I’m an atheist, but this is one that’s nagged at my reason – shows like Montel Williams frequently showcased stories from the parents of young children who, unprompted, talk about their past lives in eerie detail. I shrugged it off for the most part until a woman I was working with, with no gain to tell this story, told me about how her eldest son once went through a “phase” where he talked about his wife, where they lived, and what their life was like at about four when he shouldn’t have known half of what he was saying (the city he specified was a suburb of Chicago they had never heard of, and he talked about a specific breed of dog they knew the boy had never seen). Meanwhile, there are forums and all kinds of groups online to be found where people are telling their children’s stories of supposed 'past lives.’ The idea that children tend to be so young when they tell these stories makes it a difficult subject to challenge – how do you rationalize such accounts?
Posted: May 25th 2009
George Ricker www
It’s possible the people who tell and promote such stories sincerely believe they are true.
It’s possible the people who tell and promote such stories are charlatans seeking to gain attention, financial gain or some other benefit.
We know the human psyche is capable of grand delusions and that false memories are a real phenomenon. We also know that children, even very small children, sometimes lie about things.
I think there are lots of possible explanations for such stories that do not involve anything paranormal or supernatural.
I think it extremely improbable that they demonstrate the validity of reincarnation or that people have actually lived past lives and are now remembering.
Extraordinary claims do require extraordinary proof. I’ll wait for a series of peer-reviewed clinical studies by scientists from a variety of disciplines before I buy into any of it.
Posted: May 27th 2009
Eric_PK
I suggest skeptical inquirer magazine as a good resource for such topics.
Posted: May 26th 2009
SmartLX www
The problem is that you never hear the whole story.
Take the apparently quite famous case of James Leininger. The idea is that he is the reincarnation of James Huston, who was killed in an aircraft over Iwo Jima in WW2. The kid’s sudden fixation with and knowledge of WW2 aircraft seems unexplainable in the usual version of the story, but then it turns out he’d been to an air museum a few months previously. It’s also significant that the first and only counselor he went to was a past-life advocate.
There are a million and one places these “memories” can have come from, whether or not the parents know it. Of these, the memories of a dead person are not the most likely source.
Posted: May 26th 2009