Are children’s memories of past lives real or imagined?

Two things we know for certain are that reincarnation happens, and that at least some children remember past lives. The Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine has been studying this phenomenon for more than fifty years and has in its files more than 2500 reports that have checked out.

What we cannot determine from this research is whether reincarnation is the exception or the norm. As we all know from personal experience, most children do not remember past lives. Does that mean this is their first sojourn to Earth? Let’s consider the evidence.

Jim B. Tucker, M.D., a child psychiatrist and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has written two books on The Division’s research. I have interview him twice, and he has been quick to point out the cases he and others have studied may not be typical. Here’s a summary of what he has told me.

Children who report past-life memories typically begin talking about a previous life when they are two to three years old, and they tend to show strong emotional involvement with such memories. Often, they tearfully ask to be taken to the previous family. Once there, not only is a deceased individual usually identified whose life matched the details given, during the visits, children often recognize family members or friends from that individual’s life. Tearful reunions are common.

The average time between lives in these cases is only fifteen months—although there are outliers that range up to fifty years. In 70 percent of these cases, the previous personality died by unnatural means. Many died young. A strong emotional attachment may speed up the reincarnation process, or perhaps an individual’s consciousness may come back quickly due to unfinished business or because he or she feels shortchanged.

The quick return may also be why past life memories are still intact, as well as sexual preferences, cravings, and so forth. For example, when someone who had been male comes back as a female, that person may personally identify as a male even though her sexual equipment indicates otherwise, and vice versa. My guess is that a much longer duration between lives is the norm, during which time such preferences and memories fade.

In the King James translation, Psalm 90:10 says, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten,” which is how the number 7o was said back in King James’ day. So, the psalmist must have thought 70 years was an okay age to reach before moving on to the afterlife. When people have lived 70 or more years, it seems likely that for better or for worse they feel they’ve lived their lives, and they will not be overly anxious to return. I’m past seventy and find that to be the case.

The teachings of the Rosicrucians, a ancient mystical order of guardians of esoteric knowledge of which I have been a member and attained the rank of “Adept,” say the human personality span is normally about 140 years. If we live 70 years, for example, we can expect to spend 70 years in the realm between lives before we incarnate again. If we live 60 years, we can expect to spend 80 years between lives. The teachings stress, however, that this is a rule of thumb. Centuries could elapse between incarnations, or as with many in the UVa studies, the return could take place in a matter of months.

Here’s something else that suggests something unusual going on. According to Dr. Tucker’s book, Life Before Life (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005), about 22 percent of the cases in the University’s database include birth defects due to wounds suffered in violent deaths in the previous life. Most of the cases come from the Hindu and Buddhist countries of South Asia, the Shiite peoples of Lebanon and Turkey, the tribes of West Africa, and the tribes of northwestern North America.

In 1997 Ian Stevenson (1918-2007), Carlson Professor of Psychiatry at UVa Med School from 1967 to 2001, published details of 225 cases in a massive work, Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects. The same year he presented a summary of 112 cases in a much shorter book, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. He wrote that in many cases, postmortem reports, hospital records, or other documents were located and consulted that confirmed the location of the wounds on the deceased person in question matched birthmarks on a child that recalled having been that person. These often correspond to bullet wounds or stab wounds. Sometimes two marks corresponded to the points where a bullet entered and then exited the body.

Birthmarks also related to a variety of other wounds or marks, not necessarily connected with the previous personality’s death, including surgical incisions and blood left on the body when it was cremated. A woman run over by a train that sliced her right leg in two was reborn with her right leg absent from just below the knee. A man born with a severely malformed ear had been resting in a field at twilight, mistaken for a rabbit, and shot in the ear.

Other physiological manifestations also often relate to experiences of the remembered past life, particularly when violent death was involved. Photographs of James Huston, a fighter pilot shot down during the battle for Iwo Jima, bear an uncanny resemblance to James Leininger, who at two years of age and for several years following vividly recalled having been James Huston. Pictures of Barbro Karlen as a teenager—a Swedish woman some are convinced is the reincarnation of Anne Frank—closely resemble Anne Frank at the same age. In my interview with Dr. Tucker, he pointed out that in some situations mental images are known to produce specific effects on the body. For example, some religiously devout individuals develop wounds, called stigmata, which match the crucifixion wounds of Jesus. More than 350 such cases have been reported.

This reinforces the thesis of my book, Life After Death Powerful Evidence You Will Never Die, which is that while the brain influences consciousness, consciousness is not created by the brain. Rather function of the brain is to connect consciousness to the body. Consciousness can and often does exist separated from the body.

This, however, does not answer the question, “Is reincarnation the exception or the norm?”

My guess it is the norm. I have come to the conclusion Earth is a school, and like the character in the movie Groundhog Day who kept waking up to yet another February 2nd, we continue reincarnating until we finally get it right. And how do we do that? We must learn to follow the Great Commandment, which as Jesus said is, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40 (NKJV).

I can’t prove it, of course, but even so, that’s what I’m working toward.