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EVIDENCES FOR REINCARNATION

It is not generally known to the average westerner that reincarnation has a good deal of hard
evidence to support it, and that the evidence is frequently more impressive than many people
are aware. It's equally true that there are serious problems with much of the evidence as well,
which is why it has proven so difficult to prove reincarnation to the satisfaction of the secular
community. As such, it is important we consider each idea carefully before making up our mind,
for it would be as big a mistake to blindly embrace reincarnation without carefully examining the
arguments against it as it would be to presumptuously ignore the evidence and declare it all
utter nonsense.

As always, I will try to be as objective in presenting this material as possible and leave it to the
reader to determine if my efforts at providing a balanced treatment of the pros and cons around
this subject are successful. The material contained here is taken from my book Mystery of
Reincarnation (Llewellyn International, May, 2005) and is copyrighted. I value your input to this
complex issue and welcome all correspondence. Just click on the e-mail me button at the top of
the page to send me your thoughts and questions. I promise to do my best to return all honest
queries and respond to any constructive criticism.

EVIDENCES for REINCARNATION INDEX

z Conscious Past Life Memories in Children

z Corresponding Birth Marks
z Demographic Studies
z Verifiable Past Life Memories
z Xenoglossia (Inexplicable Use of a Foreign Language)
z Savants and Prodigies
z Déjà Vu
z Dreams and Nightmares
z Personality Traits
z Hobbies, Interests, and Obsessions
z Phobias
z Homosexuality and Transgender Tendencies

Conscious Past Life Memories in Children

Perhaps the strongest and best documented evidence in support of reincarnation comes from
the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, a Virginia psychiatrist of impeccable credentials, who began
studying cases of conscious past life memories in children in the late fifties. Since then, Dr.
Stevenson has collected almost 3,000 cases of children—most of them between four and ten
years of age—who were allegedly able to recall having lived past lives, complete with names,
dates and even the villages in which they believe they previously lived. Many were able to
instantly identify members of their 'former' family and were even often able to recount 'pet
names' and intricate details of their previous lives with uncanny accuracy. Additionally, many of
the children Stevenson studied could even recount how they had died in their previous life,
providing details of their death with a degree of certainty and knowledge inexplicable for a child.

What's most impressive about these memories is that these children had not been hypnotized
or 'regressed' into remembering previous lives, but had exhibited conscious memories of past
lives spontaneously from a very early age. In fact, Dr. Stevenson specifically made it a point to

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ignore past life memories acquired through hypnosis precisely because he considered them
unreliable and fantasy prone. While children are, of course, capable of fantasizing as well, what
impressed Dr. Stevenson was the wealth of personal and often intimate details the children
were able to recount—details he thought it unlikely a child would be either likely to imagine or
learn from an adult. Children were simply not capable of retaining anything like the vast amount
of information his subjects frequently provided—even after lengthy coaching—nor were their
stories consistent with the type of imaginary stories children are famous for.

Even more impressive than the sheer quantity of detail the children could provide was the fact
that much of it proved to be verifiable. Names often (though not always) proved to be accurate
and, in most cases, turned out to be those of complete strangers who had died just prior to the
child's birth. They correctly recalled former spouses, siblings, parents and even children they
had parented in their previous incarnation, and were able to describe the home they had lived in
with remarkable accuracy though they had never been within fifty miles of the spot during their
present life. In a few cases, the children identified so strongly with their past life that they
insisted on being called by their former name and even felt alienated from their present family,
preferring (and, in some instances, becoming clearly upset when not permitted) to spend more
time with their 'previous' family. While these memories and inclinations tended to fade after a
few years and disappear almost completely by adolescence, they remain among the best
evidence for reincarnation to date.

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Corresponding Birth Marks

One of the more interesting and, potentially, solid evidences suggestive of reincarnation, also
came from Dr. Stevenson's research. During the course of his travels he noticed that
occasionally some of the children he investigated revealed marks on their bodies that precisely
corresponded with the fatal wounds they claim their previous personality had suffered at the
time of their death. For instance, one of Dr. Stevenson's subjects, an eleven year old Turkish
boy, recounted having been accidentally shot in the head with a shotgun by a neighbor in a
previous incarnation. Remarkably, the boy was born with a badly deformed right ear that closely
mimicked the wounds the deceased man had received, a fact later confirmed by medical
records and photographs Dr. Stevenson was able to obtain from local authorities during his
investigation (Click here to see this photo with description). And this was by no means an
unusual case; Dr. Stevenson recounted scores of similar cases, some in which toes and
fingers—and in a few cases, even entire limbs—that had been lost in a previous incarnation
were missing in the current incarnation, as well as even more startling instances in which there
were multiple birthmarks that closely resembled the precise wounds received by the past life
subject. In one case, he even found matching entrance and exit wounds in a subject that closely
corresponded to those of the previous personality who had died from a gunshot wound to the
head. Of course, the chances of such perfectly matching marks occurring naturally even once
are astronomical, and Dr. Stevenson had a number of such cases on record.

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Demographic Studies
In the late 1960's psychologist, Dr. Helen Wambach (1932-1985) began a series of experiments
that dealt with the demographic consistency of past-life memories. Intrigued by several personal
experiences she had encountered in dealing with patients who had described previous lives
while under hypnosis and curious to know if there was more to it than simple imagination, this
gave her the idea that it might be interesting to compare such information with anthropological,

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sociological, and archeological studies made of the cultures they mentioned to see if there were
any demographic consistency in their recounted memories. For instance, if gender and social
class ratios proved to be inconsistent with what anthropologists and sociologists had already
estimated them to have been, that would demonstrate her subjects were either making up
stories or inadvertently fantasizing. If, on the other hand, there proved to be a correlation with
the known demographic data, that would bring significant weight to the idea that human beings
continue to live on through the mechanism of multiple rebirths, for the only other possibility—
that literally thousands of subjects had innocently and spontaneously manufactured
demographically accurate past life memories from their imagination—was statistically and
logically untenable.

With this goal in mind, she began regressing volunteers into remembering past lives and then
carefully recording the specifics from each experience. Interviewing just over 1,000 subjects
over a ten year period, she asked each person about their gender, race, economic status and
other often mundane specifics of their daily past lives as they recalled them in 500 B.C, the 1st
century A.D., 500 A.D. and 1500 A.D. What Dr. Wambach's data found was that the information
she obtained proved to be remarkably consistent with what demographers know of the ancient
past. For instance, as the majority of Dr. Wambach's subjects were women (by about a 3-to-1
ratio) and working from the premise that most people would be unlikely to imagine themselves
to have been a member of the opposite sex, there should have been a disproportionately higher
number of individuals remembering themselves to have been females rather than males in a
past life. Instead, she was surprised to find a large number of women remembering past lives
as a man (along with a smaller number of men remembering past lives as women) that when
tallied resulted in a biologically accurate 50/50 ratio of men to women throughout every time
period recorded. If these 'memories' were based upon pure imagination, such a consistent
male/female ratio should be impossible to achieve, suggesting a high number of authentic past
life memories existed within her sampling.

Additionally, social classes proved to be not only remarkably consistent, but also in line with
demographic studies. Dr. Wambach had her subjects recount whether they were poor, middle
class, or upper class in a previous life, presuming that a disproportionate number of subjects
would opt for more interesting or affluent lives, which would strongly suggest the 'memories'
were manufactured. To her surprise, however, most subjects recalled having lived rather
ordinary and even drab lives, often in desperate poverty. In fact, fewer than 10 percent of her
subjects recalled living an upper class lifestyle, and about a quarter to a third recalled being
artisans or merchants (middle class) in a previous incarnation, which corresponded very closely
to sociological studies from the various periods in history she covered. Her data, then, on top of
demonstrating an inexplicable consistency when compared to accepted scientific expectations,
also destroyed the commonly held notion that most people recall living past lives as famous or
wealthy people (the Napoleon syndrome.)

Other details proved to be accurate as well. Subjects frequently described architecture, clothing
styles and even the coinage in use that was consistent with what archeologists know of the
past. Even mundane details such as types of footwear used, eating utensils, primary diet and
the methods used to cook their food—details a would-be hoaxer would be unlikely to consider—
were also consistent with the known historical record. Additionally, racial distribution and ratios
proved to be correct as well, demonstrating again that either one of the most wide-spread and
carefully maintained hoaxes was afoot, or that just maybe people really do live more than one
life. No other explanation seemed plausible.

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Verifiable Past Life Memories

A fourth type of evidence for reincarnation and the best known—and controversial—are those
memories of a past life acquired through hypnotism that produce verifiable details. Subjects are
able to sometimes recall extremely specific and precise personal details of their past lives such
as full names, place of residence, occupations, names of spouses and family members, and
other pertinent details of an alleged past life (sometimes even to the precise street and address
at which they previously resided.) Unfortunately, while most of these cases prove to be imbued
with enough detail to make them plausible as past life memories, none has proven to be
irrefutable proof of reincarnation. There are always a few erroneous details thrown in among the
verifiable facts to cast doubt on their authenticity, and so while they remain good evidence for
reincarnation, they must always remain just outside of the veil of provability.

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Xenoglossia (Inexplicable Use of a Foreign Language)

One of the more interesting—and uncommon—evidences for reincarnation remains those
handful of well documented cases in which people reliving a past-life suddenly begin speaking
in a language (usually only while under hypnosis) they do not know. Sometimes it can be as
simple as a few foreign words or phrases or, in a some instances, as complex as an entire,
fluent conversation being carried out in a language the subject is not even aware exists. In
some of the most credible and compelling cases of xenoglossia recorded, the subject may not
only speak in a foreign language, but may even use an archaic version of it that has not been in
regular usage for centuries, making it extremely unlikely to be a fantasy, a hoax, or a case of
cryptomnesia (forgotten memories.) As such, a good case of xenoglossia remains one of the
more compelling evidences for reincarnation, but as they are so rare they have not generated
enough hard data to allow researchers to come to any conclusions.

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Savants and Prodigies

Another phenomena which might be pointed to as possible evidence of reincarnation is that of
savants and child prodigies, those rare individuals who possess some remarkable gift or ability
far beyond what is either natural or explainable.

Savants differ from prodigies in that they are individuals born with severe physical impediments
(such as blindness) and/or extreme mental retardation, but who still possess some unique and
often astonishing talent that utterly defies logic. For instance, a severely retarded man who, for
all practical purposes, lives a life that approximates that of a seven year old, may possess the
ability to perfectly replicate any piece of piano music after hearing it played only once, an ability
well beyond not only his—but most people's—capacity to even learn. Such cases are frequently
explained away as prenatal brain damage being overcompensated by the undamaged parts of
the brain, resulting in a sometimes greatly enhanced ability to perform some unique and
frequently astonishing skill. This may well be the case too, since such skills that savants
possess are rare—if not nonexistent—in the 'natural' world, making it difficult to see how they
might be evidence of a past life talent resurfacing in a present incarnation. As such, savants do
not, in my opinion, appear to present a very strong case for reincarnation.

A prodigy, however, is a different story. A prodigy differs from a savant in the respect that from
all outward appearances they appear as very normal children who just happen to have a
seemingly inherent ability to learn a particular skill at a greatly accelerated pace. Good
examples of prodigies include the German composer Mozart, who was able to compose simple

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arrangements of music at the age of four and compose entire symphonies by adolescence, and
the 17th century mathematician Blaise Pascal, who managed to outline a new geometric
system by the age of 11. (NOTE: I've recently come across a perfect modern example of this
phenomenon in a British child named Kieron Williamson, who started painting watercolors at the
age of six that experts agree are far too advanced and sophisticated to have been done by a
child. Evidence of a past life experience as a professional watercolorists or mere chance?
Check out samples of his work at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203226/Pictured-
Incredible-watercolour-paintings-boy-aged-just-SIX.html and decide for yourself.)

Unlike the savant, however, the prodigy isn't born with the ability to write music or understand
the complexities of geometry; they must still learn it the same way everyone else does. The
difference is the speed at which they learn and their capacity to grasp the material so easily.
Many have demonstrated an ability to digest years of material in a matter of months and master
a particular discipline years ahead of their peers. While modern science attributes these rare
gifts to simple brain chemistry, which is fine as far as it goes, it fails to ask the question of why
their brains are wired differently than other peoples or, precisely, in which way they are
differently wired. Is it some genetic mutation or a one-in-a-million mix of DNA (and if so, why
does it not seem to similarly effect their normal siblings?) Or could it be that these special
people possess their remarkable ability because they have done it all before? In effect, could
the child who shows a special gift for geometry have been a mathematics professor in a
previous life? Was Mozart able to accomplish his amazing feats of music because, precisely as
he claimed, he had been a musician many times before?

Is it possible that a lifetime of learning can somehow survive death and manifest itself in the
next incarnation? While far from conclusive, it is an intriguing idea.

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Déjà Vu
Have you ever had the strange feeling that you're repeating an experience you're certain you've
never had before, or entered a building that seems strangely familiar to you, though you know
for a fact you've never been there before? If so, you have experienced what is referred to as
déjà vu—the phenomenon of repeating an event or having inexplicable knowledge of a place
you've never previously visited.

To some people, such experiences are considered evidence of a past life—an 'echo' or ill-
defined memory that has somehow survived the rebirthing process to be inadvertently
'triggered' by some event in the present. It can be as simple as a subtle sense that you've had a
particular conversation or experience before or as extraordinary as knowing the precise layout
of a building or even an entire town that one has never visited before.

Science insists such experiences are simply a coincidental similarity between a present and a
similar but forgotten past experience. For example, one may feel a special familiarity with a
house they have never visited before not because they lived there in a previous life, but
because they have at one time or another visited a similar home that unconsciously reminds
them of this one. And how many of us have not from time to time had a conversation that we've
long since forgotten that is inadvertently repeated in the present? Memory is a tricky affair that
is capable of playing all kinds of pranks on the mind.

However, this possible solution does little to explain the sheer amount of detail that is
sometimes recalled in the best cases of déjà vu. Even a similarity of places or events cannot

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explain, for instance, how a person can correctly name and describe the maze of streets that lie
just ahead in a small village they are visiting for the first time, nor does it seem to comfortably
account for how a person can recall the precise layout of a home they had never visited before
with unerring exactitude. A similarity with places or things experienced in the past can go only
so far; at some point the odds against correctly guessing the street layout of a city or the
location of various rooms within a sprawling mansion becomes astronomical. Reincarnation, in
such cases, must be considered at least a plausible possibility.

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Dreams and Nightmares

While most dreams are triggered by events in our present life and seem to be the
subconscious's way of processing important information we might not be aware of in our
conscious world, once in awhile an individual may have a dream that seems unique and
strangely different or 'out of place.' They may dream they are living in the distant past,
interacting with people they do not know and generally dealing with some obscure situation they
are thoroughly unfamiliar with. Such dreams, in being so completely detached from the subject's
present or 'normal' world and largely inexplicable, are sometimes pointed to as echoes or
memories of a past life manifesting themselves in the present.

While an intriguing idea and one not at all inconsistent with what one might expect were
reincarnation true, dreams probably constitute some of the weakest evidence in support of
reincarnation. They are usually too vague and lack verifiable specifics to be of any empirical
value, and so do not constitute good evidence for reincarnation. Occasionally, however, a few
dreams are sufficiently specific and detailed enough that the images in them can be verified,
though such cases are exceedingly rare and problematic.

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Personality Traits
Most people are aware of the often vast differences in personality evident among even the
closest siblings. But what is it that determines our personalities? Why are some of us naturally
more patient than others, or why do some of us enjoy reading while others would never
consider cracking a book? Further, why are some of us drawn to museums and art galleries
while others are drawn with equal passion to shopping malls and sporting events?

Behaviorists tell us this is all due in part to genetics, in part to the environment each child grows
up in, and in part to the result of the personal experiences each child has had that, while
perhaps very similar to each sibling, are still uniquely their own. In other words, even though
siblings may live in very similar environments, they have different experiences that shape their
individual personalities in distinct, one-of-a-kind ways. Then, as they mature into adulthood,
these individual traits become set and a fully formed but unique adult personality is the result.
And yet, why does it appear that children often emerge from the womb with very different and
distinct characteristics—characteristics which emerge long before the child is old enough to
experience anything that could conceivably shape their personality? Additionally, many child
psychologists claim that a child's basic personality is often 'set' by the age of four but, if so, how
exactly are later experiences 'molding' the future personality?

So how do we explain personality then? Do we explain it in terms of chemical reactions in the

brain, environmental factors, or even genetic proclivities? Or, as some reincarnationists believe,
could our basic personality be set even before we are born? Are we, in fact, simply a reflection

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of our soul's own basic personality, reflecting its attributes and characteristics through each new
incarnation?

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Hobbies, Interests, and Obsessions

In the same vein, then, could our hobbies and interests also be an 'echo' from a previous
incarnation? For example, if one was an artist in a past life, might they not be drawn towards
expressing themselves through drawing and painting in this life as well? Is a Civil War buff
simply pursuing a new interest or is he in some ways still clinging to a past incarnation in which
he was a participant in that war? Even if we have no conscious memory of that past persona,
might not our present personality and hobbies be a modern reflection of that individual's
experiences and interests?

Reincarnation, while not the only possible answer, must at least be considered, especially in
those cases where one develops a hobby or interest that seems quite out of the ordinary. Is a
boy growing up in land-locked Iowa, for example, who develops a fascination for eighteenth
century schooners despite having no nautical background, responding to some unknown
stimulus, or could it be a response to a past life lived as a crewman on an eighteenth century
schooner that has remained deeply imbedded within him? It's unknown how much of our past
we might retain into our present, albeit in the most subtle and subconscious ways, but it's
entirely possible that our past may be far more tied into our present (and, by extension, our
future) than we can begin to imagine.

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Phobias
Phobias—those unusual and often overwhelming fears of things that do not constitute a
genuine danger to us—is a common phenomenon almost everyone has experienced at one
time or another. How one acquires a phobia is a well understood process; they are the result of
some trauma or event from one's past (often childhood) that manifests itself in later life as a
phobia. But what of those phobias that seem to develop without an accompanying trauma? For
example, a therapist may find that a man who complains of an irrational fear of water has never
experienced a near drowning (and may, in fact, never have been near water in his life) but has
been terrified of drowning for as long as he can remember. Past life regression therapists,
however, frequently discover that while a person may not recall almost drowning in his present
life, they frequently do recall drowning in a previous one—an event which terrified him to such a
degree that they've managed to bring that trauma into their current incarnation. Once so
identified, in many cases recovery can be surprisingly quick and complete, allowing the patient
to return to a normal life far faster than might have been the case with more conventional
therapies. Even the medical community agrees that such therapies are an effective means of
dealing with severe, unexplained phobias, though they generally dismiss reincarnation as a
viable explanation. However, whether reincarnation exists or not, the very belief that it does
seems to have curative powers, which is a remarkable admission in any event.

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Homosexuality and Transgender Tendencies

Until fairly recently it was assumed that homosexual behavior was a freely chosen lifestyle
choice that could be resisted with sufficient willpower, but evidence has subsequently shown
just the opposite to be true. According to recent studies, approximately 2-3% of the population

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develop or realize an almost exclusively homosexual orientation from adolescence, while other
studies further suggest that the proclivity towards same sex attraction may also have a genetic
link. Yet what would cause such a proclivity, especially considering the negative consequences
such a life-style 'choice' has traditionally incurred in some societies? Is it a question of
environment and upbringing, or is it entirely a matter of biology?

Or could there be another factor involved? What if the underlying cause of homosexuality is
neither environmental nor genetic, but is instead the result of a previous opposite sex
incarnation? Since regression therapy frequently encounter cases of men remembering having
been a woman in their immediate past life—and woman of having been men—could cross-
gender reincarnation have a more profound impact than might seem immediately evident? In
essence, are homosexuals (and bisexuals and transgender individuals in general) 'trapped' in
some ways in the 'wrong' body, as some have actually complained?

Perhaps in so closely identifying with their previous gender, they find it difficult to adjust to their
'new' gender and so retain many of the characteristics they possessed in their last incarnation.
As such, a man may be attracted to other men because on some level he still retains feminine
proclivities from his past life (despite the degree of masculinity he may possess in other areas
of his present life). While far from irrefutable evidence for reincarnation, does it not answer a
few questions rather nicely?

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