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THE BEST evidenced and most evidential case of "reincarnation" known to the
present writer is that described in Chapter XVII, Section 4, which was reported
by Dr. E. W. Stevens under the title of "The Watseka Wonder." But what it would
illustrate is reincarnation only as conceived by the African Mandingos and by
Dr. Wickland; that is, as invasion by a discarnate spirit of the body of a grown
person whose own personality is thereby more or less completely displaced. Cases
of this kind, when they are not explicable as simply dissociations of the
personality whose body is concerned, would ordinarily be described as cases of
"possession" or "obsession," rather than of reincarnation. For the term
"reincarnation" is commonly intended to mean rebirth, in a neonate baby body, of
a "spirit" or "soul" which has had earlier lives on earth.
Such claim as can be made that the cases which will now be cited constitute
empirical evidence of reincarnation as conceived in the latter way rests not
simply on the purported memories of the earlier life or lives, but on the
allegation that some of the facts seemingly remembered have been subsequently
verified but could not possibly have been learned in a normal manner by the
person who has "memories" of them.
1. The rebirth of Katsugoro
This case is cited by Lafcadio Hearn in Chapter X
of his Gleanings in Buddha Fields(1). He states at the outset that what he is
presenting "is only the translation of an old Japanese document - or rather
series of documents - very much signed and sealed, and dating back to the early
part of the present [i.e., the 19th] century." The documents were in the library
of Count Sasaki in Tokyo. A copy of them was made for Hearn, who made the
translation. Reduced to essentials, the facts related in the documents are as
follows:
(1) Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1897.
Katsugoro was a Japanese boy, born on the 10th day of the 10th month of 1815,
son of Genzo, a farmer living in the village of Nakano Mura, and his wife Sei.
One day, at about the age of seven, Katsugoro, while playing with his elder
sister Fusa, asked her where she came from before her present birth. She thought
the question foolish and asked him whether he could remember things that
happened before he was born. He answered that he could; that he used to be the
son of a man called Kyubei and his wife Shidzu, who lived in Hodokubo; and that
his name was then Tozo. When later questioned by his grandmother, he said that
until he was four years old he could remember everything, but had since
forgotten a good deal; but he added that when he had been five years old Kyubei
had died, and that a man named Hanshiro had then taken Kyubei's place in the
household; that he himself had died of smallpox at the age of six, when his body
was put in a jar and buried on a hill; that some old man then took him away and
after a time brought him to Genzo's house, saying "Now you must be reborn, for
it is three years since you died. You are to be reborn in this house." After
entering the house, he stayed for three days in the kitchen; and he concluded:
"Then I entered mother's honorable womb ... I remember that I was born without
any pain at all!'
After relating all this, Katsugoro, asked to be taken to Hodokudo to visit the
tomb of his former father, Kyubei. His grandmother Tsuya took him there and when
they reached Hodokubo, he hurried ahead and, when he reached a certain dwelling,
cried "This is the house" and ran in. His grandmother followed and, on inquiry,
was told that the owner of the house was called Hanshiro; his wife, Shidzu; that
she had had a son, Tozo, who had died thirteen years before at the age of six,
his father having been Kyubei. Katsugoro, who was looking about during the
conversation, pointed to a tobacco shop across the road, and to a tree, saying
that they used not to be there. This was true, and convinced Hanshiro and his
wife that Katsugoro had been Tozo, who had been born in 1805, and had died in
1810. (The year of birth of a Japanese child, Hearn states in a footnote, is
counted as one year of his age.)
Evidently, Katsugoro's experience, as testified to in the affidavits translated
by Hearn and summarized above, is radically different from that of Lurancy
Vennum in the Watseka Wonder case. Nothing of the nature of obsession or
possession appears in his case. His Katsugoro personality is at no time
displaced or interfered with by that of Tozo, any more than is the personality
of an adult "possessed" by the very different personality that was his in
childhood, but which he remembers. The account presents Katsugoro as a normal
boy, whose memories simply reached farther back than the time of his birth.
Assuming the objective facts to have been as related in the affidavits
translated by Hearn, the only explanation of them to suggest itself as
alternative to reincarnation is that of paranormal retrocognition, by Katsugoro,
of the various events and surroundings of the short life Tozo lived in another
village some years before Katsugoro's birth, plus unconscious imaginative
self-identification by Katsugoro with the retrocognized Tozo personality. This
kind of explanation would require us to postulate in Katsugoro a capacity for
retrocognitive clairvoyance far exceeding in scope any for the reality of which
experimental evidence exists. And such postulation, if made at all, would
undermine the empirical evidence not only for reincarnation, but equally of
course for discarnate survival of the personality after death.
2. The rebirth of Alexandrina Samona
The next case is the well-attested one of
the rebirth of Alexandrina Samona, which is peculiar in that, according to the
accounts of the affair, it involved not only like that of Katsugoro memories of
an earlier incarnation, but also and prominently the announcement by the girl's
discarnate spirit that she was about to be reborn.
The facts were recorded at the time in the Italian periodical Filosofia della
Scienza, and discussed subsequently there and in the French Journal du
Magnetisme. The articles - the Italian ones, translated into French - and the
attestations of the several persons who had first-hand knowledge of the facts,
are reproduced in extenso together with photographs of the two girls, and
discussed, in Dr. Charles Lancelin's book, La Vie Posthume.(2)
(2) Pub. Henri Durville, Paris, no date (about 1920) pp. 309-363. See also the
briefer accounts of the case in Ralph Shirley's The Problem of Rebirth, occult
Book Society London, no date. Ch. V; and A. de Rochas' Les Vies Successives,
Chacornac, Paris 1911, pp. 338-45.
Alexandrina, aged five years, died in Palermo, Sicily, on March 15. 1910. She
was the daughter of Dr. Carmelo Samona and his wife Adela. He recorded the facts
and communicated them to the editor of the Italian Journal mentioned above.
Three her mother dreamed that the days after Alexandrina's death, child appeared
to her and said:
"Mother, do not cry any more. I have not left you; I have only gone a little
away. Look: I shall become little, like this" - showing her the likeness of a
complete little embryo. Then she added: "You are therefore going to have to
begin to suffer again on account of me." Three days later, the same dream
occurred again.
A friend suggested to Mme. Samona that this meant Alexandrina would reincarnate
in a baby she would have. The mother, however, disbelieved this - the more so
because she had had an operation which it was thought would make it impossible
for her to have any more children.
Some days later, at a moment when Mme. Samona was expressing bitterest grief to
her husband over the loss of Alexandrina, three inexplicable sharp knocks were
heard. The two of them then decided to hold family seances in the hope of
obtaining typtological communications from discarnate spirits. From the very
first seance, two purported such spirits manifested themselves: one, that of
Alexandrina, and the other, that of an aunt of hers who had died years before.
In this manner, Alexandrina's spirit testified that it was she herself who had
appeared to her mother in the dream and who had later caused the three loud
knocks; and she added that she would be reborn to her mother before Christmas,
and that she would come with a twin sister. In the subsequent seances, she
insisted again and again that this prediction be communicated to various
relatives and friends of the family.
On November 22, 1910, Mme. Samona gave birth to twin daughters. One of them
closely resembled Alexandrina, and was so named. The other was of a markedly
different physical type and eventually proved to have a very different
disposition - alert, active, restless and gregarious - whereas Alexandrina II, like
Alexandrina I, was calm, neat, and content to play by herself. She had, like her
namesake, hyperaemia of the left eye, seborrhea of the right ear, and noticeable
facial asymmetry; and, also like her, was left-handed and enjoyed playing
endlessly at folding, tidying, and arranging such clothing or linen as were at
hand. She insisted, like Alexandrina I, that her hands should be always clean,
and she shared the first Alexandrina's invincible repugnance to cheese.
When, at the age of ten, the twins were told of a projected excursion to
Monreale where they had never been, Alexandrina asserted that her mother, in the
company of "a lady who had horns," had taken her to Monreale before. She
described the large statue on the roof of the church there and said they had met
with some little red priests in the town. Then Mme. Samona recalled that, some
months before the death of the first Alexandrina, she had gone to Monreale with
the child and with a lady who had disfiguring wens ("horns") on her forehead,
and that they had seen a group of young Greek priests with blue robes ornamented
with red.
Attestations were obtained by Dr. Samona from several of the persons who were
personally acquainted with the facts - in particular, from his own sister; from
his wife's uncle; from an Evangelical Pastor to whom Dr. Samona had related the
prediction of the rebirth before it was fulfilled; and from a lady to whom, in
March 1910, Mme. Samona had described the dream, and, in June, the seances
announcing twins.
The comments relevant to this case are essentially the same as those made on the
preceding one, and therefore need not be repeated.
3. The case of Shanti Devi
In 1936, a pamphlet was printed by the Baluja Press
in Delhi, India, setting forth the results of an inquiry into the case of Shand
Devi by Lala Desh bandhu Gupta (Managing Director of the Daily Tej,) Pandit Neki
Ram Sharma (a leader in the Nationalist movement,) and Mr. Tara Chand Mathur (an
Advocate.) The chief facts recorded in their statements are as follows.
They concern a girl, Kumari Shangti Devi, born October 12, 1926 in Delhi,
daughter of B. Rang Bahadur Mathur. From the age of about four, she began to
speak of a former life of hers in Muttra - a town about 100 miles from
Delhi - saying that she was then a Choban by caste, that her husband was a cloth
merchant, that her house was yellow, etc. Later, she told a grand-uncle of hers,
Mr. Bishan Chand, that her husband's name in her previous life had been Pt.
Kedar Nath Chaubey. The uncle mentioned this to Mr. Lala Kishan Chand, M.A., a
retired Principal, who asked to meet the girl. She then gave him the address of
"Kedar Nath," to whom he wrote. To his surprise, it turned out that Kedar Nath
Chaubey actually existed; and, in his reply to the letter, he confirmed various
of the details Shand Devi had given and suggested that a relative of his in
Delhi, Pt. Kanji Mal, interview the girl. When he came to see her, she
recognized him as a cousin of her former husband and gave convincing replies to
questions of his concerning intimate details.
Pt. Kedar Nath Chaubey then, on November 13, 1935, came to Delhi with his
present wife and his ten year old son by his former wife. Shanti Devi recognized
Kedar Nath and was greatly moved, answering convincingly various questions asked
by him about private matters of her former life as his wife, and mentioning that
she had buried Rs. 150. in a certain room of her house in Muttra. After they
left, she kept asking to be taken to Muttra, describing various features of the
town. On November 24, 1935, she and her parents, and the three inquirers who
author the pamphlet, went to Muttra. On the railway platform an elderly man in
the group of people there paused for a moment in front of her, and she
recognized him, saying that he was her "Jeth," i.e., the elder brother of her
former husband.
The party then took a carriage, whose driver was instructed to follow whatever
route the girl told him. She mentioned that the road to the station had not been
asphalted when she lived in Muttra, and she pointed out various buildings which
had not existed then. She led the party to the lane in which was a house she had
formerly occupied. In the lane, she met and recognized an old Brahmin, whom she
correctly identified as her father-in-law. She identified the old house, now
rented to strangers. Two gentlemen of Muttra, who then joined the party, asked
her where the "Jai-Zarur" of the house was - a local expression which the party
from Delhi did not understand. She, however, understood it and pointed out the
privy which, in Muttra, that term is used to designate.
After leaving the old house, and as she led the way to the newer one still
occupied by Chaubey Kedar Nath, she recognized her former brother now
twenty-five years old, and her uncle-in-law. At the house, she was asked to
point out the well she had mentioned in Delhi. There is now no well in the
courtyard there, but she pointed out the place where it had been. Kedar Nath
then lifted the stone with which it had since been covered. She then led the way
to the room she said she had formerly occupied, where she had buried the money.
She pointed to the spot, which was then dug up, and, about a foot down, a
receptacle for keeping valuables was found, but no money was in it. Kedar Nath
Chaubey later disclosed that he had removed it after the death of his first
wife, Lugdi, at the age of 23, on October 4, 1925, following the birth of her
son on September 25. Later, Shanti Devi recognized her former father and mother
in a crowd of over fifty persons.
The pamphlet reproduces also the confirmatory testimony of Kedar Nath's cousin
in Delhi, Choubey Kenji Mal, including a statement of the questions he asked
Shanti Devi when he interviewed her, and of her replies.
A number of Indian cases, similar in essentials to those of Shanti Devi and of
Katsugoro, are described and the relevant attestations of witnesses quoted, in a
booklet, Reincarnation, Verified Cases of Rebirth after Death, by Kr. Kekai
Nandan Sahay, B.A., LL.B., Vakil High Court, Bareilly, India, no date (about
1927)(3).
(3) For a photostatic copy of this now rare booklet, the present writer is
indebted to the kindness of Dr. Ian Stevenson, of the University of Virginia
Medical School.
4. The "Rosemary" case
Another case, and one worth citing here at some length,
is the "Rosemary" case. It is of interest for various reasons, but in this
chapter in particular because the incarnation to which the purported memories
would refer is not, as in the three described above, one which would have
terminated only a few years before the beginning of the present life of the
person concerned, but instead would date back some 3300 years. The case is
reported by Dr. Frederic H. Wood in several books, the essential facts being as
follows.(4)
(4) After Thirty Centuries, Rider & Co. London, 1935;
Ancient Egypt Speaks, (in
collaboration with A. J. Howard HuIme) Rider, London, 1937; This Egyptian
Miracle, McKay Co. Philadelphia, 1940; 2nd. ed. revised, J. M. Watkins, London,
1955 (Titles abbreviated respectively ATC, AES, TEM.)
Shortly after the death of his brother in 1912, Dr. Wood's investigations of
psychic phenomena convinced him that survival of the human personality after
death is a fact. Eventually, as a result of a common interest in music, he
became acquainted with the girl referred to in his books by the pseudonym,
"Rosemary." Late in 1927, she spontaneously began to write automatically. She
viewed this development with repugnance and distrust and, knowing as she did of
Dr. Wood's interest-which she had not shared in psychic phenomena, she turned to
him for light on the matter (ATC 19,20).
Her automatic scripts purported to emanate from the surviving spirit of a Quaker
girl of Liverpool, who gave her name as Muriel. At a sitting in Oct. 1928,
Muriel brought a new "spirit guide" to take her place, whom she introduced as
"the Lady Nona" and described as "an Egyptian lady of long ago." Nona, in the
course of the many sittings which followed, stated that she had been a
Babylonian princess who had come to Egypt as consort of the Pharaoh Amenhotep
III (ca. 1410-1375BC.); that is, some 3300 years ago.
Dr. Wood mentions that, on June 28, 1930, he had, remaining incognito, a seance
with a London medium, Mrs. Mason, whose spirit guide, Maisie, described to him
both Rosemary and Nona, saying that the latter gave the name of "Ona, Mona, or
Nona." The description of her which Maisie gave agreed with that previously
given by a "spirit guide" other than Nona, which occasionally manifested through
Rosemary. Maisie also stated that Rosemary had been with Nona in Egypt, and that
Nona's name there had been Telika.
On July 3, 1930, Nona confirmed both of these assertions through Rosemary's
automatic writing. On December 5, 1931, Nona introduced the word "Ventiu," and
later (June 6, 1935) explained that her name had been Telika-Ventiu, which means
"The wise woman of an Asiatic race;" "Telika" having been her Babylonian name,
and "Ventiu" a name given by the Egyptians to the Asiatic races generally. Dr.
Wood surmises that she had first given the pseudonym "Nona" because at that time
she wished to be "nameless"; and this because in those early days of her
communications she could not be sure that her real name would come through
correctly (TEM p. 46).
Dr. Wood mentions that a clay tablet found at Tell el-Amarna in 1887 is
generally accepted as evidence that Amenhotep III had married a Babylonian
princess(5). Her name, however, appears nowhere; so that, should a papyrus
eventually be found giving it as Telika Vendu, this would be strongly
confirmatory evidence. Nona, when she added the "Ventiu" insisted that it was or
would be important as evidence (TEM 49-51, AES 37).
(5) Dr. Wood states in a letter that his authority for this was the late Shorter
Assistant Keeper of the Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum.
Nona states that she expresses herself by impressing her thoughts on Rosemary's
mind, which then spontaneously formulates them in English either orally or in
writing. But Nona, in the course of the many years' sittings, has given out
orally some 5000 phrases and short sentences in old Egyptian language. In the
case of these, Rosemary states that she "hears" the Egyptian words
clairaudiently and repeats them aloud-this having first occurred on August 18,
1931 (TEM 171). As she utters them, Dr. Wood records them phonetically as well
as he can in terms of the English alphabet. It is unfortunate that he was not
then familiar with, and therefore did not use, the more adequate alphabet of the
International Phonetic Association; but his recording was anyway good enough to
enable an Egyptologist, Mr. Hulme, to identify with but a correction here and
there, and to translate the first eight hundred of these thousands of Egyptian
utterances, which constitute coherent communications manifesting purpose,
intelligence, and responsiveness to the conversational situation of the moment.
Dr. Wood, in order to qualify himself to meet certain criticisms by Prof.
Battiscombe Gunn of Oxford University, then (1937) took up the study of
scholastic Egyptian and eventually became able to translate himself the word
sounds, which previously he could only record without understanding them.
In the course of the many years of sittings with Dr. Wood. Rosemary has
developed ostensible memories, extensive and detailed, of a life of hers in
Egypt as "Vola," a Syrian girl brought captive to Egypt, whom Nona befriended (AES
Chs. VIII, IX.).
So much being now clear about the ostensible situation and process of
communication in the Rosemary case, attention must next be directed to the fact
in it which is of central interest in connection with the topic of the present
chapter. That fact is Nolia's assertion that Rosemary was with her in Egypt, her
name then having been Vola; so that Rosemary would be a reincarnation of Vola.
Nona states further-although this is not essential to the point-that Vola was
the daughter of a Syrian king killed in battle with the Egyptians; that she was
brought to Egypt as a captive and given to Nona who liked and adopted her, and
had her appointed a temple maiden in the temple of Amen Ra; and that the enemies
of Amenhotep Ill, who were plotting to wrest the power from him and were afraid
of Nona's influence on him, contrived an accident in which she and Vola drowned
together.
In this complex affair the most arresting fact, which has to be somehow
explained, is the utterance by Rosemary's lips of those thousands of phrases in
a language of which she normally knows nothing, but concerning which Mr. Hulme,
an Egyptologist, states that, in the eight hundred of them he had examined, the
grammar and the consonants substantially and consistently conformed to what
Egyptologists know today of the ancient Egyptian language.
The phrases as uttered supply vowel sounds, which are otherwise still unknown
since the hieroglyphs represent only the consonants(6). There is today no way of
either proving or disproving that these vowel sounds are really those of the
ancient speech, although a presumption in favor of it arises from the
consistency of their use throughout those thousands of phrases, and from the
substantial correctness of the xenoglossy as regards grammar and consonants. But
in any case, the Rosemary affair remains the most puzzling and yet the best
attested instance of xenoglossy on record.
(6) Two exceptions to this are claimed by Dr. Wood; see TEM ist. ed. p. 93, 2nd.
p. 95.
The present chapter, however, is concerned not with xenoglossy as such, but with
verifications of ostensible memories of earlier lives. The questions relevant to
this in the Rosemary case are therefore two. The first is whether Rosemary's
ostensible memories of an earlier life in Egypt as Vola have been verified and
are truly memories. And the second is whether the xenoglossy is explicable only,
or most plausibly, on the supposition that Rosemary is a reincarnation of a
girl, Vola, who supposedly lived in Egypt 3300 years ago.
The first question subdivides into: (a) whether the ostensible memories have
been found to correspond to objective facts - as were the ostensible memories of
Katsugoro, of Alexandrina, and of Shanti Devi; and if so, (b) whether there are
sufficient reasons to believe that Rosemary cannot have come to know or guess
those objective facts in some normal manner but have forgotten having done so.
As regards (a), a great deal of the detail supplied is not claimed to have been
verified or to be verifiable, and hence, although dramatically impressive, is
not evidence at all. This would apply for example, to a large part of the
ostensible memory of sights seen on the market place at Thebes (AES 128); for
instance, that of "a man with some dear little black and white baby goats to
sell." Indeed, another of the putatively remembered sights there-that of camels
with tents on their backs in which people travelled-constitutes a difficulty in
the way of the memory hypothesis rather than a support of it. For, on the one
hand, if scholars are right in maintaining that domesticated camels (as
distinguished from camels as food animals) were not used in Egypt prior to the
Persian conquest in 525 B.C.(7) then that sight of domesticated camels in the
market place at Thebes during the reign of Amenhotep III would be anachronistic
by some 900 years. And if, on the other hand, another statement by Rosemary, in
rebuttal of the opinion of the scholars on this point, is accepted as correct,
then her memory of camels being used as conveyances for persons in Thebes at
that time must be incorrect, since her rebutting statement is that although
there were camels in Egypt, "the Egyptians ... would not use them in their
cities" because of their unpleasant habits and smells, but used them in the
desert (TEM 177, italics mine).
(7) Their opinion apparently being based on the fact that camels are not
mentioned in the hieroglyphic records until Persian times.
Another ostensible memory - recorded on Oct. 7, 1932 - contains descriptions of
buildings, of steps, of a river in the distance, of boats, and of a temple with
carved figures in front. Dr. Wood takes this to refer to Karnak, and - relevantly
to sub-question (b) states that, at the time that memory was recorded, "the
normal Rosemary had taken no special interest either in Thebes or Karnak. She
had always refused to discuss or read about them" (AES 129). On an earlier page
of AES, however, he described Rosemary as "a well-educated girl" (p. 25); and,
as such, it is unlikely that she had never seen any of the numerous pictures or
photographs of Egypt in history books and magazines.
Relevantly to sub-question (a), Dr. Wood further states that neither he nor
Rosemary have visited Egypt, but intimates that the content of her memories is
consistent with what he subsequently found in guide books and in a certain book
of photographs. This, of course, is much less of a verification than was
obtained in the three cases described in the earlier sections of this chapter.
And, concerning the memories relating to Vola as a maiden serving in the Temple,
which have to do with music and ritual and are of course very interesting in
themselves, no objective verifications are offered.
It would seem, then, that much the larger part or perhaps all of the ostensible
memories either lack clear-cut objective verification, or are susceptible of
explanation otherwise than as genuine memories of an earlier life in Egypt.
Let us turn next to the second main question and ask what various explanations
of the xenoglossy, of its vast extent, and of its substantial correctness of
grammar and consonants, are conceivable; how plausible or the reverse each of
them is; and what, if anything, the most plausible imply as to whether Rosemary
is a reincarnation of Vola.
(1) What may be called the standard explanation of xenoglossy is that the person
manifesting the phenomenon did at one time associate with someone who was in the
habit of reciting aloud words and sentences in the foreign tongue concerned;
that these sounds, although not understood by the hearer, registered on her
subconscious mind as they would on the tape of a recorder; and that later, under
the circumstances of the sitting, she reproduces some of them automatically.
This explanation, mutatis mutandis, would apply to the xenography of the
Argentine medium, Sra. Adela Albertelli, as reported by Sr. Jose Martin to the
present writer in correspondence, and through articles in the periodical, La Conciencia.
Such an explanation, however, does not apply to the case of Rosemary, both
because she never associated with or knew any scholar addicted to such
recitations, and because the Egyptian phrases uttered by Rosemary - whether as
being Nona's or Vola's - are not random ones but are shaped by the purpose of
conveying specific information, and in many cases directly relate to questions
or incidents occurring at the moment (TEM Chs. IX, X, Xl. Summary, p. 179).
(2) Concerning the hypothesis that all such correct facts about Egypt as
Rosemary - whether as Nona or as Vola - relates, are obtained by her through
present exercise of retrocognitive clairvoyance, all that need be said is that,
even if this should be regarded as plausible so far as knowledge of those facts
goes, it would anyway altogether fail to account for the conversational
appositeness and responsiveness of the xenoglossy.
(3) A third possible explanation is that which Spiritualists would regard as the
obvious one; namely, that Nona is indeed the surviving spirit of Telika, which
uses Rosemary as medium.
This, however, would not entail that Rosemary is a reincarnation of Vola, but
would leave the matter open. For the mere fact that something is asserted by a
discarnate spirit does not automatically guarantee that it is a fact not a mere
opinion. That is, the question how Nona knows that Rosemary is a reincarnation
of a girl whom she knew in Egypt 3300 years ago is just as legitimate but
unanswered as would be the question how I know, if I were to assert that the
eighteen year old daughter of a friend of mine is a reincarnation of a woman I
knew in New York 55 years ago, who died shortly thereafter. That Nona is
discarnate at the time she makes the assertion, whereas I would be incarnate at
the time I made mine, is irrelevant unless one assumes - gratuitously in the
absence of independent evidence - that an ad hoc cognitive capacity is
automatically conferred on a person's spirit by the mere fact of his body's
dying.
Anyway, the hypothesis that Nona is the surviving spirit of Telika leaves with
us the problem of accounting for such of Rosemary's ostensible memories of
herself as Vola as perhaps correspond to objective facts known. That she is a
reincarnation of Vola would be a possible explanation of this; but another,
which Spiritualists generally would probably regard as more plausible, would be
that the alleged memories are dramatic imaginations subconsciously constructed
by Rosemary partly out of her years of acquaintance with the contents of her
automatic speech and writing, partly out of what any well-educated person knows
about Egypt, and partly out of telepathic borrowing from Nona's mind of
appropriate items of information or of Egyptian words which the conversational
situation at particular times calls for.
(4) Still another possibility would be that Nona is a dissociated part of
Rosemary's personality. The fact Dr. Wood stresses (AES 103-5), that the Nona
personality is of a type radically different from that of Rosemary, does not
invalidate this hypothesis; for such marked difference is almost a normal
feature of cases of dissociated personality. In the Beauchamp case reported by
Dr. Morton Prince, for example, the contrast was sharp between the "Sally"
personality and that of Miss Beauchamp; and so was that between the Eve Black
and Eve White personalities in the recent case of The Three Faces of Eve,
described by Drs. Thigpen and Cleckley(8).
(8) Pub. Secker & Warburg, London, 1957. And, the Beauchamp case,
The
Dissociation of a Personality, New York, Longmans Green, 1906.
But if Nona is a dissociated part of the personality of Rosemary, the xenoglossy
remains to be accounted for; and the only supposition in sight which would seem
capable of doing so is that of Rosemary's being a reincarnation of some person
who lived in Egypt in ancient times, and of whom Nona, or Vola, or both were
perhaps even then dissociations.
(5) Finally, of course, there is the possibility that the facts of the case
really are just what they purport to be: That Nona is the spirit of Telika
surviving discarnate; that Rosemary is a reincarnation of Vola; and that her
ostensible Vola memories are - like the ordinary memories of all of us - in the
main veridical though occasionally erroneous. This explanation is bound to
appear the most likely to Dr. Wood and to Rosemary for the same reason which,
when in the theater we watch a well-acted, vividly dramatic presentation of a
scene in a play, makes us forget for the time being that it is a play. Dramatic
verisimilitude tends to generate belief, and can make fiction more credible than
truth. Yet the strange things which this pisteogenic power of dramatic
verisimilitude may make credible are not therefore necessarily fiction. Even at
the play, the fact may turn out to be that the villain's sword, by a fluke,
really does pierce the hero's chest, that the latter is really dying, and that
the play is after all not altogether a play!
What now, in the light of the whole preceding discussion, can we conclude as to
the evidentiality of the Rosemary case for reincarnation? The answer would seem
to be that, granting substantial accuracy to the identification and translation
of anyway most of the thousands of Egyptian phrases of the Nona and the Vola
personalities, then the fact that those phrases were uttered by Rosemary's vocal
organs is explicable at all only on the assumption either that Nona is the
surviving spirit of an Egyptian of an ancient period who now uses Rosemary as
medium for expression, or that Rosemary is the reincarnation of the spirit of
such a person, or both. But, in the absence of clear-cut verifications of the
ostensible Vola memories by objective facts that Rosemary certainly could not
have at some time learned or inferred in a normal manner, the account we have of
the case does not provide strong evidence that Rosemary is a reincarnation of
Vola, but only suggests and permits the supposition of it. The xenoglossy,
however, does provide strong evidence that the capacity once possessed by some
person to converse extensively, purposefully, intelligently, and intelligibly in
the Egyptian language of three thousand years ago, or anyway in a language
closely related to it, has survived by many centuries the death of that person's
body(9).
(9) A considerable number of other cases of purported memories of anterior
incarnations are cited and critically examined by Dr. Ian Stevenson in a paper
which, at the date of the present writing, has not yet been published, but is
scheduled to appear in two parts in the April and the June 1960 issues of the
Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
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