Evidence of reincarnation

While the earliest people had long believed in reincarnation (which is the belief that even if our physical bodies die, our souls do not), many still doubt this ancient doctrine and continue to demand evidence of reincarnation. Questions like “is there really life after death?”, “have we lived in the past?”, and “do humans really have souls?” often come up when the subject of reincarnation is debated and discussed. Old civilizations such as the Egyptians and established religions such as Hinduism fully embraced and even founded many of their principles and values on the concept of reincarnation, but our modern and high-technology era will only accept something as a fact if there is empirical proof and hard evidence. It is no wonder then that even if ancient people believed in rebirth and past lives, many people living in the present consider reincarnation as only a myth, a superstition, or worse, a conspiracy.

Legitimate evidence of reincarnation is difficult to produce, but it does exist. Aside from proof provided by new age thinkers, religious fanatics, and urban legend buffs, some more reliable evidence come from the research and studies conducted by the academic and scientific community. Most notable of them is Dr. Ian Stevenson, who devoted over 40 years of his life to the correct scientific documentation of reincarnation and who published hundreds of well-researched articles and countless informative books on past life recall and related topics.

One such scientific evidence of reincarnation is irrational phobias. While it is common for people to be afraid of something, may it be heights, spiders, or the water, some unexplainable phobias can be due to a certain traumatic event that the person experienced in a past life. Take for instance this story shared by author Dick Stuphen, wherein he recounts the story of a wife who was irrationally afraid of being abandoned by her husband. Using a technique called hypnotic regression, the woman found out that she was married to the same man in a past life, but he had left her to go to war and never came back home to her.

Another evidence of reincarnation is physical features, birth marks, or birth defects. Disbelievers say that people’s physical appearances are purely dictated by genes, but research on reincarnation have shown that unusual physical features or marks correspond to wounds or injuries that they had gotten in a former lifetime. One of Dr. Stevenson’s studies showcased pictures of people with unusual physical marks, such as that of a man with an elongated scar on his scalp who turned out to have died by being hit by a knife on the head in a previous life.

Last and probably the most highly contested evidence of reincarnation is the recollection of children and adults of their past lives. Most people need to be hypnotized before they can recall any details of their past lives, but some people, especially children, remember their former lives without any stimulus or catalyst. Many of these cases have seized the interest of scientists, advocates, and skeptics alike.