Reincarnation: Have You Experienced Multiple Lifetimes?

In this article I want to talk about reincarnation.

If our soul lives on after death (which I believe it does) then how does reincarnation fit into this?

Do we get a choice? I’m not sure I’d want to be a child again and go through all of life’s challenges.

Does what we do in this life directly affect the life we can reincarnate into?

Let’s explore the answers to these questions, and more.

What do we know about reincarnation?

You may have heard the odd crazy story about a child who claims to remember a past life. I remember hearing one years ago.

The child was able to take his parents to another City and directly to another house he claimed to have lived in.

I remember thinking, it’s a nice story, but I never really gave it much thought beyond that.

However, you don’t have to look too far into this to find hundreds of similar stories.

In fact, there have been scientific studies carried out on the children making these claims, and the evidence certainly made me sit up and take notice.

The Research

Dr Ian Stevenson was psychiatrist known for his work in reincarnation studies.

More recently, Dr Jim B. Tucker, who is a child psychiatrist is also known for his work in reincarnation studies, taking over from Dr Ian Stevenson.

Both Stevenson and Tucker have published many studies of children who claim to have memories of past lives.

I recommend reading Life Before Life by Dr Jim B. Tucker. It’s truly fascinating.

I know! I make a lot of book recommendations. I am such a bookworm!

I have another one for you. Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr Brian Weiss

I was gripped with this book too, from cover to cover. It inspired me to have my own past life regression which I will share with you in another article.

Dr Ian Stevenson

Stevenson began his work on reincarnation research back in the 1950’s.

Over a forty-year period, he researched three thousand cases of children claiming to have memories of past lives.

Stevenson believed that certain illnesses, phobias and special abilities could not be explained by environmental factors alone.

His research identified the following commonalities:

1. Children between the ages of two and four are most likely to remember details of a past life
2. They continue to remember with increasing clarity until the age of five or six.
3. By the age of eight, generally the children stop reporting such memories
4. The children often show behaviour that would be unexpected of them but, consistent with the behaviour of the particular deceased person. For example, fears or interests.
5. In some cases, the children would have a birthmark, or mark of some description in the location on their body that the “previous person” suffered a fatal wound.

Stevenson also reported that many of the statements claimed by the children were proved to be true.

These statements include who the “previous person” was, how they died, where they lived, and who their relatives were.

Dr Jim B. Tucker

Tucker worked with Stevenson and took over the research upon Stevenson’s retirement.

Tucker has developed a more scientific approach to corroborating the statements made by the children claiming to remember a past life.

The below is an extract I have taken from PSI Encyclopedia

Tucker investigated the case of James Leininger, one of the most notable childhood reincarnation cases in recent times. In early childhood, James had frequent nightmares of being trapped in a burning aeroplane after being shot down near Iwo Jima. He said the plane had been based on a ship named ‘Natoma’. This correct statement (the ship was named Natoma Bay) and numerous other details he remembered were found to match the life of James Huston Jr, an American pilot killed in action in March 1945, and he was also able to recognize some of his former comrades in arms, giving their names.

After James’s parents wrote a bestselling book based on his father’s investigations, Tucker published an informal account of the case as a chapter in his 2013 book Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives, followed by a formal case report in 2016. Tucker was able to prove that James had made the statements about his past life before the previous identity of James Huston was revealed by James’s father, ruling out contamination as an explanation, through retaining a copy of video of the boy speaking made for a documentary that was never completed. Tucker also convincingly ruled out other alternative explanations such as fraud, coincidence and fantasy.

Is The Evidence Solid Enough?

This is the most solid evidence I have come across in all of my Metaphysical research.

The sheer number of these cases combined with the testing and verification to prove they are true cannot be disputed.

Critics and hard-core sceptics are suggesting these cases are staged with the children being given the information by the parents.

However, Tucker’s research has ruled out this possibility in many of the cases. I also struggle to believe this based on the volume of the cases.

The odd few across the world, yes, I can understand but, there are thousands.

Is Reincarnation Proof of An Afterlife?

I think it’s certainly proof that our soul doesn’t die when our physical body does.

If we view the afterlife as the place our soul goes in between lives, then yes, I think this is evidence of an afterlife.

Final Thoughts

What’s interesting is why most of us don’t remember our past lives, and all of the children that do, will forget by the time they are ten years old.

There must be a reason for this. It links to the concept of soul contracts which I wrote about here – What Are Soul Contracts And Do You Have One?

If we are here to learn, perhaps the best way to do that is to have no prior memory. Maybe we need to experience the pain of loss and other suffering, as well as the joy of love and life. Maybe this is a test for our soul’s evolution that couldn’t be achieved with memories of our source and past life experiences.

This would also suggest that what we do in this lifetime could have a karmic effect on what we experience in our future lifetimes.

The implications of carrying through our memories from past lives could mean we’d carry through memories of where our soul was in between our lifetimes.

Perhaps that place is our true home.