Reincarnation till this date remains a mystery, beyond the comprehension of believers and non-believers.
It is believed that child prodigies, e.g. Mozart who composed simple music at the age of four and the 17th century mathematician Blaise Pascal, who had outlined a new geometric system by the time he was eleven, may have been reincarnations of talented people from an earlier time. Annie Besant, 19th century feminist and leader in London’s theosophical Society was convinced that she would be reincarnated.
In the 20th century, the case of Shanti Devi is tool well-known.
Despite all abnormalities of the cases, science has not been able to agree with it. It demands scientific explanations
She was in Old Delhi hailed from a middle class family. She grew up faster than the children at her age would. When she was just three years old, she started narrating stories about a family living in Mathura. First, her mother just ignored her prattling. But when she repeated it quite often and said that she was the wife of a man named, Kedarnath, her parents got curious. They checked her story and to their amazement they found it all true. This little girl’s name was Shanti Devi.
Shanti Devi provided extraordinary details about her past life. She could remember the colour of her house, the location of the house, the people living there and the circumstances in which she died in her last life. There were enough details to provoke her family members to plunge into action. A close relative, professor Kishan Chand took the challenge. He wrote a letter to her alleged widower, Kedarnath. Her husband doubted the truthfulness the letter but at the same time became curious and asked his cousion to investigate the matter. The cousin arrived in Shanti Devi’s house in disguise. But Shanti Devi recognized him. The cousin was shocked. He invited Kedarnath. The husband along with his son visited Shanti Devi. This was an extraordinary reunion. The little girl Shanti Devi not acted as a dutiful wife but a loving mother to her son too.
These were enough incidents to attract publicity. The media got interested and the case was reported in almost all the national dailies. Shanti Devi became popular in a short time.
Shanti Devi’s case was one amongst the thousands which came into limelight. There must be numerous others which remained unreported. Such cases abound in almost all parts of the world – Latin America, Western Europe, Southern Asia, England and Unite States. Even folklore, myth and legend are based on the theory of reincarnation. Beneath this belief is the theory that each life is born according to one’s Karma. The theory of Karma is the Idea behind rebirth. According to the Karma theory, one is born again in accordance with one’s deeds in past lives. The Hindus who strongly believe in the theory of Karma propagated that the soul may increase in purity during successive existence until it reaches a divine world.
The psychologists believe that this theory travelled to the western world with traders and migrants. Dr. Ian Stevenson, Director of the Division of Parapsychology of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia strongly emphasized the above point. And to confrm his theory, he interviewed many migrants from Asia who reported memories of the former life and came to the conclusion, “I can imagine the ‘perfect case’ but have no expectation of fnding it.”
In Ohio on April 21, 1970, Mrs. Dolores Jay began to have visions of her past life. She stated that in earlier life she was Gretchen Gottlieb and had lived in Germany during the 19th century. She started having visions when one day her husband, Reverend Carroll E. Jay, a Methodist minister was applying hypnotherapy to ease her back pains. While he was attending her he heard a strange voice in German. For sometime, Mr. Jay was unaffected. After a few more vision, Mr. Jay got used to it and started conversing with it. The various sittings suggested that Mrs. Jay perceived herself as Gretchen, daughter of Hermann Gottlieb, Mayor of the German town of Eberswalde. The Gottlieb family was not in the good books of the Federal council of Germany and hence their daughter was murdered.
Researchers got interested in this case. And Mrs. Jay replied to the queries in German. To verify her statements, research workers and psychiatrists went to Germany but returned with little success. Finally, the Jays themselves travelled to Germany and did succeed in fnding correlations between the names of local places and the family names mentioned by Gretchen.
Jay later wrote that the Gretchen case was an indication of reincarnation. Mrs. Jay could merely explain her vision in the following words, “Gretchen is a part of my life. I did not ask her to come, but she has been with us so long, she now seems like a part of the family.”
These are the problems associated with reincarnation, which are still shunned by many parapsychology researchers. The only solution to the reincarnation theory is suggested by some as spirit possession, telepathy and even poltergeist activity. The last one is the physical disturbance due to a restless or mischievous spirit. In addition to psychological factors, some researchers have attributed it to religious and cultural beliefs also.
Greek ideas on reincarnation were formed after communication with India. Ducasse elaborated on Plato’s ideas about reincarnation in the following words, “The soul which has seen most the truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher or artist, or musician or lover; one who has seen truth in the second degree shall be a righteous king or warrior of lord, the soul which is of the third class shall be politician or economist or trader, the fourth shall be lover of gymnastic toils or a physician.” The last degree of the soul is the tyrant. Professor Ducasse explained these theories in a simpler way as “one who lives righteously, improves and one who lives unrighteously, deteriorates.”
Now-a-days hypnosis is the medium by which researchers analyse the psyche of a person who claims to have a vision of the past life. Morris in his book “Past Lives’ Therapy” claimed that “almost invariably my patients have found that their mental anguish in this life could be pinpointed to a physical situation in a past life.” Elucidating his fnding, Netherton cited if someone suffers from an acute fear of heights, chances are that in the past life he must have succumbed to falling off from a height. However, he does agree that such visions of the past could be “creative daydreams,” and he himself admitted that “I personally believe in the theory of reincarnation.”
Similarly Dr. Edith Fiore wrote in, ‘You Have Been Here Before,’ that she was convinced that her patients’ memories were not mere fantasies. She also noted that memories about past life may affect marital harmony or family relationships.
Psychologist Helen Wambach of Walnut Creek, California believed that hypnotic regression was the most appropriate means of discovering and studying accounts of earlier incarnations. She examined 2000 subjects that could successfully recall scenes of their past lives. She also concluded that the 1088 past life descriptions she collected refected estimates of components of the world’s population. That is, she wrote that men and women were always equally represented in the hypnotically induced past life tales, whether or not there were equal numbers of male and female subjects in the group that had been hypnotized. Past lives of the 19th century were twice as numerous as those of the 16th century while past lives of 20th century were four times as frequent as those of the century before.
Like Stevenson, Wambach also believed that earlier incarnations helped to account for existing emotional disturbances. She found through her research that people “who committed murder in a precious life often feel emotionally disturbed. Once their past is revealed and they see the reason for their trauma, they lose their feeling of guilt and can lead a normal life.” Stevenson who investigated many cases also reached conclusions on similar lines. He found that people who were drowned in previous loves were particularly frightened of water.
Stevenson examined nearly 1600 past life claims. And he finally drew the conclusion that “We can never show that it does not occur, nor are we ever likely to obtain conclusive evidence that it does occur. All the cases I have investigated so far have some faws, many of them serious. Neither any single case nor all the investigated case together offer anything like a proof of reincarnation. They provide instead, a body of evidence suggestive of reincarnation that appear to be accumulating in amount and quality.”
