I just took life for
I always took life for true
Welcome to Duality Check, the podcast where two brothers embark on a thrilling journey
through the realms of scientific inquiry, the enigmatic mysteries of the past, and the uncharted
territories of spirituality. Join us as we explore the wonders of our world and beyond, all while
embracing the roles of curious bystanders rather than experts. Together, we'll unravel the intricate
tapestries of existence. blending that dichotomies of knowledge and wonder. Get ready to question,
ponder, and delve into the dualities that shape our understanding of reality on Duality Check.
I'm Drew. And I'm Dean. And we're on episode number 20 today, which is crazy. We're almost
half a year into the podcast, which is a weird thing to think about. Yeah. So yeah, so we're
at number 20. And what do we got today? The topic today is reincarnation. Yeah. I think
you who we talked about a little bit on the last podcast, right? We did tease it a little
bit. And I brought up a couple of my thoughts that were related to the last show that also
had to do, that I was kind of thinking about from reading this book. Yeah. So yeah, the
book I read in prep for this show is called Life Before Life by Jim B. Tucker, MD, who
was a sort of, I don't know if a student is the right term, but he sort of took over. the
mission and research of Dr. Ian Stevenson, who has been like a prolific researcher in these
sort of alternative topics. He's been researching reincarnation, taking trips to India and Sri
Lanka and Thailand and all of those like. places where they actually believe in reincarnation,
where they have a lot of case files. It's like ingrained in their culture and stuff. Yeah.
So Ian Stevenson, I don't even know if he's still alive right now. But at the time of the
writing of this book, he was already quite old and retired. When was this published? This
one was published in, I want to say it was the early 2000s. He's got a newer book since, which
I did just start. The it's a. This is a good book. You asked me if I had finished it. Did
you start digging into it yourself? No, I was more going to some of the individual stories
and learned a little bit about some of the stories of reincarnation. Gotcha. Which are fascinating.
Yeah. Like Dorothy E.D. Does he talk about Dorothy E.D. at all in that one? Is that like a specific
reincarnation case? Story, yeah. No. OK. Does he talk about more of the overall of the data?
Yeah, so he's essentially publishing a book written for the public. And the majority of
the book is covering Ian Stevenson's work. OK. So this guy, Jimby Tucker, he has been. essentially
trying to update Ian's work. He's taken all like 2200 case files that Ian Stevenson had
collected. And in the process of him writing this book, they were moving all of those case
files into a computer database. At the time of the publishing of the book, he they only
were at like 1100 out of the 22, 2300 cases they had. So because they had a good chunk
of them in the computer, they were able to run some data and statistics on like how many percentage
of the reincarnation show this feature versus that feature. And we'll get into a lot of that.
Okay, cool. So there's some really interesting sort of statistics and data he's able to pull
on it. By the time he wrote his second book, I believe he finished that whole project and
he was trying to move. He was just trying to take the research with his own studies. Because
Ian Stevenson was a highly prestigious researcher, he was one of the youngest members ever to
be like a appointed as like a head of research at one of these prestigious universities. I
don't remember the exact one. He said, for this field, no, like a psychology chair position,
an entire psychology department and like at the age of 39, it was like the youngest person
ever at the post. So he's, he's got this prestigious career in psychology and he ended up leaving
it behind in order to pursue this research. What was he pointing at? Like what was he looking
for specifically in his research? Well, I again, this is written by Jim B. Tucker, not Ian Stevenson.
So I don't know the full Ian Stevenson like origin story. I do know on the, there's another
book I started and didn't finish that I mentioned on the podcast about near-death experiences,
which is also written by Ian Stevenson. And in that, he does give a little bit of his origin.
So if that's correct, I think what it is he essentially had a near-death experience himself.
And that sort of convinced him. to spend his life researching what the heck happened to
him. Because it was a pretty strong indication that I forget what disease he had. It was a.
Was it like a degenerative? Degenerative? I can't remember off the top of my head, but
it was essentially a disease that when it progresses, your brain shuts down. And that happened to
him. His brain was in the process of shutting down. And So he didn't actually have the brain
activity in the areas of his brain to explain the experience he had while he... For his near
death experience. Because a lot of people's theory for the near death experiences is that
it's just... activity happening in the brain. You're essentially dreaming while you're out
on the surgery table or while you're, you know, die and come back. And that's what some people
think that, yeah. It's just your brain activity creating a story. Maybe your heart stops, but
your brain's still firing and having this essentially dream state. that has been proposed as an explanation
for out-of-body experiences, but because of the specific disease Ian Stevenson had, he
didn't have the brain chemistry to support the brain activity to allow that theory to explain
how he had a near-death experience. And so for him, it was sort of an indication that maybe
there is this sort of non-physical aspect to the human mind. And maybe the theory that the
brain is an antenna rather than the creator of consciousness is valid. And so he started
spending his career researching consciousness through near-death experiences and reincarnation.
Sick. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm really excited to cover this topic. I got a ton of stuff highlighted. So this actually
could turn into a tube order. Yeah, all right. You know, if it has to. So I'll kind of cover
this in the order of the book. And I've highlighted all of the different case files that they sort
of talk you through in the book. And we'll cover all those. OK. And then there's some of his
thoughts that I highlighted as well that I thought were worth sharing. There's a whole bunch in
there that's really good that I didn't highlight just because obviously we have limited time.
This is a podcast, not an audiobook. Anyway, so check the book out, people. Life Before
Life, Jim B. Tucker, MD. I'm going to have to read it now that you're done with it. Yeah.
So let me start off here where he opens the book with a reincarnation case. Okay, so this
is chapter one. John McConnell, a retired New York City policeman working as a security guard,
stopped at an electronics store after work one night in 1992. He saw two men robbing the store
and pulled out his pistol. Another thief behind the counter began shooting at him. John tried
to shoot back and even after he fell he got up and shot again. He was hit six times. One
of the bullets entered his back and sliced through his left lung, his heart, and the main pulmonary
artery. The blood vessel that takes blood from the right side of the heart to the lungs to
receive oxygen. He was rushed to the hospital but did not survive. John had been close to
his family and had frequently told one of his daughters, Doreen, no matter what, I'm always
going to take care of you." Five years after John died, Doreen gave birth to a son named
William. William began passing out soon after he was born. Doctors diagnosed him with a condition
called pulmonary valve atresia, in which the valve of the pulmonary artery had not adequately
formed, so blood cannot travel through it to the lungs. In addition, one of the chambers
of his heart, the right ventricle, had not formed properly as a result of the problem with the
valve. He underwent several surgeries. Although he will need to take medication indefinitely,
he has done quite well. William had birth defects that were very similar to the fatal wounds
suffered by his grandfather. In addition, when he became old enough to talk, he began talking
about his grandfather's life. One day, when he was three years old, his mother was at home
trying to work in her study when William kept acting up. Finally, she told him, sit down
or I'm going to spank you. William replied, Mom, when you were a little girl and I was
your daddy. You were bad a lot of times and I never hit you." His mother was initially
taken aback by this. As William talked more about the life of his grandfather, she began
to feel comforted by the idea that her father had returned. William talking about being his
grandfather a number of times and discussed his death. He told his mother that several
people were shooting during the incident when he was killed and he asked a lot of questions
about it. One time he said to his mother, When you were a little girl and I was your daddy,
what was my cat's name? She responded, you mean Maniac? No, not that one. He answered the white
one Boston his mom said Yeah, William responded. I used to call him boss, right? That was correct.
The family had two cats Named Maniac and Boston and only John referred to the white one as
boss One day Doreen asked William if he remembered anything about the time before he was born.
He said that he died on Thursday and went to heaven. He said that he saw animals there and
also talked to God. He said, I told God I was ready to come back, and I got born on Tuesday.
Doreen was amazed that William mentioned days since he didn't even know his days of the week
without prompting. She tested him by saying, so you were born on a Thursday and died on
a Tuesday? He quickly responded, no, I died Thursday at night and was born Tuesday in the
morning. He was correct on both counts. John died on a Thursday and William was born on
a Tuesday five years later. He talked about the period between lives at other times. He
told his mother, when you die, you don't go right to heaven. You go to different levels,
here, then there, then here, as he moved his hands up each time. He said that animals are
reborn as well as humans and that the animals he saw in heaven didn't bite or scratch. John
had been a practicing Roman Catholic, but he believed in reincarnation and said that he
would take care of animals in his next life. His grandson, William, says that he will be
an animal doctor and will take care of large animals at his zoo. William reminds Doreen
of her father in several ways. He loves books as his grandfather did. When they visit William's
grandmother, he can spend hours looking at books in John's study, duplicating his grandfather's
behavior from years before. William, like his grandfather, is good at putting things together
and- can be a non-stop talker. William especially reminds Doreen of her father when he tells
her, "'Don't worry, Mom, I'll take care of you.'" So that's the first case. Wow, that was a good
one. Yeah. That was a good one. So only one generation gap. That's what blew me away, right?
Because usually, I've heard a lot of these gaps where it's like 50, 60, 100, 3,000 years on
one of them that I wanted to talk about. And yeah, but never really one or two years apart.
Yeah, so his data in here indicates that the average time for reincarnation is somewhere
between like five and eight years. So five is kind of like the inner threshold then? That's
like pretty down the middle average. So here's his comments on that first case. Although some
people find the idea of reincarnation to be ridiculous or offensive, This idea of reincarnation
has appealed to many throughout history and in the present day, including Plato and the
ancient Greeks, Hindus and Buddhists in Asia, various West Africans, many Native Americans
in North America, and even some groups of early Christians. Today people in the world who believe
in reincarnation may outnumber those who don't. I feel like, yeah, we're kind of in a bubble,
or not a lot of those ideas have spread. Reincarnation's pretty widespread now. Yeah, apparently the
Gnostics, the early Gnostic Christians, they believed in reincarnation. but officially the
Catholic Church doesn't, is my understanding.
There's a lot of layers in the religion game. Yeah. But this case is pretty interesting.
It's honestly on the kind of tame side for how good some of these cases are. But it does have
birthmarks that match previous wounds, which is, I find, super fascinating. You know what?
Come think of it. The one, I don't know if it's going to have this story in there with this
story that I I came across was about two daughters of a woman. Like one was 11 and one was six
and they died in a car accident. And then five years later. They were born as twins. Yep,
I have that one in here. Okay, okay. Yeah. That's a good one. It is a good one. Let's see what
he says here. This is talking about birthmarks and stuff. The Tlingits, a tribe in Alaska,
frequently made predictions about rebirth. 46 cases there, the previous personality, that's
what he calls whoever is the person who was reborn. The personality. It's like the soul
of the personality. The previous personality. Right. The previous personality made a prediction
about his or her subsequent rebirth. in 10 of these cases, 10 out of 46. Okay. In eight of
the 10, the person gave the names of the parents to which he or she wanted to be reborn. For
example, a man named Victor Vincent told his niece that he was going to come back as her
son. He showed her two scars he had from minor surgeries and predicted that he would carry
those marks to his next life. 18 months after he died, she gave birth to a boy who had birth
marks in the same spots. One of them even had small round marks lined up beside the main
linear mark giving the appearance of stitch wounds from a surgical scuff. The boy later
said that he was the previous personality, and he seemed to recognize several people from
Victor's life. Some cases involve another feature that occurs before the child is born. In several
Asian countries, the family member or friend may mark the body of a dying or deceased individual
in hopes that when the person is reborn, the baby will have a birth mark that matches the
marking. This practice is known as experimental birthmarks, and we will look at it in detail
in chapter 4. An announcing dream can occur before the birth of a child. With this feature,
a family member, usually the subject's mother, has a dream before or during the pregnancy
in which the previous personality either announces that he or she is coming to the expecting mother
or asks to come to her. Such dreams usually occur in same family cases, one in which the
previous personality is a deceased member of the subject's family, or in cases in which
the subject's mother at least knew the previous personality. Exceptions do occur, as we will
soon see, cases from all the various cultures have included announcing dreams, which have
occurred in approximately 22% of the first 1,100 cases in her. database. They are much more
common in some places than others and they also tend to occur at different times and different
places. In Myanmar the families generally report that the dreams occur before the child is conceived
whereas among the tribes in the northwest North America they tend to occur at the very end
of the pregnancy.
So birthmarks, experimental birthmarks, and announcing dreams. These are all pretty common
features. So the experimental birthmarks, when he talks about it later, he'll try to be able
to prove it. Some of the cases he'll describe it. But they'll essentially, I think one of
the most common things to use is like ashes. Like you have. dip your finger in some ashes
and mark the dead body. So it doesn't have to be like you cut them and then they No, no.
Just mark it even with the ashes. And then you essentially give a little prayer to the person
and ask them to bring it with them. And I want to know what the efficacy rating in that is.
That would be hard because I don't think they have. that massive of a data set to be able
to know all the times that people have attempted experimental birthmarks. That'd be cool to
know, though. Yeah. But they could tell you amongst their 2,300 cases what percentage have
had experimental birthmarks in it. So. Oh, shit. But the announcing dreams are really cool too.
I wonder if anyone listening has ever experienced a dream like that. Any of our female listeners,
if you have kids, did you ever have any dreams about your child beforehand in which they asked
you to be their mother or something? Yeah, that'd be fascinating to hear. Yeah. Alright, so birthmarks
and birth defects. Many of the subjects in our cases are born with birthmarks or birth defects
that usually match wounds on the body of the previous personality. Usually fatal wounds.
One case that includes both an announcing dream and a birth defect is that of Suleyman Kaeper
in Turkey. His mother dreamed during her pregnancy that a man she did not recognize told her I
was killed with a blow from a shovel. I want to stay with you and not anyone else." When
Suleyman was born, the back of his skull was partially depressed, and he also had a birthmark
there. When he became able to talk, he said that he had been a miller who died when an
angry customer hit him on the head. Along with other details, he gave the first name of the
miller and the village where he had lived. In fact, an angry customer had killed a miller
with that name in that village by hitting him in the back of the head with a shovel. Many
of the birthmarks are not small discolorations. Instead, they are often unusual in shape or
size and often puckered or raised rather than simply being flat. Some can be quite dramatic
and unusual in appearance. Other examples include cases with birthmarks in such unusual places
as wrapping around an ankle and cases with deformities like missing or malformed limbs or digits.
In these cases, the birthmarks and birth defects can provide a concrete indication of a connection
between the subject and the previous personality. Since they remain on the body, birthmarks and
defects are not dependent on witnesses' memories to be part of the case. When an autopsy report
or a medical record of the previous personality is available, as it was in Suleiman's case,
researchers can objectively compare it to birthmarks and see how well they correspond. I just want
to say, I love the way you're saying Suleiman. Just that. Yeah, no. It makes. since if you
just take it wholesale, right? Yeah.
I love these topics. So it's just interesting, like theoretically, how does that work, right?
So maybe it's that if you have an injury. A sudden abrupt injury. Yeah, like it. Because,
I mean, you're being reincarnated. You have a new body, right? Like a new body with new
genes growing from scratch, you know? So like, you would think that you would just have a
new body, right? So why would the consciousness take with it injuries from the previous body
unless it somehow injures your consciousness as well or leaves such a Such a such an impression.
Yeah, such an impression on it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, the fact that a lot of them are
injured in like a lot of these cases is definitely telling. I think but there's like the one about
Dorothy Eady. I think you've heard about it. Maybe not. She's the one that she was like
a three year old girl. And she fell down the stairs. I can't remember her. I guess it was
Dorothy. She was a normal three-year-old girl. And she fell down some stairs. And her parents
didn't notice right away. And they went down and found her. And she had died. And then they
brought a doctor over who pronounced her dead and then came back an hour later with the death
certificate and to handle, help with things. And uh. Apparently, during that time or while
the doctor, when the doctor came back with the documents and the parents were there, she was
upstairs playing in her room, like nothing had ever happened. And the doctor went up and was
like, what the fuck, what the hell? Like, I have your death certificate here. And like,
supposedly after this happened, she was just super uncomfortable in her life and ended up
just like... I'm trying to remember all the small details, but maybe I'll just go broader
strokes. She grew up knowing that she had a previous life after this. She was super uncomfortable
at home with her parents and would always say, I want to go home, I want to go home. I don't
belong here or whatever, stuff like that. And, you know, learned to cope with her parents
and stuff. And her parents took her to her museum one day and she ran, or once she saw the Egyptian.
section of the museum. She was drawn to it. And she said she saw a photo. Oh, I have heard
this one. Yeah. She saw a sculpture and it made her... She told her mom, these are my people.
And then they had to leave, but they would come back every so often and she would go and explore
the Egyptian place more. And then she came upon, eventually over years, she came upon the Sedi.
the tomb of Seti and, or the, I guess the temple of Seti. And, yeah. And she knew a bunch of
details about it. Tons of details. That no one else knew. And like, knew where to look for
things. Yeah, so eventually she's stuck with, you know, in this new life, right? Where she's
living with her parents and she eventually works her way to go to London, to work at a museum.
And then marries an Egyptian guy and moves back to Egypt with him. eventually gets to the temple
and is able to like discover things just by remembering. Right. And nobody can understand
how she understands so much. She was born all the way across the world and eventually made
it here but like knows all of this information that nobody else does. Knows where to look
for the gardens of the of the temple of Seti. She remembers it being green and lush and then
plants and trees and animals and everything around. And so they kind of dated her. Oh yeah.
And there was this one, um, when she was married to the Egyptian guy, um, in London or something,
I, maybe she was in Egypt, but she had, um, there was a night where she would, or it was,
I guess, I think it was over a month, but like every night she would like have like daydreams,
but like half awake, half asleep little, um, like visions. Visions and she would be sitting
there writing the whole time and apparently she was, you know, taking in, I think she had
contact with a God, one of like a God from ancient Egyptian culture or something, or like a spirit
guide or something. And it had her write down in hieroglyphics all of her life story and
only she was able to, like obviously. The majority of this story comes from her. So like take
it on face value that, it's her telling of her story. So there's bound to be some, you know.
conflation, but anyway, so eventually, yeah, she finds out the whole story of her life and
that's how she ends up getting back to, to Egypt. And she goes to the temple of Sedi and she's
like walks around it without ever having been there. Nothing's been published on it. You
know, there's no way she could have just learned it, but they take her in there. I think one
of the priests there or something takes her in there with a tour, with just a torch or
something. And she's able to lead them around to every little room and nook and cranny and
guide them where they're asking her to take them. And then she that's when she finds the
gardens and then she says dig on this other side and you'll find a hidden passage. She
actually said that you would find a room under the paw of the Sphinx. And the actually that
the missing tomb of Nefertiti. would be found underneath Tutankhamen. And they actually found
a chamber underneath Tutankhamen in 2015 or something like that. She actually predicted
all these things. Wow. Dang. So like she predicted. It was, that story was in one of the Y-Files
episodes, wasn't it? Uh-huh. If I remember correctly. Yeah. That's a good one. I like that case.
Yeah. Well, I have to link to the episode because he does a great job telling it. Yeah. And he
also sprinkles in a few stories of some of the other. It's an interesting case because it
doesn't necessarily. follow the same pattern that most of the reincarnation cases do. So
like the common reincarnation cases, like the most common thing that happens is that between
the ages of like two and three, um, is usually the earliest it'll come on. His kids will start,
um, saying weird things, expressing memories, longing trauma. something in the past, their
behavior might change. But usually they make statements about a past life. And it usually
ends around the ages between like five and seven. Which is also when most children just lose
their memory of their youth. Of everything before that. That's when the childhood amnesia hits.
Yep. And that's typically when kids stop remembering or talking about their past life. There are
cases where some people remember it into adulthood, but the vast majority usually stop talking
about it between like five and seven years old. Yeah. So, so fascinating. Yeah. It's like,
yeah, like that lends to the antenna idea, right? Like if our consciousness is receiving... the
signals. Yeah, if the brain is an antenna for consciousness to be brought down. Rather than
the creator of it. It kind of makes sense that there's like a buffer period where it's kind
of like a loose connection and that there's able to be creeped in things that might otherwise
not have come in. Where even like the split personalities and like all these like mental
disorders. could be that same idea as multiple consciousness converging into a single antenna.
There's an interest deceiver. One that kind of has to do with split personalities in the
new book. So if we have time, or if we do a two-parter and I have time to cover it, I might
cover some of those cases too. Cool. But yeah, let's hit our first break here. Sounds good.
And we'll be back. Like a past life being reincarnated after this break. See you in the future.
We have been reborn onto the second segment of the show today. Here we are. Our consciousness
has continued beyond the music. Yeah. We shut it down for a minute, just get a little recharge.
We faced the music, and we're back. Yeah. Ha ha ha. All right. So we got a little twist
on our beer review today. Yeah, we got a not beer review because I'm not drinking beer.
But what I am drinking, finally, my sister, Amy, gave me these non alcoholic. Sorry about
that. I thought they were beers, but this one's definitely not the one I'm drinking. So this
is called hop splash by Sierra Nevada. It's a sparkling hop infused water made with Citra
and Amarillo hops. Yeah. You handed me that. I was expecting beer. You made a face and then
I took a sip and I immediately was like, this is beer flavored seltzer. Yeah. Or I said,
I'm sure I said self-service. And you saw the face I made. The first time I tasted it, I
was expecting the beer flavor. And I was like, ugh. And it wasn't because it was bad. It was
just because it was not the flavor I was expecting. The more I drink it, you taste more of the
citrus hops. It's not terrible. Yeah. That's definitely hop-flavored sparkling water. And
with that context, it doesn't assault my mouth as unexpectedly. Right. I mean, they need to.
They need a bigger label. Yeah, so the label on here says, not the right time for a beer,
but got a hop craving? Drench it with Hop Splash, our sparkling water infused with citron, amaryllum
hops for refreshing notes of peach, mango, and grapefruit. Hop Splash has zero alcohol, zero
calories, and maximum hop flavor. Yeah, that's what I want to do first thing in the morning.
Ingredients, water, hops, carbon dioxide. Drink some grass. Yeah, no, it tastes nice.
It tastes like hops smell. Yeah. Like when we were brewing. You helped us one day with our
brewing, right? Me and Jason? Yeah, I definitely helped. I definitely wasn't just standing there
holding a beer watching you guys do it. But you were there. Yeah, I was there. And we tasted
the hops, like the actual dry hops, like we smelled them and took a little nibble. Yeah.
Hops are a pretty unique flavor. So yeah, there you go. If you're looking for something that
tastes like hops, but you don't want to drink beer, you don't want alcohol, you don't want
carbs, this Hop Water. Is the next one a beer or no? Is that another seltzer? I do have another
one here. This one is by Partake Brewing. This one is called a non-alcoholic brew, and it
contains less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. So this one actually has alcohol. So this one's
actually a non-alcoholic beer. Water, barley, hops, yeast are the ingredients here. We'll
have to crack that one over on the next one. Yeah. But for now, let's talk about some reincarnation.
What we got? All right, so he's still early. We're still in the first chapter or second
chapter here. And he's talking about, he's introducing us to cases slowly. And he's talking about
the main features, right? And so we covered the other three features, the birthmarks, experimental
birthmarks. And the, what was the third one? Was the dream. Yeah, the announcing dreams.
Announcing dreams, that's it. But by far the biggest and most important feature is the past
life statements. So here he says, the key feature in our cases, of course, is the statements
that the children make about a past life. As an example, when Suzanne Ghanem of Lebanon
was less than a year old, her first word was Layla. And she would pick up the telephone
and say, hello, Layla. She began telling her family about a previous life that ended when
she went to the United States for heart surgery. She talked about this life a great deal, but
her family was not able to track down the previous personality until Suzanne was five years old.
At that point, Suzanne met the family of the woman who she thought she had been. And she
convinced them that she was the woman reborn when she knew details about that life. The
woman who died at a medical center in the United States after heart surgery turned out to have
a daughter named Layla who was not able to join her there because of passport problems. Before
the woman died, her brother at the hospital tried to telephone Layla for her but was unsuccessful.
In all, Suzanne made 40 statements about the previous life that were verified as accurate,
including the names of 25 people. Yeah.
Some children only make a few comments about the past life and only talk about it at certain
times, often during relaxed periods, while others talk about it almost constantly and make many
statements. In general, children tend to talk about people and events from near the end of
the previous life. A child who describes a past life that ended in adulthood is likely to talk
about a spouse or children rather than talking about parents. 75% of the children describe
the way that they died in their previous life. And the mode of death is frequently violent
or sudden. The lives that the children describe tend to be very recent ones. And in fact, the
median time between death of the previous personality and the birth of the subject is only 15 to
16 months. Oh wow. That's even shorter than I said earlier. Exceptions certainly exist,
as Kamal's case in the introduction shows, but most of the children describe very recent lives.
Few report having been famous personalities. as almost all describe ordinary lives often
ending in very unpleasant ways. When the children give enough information so that one particular
deceased individual can be identified as the previous personality, we say that the case
is solved. If the previous personality has not been identified, we say that the case is unsolved.
He objects to the term unsolved in this instance because it implies the child is actually remembering
the life of one unique previous personality who could be identified if the case could only
be solved. This is not what we mean when we use the term. We can all agree that an unsolved
case, or a solved one for that matter, does not automatically indicate a case of reincarnation.
With only rare exceptions, almost all children All of the children describe only one previous
life. In addition, though most children do not talk about the time between lives, some occasionally
do. Their statements can involve either events that took place on Earth, for example at the
funeral of the previous personality, or descriptions of other realms. An example of the latter is
a boy named Kenny who, though his case was unsolved, gave numerous details about the life of a man
who died in an automobile accident. He said that after he died, another spirit, probably
the driver of the vehicle, took him by the hand, and the two of them with other spirits in what
seemed to be a huge hall. He said another spirit he took to be God told him that there were
people wishing for a child and that he had been chosen to go down to be born. Wow. Yeah, so
it's interesting that the vast majority of the cases are a violent or sudden end. Yeah, I
mean, it makes sense just based on the like state of the world previously and like how
not, I guess if with the real recent ones, it kind of is surprising. But I remember like
with the whole Christopher Bledsoe stuff, like there was a whole idea of like having to go
through pain so that you can allow your consciousness to be freed from whatever might, what other
force might be trying to just hold it, you know? And like the other idea of like there being
some kind of like, there's obviously like, if you believe in that, you're believing that
there is a something happening outside of what is going on here that is dictating like...
the happenings, there's like a place where people are going to heaven and then being sent back
down basically. So, yeah, to me, there's the levels and yeah, to me, it almost reads like,
like as if dying prematurely suddenly or violently like gives you the opportunity to well, maybe
that's why those. people are reincarnating or maybe. They didn't learn the lesson they were
meant to learn before the next life, like based on like what the Egyptians believed. Right.
Like they didn't fulfill whatever they set out in that life to fulfill. So maybe they're more
apt to be reincarnated. At an earlier rate, because otherwise there's other times where
it's like 3000 years old or like that one we were talking about with Dorothy Eady. that's
like 3000 years old when the person who she said she was at the time she said she was like
3000 years ago. Yeah. During the Old Kingdom. But the other possibility is that we all reincarnate
and it for some reason dying suddenly in your previous life maybe makes you more likely to
remember in the next one. Because what all these cases have in common is that the children remember
stuff about their previous life, right? And so that doesn't mean that people who don't
talk about their previous life weren't reincarnated, but maybe because of the circumstances of the
death in the previous life, that leaves them more likely to be in a position to remember
it in this one. Or there's also the caveat of who the person who... the previous personality
is born into, like it's not just mistaken as a toddler being a toddler, just saying all
sorts of wacky stuff. So like that could also be like, you gotta take that into account that
they could, not that they're lying, but like that the person, like whoever, like their parents
or the people around them aren't interpreting what they're saying as like, to be studied
or to be... They're just like, oh, that's awesome. And then they're like kind of like. Yeah, well,
he addresses in this book. But they seem to be more abrupt, like changes of personality
that beckon you to ask the questions and stuff. I mean, out of the 1,100 cases they had in
the database, having almost 75% of them have violent death. or sudden death. Right. It definitely
seems like that has to do with it somehow. You know? Yeah. Definitely the ones who are prominent.
Mm-hmm. As far as... But that doesn't necessarily mean that all reincarnation... It's just that
the ones that are gonna make you them stand out are the ones who had a sudden... Like if
somebody just died in their sleep at the age of 85, you know, it might be like, Oh, I do
remember these things, but they never vocalize it. They just kind of have like a moment where
they just kind of remember their lives or something. Yeah. But instead of vocalizing it and then
that, why wouldn't they have that period between two and five or two and seven that they start
to talk about it too, you know, Oh yeah, I'm just saying like they have the experience but,
and they make the comments but it falls on deaf ears if you might, because nobody's asking
the questions for that particular child to dig into it. That has a lot to do with where the
case happens, right? So in this book, most of the cases are in the Far East where people
do believe in reincarnation. I don't think I finished... that thought that I had at the
beginning, which is that Jim B. Tucker, he's moving in the direction in his next book of
trying to focus on United States cases because people in the United States, it's not an overwhelming
belief for people to believe in reincarnation. But it happens a fair amount enough? They're
harder to find the cases because when it happens in the East, we're in a culture where people
believe in reincarnation. and you as a child start talking about a previous life to your
parents, like they're going to pay attention. They're going to take it more seriously. Whereas
if it happens in the United States and it's someone who doesn't believe in reincarnation
for the kids' parents, they may just shrug it off as fantasy and never like pursue it or
talk about it. Specifically on that point with Dorothy Eadie, her parents were like that.
They were devout. Catholics, I believe, and they were like, they got kicked out of like
Sunday school. Because of her claiming. Claiming and like not following the rules and you know,
all these things because she was refused to sing a hymn about that talked poorly of Egypt
or something like that. She like refused and they kicked her out because of that. I'm sure
there was other things too, but that was her claim was that. And that was, I think she was
a teenager at the time or something like that. Yeah. All right, so past life behaviors. Yeah.
In addition to the statements, many children show behaviors that seem connected to past
life memories they're reporting. Many show strong emotions related to their memories. In some
cases, the children cry and beg their parents to take them to their previous family until
their parents finally relent. In a case in which the previous personality was murdered, the
subject may also display immense anger towards the killer. The children often demonstrate
unusual play. For instance, Parmaad Sharma in India became wrapped up in his play as a shopkeeper
of biscuits and soda water. The occupation of the previous personality. From the ages of
four to seven, this caused him to neglect his work when he started school, and he never seemed
to fully recover. His mother blamed his poor school performance and subsequent limited vocational
opportunities on his preoccupation with his past life memories and his shopkeeping play
as a young child. That case is an extreme example, but play can be excessive. In these cases,
the children repeat the same play over and over. and it is play that is not seen in the other
children of the family or modeled after an adult family member or close friend. Yeah, it makes
sense for them to replicate the, like, you know, seeing you do the dishes and stuff every night,
they go and repeat that in their little play kitchen or something. Right. Like Sawyer's
done that already where I'm like doing something and I look over at him and he goes, you know,
he looks over at me like he's just imitating. But something as specific as playing as a shopkeeper
who sells biscuit and soda water. Yeah. There was another case, I don't want to throw you
off too much on a tangent, but there was another case of a person, a little boy, I think he
was four, four years old. And he can't remember all the names, so I have to link the episode,
cuz it's all in that Y Files episode, this one too. He remembered, he's always pretending
in his playtime, he's pretending to be a movie producer. or a filmmaker and like making movies
and stuff. And he was doing that, that repetitive play over and over again. And they started
to ask him what he's doing. He started talking about how he doesn't like being a little kid
and he remembers when he was a big person and could do whatever he wanted. And he much prefers
being big and wants to go back there. And then he saw, he sees the Hollywood sign on TV or
on an ad somewhere. And I can't remember what time frame this is, but then he says, I worked
there. I think it was the early, like the 20s or 30s or something. And he's like, I want
to go back there. That's where I live, it's Hollywood. He remembers that sign. And then
he, you know, in the end of it, like he was looking at a photo album of people in Hollywood
at the time. And he saw a photo of a person he knew. He says, oh, that's George. You know,
me and him made a movie together. And then he looked further back in the background of the
picture off to the side. He's like, oh, that's me. We found me. And he points to a picture
and they found a picture of him. And then he goes on to tell like hundreds of verified details
of this person's life. Like we'd have to link to the episode cause it's so good. But it talks
about like, you know, where he's vacationed, the people he's met, the things he did, where
he lived. you know, his kids, his kids names, his wife's name, you know, like all these things.
It's like a four year old, like that you can't explain that by like OCD watches TV and like
learned every fact about this person's life somehow. It's just time frame. Don't you know
that? Yeah, it just happened to make a bunch of statements that happened to correspond with
this person's life. Right, because clearly there's going to be even more statements he made that
were not verified. Like, yes, he hit 100 of them, but he probably made 700 statements.
Right, right. Yeah. It's either way. I mean, I can't imagine a kid doing that if they're
not trying to get to the details. And even he couldn't remember every detail, but then he
would read books and remember the little things in between, like see a picture of him at a
concert and all the things that led up to that concert. Right. Because- Because they start
coming back to him as he- Yeah.
So most commonly, the child mimics the occupation of the previous personality, as Parmod did.
And the drive that some of these children demonstrate in wanting to engage repeatedly in the play
can be quite striking. Other children have repeatedly acted out the death scene from the previous
life. This can be similar to the post-traumatic play of children who have been through difficult
experiences. Only in this case, the trauma is thought to be from a previous life rather than
the current one. Because it hasn't been exposed to anything that would suggest otherwise? Right.
Phobias seem to be linked to past life memories at times. Many of the children show intense
fear related to the method of the previous personality's death. Often these fears will show up before
the child has begun to report past life memories. For example, a very young child may show an
intense fear of water. As a baby in Sri Lanka, Shamli... Shamlini? Prema always had to be
held down by three adults in order to be bathed, and then later told of having drowned in the
previous life. Some children are also unusually fond of certain things, including foods, the
previous personality, especially enjoyed, or even alcohol or tobacco products. Though the
use of alcohol and tobacco is common in various cultures, consumption is not considered appropriate
for three-year-olds. Parents have been amused and appalled by their children's attempts to
get alcohol. As for foods, one particularly prominent example is the request to eat raw
fish from Burmese children who say they remember lives as Japanese soldiers. Wow. When unusual
play phobias and preferences are present. Along with statements or birthmarks or other features,
the impression of a link between the subject and the previous personality is strengthened.
Such cases are often about more than the possible memories or statements. They suggest behaviors
and emotions have been carried over as well. Yeah, so it's not just all the information
facts, it could be their intentions and all their fears and all their emotions about all
the things they experienced from their previous life, which will fully dictate how they run
their life. Hmm. Past life recognitions. Sometimes subjects recognize or are thought to recognize
people or places from their past life. Frequently, when the subject's family takes the child to
the home of the previous personality, the subject seems to recognize members of the previous
family. At times, the previous family is hoping that their deceased loved one has returned.
So they may be open to interpreting anything the child does as evidence that he recognizes
them. Sure. Yeah. Others are much more skeptical, and some suspect that the subject's family
is hoping for financial gain in making the claim. Even though this seems rarely to be the case,
some will engineer such informal tests for the child as having him identify objects that belonged
to the previous personality long before deciding whether to accept the claims. Yeah, that's
a hard one to prove. Like if you're going there and they have it set, like they're going to
become somehow famous for having made these claims. Yeah. Or there's some precedent that
gives them some kind of status when having that claim. Yeah. I don't think that's typically
the case there. It's just a normal part of life. It's not like, I don't think you get famous
for... No, I'm not saying you would, but it could be their, their mode. Right. I'm sure
it has happened in the past that someone has attempted to scam someone on this basis. For
sure, for sure. But there's enough thousands where you're gonna see some of the good ones
still. Yeah, well some of the cases, like specifically, that's not the case because, like say in India,
where they have a caste system, sometimes it's an upper caste kid. whose previous life was
in a lower caste, and the parents of the upper caste kid are not enthused about the idea.
The younger kid may show behaviors that are typical of lower class citizens, and their
parents are not about it. Interesting. In a much smaller number of cases, subjects have
been tested under more controlled conditions, and we will review some of these in chapter
7. Strongest examples add to the impression that something is going on that cannot be written
off as simply wishful thinking or childhood fantasy. Yeah. I was going to say, I wonder
if they measure that every time they have a kid in that kind of a system, or if it's just
like... What do you mean? I mean, like, do they ask all, like, do the reincarnation for like
India, was it in India? That's that reference you were making about the cast. The it's like
I'm just curious if they like always check or ask or talk to their children about reincarnation
in those early years to try to like dictate where who they were in the previous life. If
you are from or know a lot about any of these cultures that actually will even pass lives,
let us know. Yeah. Um, I don't necessarily think it's the case. I mean, it would make sense
that like the kids starting to talk about it is what triggers the parents to, you know,
attention to it. Because by far it is not the majority of children who make claims like this.
Right. You know, out of all kids, it's not a significant percentage of kids that seem to
remember this stuff.
But maybe. We need to do a large scale evaluation of every child to find out. Ask them questions.
Yeah, right. Where are you somebody else? Yeah.
Even just the slightest bit, somebody else. Or remember anything. Well, cool. I think we're
coming up on our next break here. So why don't we take a quick moment, and we'll be right
back. Enjoy some puppies and chocolate.
you
Hopefully you enjoyed those puppies. Smooth, smooth chocolate. Yeah. Alright, so I just
cracked the Partake Brewing non-alcoholic IPA. What's the percentage on that? 0.5. Oof. The
brew that started it all. Our signature IPA is a balance of light, multi, and hoppy fun
with just 10 calories. It's the perfect companion for a session of bird watching, spirited game
of bocce ball, or a barbecue with buddies. No shot at says all that. You made that up. No,
it says that. Oh my god. I have never thought of bocce ball and beer. I mean, I have. I see
we have a. Place I worked they have a botchy court botchy ball Barbecue buddies and beer
it all goes together That's five bees five pillar of bees That one definitely tastes more like
a beer is it more or less off-putting Well as long as you expect the beer I say I like the
other one better in general though. As more of a daily drinker, you can drink that. Yeah,
just like it's a hop flavored sparkling water like I can down it. I don't even really want
a second sip of that. Yeah. The aftertaste is worse. It's got a weird aftertaste. Yeah, it's
starting to set in. You might need to chug that, otherwise you'll never. Yep, it hit me. The
aftertaste mixed with the new sip. Not good.
All right, cool. Let's hop back into this.
After a case is investigated, it is registered in our files at the university if it meets
certain criteria. Right. So I'm just off the bat. Only certain criteria. Yeah. They're already.
Refining it. Yeah, they're trying to keep the best cases here So these involve many of the
features we have discussed and according to the criteria case has to have at least two
of the following Okay number one Prediction of rebirth not just I will be reborn but with
some specifying details for example selection of next parents Okay, so that's when they really
look for as far as being a previous personality Well, they just have to have two of these features.
So that's one of the features they're looking for. Number two is an announcing dream. Number
three, birthmarks or birth defects related to the previous life. Not just any nevus or other
blemish. I've never heard that word. Nevis. N-E-V-U-S. Also the birthmark or birth defect
should be noticed immediately after birth or within a few weeks. Number four, statements
by the subject as a child about a previous life. The record of these should not depend on the
subject alone. Hang on, I gotta sneeze. Do a fake one. Hachoo! There it is, there it is.
Alright. Dang. You throw it at your back. Yeah, right. The record of these should not depend
on the subject alone. At least one other older person, for example a parent or older sibling,
should corroborate that the subject spoke about a previous life as a child. Number five, recognitions
by subject of persons or objects with which the previous personality was familiar. Number
six, unusual behavior on the part of the subject. That is behavior that is unusual in subject's
family and apparently corresponds to similar behavior shown by the previous personality,
or that could be conjectured for him or her. For example, a phobia of firearms if the previous
personality was fatally shot.
So those are the five or six criteria that the case has to have at least two of those in order
to end up in their database. Gotcha.
Now, how... And at the time of writing this book, he had inherited 2300 cases from Ian
Stevenson. That was my question. Okay. So that's 2300 cases with two of those six. And has he
found any on his own? Or is he only reporting... Yeah, yeah, he has. But this book mostly focuses
on Ian Stevenson's research. The next book, he goes more into his own stuff in the US.
Yeah. Since Ian Stevenson being so prestigious spent his entire career trying to get people
to take reincarnation seriously and failed by focusing on all these cases overseas, he figures
it would be more convincing for him to spend his career on domestic cases in a country like
ours that doesn't predominantly believe in reincarnation. That way the cultural influence of believing
in reincarnation is not as strong. big of a factor. Yeah. OK. Yeah, this is definitely
going to be a multi-parter topic, for sure. Yeah, well, I mean, just because I want to
dive into the next book, too. Yeah. Read about all the US stories and. Yeah. And I've gotten
a couple of chapters into that book, and it's pretty good so far. OK. Sweet. This might be
its own reincarnation series. The series might be reborn itself, which is crazy meta. Whoa.
Our reincarnation episodes are reincarnating. As we speak. They're multiplying.
So this is, then he goes on to talk about the technical process they do for assembling a
case. There's a form, like a standardized form that they essentially go through and question.
OK. the people involved to gather information. They use all that standardized information
in order to sort everything into that database so they can run statistics on everything.
Anyway, so as they're entering all these into the computer, he's talking about this process
is labor intensive and getting all the cases into the database is years away. At this point,
we have entered 1,100 out of 2,500 cases, not 23, into the computer database. It includes
all the Indian cases, but as yet includes virtually no cases from Thailand and Myanmar, even though
these two countries have combined to produce hundreds of cases. I will give figures from
time to time based on these 1,100 cases, but we should remember that these are not necessarily
representative of all 2,500. Yeah, just reminding us that the strongest cases are not always
gonna be the most representative in this book, is what he's kinda saying, right? Well, he's
saying when he gives you statistics about this percentage of their cases show this feature,
that's with only the 1,100 entered into the computer out of the 2,500. OK, I got you. And
once the full 2,500 is in there, he expects those percentages will shift. I see. Anyway,
chapter three, we have another case here, OK? So this is the case of. Abby Swanson, a young
girl who lives in Ohio, was four years old when she began talking to her mother one night after
having her bath. Mommy, I used to give you baths when you were a baby, she said. Oh, really?
Her mom replied. Uh-huh, you cried, Abby responded. I did? Said her mom. Yep, Abby said. I was
your grandma. And what was your name? Her mother asked her. She remembers her hair standing
on an end as Abby considered the question, tapping her mouth with her fingers. Lucy, Ruthie, she
finally said. Since this was Abby's great-grandmother's name, her mother tried to ask her more questions,
but Abby did not say anything else. Abby's great-grandmother died in 1985, nine years before Abby was born.
She had 20 grandchildren, and unlike most of the others, Abby's mother lived nearby and
was close to her while growing up. They had some conflict when Abby's mother was a teenager,
but then got along well when she became an adult. Abby's mother would occasionally mention Abby's
great grandparents to her children, but never by name, and she had not talked about them
for at least six months before that night. In addition, Abby's grou- grandmother lived on
the west coast and could not have been a source of information for Abby to learn about her
great-grandmother. Later her mother did check with Abby's grandmother to confirm that Abby's
great-grandmother had in fact given her mother baths. Abby's grandmother who also said that
her mother cried a lot when she was given baths as a baby. Abby's mother is certain that Abby
had never heard her great-grandmother's name. In fact, when she asked her a few days later
what the name was, Abby didn't know. Whatever knowledge or memory was available to Abby that
night was not available to her after that. And so he introduced cases like this. Like this
is one of the weaker cases, right? It's just essentially a single statement. two statements,
right? The name and the fact that she gave her mother's baths and she cried. You could maybe
break that into three statements. And those checked out, but there was nothing else to
go along with that. And so the reason he brings that up is to discuss the skeptic's view of
reincarnation and how should we think about these cases. So we approach each case with
an attitude of wanting to learn as much about it as possible. We do not approach a case with
our minds already made up about it. We're open to all possibilities, including that a paranormal
link may exist between the child and a deceased individual, or that a link may not exist. This
attitude is necessary for scientific inquiry, which is different from the two extremes. On
one end, believers in reincarnation may be quick to accept any claim of rebirth that their firmly
held beliefs. On the other end, individuals convinced that the material universe is all
that can possibly exist, including so-called professional skeptics, will dismiss any claim
that challenges their views. Though many people in scientific fields hold views that can be
just as dogmatic as those of an intensely religious person, judging from firmly held beliefs does
not make for sound scientific inquiry. Therefore, we are open to all possibilities. This means
that when a child claims to remember a previous life, we think that he or she may be telling
the truth. On the other hand, the child may be engaging in fantasy. or the adults may have
misinterpreted the child's statements. We're trying to determine what scenario is most likely.
As for the possible explanations, there are two basic types. Cases are caused either by
a normal process or by a paranormal one. The following list touches on a variety of explanations
we should consider. So this is when he goes over all the different like alternate explanations.
Okay. And he uses this case to sort of, to test these ideas. So among normal explanations,
the first one is fraud. Okay. Straight up. Yeah. This would mean that Abby's mother intentionally
lied to us about what happened. This is theoretically possible. Abby did not remember that night
when we met her two years later and no other witnesses were there to confirm the story.
Someone could make up such a story if she had a reason to do so, which is why we only report
cases in which we have interviewed the families ourselves. When we interview them, we try to
judge how reliable they are. The problem with the explanation of fraud is that for the vast
majority of the cases, the family has absolutely no reason to make up such a story. Abby's mother
certainly didn't. The only thing that she got out of contacting us was having her home invaded
by a psychiatrist and psychologist who asked a lot of questions. So unless she was badly
in need of attention from two strangers, she would have no motivation to lie to us. Yeah,
I mean, it's true. Yeah. They also don't pay their subjects ever because they don't want
anyone ever to be motivated by money as a reason to call them. Call them and be like, oh, they're
going to give us some money. We could come up with some cool story. Right. The next normal
scenario is fantasy.
And essentially, you can understand what the fantasy element is. fantasy element would be
that Abby was just imagining that she had lived a previous life and that she got lucky with
guessing the name. Yeah. Which in the case of guessing one name, even though there's so many
names out there, like what are the chances that our second guess is the correct name? And.
The only thing I could think of is like some kind of like other phenomenon and like where
the mother heard the name Ruthie a lot as a child but did but suppressed it and then later
when she had a kid she talked about the name Ruthie a lot not knowing why. Well the mother
knew her grandma's name was Ruthie but the kid didn't. But the mother knew that her great-
that her grandma was. Or was it her? Was it the mother's great grandma? The mother's grandma,
the kid's great grandma. OK, that's where I got confused by it. Yeah. OK. So she definitely
knew her, obviously. Yes. So the only thing I could see is motivation. But the grandma
had died before the kid was born, so the kid never met her. And so the kid's grandma, the
mother's mom, lived on the opposite coast. So. She was never really around her grandmother
to have her grandmother tell her about her own mom Ruthie. And the mom says for sure she never
mentioned the name Ruthie. She did talk about her grandparents from time to time but never
by name. I see. So the idea that the kid just got lucky with the name. And this is where
the fantasy element comes in, right? So like fantasy is sort of a combination because typically
to explain these cases, you don't just need the kid was fantasizing, you also need the
kid was fantasizing and they got lucky by guessing details and names. Which in this case is more
plausible because we only have two claims to validate, right? But in a lot of these cases,
like when a kid gives 25 names and they're all correct, the chance of all of that being reduced
to luck is, it's just. Hard to fathom actually reducing it to luck. Yeah, it gets pretty ridiculous
with the odds. Yeah, absolutely. But you could see the kid fantasizing about having been a
previous, you know, a lady named Ruthie. Mm-hmm. and fantasizing that she was her mother's grandma
and gave her baths. Like you can imagine a fantasy scenario in a kid's head where that happens.
Well, that definitely happens. Like we were with my three year old, he fantasizes and like
he talks about like us being babies and him being the dad or whatever, you know, like those
kinds of things. But like, you can, a lot of times that's just playful him, you know. knows
about dads and moms or learns about, you know, when we're talking about families and stuff
and, you know, he'll throw around all sorts of things. Like an uncle Dean is, is dad, dad's
dad, you know, stuff like that. Like he just tries to mix around all the different things.
But yeah, it's definitely an element. Right. But if he called out, like, I'm sure you've
never mentioned our great grandmother's name to him. her first name, Kay. No. Yeah, if he
started saying stuff like that. I'm sure you said the word Grammy. But if he said that,
if you were giving him a bath, and he's like, you know, I knew you when you were a baby.
And my name was Kay. And you used to step on my flowers in my backyard, and I would get
so mad. Right. That's essentially the equivalent for this case. And that would take me aback.
But. Like, it is possible that, but it would have you questioning whether or not you ever
said her name, right? And you would be pretty certain that you didn't, but there is always
a chance that you forgot that you did. Right, because it could also, the name is not only
her name. So that name could have came up at some other time, you know? Or just the. his
interpretation of that name came up. Like it could have just been me saying, okay, you know,
and like him thinking, having different thoughts in his head that connects, okay, you know,
anyway. The next possibility that falls under the normal explanations is knowledge acquired
through normal means. And that's essentially kind of what we were talking about. In Abby's
case, this scenario isn't likely but possible since she could have heard her great grandmother's
name at some point, despite her mother's certainty that she had not. But it is essentially impossible
for many other cases that are in the book. Yeah, so this is the weaker one that you were talking
about. Right, so this is just like a way to test these explanations, right? Mm-hmm. So
it could be that she had heard that name through normal means and people just forgot. Faulty
memory. Right. Well, that brings us to our next one, which is faulty memory by informants.
Abbey's mother might not, might have remembered the conversation she had with Abbey that night
incorrectly. Arguing against this is the fact that she waited to hear Abbey's response to
her question about the great grandmother's name. Her mother knew its significance. This was
not something that occurred unexpectedly while she was under duress. As is the case for witnesses
at crime scenes whose testimony we still use to convict people even if we recognize that
eyewitness reports in these circumstances can be imperfect. Her mother waited with great
anticipation to hear if Abby could give evidence that confirmed the past life claim she had
just made, increasing her chances of remembering it correctly. but it is still possible that
she remembered it incorrectly. True. Yep. So that would be a normal means. How old was Abby
at the time?
Four, she was four.
genetic memory this would fall under normal but genetic memory is not something that's
accepted in mainstream medical thought straight-up Assassin's Creed stuff right here right like
the idea that as you live your life your memories are somehow in some way laid down in your genetics
stored in such a way that accessible to the children that you pass your genes to. And maybe
Abby is just pulling some sort of genetic memory out of her DNA and not realizing it isn't her.
Or it activated some, you know. But in Abby's case, of course, she is a direct descendant
of her great grandmother. But since her great grandmother's memory of bathing her mother
came after she had produced her mother, those memories could not have already been included
in the genes. that Abby eventually inherited. True. Strike one against Abstergo.
And then we move on to paranormal explanations because reincarnation falls into the paranormal
side of things, but there's other paranormal explanations that could explain some of these
things. Okay. So one of them is like ESP, psychic abilities. Even if one does accept the possibility
of telepathy, clairvoyance, or... super-sci, the ESP explanation like many of those in the
normal group can only account for part of the case. It might explain how Abby was able to
come up with her great-grandmother's name, but it wouldn't explain why she thought that she
had been her great-grandmother. Yeah, instead of just saying the things that happened, like
saying, I see that, you know. This happened. Were you a kid and this happened? Like just
stating the memory as a fact. If it was ESP, you would expect her to not be first person
about it. You would expect her to tell her mom, you'd be like, mommy, your great grandma bathed
you and you cried. But instead, she said, I bathed you and you cried. So ESP doesn't explain
the first person-ness of the experience. For this one, yeah. Yeah. The sense of identi-
The identification that is so strong in many of these cases is more than just paranormal
knowledge, it represents a sense of having been another person. The knowledge that the children
express about previous lives comes from the vantage point of one individual, the previous
personality. The ESP explanation also does not explain the birthmark cases. When we consider
the 225 cases in reincarnation and biology, that's Ian Stevenson's book, in which the subject
of the case had a birthmark or birth defect that matched a wound on the deceased individual,
we need another separate explanation for the birthmarks if we decide that those children's
statements were due to ESP. Along with these problems is the fact that with very rare exceptions,
these children never demonstrate any other paranormal abilities. Abby certainly did not. These children
are not young mystics waiting to grow up to be professional psychics. They're children
who develop normally just like their peers. So if it was ESP, you would expect the child
to exhibit that in other cases other than just remembering a memory from a previous family
member in the first person. If it's ESP at all. It would lend more to the idea that consciousness
is an antenna, or that the brain is an antenna for consciousness. Sure. Because ESP could
be explained within that. But reincarnation already does that. Yeah, but I mean, as far
as ESP goes, I guess reincarnation allows the permittance of having ESP. Yeah. But you still
have to have some kind of structure of it. If reincarnation exists, that doesn't mean ESP
doesn't. It's just, it doesn't seem like the appropriate explanation for these cases. Okay,
yeah. Because especially if you go to ESP as the explanation for how they knew the info,
you still have to explain why they thought it was them, and if there's birthmarks in the
case, you have to have some other totally different explanation for the birthmarks. And what are
the chances that all of those line up? Like when you're reaching for different explanations,
for different pieces of a case, and all of them are their own version of unlikely, and then
you're combining them all together, you know? Like it becomes even less likely than the more
simple explanation, which is one explanation, reincarnation, which fits all those criteria.
I see. But I'm curious if there's a link of... link between people who say they're reincarnated
and cases who say later on in their life that they claim have like- That they do claim having
some sort of ESP abilities. Yeah, that would be interesting research to be done. Because
if any of these normal, quote unquote, kids that they're talking about, like they grow
up normally after these short periods when they're talking about previous lives, do they continue
to follow them? Not that it's unnecessarily, you know- ethical thing to do or right you
know my iPad here is dying. I need to plug it in. I thought you had it plugged in. I did
not Oh, your iPad. Yeah, that's the thing I'm worried about. Here, let me move this for you.
Can you reach under there? I need a regular USB port. Oh. You can use all mine.
Thanks. Got the auditory, oh, your iPad took control of my laptop. Oh, there we go.
It says not charging.
Should be charged and in. Let me see.
All right, well. I'm wondering if it's a battery mode I have it in. We're actually, you know
what? Let me just finish this piece and then we'll take our next break here. OK. OK, so
another paranormal explanation is possession. Yeah. Like what if Abby's grandma possessed
her for that? That short period. And that's how she knew the info. And that explains why
it's coming from a first person perspective. In cases with more memories and statements,
the families do not report that major changes in personality or skills occur when the statements
begin. Instead, some features of the cases, for example phobias related to the cause of
death of the previous personality, often come well before the children start talking about
a previous life.
possession isn't necessarily a good explanation. So like from the time that children is born
or able to express a phobia, they may have a weird phobia that's related to the previous
personality's death. And not till years later, when the kid starts talking about it, does
that get put in perspective as they talk about the previous life. Up until then, you're just
like, why is my kid afraid of cars? Right? Like so afraid of cars for no apparent reason. Whereas
if Abby had been possessed during that bath that she had with her mom, you would expect,
let's say Abby had a phobia going with it, you would expect that phobia to only be there during
that possession time, not the whole life up until. And so that's kind of why possession
isn't necessarily a good explanation for these cases.
Right. Where there's a DNA activation upon hearing a phrase or smelling a smell that activates
something that allows a memory to be replayed or a personality from a previous ancestor to
be replayed. In the second book, one of the cases he goes over is actually seems to be
like a weird hybrid possession reincarnation case. And it's super interesting. So maybe
we'll cover that on the next episode. So is that you want to? The last main explanation
is reincarnation. And he comments on it that one advantage of the idea of reincarnation
is that it provides an explanation for the various parts of the cases. The identification with
the previous personality is present because the children were, in fact, the previous personalities
in the prior lifetime. The memories were simply carried over by the surviving consciousness
into the new life form. The birthmarks reflect wounds that were so profound to the previous
individuals that they affected the consciousness as it went on to the next life. So the scars
were carried over into the next body. A disadvantage of this explanation though is that the term
reincarnation does not tell us everything that we would like to know. Where does the consciousness
go between lives? When does it enter the new body? What do these children have memories
of past lives when, oh, why did these children have memories of past lives when most people
don't? The cases offer some hints to these questions as we will see in the upcoming chapters, but
no definitive answers are available. And then the biggest question of them all is this, if
these children had previous lives, does that mean we all reincarnate? We can only speculate
about this one, but we'll do so later. Okay, I'm glad we'll get into it. Yeah, that's a...
Wow. That's a good way to end that. Is that the end of that chapter? He does review Abby's
case a little bit more here. But we'll take a break. We'll take a break. Take a break.
I need to figure out some sort of charging situation, or we're going to have to cut this short. So
anyway, enjoy this break with a song called Resurrection as we talk about reincarnation.
Hehehe
Be back. Be, be, boo.
resurrection That one it sounds like a Mario coin You didn't sample it No, that was just
me like juggling the beat just like triggering it to like restart Happen to sound that way.
Oh, yeah, I should Cool so we were talking about
Need a program that stream deck Oh, yeah. And do sound effects. Yeah. I know we talked about
that. We should do that. Mm-hmm. Do you use that thing? I use it. I haven't fully set it
up to use it. to its full capabilities, but I do have a few buttons on there. But now,
in one of the more recent updates, they allowed pages. So now you can have a button on there
that takes you to the next page. You can have unlimited folders of different setups. So I
can do mine, and then the podcast, and then. Cool, cool. I don't think those actually reside
on the device. I think the instruction, I think it's all run by the software. So once it's
plugged into my computer as I'm recording, You'll have to do that on yours. But you can have
pages. Yeah. Cool. Still. Sweet. Yeah. We need to get some sound effects in here. For sure.
All right, cool. So we're talking about Abby's case and the different possible explanations
for reincarnation. There's a little bit more review of the case here as he's asking some
questions. He's talking about why did Abby decide to reincarnate into her mother specifically?
So to consider why she might have been reborn to Abby's mother in particular, we should recognize
that her mother and great grandmother had a close connection. Since they had some conflict
during her mother's teen years, the great grandmother may have returned to work out their differences.
Her mother said they had already reconciled while the great grandmother was still alive,
so it seems more likely that she would have been drawn to Abby's mother because of the
positive aspects of their relationship. Abby's case sheds almost no light on how that occurred,
if it did. We do not know if her great grandmother chose to be born to Abby's mother or chose
to be born at all. Perhaps she did not make a conscious decision to return but was drawn
to Abby's mother in an emotional way. Yeah, just kind of. Analogous to a magnetic attraction.
We can only speculate. We will examine cases in which the children have described memories
of events between lives. And we can see if those cases provide any clues as to what happens
to lead an individual to return to one particular set of parents. For now, we must be content
with the awareness that cases like Abby's suggests that the relationships that we have in one
lifetime may be capable of continuing into the next, which is cool. And that makes me think
of Avatar, The Last Airbender. Yeah, yeah. Or technically Legend of Korra, or... Oh no, it
was Avatar where he went back and he was like reliving the experiences of his previous life.
Yeah. And in that vision state, his previous life was friends with his like current life's
master, his teacher. And at the end of the episode, they were like, do you really think friendships
can last more than one lifetime? I like that idea. That is a good idea. Let us look back
at Abby's case now with the entire list of explanations in mind. The most likely normal explanation
is probably that of faulty memory by the informant, in this case the mother. The other explanations
do not seem as reasonable. Though Abby's mother could have made the story up, there's no evidence
of fraud and no apparent motivation for it. Abby seems unlikely to have come up with her
great grandmother's name simply by coincidence. Even if Abby knew her great-grandmother's name
because she had heard it, this would not explain why she thought that she had been her great-grandmother
and why she could not tell her mother the name a few days later. That leaves Abby's mother
recalling their conversation incorrectly as the best explanation that uses normal processes.
Despite the fact that she was fully aware of the significance of Abby's answer before
Meaning that she focused on it, improving her chances of recalling it correctly. Part of
the attraction of this explanation is the feeling, that couldn't have happened, her mother must
be mistaken. In other words, if her mother had remembered that conversation correctly, then
we would have trouble explaining the case by normal means. This means that we need to consider
paranormal means. Among these possibilities, reincarnation is the most plausible for this
case. rather than ESP or possession. The choice seems to boil down to reincarnation or a case
in which Abby's mother embellished the story, either intentionally or the case of fraud or
accidentally in the case of faulty memory. Which one do we think is the best explanation? The
answer at this point must be that we do not yet have enough information. Yeah. And I think
that's logical in this particular case. Absolutely, yeah. Being that it's not. the craziest strong
reincarnation case. Yeah, I mean, if it lasted for like a week and they were able to ask her
a bunch of questions, or if it lasted any time longer than just one day. And a couple statements.
A couple statements. Yeah. Makes the most sense. So chapter four, we got a new case here. So
Patrick Christensen is a boy who was born by Caesarian section in Michigan in 1991. When
the nurses brought him to his mother, she immediately felt that he was connected to her first son,
who had died of cancer at the age of two in 1979, 12 years earlier. She soon noticed that
Patrick displayed three defects that matched those her other son had. when he died. Her
first son, Kevin, began to limp when he was one and a half years old. One day he fell and
broke his left leg. This led to a medical workup that included a biopsy of a nodule on his scalp
above his right ear. Doctors diagnosed him with metastatic cancer. A bone scan showed many
abnormal sites. His left eye was protruding and bruised due to a tumor. He received chemotherapy
through a central line, a large IV line in the right side of his neck. Though the site on
his neck where the chemotherapy agents were entering his body became flushed and slightly
swollen several times, he had no major problems with the treatment and was eventually discharged
home. He received outpatient treatment but returned to the hospital five months later. At that
point, he appeared blind in his left eye. He was admitted with a fever, treated with antibiotics,
and just discharged from the hospital. Is this her first son? Sorry. This is her first son,
Kevin. He died two days later, three weeks after her second birthday. Kevin's parents had separated
before his death, and his mother eventually remarried. She gave birth to a daughter and
son before Patrick was born. At birth, she had a slanting birthmark cut, oh he, sorry, at
birth he had a slanting birthmark with the appearance of a small cut on the right side of his neck,
the same location of Kevin's central line, a nodule on his scalp above his right ear as
Kevin's biopsied tumor had been, and an opacity in his left eye diagnosed as a corneal leucoma
that caused him, like Kevin, to have very little vision in that eye. When he began walking,
he limped, favoring his left leg. When Patrick was almost four and a half years old, he began
telling his mother things that she felt were related to the life of Kevin. He talked for
some time about wanting to go back to their previous home, told his mother that he had
left her there. He said that the home was Origen Brown, which was correct. He asked his mother
if she remembered him having surgery, and when she replied that, he had not. had any surgery,
he said that he had and pointed to the area above his right ear where Kevin had his nodule
biopsied. He also said that he did not remember the actual surgery because he was asleep when
it was done. At another time, Patrick saw a picture of Kevin, whose pictures were not normally
displayed in the family's home, and said that the picture was of him. After Patrick began
making these statements, his mother contacted Carol Bowman, an author who had written two
books about children who talk about previous lives, Children's Past Lives and Return from
Heaven. They talked on the phone a number of times, with Carol offering guidance on how
to deal with the past life issues that seemed to be coming up. She eventually referred the
case to us for investigation. Dr. Stevenson and I then visited the family when Patrick
was five years old. While we were there, we saw and photographed the birthmark on Patrick's
neck, a four millimeter dark slanting line on the lower part of the right side of his neck
that looked like a healed cut. The nodule on his head was very hard to see, but easy to
palpate. So we documented the small mass before we felt there. The small mass we felt there.
We could see the opacity in Patrick's left eye and obtained copies of the eye exams he had
received. We watched him walk and could easily determine that he had a slight limp, despite
having no medical condition that would explain it. We obtained Kevin's medical records and
they documented the history described earlier, including the lesions that appeared to correspond
to Patrick's subsequent birthmarks. We took Patrick to the home that Kevin had shared with
his mother. Patrick, unfortunately, did not have great enunciation and could be difficult
to understand at times, but he did not make any statements that definitely indicated that
he recognized the home. In summary, Patrick had three unusual lesions at birth that appeared
to correspond to lesions that his half-brother, Kevin, had suffered. In addition, he limped
when he began walking and also alluded to events in Kevin's life when talking to his mother.
Patrick's case is an example of the birthmark and birth defect cases that Dr. Stevenson wrote
about, in which he presents numerous cases of children who have not only reported past life
memories but also birthmarks or birth defects that appear to match wounds on the body of
the previous personality. They come from various parts of the world and they have many different
types of birthmarks and birth defects, though I will not attempt to summarize all 225 cases.
book. Some cases are especially worth highlighting. So did the author write a book about this or
did she just referred to this author? I think the mother just knew about her because she
was an author on the topic and contacted her and she contacted Ian Stevenson.
I don't know if she did write about this case or not, but yeah. So he only made those few
statements and how long did that last? Didn't say. Yeah. I mean, you could explain a little
bit of that away with the fact that she sort of seems to have known about somebody who writes
about reincarnation. So that lends to her believing in it. Sure. But the markings are obviously...
That doesn't explain... The markings are obscure... Patrick claiming to be Kevin, or seeing a picture
of Kevin and saying, that's me. Yeah, but... Or being able to describe the color of the
old home. Who told that story? Was it Patrick? Did Patrick tell that story to these researchers?
So typically how these work is, by the time the researchers arrive on the site, the child
has already been making statements. And so... When they arrive they still making statements
though. It depends on how long until they learn about the case So some of these cases they
don't learn about until years after and the kids already out of the phase And so when they
arrived they interview everyone was that the case for this one No, especially everyone who
heard the statements, but he says their normal procedure is to They will interview the subject
if the subject is available But whatever the subject says is not really what they're interested
in What they're really interested in is all the people who firsthand heard what the person
said when they said it at the time. More than one person usually is a good bet. Right. So
let's cover this video that you cued up for us. And then we can talk a little bit and we're
almost done for the day. So we're gonna have to go on to part two on. Absolutely. I've got
so many more cases in this book to cover. Perfect. And then we'll eventually read that another
book and go over that too. Mm-hmm. You got that cued? All right.
So this is a segment from a Y Files video called Proof of Reincarnation, Dorothy E.D. Ancient
Egyptian Priestess Reborn. Yeah, this is a snippet, not of her story specifically. This is one
of the smaller, the quicker stories she does within the middle of it. So here we can preface
that. During the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Japanese shot down American fighter pilot James Houston
Jr. He died in the cockpit of the plane on March 3rd, 1945. Over 50 years later, two-year-old
James Leninger started having nightmares about being a fighter pilot crashing into the ocean
and dying. When James was shown photos, he was able to name the kind of aircraft he flew.
He knew the name of the aircraft carrier he was on. He could even name other men who served
with him at two years old. And all this information was verified to be true. One of my favorite
cases of reincarnation is Ryan Hammons. When Ryan was about four years old and playing by
himself, he would pretend to direct movies. Ryan told his mother that he used to be a man
who lived in Hollywood. Ryan's parents were Christian and serious about their faith. They
didn't believe in reincarnation. But Ryan would often say, I used to be somebody else. I used
to be big, but now I'm little. I could get better when I was big and I could go wherever I wanted
to go. I hate being little. Whenever Ryan would see the Hollywood sign on television, he would
cry that was his home and he wanted to go back. Ryan would tell stories about meeting Rita
Hayworth, about vacations in Paris, and working at an agency where people would change their
names. This is not the typical banter of a four-year-old. One day Ryan's mother brought home a book about
old Hollywood and they flipped through the pictures. They came across a photo and Ryan said, That's
George. We did a picture together. Oh! That guy's me. I found me. The other man in the
picture was Marty Martin. He did know Rita Hayworth. He did vacation in Paris, and he did work at
an agency where people would change their name. Ryan was right about all of it. Ryan even knew
Marty used to dance on Broadway. How many sisters he had. How many children he had. Ryan even
said his house was on a street that had the word rock in it. Marty Martin lived on Roxbury
Drive.
Ryan got correct at four years old. In these three cases, like in almost every case, past
life memories start around age two or three and end around age five. Not so with Dorothy
Eady. As she got old. Cool. I want people to go and watch the Dorothy Eady stuff because
that's really what that episode is about. It's great. And I don't want to go on, do a whole
episode just on that, but it's a good one. It's cool. It's a really good one. And she died.
It's a she died in Egypt still living right next into Abydos in Egypt, the temple of Sedi
in Abydos. It's fascinating. Yeah. I wonder if hers is a case of like her next reincarnation
after Egypt being this one or if she had reincarnated a bunch of times. But always remembers that
as... But for some reason... Maybe that's her first. ..just like was attached to the Egypt
life. Maybe her consciousness was created then, and that was her actual first life. Yeah, maybe.
Like maybe there's some mechanism to create consciousness because you got to imagine...
Yeah. ..if not everybody is reincarnating. If reincarnation is a thing, we've got billions
of people on this planet, so like those... those spirits or souls have to come from somewhere.
Also in the second book, he talks about cross species reincarnation, kids talking about having
previous lives as animals. Or that they go to a place in between where there's animals. And
like the one you were talking about, how the animals don't bite and scratch. In heaven.
Yeah. I like the idea that animals are kicking it in heaven. I really hope I can like find
all my old dogs and cats and just kick it with them. That will be so sick. Yeah. Oh, that
would be so sick. I'm down for that. Dude, this is a simulation. That's the one I choose.
So yeah, part one of reincarnation. It's a, it's such a cool topic. It's such a cool idea.
It's a It's interesting because it's got a lot of religious backing and different religions
around the world. It makes sense. It does seem to be the most simple explanation for a lot
of these cases. If you want to try and explain all these cases by normal means, you have to...
You have to result to some pretty unlikely things happening. Yeah. Like really unlikely things
happening. A lot of dominoes need to fall in order to make it make sense. Yeah, like the
kid who, you know, that we just watched the clip of, like, there's got to be some crazy
coincidences in order, like, a string of them in order for a kid to get that many statements
correct. At two years old. At two. Yeah, that's nuts. Yeah, absolutely. That was a great episode.
It was, yeah. So, you guys can follow us on Instagram and Facebook. We post videos on YouTube
and Rumble. Every Tuesday also anywhere you get your podcasts. Yep, you can find us on
Apple overcast. We're on Spotify We're even on
You say Pandora? Yeah, yeah. No, I thought Pandora didn't have a, we're on Audible, I believe.
Oh, nice. Yeah, that's right. Anywhere you get your podcast. But also do join the conversation.
Do you know anyone who has a reincarnation story? Do you have a favorite reincarnation story?
Write us and let us know what it is so we can include it on the next episode. That would
be awesome. And if it's not on the next episode, just based on the fact that... our release
schedule. Well, the next episode we record after we receive your message. So it might be a few
episodes down the road. You can message us at host at dualitycheck.net. Remember, dualitycheck.net
is our web page. And you can go there, click episodes, and click on any episode to check
all the links and descriptions. And yeah, we will see you guys in the next life.