Fairies, Folklore and Forteana

‘REMEMBERING’ CHILDREN

There are spiritual experiences that seem to be universal. These elements of, to use a happy phrase of Aldous Huxley’s, ‘neurotheology’, include: ancestor encounters at death, the dissolution of self in raptures, ‘life reviews’ and out of body experiences. Experiences of this kind are not taught or learnt. They depend on our hardwiring. They can be interpreted, according to taste, as chances of cognitive engineering or the moments we reach out to touch the divine. One other possible example of neurotheology is ‘remembering’ children.

Some infants report (without recourse to hypnotism) memories from past lives. These have been documented in several studies including those by Jim Tucker of the University of Virginia. In the most striking cases there are, it is alleged, verifiable facts carried over from pre-natal experiences. It would be easy to explain reincarnation as something acquired from religious beliefs: in India, for instance, claims of reincarnation among children might be a feature of pervasive Hindu convictions. What is fascinating about Tucker’s studies, though, is that he has predominantly researched ‘remembering’ children in the United States, in a society where reincarnation is a minority interest. Indeed, in some cases the families he researched were hostile to the idea.

LITTLE GIOVANNI’S MEMORIES OF DYING IN BATTLE WOULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN SHORT SHRIFT

Are ‘remembering’ children to be found in every society throughout history? The first point to make is that many ancient religious traditions contain ideas about reincarnation. These range from indigenous beliefs in the Americas about ancestors being reborn into clans; to ancient and mediaeval Germanic, Irish and Welsh stories of transformation and rebirth; to Buddhism and Hinduism where reincarnation takes centre stage. The second point is that under the three great monotheistic traditions reincarnation contradicts the idea of eternal other-worldly reward or punishment. If, for example, a ‘remembering’ child was born in Italy c. 1400, his family would have seen any pre-natal memories as a threat to orthodoxy. Little Giovanni’s memories of dying in battle under the banner of Siena would have been given short shrift. We might expect then a lack of accounts from areas where Christianity, Islam and Judaism dominated. With near-death experiences we have literally hundreds of years of Western accounts to build upon and to compare with one another. With ‘remembering’ children we have, in the West, only recent accounts. Is this because ‘remembering’ is something new in Western societies? Or is it maybe that we are seeing the emergence of a phenomenon that has been hidden by religious sensibilities for generations? Are we dealing, in short, with social conditioning or with neurotheology and a human universal?