Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Stevenson visited Kota and verified the following details about the death of Shakuntala. On April 27, 1968, during the late afternoon, Shakuntala was on the balcony of the inner courtyard of her house, playing with her younger cousin. The balcony had a low railing. Her mother, Krishna Devi, heard her fall down from the balcony to the concrete floor, a distance of about five meters. Krishna Devi found her daughter unconscious and bleeding from one ear. She called her husband, who quickly returned home from his shop. Stevenson (1997, p. 474) stated, “Prabhu Dayal said that when he had come home he had noticed that Shakuntala had injured the top of her head and that there was some slight bleeding from a wound there.” He then took his daughter to the M. B .S. Hospital in Kota. The medical records show that Shakuntala was admitted and that she died nine hours later from “head injury” (Stevenson 1997, p. 475).

When Sunita was born she had a large birthmark on the top of her head. It bled for three days. Stevenson (1997, p. 487) described the birthmark as it appeared when photographed in 1979: “The mark was approximately round in shape with irregular edges and about 2.5 centimeters in diameter. It was . . . hairless . . . slightly raised and slightly puckered.” A relative said no other member of the family had a birthmark like this.

Recollecting what happened during the time between her fatal accident and her rebirth, Sunita said, “I went up. There was a baba (holy man) with a long beard. They checked my record and said: ‘Send her back.’ There are some rooms there. I have seen God’s house. It is very nice. You do not know everything that is there” (Stevenson 1997, p. 484).

Here are some brief accounts of other cases documented by Stevenson. A woman in Thailand was born with three linear scars in the middle of her back. When she was a child, this woman remembered a previous life as a woman who was killed by three strokes of an axe on her back (Stevenson 1993, p. 410). A Burmese woman was born with two round birthmarks on her chest. The marks overlapped, and one was larger than the other. When she was a child, she recalled dying in a previous life after being shot accidentally with a shotgun. According to a witness who knew the dead woman, the shotgun that killed her had been loaded with two kinds of shot (Stevenson, 1993, pp. 410–411). A female Burmese child was born with a long, vertical birthmark near the middle of her lower chest and upper abdomen. She recalled having previously existed as one of her aunts. This aunt had died during heart surgery. Stevenson (1993, p. 411) obtained the aunt’s medical records and found that the incision for theheart surgery matched the birthmark. “Two Burmese subjects,” said Stevenson (1993, p. 411), “remembered as children the lives of persons who had died after being bitten by venomous snakes, and the birthmark of each corresponded to therapeutic incisions made at the sites of the snakebites on the persons whose lives they remembered.” A Turkish boy was born with a malformed right ear, and the right side of his face was underdeveloped. The boy remembered a previous life as a man who died after someone shot him in the head with a shotgun. Stevenson (1993, p. 411), having verified the existence of this man, examined his medical records and found that he died in the hospital six days after a shotgun wound to the right side of the skull.

An Indian child was born with small stubs instead of fingers on one hand. The child remembered existing in a previous life as a child who put his hand in a farm machine and lost his fingers. Stevenson noted that in most medical cases of brachydactyly (shortened fingers) the bones are still present in the fingers. Usually, only the middle finger bone is shortened. But in this case, there were no finger bones present at all. Also, cases where the fingers of only one hand are affected are rare. Stevenson (1993, p. 411) said he could not find a single published case in the medical literature. A Burmese girl was born with the lower part of her right leg missing. Stevenson (1993, pp. 411–412) reported, “She said that she remembered the life of a girl who was run over by a train. Eyewitnesses said that the train severed the girl’s right leg first, before running over the trunk.”

Some might suppose that children, aware of their birthmarks, may have invented imaginary past lives with histories that corresponded with the birthmarks. But we should remember that in many cases Stevenson has verified not only the existence of the past life person but has, through examination of the deceased person’s medical records, also verified the wound or incision matching the living subject’s birthmark.

Stevenson (1997, pp. 2099–2100) offered this explanation of this kind of evidence: “I believe that the cases I have described in this work strongly suggest . . . an influence by a deceased person on the embryo of a person who will be born later and (in most cases) come to have memories of the events in the life of that deceased person. . . . they further suggest an interaction between mind and body during life and the survival of mind after death. They also suggest that the form of a deceased person concerned in such a case can influence the form of the succeeding person who will remember the first person’s life. And finally, they suggest that memories of the first person’s life exist on some intermediate vehicle between death and presumed rebirth.” Putting it a little more directly, Stevenson (1997, p. 2102) concluded that “sometimes mental images in the mind of a deceased person who has survived death can influence the form of an embryo or fetus so as to cause birthmarks and birth defects.”

Paranormal Healings by Humans acting as mediums for Spirits

João Texeira da Faria, later known as João de Deus (John of God), is a Brazilian psychic healer of international fame. Hereafter, I will call him John of God. I have relied on Pelligrino-Estrich (1997) for the accounts of his activities found in this section. John of God was born in 1942 in a small town in the state of Goias, Brazil. His family was very poor, and he had little formal education. When he was sixteen years old and wandering jobless, he stopped to bathe in a creek near Campo Grande. He then heard a woman’s voice calling him. He saw in the shade of some trees a beautiful woman with fair hair. He spoke with her for some time. That night, he concluded it must have been Saint Rita of Cascia (1386–1456), the “saint of the impossible,” a patron of the dispossessed and desperate. He returned to the creek the next day, but instead of the woman, he saw a beam of light. When he turned away, he heard the woman’s voice say, “João. You must go to the Redemptor Spiritual Center in Campo Grande. They are waiting for you there.” Simultaneously, the beam of light disappeared. John went to the center, where a man greeted him, saying he was expected. John lost consciousness, and woke three hours later to find people congratulating him. He was informed that he had been possessed by “the entity of King Solomon” and had healed many persons. John remained at the center for three months as a healer and decided this was his life’s mission. He traveled from place to place, moving when physicians, dentists, or priests would have the local police charge him with criminal offences, such as medical malpractice. Finally, he set up his permanent clinic in its present location at Abadiania, Brazil, in 1978. In 1981, he was brought into court for practicing medicine illegally, but a jury acquitted him (Pelligrino-Estrich 1997, pp. 32–39). In 1987, John of God himself suffered a stroke, which partially paralyzed half his body. Eventually, he successfully cured himself (Pelligrino-Estrich

1997, pp. 26–27).

John of God’s clinic is in the village of Abadiania in the Goias Plateau. Thousands of people from around the world have come there for healings. The clinic is a small white building. Inside, early in the morning of a typical day, John rests in a small room, decorated with pictures of Christ, the Madonna, and Dom Inacio, the principal entity who works through John to give cures. In fact, the clinic is called Casa de Dom Inacio, the House of Dom Inacio. The cures start each day at eight o’clock in the morning and continue into the night. John of God has received honorary degrees and awards from many famous persons, governments, and institutions. For example, the President of Peru gave him that country’s Medal of Honor for curing his son (Pelligrino-Estrich 1997, pp.15–16).