More with James G. Matlock discussing children who remember past lives

Jim Matlock delves into the nuances of reincarnation, discussing how and when consciousness takes possession of a new body.  He explains that possession can occur before, during or after birth. 

We also discuss the idea of discarnate agency, where disembodied consciousnesses remain active and able to communicate telepathically and influence the material world. 

Various phenomena such as mediumistic communications, telepathic connections during dreams, and pregnancy cravings are explored.  

Transcript

1:34

I'm very happy to be back with Jim Matlock and we're going to continue on what I think is a fascinating discussion about reincarnation. And one of the topics that we kind of touched on in the first episode, but we really didn't go into was talking about the moment when consciousness the, the new human life. That possession doesn't always take place during the womb or before birth, right? Yeah, no, it doesn't have to. Yeah, thanks Jim, by the way. I mean, glad to be back here. Oh, good. Yeah yeah, I mentioned this briefly when we were in our previous session. Yeah, yes, I mean, normally. Reincarnation occurs before birth. It doesn't have to occur at conception. It can occur at any point during gestation in the womb. It can also occur after birth. And this is where it becomes particularly, apparent that it's a possession, right? I mean, this is what we mean by possession. Yes. And I, I just pointing out, I mean, I think of reincarnation of all sorts as being a possession because with their number of cases where I have intermissions, that's the term for the period between death and birth of intermissions of less than nine months where it becomes clear that I mean, by that, I mean, the death of the previous person occurred. It's been a while after, after conception and unless in those cases there was a replacement, which usually there's not evidence of a replacement of one consciousness by another that would, that would indicate that the the body was not possessed of a consciousness before the reincarnating consciousness arrived. There are cases that have been as well investigated and as well documented as any others of the possession occurring after birth. And typically in these cases a person seems to die and then revives with a completely different personality, claiming to be a different person. And upon investigation the people that they claim to have been are found to have existed and having died, shortly before this possession so, but then when the, this, the new. Consciousness taking over the body continues on to the end of that person's natural life. Right. It's no longer simply a, a short term possession. Right. It's a longer term possession. That's why I use the term replacement reincarnation in connection with this. Consciousness, and then what happens then before the new possession? Right. Well, very often, it it varies, but very, very often the the there's some sort of illness. Oh, okay. The the person seems to die. Okay. And then then revives unexpectedly. I see. The so this happens most often in the With with young children or there's some cases in several cases in the teenage years. It's much rarer later in life. I see. I see. And, so the new consciousness comes in and they're just different. They're just a different. Yeah, just different person. It's a total change, total change of personality they don't know anything about the previous person. I mean, this, the people. I don't call these, describe them as walk ins very often. Okay. But the walk in term is one that was introduced by Ruth Montgomery, who was a popular writer in the 1970s. And she, she was one of the writers, the new age of writers at the time, and she thought of the walk in as being a highly developed spiritual being that's coming in and taking over the body. Okay. And with the permission of the walk out but according to Ruth Montgomery, there was no loss of memory of the previous person and there was no real change of personality or anything. With these replacement reincarnation cases, it's a very distinct change. Where there's a complete loss of identity, of memory, of being the earlier person and a new identification which is this check out of being somebody completely different. Oh, that, I think that is so fascinating, it it must kind of freak out the parents of the child. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean, one can only imagine, what it's like, they've lost their child. Right, right. I mean, you know, more than the loss of their child, they have to deal with this entirely new personality now. I know that when I actually pick up something at home, my wife sometimes will say, Who is this person that's actually picking things up? But it's a little bit different, I guess. Right, yeah. You know, it's on the continuum, perhaps, but it is at the extreme end of it, yeah. One of the things that we touched on in our previous interview was what can the disembodied consciousness do in between lives or before they come into a body. And I thought that that was, I think that's a very interesting thing. thing that I believe you have established that, these, consciousnesses can, communicate telepathically with individuals that are in, in human experience. Right, well there's a whole lot, I, lump all this, assume all of this under the heading of discarnate agency. Discarnate agency. Discarnate agency. So when, discarnate simply, disembodied, right? Okay. Disembodied agency meaning they're able to take actions. The, so the consciousness upon survival of death doesn't seem to lose anything much. It's, it's still able to think the way we are. It's still able to make decisions. It's still able to act on those decisions. And it's also able to perceive, not through the bodily senses now, remember those are gone. Right. But through psychic senses, clairvoyance, remote viewing and telepathy. which is the mind to mind, and then can act on the material world through what parapsychologists call psychokinesis, which is the mind over matter. And those are the things that are perceived by embodied people as poltergeist, very often. Oh, okay, okay. So these are effects that are produced by the discarnate consciousness, that affect the material world and can be observed, right? So how do these different things manifest Well, I mentioned the, the sort of the poltergeist phenomena, but there are other ones. One would be mediumistic communications, right? I'm sorry, would you say that again? Mediumistic communications. Mediumistic, okay. Yeah, talking through mediums. We're familiar with that probably. They get our side of it, right? We go to a medium, the medium contacts the deceased. Yeah, what, if we think it from the deceased point of view, right? What's going on here? Yes. There's this telepathic communication between the medium and the deceased consciousness. Right. That's passing information. So that's one way that the discarded agency is manifested. Another way is through dreams. Okay. Very often there'll be dreams about deceased people. Sometimes dreams shortly before pregnancy or during pregnancy called announcing dreams. There may also be Announcing dreams. Announcing dreams. Okay. And we can say more about those. But also, apparitions. Apparitions are the technical term for ghosts. People will see the apparition or hear the apparition. and all of these are manifestations then of the discarding of consciousness. I remember that after my mom passed away and I was very close with my mother and I was very sad, obviously. You know, I missed her and I wanted to spend a lot more time with her. And. I had a vivid dream where she gave me a hug. And I woke up from that dream very reassured and very comforted. And so as you're talking about that, she was a discarnate consciousness at that time. Right. And she had the agency or ability Right. To contact me through this dream. Right. And reassure me. Right. And this is a common effect for these types of dreams. You feel reassured. I did. I absolutely felt great about it. I felt like it was as if she actually had sat with me and given me a hug. It was very nice. Right. I mean, and so very often these things are passed off as being simply, our imagination, but one has to wonder, you know, whether, because of that effect, I mean, is this, is, is something that you just, that you brought on yourself to relieve yourself, or is it possible that she came to you to, relieve you in this way. And there's just so many of these types of experiences, and they all sort of knit together. I mean, there's so much evidence of this Ascardian Agency that I think we need to take it seriously that that may be what happened. I've had, of course, many dreams before and after that, but but none that had that particular emotional effect on me. That it would, I awoke from a normal dream, oh, that one's got a weird dream, and then, and then you just move on. But not that one. Not that one. It was, I just felt emotionally that I had been comforted. Yeah. It was wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Let's stay on the topic of dreams a little bit and cover the announcing dreams. And then I want to move on to some other aspects about where we reincarnate. But, what is an announcing dream? Yeah, announcing dream is the term that we use for a pregnancy dream. It's typically had by a pregnant woman. It could also be before she becomes pregnant, or it could be her husband or somebody else close to her. The dream about a person. That in one way or another indicates their intention to be reborn as that woman's child. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So, and these can be repetitive. there may be more than one dream like this. Sometimes they're very symbolic. Mm hmm. Other times they're quite literal. Mm hmm. I've heard of advanced souls taken possession of The human body as it's in gestation, I think you called it, in the womb. and actually comforting the mother who's nervous about the pregnancy. And I think that would be an example of that telepathic communication, right? Yeah, it would be. And I mean, it's not just announcing dreams. There are a number of other ways that the discarnate consciousness can influence the mother. One is through pregnancy cravings, interestingly enough. Oh, tell about that. Yeah. I mean, many women have these cravings, right? These crazy cravings for things that they didn't, favor before. And, then after the pregnancy is over, they lose the desires to eat these things. Well, it turns out that a lot of these cravings or aversions that can also be aversions to eating or doing things sometimes turn out to be Related to the previous person whose life the child will later recall. Yes. Right? You know, the discarnate consciousness was influencing the mother then, becomes apparent. I think that's so fascinating. Mom, Mom, I'm dying for a hamburger, yeah. And the mother's like, I gotta eat some hamburger. Yeah. It's just so, so neat. And And then it turns out that, that, that the person really favored hamburgers, you know, you know. So anyway but this is, this is not something that Jim Matlock made up. No, it's not. I mean, you know, it's not, none of this is, you know, and that's what's so incredible about this. And it's just really fascinating when one gets into this material. This is all proven things. Yeah. And the things we see over and over and over again. Repeat it. Okay., in your book, you talk about, where people reincarnate. And this I think is very interesting in that it's rare that, this is what you said in the book, that it was, it's rare that, A, consciousness will possess a body outside of the general geographic area. That it had lived in before as a human right or at least outside the culture I'm sorry in larger in larger countries like the United States, you know, there can be some distance But it's still within the American culture in the culture Stevenson was the sort of the founder of this whole research program. And his he was at the University of Virginia, Psychiatrist at the University of Virginia. And he has what is still the largest or he's now passed, he died in 2007. But UVA still has the largest database of these cases. So in his case collection, the median interval between lives. Well now this is different, this isn't what you're talking about, it was only 15 months and we'll come back to that because actually what you asked me about was the distance, but we'll come back to the intermission length because there are things to be said about that too, but to talk first about the distance, the, the median And, and median means it's, it's not the same as the average, not the same as the mean median means there's many bef above as below. Okay. Right. So the median distance between lives in Stevenson's cases was only 25 kilometers. That's about 15 and a half miles. My goodness. Yeah. So in a very combined area. So half of the numbers. Were less, less than that. Less than that. And half of them were, were over that. You know, so it's not to say that there, that, that no, that right there aren't any longer than that. But it's just that, that's a lot of, that tends to show, you know, just how many there are in a very, you know, confined area. And, and his studies, it was not like 10 studies or whatever he did. Th hundreds, thousands. Thousands, right? Yeah. Right. So we can trust that statistic. Now, the cases he investigated were primarily Asian cases. Okay. Right. And not ones that we find, in the Western societies, in Europe and the States. So we have to keep that in mind. Right. Because like I say, in, you know, in larger countries like the United States, the distance can be longer. But. So I think the critical thing may not be the distance so much as the cultural variation. Another thing we need to keep in mind here is that Stevenson was studying these cases beginning in the early 1960s. The world has changed since then. Absolutely. Right. And particularly in the areas that he was studying, people did not move around very much. Right. Right. And so what we're talking about is reincarnating in an area that one knows. Right. like I like to say sometimes, in one's comfort zone. Okay. Because it's not just geographical, it's also they reincarnate in the same ethnicity. Mm hmm. Not always the same sex, that's something we can come back to another time, but this, but the same linguistic group I mean, it just tends to, not that they're not exceptions, but that the tendency is to come back in one's comfort zone and in larger countries like the United States, I say, one's comfort zone is a whole lot larger than that, right? So there can be a longer Distance between lives and still be within that comfort zone, right? Right. I appreciate you pointing out that distinction because a lot has changed since the 1960s. People are much more mobile in the United States anyway. Now, you had mentioned, and I want to get back to this before I forget about it, is is how long, what, for the intermission periods in Stevenson studies. Right, and this is really important and very interesting thing actually. Stevenson, again, the median the median interval in Stevenson's large collection is only 15 months. Oh, that's a much different number than I was thinking you were going to say. 15 months. Now yeah, you know, maybe because you're thinking more like the Western cases where it can be many years. In fact, the median in in stranger cases, we haven't talked about family versus acquaintance versus stranger yet but in, when they're stranger relationships, when it is, when the child the subject of the, case is not acquainted. with the previous person, these we call stranger cases. Intermission in Western stranger cases can be several decades. Oh, okay. Okay. but 15 months was in cases where the reincarnation was within the cultural group. Yes, within the same cultural group. I mean, close by, that's right. Typical in Stevenson's cases, and one reason why it was so easy to verify a lot of these cases is that the previous lives were not long in the past and they weren't far away from the, where the the child, claimed to have lived. and so there were people from the previous family still living, easily contacted. And, it was just much easier to quote, solve the cases as we call them. That's the term we use when we identify the previous person. I think yesterday in your talk, you had said something, about out of all of the cases that Stevenson, documented, which is, I think, like 2, 200 or something like that, was it, or? Well, the latest figure on his database, given is 2, 500 cases in the database. Okay. of which 1, 700 are solved. Okay. All right. That means they've identified. Now, the number of cases that he investigated may be larger than that. I see. Because they've been taking many of the very weak cases out of that database. So we don't really know, I mean, we haven't been given good figures for the number of cases. Weak would mean that it's difficult to verify. A weak can include difficult to verify. It can also include cases where there is a verification, but it's, it's not totally solid. It's possible. I see. I see. You know, that there could be other, people related to it. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. One of the things in your book that I thought was so interesting, is you had said that, often people will reincarnate within the same linguistic you know, people that speak the same language. That's right. But one of the fascinating things I think is when, people display traits that are not anything like the family they're born into, for example, someone who speaks a different language. That's right. Yeah. No, these cases are fascinating. So even though the majority of the cases are, in the same cultural, realm and in and close by, there are a number of cases that are, international. Or, where there's a cultural difference between the lives. And in these cases, yeah the, the children seem to remember. At least subconsciously, the previous life and so the personality, the traits the interests that those patterns will carry over and influence the new life to the extent that in many of these cases the children dislike the food, they dislike the clothing, they dislike the climate. Of the life in which they're born. And then, as you point out, I mean, the most striking element in this is the language. There are, children who remember previous lives in other linguistic groups who will use words from that language, the previous language. Some of these children will resist learning their native language. Or have difficulty learning their native language. Which, which actually, as I think of it in reality, you have a person who's in an environment where one particular language is being spoken. That's right. The easiest thing to do for that person would be just to learn the new language. That would be just so much easier for them to carry on life. But they tend, that previous person is so strong in them, That's right. they say, well forget it. I mean, even there are cases where a girl, for five years, That's right. Didn't speak the native language of where she was. I mean, five years, that's a long time to hold out for that previous lifestyle. It's so interesting. Yeah, I know, it's extreme. It really is. Oh, it is, it is. One thing that I wanted to talk about a little bit is that the data shows that many times people are reborn into the same family group. Is that right? Yeah, There is a popular idea that we're always reborn in the same family or That we travel in families or groups this type of thing. We don't see good evidence for that on the other hand we do see in about 50 percent, of these cases that have been studied there are family relationships So it's not Unusual, then, to be reborn in the family. But There are a good number of cases where it's not the family. It's a friend. Oh, right. And this, when we talk about the discarded agency and the decisions. That Discardant Consciousness makes. That seems to me fairly clear, right? Yes. They're choosing not to go to a family member that they may be drawn to. They're choosing a specific person to return to. And then In addition to family and acquaintance cases there are a good number of cases with stranger relationships where the previous life was not known. The previous family was not known at all in, in the present life. And these are the ones that are the most significant. Okay. Understandably. To researchers, right? Because they're the hardest ones to explain away. The other things, particularly with family cases, a critic could always say, oh, they've learned this sort of stuff, right? Or the family is shaping the behaviors, this type of thing. But if the parents do not know anything about, the person that the child claims to have been, and that can be shown to be correct. Right. Then, that sort of breaks down and becomes much harder. Absolutely. So, the research is focused on these stranger cases. I see. And so when we talk about these statistics and what we have, we have to keep that in mind. I see. Because, it could be that our data is biased, right? Right. I mean, selection bias is what this is called. Selection by the researcher. Yeah. Yes. Selection by the researcher, selection bias in the statistical set that we have here because researchers have deliberately sought out the stranger cases because they're more evidentially stronger. And what that would mean. Is that the resulting statistics may overestimate the number of stranger cases there are. So in fact, in reincarnation, it may be much more common to reincarnate in one's own family line than anything else. Okay. Okay. And one. Thing before we finish up, I wanted to ask about this and that is out of 100 percent of the population, only a small percentage of people remember their previous lives. And those typically are children before the age of five, right? Have you looked into why don't we all remember our previous lives? Well, I think we may have touched on that in the first episode. Yeah, I think it's subconscious resistance to remembering. But I do want to say before we close, because this is important, adults also can have past life memories. It's not just children. This isn't a phenomenon just of children. The children have the strongest memories in terms of past life memories. How strongly the, the various types of memory will manifest the, the, the conscious memories that they, the declare declarative memories, the behavioral memories, their physical phenomena they're stronger, more robust with the children, but adults also can have these memories come to them. And very often with adult cases, we see childhood precursors, that is, in childhood we can look back and see in childhood there were behaviors that we didn't recognize at the time that were associated with the previous life, that once we know that there was this previous life we can now see that, you know, once we get some context to it, right, right, right. Stevenson did write, he did study some adult cases, but by and large, he was focused on the more evidential children's cases. And so we're just beginning now in the last few years to pay more attention to adult cases. I see. That's coming out. And it's clear that adults do have these memories also. Okay. and this field. is not stagnant and not at all. Stevenson's methodology is still the gold standard. We're still falling it. Okay. But it needs to be updated. We are in the process of updating it. We're bringing in new methodologies in addition to what he did. I mean, for instance, I just took a brief, for instance. Yeah. Yes. I'm interested. You know in Stevenson's Day, this had to be investigated in the field. You know, now we have Zoom, now we have social media, and we can do interviews through social media. We can interview people over Zoom. We don't have to go to distant locations. And this makes it a lot easier, obviously, to do this sort of research. there are so many more things that we could talk about and I look forward to perhaps at another date we could do another interview. And I really, really appreciate you being here. I urge anyone who has any interest in this field to look up James G. Matlock and you will see a lot of interviews that he's done, his books, Signs of Reincarnation, and I saw a light in. came here very, very well written, and I enjoyed the, the latter very, very much. And so, at any rate, I urge you to follow up on this and continue, because it's pretty cool stuff. Yeah, it is, it's fascinating. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.