Churchill House, to the Victory Hotel. On a visit to Saharanpur later that fall, Parmod spontaneously identified a doctor known to Parmanand in that city. “He is a doctor and an old friend of mine,” he said. During that visit, he also recognized a man named Yasmin who, as he insisted, owned him (Parmanand) some money. “I have got some money back from you,” he said. At first, Yasmin was reluctant to acknowledge the loan, but after being reassured that the Mehra family was not going to press for repayment, he admitted that Parmod was quite right about the debt. The reason why the children remember their previous life might be the circumstances of death, particularly those involving shock that “can possibly break through the amnesia”; the most vivid memories involve events leading up to it. Typically, these children do not know anything about events that occurred in the former personality’s life after his or her death. This is an important point in deciding whether they are unconsciously reconstructing the details of this life by telepathically reading the minds of those who knew the deceased or possess these details as genuine memories. Possibly the strongest evidence in support of the reincarnation hypothesis is the incidence of striking birthmarks that reflect injuries and other events from the remembered life. In evaluating this evidence, it is important to emphasize that Stevenson’s cases were not only from “primitive”, “exotic” cultures with a priori belief in reincarnation, but also from Western countries, including Great Britain and USA. His research meets high standards and has received considerable esteem. In the year 1977, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases devoted almost an entire issue to this subject and the work was reviewed in the JAMA. 3.2.2 Spontaneous past life memories in adults Spontaneous vivid reliving of past life memories occurs most frequently during spontaneous episodes of NOSC (spiritual emergencies); however, various degrees of remembering can also happen in more or less ordinary states of consciousness in the circumstances of everyday life. Academic psychiatry and current theories of personality are based on the “one-timer view”. Traditional professionals are aware of the existence of past life experiences, but treat them indiscriminately as indications of serious psychopathology. 3.2.3 Evoked past life memories in adults Past life experiences can be elicited by a wide variety of techniques that mediate access to deep levels of the psyche, such as meditation, hypnosis, psychedelic substances, sensory isolation, bodywork, and various powerful experiential psychotherapies (primal therapy, rebirthing, or Holotropic Breathwork). They often appear unsolicited in sessions with therapists who do not aim for them and do not even believe in them, catching them completely off-guard. Their emergence is also completely independent of the subject’s previous philosophical and religious belief system. In addition, past life experiences occur on the same continuum with accurate memories from adolescence, childhood, infancy, birth, and prenatal memories that can Spirituality Studies 1 (2) Fall 2015 19 (17)
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