuing the study that he began more than 45 years ago of this phenomenon.
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 the life that is often out of the ordinary is the mode of death, as 70% of the deaths are by unnatural means.
Some subjects report having been deceased family members, whereas others say they were strangers in another location. If they give enough details, such as the name of that location, then people have often gone there and identified a deceased individ- ual, the previous personality, whose life appears to match the state- ments the child made.
Over 2,500 cases have been investigated worldwide. They are easiest to find in cultures with a belief in reincarnation, and the places that have produced the most cases include India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Lebanon, Thailand, and Burma (Myanmar). Cases have been found wherever anyone has looked for them, including all continents except Antarctica.
Stevenson published a book of European cases,10 and numerous cases have been found in the United States as well.
Several of these will be reviewed in a later section. Cases in the West seem to be less common, but this may be because they are harder to find, as some parents are reluctant to disclose, even to close friends and family at times, what their children have said.
When cases are investigated, history is obtained from as many people as possible. This includes the subjects, if the children are willing and able to tell investigators about the purported memories, as well as their parents and others who have heard the children describing past-life memories.
The other side of the case is then investigated; the previous family is interviewed to determine how accurate the child’s statements are for the life of the previous personality. Attempts are made to obtain autopsies or medical records of the previous personality if they are relevant. If the two families have not yet met, tests can also be conducted to see if the subject can recognize people from the previous life.
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, as well as a shorter synopsis.
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 remember the life of a boy in another village who lost the fingers of his right hand in a fodder-chopping machine.
Another example is Chanai Choomalaiwong, a boy from Thailand. When he was three years old, he began saying that he had been a teacher named Bua Kai who had been shot and killed one day as he rode his bicycle to school.
He begged to be taken to his parents, that is, Bua Kai’s parents, and he named the village where he said they lived. Eventually, he and his grand- mother took a bus that stopped in a town near that village. His grandmother reported that after they got off the bus, Chanai led her to a house where an older couple lived. Chanai appeared to recognize the couple, who were the parents of Bua Kai Lawnak, a teacher who had been shot and killed on the way to school five years before Chanai was born.
No autopsy report was available for Bua Kai Lawnak, so Stevenson interviewed witnesses who saw the body. His widow reported that the doctor involved in the case said that her hus- band had been shot from behind, because the small, round wound on the back of his head was a typical entry wound, whereas the larger, more irregularly shaped wound on his fore- head was typical of an exit wound.
Chanai was born with two birthmarks, a small, round birthmark on the back of his head, and a larger, more irregularly shaped one toward the front.
Read More: Here
From
Soren Dreier @ http://sorendreier.com/childrens-reports-of-past-life-memories/
Carl Sagan: “Reincarnation Deserves Serious Study.” Years Later & the Results Are In
by Arjun Walia
Carl
Sagan, the well-known American astronomer, astrobiologist, cosmologist,
astrophysicist, and author passed away in 1996. He was very skeptical of
non-mainstream work, and was the same when it came to many topics within the
realm of parapsychology. Almost 20 years later, we now have substantial evidence
to confirm that various phenomena within the realm of parapsychology are indeed
real. Some of these include telepathy, psychokinesis, distant healing, ESP, and
many others, including reincarnation.
Sagan
did not brush off the scientific study of these phenomena, in fact, he felt
that some of them deserve “serious study.”
“There are claims in the parapsychology field which, in
my opinion, deserve serious study,” with [one] 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.” (source) (1)
He
also mentions two others. One is that, by thought alone, humans can affect
random number generators in computers (you can read more about that here), and the other is that people under mild sensory
deprivation can receive thoughts or images “projected” towards them (you can
read more about that here).
If
Sagan were alive today, he would see that the serious scientific study of
reincarnation has indeed been undertaken, despite the fact that it is a touchy
subject, and the results challenge the belief systems of many. When looking at
these topics from a scientific standpoint, it’s a good idea to suspend all
belief systems and simply examine the information that’s been gathered from a
neutral standpoint (which is, of course, easier said than done).
The Results & What These Reincarnation Cases Look Like
This
topic has been studied by numerous scientists who belong to various academic
institutions from all over the world, so in the interest of a short on-line
read, choosing which studies/examples to share can be a difficult process,
given how many of them exist. Worldwide, more than twenty-five hundred specific
cases have been examined in great detail, more so where these notions are more
culturally accepted (in the East), although cases have been documented on
every single continent. For this reason, if you are interested in this
topic from a scientific standpoint, we suggest you further your own research
beyond what you read here.
In
the article, he describes a typical reincarnation case, where subjects
start reporting a past life experience. One common denominator of these
cases is that they all involve children, with the average age being 35
months when subjects begin to report their experiences. The experiences
reported are often detailed and extensive, and Tucker points out that many of
these children show strong emotional involvement when speaking about their
claims, some cry and beg to be taken to what they say is their previous family.
Others show intense anger.
“The subjects usually stop making their past-life
statements by the age of six to seven, and most seem to lose the purported
memories. That is the age when children start school and begin having more
experiences in the current life, as well as when they tend to lose their early
childhood memories.” (source) (1)
One
example Tucker describes, an American case, is of a child named Sam Taylor, who
was a year and a half old when:
“He looked up as his father was changing his diaper and
said, ‘When I was your age, I used to change your diapers.’ He began
talking more about having been his grandfather. He eventually told details of
his grandfather’s life that his parents felt certain he could not have learned
through normal means, such as the fact that his grandfather’s sister had been
murdered and that his grandmother had used a food processor to make milkshakes
for his grandfather every day at the end of his life.” (source) (1)
These are cases involving very young children and they offer little reason to suspect a hoax. From a scientific standpoint, however, even though these cases are intriguing they still leave us with a problem that plagues most parapsychological phenomena today. As Tucker points out:
“The processes that would be involved in such a transfer of consciousness are completely unknown, and they await further elucidation.” (source) (1)
What Does This Mean?
Who
knows what this means?
Something is definitely going on here, nobody can really deny that. Does it
mean that when we die, we reincarnate into another human body? Does it mean
that only some people get reincarnated? Or that not everyone is
reincarnated here, perhaps instead reincarnated somewhere else on some other
planet? Does it mean that that we go through reincarnation cycles here until
the soul learns its lessons, then it is free to move on? Does the soul have a
choice after it leaves the body, to reincarnate into another one or proceed
somewhere else? Does it have the option to change dimensions? Do all souls come
from one source? Is that source that we are all a part of, just a part of
something greater?
You
could literally ask thousands of questions which branch off into an
endless number of topics. It’s not possible to say what this all means,
but if you take the evidence we have for reincarnation and combine it with
the tremendous amount of scientific literature already available for other
paraspychologocal phenomena, all postulating that consciousness exists outside
of the body, one can definitely say that there is more to life than we can
physically see or scientifically explain.
What
are your thoughts on these cases? What are your thoughts on reincarnation in
general? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Sources:
(1) Radin, Dean. Supernormal: Science, Yoga and the Evidence For Extraordinary Psychic Abilities. New York, Deepak Chopra Books , 2013
From Collective Evolution @ http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/06/18/carl-sagan-reincarnation-deserves-serious-study-years-later-the-results-are-in/
For more information about reincarnation see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/reincarnation
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