By Mark Pitstick, MA, DC
Noted researchers have compiled a compelling body of evidence that supports reincarnation.
Past Life Regressions
Hypnotically induced past life regressions (PLRs) explore the possibility of you being in other times and places by facilitating deep relaxation, a calm but clear state of mind and less mental chatter. Quieting the brain’s frenetic analysis can enhance awareness of information not usually accessible in the waking state—and the findings with regards to reincarnation have been astounding.
To skeptics who charge that PLR subjects are deliberately lying about their experiences, Edith Fiore, Ph.D., author of You Have Been Here Before, responded: “If so, most should be nominated for Academy Awards. I have listened to and watched people in past life regressions under hypnosis for thousands of hours. I am convinced there is no deliberate, nor conscious, attempt to deceive. The tears, shaking, flinching, smiling, gasping for breath, groaning, sweating and other physical manifestations are all too real.”
Brian Weiss, MD, author of Messages from the Masters and other books, has received thousands of phone calls and letters from psychiatrists, psychologists and other therapists who have done past life regressions for up to 20 years. Dr. Weiss states, “The letters describe detailed accounts of past life recall, of patients recalling names, dates and details of lifetimes in other cities, countries or continents. Some patients have found their ‘old’ names in the official records of places they have never even heard of, let alone visited, in this lifetime. Some have found their own tombstones.”
As described in Reliving Past Lives, Helen Wambach, Ph.D., evaluated over a thousand cases of detailed past lives and stated: “I reasoned that if past life recall were fantasy, my subjects would include material in their regressions that I could prove could not have been true. They might have seen anachronisms of one kind or another—clothing and architecture that were completely wrong for the time period and place they had chosen—or a climate and landscape that would not match the map they flashed on. To my surprise, I found only 11 data sheets out of the 1,088 I had collected that showed clear evidence of discrepancies.”
Wambach analyzed these accumulated past life recollections and compared them for historical accuracy in the areas of social class, race, gender, clothing, diet, population ratios, and causes of death in particular time periods. For example, she found that 49 percent of past lives were lived as women, while 51 percent were those of men—what one would expect in a random distribution, not a hoax. She concluded, “All the data described…tended to support the hypothesis that past life recall accurately reflects the real past rather than that it represents common fantasies.”
She also found that the number of lives reported around 1600 A.D. was twice that reported around 400 A.D. This number doubled once more around 1850, mirroring the actual increase in the world’s population. It is difficult, if not impossible, to believe that a group of randomly selected participants in past life regressions could have co-coordinated their efforts to pull off such a colossal statistical hoax.
Joel Whitton, MD, Ph.D., was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto Medical School and coauthor with Joe Fisher of Life Between Life. They related Whitton’s clinical work with a client named Harold who, when hypnotized, described a former life as a Viking raider. Although he had never studied a foreign language in his life, the man spoke comfortably and confidently in a strange tongue that experts identified as ancient Norse.
Working independently, linguists who spoke Icelandic and Norwegian identified and translated some of these words. Several other words seemed to have a Russian, Serbian or Slavic derivation, and these were also identified. One language expert stated, “It would be appropriate for a Viking to speak a language which contained words and phrases of other tongues in that period. I would say this could fit the language pattern of the roving Viking.”
During another past life recollection, Harold wrote what looked like a bunch of scribbles. The alphabet he used was identified by researchers as a long-extinct script used in Mesopotamia. That language bears no relation to modern Persian and hasn’t been spoken for more than 1300 years. Of Harold’s past life regression experiences, Dr. Whitton stated, “To me, the case remains one of the most convincing arguments I’ve seen for evidence of reincarnation.”
One final example of a PLR with validation features was provided by Dr. Weiss. Diane, an RN, had been looking without success for a soul mate relationship. During a past life regression with Weiss, she recalled an earlier lifetime as a pioneer woman who hid with her baby from Indians. To keep the baby quiet, she covered his mouth with her hand. Her baby, who had a crescent shaped birthmark beneath his right shoulder, died as she accidentally asphyxiated him. Several months after this regression, she treated a man with asthma at her hospital job. Diane nearly fainted when, while listening to his lungs, she saw a crescent shaped birthmark below his right shoulder. Both experienced an instant familiarity and connection that led to dating and a happy marriage.
Dr. Ian Stevenson’s Research
The massive amount of objective research by Ian Stevenson, MD, is the most impressive reincarnation evidence to date. His books include Children Who Remember Previous Lives, Cases of the Reincarnation Type, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, and Reincarnation and Biology. The world’s leading authority on the subject, Dr. Stevenson is the author of more than a dozen scholarly books and 250 articles.
Stevenson, who headed the department of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, spent most of his 60-year career perfecting methods for verifying past life memories of children. His work is not better known because he writes for other academicians, a fact to which anyone who has read his books can attest.
He and his staff compiled over 3,000 cases from Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. Nearly 900 of these were stringently verified; 35 percent of them had birthmarks or birth defects that matched injuries from previous lives. Eighteen of these cases involved two or more matching birthmarks. Stevenson calculated the chances that two matching sets of birthmarks—from a purported past life and the present one—would randomly occur to be only 1 in 25,600 times. The odds against this happening by chance eighteen times in this group are astronomical.
Stevenson’s stringent standards of research rely heavily on private and repeated interviews over time. He wrote a clinical textbook for psychiatrists based on methods used by attorneys to reconstruct past events as accurately as possible. Dr. Stevenson and his team investigated children who remembered possible past lives and their families, as well as the family and circumstances of the alleged past life. Given the exacting methods of these professional researchers, it was virtually impossible for anyone—especially third-world villagers—to conceal a hoax.
Here are three summaries of Stevenson’s cases:
• Parmod, a 3 ½ year-old boy from India, remembered owning a soda and bakery store in another town. Upon arriving in that town, he led his family directly to the shop. Parmod knew how to repair a complex soda machine that had been intentionally disconnected to test his memory.
• Michael, a 3 year-old from Texas, remembered exact details of a fatal auto accident in his previous life. His recollection, although no one in the family had ever told him about the incident, was that of his mother’s high school boyfriend, who had died just as Michael described.
• At just 1 ½ years of age, Sukla, from India, cradled a toy and said it was her daughter Minu. During the next several years, she remembered more details of her past life and her family took her to that village. Sukla directed them to her former home and enjoyed a reunion with Minu, whose mother had died when she was a baby.
Jenny Wade, Ph.D., author of Changes of Mind, noted parallels between perinatal memories and accounts by children about past lives. (“Perinatal” refers to time periods just before, during, and after human birth.) She viewed these as supporting an argument for consciousness independent of a physical body. Wade stated that Stevenson’s research withstood every serious challenge to date because of the impressive documentation and rigorous scientific methods used. Especially convincing, said Wade, was the high incidence of birthmarks and deformities in this life that corresponded to injuries in a former life.
Of these correlating birthmarks, John Algeo—author of Reincarnation Explored—commented: “For example, a child may remember having lived another life including enough details about it (names, places, events) to permit investigators to identify the earlier personality. That personality died from a gunshot wound, and medical or coroner’s records establish the location of the entering and exiting wound marks made by the fatal bullet. The child who remembers the earlier life has birthmarks on places that correspond to the wounds of the prior personality. Moreover, the birthmark corresponding to the exit wound is larger than the birthmark corresponding to the entry wound, just as the wounds themselves were, that being the normal pattern for bullet wounds. That is one type of case out of many involving birthmarks and defects.”
In Stevenson’s book Reincarnation and Biology—an eight pound, two volume work with 2,268 pages—photos show rare birth marks or defects that correlate with previous lives. One Burmese girl, born with her right leg missing just below the knee, remembered the life of a poor teenage girl who sold roses to passengers at the railroad station. A train ran over her and severed her right leg. The girl made detailed statements and recognitions that convinced the family she was the reincarnation of the teenager who was killed by the train. She also had a marked phobia of trains.
Other examples of correlating birthmarks offering physical evidence of past lives include an Indian boy who recalled being killed by a shotgun blast to his chest. On this little boy’s chest was an array of birthmarks that matched the pattern and location of the fatal wounds as verified by the autopsy report. Another shotgun victim was hit at point-blank range on the right side of the head as confirmed from the hospital report. The Turkish boy who remembered this life was born with a malformed ear and an underdevelopment of the right side of his face.
One woman had three linear scar-like birthmarks on her back. As a child, she remembered being killed by three blows to her back with an ax. Another boy in India was born with stubs for fingers on only his right hand—an extremely rare condition. He remembered a past life when his fingers were cut off in a fodder chopping machine.
Regarding the evidence about birth marks and defects correlating with alleged past life injuries, Stevenson stated: “I accept reincarnation as the best explanation for a case only after I have excluded all others—normal and paranormal . . . I regard my contribution as that of presenting the evidence as clearly as I can. Each reader should study the evidence carefully—preferably in the monograph (Reincarnation and Biology)—and then reach his or her own conclusion.”
Mark Pitstick, MA, DC is an author, master’s clinical psychologist, holistic chiropractic physician, frequent media guest, and webinar/workshop facilitator. He directs The SoulPhone Foundation and founded Greater Reality Living Groups. Dr. Pitstick can help you know and show—no matter what is happening to or around you— that your earthly experience is a totally safe, meaningful, and magnificent adventure amidst forever. Visit http://www.SoulProof.com for free articles, newsletters and radio interviews with top consciousness experts.