These are four common attitudes towards the possibilty of a continued life after we die: death is the end of our existence; we cannot know if we live on or not; we have an eternal life ahead of us, we will be born again in a new body. According to the European Values Study, 45% of the population of Europe reject any idea of life after death, 28% believe in life after death but not in reincarnation and 20% believe that they will be reborn. Let us explore the possibility that we will be born again. The evidence comes from rare cases of children who claim to remember episodes of a previous life. Professor Haraldsson will present some cases from Lebanon, Sri Lanka, India and Iceland, describe how they were investigated, their characteristics, and give an overview of the major findings in this area of research. The cases can be found in many if not most countries. Analyses of the contents of these alleged memories reveal interesting features, such as frequent accounts of memories of a violent death, phobias relating to these memories/images and deep preoccupation with them. These children tend to be gifted, do well in school and have a greater than average vocabulary at an early age. Attempts to verify their past-life memories have been successful in some of the cases. Various models for interpreting them will be discussed and their implications.
Erlendur Haraldsson is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. He has written eight books which have appeared in many translations and editions, the latest being I Saw A Light And Came Here: Children’s Experiences Of Reincarnation (co-author James G. Matlock). He has published some one hundred papers in scientific journals and lectured widely on both sides of the Atlantic. He has studied at the Universities of Edinburgh, Freiburg, Munich and Virginia. He received his PhD from the University of Freiburg. He has been visiting professor at the University of Virginia and at the Institute for Borderline Areas of Psychology in Freiburg in Germany. See his homepage: https://notendur.hi.is/erlendur/
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