Past Memory Book Reviews

Ian Stevenson. (1975). Cases of the Reincarnation Type Volume 1: Ten Cases in India. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia. 374 pages. Prior to this, I had only read Stevenson’s Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (1966), his first book reporting on the field studies he started doing in India and elsewhere in the early 1960s. This is his first volume following-up on the topic.

The book follows the same format as Twenty Cases, presenting ten of the better and most thoroughly investigated cases Stevenson researched in India, and beginning a 4-volume series of cases in different Asian countries, plus Turkey (1975-83), before he went on publishing yet more books on the topic, including investigations in Western countries. (He indicates in this book that cases reported to him in the U.S., as well as from Europe, have increased significantly since 1966).

The 1966 classic featured a discussion and analysis of the possible explanations for these reported past life memories, with Stevenson’s observations on why he ends up favoring the reincarnation hypothesis. This book doesn’t include such a commentary; Stevenson indicates there will be one later on in the series. (However, each case study includes a discussion about the “evidence of paranormal processes” in the specific case being presented.)

There’s still an interesting, lengthy introduction where Stevenson describes his methodology and the issues specific to studying this phenomenon in India. Stevenson states that this volume (like the three volumes to come) involves cases that have been followed for a longer time (most having received several visits by the investigators over a period of 8 to 10 or more years), and that it contains more cases where the investigators reached the scene more quickly after the “main events” (such as the meeting of the two families involved in a child’s recalling events from life in a previous family).

The most significant change or addition was the more systematic inquiry brought upon the behavior of the child or subject, as it relates to the “previous life” and the behavior of the identified previous personality, including when possible direct observation of the nonverbal behavior of the children subjects (p. 6).

There’s also an interesting discussion of the data in relation to Indian ideas of reincarnation and karma. Stevenson attempts to define different concepts of karma in Indian thought, and how the data so far gathered conflicts with those ideas. “In fact we have found almost nothing whatever to support the idea of karma, and only four cases – out of hundreds now – in which the data even suggest it.” (p. 34) When going over the validity of his methods, he mentions that this undermines any charge of suspicion against his interpreters (i.e. that they would modify the testimony of the subjects or witnesses to suit their own ideas), since what they heard from the subjects often puzzled and disappointed them in terms of their personal religious or philosophical convictions (Buddhist, etc.).

A related point here, Stevenson points out, is how he has often heard Hindus being convinced of the fact that humans reincarnate in nonhuman animal bodies, yet the data found was in near complete contradiction to this idea. (This also supports the idea that the children were not just engaging in fantasies.) (p. 64)

There is also an interesting discussion of how Westerners assume Indians, such as represented in these cases, to be believers in reincarnation, and how that should somehow make these stories more suspicious than when the phenomenon appears in Western countries. Stevenson goes into some depth into explaining how the belief in reincarnation is distributed among Hindus. If we look into Indians living in villages (as opposed to cities or larger towns), there is a sharp contrast between high caste villagers, some of whom may be schooled in Hindu teaching and therefore may more likely to have such belief, vs. lower castes where a much lower incidence of belief in reincarnation is observed, and who are frequently completely unfamiliar with concepts of rebirth. Stevenson indicates how he has never come across any villager who wanted to “intrust” him on the idea of reincarnation (p. 57), and that the usual reaction to a case of “past life” memories was indifference or detachment.

I won’t go into any detail in the ten cases Stevenson presents. I found some of them stronger than others in terms of evidence, but they all presented compelling evidence of information not seemingly possible by other means. Two of the strongest and “best authenticated” cases presented are not Stevenson’s, but are much older cases of the 1920s, and Stevenson found out about them and their original investigation in 1959, and was afterwards able to add his own inquiry into them. Notwithstanding their age and their removal in time and space from Stevenson’s own research, their strength lies in how the subjects’ statements were written down before any attempt to verify them was made, and before the two families involved were introduced to each other (p. 144).

I won’t use this “review post” to analyze or qualify Stevenson’s work. The evidence he gathers for his cases is extremely solid and makes no explanation possible other than a paranormal one, IMO.

I’ll summarize just one case, the first one in the book, the case of Gopal Gupta, to provide an example. (I ranked it in the upper half of the cases presented here.) The boy Gopal was born in 1956 in Delhi. His father, a member of the merchant caste Bania, was a few years later the manager of a gas station. Just after he started to speak, at 2 and a half years old, someone asked Gopal to remove a used glass. He refused, threw a temper tantrum, and surprised the family by saying “I won’t pick it up. I am a Sharma” (a subcaste of the higher caste Brahmins). When asked to explain himself, he said he came from the city Mathura (160 kilometers south of Delhi), where he had another father, and two brothers, one of whom had shot him. He also said he had quarreled with his wife, that he owned a company related to medicines called Sukh Shancharak, that he had a large house with servants to carry away dishes and utensils. He said all of this on this same day. The parents didn’t make too much of it.

In 1964, the father went to Mathura to celebrate a festival – neither the father nor the mother had ever been to the city. Once there, he thought of trying to verify Gopal’s statements and he found the Sukh Shancharak Company, which effectively manufactured medicines. He talked to the manager, who was able to put the information he provided with a man named Mr. Shaktipal Sharma, who had worked there with his two brothers and was shot by his youngest brother in 1948.

This led to contacts between the two families, and visits in 1964 and 1965 where Gopal, now 8, gave additional information and recognized key family members (including Shaktipal’s widow and brothers), although he failed to recognize a number of other persons well known by Shaktipal. This is a rare case where the child continued recalling the memories into his later years. An associate of Stevenson’s researched the case and interviewed the witnesses in 1965. Stevenson then made about 7 investigating visits between 1969 and 1973. The Sharma family, as the name indicates, were indeed Brahmins, and the families had never met. The distance between the two cities, the fact that nobody in Gopal’s family had been to Mathura, the caste differences between the two families, are all strong evidence pointing to anomalous information being received and transmitted.

Not all, but the great majority of what Gopal stated was correct. Among the specifics that Gopta stated and was verified (beyond what I’ve already mentioned) was: his previous “personality”, Shaktipal, had quarreled with his wife before the murder (he had tried to borrow money from her to give to his younger brother), he had been shot in the chest by his younger brother who drank a lot, he lived in a very large house with servants, he had an M.A. degree (Gopal said from Agra University; Shaktipal had received a B.A. from Agra and an M.A. from Nagpur University), he had a showroom, he had many houses and one outside the town with a garden, he was fond of the piano, he kept a diary in which he also maintained accounts, and he enjoyed oranges as one of his favorite foods (a preference which the young Gopal shared).

The Shaktipal family were astounded by Gopal’s statements and recognitions, including of a photograph. The widow fainted when he described “his” (Shaktipal’s) efforts at trying to obtain financial help from her for his younger brother. Stevenson notes the family had nothing to gain to acknowledge the accuracy of Gopal’s memories, since they included information not “creditable to their family” (p. 102).

Gopal also exhibited behavior that fit the caste and personality of Shaktipal, such as the kind of food he liked to eat, wanting to dress well, and being generous (whereas members of his caste tend to be frugal).

Part of what impresses me in this case is when Stevenson relates the recognition Gopta showed of the way to get to the places where Shaktipal had lived and worked. He had been eventually taken to Mathura in early 1965 and the boy proceeded, without any guidance, in finding, and describing in detail beforehand, the way to the medicine company and to Shaktipal’s house, as well as the place where Shaktipal had been shot. In the table accompanying the case, here’s Stevenson’s description of Gopal recognizing the way to the company office: “Gopal led the way, a distance of about 1.5 kilometers, from the temple to the offices and showrooms of the Sukh Shancharak Company (both were in the same building). He was followed by his father, Jwala Prasad, and B. B. Das, who stayed behind him. Gopal’s father knew the way and tried to mislead him. Gopal walked ahead confidently and stopped at the building of the Sukh Shancharak Company.” (p. 91)

Stevenson could not verify all of this other information and get into it in this book, but the boy remembered a life as a discarnate mind, and also details of another life as an Indian boy living in London, England. He gave the names of two streets, including one obscure, that exist in London.

At this point, Stevenson had started to observe and study the presence of birthmarks connecting the memory-relating subject and the deceased personality, but says he will get into it in a later volume. He does mention that in the case of Gopta the lengthy interval between the death of Shaktipal and the birth of Gopta possibly explains, if he goes by what he usually observes in the pattern, the absence of a physical trace in the chest area.

When you read Stevenson’s books, there’s always some repetition involved, because each case description comes with a very detailed, several pages-long table that summarizes the statements and recognitions of the subject and verifications, so that part isn’t an easy read. But you always find yourself looking forward to the next case, how that one will match up or “surpass” the others, and it’s fascinating stuff. 7.5/8