Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives: Past, Present, and Future ~Research

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Source: https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-...5/11/REI35.pdf

Abstract-Ian Stevenson began researching cases of young children who
claimed to remember previous lives in 1961. His approach involved a rational,
scientific attempt to discern exactly what the children said about a previous life
and how much of it could be verified to be accurate for one particular deceased
individual. He discovered that cases could be found all over the world. He also
learned that memories were not the only items that seemed to carry over for
these children. A number had birthmarks that matched wounds suffered by the
previous person, and many demonstrated anxieties or emotional longing that
appeared to be derived from the previous events that they described.
Researchers have now studied over 2500 cases in a project that is still
ongoing. This review traces the history of these investigations and presents the
current work, which includes increasing use of a database containing over 200
variables for each case. The conclusions that can and cannot be drawn from the
research are examined, and future studies to be done in this area are considered.

Ian Stevenson came to the University of Virginia to be the chairman of the
Department of Psychiatry in 1957. He had published extensively in medical
and psychiatric journals by that time, primarily in the area of psychosomatic
medicine, but he also harbored an interest in parapsychology. When the
American Society for Psychical Research announced a contest in 1958 for the
best essay "on the topic of paranormal mental phenomena and their
relationship to the problem of survival of the human personality after bodily
death," Stevenson submitted the winning entry, entitled "The Evidence for
Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations" (Stevenson, 1960).
544 J. B. Tucker
sources of individuals, mostly young children, from various parts of the world
who had described memories of previous lives.
After Stevenson's paper was published, two people who read it would have
a significant impact on his career. One was Eileen Garrett, a well-known
medium who was President of the Parapsychology Foundation. She learned
of a child in India who was making statements like those in Stevenson's paper.
She asked Stevenson if he would be interested in investigating the case and
offered him a small grant to do so. He accepted and went to India in 1961. By
the time of the trip, he had learned of five cases, but once there, he found 25
cases in four weeks. Similarly, after hearing of one or two cases in Ceylon (Sri
Lanka), Stevenson spent a week there and saw seven cases. He realized that
children's claims of past-life memories were much more common than anyone
had known.
Another person who read Stevenson's article with great interest was Chester
Carlson, the inventor of xerography, the basis for the Xerox Corporation.
Carlson offered to fund research into these cases, and though Stevenson initially
turned down the offer because of his obligations as chairman of his department,
he eventually began devoting more time to the cases with Carlson's help.
In 1966, Stevenson published his first book of these reports, Twenty Cases
Suggestive of Reirzcarrzatiorz (Stevenson, 1966). The title is indicative of
Stevenson's even-handed approach, in which he did not accept that reincarnation
occurred and did not take the cases at face value. Instead, he attempted to
document the cases as carefully as possible and at times in exhaustive detail.
With Carlson's funding, Stevenson stepped down as chairman of the department in 1967 to focus full time on the research. He created a small research
division (now known as the Division of Perceptual Studies) in which to carry on
the work. The following year, Carlson died unexpectedly. Stevenson thought
he would have to resume his mainstream career, since he was dependent on
Carlson's funding, until it was discovered that in his will, Carlson had left over
$1 million dollars to the University of Virginia for this work. A controversy
broke out over whether the university would accept the money, given the unusual nature of the research, but eventually it did and the work continued.

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Page 545

Typical Features
Stevenson found that the subjects in these cases tended to talk about a previous life at a very young age, often starting at the age of 2 or 3 years and
stopping by the age of 6 to 7 years. They made their statements about previous
lives spontaneously, without the use of hypnotic regression. The children
described recent lives-the median interval between the death of the previous
personality and the birth of the child being only 15 months-and ordinary lives,
usually in the same country. Some described being deceased members of their
own families, but others, like Kumkum, talked of being strangers in other locations. In those cases, if the children gave enough details, such as the name of
the other location, people were often able to go there and find that someone
had died whose life matched the details given by the child. The one part of the
previous life that was often out of the ordinary was the mode of death, as over
70% of the previous personalities had died by unnatural means, often with violent or sudden deaths.
In addition to the statements, many of the children showed behaviors that
seemed connected to the previous lives. Many showed emotional longing for the
previous family as well as emotions toward individual family members that were
appropriate for the relationship that the previous personality had with the family
members. In the cases involving violent death, over 35% of the children showed
phobias related to the mode of that death (Stevenson, 1990). In addition, many
of the children practiced repetitive play that seemed linked to the previous life,
most often acting out the occupation of the previous personality and occasionally re-enacting the death scene (Stevenson, 2000).
Stevenson eventually discovered that these cases could be found wherever
anyone looked for them. They have now been found on all continents except for
Antarctica, where no one has looked. They are easiest to find in cultures with
a belief in reincarnation, and Stevenson had associates looking for cases in
a number of those places. In addition, cases have been reported in the West.
546 J. B. Tucker
particularly since the division set up a website, more and more American cases
have been found as well (Stevenson, 1983a; Tucker, 2005).

[DarkNights]

I just finished reading, and this stuck out, page 549

Explanations for the Cases
To summarize this phenomenon, children's reports of past-life memories
occur worldwide, and 2500 cases have now been studied. Some of the children
come from areas with a cultural belief in reincarnation, but some do not. In many
cases the child's statements have been verified to be accurate for one particular
deceased individual. A number of the children have also had birthmarks or birth
defects that match wounds on the body of the deceased individual. In addition,
many children show behavioral features that appear linked to their past-life
statements, such as emotional longing for the previous family and phobias
related to the mode of death of the previous personality. Some have also
appeared to recognize people or places from the previous life, and some of these
recognitions have occurred under controlled conditions.
Normal and paranormal explanations for the phenomenon warrant consideration. The normal explanation that appears most likely for many of the cases is that
faulty memories by the children's families cause them to believe that their children
knew more about a previous life than they actually did. Researchers have not
investigated most of the cases until after the previous personality has been
identified. Thus, the possibility exists that after children make a few general
statements about having had a previous life, their parents find another family that
has lost a family member, and once the two families exchange information, they
come to think that the children demonstrated specific knowledge about the
previous life beforehand that they in fact did not (Brody, 1979).

Is that Brody 1979?

Notable person would be Bridey Murphy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridey_Murphy

Tighe's tale began in 1806, when Bridey was eight years old and living in a house in Cork. She was the daughter of Duncan Murphy, a barrister, and his wife Kathleen. At the age of 17 (c. 1815), she married barrister Sean Brian McCarthy, who she claimed taught at Queen's University Belfast, to which she moved. Tighe told of a fall that caused Bridey's death c. 1864, and of watching her own funeral, describing her tombstone and the state of being in life after death. It was, she recalled, a feeling of neither pain nor happiness.

Somehow, she was reborn in America 59 years later (in 1923), although Tighe/Bridey was not clear how this event happened. Tighe herself was born as Virginia Mae Reese in the Midwest in 1923, had never been to Ireland, and did not speak with even the slightest hint of an Irish accent. Murphy, however, spoke with a heavy brogue and used Irish expressions (some of which were not actually used in the 19th century).