The
first words Imad Elawar ever uttered when he was not yet two years
old were 'Jamileh' and 'Mahmoud'. In itself nothing unusual, except
that this Lebanese child later claimed that these were the names
of people he had known in a previous life. For his family this
was the start of a time of confusion, for little Imad talked constantly
about his 'previous life'.
He
mentioned names of people, spoke about possessions which had been
his, said his family name used to be 'Bouhamzy', and that he had
lived in Khriby (even before he could pronounce the name properly
he spoke of 'Thliby'), another village in Lebanon not all that
far from Kornayel, the village where he now lived.
He
regularly begged his parents to take him to visit Khriby, but
they did not respond. It was not so much that they were not open
to the possibility that Imad's claim to remember a previous life
might be genuine - after all, they were Druzes, a religious community
for whom the concept of reincarnation is an accepted part of their
religious dogma. But even then it can be rather annoying when
a child is constantly 'going on' about what he thinks is his previous
family, and even more so when the comparison between the two is
made to the present family's detriment.
For
instance, Imad was wont to rhapsodize over the beauty of a "Jamileh",
compared with whom, he implied more than once, his mother could
not compare.
You
were my neighbour
Whatever
the reason, Imad did not get the opportunity to go to Khriby but,
one day when a villager from Khriby was visiting Kornayel, the
small Imad ran up to him, grasped his knee and said, "You were
my neighbour". That is how matters stood when, in March 1964,
Professor Ian Stevenson, an American scientist, visited Kornayel.
He was looking for people who appeared to remember past lives
and here he came across a rather striking case.
Imad had never visited Khriby. There was also no contact between
Imad's present family and the 'Bouhamzys', the family Imad claimed
as his in his previous incarnation. Stevenson had the opportunity
to hear at first hand from Imad, then five and a half years old,
what he could remember and to take him to Khriby to compare the
information with the reality. Before they travelled to Khriby,
Professor Stevenson noted down 47 claims by Imad, which later
proved to be verifiable.
Of
those claims, 44 turned out to apply to the life of a certain
Ibrahim Bouhamzy, who had died of tuberculosis in 1949 at the
age of 25. Only 3 of Imad's claims could not be corroborated.
To
begin with, there was Jamileh, Imad's childhood dream, about whom
he had continued to romance for years - although, at the age of
ten, realizing that the subject of his worship had meanwhile grown
too old, he announced that Jamileh's daughter would do for him.
This Jamileh had been, it seems, Ibrahim Bouhamzy's mistress and,
according to the people in Khriby who had known her then, she
had indeed been exceptionally beautiful. Imad described accurately
some of the clothes Jamileh used to wear.
He
gave the correct names of Ibrahim's friends and family; and he
mentioned a motor-vehicle accident in which a man broke both legs
and later died - something which had indeed occurred to a cousin
of Bouhamzy's shortly before he himself died. Imad went on to
say that while he was Ibrahim, one of his friends had been the
Lebanese politician Kemal Jumblatt (the friendship had indeed
existed and when, in order to test him, he was told that Jumblatt
had died, the small boy became extremely upset. The fact that
Imad correctly stated that Ibrahim had possessed a double barrelled
shotgun and a rifle was less unusual, as weapons are common in
Lebanon. What was unusual was the fact that without ever having
set foot in the Bouhamzy house he was able to describe exactly,
where the (illegal) gun was hidden - something only Ibrahim's
mother knew.
Imad
also recalled a story, curious to say the least, that as Ibrahim,
he had once bitten a dog. As any journalist will tell you, this
is always more interesting news than when a dog bites a man. Ibrahim
had actually done that, Professor Stevenson found out from his
still living family, when his dog was losing a fight the young
man had 'intervened'. Imad recounted many more accurate instances
from Ibrahim's life: he had owned a small yellow car, a bus and
a truck, was fairly well to do, he loved hunting, near his house
there were two springs - and so on. Moreover, Professor Stevenson
soon discovered that Imad had several predelictions and character
traits in common with the deceased Ibrahim, and learned French
with marked rapidity, a language which Ibrahim had picked up when
in the French army. And, to be sure, the man from Khriby whom
the two-year-old Imad had recognized as his former neighbour had
indeed been Ibrahim's neighbour.
Recognition
Imad's
visit to Khriby, under the observant patronage of Professor Stevenson,
produced still more interesting discoveries. Imad had never been
there before and had also never met any of the Bouhamzys. Yet
this did not prevent him from recognizing various members of the
family and calling them by name. Ibrahim's mother he did not remember
(she had changed a great deal) but he did identify his sister
by her correct name (Huda). He recognized his brother Faud from
a painting, and when shown a snapshot of Ibrahim Bouhamzy and
asked who it was, he answered, "That's me". Still more amazing
is that he was able to remember exactly the last words Ibrahim
uttered on his deathbed: "Huda, call Faud". There were many more
detailed facts but this, in a nutshell, is the 'case' of Imad
Elawar.
This
is only one of the hundreds of alleged 'memories' of previous
lives which Professor Stevenson traced and investigated. Being
a cautious scientist he did not quite conclude that reincarnation
is a proven fact. He prefers to speak in terms of "cases suggestive
of reincarnation". In the course of his research he discovered
that such cases tend to occur particularly in areas where the
people are familiar with the concept of reincarnation: Asia, the
Lebanon, North-West Canada.
Some
people regard this as a weakness in his premise, for they assume
that parents familiar with the concept might tend to encourage
ordinary childhood fantasies and to blow them up out of all proportion.
Stevenson denies this. He discovered that even in communities
where reincarnation is a firmly held belief, talking about memories
from past lives is very seldom encouraged by parents - in fact
it is more often discouraged. Often the form of discouragement
used is to wash out the child's mouth with soap, which soon stops
them from bringing up the subject again.
In some areas, particularly in Asia, it is regarded as undesirable
to remember a past life. Besides this, parents are enough preoccupied
with large families and a harsh life, and do not have the time
to spare to pay much attention to the ideas of their children.
Nevertheless, familiarity with the concept of reincarnation does
see to it that specific statements from children are interpreted
in the right context, whilst in other cultures, unfamiliar with
the notion of rebirth, such stories have been ignored. As a result,
in the Christian West, reincarnation (until recently that is)
was not a subject that one spoke about. This has changed, however,
and there is much experimentation - often with the aid of drugs
and/or hypnosis (regression therapy) - to recall past lives.
The
number of spontaneously occurring cases also seems to be increasing,
Professor Stevenson says. "It remains true that in relative numbers
we have far fewer cases from the United States (apart from Alaska)
and Europe than we have from Asia. However, the number of cases
reported to me from the United States has increased markedly since
1966 and more reports have also come from Europe".
In
Stevenson's estimation, in the regions where reincarnation is
an accepted fact, about one in every thousand children spontaneously
remembers a past life. One of his informants estimated that among
the Druzes it is as much as one in five hundred. This does seem
to be a clear contradiction of the argument, frequently used to
discount the hypothesis of reincarnation, that no one ever seems
to remember a past life.
Napoleon
Stevenson's
findings also counter another frequently heard and often justified
objection: those few who claim to remember a past life are often
very unremarkable people now but always with an impressive history
as a king, a princess or a general; Napoleon, Cleopatra and Marie
Antoinette seem to be top favourites. There is no question of
this in Stevenson's 'cases' for all of them are average people
who may have risen a notch in society, or been reborn in lesser
circumstances. Here there seems to be no evidence of a commonly
felt longing to escape from harsh reality into rose-tinted dreams
of previous lives. Yet there are common features to be found among
the cases researched by Stevenson and his assistants which seem
to strengthen rather than weaken the hypothesis of reincarnation.
One
of these is that children usually begin to speak about memories
of past lives between the ages of 2 and 4 years. Stevenson: "The
child often begins talking about this previous life as soon as
he gains ability to speak, and sometimes before his capacity for
verbal expression matches his need to communicate so that he mispronounces
words that are later better understood or uses gestures to supplement
what he cannot yet say clearly with words." In these cases it
is highly unlikely that the adults' familiarity with reincarnation
would encourage the children, who are just beginning to communicate
verbally, to come forward with their own fabrications. This makes
the credibility of their claims significantly greater. Professor
Stevenson states that "In most cases the volume and clarity of
the child's statements increase until at the age of between five
and six he usually starts to forget the memories; or, if he does
not forget them, he begins to talk less about them.
Spontaneous
remarks about the previous life have usually ceased by the time
the child has reached the age of eight and often before. "Unexpected
behaviour of various kinds", Stevenson goes on to say, "nearly
always accompanies the statements the child makes about the previous
life he claims to remember, or occurs contemporaneously with them.
This behaviour is unusual for a child of the subject's family,
but concordant with what he says concerning the previous life.
"This unusual behaviour may take the form of phobias, such as
for guns or bladed weapons, or of philias, such as special interests
and appetites for particular foods, motor vehicles, books, and
other subjects, as well as attachments to certain persons. The
child often also shows 'adult' attitudes and behaves with gravity,
wisdom, and sometimes patronizing condescension towards other
children.
"In
many cases, the subject has some birthmarks or congenital deformity
that corresponds in location and appearance to a wound (usually
fatal) on the body of the related previous personality. This occurs
frequently in cases among the Tlingits of Alaska. In some cases
the subject suffers from an internal disease that corresponds
with one from which the related previous personality suffered
but of which other members of his family have been free", according
to Professor Stevenson.
During
the course of his extensive research Professor Stevenson did not
neglect to investigate the possibility of explanations other than
that of 'reincarnation'. He tried to test other hypotheses too
and thoroughly investigated the possibility of fraud, unintended
fantasizing, the resurgence of forgotten memories from the present
life, extra-sensory perceptions and even of 'possession'. "Reincarnation
should only be considered the best interpretation of any case
after the alternative interpretations have been considered and
found unsatisfactory", concluded Professor Stevenson, although
he could find no indications in most of the cases he investigated
which undermined the hypothesis of reincarnation. But neither
was there positive proof, as Professor Stevenson himself said:
"Neither any case individually nor all of them collectively offers
anything like a proof of reincarnation. My most important single
conclusion about them is of the need for further study of similar
cases."
Child
Prodigies
One
of the most frequently used arguments in favour of reincarnation
is the phenomenon of 'child prodigies': their achievements are
sometimes too great to be acceptable that they develop out of
nothing. Mozart
was an outstanding example.
Perhaps
an even more amazing story, though less well known, is that of
the 'child prodigy of Lubeck'. At 14 months old he knew all the
stories from the New Testament; at the age of 2, he knew the complete
histories of Greece and Rome, and aged 3 to 5 years he was able
to speak in French, German and Latin on geographic dissertations
in which he was interested. On his deathbed, shortly afterwards,
he had a skeleton brought to him of which he named all the bones
and then said in Latin, "Death adapts itself to all ages".
The
evening before his death he asked what time sunset would be. At
the reply "At two-thirty", he replied, "Well, then it is good".
According to his biographer, he subsequently died at exactly two-thirty
with the words, "Lord Jesus, take my soul up to thee".
The
Dutch scientist Professor van Praag, who mentions this case in
his book about reincarnation, concludes: "On reading about this
short life one gets the feeling that here is a case where information
from a previous existence was being drawn upon."
