Past life memories

Do you have children?

If so, then think of them when they were infants.

Do you think they were born a blank sheet, or came with their own little characters and personalities?

James Leininger

At the age of two James Leininger would bash his toy plane into furniture saying it was in flames and he couldn’t get out. He also had nightmares about a plane crash. He said he was a pilot called James, of a Corsair aircraft on an aircraft carrier called Natoma, and his best friend was called Jack Larsen. He said his plane was hit on the engine, and burst into flames. He also described how Corsairs had a tendency to turn to the left and would frequently have flat tyres.

His father did some research and found that a James Houston had been shot down in the battle for Iowa Jima, having been stationed on the aircraft carrier Natoma Bay, and the person that used to fly with him was a man named Jack Larsen. Eye witnesses confirmed his aircraft was hit on the engine and they didn’t see him eject.

James had three G.I. Joe dolls and named them Leon, Walter and Billie. When asked why he named the dolls that way he said, "Because they greeted me when I went to heaven". They were the names of three pilots who coincidentally served with Houston. While his father was looking at a map of the Pacific, his son even recognised and pointed to the place on the map where he was shot down.

Helen Wambach

This is just brilliant as she set out to prove past life memories were just nonsense.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, she conducted a 10-year survey of past-life recalls under hypnosis with just over 1000 subjects. She asked very specific questions looking for basic information that could then be verified about the time periods in which people lived and the housing, clothing, footwear, utensils, money, etc. which they used or came in contact with. Wambach found people's recollections to be amazingly accurate and wrote that ''fantasy and genetic memory could not account for the patterns that emerged in the results.  With the exception of 11 subjects, all descriptions of clothing, footwear, and utensils were consistent with historical records.''

Her conclusion was: 'I don't believe in reincarnation — I know it!' (Wambach 1978).

Ian Stevenson

Dr Ian Stevenson was perhaps the greatest gift to those looking for Scientific evidence. He was a stickler for detail. He limited his research to cases of spontaneous memories avoiding anything that could later be argued as being prompted by a hypnotherapist. He and his colleagues collected more than 2,600 cases.

A case would be “solved” by Stephenson when he was able to find the person whose life the child was describing, and that, after rigorous investigation, determine that there was no possible opportunity by normal means, no matter how improbable, that the child could have discovered this information.

895 of these cases represent a past life memory verified beyond reasonable doubt.

Swarnlata Mishra 

Swarnlata Mishra described her previous personality as Biya Pathak, and that she had two sons. She described her house inside and out, it’s location, the existence of lime furnaces nearby, a railway line and a girls’ school behind the house.

They took her to meet her previous family. She correctly identified her son Murli, despite his attempts to fool her by denying it. She lowered her eyes and acted bashfully with her former husband as Hindu wives did. She reminded him he had acquired 1200 rupees from her before she died and put the money in a box.  She commented on the changes to the house in detail and identified and named two dozen people that she had known.

Unsurprisingly she also knew nothing of the family’s events after her previous personality had died.

Ravi Shankar 

A little Indian boy called Ravi Shankar (not the musician), was born with a birthmark resembling a slit across his throat. When he was 2 years old he told his parents his real name was Munna but he had been enticed away from his toys by a washerman and a barber and had had his throat cut. He even told his parents correctly where his body had been buried which the police verified. His information also led to the arrest of this murderers but there wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict them.

They eventually took him to meet his former family. He recognised his father, told him the watch he was wearing was the one he bought for Munna in Bombay. Everything matched including Ravi’s description of his toys, the details of the murder, and even a fact that only the family knew: that he had eaten guavas before he left the house prior to his murder.

Stevenson found that in 35% of his verified cases, the children had birthmarks matching the wounds that killed them.

He also found, that out of the children that did have a past life memory, 36% of them had some phobia relating to their previous death, and past life therapists have found the same high proportion in adults who they regress.

These findings give objective credibility to what past life therapists have presumed all along: that past life deaths cause present life phobias. And from the other side of the coin, the fact that the treatment works also is also great evidence that the events happened to them.

To quote Stephenson “What evidence, if you had it, would convince you of reincarnation?”