Has Warnasiri Adikari lived more than once? Warnasiri was born in a village in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) about 30km from Colombo on 9 November 1957. At the age of four the boy began telling his father about a former life. In 1962 Francis Story, who was a lecturer on Buddhist philosophy, invited Professor Ian Stevenson, a well-known American researcher into reincarnation, to investigate.
When the boy met the two men he gave them details about his former life, including the village where he had lived -- Kimbulgoda, 10km from his house at that time. His family never went to this village, nor did they know anyone there. But the child's story reached Kimbulgoda. A Mrs Ranaweera recognised some of his memories as experiences of her son Ananda Mahipala, who had died suddenly on 26 October 1956. When Warnasiri eventually visited Kimbulgoda, he immediately located the place where he had lived, although the house had been torn down. He also picked out his former mother amongst a crowd of women, but could not identify his former sisters.
New body, old soul Reincarnation, the concept that humans are reborn again and again, is a centuries-old belief found throughout the world. The ancient Egyptians made elaborate preparations to free the soul after death and allow its rebirth. The ancienet Greeks believed in many life cycles and indigenous peoples in Africa, Australasia and the Americas have all subscribed to reincarnation in some form. The idea of continual rebirth is a central tenet of Hinduism and Buddhism.
During the 20th century the idea of reincarnation has taken hold in Western societies. A 1981 Gallup poll showed that 21% of American Protestants and 25% of Catholics believed in reincarnation. A 1979 survey in Britain found that 28% believed. Views have been influenced by the spread of Eastern religious thinking, as well as direct experiences that seem best explained by reincarnation.
Direct experiences may be either spontaneous or induced by age regression under hypnosis. The most thorough research on spontaneous memories has been conducted by Professor Stevenson at the University of Virginia -- he has more than 2000 cases on file. Typically, like Warnasiri Adikari, a young child will make statements about a previous life, many of which can be verified. The child may show behavioural characteristics of the former personality and may recognise the person's belongings. Stevenson's research even ties memories to birthmarks and birth defects associated with the past life.
Hypnotic regression has become popular since 1980 for its therapeutic purposes. Patients suffering allergies, phobias or nightmares seek cures by retracing memory to find the sources of their problems. Dr Denys Kelsey, a British psychiatrist who has worked with hypnosis since the 1950s, treated one patient wtih a phobia of flying, which was traced back to a German pilot killed in a raid over Britain. In "reliving" the incident, the patient made and immediate and permanent recovery.
A case involving both spontaneous and hypnotic memories was reported in Yesterday's Children by Jenny Cockell in 1993. The patient remembered being Mary, a young Irishwoman who died in the 1930s. She identified the village where Mary had lived and traced some of Mary's children. She got their names wrong, but Mary's eldest son was astonished when she remembered an incident about snaring a hare, which had stuck in his own memory from the age of 6.
Read the book, seen the movie One explanation offered for hypnotic memories is cryptomnesia, or hidden memory, whereby a person recalls details of a book or film without conscious awareness of it. But this cannot apply to children who remember events before they can read. Other theories attribute past-life memories to spirit possessions, multiple personality disorders caused by physical or mental trauma, ESP or a hypnotist's power of suggestion.
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