NEW DELHI, INDIA, August 5, 2007: Dr. Satwant K. Pasricha, a NIMHANS Professor of Clinical Psychology and a leading national authority on reincarnations, has been using rigorous scientific methods to investigate reincarnation claims since 1974. Here are excerpts from an interview with Neha Tara Mehta: “It is important to first understand what we mean by reincarnation. For the purpose of our research, we use the term to refer to the concept that human beings consist of two components: a physical body and a non-physical component, some call it psyche, others may refer to it as mind, personality, or soul. At death, the physical body perishes but the non-physical component survives and after an interval, becomes associated with a new physical body. On the basis of meager data that we have, we can’t make generalizations about whether or not everyone reincarnates. But what I can tell is that every one does not remember a previous life. I have investigated nearly 500 reincarnation claims in India, Seventy-seven per cent of them were authentic. Children who talk about previous lives usually do so between the ages of 2 and 5 and stop talking about their previous life between 5 and 8; rarely do they continue beyond 10 years of age. They display corresponding behavior that is unusual for their present circumstances but is appropriate for the behavior of the deceased person whose life they claim to remember. Some children have facial features, gait or mannerisms corresponding to their claimed previous personalities; some even have birthmarks or birth defects attributed to the previous lives.”
One such reincarnation story is of a young boy named Sachin. Every time Sachin tried to tell the adults in his village that he was in fact Kanti, a domestic servant from the nearby Dhanaura village whose master had murdered him, the villagers would laugh. His family also thought the child’s imagination was running wild. “We thought it was a game of make-belief,” says his elder sister Poonam. But Sachin, a Class III student at the village primary school, seldom spoke, behaved or conducted himself like the 12-year-old he was. “He was always so grownup, talking about development and other social issues,” says Imran, Sachin’s playmate. The boy soon earned the title of ‘Netaji’. To read Sachi’s story, click here.