Life Lived More Than Once?

"In Sri Lanka, a toddler one day overheard her mother mentioning the name of an obscure town (“Kataragama”) that the girl had never been to. The girl informed the mother that she drowned there when her “dumb” (mentally challenged) brother pushed her in the river.."

It was later confirmed that indeed there was a family in Kataragama  when years earlier  their daughter drowned while playing with her mentally challenged brother who pushed her into the nearby river. Other details (27 out of 30) that the girl said when she described the town and the people and specific places there panned out but that the two families never knew each other nor was there any kind of connection, such as, common friends or indirect contacts.

Worldwide, thousands of cases have been documented but they're predominantly in countries with populations that are predisposed to beliefs in "past lives", where Hinduism and Buddhism are the prevailing religions. However, it is not new in the West entirely and not limited to the fringes either.  Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were known to believe in the idea.  

Of the two, Henry Ford went on record in several interviews he did in the late 1920's; albeit more within  his pragmatic version of philosophy as opposed to the framework of religion where Hinduism and Buddhism are anchored to.  Now, I will act merely as a moderator with this musing and only   to ask questions but not provide answers on the subject; my Judeo-Christian up bringing, notwithstanding.  This is  a continuation of the last two speculative ponderings, a third of the trilogy, if you will, to follow "Life Lived Once" and "The Midnight Library". 

One more story before I get the reader to weigh in on the subject.

James Leininger was born on April 19, 1998 in Louisiana. When he was about two years old he begun to have nightmares about an airplane crash. He also developed a habit of slamming his toy airplanes nose down into the coffee table, yelling “airplane crash on fire.”  By the time he was about four, he started drawing aerial combat scenes. He later identified himself as James, a pilot out of an aircraft carrier, the USS Natoma Bay and he mentioned another name, Jack Larsen.  Intrigued, his father did some research into WWII history.  The aircraft carrier was involved in the naval assault on Iwo Jima.  Only one pilot was lost from that carrier - 21 year-old James Huston Jr.  And there was another pilot named Jack Larsen, friend of James Huston.

James Leininger is now a young adult who seems to have outgrown the nightmares and memories of ever claiming to be a WWII pilot by the time he was past six years of age.  Although, every now and then he claims to have traces of the memories come in and out.

This is one of a growing number of cases documented in the West since  such a study begun. Dr. Ian Stevenson was made Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia at a relatively young age of 38 in 1957. What started as a personal "hobby/research" in past-life claims by children, it became a huge part of his career when in 1968, Chester Carlson,  inventor of the Xerox copying process, bequeathed part of his wealth - one million dollars - to the University of Virginia to do research on claims of past lives. Why the university acquiesced to the idea was understandable; a million dollars today is not a trivial amount but it was a lot more in 1968, especially coming from such a prominent inventor.

Let's look first at the fringes that I referred to.  The Oscar-winning actress Shirley MacLaine must come to mind.  She had made some really outlandish, if not bizarre, past lives claims, according to her critics who described her as one of these trans channelers. However, her detractors do not lump her into the other fringe group of charlatans and con artists who use the idea to fleece the gullible and the credulous.  Notably, Shirley MacLaine promotes her ideas through a series of lectures but her claims are not in the same category as that of the Sri Lankan girl or James Leininger. And, there is also a common reference to children ages 3-6 with uncanny abilities to play complex classical music, or other special abilities and talents that include proficiencies in math and languages,

With Henry Ford, he was more philosophical with his belief system. In an interview on August 26, 1928, explained:

"I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was 26. I got the idea from a book by Orlando Smith. Until I discovered this theory I was unsettled and dissatisfied-without a compass, so to speak. When I discovered reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. There was time enough to plan and to create. I wouldn't give five cents for seeing all the world, because I feel there is nothing in the five continents and on the five seas that I have not somehow seen. Somewhere is a master mind sending brain wave messages to us. There is a Great Spirit. I never did anything by my own volition. I was pushed by invisible forces within and without me. We inherit a native knowledge from a previous existence. Gospel of reincarnation is essence of all knowledge. I do not know where we come from or go to but we accumulate experience. Someday it will be possible to measure the soul. We all retain memories of past lives."

Source: Detroit Times, Geo. Sylvester Viereck interview

Date: 8/26/1928

So, what is all the fascination about, and why?  First, let's get to the three major categories of belief systems.  Atheists don't believe in anything outside of the physical world.  There is no room for the Creator and there is nothing beyond death. The curtain of life closes, darkness follows, it's all over.  The agnostic simply says, "I don't know", but that position is really to keep open a plausible hedge, "just in case".  The last main category is a belief in the Creator or deity (or deities) where the difference is that the latter is not necessarily the Creator but merely part of creation; albeit endowed with hyper human qualities.  In either case, individual consciousness (or spirit, or soul) is believed to survive beyond death, rooted in faith-based belief system. Summarizing, we have the faithful, the atheist and the agnostic.

For this musing we can exclude the atheists and agnostics since there is nothing they can contribute to the topic because they have already chosen to ignore and deny the idea of consciousness past physical death. 

Among the faithful, therefore, is a fundamental question: what happens to consciousness, or spirit or soul after physical death.  Let's just use the most commonly used word -  soul.  And we can set aside the depiction of resurrection in The Book of Revelation for its complexity and deeply profound meanings.

In the Judeo-Christian belief system life after death is definitely a principal tenet of the faith, with varied interpretations on the idea of heaven and/or hell and the conditions surrounding salvation, resurrection and Judgment Day. In Islam, there are fourteen stages of life after death. It is on the 6th stage where the individual is shown the Book of Deeds - a balance sheet of good and bad acts. In the end, the individual who performed good deeds goes to paradise (heaven) and the doer of bad things is punished severely through eternal hell. 

Hinduism and Buddhism do not subscribe to the idea of heaven and hell as specific places where the soul is destined after physical death. Judgment is not concluded over one life but over a series of life and rebirth through a process called reincarnation. The soul (remember, we are using the term to mean spirit or state of consciousness) lives on to assume physical life, though not limited to human life, depending on the person's conduct of his  or her last life. 

The caste system in Hinduism is tolerated because it is part of the process; karma in both Hinduism and Buddhism is a consequence of individual deeds. In both belief systems, the process of rebirth allows for a form of atonement through the next physical life but that the final journey is the attainment of nirvana or spiritual purity. Before that, there is always the hopeful promise that an individual can do better in the next life without fearing death. Furthermore, the motivation to be good to others or perform only good deeds is to insure a better next life; consequently, there is no fear of death as well. 

In the world of the faithful, good acts are rewarded, the bad is punished. The question is: Why is in our story, after hundreds of years of opportunities to learn the difference between what is good and what is bad,  do we continue to muddle the balance sheet?

Where does this leave us? In "Life Lived Once", the individual has one chance.  There is, of course, the lingering question of, "what about the young child or the unborn who never had the chance?" In the "Midnight Library", there was a fanciful idea of choosing another life, a split from one existence for a parallel one, perhaps for one better, and then another ..? In "Life Lived More Than Once", did it allow for that little girl in Kataragama, Sri Lanka another chance, and perhaps another? Does the spirit of Henry Ford or Thomas Edison live on in one of today's innovators? 

As promised, I hope I had asked enough questions to tickle the reader's mind. This musing was not meant to favor one idea over another and clearly it is not to upset one's already established belief system. 

One's faith is personal but in the overall mystery of life, we find that there is much we do not know to attempt at finding the final and conclusive answer. But the faithful is likely to have a better chance  at finding  a portal that can lead to answers, while the atheist and the agnostic have decided not to even try.