Children and Past Lives.

Monday 09 Dec 2013

Following on from my last blog that looked at “Belief in Past Lives”, I would like to follow up with what is a huge part of this subject, which for the most part flies totally under the radar. This is the subject of Children and Past Lives.

One of the most compelling things about past life memories is that Children from the time they begin speaking up to the age of about  6 years, very often have quite vivid past life memories. We are told and like to think that children come to us Tabula Rasa.  That is that they come to us with a mental blank slate. But even a cursory look at the evidence for this will show that this is not true. Child prodigies alone should alert us to the fact that Tabula Rasa is very far from the truth.

There is a vast array of evidence that shows many children are remembering that they have been in another life. Many parents have heard innocent statements like “When I was with my mummy before “or, “My other family did this differently” or perhaps their children may speak knowingly of a subject or circumstance, far beyond what they should know for someone who has only started to speak. There are also cases of children being terrified in certain situations, perhaps of loud noises, or seeing an accident or perhaps a fire may trigger some old memory pattern. Any of these instances may bring about an “out of proportion” response that we initially do not understand. Sometimes it may be a nightmare that gives a clue to a past life, or perhaps it may be a perfectly normal happening that causes some odd problem for a child. Triggers can be many and varied but probably mainly relate to a traumatic past death. Profoundly pleasant memories may also be triggered but do not seem to be reported as much. Perhaps they are not noticed with the same awareness.

Professor Ian Stevenson, who had tenure at the University of Virginia, spent a lifetime studying mainly Children’s Past Lives. He has many thousands of cases in his files. He would use the scientific method to analyse his subjects and would only study uncontaminated cases that he could verify beyond a doubt. He travelled the world to do his research and is very well regarded. Interestingly, he also found that often, if children had reported being in an accident or were wounded in a previous life, they would sometimes have a mark on their skin that correlated with the accident. Much of his work and many of his cases can be found on line or you can read about them in the various good books that have appeared over the years.

Various ailments and maladies can sometimes be attributed to memories of past lives for both children and adults. For instance grinding of teeth while sleeping could be a condition that has it source in a past memory.  Many cases like this have been cured when recurring bad dreams and nightmares have been clearly seen and understood. The memories may come from this life or past lives.

Personally I have experience with a man who came for hypnosis with a sore stomach. He was in his forties and as long as he could remember had this discomfort. He had learned to live with it. He had his stomach medically examined many times only to find nothing amiss. In the hypnosis he remembered a life on an old sailing ship. His memory started in the ships swinging hammock.

It progressed quickly to an island with his ship anchored off shore. He was fighting with some natives and then he let out a scream as he remembered a spear going into his stomach. He could see himself die and see the ship anchored as he viewed two fighting zones on the island. The spear entered where his pain had been. To my knowledge he has had no trouble with pain since.

It is understandable that parents often report being startled or shocked into disbelief if their child starts speaking abnormally.  It is very easy to dismiss it, or to tell them to stop being so stupid and to generally “pull rank” so the child knows that this memory does not please us to hear. If we are uncomfortable with the reality of what is being said it will not take much for the child to dig it in when they realise that what they are saying is not acceptable.

This time of a child’s life is very formative because during these short couple of years a child is learning what their identity is to be. No doubt they are still open to the deeper unconscious and imaginative workings of their minds. But we know that their identity will solidify at around age six. All children are of course very dependent and reliant on their parents so any message to stop unacceptable talk, even if it is subtle, will no doubt close off any access to what may be there.

On the other hand if we can see our way clear to accept what is being said and work with it, as strange as it might be, we may be able to let the child finish with the memory in a sane and healthy way. The memory can be neutralised before it becomes part of the child’s make up.  There are many examples of good ways to do this. Carol Bowmans book “Children’s Past Lives” has a sub title “How Past Lives Memories Affect your Children”, and she sets out many ways to listen and respond to children. Her book created and avalanche of enquiries as did a program on this subject on the Oprah Winfrey show. Clearly many parents have experienced these strange experiences with their children and have not known what to do. These days there is easily accessible help and remedies for us to use.

Many cultures accept past lives as a belief system without any problems. It is a great puzzle to me why we in the Western World do not accept its reality. It is almost as if we would prefer to be dissociated as a culture by putting our belief into atheistic nihilism so that we do not have to come to terms with ourselves or infantilise ourselves by believing that God will take care of everything for us. Past lives belief is a good belief. It is a belief that will take us on a pathway to be wise. It will take us to a point where we can get the RIGHT VIEW of the way things are. Being able to help our children come to terms with any trouble or tensions that they are carrying from a past life is surely a good thing. It is a way to shortcut through trouble before it becomes embedded and stuck in our adult psyche’s.  

Stanza V

Intimations of Immortality

William Wordsworth 1770–1850

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:  

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!