On June 6, 1926, Mr. Kekai Nandan Sahay, a lawyer in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India, had a rather odd conversation with his three-year old son, Jagdish. The boy insisted on getting an automobile (a rarity in India at the time), and when Sahay inquired as to where he should get one, the boy replied from the house of his father, Babuji, in Benares (a city more than three hundred miles from Bareilly). Because Hinduism incorporates such a strong belief in reincarnation, Sahay decided to inquire further into the matter.

After more questioning, his son revealed that his name was Jai Gopal, and he went on to describe in great detail the house in which he had lived. He also described the automobiles that Babuji owned, as well as many of Babuji's habits, and Jagdish also revealed that Babuji had two sons and a wife, all of whom had died.

Sahay then turned to other friends and lawyers to help him corroborate his son's statements. After many inquiries, Sahay discovered that his son was correct in nearly every detail (except the fact that Babuji did not own the automobiles that Jagdish remembered; they were simply rented from time to time). When introduced to people who had frequented Babuji's house, Jagdish recognized them immediately. ²

The above anecdote describes a possible case of reincarnation, or the belief that we live successive lives through the transfer of our soul upon death. The idea of reincarnation is thousands of years old, and "even in modern times, it has been estimated [that] two thirds of the world's population hold reincarnation as a fundamental belief." ³

Perhaps the world's oldest known reference to reincarnation is in the Hindu Vedas, dating from about 1000 BC. A central tenet of Hinduism is the belief in reincarnation and karma. Karma is the mental and physical deeds of a person committed throughout a lifetime. The results of these deeds embed themselves into the person's soul and follow them throughout life after life. If the person lived his life for materialistic ends, without striving for spiritual perfection, then he is committed to the wheel of rebirth. Essentially, birth is seen as an opportunity to achieve purification. Once the person achieves spiritual perfection, they are released from the cycle to merge with God.

Several other religions and cultures also the accept the idea of reincarnation, including Buddhism (in which reincarnation plays in integral part in the selection of the Dalai Lama), many African tribes, some religious sects in Brazil, and many Native American tribes.

Much of the evidence in support of reincarnation has come from people who have regressed to their past lives through hypnosis. In several cases, people have been able to give explicit details not only of their lives, but also of minute historical events and social customs. ³

One investigation into reincarnation, conducted by Helen Wambach over a period of ten years, revealed a rather interesting picture. During the 1960's, Wambach regressed 1,088 subjects to their passed lives and thoroughly documented their descriptions. Conducting a statistical analysis of these descriptions, she discovered that the number of lives per a specific time period rose and fell with the historically documented population reports of that time period. She also noted that nearly 70% of the past lives were as members of the lower class, while only 10% were as members of the upper class, and that the number of people who reported living as members of the middle class grew steadily after the 1500's time period, when, historically, the middle class was growing in size. ³

In response to the seemingly authentic descriptions of past lives revealed through hypnosis, skeptics have claimed that such phenomena is nothing more than cryptomnesia, or the idea that our minds hold memories of every experience we have ever had, and though these memories may sink into the subconscious, they are able to resurface during hypnosis, bringing with them the force of original truth and not memory.

An example of this is a case in which a young girl, under hypnosis, regressed to a past life as Dorothy, the daughter of an English inkeeper in the twelfth century. At one point in the detailed account of her life, the girl "abandoned her native Finnish language and sang a song in...Middle English." The song was identified as an old canon song, "The Cuckoo Song." Later, it was revealed that the girl had, while waiting in a library for her bus to arrive, flipped through a book which contained "The Cuckoo Song" in it's original Middle English form. ³

However, the problem with explaining away reincarnation with cryptomnesia is the fact that it does not coincide with the current scientific knowledge about the storage and recall of memory, namely what we store into long-term memory and short-term memory. ³ Is it really logical to believe that a young girl, flipping through a book in a moment of boredom, could commit an entire song in a language not her own to long-term memory without active memorization? And what are we to make of all the cases involving extremely young children who recall their past lives without the use of hypnosis, such as the case cited at the top of this page?

Another explanation of reincarnation is that the person is somehow able to learn the information about the person through ESP. However, this is extremely unlikely considering that many people who report memories of past lives have no other psychic experiences in their lifetimes, and that it is highly implausible that of all the possible information to ascertain through ESP, such detailed information would be perceived about one specific person in thousands who may have died recently.

Dr. Ian Stevenson, one of the leading authorities on reincarnation cases in the world, believes that researching the spontaneous cases of childhood memories is the best avenue of studying reincarnation. "Over the years, Stevenson has been able to identify several typical characteristics that most childhood cases share." ²

One is that the child begins to talk about his previous life between the ages of two and five, and while this may arise spontaneously, it is often triggered by an incident that is somehow related to or reminiscent of the memories. "Often the child uses adult expressions or language skills beyond his years," and in some cases, the child seems to adopt the characteristics, tendencies, preferences, and behaviors of his previous self. Whatever memories are there, however, usually being to fade by the age of six and are completely gone by age eight. ²

While Stevenson's research strongly suggests reincarnation, it is still presumptuous to claim that reincarnation has been proven. As with every other field in parapsychology, researchers are far from discovering the complete truth. The important thing, however, is that they are looking.