The nebulous and fascinating concept of continuum of life beyond death has been, by and large, ignored by the scientific community. But not all scientists are reincarnation sceptics. A small group of inquiring researchers has kept the field alive, though barely — as a few recent studies illustrate.

These researchers are adherents of a school of thought that moved the concept of ‘life beyond death’ out of the sphere of religion and culture and into science, following the seminal investigative work done by Dr Ian Stevenson, a Canadian-American psychiatrist and Founder and Director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. 

Over three decades from the mid-1960s, Dr Stevenson investigated over 2,600 cases of previous birth memories, checking their claims against fraud or alternative explanations. Incidentally, Dr Satwant Pasricha, Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, collaborated with Dr Stevenson on this work. Dr Stevenson has authored a number of books, including the two-volume Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (priced ₹32,000). Whether Dr Stevenson proved reincarnation is a matter of opinion but there is little doubt that he established a case for further research. 

The case, however, has not been followed up with the same vigour as ‘mainstream’ science but from time to time, researchers have been coming up with their own investigations into emerging cases of previous birth recalls. Many of these studies have been published as research papers in the Explorejournal, which calls itself “an interdisciplinary journal that explores the healing arts, consciousness, spirituality, eco-environmental issues and basic science as all these fields relate to health”.

A Brazilian flashback

In one such recent paper, the Brazilian authors report the case of a child named Paulo, who showed remarkable resemblance in mannerisms with his mother’s uncle, Roberto, who had been shot dead 19 years previously. The child would mystifyingly scream in fear and cry if he happened to see a gunfire scene on TV; he once even called his mother ‘Côca’, a long-forgotten nickname given to her by Roberto. 

When Paulo was six, he told his mother that when he was at work, a robber came and fired four shots at him — exactly as happened to Roberto. 

The authors report that the child made 13 spontaneous statements that had something to do with his past life; nine were accurate. Paulo also showed eight behaviours that matched the habits and interests of Roberto. 

“This case’s characteristics fit cross-cultural patterns verified among a worldwide variety of past-life claims. The score of 19 points on the strength-of-case scale measurement is higher than the mean of 10.4 in a sample of 799 cases,” the authors say in the paper, which contains a table illustrating matches between Paulo and Roberto. 

This study, as well as another in Japan, follow the approach developed by Dr Stevenson. He details birthmarks or birth defects that correspond to wounds, usually fatal, on the person whose life was remembered. He also explains childhood or infancy phobias — such as Paulo’s fear of gunshots — that correspond to experiences in previous births. A 2022 work, ‘Japanese children with past-life memories’ by researcher Masayuki Okhado, describes 17 cases, including that of Akane, born in 2006 with an oval-shaped birthmark on her forehead, “just like a bindi”, and who at three years started talking about her past life as an Indian girl who died young in a fire caused by her mother’s lover. Akane knew some Indian gods unfamiliar to most Japanese, and said the birthmark was given by a goddess just before her death, so that she wouldn’t forget her Indian life. 

Research vs ridicule

In a similar case, Takeharu, born in 2012, started saying at age three that he wanted to see Yamato, which his parents knew nothing about but later discovered to be a battleship sunk by American air forces in April 1945. Okhado notes that Takeharu had “unusual knowledge” about the battleship, which is “unlikely to be accounted for by normal means such as fraud, fantasy, and knowledge acquired through normal means”. 

There are thousands of other well-documented cases, including names such as James Leininger, Yvonne Ehrlich and Bajrang Bahadur Saxena. 

Fifty years of documentation of thousands of previous life memories is nothing to be sneezed at. Yet, well-funded, systematic research on this subject is lacking. Scientific orthodoxy dismisses reincarnation research as pseudo-science, and the researchers are ridiculed. 

When Quantum reached out to Dr Pasricha for a comment on reincarnation research, she said she did not wish to give one. But there is a case for continued research, perhaps with AI tools that can throw up more matching features. As the work of American psychiatrist and hypnotherapist Dr Brian Weiss shows, there is a role for past life memories in psychiatry.