(ORDO NEWS) — Dr. Ian Stevenson, M.D., who died in 2007, served as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was also awarded the title of Carlson Professor of Psychiatry at that institution.
Beginning in 1961, for forty years, Dr. Stevenson studied children who spontaneously recalled past lives that could be substantiated.
He decided to study only children, because he believed that children were unlikely to fabricate memories of a past life. Jim Tucker, MD, succeeded Dr. Stevenson at the University of Virginia.
In 2018, Dr. Tucker reported that Stevenson and colleagues had collected “over 2,500” cases of childhood past life memories.
In 1,567 of these cases, a past life personality was identified during the study. In another 150 cases, the identity of the past life was determined “tentatively”.
Most Stevenson cases come from Asia, India, or other regions where the doctrine of reincarnation is accepted.
Where reincarnation is not a commonly held belief system, it is believed that parents prevent the child from displaying memories of past lives.
The childhood cases studied by Ian Stevenson have a general picture characterized by the following features:
1- As soon as the child begins to communicate, he begins to describe the past life. Often the child claims that his name is different from the name given to him by his biological parents.
The child insists that the current family is not his real family, but that his real family lives in another village or town. The child remembers the names of various family members and geographic locations from a past life.
The physical features of the house and neighborhood in a past life may be recalled. In Dr. Stevenson’s case series, the average age when a child starts talking about a past life is 3 years old, and the average age when children stop talking about a past life is 7.5 years old.
2- The child remembers the details of his death in a past life. Approximately 66 percent of Dr. Stevenson’s childhood reincarnations resulted in a violent or premature death in a previous life.
Dr. Stevenson found that people who die from traumatic injuries, such as gunshot or stab wounds, are often born in a subsequent incarnation with birthmarks or scars that reflect past life wounds.
In modern life, a child may develop a phobia associated with the cause of death in a past life. It has been estimated that among children who remember a violent death in a past life, 35 percent have a phobia related to the cause of death.
3- Based on the information provided by the child to the biological family, the family of the child from the previous incarnation is ultimately determined. When a child first meets this family, he is able to identify family members by name or kinship.
The child often knows family secrets that were known only to members of the previous family. As a result, a past life family often accepts the child as the reincarnation of their deceased relative.
The biological parents of a child in the current incarnation are often afraid that the child will leave them for the family from the previous incarnation, as the mutual bond between the child and the family from the past life becomes so strong.
This fear turns out to be unfounded, as the connection between the child and modern parents persists. However, between the child and the family from the past life, as a rule, a long-term relationship is established.
4- Character traits, personal preferences and habits often persist from one incarnation to another.
5- Gender usually stays the same. In 90 percent of the cases seen by Dr. Stevenson, the child returns assuming the same gender as in the previous life. Thus, in ten percent of cases, sex changes from one life to another.
The observation that gender changes in only 10 percent of reincarnations can bring insight into homosexuality, transsexualism, and gender identity issues.
6- Physical appearance can be the same from one life to another
The Stevenson cases show that appearance can remain the same from one incarnation to the next. In particular, two cases clearly demonstrate how facial features can remain the same from one life to another.
Ian Stevenson studied Suzanne Ghanem and Daniel Giurdi in the late 1960s when they were young children. Photos of these people from their previous incarnations were available.
Stevenson revisited Suzanne and Daniel in 1998 and found that the two individuals, now adults, had the same facial features as in past incarnations.
These cases were published in Tom Schroder’s book Old Souls. Two other reincarnation cases of Ian Stevenson for which photographs are available showing similar facial features:
7- Relationships are renewed through reincarnation.
Burmese sisters reincarnate as twins
As noted above, Stevenson’s cases that show physical resemblance involve Burmese twins who were sisters in past lives. They were part of a study involving 31 pairs of twins whose past lives were objectively verified.
In 100% of these cases, the twins had a significant past life relationship, which clearly demonstrates that souls plan lives to reunite with loved ones through reincarnation.
8- Children remember the gap between lives. In 20 percent of Stevenson’s cases, children report memories of what happened between lives in the spirit world.
It is interesting to note that the average interval between past life death and rebirth is 16 months, or about 1.5 years. The maximum interval between death and rebirth is 4.5 years.
In cases of reincarnation associated with suicide in a past life, the average interval between death and rebirth is only 3 months.
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