• This is the final part of a two-part series of articles. The first was published in the 3 January 2024 issue

Is xenoglossy evidence for reincarnation?

Xenoglossy is a phenomenon in which a person is allegedly able to speak, write, or understand a foreign language that they could not have acquired by natural means. Those who believe in reincarnation state that cases of xenoglossy provide evidence for reincarnation. Some researchers think that xenoglossy is not definitive evidence for reincarnation. They claim that xenoglossy is likely to occur when the ability to properly monitor sources is impaired. They suggest fraud, fantasy, and knowledge acquired through normal means. The critics of reincarnation suggest that xenoglossy is merely an expression of subconscious language learning. Those who are naturally gifted in learning new languages may pick up on words and phrases without noticing. According to the researchers, the foreign language syndrome and the foreign accent syndrome are signs of disruption in the brain function especially from small focal lesions resulting from left hemisphere strokes and tumours, traumatic brain injury, migraine, multiple sclerosis, and primary progressive aphasia. 

Selective thinking and false memory syndrome 

Some disbelievers of reincarnation explain that claims of evidence for reincarnation originate from selective thinking, a process where one focuses on favourable evidence to justify a belief, ignoring unfavourable evidence and sometimes following the psychological phenomena of false memories. In the false memory syndrome, a person’s identity and relationships are affected by memories, which are factually incorrect but are strongly believed. The false memory syndrome may account for the memory construction process, which leads people to remember living a past life.

Are child prodigies an example of reincarnation?

Those who support the concept of reincarnation point out the phenomenon of child prodigies who exhibit intelligence or talents that could not be explained by either heredity or environment. The sceptics attribute these skills to high functional autism, abnormal brain mapping due to genetic predisposition and a hyper brain with enhanced brain plasticity. They point out that some children who were subject to maladaptive alterations by purely deleterious mutations and maladapted genotypes end up with high intelligence and extraordinary skills. Several researchers have indicated specific genes that contribute to high ability. Twin studies have shown that both musical ability and mathematical achievement have a substantial genetic component.

Confabulation

Belief in reincarnation could be linked to an error in the processing of memories or due to confabulation. Confabulation is defined as the spontaneous production of false memories: either memories of events which never occurred, or memories of actual events that are displaced in space or time. These memories may be elaborate and detailed. Confabulation is a form of memory disorder that may occur in patients who have sustained damage to both the basal forebrain and the frontal lobes, as after an aneurysm of the anterior communicating artery.  

Cryptomnesia

Another possible explanation is cryptomnesia, where a person may have experienced something similar in their current life and mistakenly attribute it to a past life. Children suffering from dissociative disorders (hysteria) sometimes give vivid descriptions under hypnotic trances and these expressions are misinterpreted as evidence of past lives by inexperienced hypnotherapists who have no clinical background.

Paramnesia: Memory distortions 

People with medial temporal or prefrontal lesions are more prone to paramnesias, or the misidentifications syndrome. In reduplicative paramnesia, a patient is convinced that a person, a place, or an object exists in duplicate. A disturbed sense of familiarity may produce this phenomenon. In the reduplication of time, a patient believes that he or she exists in two different, parallel time points.

Can Edgar Cayce's readings prove reincarnation? 

The self-proclaimed American faith healer Edgar Cayce did over 16,000 readings during his lifetime. The book Many Mansions written by the American author Gina Cerminara disclosed the patients who were treated by Cayce and about their past lives. Based on modern investigations of Cayce’s readings, medical experts say that Cayce frequently connected illness to the mental and emotional states of the patients and he disregarded the aetiology of certain illnesses. His clients predominantly had cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, arthritis, gallstones, kidney stones, hay fever, mental and psychological problems, digestive problems, epilepsy, haemorrhoids, ulcers, psoriasis, etc. and according to Cayce, karmic repercussions that had to do with the symptoms. Cayce had stated that people suffer from epilepsy as a result of the adultery that they had committed in their past lives. But, modern neurophysiology explains the genesis of epilepsy that has organic courses in the brain. Some of his readings were inaccurate and he mostly gave folk remedies. His case studies were not based on empirical evidence, and it cannot be independently evaluated. Moreover, Cayce was never subjected to proper testing. The experts often question the validity of his abilities.

Can past life regressions provide evidence of reincarnation?

Past life regressions or past life therapy is based on the argument that some people carry in their subconscious mind, memories of unpleasant events of their past lives and that these subconscious memories adversely affect them in their present lives. By hypnosis, they can regress beyond their birth to their previous lives. However, medical experts indicate that past life regressions increase one's susceptibility to false memories. Also, there is a risk of implanting false memories in patients. Some hold the belief that hypnotic regression is not proof for reincarnation. Those who oppose hypnotic regression declare that in hypnotic regression, repressed childhood memories come into action if wrongly interpreted as evidence of a past life.

The theories opposed to reincarnation

The English philosopher Antony Flew highlights that reincarnation is a non-repeatable counter instance that is not amenable to scientifically controlled conditions. As claims of reincarnation cannot be validated via a laboratory experiment, the best we could do is to jettison reincarnation as untenable. 

Professor of Philosophy at the Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania in United States, Steven D. Hales argues that the basic problem associated with reincarnation as a theory of the mind is not that it lacks evidence in support of its claims, but that even in the face of its claims, it runs short of a well-developed and systematic theory. For Hales, there would have been not much difficulty in accepting the reincarnation hypothesis if it is empirically testable, falsifiable and subject to confirming evidence. 

Concluding thoughts

Reincarnation is a highly contradictory and controversial philosophical, religious and cultural concept. Belief in reincarnation has some epistemological implications. It is a belief in the absence of valid empirical data. There is no scientific evidence to prove reincarnation. The suggestive cases of reincarnation (past lives testimonies) cannot be independently verified, and there are psychological and cultural factors that can influence such claims. These testimonies are the products of social conditioning rather than actual memories of past lives. From a scientific and empirical standpoint, the concept of reincarnation remains unproven and subject to scepticism.

Biologically, reincarnation is explained in terms of the expression of dominant genes that come from the ancestors. People acquire the genetic information of their past relatives. Those who oppose the concept argue that reincarnation originates from selective thinking and from false memories. Reincarnation is a hypothesis and up to date, it is not an evidence based reality. There is no definitive data supporting the reincarnation hypothesis. So far, no one has done controlled experiments in reincarnation.

Can we prove that reincarnation is a fact? Canadian-American psychiatrist Ian Stevenson used to say that the word proof should only be used in mathematics. In science, it is all about evidence, not proof. Science can only lay hands on things in the physical universe. Although the existence of reincarnation is not yet a scientific truth, scientifically, we do not have the instruments to measure the process of rebirth directly. Maybe, reincarnation cannot be proven within the scope of generally acceptable scientific thinking. Reincarnation is basically just an untestable claim. Some argue that reincarnation is a paranormal phenomenon transcending the boundaries of time, space and force. Reincarnation may be outside the scope of our measurements and cannot be falsified. Reincarnation may be the “great beyond” and further research is essential to come to a valid conclusion.

(The writer is a registered psychotherapist)

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.