The Past Life Memories of James Leininger

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The Past Life Memories of James Leininger

Postby nomo » Thu Apr 26, 2007 2:55 pm

(Edit: better link, with pictures)
http://www.ntcsites.com/acadianhouse/ns ... e_24_3.htm

The Past Life Memories
of James Leininger


If he wasn’t born yet, how could a 6-year-old Lafayette
boy possibly remember a plane crash that occurred
off the Japanese coast during World War II?


By Wes Milligan

“When a child speaks of a past life memory, the effects ripple far. At the center is the child, who is directly healed and changed. The parents standing close by are rocked by the truth of the experience – a truth powerful enough to dislodge deeply entrenched beliefs. For observers removed from the actual event – even those just reading about it – reports of a child’s past life memory can jostle the soul toward new understanding. Children’s past life memories have the power to change lives.”
– Carol Bowman, author of Children’s Past Lives


Parents are usually quite concerned when their children have nightmares. The tears alone on the face of a child are enough to tug at the heart. Eventually, after the parents comfort their children and allay their fears, the children close their eyes and fall back asleep. Things return to normal, and the nightmares are forgotten.

However, when the nightmares began four years ago for 6-year-old James Leininger of Lafayette, his parents, Bruce and Andrea Leininger, were troubled. The nightmares were coming as much as four times a week, and James would violently kick and scream with his feet up in the air. It appeared as though he was fighting with something or buried in a box, trying to get out. The only way he could escape the nightmares was for his parents to shake him awake. The nightmares were out of control.

James Leininger has been fascinated with airplanes since before he was 2 years old. Above, left: James, at age 6, enjoys a moment at the controls of a plane. Above, right: James Huston Jr., whose tragic death during World War II is remembered in detail by young James Leininger, pauses for a picture sometime in 1944, the year before he was shot down.

But it was what James would utter during his thrashing nightmares that would make the hair on the back of his mom’s neck stand up.

“He would say, ‘Airplane crash on fire, little man can’t get out,’” Andrea says.

Bruce and Andrea began to rack their brains about the source of the disturbing information, which they believed was fueling these nightmares. An educated couple, Bruce and Andrea had always tried to create a “Mozart for the mind” atmosphere for their child and had strenuously kept violence away from his sight. So they began to analyze their dinner conversations, what James was watching on television, and other things that could influence him. Bruce and Andrea weren’t involved in aviation, and their 2-year-old boy couldn’t read yet. There had to be a logical explanation.

Looking for answers, Andrea began to seek help outside of their home. The nightmares weren’t going away, and the Leiningers didn’t know what they could do to stop them. The possible cures seemed few, and it even crossed Bruce’s mind that an exorcism might be necessary if the nightmares didn’t end.

Then Andrea’s mother, Barbara Scoggin, suggested an explanation that later seemed to be the right answer: James might be experiencing a past life memory.

After reading about a counselor by the name of Carol Bowman from Pennsylvania, Ms. Scoggin explained how Ms. Bowman was an expert on a child phenomenon that was similar to what James was experiencing. Ms. Bowman had also authored a book, Children’s Past Lives: How Past Life Memories Affect Your Child, after her own son had similar problems with nightmares and strange recollections.

Andrea called her immediately. Then after several discussions with Ms. Bowman, Andrea took her advice and began to talk to James about his nightmares right after they happened. As a result, Andrea says, the nightmares decreased drastically.

“When we are dreaming, our conscious minds are not filtering material as when we are in a waking state, so unconscious material, including past life memories, emerge,” Ms. Bowman explains. “It is not uncommon for young children to dream of their previous lives. We tend to notice the nightmares, because they disturb the sleep and are often dramatic, realistic stories, as in James’ case. They are often recurring, as the child relives the same dramatic events over and over. On some level, they are seeking resolution to these disturbing memories. When Andrea acknowledged what James was remembering in his dreams – his plane crashing – it helped him move through the trauma.”

But the side effect, which Ms. Bowman expected, was that James’ statements about the crashing airplane and the man who couldn’t get out became more detailed, more real to him.
Bruce and Andrea Leininger pose for a portrait with their son, James. The parents say they believe their son has been touched by the spirit of a World War II pilot
named James Huston Jr.

Now, during the day, James began to consciously mention how “his” plane took off from the water and the Japanese shot down his plane. He even began to be more specific with plane designations and the name of an aircraft carrier that was stationed near Japan during World War II. The eerie and specific details caused Bruce to take up a research quest with Andrea’s help to disprove all of James’ “facts.”

Through all of their research, spanning nearly five years with thousands of declassified documents, personal interviews and military resources, Bruce and Andrea Leininger say they are now finally sure of one thing: Their son is linked with the spirit of a World War II Navy pilot by the name of James M. Huston Jr., who died in 1945.


Peculiar ‘coincidences’
observed from the beginning


Bruce and Andrea say they began to see signs of a spirit linked with their son when James was 20 months old. While moving from Richardson, Texas, to Lafayette in February of 2000, Bruce took James to the Cavanaugh Flight Museum in Addison, Texas. Andrea says planes had always been his fixation: He spent hours playing with toy planes and he would yell when he saw a real plane in the air.

Bruce recalls his son being mesmerized with the planes at the museum; the boy kept wandering back to the World War II section of the museum. When he tried to take James away from the exhibit, after being there for nearly three hours, James put up a fuss and started to cry. To satisfy his curiosity and to calm him, Bruce bought him a Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration videotape at the museum. James played it so much that he practically wore it out.
James Leininger signed his drawings “James 3” before his father knew
about James Huston Jr.

In April of 2000, after getting settled in their new home in Lafayette, James’ nightmares began. Bruce and Andrea at first attributed their son’s nightmares to being in a new home with unfamiliar sounds. But when they didn’t stop, the parents’ interest went to a whole new level.

Meanwhile, the furniture suffered from James’ toy plane collection. James would crash his toy planes into tables and chairs, Andrea recalls with laughter as she points to the numerous nicks on the living room table. The table served as a landing strip for his planes. Crashing became such an obsession to James that whenever someone mentioned flying, James would blurt out, “Plane crash on fire,” which Andrea says unnerved her.

But still, Bruce and Andrea admitted, these actions were similar to those of any child growing up – that is, until James became really specific with details of his nightmarish crash.

From July to September of 2000, James began to tell his parents that the plane in his nightmares was shot down by the Japanese after it had taken off from a ship on the water. When James was asked if he knew who the pilot was, he simply replied “James.”

Andrea asked James what type of plane he was flying in his dreams, and he said it was a “Corsair.” Then, after repeated attempts to push for more information right after the nightmares, Bruce and Andrea got the word “Natoma.”

On a whim to try and make sense of it all, Bruce did a simple Internet search for the word Natoma. The result: there existed an aircraft carrier by the name of U.S.S. Natoma Bay, stationed in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. Bruce thought then it was just a coincidence.
James Huston Jr., a World War II fighter pilot, as he appeared on
Feb. 7, 1945, about one month
before he was killed in action.

In October of 2000, another piece of the puzzle came clear. After another nightmare, James gave his parents the name of Jack Larsen, and he said it was Larsen who flew with James.

The next month, James relinquished another piece of information, which floored his already-skeptical father. Bruce was thumbing through a book, The Battle For Iwo Jima, by Derrick Wright, which he had recently received from a history book club. While Bruce was inspecting the book, James jumped into his lap to watch cartoons. While waiting for the cartoons to come on, James looked at the book with his dad. Suddenly, James pointed to a map of Iwo Jima near Chichi Jima and said, “Daddy, that is where my plane was shot down.” Bruce says he almost keeled over.

Weeks later, after several more Internet searches, Bruce stumbled upon a website that referred to the Natoma Bay Association. He contacted a Leo Pyatt, who later said he was a radioman on an Avenger fighter plane with the VC-81 squadron.

Bruce couldn’t hold in the questions. He asked Pyatt if there were any Corsairs flown on the Natoma Bay. Pyatt said no – only Avengers and Wildcats. Bruce then asked if he had flown any missions near Iwo Jima, and Pyatt said he had been a part of 36 missions there. Finally came the real question, about the existence of Jack Larsen. Pyatt said he knew Larsen, but he never knew what happened to him.

After realizing so many details from a 2-year-old boy were somehow realistic in nature, Bruce became a man possessed, trying to disprove all of these “coincidences.” He began to track down military records from across the nation. His ultimate goal was to disprove these “coincidences” and to end the silly idea, once and for all, that a supposed spirit was affecting his son.

Consequently, he needed to find Jack Larsen.

Pieces of the puzzle
begin to come together


Bruce couldn’t find anything on a Jack Larsen – anywhere – in military records after his son mentioned the name. He searched every list he could find from the U.S. National Archives on the men who died who were stationed on the Natoma Bay and all carriers during World War II. There were several Larsens and Larsons who had died, but no Jack Larsen of the Natoma Bay. He searched for more than a year, with nothing to show for it. He almost gave up.

The problem was Bruce was looking for a dead man. After attending a Natoma Bay Association Reunion in September of 2002, Bruce found out that Jack Larsen was alive and well in Springdale, Ark.

But the reunion unearthed something far more important to his son’s puzzling nightmares. After speaking with veterans from the carrier and their families, never mentioning the motivation of his son’s unexplainable behavior, Bruce learned there were 21 men who were lost from the Natoma Bay.

James Huston Jr. was a fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Above, left: Huston poses with his Corsair plane – the same type of aircraft that James Leininger mentioned by name during his earliest nightmares. Above, right: The U.S.S. Natoma Bay is the carrier from which Huston flew for some five months before he was shot down. The carrier lost 21 men during its campaign in the Pacific.

One of those men was a Lt. James McCready Huston Jr. from the VC-81 fighter squadron, who was shot down at the age of 21 on a special strike mission against shipping in Futami Ko Harbor at Chichi Jima, according to declassified aircraft action reports. Huston had volunteered for the mission, the last mission he would have flown before returning to the United States. He was the only pilot from the Natoma Bay who was shot down at Chichi Jima.

The name stuck out even more in Bruce’s mind because the Leiningers had noticed that James had been signing his name as “James 3” on his crayon drawings of World War II planes. He was even saying he was “James 3” – months before the reunion – implying that perhaps since Huston was named after his father, James Leininger was the third.

At this point, Bruce says he became frustrated because his quest to disprove the possibility that his son was experiencing a past life was going in the wrong direction.

“All he ever draws are planes fighting, and he knows the type of planes. I mean he even draws the red sun for the Japanese,” Bruce says. “But after he drew ‘James 3’ for the first time, I asked him why he did that. James said, ‘I’m the third. I’m James 3.’ He’s been calling himself that ever since he was 3 years old. I think he is struggling with something unresolved or he just wouldn’t be still drawing those images, like a needle stuck on a record.”

Determined to fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle, Bruce visited Larsen in Arkansas in September of 2002 and asked him about Huston. Larsen said he couldn’t remember what happened to Huston, but he was sure his plane had been hit by anti-aircraft fire on March 3, 1945 – the day Huston failed to return from his mission and was then pronounced missing in action. Larsen had been Huston’s wingman during the day’s run to Chichi Jima.

However, Bruce still had hope that all of this talk about spirits was wrong. After vigorously checking into the squadron’s aircraft action records, he found out that Huston was shot down in a FM2 Wildcat fighter plane – not a Corsair – and no one at the reunion mentioned anything about Corsairs taking off from the Natoma Bay. Bruce says this apparent inaccuracy gave him hope that all of this was just a series of coincidences.

Just to make sure, Bruce tried to find members of Huston’s family. In February of 2003 he made contact with Anne Huston Barron, Huston’s sister, who now lives in Los Gatos, Calif. Through several phone conversations, the Leiningers and Ms. Barron became friends, and she agreed to send Bruce photos of her brother during his military service. The packages of photos arrived in February and March of 2003.

In one of the packages was a photo of Huston standing in front of a Corsair fighter plane – the same kind of plane James had mentioned over and over. According to Bruce, interviews with past servicemen and declassified U.S. military records, before Huston joined up with the Natoma Bay and VC-81, he was part of an elite special squadron, the VF-301 Devil’s Disciples, from January to August of 1944.

The elite squadron test-flew Corsairs for carrier use, and only 20 pilots were selected for this assignment. However, the VF-301 squadron was disbanded after eight months and Huston was then transferred to VC-81 on Oct. 8, 1944.

When he learned this, Bruce says, all of his skepticism vanished.

“I don’t have an answer for this, so I can’t explain it either,” Bruce says. “Through it all, there has to be an element of faith. There could still be the coincidence of dreaming this all up, but there are odd factors you have to calculate. Lightning can strike once, but when it strikes eight or nine times, you can’t say it’s a coincidence.”

Bruce didn’t tell Ms. Barron about his son’s supernatural story until later that fall, in October of 2003. When he finally told her about the possibility of her brother’s spirit being a part of James, she says she was stunned at first and had to let it all sink in. Then on Oct. 15, 2003, Bruce and Andrea received a letter from her, along with several of Huston’s personal effects, that not only said she felt James should have the belongings, but that she truly believed the story.

“This child couldn’t know the things he does – he just couldn’t – so I believe he is somehow a part of my brother,” Ms. Barron says. “These are the things you read about. There must be a reason for it, but I have no hint of what it could be. It’s some phenomenon that I don’t understand. It all happened nearly 60 years ago. There must be a reason.”

Despite not knowing the reason for these coincidences, Ms. Barron is convinced that James Leininger is somehow linked to her lost brother. She now calls the 6-year-old boy “James 3.” In turn, he refers to Ms. Barron, who is 86 years old, as his sister.

As Bruce would uncover more information about Huston, without telling James about any of it, the Leiningers would notice more about their son’s actions. James had three G.I. Joe dolls and named them Leon, Walter and Billie – names of three pilots who coincidently served with Huston.

According to U.S. Pacific Fleet records, Lt. Leon Stevens Conner, Ensign Walter John Devlin and Ensign Billie Rufus Peeler were among the 21 fatalities from the Natoma Bay. They were also members of the VC-81 air squadron with Huston. When asked why he named the dolls the way he did, Bruce says James answered, “Because they greeted me when I went to heaven.’”

After James said that, Bruce could only leave the room in stunned silence.

James also explained to his father how Corsairs would frequently have flat tires and would always tend to turn to the left. After checking with military historians at the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, Texas, the statement was verified.

Andrea recalls the first time she cooked meatloaf for James, who had never had the meal in his life. After Andrea told him they were having meatloaf for dinner, James said he hadn’t had meatloaf since he was on the Natoma Bay. So, Bruce and Andrea contacted several veterans from the carrier, and they learned that meatloaf was a regular meal for the crew.

The day James Huston’s
plane went down


After discovering the Corsair connection was real, there was one significant detail from James’ dreams that needed to be explained: exactly how the plane was shot down. After another wave of nightmares, Bruce and Andrea recall how James would say his plane was shot in the engine, and he would repeatedly check and make sure fire extinguishers were available and marked wherever they went.

However, none of Huston’s wingmen – Jack Larsen, Bob Greenwalt or William Mathson Jr. – from the VC-81 squadron saw his plane shot down on March 3, 1945, mostly because his plane was the last to dive in the strafing run, according to VC-81 military war diaries. Greenwalt, who also served with Huston as a Devil’s Disciple, says when the squadron realized that Huston’s plane was no longer in the air, their planes took a second run to look for debris. They found nothing. With no eyewitnesses, the Leiningers could only “believe” that Huston had been shot down near Futami Ko Harbor at Chichi Jima.

As luck would have it, in June of 2003, another veteran helped Bruce with his research. An Internet posting left by him on the Natoma Bay Association website nearly a year earlier caught the attention of a veteran by the name of Jack Durham. Durham turned out to be a member of the VC-83 torpedo-bomber medium (TBM) squad from the U.S.S. Sargent Bay that had run parallel to Huston’s squadron on the day he was shot down. According to U.S.S. Natoma Bay aircraft action reports, the VC-81 squadron covered the TBMs during the Futami Ko Harbor strike. Without a doubt, Durham says, he saw Huston’s plane shot down by anti-aircraft fire – a fact confirmed by VC-83 aircraft action reports.

Pulling up more records on the bomber squad and reading their military war diaries, Bruce then contacted other VC-83 crew members – John Richardson, Bob Skelton and Ralph Clarbour – and they all confirmed that not only had Huston’s plane been shot down, but they saw it get hit in the engine, causing an explosion in the front of the plane. It then crashed into Futami Ko Harbor, the same place James pointed to in the history book with his father in November of 2000.

Every detail of James’ dreams have been verified to the Leiningers’ satisfaction, whether through eyewitness accounts, personal interviews or military records. Bruce and Andrea say they are absolutely convinced that Huston’s spirit has touched James. They just can’t figure out why or how exactly.

“If a soul reincarnates with ‘unfinished business,’ or dies a traumatic death, these memories are more likely to carry over into another life,” says Ms. Bowman, the author and expert on such metaphysical phenomena. “In James’ case, he died a traumatic death as a young man. There was still much emotion and energy that may have propelled these memories forward. … As I see it, a part of James Huston’s consciousness survived death and is a part of James Leininger’s soul consciousness. The present incarnation is not a carbon copy of the last, but contains aspects of James Huston’s personality and experience.”

James continues to recall his past life memories, even today. But Bowman says children usually lose their abilities to remember past life memories by the age of 7. With time running out, what could be the final piece to the puzzle is the crash site itself, and if the cockpit were jammed shut, it would explain the first nightmares. But due to U.S. military regulations concerning downed aircraft in foreign waters, Bruce says diving on the site and disturbing the remains of the pilot would be prohibited.
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Postby zuestorz » Sat Apr 28, 2007 3:50 am

Doesn't this famous case represent a strong claim for reincarnation?
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Postby erosoplier » Sat Apr 28, 2007 11:07 am

That's quite a story.

Normally I'd give something like this lots of leeway.

Maybe it's the mood of the times, but today it gets my defenses up.

It sounds like something out of a Readers Digest.

It sounds like a story people who later turn out to be CIA agents might tell.

Compare it to what you know.

I just watched a short U-tubeof Bill O'Reilly and Richard Dawkins. Something like 12% of Americans don't believe in God. Something like 40% of Brits. 85% of Swedes, 50% French, 65% Japanese.

Spot the difference?

Seriously, bottom line, when Bill O'Reilly can quote 12% of Americans who don't believe in God...that means 88% do.

That, to this boy from the suburbs, is like what finding out your neighbour is a communist is to an American.

My parents, God bless them, never imposed their beliefs upon me. Or any gratuitous ones anyway. I was 14 or so before my mother disclosed her modest, yet firm, belief in God. That, my friends, is class. Class what money can't buy.

Before that she taught me how to treat people with respect, how to treat them like you would wish to be treated yourself. She taught me all sorts of things...
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Postby erosoplier » Sat Apr 28, 2007 9:33 pm

Oops, sorry guys, I drank too much and said too much last night.

I'd delete the post, but I'd rather be told by someone where I'm getting it all wrong.

Maybe I'm overly sensitive about this kind of thing. Years ago I spent some time with a group surrounding an eclectic new age guru type. It turned out I was the reincarnation of one of the apostles. I was told this by the guru himself. Can you believe my luck? I didn't believe it for much more than a minute in total, but I saw a lot of people around me believing all sorts of quite fanciful things. It's a steep and slippery slope.

Where it appears that stuff is known which can't be known through ordinary means, rarely do I see any sign that any alternative explanations other than the steriotypical "reincarnated-souls" idea have been considered by the investigator. And if they are so undiscerning in their efforts to find explanations, I question whether I should trust such an investigator to determine the veracity of the initial claims of a case to begin with.
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Postby erosoplier » Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:33 pm

I fear I may have killed this thread dead, so in the interests of helping to revive it I'll post this here:

Has anyone heard of Howard Storm and his near death experience?

The future of the world according to Howard Storm (a 5 minute video).

And his website (4 relatively short essays).

It's a very similar genre to the James Leininger story, but I actually found Storm's story more engaging. There's something a little bit fresh and shocking about the tales he tells which gives it a kind of ring of truth (except perhaps for the instant cabbage...and about a dozen other things), or at least stops me from dismissing it outright. Maybe it's just the medium - maybe I would have given the Leininger story more of a chance if I'd seen some video of him.

Found this via thetruthseeker.com
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Postby slimmouse » Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:32 pm

erosoplier wrote:I fear I may have killed this thread dead, so in the interests of helping to revive it I'll post this here:

Has anyone heard of Howard Storm and his near death experience?

The future of the world according to Howard Storm (a 5 minute video).

And his website (4 relatively short essays).

It's a very similar genre to the James Leininger story, but I actually found Storm's story more engaging. There's something a little bit fresh and shocking about the tales he tells which gives it a kind of ring of truth (except perhaps for the instant cabbage...and about a dozen other things), or at least stops me from dismissing it outright. Maybe it's just the medium - maybe I would have given the Leininger story more of a chance if I'd seen some video of him.

Found this via thetruthseeker.com


"Imagine all the people, living life in peace " - John Lennon.

I guess that's why "they" whacked him.

Whoever "they" are
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Postby marykmusic » Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:59 pm

Ersoplier, the "88% of Americans believe in God" argument isn't phasing me at all here. After all, only a tiny percentage of those folks also believe in reincarnation.

Now, how 'bout this idea: because I DON'T believe in linear time, that creates a problem with reincarnation as is commonly thought. However, I do believe, as Jane Roberts/Seth wrote, in a "soul group" of sorts, and our selves bleeding across probabilities. This explains more succinctly to me about what sort of thing is being described here.

Loved the story! --MaryK
http://www.zforcegroup.com

"You cannot wifstand my supewiew intewect." --Tweety Bird
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Postby slimmouse » Mon Apr 30, 2007 9:06 pm

marykmusic wrote:Ersoplier, the "88% of Americans believe in God" argument isn't phasing me at all here. After all, only a tiny percentage of those folks also believe in reincarnation.

Now, how 'bout this idea: because I DON'T believe in linear time, that creates a problem with reincarnation as is commonly thought. However, I do believe, as Jane Roberts/Seth wrote, in a "soul group" of sorts, and our selves bleeding across probabilities. This explains more succinctly to me about what sort of thing is being described here.

Loved the story! --MaryK



Anyone here ever remember a time when they weren't here ? :lol:

If not , why not ? ;)
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2 articles for your consideration......

Postby medicis » Mon Apr 30, 2007 11:09 pm

FINDING MY RELIGION
Psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker studies past-life memories of children


David Ian Miller, Special to SF Gate
Monday, June 12, 2006

No one knows for sure what happens to us after death. But Dr. Jim Tucker is trying to find out.

Tucker is medical director of the Child and Family Psychiatric Clinic at the University of Virginia. He also works at the university's Division of Perceptual Studies, which scientifically investigates paranormal phenomena such as near-death experiences, ghosts and reincarnation.

His book "Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives" (St. Martin's Press, 2005) tries to verify statements from children who claim to have had past-life experiences. The work continues the research of Dr. Ian Stevenson, who began studying children's apparent past-life recollections 45 years ago at the University of Virginia.

It's controversial terrain for a scientist, but Tucker takes his work quite seriously. The book has been heralded as "a first-rate piece of research" by Harvard biologist Michael Levin, and Booklist described it as "powerful grounds for credulous speculation." I spoke with him recently by phone from his office in Charlottesville, Va.

How did you get interested in this subject?
I got interested after I was remarried. I was trained at UVA in child psychiatry and wasn't feeling particularly fulfilled by that work. My wife was open to a lot of alternative things like psychic phenomena and New Age ideas, and that got me curious about them, too.
I think when I started looking at things, I became open to the possibility that we're more than just our physical bodies, that there is more to the world than just the physical universe. That's basically why I'm doing the work. Because I'm open to it, I want to see what I can learn about it.
What are some of the signs that might indicate to you that a child has had memories of a prior life?

The most obvious sign is when the child starts talking about it. The child will say, "I used to be big, and I'd do such and such thing," or sometimes they'll say, "In my last life I ..."

They actually use that language?

Occasionally, yes. Sometimes they will say something like, "Oh, the last time I had a wife," or whatever. There is one case here in Charlottesville -- the only thing the child ever said to the mom about it was -- one day they were driving down the road, and the little boy says, "In my last life I drove a big truck." Of course, that was completely unverifiable. But you know, you get statements like that, and then in the cases that are useful to investigate, you get a lot of specific details.

Many of them, three-quarters of them, will talk about the way that they died. And usually what they say will focus on things that happened near the end of the previous life -- not exclusively, but they will usually talk about people they knew at the end. So if they are describing a life as an adult, they will be much more likely to talk about a spouse or children than about parents and that sort of thing.

And you investigate whether the people these children claim to have been actually existed?

Yeah. We look at whether there are any behaviors or birthmarks that link to the "deceased" person, and if we identify a previous person whose life seems to match that description, we get the details of that life as carefully as possible to see just how well things match up.

I'm sure you encounter plenty of skeptics. How do you respond to the criticism that these memories of past lives are simply fantasies?

If it's a case where the statements aren't verified, then it may well be just fantasy -- like the boy who said, "I used to drive a big truck." If you have got one where the children have made numerous statements about another life that is quite some distance away, including proper names and everything else, and it all checks out, then unless you are going to say, "It's all one heck of a coincidence," you can't really just blame all of that on fantasy.

But how do you know that the ideas the children have about past lives weren't suggested to them by someone else? Maybe they just heard stories that they are retelling?

Those are questions that you have to look into when you're doing this research. If you have got a child who is talking about someone who died, say, in the same village, then you really have to be concerned that they learned about it through normal means. But if you've got someone talking about an ordinary person who died 150 miles away, well, that becomes much less likely that they heard about the person from someone else.

How do you find subjects to investigate?

In the American cases, the parents find us. Often they do so on the Internet. People start searching and come across Ian Stevenson and the work that's going on here at UVA, and so they e-mail us. In other countries, we have people looking for subjects, so often they will hear about a case and then alert us.

What's one of the more striking cases that you've come across?

One that stands out is a little girl in India named Kum Kum Verma -- Dr. Stevenson investigated her case. She started talking [about a past life] when she was 3 years old, which is usually the age when people begin to speak about past-life memories.

She described living in a city of a couple hundred thousand people that was 25 miles away from where she lived -- and not just the city, but the section of the city where she said she had lived, and she gave a lot of details. One of her aunts took notes on her statements before anyone tried to investigate. They include things like her son's name, the fact that he worked with a hammer, the grandson's name, the town where his father in that previous life lived, the fact that there was a pond at her house, that she kept an iron safe at her house, that she had a sword hanging near the cot where she slept and even that she had a pet snake that she fed milk to. So we are talking about ridiculously specific details.

And you were able to verify these details?

Yes. It turned out that there was someone who lived in the section of the city that she had described, somebody whose life matched all of those details. And this was a case where the families had no contact before the case was investigated, because the father was a well-to-do landowner and he apparently was not happy that the little girl was remembering the life of the blacksmith's wife.

Have you ever worked with adults who claimed past-life memories?

Once in a blue moon. Occasionally, there will be adults who contact us and say, "When I was a child, I remembered this." And usually the memories will leave by the time the child is 6 or 7, but occasionally they will persist, so we will get people who say, "Oh, I've had this memory since childhood."

Why do you think some people have these kinds of memories, and not others?

That's a very good question, and we've tried to look at it. One of our colleagues did psychological testing of some kids with these memories in Sri Lanka and Lebanon, and then we've done a small study of psychological testing with the kids here. And they seem to be normal, first of all. They tend to be quite bright. But they don't particularly seem to be suggestible or to dissociate a lot or whatever, so it doesn't seem to be a question of pathology on the child's part that causes them to have memories.

What I would like to do -- what I'm hoping to do in the future -- is also do tests of the parents, to see if there are particular parents who are more likely to have these children. But one key feature that I mention is that 70 percent of these children will report dying violently or suddenly. So that certainly seems to be a key factor.

Have you encountered cases where people seemed to reincarnate after having died peacefully of old age in their beds?

You certainly get some of those -- nothing's absolute.

After spending so much time studying this, do you now personally believe in reincarnation?

People often are unhappy with my inconclusive answer to that question.

What I say in the book is that after reviewing many of the strongest cases we have, the best explanation for them is that memories and emotions at times seem to be able to carry from one life to the next. So I think the evidence is there to support [reincarnation]. Now, if you are asking, Is it part of my personal belief system? Not particularly. I'm not a Buddhist or Hindu or anything like that. I'm open to the possibility, obviously, or I wouldn't be spending time on this research. But I'm not a zealot as far as pushing some sort of religious doctrine.

Is there anything in your own religious background that might have led you to be open to the idea of reincarnation?

Well, I grew up Southern Baptist. Reincarnation is obviously not part of that tradition, but being open to spirituality was certainly something that I grew up with.

Do you have any memories of past lives?

No, I'm afraid not. And no one in my family has ever had anything like that either.

Your book references quantum physics. How do quantum theories relate to reincarnation, do you think?

I think they relate in the sense that the physical universe is not what it seems to be, from what we can tell from quantum mechanics. And at least on a quantum level, it seems to be dependent on our observation of it. Quantum physicists talk about electrons, or events being potential, rather than actual physical entities. So that there are various potentials, basically until somebody looks, and then it sort of forces the universe to make a determination about which potential is going to be actualized.

So one take-home message from that is that consciousness is not just a by-product of a physical brain but is actually a separate entity in the universe that has a big impact on things in the universe. And there are people looking at the idea of how, in a quantum way, consciousness can affect the physical brain. If you are open to that possibility, if you are truly going to consider the fact that consciousness is that separate entity in the universe, then you have to consider the possibility that consciousness is not dependent on just being a by-product of a functioning brain. It's going to continue after the brain dies.

Is it challenging to work in an area of research that some view as more science fiction than science?

If I were looking to have some highly achievement-oriented academic success, yeah, it would be; this would not be the course that anyone would take. But you never know who is going to be open to [this material]. I've been surprised to find that some of my colleagues are just as open to it as I am.

I tend to be a fairly skeptical person. Even though I am spending a lot of time with these cases, I don't go to a case assuming that it's a case of reincarnation. It's sort of my natural default to see whether it can be explained through normal means. But to be fair and open-minded, if you look at some of the strongest cases, I think you need to be open to the possibility that there may be more going on in life than we know about.

Finding My Religion wants to hear from you. Send comments on stories and suggestions for interview subjects to miller@sfgate.com.


During his far-flung career in journalism, Bay Area writer and editor David Ian Miller has worked as a city hall reporter, personal finance writer, cable television executive and managing editor of a technology news site. His writing credits include Salon.com, Wired News and The New York Observer.


Dr. Tucker's web site:

http://www.lifebeforelife.com/

-=-------------------------------------


Article # 2

The boy who lived before

Another life ... Cameron Macaulay told stories of his other family


By YVONNE BOLOURI
September 08, 2006

LITTLE Cameron Macaulay was a typical six-year-old, always talking about his mum and family.

He liked to draw pictures of his home too — a long single-storey, white house standing in a bay.
But it sent shivers down his mum’s spine — because Cameron said it was somewhere they had never been, 160 miles away from where they lived.
And he said the mother he was talking about was his “old mum.”
Convinced he had lived a previous life Cameron worried his former family would be missing him.
The Glasgow lad said they were on the Isle Of Barra.
Mum Norma, 42, said: “Ever since Cameron could speak he’s come up with tales of a childhood on Barra.
“He spoke about his former parents, how his dad died, and his brothers and sisters.
“Eventually we just had to take him there to see what we could find.
“It was an astonishing experience.”
Cameron’s journey to find his previous life is now the subject of a spooky TV documentary.
Norma said: “His dad and I are no longer together but neither of our families have ever been to the island.
“At first we just put his stories down to a vivid imagination.” Then life took a more sinister turn as Cameron started to become distressed at being away from his Barra family.
Norma said: “It was awful and went on for years.
“When he started nursery his teacher asked to see me and told me all the things Cameron was saying about Barra. He missed his mummy and his brothers and sisters there.
“He missed playing in rockpools on the beach beside his house.
“And he complained that in our house there was only one toilet, whereas in Barra, they had three.
“He used to cry for his mummy. He said she’d be missing him and he wanted to let his family in Barra know he was all right.
“It was very distressing. He was inconsolable.”

(picture was here in original article)
Memorable view ... Isle of Barra which Cameron said was his former home
“He wouldn’t stop talking about Barra, where they went, what they did and how he watched the planes landing on the beach from his bedroom window.

“He even said his dad was called Shane Robertson, who had died because ‘he didn’t look both ways.’

“I assume he means knocked over by a car but he never says that.

“One day his nursery teacher told me a film company were looking for people who believed they had lived before.

“She suggested I contact them about Cameron. My family were horrified. There was a lot of opposition to it. I’m a single parent so it was me and Cameron’s brother Martin, who is only a year older than him, who were being badly affected by this.

“Cameron wouldn’t stop begging me to take him to Barra. It was constant.

“I contacted the film company and they followed Cameron’s journey to Barra.

“We had child psychologist Dr Jim Tucker, from Virginia, with us.

“He specialises in reincarnation and has researched other children like Cameron.

“When Cameron was told we were going to Barra he was jumping all over the place with excitement.” The family flew from Glasgow last February and landed on Cockleshell Bay an hour later.

Norma said: “He asked me if his face was shiny, because he was so happy.


(picture was here in original article)
Cameron and Norma ... he says 'if you die you come back again'
“When we got to the island and DID land on a beach, just as Cameron had described, he turned to Martin and me and said, ‘Now do you believe me?’

He got off the plane, threw his arms in the air and yelled ‘I’m back.’

“He talked about his Barra mum, telling me she had brown hair down to her waist before she’d had it cut.

“He said I’d like her and she’d like me. He was anxious for us to meet.

“He also talked about a ‘big book’ he used to read, and God and Jesus.

“We’re not a religious family but his Barra family were.”

The Macaulays booked into a hotel and began their search for clues to Cameron’s past. Norma said: “We contacted the Heritage Centre and asked if they’d heard of a Robertson family who lived in a white house overlooking a bay.

“They hadn’t. Cameron was very disappointed. We drove around the island but he didn’t see the house.


(picture here in original article)
“Then we realised that if he saw planes land on the beach from his bedroom window, we were driving the wrong way.”

Next the family received a call from their hotel to confirm that a family called Robertson once had a white house on the bay.

Norma explains: “We didn’t tell Cameron anything. We just drove towards where we were told the house was and waited to see what would happen.

“He recognised it immediately and was overjoyed.

“But as we walked to the door all the colour drained from Cameron’s face and he became very quiet.

“I think he thought it would be exactly the same as he remembered it, that his Barra mum would be waiting for him inside. He looked sad. There was no one there. The previous owner had died but a keyholder let us in.

“There were lots of nooks and crannies and Cameron knew every bit of the house — including the THREE toilets and the beach view from his bedroom window. In the garden, he took us to the ‘secret entrance’ he’d been talking about for years.”

Researchers also managed to track down one of the Robertson family who had owned the house.

Norma said: “We visited them at their new address in Stirling, but couldn’t find anything about a Shane Robertson.

“Cameron was eager to see old family photographs in case he found his dad or himself in any.

“He’d always talked about a big black car and a black and white dog.

“The car and the dog were in the photos.”

Since the family returned to their home in Clydebank, Glasgow, Cameron has been much calmer.

Norma said: “Going to Barra was the best thing we could have done.

“It’s put Cameron’s mind at ease. He no longer talks about Barra with such longing.

“Now he knows we no longer think he was making things up.

“We didn’t get all the answers we were looking for — and, apparently, past life memories fade as the person gets older.

“Cameron has never spoken about dying to me. But he told his pal not to worry about dying, because you just come back again.

“When I asked him how he ended up with me, he tells me he ‘fell through and went into my tummy.’

“And when I ask him what his name was before, he says, ‘It’s Cameron. It’s still me.’

“I don’t think we’ll ever get all the answers.”

The Boy Who Lived Before is on Five on Monday, September 18, at 9pm
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Postby erosoplier » Tue May 01, 2007 9:02 am

MaryK, I've been trying to figure out why the original article set me off talking about God. I think it's because the difference between modern mainstream Christian beliefs about the soul, and a great swath of new age beliefs about the soul, is to do mainly with quantity. Modern Christians believe we have immortal souls which are incarnated but once, and after death spend eternity with God and loved ones in heaven. Or something like that, if we are Christians. Whereas modern new age belief in reincarnation only changes the number of incarnations from one, to many, or very many. However similar the other details turn out to be, the belief in an immortal soul, explicit or implied, is the basic association I was making in my drunken stupor, I think.

Through accident, fate, or perhaps even God's design, I spent many of my teenage years hanging out with disgruntled misfits. One of them, whom I will call John the Zealot, didn't like Christians. He thought they were the worst kind of cowardly hypocrites. I was quite happy to live and let live, but John the Zealot had a bee in his bonnet, and over the years I recieved a running and detailed commentary on Christian cowardice, and Christian hypocrisy. Apart from all the usual conflicts between the Christian and the scientific worldview, what he disliked most was the presumptuousness, the excessive anthropocentricism, of Christians. And going to university to study human ecology, I soon learned his complaints weren't about flash-in-the-pan issues. Whether global warming is a hoax or not, we're still stripping the earth of its complex vegetation, creating more desert, paving more cropland, killing off more species, making more poor people grow more cash crops, spewing more kinds of newly created compounds into the environment, etc, etc, year after year.

If I had to blame one thing for all of the carnage I see around us, I'd blame people who think they're special. That, or people who don't think enough about the world around them and their place in it, which often is to say the same thing. That is, I'd blame it all on inappropriate anthropocentricism. It's all about finding our correct place in the world. It's not about ceasing to be anthropocentric, it's about being appropriately anthropocentric.

You talk about the illusion of time, Mary K, does that lead you to the conclusion that the universe is whole and unified? ie. that it is "one"? There are other strains of eastern and new age (and even Christian) thought which fit the scientific worldview better in that they posit an ultimate selflessness, which is to say, an ultimate oneness. I don't know the answers, and the biggest hint I've ever gotten was one time when I was high on drugs, and the most I could unite then was me and everything else on the planet, and the planet itself, as a part of the solar system, and the galaxy, and the universe. But that was enough to convince me that this thing we've got going on down here isn't about me, it's about...it isn't even about us, it's about all of us and the earth together.

All of us and the earth together.

And the reptiles, who think they have immortal souls.

They're with us here also.
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Postby jingofever » Tue Jun 09, 2009 11:13 pm

Father of 'Reincarnated' WWII Pilot Says Christian Faith Undeterred. An update on this kid. They have a book out, Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot. Note in the original article:

James continues to recall his past life memories, even today. But Bowman says children usually lose their abilities to remember past life memories by the age of 7.


And in the new article:

Today, eleven-year-old James doesn’t remember the dreams that he had shared as a little boy – a common occurrence, according to those who have come across cases like his.


Also note an early version of a recent slimmouse post in this thread.

via Professor Hex.
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Postby Penguin » Wed Jun 10, 2009 4:34 am

marykmusic wrote:Ersoplier, the "88% of Americans believe in God" argument isn't phasing me at all here. After all, only a tiny percentage of those folks also believe in reincarnation.

Now, how 'bout this idea: because I DON'T believe in linear time, that creates a problem with reincarnation as is commonly thought. However, I do believe, as Jane Roberts/Seth wrote, in a "soul group" of sorts, and our selves bleeding across probabilities. This explains more succinctly to me about what sort of thing is being described here.

Loved the story! --MaryK


What do I know, but I tend to lean to this option. Ive had weird dejavus when I visited places (in another country) where my uncle died as a kid. He looks just like me in the pics of him as a kid.

If information persists, experiences linger on in some kind of matrix we can tap (and I think this is true, as Ive had unfakeable - to myself - instances of getting information, regardless of time or distance, by some means like this - in dreams, and in hunches, pre-cogs) - that could also explain how some people, perhaps close to the right wavelength, might be able to unconsciously tap into these and theyd manifest as "past life" experiences. I dont believe in "reincarnation" - when I die, I dont go anywhere, I just break down and become parts of everything around me. As I live, I take in matter and energy, and shed them likewise, all the time. I am not an entity, but a porous bubble floating in the world. Perhaps...

For what its worth, again - Im no authority except to myself :)
Time doesnt seem to be linear, as far as I can tell. It just looks that way from a certain POV.

I also find it interesting that this ability is usually lost at 7 or after...
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Postby Penguin » Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:30 am

Btw, thanks for this thread..
I recall reading this ages ago, but I find this interesting...

Also, check out some stuff at Science Frontiers - (I tried search for "past life", I think other terms may bring more hits)

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf062/sf062p12.htm

Researches In Reincarnation

I. Stevenson, at the University of Virginia, has long studied claims of reincarnation. The method employed (and there are precious few alternatives) focuses on children who claim to have lived before and can provide verifiable details about their past lives. If the details check out, one can at least claim that reincarnation is a possible interpretation of the data. Usually, however, before a researcher can get to the scene of the phenomenon, the parents of the deceased have been found and the way has been left open for much exaggeration.

In his present contribution, Stevenson reports three cases in Sri Lanka where the recollections of the supposedly reincarnated children have been written down in detail and the family of the deceased has not been located. Here is one of his cases:

"The Case of Iranga. The child was born in a village of Sri Lanka near but not on the west coast, in 1981. When she was about 3 years old she spoke about a previous life at a place called Elpitiya. Among other details, Iranga mentioned that her father sold bananas, there had been two wells at her house, one well had been destroyed by rain, her mother came from a place called Matugama, she was a middle sister of her family, and the house where the family lived had red walls and a kitchen with a thatched roof. Her statements led to the identification of a family in Elpitiya, one of whose middle daughters had died, probably of a brain tumor, in 1950. Among 43 statements that Iranga made about the previous life, 38 were correct for this family, the other 5 were wrong, unverifiable, or doubtful. Iranga's village was 15 kilometers from Ilpitiya. Each family had visited the other's community, but they had had no acquantance with each other (or knowledge of each other) before the case developed."

Stevenson's conclusion was that the three children had information about deceased persons that could only have been obtained paranormally.

(Stevenson, Ian, and Samararatne, Godwin; "Three New Cases of the Reincarnation Type in Sri Lanka with Written Records Made before Verification." Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 176:741, 1988.)

Comment. Our prediction is that sciencein-general will remain unimpressed by such data.

From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989. © 1989-2000 William R. Corliss



http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf131/sf131p12.htm

Anomalous Dreams
At the 2000 annual meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, S. Krippner and L. Faith reported on their analysis of 1,666 dream reports. In this large sample, they identified 134 dreams that they deemed anomalous in one way or another. They classified these dreams as follows:

In telepathic dream reports, it is the dreamer's impression that the dream correctly identified the thoughts of someone in external reality at the time of the dream. Mutual dreams are those in which the dreamer and someone else report similar dreams on the same night. Clairvoyant dreams concern distant events about which the dreamer had no ordinary way of knowing. In precognitive dreams, information is reported about an event that had not taken place at the time of the dream. A past-life dream concerns past events in which the dreamer participated but with a different identity than characterizes his or her current life. Initiation dreams introduce the dreamer to a new worldview, or to a new mission in life. In visitation dreams, the dreamer is visited by ancestors, spirits, or deities, and is given messages or counsel by them.

Lucid, healing, and out-of-body dreams were also deemed anomalous but were not defined in the abstract. In fact, lucid dreams were the most common type of anomalous dream. Out-of-body dreams came next. Precognitive dreams were third in frequency.

(Krippner, Stanley, and Faith, Laura; "Anomalous Dreams: A Cross-Cultural Study," Society for Scientific Exploration paper, 2000.)

Comments. Lucid dreams are especially vivid and, in addition, under the direct control of the dreamer. Actually, all dreams are anomalous in the sense that it is difficult to understand how dreaming evolved. How can a series of small, random mutations introduce these often bizarre images that drift through the not-so-quiescent, sleeping brain? How could dreaming have had enough survival value to our distant ancestors to lock it permanently into the human genome?


On one trip with a friend, he first noticed my belly glowing / bursting with light and warmth, as we sat closed eyes, cross legged, facing each other, silent, then increasing in intensity and rising to the top of the head (kundalini like)...And after that, eyes open, I saw his face morph into a totally different face, totally real every time (Ive never since or before had such real hallucinations), it went thru maybe couple dozen iterations. Always the same one behind the eyes, but at times the face was riddled with scars, then smooth and a bit flabby, then skinny and bearded, and so on. I described it to him as it happened. We also had clear telepathic communication for a couple of hours after that.
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Postby Penguin » Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:36 am

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf135/sf135p14.htm

Modelling Exceptional Human Experiences (EHEs)
Just about everyone has had an EE (Exceptional Experience): a transcendental insight, an out-of-body experience (OBE), a sudden religious conversion, a near-death experience (NDE), ecstasy, or similar "peak" experiences. Scores of such highly subjective phenomena have been described and cataloged in the psychological literature. This vast body of anecdotal knowledge is still formless and deserves to be systematized and modelled in some way.

In this spirit, we reproduce below (with permission) the abstract of a long paper that presents a preliminary model of this realm of irregular, subjective, and often-vague phenomena. Hard scientists used to the quantitative definition of variables and reams of instrument readings will be entering a different world -- a qualitative world. The language and concepts are so different. But, EEs and EHEs (Exceptional Human Experiences) are so ubiquitous in human life that they should not be ignored. One supposes that they must have some meaning and evolutionary value.

The Exceptional Human Experience (EHE) process is a unique, dynamic, progressive, reiterative, evolving pattern of human consciousness development initiated by an anomalous experience and evidenced by expanding levels of reported inner and outer transpersonal awareness. This paper is based on a review of hundreds of experiencer first-person written narratives solicited by Rhea White and the EHE Network over the past decade. It presents an orthogonal expansion of our original 5-stage EHE process outline. The expanded model highlights a 5-stage x 12-classifier matrix design, including 60 unique cells into which characteristics synthesized across and detailed within, experiencer narratives can be captured and mapped. The matrix model offers both a tool for researchers, in the form of a classification grid, as well as a map of key features noted and synthesized across and within, each of the stages of the EHE process. The discussion fleshes out some of the key issues for each of the stages. In addition, the discussion speaks to the overarching processional interactions between stages with a focus toward furthering exploration, research and application.

(Brown, Suzanne V.; "The Exceptional Human Experience Process: A Preliminary Model with Exploratory Map," International Journal of Parapsychology, 11:69, 2000.)

Comment. How else can one systematize such an ephemeral, elusive, subjective body of observations?
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