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Journey 09 - Seven Psi PhenomenaWhat is the greatest scientific discovery of the 20th Century? Reincarnation! While there have been many other great discoveries in the past Century, this is the one that is most important tomankind. Read all about it at http://www.childpastlives.org/stevenson.htm -- It follows that thegreatest scientist of the 20th Century was Professor Ian Stevenson. There have always been manycultures where reincarnation was part of the tribal mythology. However, there is a great difference between believing something and knowing it.What does Psi phenomena have to do with star travel? Star travel is Psi phenomena, specificallylevitation and apports. Some scientists are skeptical about Psi unless we can produce a testabletheory of Psi. For that we must consider all Psi phenomena.Founded in 1882, the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) has found interesting evidence for seven different kinds of phenomena. Psi research has a wider boundary than the various SPRs.Many Psi researchers (Shafica Karagulla and Raymond Moody come to mind) were MDs first andgenerally published their articles in medical journals, or in books that are unknown to most of themembers of the SPRs. After we look at the reincarnation data, we can define Psi research in adifferent way. My theory of psionics may give a further twist to the definition of "Psi research,"and distinguishes it somewhat from "Psychical Research" and "Parapsychology" as they are today.And how are they today? They have no theory. To be scientific, you must have testable theories.The seven known Psi phenomena are
reincarnation, HSP, NDEs, OOBEs, psychometry,apparitions, and PK
.
1. Reincarnation
is the only Psi phenomenon we can call scientifically well established, thus proven. This means there is a reproducible phenomenon having veridical details that rule out allother alternatives. Professor Stevenson and his colleagues in the SPR have given us a wealth of reproducible and veridical studies. Investigators either study young children who spontaneouslyrecall a former lifetime, or they hypnotically regress adults to former lifetimes to produceresponsive xenoglossy. It has been more than thirty years since Professor Ian Stevenson publishedhis epochal TWENTY CASES SUGGESTIVE OF REINCARNATION (1967). This was the firstlengthy, hands-on investigation of young children who spontaneously recall a former lifetime.There had been a few prior scattered reports in PR literature of the same phenomenon, referencedin Stevenson's book. He selected twenty examples that rule out alternate interpretations of the phenomena, such as ESP-Personation.I want to go through these alternatives one by one. TWENTY CASES is a technical monograph,including all details, whether favorable or unfavorable to the reincarnation hypothesis. He did notwrite it for the general public.The study of Imad Elawar rules out normal channels of communication, since Stevenson found outabout him before the family had tried to make any verification, and before his past life memorieshad begun to fade. Imad was five in 1964, when Stevenson made his investigation, and Imad had been talking about his past life since age two. Stevenson made copious notes before he and thefamily visited Imad's former family, where Imad made spontaneous recognitions of people and pictures, also recorded by Stevenson. Imad Elawar's family was Druse, a sect of Islam believing in1
reincarnation. Imad Elawar, a five-year-old child, could remember more than seventy details abouta quite obscure man, living in another mountain village with little direct traffic to Imad's village, aman who had died nine years before Imad's birth. Both Imad's village and Ibrahim's village havegood direct connections to Beirut, but connect to one another only by a narrow, winding forty-milemountain road. It is impossible for a two year old child to find out anything on his own about an obscure individualin a distant village who died nine years before his own birth. Were his parents coaching him? Not by Imad's family. The Druse believe that one incarnation follows immediately after another,without time in between, and Imad's family were also under the mistaken belief that he wasclaiming to be Said Bouhamzy. I have never read about a spontaneous past-life recall where the former personality was wellknown, much less famous, contrary to the lies of the Psi-cops. Certainly there was nothing aboutIbrahim's life or death on the radio or in the newspapers. If there had been any news, it was "news"nine years before Imad's birth. The only contact Imad had with a person from Ibrahim's village turns out to be a strong point of confirmation. When Imad was about two, he was out on the street with his grandmother whenSalim el Aschkar of Ibrahim's village came along. Imad ran up to him and threw his arms aroundSalim. "Do you know me?" asked Salim. "Yes, you were my neighbor." Salim had lived close toIbrahim Bouhamzy's place, but had since moved away.Imad had never mentioned the first name of the previous personality (Ibrahim), only the last name(Bouhamzy) as well as a member of the family named Said. Therefore, Imad's family mistakenlythought he was claiming to be Said Bouhamzy. If they were coaching, they were coaching for thewrong person. As a general comment about all twenty investigations, coaching does not explain the identity of personality and character traits, much less the persistence of physical traits or reincarnation birthmarks from one life to the next. Past life memories of the present personality often cause problems in the village, or were unsavoryand nothing to brag about. (1) Wijeratne recalled being an executed murderer in the same village,named Ratran Hami. (2) Jasbir refused to eat the cooking of his mother because she was not of theBrahmin caste. Fortunately a neighbor Brahmin woman cooked for him. (3) Ravi Shankar had histhroat slit in his former lifetime as Munna, and named his murderers, who still lived in the village.There was even a trial, but the court decided past life memories were not legally admissibleevidence. Ravi had a reincarnation birthmark. Ian Stevenson examined it. It looked like the scar left from having his throat slit.Past life memories bring nothing but trouble. The children were told to keep quiet about their pastlife memories, and even beaten, though all of Stevenson's twenty children come from cultureswhere belief in reincarnation is universal. When reincarnation was back into the same family, or into the same small village, family and neighbors always noticed the identity of personality. Even if one had a book listing every fact about the former person, there is no way personality could be the2
same. Complex interactive skills rule out cryptomnesia, itself an obscure and rare phenomenon.Cryptomnesia, a favorite theory of the debunkers, is like a recording of a forgotten incident. Italways plays back the same. Only the combination of ESP plus personation has some hope of providing an alternative toreincarnation. Mediums can produce ESP plus personation, at least in trance states. These childrenare not in a trance state. Nothing but reincarnation can account for the physical marks related to the previous lifetime that Professor Stevenson called "reincarnation birthmarks."William George, Jr. had several. William George, Sr. had injured his right ankle severely as a youth,and walked with a slight limp. So did William George, Jr. The dying William George, Sr. had toldhis daughter-in-law that he would be reborn to her, and she would recognize him by two prominentmoles. William George, Jr. had the moles, in the same locations, about half size. Charles Porter had been killed in a spear fight in his former lifetime, and had a birthmark in theshape of a spear wound on his right flank. Stevenson observed the birthmarks of both CharlesPorter and William George.Reincarnation birthmarks not only rule out all alternatives to reincarnation for these cases; they alsoimply that the mind forms the body, rather than vice versa. Young children who spontaneouslyrecall former lifetimes may be rare, but I have encountered two myself and I wasn't looking for them. What is rare is for Psi investigators to hear about such children, especially when the child isstill young and still able to recall the past life. These memories usually fade between ages sevenand twelve. Hypnotic regression is the other route to reincarnation evidence. One of the most famous booksabout past life regression is The Search for Bridey Murphy, by Morey Bernstein, published in 1957.This book became an international best seller. Debunkers attributed it all to cryptomnesia, on thegrounds that a Bridget Kathleen Murphy lived on the same block when the present personality wasa small child. The families were not acquainted, and there is no evidence they ever met.Cryptomnesia cannot account for the veridical details (names of merchants, streets, buildings) thatBridey knew about mid 19th century Cork because these had never been published and wereunknown even to scholars until after the publication of The Search for Bridey Murphy. After that book became an international bestseller, old diaries and letters were brought out to verify thosedetails. So be sure to look up the second or later edition of this book. Nor can cryptomnesia account for the interactive abilities of Bridey Murphy. Bridey could danceIrish Jigs and speak in the lilt and slang of mid-19th Century Irish county Cork, and much of thisslang and many of these jigs had never been published and had been forgotten, like much of theephemeral popular culture of any age. Stevenson has published many studies of "responsive xenoglossy." This refers to the ability of ahypnotically regressed individual to carry on a conversation in a language unknown to the present personality. My friend and mentor, Bill Coates, collaborated with Stevenson in the investigation of a woman who spoke Old Norse under hypnosis. Bill (now deceased) was one of the few linguistswho specialized in dead European languages.3
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