In "The After Death Experience: The Physics of the Non-Physical", author Ian Wilson suggests that the real driving force behind the cases Stevenson studied is that poor parents were coaching their children what to say, so as to get associated with rich families. He cites five cases "from Stevenson's most fully published Indian and Sri Lankan cases" which include this kind of disparity of income between the families. He admits that "The list has been excerpted to highlight this contrast" and then admits that there are "some minor exceptions", but concludes "the trend is so marked across so many of Stevenson's cases that it surely indicates only one thing: a motive."
First of all, this is beyond stretching the truth by emphasis. This is an outright lie. The book is copyrighted 1987. My edition of "20 Cases" was published in 1974, so it surely was available to him. While it will take me some time to go back through the cases carefully, a quick perusal of "20 Cases" yielded no cases in which this disparity of income was mentioned. I think it probably occurs in the minority of the thousands of cases Stevenson has studied, rather than the other way-round. Again, if I am correct in this preliminary assessment, Wilson's conclusion is misleading to the point of being an intentional lie.
In many if not most of Stevenson's cases, the parents not only did not coach the child, they were adamantly opposed to the child expressing the past-life memories. The past-life memories were a source of extreme discomfort for the family, and the parents tried to suppress them, forbidding the child to talk about it and in some cases even punishing the child. This scenario is completely at odds with parental coaching. Socially, as well as emotionally, the parents had everything to lose, since in the eyes of their peers they stood to become the family with the crazy child who was rejecting them.
In addition, many of the memories the child had, the talents the child displayed (including speaking in a foreign language), and the birthmarks, could not have been faked. Nor is it likely that a young child, no matter how carefully coached, would be a good enough actor to convincingly show the appropriate emotions and social behaviors toward his past-life wife, parents, siblings, extended family and friends. For example, one child is reported as eating off the plate of his former wife, but not off anyone else's--because in that culture it would only be appropriate to eat off one's spouse's plate. It is extremely unlikely that a young child, in an unfamiliar surrounding with unfamiliar people, would remember such minute details and put on a command performance, such that he could fool a trained psychiatrist.
Wilson goes so far as to suggest that one birthmark was created by the money-grubbing parents. Although such a callous and blatant deception on the part of parents is not inconceivable in one or two cases, it's absurd to say that it accounts for all of them, or a majority of them. After all, Stevenson is a medical doctor--something Wilson presumably is not. Stevenson carefully examined and categorized the birthmarks by medical type. Wilson's charge that they were faked, and that Stevenson would be unable to detect fakery, is both illogical and reckless.
One child in the Stevenson cases was able to talk privately with his former-life wife and tell her specific details about their intimate sex-life. The wife then confirmed that what he said was accurate. Even if the child's parents were willing to coach the child in this matter, it is very unlikely that they would have known these details.
Beyond all this, as I have pointed out elsewhere in these comments, in many of the Stevenson cases it is the child who first begins talking about specific details of the past life before the parents ever have any input. The child gives his former name, the former village, his occupation, and so-on. There is no opportunity for coaching. This phenomenon has been observed in Western countries as well, and it is so widespread and universal that it is illogical to try to account for it by the coaching hypothesis.
Finally, Wilson makes the charge that the observers who accompanied Stevenson were biased because they were reincarnationists. Oh, and I suppose materialists take along reincarnationists on their research expeditions? The inference here is that materialists are objective. Unfortunately that's not always the case, as this example points out. Regardless of the person's philosophical persuasion, the role of the observer is to provide a separate, honest pair of eyes to catch things the researcher may have missed. Their integrity, not their beliefs, is the crucial factor.
Nevertheless, in later years Dr. Stevenson did invite Tom Shroder, a skeptical editor for the Washington Post, to travel with him in the field on two occasions. In his book, "Old Souls," as well as in his interview in "In Another Life", Mr. Shroder affirms from his direct observation that Dr. Stevenson was, in fact, getting the results he claims in his case studies.
I am going to re-read "20 Cases" carefully and make a tally of the cases which show this disparity in income between the past-life family and the present-life family. If it turns out I'm mistaken I'll post a retraction or correction immediately. If I find that these disparities are absent, are in the minority or are logically cancelled out by other factors, I'll edit these comments accordingly.*
Stephen Sakellarios, 3/23/04
*The first thing I find as I begin reading through "20 Cases" is the case of Prakash, which I have also quoted from elsewhere in these comments. So far I see no mention of Prakash having lived in a "mud hut" as Wilson writes. However, I do see the following: "On this occasion, when Prakash first saw Sri Jagdish Jain, he smiled with pleasure and enjoyed being carried through the streets of Jagdish to his home. ... But after questioning the adults of the Varshnay family, when I turned to talk with Prakash, I found him strangely uncommunicative. I suspected his father had instructed him to tell us nothing and the next day when I returned for a second conference with Sri Varshnay he confirmed this inference."
In other words, whereas Wilson suggests that the parents in these cases coached the children to confirm past-life details so as to obtain money from the alleged past-life family, in this case as it is actually reported by Stevenson, the parents coached the child not to say anything--just the opposite of what Wilson charges.
Wilson had access to the same text I have. So, my point is, don't assume that the people representing the challenging viewpoint, i.e. reincarnation, are more likely to be fraudulent. It's just as possible that the people representing the socially acceptable viewpoint, i.e. materialism, are reporting fraudulently. This goes for all areas of the "paranormal" with their respective debunkers.
3/28/04
As I continue my reading in "20 Cases", still with the Prakash case which Wilson cited as one of five proving this supposed trend in Stevenson's cases, I find the following: "The Jain and Varshnay families are of slightly different subcastes and this would make more unlikely their having acquantanceship or mutual friends." This suggests, to me, that there was probably not the great disparity in social standing between the present-life family and the past-life family that Wilson suggested. Still no mention of Prakash being raised in a "mud hut".
4/12/04
I couldn't get to this for awhile, but picking up where I left off, I see on page 23 of "20 Cases" the following paragraph, which I'll quote in full to give the entire context:
Prakash had a strong identification with the supposed previous personality of Nirmal; indeed, a stronger identification with a previous personality than has occurred in most of the other Indian cases I have studied. The Varshnay family testified vividly to this identification which seriously bothered them, especially Prakash's efforts to run away to Kosi Kalan. Prakash insisted on being called Nirmal and sometimes would not respond when called Prakash. He told his mother she was not his mother and complained about the mediocrity of the house they lived in (my emphasis--SS). He talked of "his father's" shops, his iron safe, and the members of the previous family. Often he would weep abundantly and go without food during the period of his pleadings to go to Kosi Kalan. One day Prakash took a large nail and started off in the direction of Kosi Kalan. Members of his family went in search of him and found him half a mile away, in the direction of Kosi Kana. When asked what the nail was, Prakash replied, "This is the key of my iron safe."
Now, we do see a mention of Prakash's current-life family not being as well-situated financially as his past-life family. Perhaps I will find Wilson's reference to a "mud hut", or perhaps Wilson was exaggerating to build his case. However, it's obvious to me that it was the child who yearned to establish the connection with the other family, and certainly not for motives of greed, but rather for motives of obsessive identification with the previous-life personality. The parents continued to discourage his obsession, to put it mildly. Earlier in "20 Cases", on page 21, we see the following:
Nirmal's family [i.e., the past-life family] became convinced that he had been reborn as Prakash. Unfortunately, the second visit to Kosi Kalan and the meeting with members of the Jain family thoroughly re-activated Prakash's longing to go to Kosi Kalan. He again began running away from home and his father again beat him to make him forget this idea, or at least its execution." (my emphasis--SS)
Once again, this tells me that Wilson was grossly mischaracterizing this case to put forth his own skeptical interpretation. It cannot possibly be an honest error on his part--either it is deliberately and intentionally misleading, or else it is the result of his thinking being distorted by going into psychological denial. Either way, instead of unfairly debunking Stevenson, he should have been able to quickly and easily dismiss this theory that the parents coached the children to get associated with a rich family, and he should be using his position to unequivocally announce Stevenson's positive findings to the world.
The point is that Wilson appears to be accepted as an expert on these matters. I noticed his name recently in the credits for a show broadcast on public television about the Shroud of Turin. I think it is time the public realized that not everybody who is taken as an authority on the debunking side of these issues is being fair or objective, just because they're on that side.
6/9/04
I have been too busy to devote time to this particular project, of trying to go through all the sources Prof. Wilson may have gone through on which to base his conclusion that Stevenson's cases all just were coached by their parents to pretend to remember a previous life in rich families, so as to get money.
However, I've been reading Stevenson's "Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect", and on pages 76-77 I find a brief case description which, I feel, adequately answers this baseless charge. I'm going to reproduce it in full below.
The case follows:
Juggi Lal Agarwal was born in the town of Sirsaganj in the Mainpuri District of Uttar Pradesh, India, on August 13, 1955. His father, Bihari Lal, was a grain dealer. His parents seem not to have noticed any birthmark on him when he was born or soon after.
Not long after Juggi Lal began to speak, he started referring to a previous life. He said that he came from Bhongaon, which is a small town about 65 kilometers north of Sirsaganj. He said that he had been called Puttu Lal and that he had a wife and children in Bhongaon. He further stated that he had been a farmer who brought his grain to Sirsaganj, where he had sold it to Juggi Lal's father. He remembered that unlike many, perhaps most, of the grain dealers of the area, Juggi Lal's father was always scrupulously honest in giving the farmers full value for the grain they brought. He said that he became so attached to Bihari Lal that he thought to himself that if he should die, he would like to be reborn in Bihari Lal's family.
Bihari Lal bought grain from many farmers, and Juggi Lal's statements did not stimulate in him memories of any farmer from Bhongaon whose grain he had bought. He made no move to verify what Juggi Lal was saying. As happens so often in these cases, however, word of what the subject was saying eventually spread back to Bhongaon and reached surviving members of the family of a man called Puttu Lal. These included Puttu Lal's father, Girivar Singh, who decided to go to Sirsaganj and meet Juggi Lal. Upon meeting Juggi Lal he immediately examined the boy's head above his ear and found there what was surely a birthmark. I say this because Juggi Lal had never had any injury at that site; on the other hand, the mark accorded well with the history of Puttu Lal's death.
Puttu Lal had been a peasant farmer (of the Lodha caste) who cultivated his own land. He quarreled with neighbors over the boundaries of their properties. The parties engaged in a fight with heavy batons (called lathis in India). During this engagement one of the combatants struck Puttu Lal on the head. The wound seems then to have become infected, and the infection spread along or under the scalp until it came near the right ear. At this point an abscess either burst spontaneously or was possibly lanced by a doctor who put in a few stitches. After this, the infection must have spread inward, and I conjecture that Puttu Lal died from a several infection of his blood by bacteria (bacteremia). (At this time and place there were no antibiotics available.) We never succeeded in obtaining fully satisfactory written records of Puttu Lal's injury and medical treatment, although we found fragmentary information about his attendance at different hospitals. I have put together my account of his last illness from these fragments as well as from information I received from surviving members of his family. (These did not include Girivar Singh, who had died by the time we investigated the case.) The point is that Puttu Lal had had some kind of an infection with an opening above his right ear, and the memory of this made his father believe that if Juggi Lal were his son reborn, he should have a birthmark at the same site, which I believe he had. The birthmark, at the time I examined it, consisted of a line somewhat resembling the scar of a small incision; and there seemed to be several tiny punctate scars adjoining it, which might have corresponded to surgical stitch marks.
In addition to the statements that I have already mentioned, Juggi Lal made a number of others that proved convincing to the members of Puttu Lal's family. The one that I found most impressive was his statement that his (previous) name (Puttu Lal) had been tattooed on the arm of his daughter. This was nearly correct, but the name tattooed was Puttu Ram, not Puttu Lal. I am sure that Juggi Lal could not have obtained this information normally.
Unlike most of the subjects of these cases, Juggi Lal had no desire to go to Bhongaon and there meet members of the previous family. He was friendly enough with them when they came to meet him; but he had no wish to cultivate close relationships with them. He identified himself with the higher caste of Banias (businessmen) and believed that he should leave behind the lower caste (Lodha) of the previous life.
Now, here you have a case in which the subject clearly did have a preference for one family over the other, as Wilson suggests. However, the irony is that it was the family and caste he incarnated into which was the preferred one, not the one he came from. If you examine this one case thoroughly, I think you will find that the facts therein contradict Wilson's charge, and probably a number of charges by other critics as well.
--Stephen S.
Note this comment, found at the end of an article about another such case in India (see Links section of this website for full account):
"Taranjit is living with the parents of his present birth as they refuse to give him to his former parents, even though they are poorer than them. The parents of his previous birth have also not pressed their claim saying they understand the feelings of their counterparts."