I stumbled upon this
interesting article on a leading daily here in the Philippines so I thought I might as
well blog it since it kind of challenges
the credence of science or shall I say blurs the usually bold line
between science and pseudoscience. Hashtag #truth_is_stranger
_than_fiction.
WHAT IS SOUL MEMORY?
By: Jaime Licauco
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Have you ever noticed the instant attraction and rapport you feel with people you meet for the first time? How about the instant repulsion between you and someone you just met?
This is due to soul memory of past life encounters with that person, which your mind cannot understand but which your soul never forgets. The soul retains the memory of every significant event that happened to it in previous lives.
Reincarnation
Although Christianity rejects the concept of reincarnation, that a person can have multiple rebirths on the earth plane, it is an accepted fact by such older religions as Hinduism and Buddhism. In fact, the very core of their belief revolves around reincarnation and its companion concept of karma.
The idea that people have lived previous lives is rejected by many in this country not only because of the Christian religion but also because of the seemingly strong argument that no one has ever recalled his past lives and verified them.
This is not true at all. There are fully documented and verified recollections of past life by people of varied social, economic and academic backgrounds.
The late Dr. Ian Stevenson, head of the Psychiatry Department at the University of Virginia, investigated and documented at least 2,000 cases of spontaneous recall of past lives by children ages 3-12. He systematically followed each child’s soul memory through several lifetimes and verified them.
If a child says he/she was named such and such, lived and died in a particular country, Dr. Stevenson would trace that child’s life in that country and often he would find them to be true and accurate, although the child had never set foot in that country in this present life.
Dr. Stevenson chose to study children who have had spontaneous recall of their past lives, rather than adults, because he said children are more truthful about what they have seen and felt and they have not traveled much and read so many books to be influenced by them. Of course, this was at a time the Internet was not yet pervasive.
Shanti Devi
One of the most extraordinary cases Dr. Ian Stevenson investigated and documented was that of an Indian child, Shanti Devi.
When she was only 5, she told her mother that her name was not Shanti Devi but Lugdi Devi and that she died giving birth to her second child. Her mother dismissed Shanti’s story as a product of a child’s imagination.
When she was 9, Shanti insisted on going back to Mathura, the village where she had lived as Lugdi Devi. It was more than 50 miles away from where she lived in her present life.
One day, a man from the village where Lugdi Devi lived came to the town of Shanti and met her mother. When her mother inquired if there was indeed a lady named Lugdi Devi who lived in that town and who died giving birth to a child, the man said “yes” and that he knew the family very well.
It was at this point that Dr. Stevenson was informed about this case and decided to verify the child’s story by accompanying her to Mathura.
To cut the story short, every detail of what Shanti Devi had told her was confirmed to be true, including such intimate details as how her husband made love to Lugdi Devi.
Rev. Emery
Another documented story is the case of a Protestant minister, Rev. Emery, who did not believe in reincarnation, being a Christian pastor. Rev. Emery was with friends touring the ancient sites in Egypt.
While the group was climbing the Great Pyramid at Giza, Rev. Emery stopped at the middle; he was perspiring profusely and had a terrified look.
Unknown to the group, what Rev. Emery was seeing was himself, as one of the slaves building the pyramid. At the exact spot where he stood, he saw a stone they were pulling up turn loose, landing on him and killing him on the spot.
The fact that he was at the very spot where he died in a previous life brought back the soul memory of his past life as a slave in ancient Egypt.
From that point on, Rev. Emery recalled every place they went to and would even tell his companions what they would find or see, and he was never wrong. From that time on, Rev. Emery, a Christian minister, changed his view about reincarnation and became a firm believer.
