Growing up, the concept of reincarnation always fascinated me. My first introduction to reincarnation began when I read about Shanti Devi, the Indian child that had memories of her past life – a family that she had left behind, a mother’s struggle through child birth, a husband. Mind you, this child was 4 years old, born in Delhi but spoke about her family in Mathura. The case became so famous that Mahatma Gandhi ended up appointing a committee to investigate this further.
Reading this in the 90s, with no internet to research further, I was left with movies to enrich my knowledge of reincarnation. Bollywood movies are full of it!
Who can forget the famous Karan Arjun?
It wasn’t until much later in life that I was introduced to the concept of genetic memories. Again, Indian cinema comes to the forefront of research with the Tamil Movie 7aum Arivu – an exploration and reincarnation of a monk called Bodhidharma, considered the first ancestor of Chinese Zen.
It’s not like the west didn’t mess around with the concept of reincarnation or genetic memory. We have the famous video game Assassin’s Creed, Ripley from Alien Resurrection, even Dr. Who had an episode on it.
But what is genetic memory? How is this different or similar to brain memory or mind memory that we have come to associate memories with?
Many psychologists theorise that we are born with a set of memories and experience of our ancestors that is imprinted in our DNA. In the early 1900s Sigmund Freud began to think about the unconscious aspects of the human psyche and suggested that past experience was encoded in the DNA of the individual and could be retrieved through psychoanalysis as well as by dreams and daydreaming. Recent research has begun to uncover some of the details of this theory and how these discoveries may one day help us understand more about the connection between genetics and psychology.
Unlike our mind memories (for the lack of a better word) or the Hindu reincarnation theory, these memories are encoded to help us as a species. For example, it is theorised our basic survival instinct stems from the traumatic experiences of our ancestors. The concept of ‘fear’ being based down was studied by Brian Dias at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, using mice. He was one of the first scientists to study the inheritance of smell through microRNAs. A generation of mice were made to smell a rose just before they were to be killed. The progeny of these feared the smell of rose. Interestingly, the offspring were born with more sensory receptors in their brains, making them more sensitive to smell. While it seems logical that the mice inherited the scent of rose. The main question here is how did they connect the smell with the fear response? Fear of a smell can be passed down several generations | New Scientist
Raising further questions of was Jean-Baptiste Lamarck right? Should we go back and explore the long rejected Lamarckian inheritance theory – Lamarckism? Can we inherit traits? If so, what might they be? Why did we reject this idea until recently? Genetic memory: A Scientific Basis for Past Life Regression?
The concept of inherited traits has been around for centuries. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was the first to propose the theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, suggesting that physical changes acquired during an organism’s lifetime could be passed down to its offspring. This idea was largely rejected with the discovery of genetics and the theory of natural selection proposed by Charles Darwin. However, recent studies have suggested that certain traits may be inherited through epigenetic mechanisms. For example, studies in mice have shown that traumatic experiences can result in changes in gene expression that can be passed down through multiple generations. This raises the question of whether or not Lamarck was right, and if so, what other traits might be inherited through similar mechanisms.
Note: Genetically, this could be recorded in the form as a single nucleotide polymorohism (SNP) – a micro variation or mutation that could’ve occurred due to a past trauma. Scientific evidence? No one has explored that yet. Another theory is the involvement of microRNA, the non-coding fragments of RNA.
But what about past life?
If we go by Dr. Ian Steveson’s research – past life ‘mind memories’ can be carried on by children. I know, this sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo and just quack science. But let’s explore it a bit.
Dr. Ian spent most of his scientific career studying the concepts of past life inheritance. Throughout his career he authored 300 papers and 14 books on reincarnation. His claim to fame were his extensive studies of children’s memories of previous lives.
Ian studied over 3000 ‘past life’ cases from all over the world, ranging from Sri Lanka to Lebanon. A child of 7 or 8 years old may remember his past lives, and he may have a specific memory of one such as being a king in Atlantis, an Egyptian queen, or even a Roman soldier who lived in the first century AD! There even was a person claiming to be the reincarnate of Pocahontas! In addition to this, he may also remember many other incidents from all these different lives which happened before he came into this world and will be able to tell you that he was in some past life! But where does this happen? According to Dr Steveson: It has been found that our brains are active at the time of birth and for a period after the age of seven years.
In all his studies there were 5 common characteristics:
- The wish to be reborn
- Prophetic dreams
- Birth marks
- Children’s memories of past life
- A feeling of ‘I don’t fit in this body’
His most unexplainable case according to him: “Twins in Sri Lanka. We did testing that showed they were identical, yet they were markedly different in their behaviors and physical appearance. One twin began to talk about a previous life as a Sinhalese insurgent, said he was shot by police in April 1971. Anyway, his family laughed at him, so he shut up and nothing could be verified about what he said. The older twin talked copiously about the previous life of a young schoolboy. He made several specific statements that ultimately checked out. He said he lived in a place called Balapitiya and traveled by train to a school in another town called Ambalangoda. He made comparisons between the families’ property. He referred to an aunt, by name, who had cooked chilies for him. Perhaps the most astonishing thing was that when the two families met, the boy pointed to some [writing] in a wall that turned out to be the name of the deceased boy he was remembering. The subject said he had made that when the cement was wet. No one in the deceased boy’s family had noticed it before.”
His studies found a couple of aspects that were common across cultures:
- Children that start speaking at an early age
- Past life memories fade away between ages of 5 and 8
- High incidence violent deaths
- And remembrance of mode of death from previous life.
According to Dr. Stevenson, past life memories are retained only for a short while before they fade away between the ages of 5 and 8. This raises questions about the nature of memory and how it is stored and accessed in the brain. While the concept of genetic memory and inherited traits has gained some scientific support, the idea of past life memories remains controversial and unproven. It is up to individuals to decide for themselves whether or not they believe in the possibility of reincarnation and past life memories.
Can we simulate our ancestral memories with an Animus?
First off, we don’t have an Animus.
Second, we already might be living the lives of our ancestors. Well up to 14 generations ago. At least it’s true for nematodes. For it to be extrapolated to human behaviour and memory is a different story that requires deeper investigation, and also a long lost ancestor to be alive.
For it to be extrapolated to human behaviour and memory is a different story that requires deeper investigation, and also a long lost ancestor to be alive. We just do not know who they are, where he came from or what kind of life he had (in fact, we have no idea how many of them there were in total). If I was to venture a guess though, and go with the theory of Evolution, that this group of ancestors was so small, that each generation had only one or two descendants and most likely died out, then you can still use the information about your own genes to deduce what the average gene was.
To quote Dr.Stevenson, ’Readers should make up their own minds, not on the basis of what I believe or what anybody else believes.’’
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