Evidence and Principles of Reincarnation, by Walter Semkiw, MD
Dr. Ian Stevenson, MD, who died in 2007, served as Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, School of Medicine. Starting in 1961, for over forty years, Dr. Stevenson investigated children who spontaneously remembered past lives that could be factually validated. In total, Dr. Stevenson studied almost 2500 children who reported past life memories. In approximately 1500 of these cases, Dr. Stevenson was able to objectively validate the child’s past life memories.
The childhood past life memory cases studied by Ian Stevenson have a common pattern, marked by the following features:
1. As soon as the child can communicate, the child starts to describe a previous lifetime. Often, the child declares that his or her name is different from the name given to the child by its biologic parents. The child insists that the current family is not its true family, but that his or her real family lives in a different village or town. The child remembers the names of various family members and geographic locations from the past lifetime.
2. The child remembers details of its death in the prior lifetime. In 66 percent of Dr. Stevenson’s childhood reincarnation cases, a violent or premature death occurred in the previous lifetime. Dr. Stevenson has found that individuals who died of traumatic wounds, such as bullet or knife wounds, often are born in a subsequent incarnation with birthmarks or scars that mirror the wounds incurred in the past lifetime. In the contemporary lifetime, the child may have a phobia related to the cause of death in the past life.
3. Based on information provided by the child to the biologic family, the child’s family from the prior incarnation is eventually identified. When the child meets this family for the first time, the child is able to identify family members by name or by relationship. The child often knows secrets that only members of the prior family would know. As a result, the family from the past lifetime often accepts the child as the reincarnation of their deceased relative.
4. Personality traits, personal preferences and habits often persist from one incarnation to another.
5. Gender usually stays the same. In 90 percent of Dr. Stevenson’s cases, the child returns assuming the same sex as in the past lifetime. Thus, in ten percent of cases, gender is reversed from one lifetime to another. When gender change does occur, cases have been documented in which homosexuality or gender identity issues are observed. In other words, the reincarnated person still maintains the mindset of its gender in the prior lifetime.
6. Physical appearance can be similar from one lifetime to another. Stevenson cases show that physical appearance can remain the same from one incarnation to another. In his book, Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect, Dr. Stevenson advised that researchers systematically study “facial resemblances between subjects and previous personalities.”
7. Relationships are Renewed through Reincarnation
Stevenson published a study involving 31 sets of twins, whose past lives were objectively validated. In 100% of these cases, the twins had significant past life relationships, most often as siblings, concretely demonstrating that souls plan lifetimes to be reunited with loved ones through reincarnation.
8. Children remember the interval in-between lifetimes. In 20 percent of Stevenson’s cases, children reported memories of what happened in the spirit realm in-between lifetimes. These reports are found on http://www.ReincarnationResearch.com under the category:
Spirit Beings in Reincarnation Cases
Of interest, the median interval between the past life death and rebirth is 16 months or about 1.5 years. The average interval between death and rebirth is 4.5 years. For reincarnation cases involving suicide in the prior lifetime, the median interval between death and rebirth is only 3 months.
From the Ian Stevenson’s series of cases, as well as other independently researched reincarnation cases, Principles of Reincarnation can be derived. These principles include:

• Physical resemblance from one lifetime to another
• Birthmarks are observed related to past life trauma
• Xenoglossy-the ability to speak a language that was not learned by normal means, reflecting a language known in a past lifetime
• Innate talent and child prodigies-talents from a past lifetime are carried through to the contemporary life
• Planning lifetimes-souls are observed to reincarnate with those they have known and loved in the past
• Souls can change religion, nationality and ethnic affiliation from one lifetime to another. This observation can help create a more peaceful world, as most conflicts are based on differences in these cultural markers of identity. The reincarnation case of Anne Frank | Barbro Karlen is a dramatic example, as Anne died in a concentration camp because she was Jewish, while Barbro Karlen was born into a Christian family in Sweden. I make the point that if the Nazis knew that one could be Jewish in one lifetime and Christian in another, the Holocaust could not have happened.
• Change of gender occurs in 10 percent of cases.
• Phobias can result from past life trauma
• Geographic memory-people can have innate knowledge of a city based on past life experiences. As an example, at ten years of age, Barbro Karlen found her way to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam without directions on her first visit to the city.
• Split incarnation-cases demonstrate that a soul can animate more than one body at a time. Ian Stevenson termed these as cases with “anomalous dates,” as lifetimes overlapped.
To learn more about these cases and an overview on the state of the art of reincarnation research, please go to:
Principles of Reincarnation
https://reincarnationresearch.com/principles-of-reincarnation/
Please also view our video, Evidence of Reincarnation, which has had over 6 million views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w2MCpzE8u0

Evidence and Principles of Reincarnation-Understanding Past Lives - Reincarnation ResearchArticle by Walter Semkiw, MD from Born Again and Return of the Revolutionaries Click on images to enlarge. Please review Reincarnation Research Mission Statement. Also review: Advances in Reincarnation Research: A Tribute to Ian Stevenson, MD From independently researched reinca Read more...