Many people do not believe in reincarnation. They find the idea of people moving on to a next life after they have died disconcerting and unacceptable. However, this idea has long been abound in the many ancient civilisations of the world. Whether it is true few people are able to prove, but there are many uncanny happenings which have led to people to feel that maybe reincarnation was in fact possible.

There have been many cases whereby children who are born seem to have birthmarks seemingly inherited from his or her past existence. Not only that, but they also have memories of their past life. Here are some examples of spooky coincidences of children who seem to remember their past life.

Dr. Ian Stevenson is the world’s foremost expert on reincarnation, a specialist in tracking down cases of children who seem to remember past lives. One of his most dramatic cases is that of Ravi Shankar, who was born in Kanauj in Uttar Pradesh, India, in 1951.

From his earliest years, Ravi claimed that he was really the son of a man named Jageshwar, a barber who lived in a nearby district. He also claimed that he had been murdered. He became more obsessed with his past-life revivification the older he grew. Ravi had, in fact, been born with a bizarre birthmark. It was a two-inch long serrated mark under his chin that resembled some sort of knife wound.

Ravi’s memories and obsessions were eventually traced to a murder that took place in the local region six months before his birth. On July 19, 1951, the young son of Jageshwar Prasad – a local barber – was murdered by two men, who decapitated him. The men, actually relatives, wanted to inherit the father’s estate. Even though the murderers were taken into custody, they had to be released because of a legal technicality.

When Jageshwar Prasad heard of Ravi’s claims, he decided to visit the Shankar family to check out the reports personally. The barber conversed with Ravi and Ravi gradually recognised him as his former father. Ravi even offered detailed information of his murder, information known only to Jageshwar and the police.

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Mary Lurancy Vennum, who as a thirteen-year-old in 1877 suffered some spileptic fits with strange results was one of the most startling case of reincarnation.

The first evidence of Vennum’s reincarnation emerged following a seizure that rendered her unconscious for five days. When she woke up, she told her parents that she had visited heaven and talked to a brother and sister who died. Mary Vennum had no brothers or sisters; and to her parents she seemed destined to wind up in heaven but in an asylum, particularly after she started speaking in the voices of a strange woman and man.

But Asa Roff, a friend of the family, intervened. Roff’s daughter had died sixteen years earlier during an epileptic seizure, and he knew of a doctor who could help. Dr. E.W. Stevens arrived to find Mary Vennum in a trance, taking on the character of the man and then the woman. Stevens quickly hypnotised the girl, who told him that she had been taken over by evil spirits. When the doctor suggested another spirit from beyond was needed to help her sort out the personalities, Mary herself offered a suggestion, she proposed the summoning Mary Roff, Asa Roff’s deceased daughter. The startled Asa vigorously agreed.

The next day, Mary Vennum seemed to become Mary Roff, and when Mrs. Roff and a daughter visited, she called the sister by name, though they d never met, and hugged them both and cried. She went back home with the Roffs and seemed to recognise everything and everyone in the neighbourhood, constantly recalling incidents from Mary Roff’s childhood. Questioning her at length, Stevens himself was convinced that the girl knew all about the life of Mary Roff.

After a short time, the girl told the Roff family that she could only stay a few months. Later she announced the exact day she was departing and finally said goodbye. After tat, she returned to the Vennum home, where Mr. and Mrs. Vennum were happy to find Mary Lurancy Vennum back for good – and cured of her epilepsy in the bargain.

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Indian businessman Parmandand Mohan died in Moradabad on May 9, 1943. About ten months later, a baby boy was born to college professor Bankley Lal Sharma and his wife. From the age was three, the child, Pramodh, insisted that he was Parmandand. He even described how his previous life had ended. "My tummy got wet and I died."

When his son was five, the professor took him to Moradabad, a town the child had never visited before, to see if his tales carried any fact. The boy quickly led his father and other relatives to a shop where he had been employed in his former lifetime – pointing out in detail how the carbonating machine Parmanand had operated worked. A confrontation with the late Parmanand’s wife and sons seemed even more convincing. He identified them by name, talked to them about intimate matters, and even pointed out how their home had been remodelled after his death.

The trip resulted in an explanation for one of the youngster’s first assertions concerning his former life. The description of his death was accurate. The man, suffering from an undiagnosed abdominal discomfort, was given a hot bath just before his death.

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