How I Know Past Lives are Real
This Changes Everything
I’ll admit it, the idea of past lives seemed ludicrous just a few years ago. For me, reincarnation was a silly fantasy, like when an actor declares they were once a camel or something.
I believed I had “one life to live,” and had better get it right … or else!
As far as I knew, the only choice was a “Stairway to Heaven” or a “Highway to Hell.” I never thought existence could be more like a spiral, like we see in sunflowers, galaxies and the weave of our own DNA strands.
Then I heard about a toddler named James, who was plagued with nightmares about World War II, causing his mom great distress…
Intense Nightmares Lead to Incredible Discovery
New mothers are especially vulnerable to any irregularities with their children, so when 3-year-old James Leininger kept waking up screaming about crashing in an airplane, concern was an understatement.
“Airplane crash on fire! Little man can’t get out!” he’d scream at the top of his lungs during these reoccurring nightmares.
The mom went to her American doctors, who pretty much scratched their heads. Then she ran into a spiritual woman who suggested something so simple it was genius: Ask the boy what happened…
She did just that, which began to unravel a case so startling that it caught the attention of university scholars.
Past Life “Detectives”
At the University of Virginia, Dr. Jim Tucker studies thousands of cases of children with past life memories. He’s been doing it for 20 years, and before him, Dr. Ian Stevenson studied the phenomena for 35 years.
It took big money to get board-certified physicians at a respected university to study the “supernatural.”
Chester Carlson invented the Xerox copying process that changed the world. Thanks to a suggestion from his spiritual wife, Carlson left a million-dollar grant to launch Division of Perceptual Studies (equal to about 8 million dollars today).
They’re studying phenomena that “suggest continuation of consciousness after physical death.” And they kept going past the initial grant because the findings were so mind-boggling!
And they studied little James too…
“James, What Happened?”
The 3-year-old explained to his mom that he had flown his plane off a battleship, but was then shot down by Japanese fighters.
His father stepped in, asking the 28-month-old child the name of the boat, to which James replied, “Natoma.”
The father, a devout Christian, had no reason to believe his son lived a past life as someone else, so he began a rigorous online search.
To his shock and bewilderment, he discovered there was a USS Natoma Bay escort carrier stationed in the Pacific during World War II.
Boy Tells Previously Untold Story
The toddler named the type of airplane he remembered flying: a Corsair, the same planes the Natoma Bay carried.
His parents asked him if he could remember anyone he knew as the “little man.” He replied, “Jack Larsen.”
Searching online, the father contacted a veteran of the Natoma Bay. To his astonishment, the man confirmed there was a Jack Larson aboard. However, the veteran explained Larson flew off one day and never returned.
James’s father still wanted to dig deeper, so he actually went to a reunion of Natoma Bay veterans. The University’s report explains he discovered that during the Battle of Iwo Jima, the one pilot from the ship lost was a 21-year old from Pennsylvania named James M. Huston, Jr.”
After James Huston Jr. came “James 3.”
James’ mother used census records to look up the sister of James Huston Jr., who is still alive. Over a phone call, the young James confirmed private details about the family, including how another sister Ruth was mortified when their mother took a job as a maid.
True Closure and End of Nightmares
The parents, now convinced that their son was once James Huston Jr., decided to try to find closure for their afflicted child.
The three traveled to the location in the Pacific where James remembers being shot down in the Pacific.
A raw home-video footage shows a tearful young James throwing a bouquet of flowers into the sea, sobbing as he wishes his former self goodbye. After that, the nightmares stopped.
James found closure and is living a normal life now, saying the memories have faded as he’s gotten older but he doesn’t doubt their authenticity for a moment.
He later said, “I just made that spiritual release from James Huston.”
Relevant religious notes:
Dr. Tucker says that when the family isn’t raised to believe in reincarnation, like the Leiningers who are Christian, it adds credibility to the case. It is interesting to note however that 25% of Christians are said to believe in past lives.
A common fundamentalist response could be to blame demonic activity, but looking at the “fruits of the tree” as the Nazarene instructed, we see a child liberated from mental illness through realizing his past life — and letting it go.
Also, in scripture Jesus alludes to how the prophet Elijah returned as John the Baptist — essentially being reincarnated. Many early Christians and Jews also believed in past lives.
In the end, the answer to this mystery lies within you…
“If we think that we cease to exist when we die, we have not looked very deeply at ourselves.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
One way the Tibetan Buddhists find their new Dalai Lama (after one dies) is by showing him items the previous incarnation loved — seeing if he’s attracted to them, or “remembers” them. You can do the same thing, what attracted you when you were a young child? Start there.
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