Could a Little Boy Be Proof of Reincarnation?

ABC News ^ | April 20, 04 | ABC News

[churchillbuff]

Nearly six decades ago, a 21-year-old Navy fighter pilot on a mission over the Pacific was shot down by Japanese artillery. His name might have been forgotten, were it not for 6-year-old James Leininger.

Quite a few people — including those who knew the fighter pilot — think James is the pilot, reincarnated.

James' parents, Andrea and Bruce, a highly educated, modern couple, say they are "probably the people least likely to have a scenario like this pop up in their lives."

But over time, they have become convinced their little son has had a former life.

From an early age, James would play with nothing else but planes, his parents say. But when he was 2, they said the planes their son loved began to give him regular nightmares.

"I'd wake him up and he'd be screaming," Andrea told ABCNEWS' Chris Cuomo. She said when she asked her son what he was dreaming about, he would say, "Airplane crash on fire, little man can't get out."

Reality Check

Andrea says her mom was the first to suggest James was remembering a past life.

At first, Andrea says she was doubtful. James was only watching kids' shows, his parents say, and they weren't watching World War II documentaries or conversing about military history.

But as time went by, Andrea began to wonder what to believe. In one video of James at age 3, he goes over a plane as if he's doing a preflight check.

Another time, Andrea said, she bought him a toy plane, and pointed out what appeared to be a bomb on its underside. She says James corrected her, and told her it was a drop tank. "I'd never heard of a drop tank," she said. "I didn't know what a drop tank was."

Then James' violent nightmares got worse, occurring three and four times a week. Andrea's mother suggested she look into the work of counselor and therapist Carol Bowman, who believes that the dead sometimes can be reborn.

With guidance from Bowman, they began to encourage James to share his memories — and immediately, Andrea says, the nightmares started become less frequent. James was also becoming more articulate about his apparent past, she said.

Bowman said James was at the age when former lives are most easily recalled. "They haven't had the cultural conditioning, the layering over the experience in this life so the memories can percolate up more easily," she said.

Trail of Mysteries

Over time, James' parents say he revealed extraordinary details about the life of a former fighter pilot — mostly at bedtime, when he was drowsy.

They say James told them his plane had been hit by the Japanese and crashed. Andrea says James told his father he flew a Corsair, and then told her, "They used to get flat tires all the time."

In fact, historians and pilots agree that the plane's tires took a lot of punishment on landing. But that's a fact that could easily be found in books or on television.

Andrea says James also told his father the name of the boat he took off from — Natoma — and the name of someone he flew with — "Jack Larson."

After some research, Bruce discovered both the Natoma and Jack Larson were real. The Natoma Bay was a small aircraft carrier in the Pacific. And Larson is living in Arkansas.

"It was like, holy mackerel," Bruce said. "You could have poured my brains out of my ears. I just couldn't believe it.

James 2 = James M. Huston Jr.?

Bruce became obsessed, searching the Internet, combing through military records and interviewing men who served aboard the Natoma Bay.

He said James told him he had been shot down at Iwo Jima. James had also begun signing his crayon drawings "James 3." Bruce soon learned that the only pilot from the squadron killed at Iwo Jima was James M. Huston Jr.

Bruce says James also told him his plane had sustained a direct hit on the engine.

Ralph Clarbour, a rear gunner on a U.S. airplane that flew off the Natoma Bay, says his plane was right next to one flown by James M. Huston Jr. during a raid near Iwo Jima on March 3, 1945.

Clarbour said he saw Huston's plane struck by anti-aircraft fire. "I would say he was hit head on, right in the middle of the engine," he said.

Treasured Mementos

Bruce says he now believes his son had a past life in which he was James M. Huston Jr. "He came back because he wasn't finished with something."

The Leiningers wrote a letter to Huston's sister, Anne Barron, about their little boy. And now she believes it as well.

"The child was so convincing in coming up with all the things that there is no way on the world he could know," she said.

But Professor Paul Kurtz of the State University of New York at Buffalo, who heads an organization that investigates claims of the paranormal, says he thinks the parents are "self-deceived."

"They're fascinated by the mysterious and they built up a fairy tale," he said.

James' vivid, alleged recollections are starting to fade as he gets older — but among his prized possessions remain two haunting presents sent to him by Barron: a bust of George Washington and a model of a Corsair aircraft.

They were among the personal effects of James Huston sent home after the war.

"He appears to have experienced something that I don't think is unique, but the way it's been revealed is quite astounding," Bruce said.

Asked if the idea that James may have been someone else changes his or his wife's feeling about their son, Bruce said: "It doesn't change how we think. I don't look at him and say, 'That's not my boy.' That's my boy."

[Marie]

When I was a child I remember arguing with my mother. I was SURE that I'd been in a chopper and she insisted that I hadn't. We dropped it for years, but it came up again when I was 16. I was very confused aobut the whole thing. I remember being in the helicopter, sitting by the door. I remember looking at the back of the seat in front of me. I remember my thoughts at the time as I looked out the open door to the tree tops below. ("I'm actually riding in a helicopter!") I remember the feeling that I was on a grand adventure and I was very excited.

The problem: it didn't happen. I've never been in a helicopter in my life. But the memories are as clear as yesterday. I don't know if I'm remembering a past life, or somehow tapping into another person's memories (living or dead), but I do know that something is there.

I guess that it really doesn't matter to the big picture. All we can do is live in the now and work on doing our best to be better.

[HitmanLV]

Consider what I think are two more likely explanations for this and similar claims of reincarnation.

The collective unconscious - at some level, everyone alive is 'connected' at an unconscious (or subconscious) level. We can (and sometimes do) tap into the memories and thougts of other people. This is not bound by time or space. The memories this child has may legitimately be of the downed pilot, but that's not to say that the child and the pilot are any more the same person as I am the same person as either the child or the pilot.

Race Memory - Most of the grey cells in our brains are for storage of information. It's the most sophisticated compter in existence. In it, all the events of your life are recorded in super high-fidelity. Almost everyone's memory is perfect (except those who have chemical problems in their brain, or have sustained physical injury that harmed the brain). Indeed, when we 'forget' something, it is our recall that is failing, not our memory.

Anyway, I am convinced that the grey brain cells do more than just record our own life experience. They contain the complete collective life experiences of all the past people in our ancestry and lineage - indeed, because of the nature of the extended family tree, for practical purposes the memories of the human race are represented in this matrix.

On top of that, it has information they knew of historical or fictional events, books, songs, stories, etc.

The subconsious mind has difficulty distingishing (and I think simply can't distinguish, but the jury is still out on that one) from very vivid visualizations/imaginations and memories of real events. To the extent that particularly vivid images are part of the collectve race memory, they form legitimate 'memories' that are still stored in our DNA and our grey brain cells. Indeed, these can be memories of things that never actuially happened.

It's easy to see then how someone could have legitimate 'memories' of events that they never experienced. A sense of 'deja vu' for example, or detailed dreams of past events before their birth. These are esentially recollections of memories of the human race.

I have studied reincarnation and other related phenomena, and this explanation is the best in my estimation.

Also note that the collective unconscious and the concept of race memory are not mutually exclusive - they can be (and I suspect are) both at work to explain what is commonly called 'reincarnation.'

Of course, I can't prove any of this. :-)

[HitmanLV]

The occult has been a hobby and interest of mine for years. Genuine demonic possession is very, very rare. I don't think that's at work in cases like this, though it certainly could be.

Please check out my thoughts on race memory and the collective unconscious, which I have long suspected is the reason for 'memories' of 'past lives.'

[HitmanLV]

The boy is not necessarily being used by any 'eating companions,' 'familiars,' or related spiritual causes.

Check out my post above for my thoughts on the matter.

[firewalk]

.

[Cvengr]

A question for you regarding demon possession/demon influence.

Just as there are many, many, many different animals in the zoo,....and many of those animals have completely different natures or extrememly discernible differences and levels of comportment,...what criterion is best used in discerning demon possession/influence other than behavior inconsistent with the personality of the subject?

Considering demons have been around for millenia and some have been attributed has possessing knowledge and intellect far greater than ours and have also been described as malevolent deceivers, I suspect a gamut of possessions might occur where even believers might not recognize the deception of the less flamboyant or violent possessions.

The soul may also be distinguished from the spirit. The soul containing the mind and the 'heart'. It has also been described as the battlefield between the Holy Spirit and temptation. When the soul is controlled by the Holy Spirit, it is victorious over sin. When we choose any thought other than the will of God, we quench the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit continues to dwell within us and when we choose to remian in fellowship, His inculcation of spiritual things within us through the soul continues to sanctify our spirit in our stream of consciousness after initial faith in God through Christ alone by faith alone.

It might also be noted that this never happened to humans prior to the First Advent of Jesus Christ and is descriptive of this now mysterious Church Age.

Whereever it is possible for demon influence to occur or even possession, there may be tremendous desire in the world of the fallen angels to prohibit men from becoming more cognizant of this spiritual gift and power now available to man form God. Any number of very convncing deceptions may arise including many that may present extremely good and non-evil states, but still independent from God and His system established for man in eternity past.

Isn't it rather revealing how purported 'Ascended Masters' will provide so much 'good' information, yet when the words of Jesus Christ are considered, they are frequently twisted, denied or demeaned as less consequential by those same persons. Such instances reveal a lack of holiness and tip the hand of deception.

Without doubting the vercity of the post, I can understand how a child might exhibit memory in his mentality of another life, but identifying that memory with reincarnation is IMHO, a hasty generalization shown to be false in Scripture.

Have you seen any similar studies wherein one is led to believe in parallel universes?

[Junior]

Not to make this a crevo thread, but have you actually read 1 percent of the mountains of biological literature out there on the subject? Not creationist or religious tracts, by the way, but actual scientific work? Probably not. I like the subject and I find it difficult at times to get past the abstract of a paper and into the actual meat and potatos of the work done. However, it can be rewarding. On the other hand, there are the geared-for-the-layman science magazines that usually (not always) do a good job of distilling the work into every-day speak.

I'd daresay, if you actually took the time to study this stuff, you'd come away thinking the standard creationist arguments sound horribly childish.

Now, as for an actual "Theory of Creationism" that could be testable, that would be wonderful and give researchers some direction and something to sink their collective teeth into. Unfortunately, nothing has come along the pike that even purports to be testable, but one can always hold out hope.

[BriarBey]

Wow....will read it more closely after I go feed my 14 horses!! lol. The main thing I disagree with is who tried and executed him...it wasn't the Jews. Rome did, and Rome was not bound by the Torah or the Jewish rules of capital punishment. From what I understand that is the way the Jewish rabbi's wanted it because they knew they had no grounds to kill him. The other amazing thing to me is how such a hoax (if it were) has lasted so strongly for over 2000 yrs. There have been lots of false prophets but none have had the impact on the world, that this so called unimportant carpenter had. Why hasn't he just faded out of sight? What I also find interesting is...the world today..the sons of Issac (you..me) against the sons of Ishmael as it was told it would be even in your Torah. Ishmael will always be a waring nation! Thank you for your time and effort and regardless of our difference in beliefs, I think we should always stand by the Jewish people and help them. Have you ever wondered if God's allowing the Jews to be all but destroyed and continuously persecuted is because they do turn their back on the one he sent? According to our beliefs one day the Jews will understand the full picture and what a wonderful day that will be. My prayers are always to the Father as Jesus taught it should be, he never directed us to pray to him, but to use his name to enter into God's presence, our only priest, again a type and shadow of your priests and holy temples. Thanks...

[MississippiMan]

As a Christian, the Bible clearly answers the reincarnation question for me when it says it is appointed unto man ONCE to die, then the judgment. Many paranormal issues aren't addressed in the Bible. This one is, and clearly.

Hebrews 9:27 -- And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment...

I post this not as a debate on whether the Bible is accurate. I accept it as the infallible word of God. I post this for any fellow believers who may be curious on this issue, who are unaware of the Bible's clear statement on the matter.

It does not say we die a couple times, or a few times, or however many times it takes for us to get it right. Once. We die once. Are the forces of Satan capable of all manner of trickery and deception? You bet.

MM

[Quix]

I think I'll stick with the demonic explanation.

I've often pondered the possibility of atoms transmitting information. God knows our thoughts afar off etc.

Certainly I had to study Jung. And, in terms of Holy Spirit, He is certainly everywhere. But I don't believe in the Junian concept of the collective unconscious.

And while our minds are awesome in structure and function, the amounts of data you are positing to reside in them via ancestral genetics--it's just tooooooooo massive a collection of data, imho.

But certainly unique and creative!

Thanks

[HitmanLV]

The information in the brain can be and likely is coded and condensed.

To me, the idea is much more likely than cases of demonic possessions, which as I said are very very very rare. It explains a lot of the phenomena neatly (though not without controversey) but to me it makes more sense than demonic possession.

There is not a bogeyman lurking in every corner.

[Drango]

I was SURE that I'd been in a chopper and she insisted that I hadn't... I was very confused aobut the whole thing. I remember being in the helicopter, sitting by the door. I remember looking at the back of the seat in front of me. I remember my thoughts at the time as I looked out the open door to the tree tops below. ("I'm actually riding in a helicopter!") I remember the feeling that I was on a grand adventure and I was very excited.

My memory of a classical experiment goes something like this: Child behaviorists get mothers to suggest to their kids an exciting time when they went to Disney World and meet Bugs Bunny. The suggestion is repeated and eventually kids will swear they had done so. Adamantly! And they can describe the meeting in great detail!

Of course there is no Bugs Bunny at Disney World as our favorite rabbit is a Loony Tunes character and not part of the Disney kingdom...

[HitmanLV]

Well, I can think of a much better criteria to describe it.

You ask "what criterion is best used in discerning demon possession/influence other than behavior inconsistent with the personality of the subject?" Too me, that definition is over-inclusive.

We all exhibit, at times, behavior inconsistent with our personalities. For example, someone who is a basically honest person may make a dishonest decision in a given circumstance, and genuinely later regret it. Someone who is not a theif may steal. Someone who is not prone to deceit may lie.

A person may have chemical problems with the brain, or have experienced a trauma that has caused what is commonly known as split personalities (though in fact these too are very rare).

None of those examples describe demonic possession, which I would describe in the broadest sense as the seizing of control of a person's decision making process by a sentient spiritual entity. The control can be relatively brief, or it can be extended, I suppose.

Small lapses in judgment (which all humans have done) in my opinion are not he result of a brief taking over of control of the decisionmaking process by an alien (and I mean literally 'alien,' not in the colloquial sense) presence. 'The devil made me do it,' is generally speaking just not a very useful mindset to evaluate moral lapses.

I agree with you that genuine demonic possession may be subtle and even the host may be unaware of it.

Your spirit-soul discussion is nice, and I don't disagree with it, but I don't think that covers every, most, or even a few, moral lapses that occur in a lifetime. People have the choice to do right or wrong - I think most people chose right most of the time, but not always. The responsibility in the overwhelming set of circumstances is ours.

To think anything otherwise isn't very useful.

I do think that possession as a phenomenon did occur before Jesus's time, though almost certainly it was overdiagnosed - yes, there were some genuine cases most likely but the overwhelming majority of possessions back then were probably misdiagnosed mental conditions. No more, no less.

As for your analysis on fallen angels and their possible machinations, I agree, it's all possible. I don't categorically rule any of that out and in fact do believe that drama does indeed play out on a spiritual level.

As for your final point, we are in agreement. "I can understand how a child might exhibit memory in his mentality of another life, but identifying that memory with reincarnation is IMHO, a hasty generalization." I think there are more reasonable and likely explanations for this phenomenon (including deceit by the parents, for example), but memories of a past life, even in great detail, in itself is not evidence of reincarnation, which I don't think is a real phenomenon.

The idea of the collective unconsious and/or race memory better explain memories like that. When confronted with these situations, and when I am convinced they are genuine, I go with a less controversial analysis. As controversial as concepts like race memory/collective unconsicous are, they are less controversial, to me anyway, than examples of genuine demonic possession.

As for paralell universes, I am not well schooled in that. I believe that they exist in the broadest sense - different dimensions alongside our dimension where the world of spirits, demons, devils, ghosts, etc may inhabit. As for the 'infinite number of HitmanNY's living out an infininte set of lives' idea, I just don't know enough about it, but instinctively, it doesn't appeal to me.

[mlmr]

I haven't spent as much time as I should on the evolution creation debate but I do know that the evolutional theory is certainly no more testable than the intellegent design theory. I have spent a fair amount of time reading popular scientific jourals, but that is like reading the church organ... there is no dispassionate observation.

[Junior]

Evolution is most certainly testable. It's tested every time a new fossil is discovered or a new genetic code is mapped. Evolutionary theory makes a lot of predictions, specifically predictions of what is related to what and when certain groups of animals will show up in the fossil record. Anything that might crop up that doesn't fit those predictions (and is thoroughly vetted to determine if the problem isn't in the methodology) can throw a monkey wrench into the works.

[mlmr]

I said:
evolutional theory is certainly no more testable than the intellegent design theory.

Both intellegent design and evolutionary theories use the same fossils. They just have very different ways of interperting it. I am talking about intellegent design and not Creationism here.

[Quix]

I don't think there's a demon lurking in every comic book. But demon possession is far from uncommon.

And in Shrillery's universe, is set to become much more common.

Perhaps you missed the thread on Marx's satanism. Surprisingly, my Party member in China knew about that background.

Given the detail and number of experiences given in the example of the little boy and the pilot, I still say, the data is vastly too extensive, even in coded, packed form.

Not only that, can you imagine how complicated

REFORMATTING AND PACKING umpteen terrabytes of data in a human brain would be every lifetime or whatever every generation?

If you add in a supposed collective unconscious, the challenge becomes geometrically more impossible. Even ET's crainiums would not be large enough, imho.

We are talking about every moment, visual, auditory, emotions, thoughts, touch, smells, tastes of every life involved. That is NOT a small amount of information . . . for even one life.

Though I'd love to see speculation about how much data that would be.

[Junior]

Neither ID nor creationism make predictions. Come on over to any recent crevo thread. We can set you straight on a number of misconceptions many people have on science in general and evolution in particular.

[MHGinTN]

Your notions of data storage assume a perspective on dimension time that may be flawed ... your brain receives data from past events, never a present event ... you expereience nothing in the present of the exact event you sense. Your consciousness thus might be characterized as a present phenomenon, further described as a plane receiving linear data from past events; a plane is limitless for impact points of a linear nature. (Just to offer a taste of something different, my friend.)

[mlmr]

Neither ID nor creationism make predictions

Are you sure? I certainly read predictions in Behe's book.