There is a book out that’s climbing up the Amazon charts (last looked and it was ranked #16) about a little boy’s memories from WWII called Soul Survivor. Haven’t ordered it yet, but I’ve seen several news clips about it. 11 year old James Leininger remembers being shot down in an aircraft during WWII. The memories haunted him starting around age 2 with nightmares, leading his parents to explore the possibility of reincarnation. Sure enough, there was a man named James Huston who fits the description of young James’ memories. Here’s a clip about the Leininger’s story.
Reincarnation seems totally impossible to the human ego. We fight the possibility that our consciousness might not be locked into the physical body and transcends death. Carol Bowman’s book, Children’s Past Lives is an excellent account of numerous children recalling other lifetimes, and how these memories impact their current life. Though most kid’s memories begin to fade by age 6, the significant number of children who seem to recall another life prods us to question the possibility.
The late Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia conducted extensive research into claims of children recalling past lives. His books are by far the most exhaustive I’ve heard of regarding scientific evidence for reincarnation. Dr. Walter Semkiw’s Return of the Revolutionaries provides a great deal of his own research into group reincarnation. And I’m currently reading Dr. Adrian Finkelstein’s Marilyn Monroe Returns: The Healing of a Soul, about singer/musician Sherrie Lea Laird’s journey of coming to terms with being the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.
As in Sherrie Lea Laird’s and James Leininger’s cases, there appears to be a higher correlation of past-life recall when people die suddenly or traumatically in the last life. Often, disturbing memories and intense emotions arise that appear to be caused by the previous trauma. Hopefully, Soul Survivor will bring to light more information about why our souls choose to come back again and again to learn, heal and grow.
Though Soul Survivor is ranked #1 in Amazon’s top books in the Reincarnation category, right now, my book I Found All the Parts: Healing the Soul through Rock ‘n’ Roll, is ranked #73. I hope that it one day gets on the Amazon best-seller list too. My personal exploration of my past lives with a famous rock band does not provide clear evidence of reincarnation. It shows the process though which we can be led on a journey of self-discovery to recall our past lives, even without distinct memories of another lifetime. Hypnosis is one way people can explore a past life, though this is not always accurate. As a certified hypnotherapist, I instead look for similar themes that come up during a regression which can help a person discover why they are having problems and difficult issues in this lifetime.
What if reincarnation became accepted by mainstream society? How would our world change if we knew that our thoughts and actions can have ongoing repercussions for many lifetimes? It’s mindboggling to consider, but it’s my hope that one day, people’s consciousness raises so that we all can know we are spiritual beings having a physical experience….and also know that the physical experience isn’t just a one time occurance either.