Chapter (7) “Edger Cayce Story”,Mana Mansion, by Gina Ceminara

Chapter (7)
The following are a few extracts from the “Edger Cayce Story”,Mana Mansion, by Gina Ceminara, from which it will be seen that the Cayce Clairvoyant readings of past lives of his patients and of himself have had distinct bearings on the theory of rebirth and the doctrine of kamma;

“Cayce was so shocked by his first vision of a “previous” life that he rejected its significance.But again and again “readings” of subjects by this great clairvoyant (cayce) uncovered past lives-lives that would explain the subjects’ present dilemmas and conflicts. The evidence in Cayce’s files shows why he himself finally accepted the concept of reincarnation. His clairvoyance was induced entiraly under hyponsis which is, we understand, often used as therapeutic device or as a means of investigation of the socalled unconscious mind (subconscious mind?)
“A life reading on Cayce himself revealed that he had been a high priest in Egypt, many centuries ago, who was possessed of great occuk powers; but self will and sensulaity proved his undoing. In a later incarnation I Persiahe had been a physician. Once he had been wounded in desert warfare and left to die on the sands; alone,without food, watre, or shefter, he spent three days and nights in such physical agony that he made a supreme effort to release his conscious ness from his body He was successfiil in his attempt. This was in part the basis for his facufty in the presant for releasing his mind from the limitations of his body All his virtues and defects of the present were frankly appraised and attributed to one or another of his many previous experiences (existences). The present lifetime was a kind of test for his soul; he had been given the opportunity to serve mankind self~essly, and thus redeem the pride, materialism, and sensuality of his
past.
“Similar life  readings were taken on all the members of Cayce’s family; Mrs. Cayce, their two sons and his secretary, Gladys Davis,who was ahnost a member of the family. In each the account gave frank evaluation of the individual’s character and indicated that the origin of his or her qualities lay in past life experiences. “Four of your lives were spent as a research scientist”, he told one of his sons, I while in a s~a~e of clainvoyance, “and you have become materialistic and self-absorbed”. “You have a very bad temper”, the other son was told, “You came to grief because of
One of the mostdramatic examples of the manner in which Cayce’s hypnotic clairvoyance demonstrated itself is to be seen in the case of a young girl in Selma, Alabama, who unaccountably lost her reason and was conmijifed to a mental institution.Her brother, deeply concerned,requested Cayce’s help.Catce lay down on his couch, took &’deep breath, and put himself to sleep. He then accepted a brief hypnotic suggestion that he sees and diagnoses the body of the girl in question. After a pause of a few moments he began to speak, as all hypnotic subjects will when so instructed. Unlike most hypnotic subjects, however, he began to outline, as if possessed of x-ray vision, the physical conditon of the demanted girl. He stated that one of her wisdom teeth was impacted, and was thus impinging on a nerve in the brain. Removal of the tooth, he said, would relieve the pressure and restore the girl to normalcy Examination was made of the area of the mouth which he described; the unsuspected impaction was
found. Appropriate dental surgery resufted in a complete return to sanity In very few cases was the cure so nearly instantaneous as m the case just cited; and in every case a very tangible and sometimes a very long method of treatment was presoribed-whether by di~ugs, surgery, diet, vitamin therapy, hydrotherapy, ostecopathy, electrical treatments, massage, or autosuggestion. Moreover, they cannot be regarded as the exaggerations or fabrications of cre~ulous people; careflil records have been kept in the files at Virginia Beach of every one ofthe more than thirty thousend cases which came within Cayce’s sphere of hifluence. These records can be examined by any qualified person who wishes to do so. They include dated letters of enquiry, appeal, and gratitde from suffering people in all parts of the world; lettets records, and affidavits of physicians; and the stenographic transcription of every word spoken by Cayce while under hypnosis. Together, they comprise impres sive documentary evidence for the
validity of the phenomenon in question.
In the twenty two years that elapsed betwieen 1923 when he first stumbled on these hypnotic diagnoses,and 1945 when he died, Cayce gave some 2500 life readings. Like the physical readings mentioned above,these life readings have been care~lly preserved. In those twinty two years a procession of suffering and bewildered humanity passed in review before the profound insight of Cayce’s hypnotic clairvoyance. Physical and psychological ills of every
description preoccupied these people.
Not all cases were of desperate or tragic proportions many of the past-life hitories of these people were of no greater dramatic interest than the commonplace, ordinary lives they are leadingin the present. But invariably, whether their problem was mild or severe, itwas demon-strated that their situation of the present was a lik in a chain of sequence that had begun centuries ago.
ffthe validity ofthese readings can be accepted, then their staggering implications must be considered. Their importance certainly does not lie in the fact that they present a new theory to the world-the theory itself is an ancient one, found among many widely separated peoples in every continent ofthe world. The importance of the Cayce readings lies rather in two things. One is that here, for the first time in the western world, specific, well-defined, coherent, and psycho-logically credible accounts have been given of the presumable past lives of many individuals. The second is that here, for the first time in the known history ofthe world, these accounts were kept in record form such as to be
available to the general public.
“Moreover, Cayce readings integrate the ~ philcsophy of the Orient with a Christiab dynamics of living; new life is thareby imparted to both. Thus there is accomplished a much needed synthesis between the two outlooks, introvent and extrevert, which have respectively characterised the East and the west for so long.
“But above all, the Cayce readings ~chieve a synthesis between science and religion. They do so by showing that the moral world is subject to the lawa of cause and effect as precise as those that govern the physical world. Human suffering, they make clear, is due not merely to materialistic mischance, but rather to errors of conduct and thinding; the inequalities of human birth and human capacity’ do not arise from the capriciousness of the Creator or the blind mechanism of heredity, they arise from merits and demerits of past life behavior. All pain and all limitation have an educative purpose; deformities and applictions are of moral origin; and all man 5 agonies are lessons in a long-term school for wisdom and perfection.
“The belief that suffering must be due to wrongdoing of some kind has been discarded by the modern mind as a superstition of
outworn religions; few people nowadays are inclined to think of suffering in terms of sin. Yet in the view of the Cayce readings, sin and suffering have an     cause-and-effect relationship, even though the point of origin of the sin may be hidden from view In order_to understand this idea,which is basic to ~e Cayce readings, it is 6~sential to know the meaning of the word Ka~ina (kamma in pali) because this word is the only one that expresses the sin-suffering causal relationship. Kamma is a Sanskrit word literally meaning action,4 in philosophic thought, however, it has come to mean the law of cause and effect, or action and reaction,
to which all human c~iiduc~ is subject.
“Cayce life readings are fascinating by virtue of the fact that they trace human afflictions and limitations of the present to specifie conduct in the past and thus bring the abstract notion of karma into sharper and more immediate focus.A thorough examination ofthese cases mdicates that there are various types ofkaij~a. One type might well be like the Australian, boomerang, which when thrown returns to the thrower, a haimfill action directed toward another person seems to rebound to the perpetrator of the $ction. The~~’ ny instances of this type of kamma in the Cayce files. One example, a college professor who had been born totally blind, heard about Cayce on a radio program called “Miracles ofthe Mind”. He appli~Thr a phyaical reading and vision by following its instructions. Within th~ months he had achieved 10 ~ his left eye, which had been incarnations one~in Amarica ~ duiing the Civil~War peried, one in <ance during the Crusades, ~ one in persia ~bout 1000 B.C., and one in Mantis, just before its flilalt? submergence. It wasin Parsis that he had set in motion the sphitual
law which resuked in his blindnedd in the present . He had been a
member o~ barbaric t4be whose custom was to blind its enemies with red-hot irons, it had been his office to do the blinding.
There are seven cases of severe physical disability in the Cayce files in which the affliction is attributed to mockery or sc~rn as karmic cause. The first one is that of a woman of forty-nine, wife of a professional man and mother of three children, who at ‘the age of thh~y-six was stricken with infantile paraluysis and has not walked since. Her I life is lived in a whee~ chaff; she is completely dependent on others for transportation to any point outside the home. The karmic cause is a~ributed by the reading to the entity’s behavior in Ancient Rome. She had been among the reyalty of the time, and was closely associated with Nero in his persecution of the Christians. “And the entity laughed at those who were crippled in the are~a-” says the reading-” “and lo! that
selfsame thing returns to you!”
“The second case~MThperaps no more pathetic case is to be
found m a~ the Cay~e files than this on~is that of a woman of_ ,~ thirty)~four who was stricken with infantile paralysis at the ag~ of six months, which resuked in spina~ and a limping walk. Her father, a farmer, regarded her condition with indifference, and callously appropriated for pui~oses of his own money she had painstakingly earned through raising chickens. Her first lover was killed in World War I. ~ another He married the trained nurse w    him. Add to all these physical and emoti~’~ disasters the picture of quarreling parents, a~onely farm life, and a fall from cement steps which confined the girl to bed with an additional spinal injury and you have a picture of,misery hard to surpass.    “Here again the karmic cause4for the physical condition a~eastis seen to have been two lifetimes back in Rome. The reading says,~
“The entity was then a member ofpalk’ ins’ house-hold, and often sat in the boxes viewing the struggles of man with man and man ~dth -beast. In the present, much of the physical struggle arfses’fr~m the entity’s sconiflil laughter then at the weakness
of these who fought for a cause.”
“The vast majority of the Cayce readings were given for people who had very definite and sometimes very appalling personal problems that had not been solved by medical, psychological or i’eligious pract~ners. Not all the karmic examples in the Cayce files are instances of ~¼ions and abnojmalities~We shall see, however,
that human ~ility, t~ent, g~nins, distinction of any ~ are the
karmic rewards of lives well spent in~e past.
“A favorable environment and a healthy body are also positive karmic consequences. The readings have occasionally indicated, in ~eneral terms, that a beaut~l body in the present is the resuft of care devoted to the body, the temple ofthe spirit, in the past. There is one interesting instance in which the reading gave another karmic reason for beauty. This is the case of a striking New York model whose unusually beautlfiil hands bring her much in de~and wit~ nailpolish~_h>and lotion, and jewelry ~rch~nts who feature hands in their advertisements. The karmi~!a~ for her ~ was found ~in the incarnation immediately’~receding the present, when she was a recluse in an ~~~convent. Her life had been spent in performing menial and distasteflil tasks with her hands; she did them with such a dedicated spirit of selflessness and service, how~ver, that her consc,e~ation of spirit was transmuted into the
unusual beauty of her personandofhei> ]
“The Cayce files contain several instances ofpasr1life origin or
interest. A certain New ½<½rk dentist was born and brought  in the metropolis where he now successfiilly practises his profession His family for many generations were city-bred people. Though happy in his profession and an enthusiast of city life, he periodically feels an urge to go out into the fields an~~terams with his gun and fishii~g rod and camp in the wilderness alo~e. This intense interest in nature and outdoor life, while not unuaual, is an inconsistent element in his thoroughly urban character, but by the reincarnation principle it becomes understandable. According to his Cayce reading he was, in his former life, a Dane who came to this country at the time of the Dutch settlements. He lived in New Jersey, in a region of many marshes, lakes and streams, and be_came a trapper and dealer in flirs. The hunger for woods and streams remains with him, though it must now be subordinated to the principal life task of the present incarnation.
“Many persons feel an intense attraction for a specific geographic locality. Such an attraction is ~uently aifributed by the readings to a happy pre~ious sojourn there. A certain East Coast to go to the southwestern part of the United States. She finally was able tp make the change, and now lives in New Maxico, where she works as a hotel executive. According to her reading she had had two previous experiences in this portion of the country, and her love for the region had persisted through the intervening
centuries.
“Four persons who had, respectively, a pronounced love of the South Sea Islands. New Orleans, India, and China, were told that they had had experiences in these places before and for this
reason fek a strong affinity for them.
“Interest in certain types of artistic or professional activity is similarly traced by the readings to past experience. One woman’s absorbing interest in the Greek dance and drama arose from an experience in Greece when these art forms were at their height. A boy’s marked interest in telepathy had its basis in an incarnation in Atlantis as a teacher ofpsychology and thought transmission; a beautiflil girls’s almost fanatic interest in aviation also stemmed from an Atlantean experience as a pilot and director of communication. A woman’s in terest in helping crippled children had its origin in a Palestine expe rience, when, under the ililluence of the teachings of Jesus, she be gan to succor the crippled and sick. A research engin~er, for many years active in the ~echnocracy movement, was once an Atlantean active in the scientific adminis
tration of the country.
“This kind of interest canyover from the would seem to display itself with particular distin~ness in the life history of notable people. We are speaking here not on the basis of a Cayce reading -taken on such people, but on the basis of known biographical facts interpreted in the light ofthe Cayce data. Hundr~ds ofinstances similar’ to these are to be found in the Cayce life-reading files. Anyone familiar with the Paychology of Individual Differen’ces and the problems with which it deals, cannot but recognize that this material, if true gives a whole new depth and comprehensiveness to Differential i~ychology. The crux ofthe matter is    assumes that differences between human beings are determined prn~arily by the genes ofthe parents and secondarily by environmental influences. By the reincarnation view, however, heredity and environment are themselves the resuft ofpa si~lifekarmic determinants, and every qual-’ ity of the soul is self-earne~rather than
parentally transmitted.
“There is a’ certain fallacy in the theory of heredity that is not generally recognized. By the heredity view, it is presumed that phenomena of a mental order can be created by phenomena of a biological order. Remembering Einstein’s engaging and ingenuous audacity (“How did you discover relativety?~”By challenging an~ axiom.”-, it is  perhaps worthwhile to challenge the fimdamental assumption on which the hereditary theory is based. Man’s knbwledge of the mind-body relationship is still in its infancy, to be sure;yet it seems more credible, and p~ychologically more sound, to believe that phenomena of a mental order ~ust~large part be caused by previous phenomena of a mental ordei~so “All that you are, said Buddha,” as the resuft of what you have tho~”In that excellent and p~sychologically ng~1ous religion, Buddhism, reincarnation is, of course, a cardinal teaching; Buddha taught that a man’s qualities are the result of his modes of thinking and acting in lifetimes. Merely from a mechanistic point of view it seems reasonable to argue that only repeated personal effort can account for personal capacity. if this is so, then it is inferentially necessary that the differences between human endowment in the present are due to differences of human effort in the past. According to the point of view of the Cayce readings, an individual does have unconscious memories surging up from the anc~~ p;st, but they arisej~i~m some hypothetical pool of race memor~es, or from some long-dead ance~or, but rather from his own previous expericnce. All his 1111-conscious fears and hates and loves and impulses are his own inheritance, bequeathed by himself to himself as a man bequeathes his own to-day unto his own tomorrow. He
himself once was a savage man.
“In several instances recuiTent dreams were explained by Cayce on the basis of past-life experiences. One of the most interesting examples is that of the woman who asked the question; “Why in early childhood did I dream so many times that the world was being destroyed, always seei~ing a black destructive cloud?” The answer indicated that this dream arose from her Atlantean experience’w~hen she had been a pliest and physician. She had experienced one of the tenible cataclysmic destruction of Atlantis, and the impression remained so deeply engraved in her soul memory as to arise
again repeatedly during sleep.
“Another interesting case is that of a child of four who alaimed her mother because almost daily she awoke from sleep in tears and obvious distress. The child was in good physical heakh, and the mother wrote to Cayce for an explanation of the nervous condition. According to the reading, the child had  met a violent death in France during World War II. Eager, though, to take incarnation again, she had re~urned to American parents only nine moi~~ths later. In so short an intermission between lives the fearfiil memories of bombardments and fires had not been erased; and they surged upward in the child at the sleep level of consciousness.
“In addition to the instances of phobias and recurrent dreams, there are in the Cayce files a number of other interesting mental aberrations. Hallucinations, for example, are in several cases attributed to the abnormal recall of past incarnations.
“In several cases, however, mental disease was ascribed by the reading to possession by discarnate entities. Since ancient times it has been believed that some forms of mental derangement are due to possession by e’~il spirits. Students of the Christian Bible will recall that Christ is said to have caused evil spirits to depart from a demented man; and Catholics will point to the fact that the rites of~x~rcising spu its are still practised by
Catholic priests.
“This whole idea is, of course, completely alien to the views ofmodern psychiatrists, who naturally regard the idea as an outworn superstition. Once it is admitted, however, that identity can persist beyond death, there is no logical reason why such identities, of an evil nature, could not maliciously attempt to possess themselves of; or othei’wise ilifluence, the body and
personality of a living person.
“In the few cases of obsession which appeared in the Cayce files~ the recommended cure usually included electrical treatments
of some type (“outside influences cannot stand the high vibration”) and prayer and meditation . In one case the subject followed the recommendation closely and freed herself in several months’ time of the whispering voices which had disturbed her. In another case, the subject did no~w the i;eading’s prescription except with respect to one deta~ that of d’iet;no improvement took place. Apparently there was a karmic cause operative in the first
case at least~ the entity had in a past.
“One of the most important features of the reincarnation principle is its affirmation of free will. An error commonly made by people who accept ka+ma and rebirth is to assume that all life is predeteimined. The consequences of such a belief are psychologically paralysing and spiritually demoralizing. The inertia and passivity of the Hindu, who has in large part accepted a fatalistic interpretation of a, exemplifies the danger of such a
position.
“It is necessary to realize that every sneeze,every mosquito bite, every evening’s meal, was not cosmically and karmically determined ages ago. Most of the details of our lives are completely subject to our thought and will now. In fact,every event of our lives, whether it be a major event like mamage or a minor event like buying an ice-cream soda, is, in the last ~iialy~s, self-determined. The restrictions placed upon us now are a resuft of our mistakes in selfdetermination in the past. They merely seem like external agents to us because we have forgotten our own past actions, and the range of our vision is too tiny to see their intimate connection with our present circumstances. Through a proper understanding, then, of the reincarnation principle, the ancient dilemma of free will versus determinism is resolved. Man has freedom of will as a dog on a leash has it; that is to say, the dog is completely free to do as he wills within the
radius of the leash. Ka#m’a determines the length of each man’s
leash; within that radius, he is free.
“The following case is an example of a decision made as far back as Atlantis, the consequence of which is still being felt in the present. The case concerns a woman of about forty years. Her figure seems stocky and heavy-set, but this is largely due to lack of exercise and faulty posture. Her face is severely innocent of makeup. Her dress is determinedly unfeminine; all her clothes are selected on the basis of utility and economy rather than with any idea of enhancing her appearance. She has had only an eighth-grade education and has earned her living principally in fi~ct~ies and in jobs of a manual or mechanical nature. On a psychological test measming values, she scored highest on the religious and social values, as was to be expected, since her principal inter~sts m life are the reading of religious books and in being active in some form of social service. However, she leads a solitary and lonely life. None of the members of her family shares her religious outlook. There has been liffle romance m her life.    the point ofvi~ of a psychologist, this woman presents a fairly clear-cut case of what is called the “masculine pro-test”, or the refiisal to accept the role of woman. This protest is apparent m her almost belliger4ently feminist, and unfeminine, affitude. It is apparent also in her almost pulitanic reflisal to make any efforts at self-adornment or any efforts towards the attraction of men. The psychological mechanism of this attitude is interesting and is well explained by orthodox psychology.But the explantion of orthodo~ psychology seems incomplete. ~ she ave b½enThorn, we ask, to the bodily and psychological “heredity” and “environment” that “predisposed” her to having a masculine protest in the first place? Her past life history supplies the answer.
“In the flist life back she was a near relative of John the Baptist, and consequently grew up in an atmostphere ofreligious fervor This was the basis for her religious bent in the present. Before that she was in the male sex a worker in wood and metals in a still earlier Palestine period, which seems to have led to her mechanical, practical outlook in the present. Before that she was a woman of high rank in Atlantis; an unhappy love affair brought
her great mental anguish and conflision.
“The next case concerns a woman who has been strongly suspected of being homosexual. Wl41e it is never explicitly stated in the Cayce readings, it seems highly presumable that in some cases homosexuality is due to a recent change in sex, and the almost insurmountably strong cai~~ver ofopposite- sex traits. The woman in this case was born in England, but came at an early age to America. At the time of her reading, she was practising her profession in a large city of the United States. ‘Ilappearance and manner she is extremely masculine. Her voice is deep like a man’s. She wears tailored, man-like clothes, uses masculine gestures and stances and wears her hair extremely short. The suspicion widely held among her friends that she is homosexual rests on observation of these characteristics, together with the fact that for many years she lived with a woman who was extremely feminine both in appearance and manner They were inseparable companions, and had all the earmarks of a homosexual tt~chment.
“Two inirnediately preceding lives are the most significant in connection with her present personality In the second life back she was in England duiing the Crusades. She was one of the many thousands of women who were lefi behind by their husbands, and who were faced with the necessity of struggling for themselves. Some
women reacted to their abandonment and solitude in one way, some in another. The woman in this case reacted with a vigor and generalship unusual in her sex. It was in this incarnation that certain masculine, aggressive, positive qualities emerged in her psyche. We assume that this was their initial appearance (at least in this cycle) because in the previous incarnation she was in Palestine as a woman, and the reading makes no mention of masculine tendencies.By the end of the Crusade period, these maseuline traits had become so pronounced that in her next life she incarnated as a man. Again born in England, she was one of those adventurous men who came to America with Hardcastle after the arnval ofjohn Smith. Her name then was James Buhanana; she was a free-booter and free-tliinkei and travelled widely through the eastein coastal states. ~ater she went with other adventurers
into the inteijor.                    
“We now find her a manlike spilit in a woman’s body(ab¼ which is itself almost like a man’s. If in point of fact she is actually homosexual the case is doubly interesting. But even if she is not, the situation is highly charged with_psychological siguificance of a vary valuable sort. For it b~ings us face to face with the immensely importantpiinciple of polarity

“There are numerous other cases in the ~ayce files of women who have man~~ tendencies traceable to recent previous incarnations a4s men. Mthough the presence of masculine traits due to a recent male incarnation does not necessarily preclude maniage, ft does seem to render it more difficuk or more unlikely, and it frequently seems to preclude the ability to have children. Many women who had difficuky in bearing children, or could not have them at all, were told that this was due to their recent change in sex.
“There are a number of specific cases of maniage kaimically ex
plained in the~ayce readings.     
“The woman in one of these cases was a veiy beautiflil gil4 of twenty-three when she manied her husband. Lovely brown eyes, beautiflil dark brown hair which waved loosely around her face, and a beautiflil figure conspired to give her the appearance of an actress. Even at the age of forty-one, when she obtained her life reading from Cayce, she had the stunning type of beauty that makes
heads turn in restaurants.
“In the eighteen-year intelim since her maniage to a weilkuown and highly successflil businessman, she had lived through a most difficult and emotionally thwarting experience. Her husband was completely incapable of the sexual relationship. To some women, perhaps, those who feel no need for and no pleasure in sex, such a situation might not seem tragic. But to a woman such as this one-sensual, affectionate~t was a tragedy indeed. Annulment of the marriage or divorse might have ended the difficufty simply enough; but this woman could not bring herself to take either of these steps. She loved her husband; she could not bear to hurt
him.
“There was a period in the first few years when she entered desperately into a Wariety of liaisons with other men not out of desire to be unfaitliflil to her husband, but out of sheer physical and emotional necessity. Gradually, however, she overcame even that impulse, largely through taking up the study of theosophy and the practice ofmeditation. Life had gone on in this strange mold for eighteen years when the crisis came. ~ nf he~~ whei~Iii~ ~fi~is~ame. A former suitor of hers came back into her life. “From the moment we met a~in,” she wutes to Mr. Cayce, “The flame came back to him~~ts flill intensity, and I responded too. lam trying to release us, but I find my heakh going down as it was before I look up my studies I would not hesitate to have a liaison with him if he were not manied. I would not leave my hushand for a number of reasons which you may see, and also he has evolved
into a very beau tiflil character.
“Perhaps my desire for this man is not love, but due to peculiar circumstances of my mairied life However, he also is a fine person He loved me from childhood and I did not know it (his mother told me that). He did not let me know until he was able to support a wife. It was too late theu~tr I had just returned~ home to announce my engagement to my husband. Peculiar circumstances all along, which spell karma to me, seem to have dogg~d our three
lives.
“I did see him intimately at intervals, because, for one reason, he was going to pieces. Another, I thought it would cure him of his desire~a sort of psychological subconscious cleaning I broke it off for I did not wish to “two -time” his wife. I know his wife and I like her.I don’t want to disturb hei~ociety is against it. Idon’t want to hurt anyone. The man does not dislike her, I believe, though she gets eveiytliing she wishes by making firn of him or nagging over weeks at a stretch. She does not hesitat~o b~little him in public, but she does have some good qualities. She caimot have children. My husband knows I am asking you for
physical help, but he does not know the situation.”
“Here, then, is the woman 5 own statement of her life problem. It is dramatic enough, even as it stands, but the life reading, and its revelations of her problem, inspire a sense of awe, almost, at the singularly appropriate punishment which two eiTing souls are
meeting.
“We must go back two lifetimes ago in ftance, at the time of the Crusades. Here we find the wife in the name of~zanne Merceilieu, manied once again to her present husband. Monsieur Merceili~u was
one of those adventurous men whose imagination was caught by the crusaders’ cause. And, like many another man of religious zealousness, his personal life was in a compartment quite separate from the professions and principles of his religious faith. It was of supreme importance to him that the tomb of the saviour be rescued from the possession of the infidel to apply to his own relationship with his wife the major principle of love which the Savaviour taught had never apparently entered his mind. And he left his wife to go to preserve hii~ndom from the Infidel, there was one other thing he wanted reserved in his absence-namely, his wife’s
chastity.
“There is an ingenious device called a chastity beft, or girdle of chastity, known in ~ eai½as the second half of the twelfth century, and know/also to have been used as recently as 1934 in
~~ance and 1931 in New York City whe4ts forced adoption was a major element in two legel trials. It consi~ed of an alTangement of metal and leather, or metal and velvet, which was provided with a lock and key and which was careflilly adjusted to a woman’s body so that no sexual relations were possible in the absence of the owner of the key. In such a fashion did Monsieur Merceilieu assure himself that Madame Merceilieu would remain true to him.
“One other instance occurs in the Cayce files of a marital tragedy due to the enforced use of a chastity bek duiing a Crusade incarnation ofthe husband and wife concerned. In this case the kaimic reaction is somewhat different. The husband was, according to the wife’s account, very patient, understanding, and gentle. Yet after almost eight years of maniage, the thh~y-two-year-old wife continued to have a teiTible fear of the sexual relationship. This ofitselfunderstandably created a very difficuft situation; it was flirther compli&ed by the almost ad~i;~~us attraction of the wife toward a male friend,an Italian opera star. The sexual difficufty was explained in the reading by the fact that the husband, in their crusade incarnation had restrained her with a chastity beft. It is quite clear how he, in having a wife who fears him sexually, is ~eaping the consequences of his action. The fact that the wife is suffering from all the maladjustments attendant on her abnormal fear is also a karmic consequence. Her reaction to her crusading husband for the restraint was one of hate. And hatred forges bonds. In the words of the readings;”There are doubts and fears in the present arising from latent hate. The condition theft created is to be met in the present by understanding. For if you would be forgiven, you must forgive.” The attraction to the opera singer was accounted for by another life experience. He had been her lover once in Indo-China. In answer to her question; “How shall I handle the situation?” the reading says
“Meet it according to what you choose as you dreal.”   
The element our pears once again in another case where the kam~ic cause is entirely different. From the point of view of the personal suffering involved, the story of this case is almost overwhelmingly tragic: from the point of view of psychiatric analysis from the point of view ofpsychiatric analysis, however, the case offers excellent material for the study of the inter-relationship between ~ heredity and env~nment. The woman writes in 1926: “I am almost on the evey of insanity and suicide the most miserable woman on earth and a dope fiend. All my life my mother, who had suffered living deaths with the birth of six children, talked so much to me about preguancy that when I manied eighteen years ago I was so scared of pregnancy that I now am living away from a dear sweet husband because I cannot bear to have lmi.~ in my sight or near me. I have prayed and tijed psychology, psychiatry, christian science, and Unity, and all to no avail. Do you think there is any hope for me? I wanted children and loved my husband but was scared of sexual intercourse and now am worse them ever and, as I say, ready for suicide which I had planned this week when I learned
about your work.”
“The reading went back two lifetimes in explaining this woman’s tragic situation. First of all it showed that she had been a vain, selfish, materialistic, pleasure-seeking woman in the ~ench court. Her life was a gay one, but it sowed the seeds for the tragedy of the succeeding life as an early settler in America, when she became the mother of six children and saw all of them burned to death. “The entity lived in fear the remaining days of that life. She fek wrath and a lack of confidence in the divine for not having protected her and the children.“It also becomes apparent m these Cayce readings that no par½n&i~hil~~ationship can be regarded as a chance relationship.Almost always there have been previous-life-connections with one parent or the other: in the comparatively few instances where no such past-life relationship existed with either par~nt, the family situation provided an environmental opportunity that coincided with the child’s psychological needs. The Cayce files showed that some children had a karmictic with one parent, but no previous relationship with the other. In such cases there was a marked tendency toward indifference between the child and the parent who were~elated for the first time. The following typical cases illustrate the variety of possible past relationships between parents and children.
“A mother and son between whom there was a close bond of affection had been mother and son before: a father and son who likewise were close had stood in the relationship of older brother to
younger brother in a previous life: a mother-daughter combination in which the daughter was very indifferent to the mother was accounted for by the reading as a previous sister-sister relationship in which there had been a serious disagreement (“You qualT41ed then and haven’t made up yet”) a father and daughter had previofraly been together as husband and wife; a mother and daughter between whom there was marked antagoni~m had been rival for the same position and the same man in a previous life; a mother-son relationahip in which the son attempted to dominate the mother was traced back to a previ 5 experience where their positions were
exactly reversed, as dan  -father.
“These cases suggest that numerous principles are operative in the
attraction of child to parent.
“Moreover, it would seem from the Cayce data that the soul can enter the body shortly before birth, shortly after birth, or at the moment of birth. As such as twenty-four hours can elapse after an infant is born before the soul makes entry, in some cases there are even lastminute cha~ges with regard to the entity which will enter.It may at first glance seem inconsistent with the basic reincarnationi~t point, of view to believe that a body can exist without its anlmatiqg soul; however, there is here no necessary inconsistency The body is called by the theosephists the “vehicle” of the soul. Someone once asked Cayce the inevitalbe question: “What keeps the physical body alive til the sou~ enters?” The answer was cryptic, not to say obscure. “Spim” “For the spilit of
matter, its source, is God.”
“Further clailwoyant research on this, and many other points, is needed. When such research is used, following up the vaijed implications of the Cayce dat~ on childhood, child-parent relationships, and birth, we shall undoubtedly find ourselves in
possession of awhole new science of eugenics, child-psychology,
and race improvement.
“One question which people usually ask when they first learn of reincarnation and karma is: “What about heredity?” Almost in-variably the kno~~facts about heredity are assumed to be in contra-diction with the presumed facts of ka~a. There is, however, no real contradiction. Cayce once used a very interesting metaphor in this connection. Someone asked at the end of his reading, “From which side of my family do I in~erit ~ost?” The answer was: “You have period o~from yourself not from your family! The family is only a river through which the soul flows.” (;)~½ ~
“Heredity, then, and with it ~er forms of proxlmate physical ~ ~~L;~c7 ~ are in reality subservient at the magnetic compul~on of
the laws ofkai~a. Those who attribute all human tendency to her~dity and all human ~ie~a~~to pr~ate physical c$uses can, by this view, be compared to the guest at a an uet~ who tuins to thank the servants for the things they b~ing   at table. To be sure, it is the servants who serve him the food; but they do so in response to
the bidding of their employer.
“Another issue comnionly raised in connection with kai~rna is an ethical one. In the case of the blind violinist described in chapter, the kaimic origin ofhis blindness ~s attributed to his having blinded others with hot irons when   was a member of a barbaric tribe in    ~ers~ The question can    be  ~~d~”Hiai~~ow can a man be held morally~e~on~ible for the customs of his time? Why should a man be ~ for performing his social duty?”
A~rench guillotinist, for example, is employed by the state; so is the man who peyform~%ll~~rocutions at Sing-Sing. Can these per~ons be ~ accountable for the capital-punishment
practices of a legal system, such that they need to suffer a kaimic penafty for it in some ftitu~~~? And if the answer to this question is no, then how can the ~ersi~n barbarian who blinded the
trial enemies of war be said to differ from them?
“These are justifiable questions. A partial answer was indicated in chapter 11, where it was indicated that it is not the act but the motive, not the letter but the spirit that is a karmic determinant.It is not the form but the substance that matters it would seem highly presumable that there is such a thin~ as social guilt. That is to say, if the practices of a society are evil in an ultimate s~e, then all members ofthat society to some degree partake ofthat guilt. If in ~ an ukimate ethical sense it is ~ to enslave or kill or mai other human being and, according to ancient wisdom, such infringement on the free will of another is an absolute evil-then all persons who are members of such a society are culpable; they are passively guilty if not act½~y so. The guilt because progressively greater if they are aware of the moral significance of the custom, yet contmue to condone it by not attempting to suppress the wrong. if they are actively engaged in perpetrating the wrong, their guilt becomes proportionately greater.
“To blind other persons merely because they happen to be vanquished in tribal warfare is certainly a cruel act if the man appointed to the job of blinding was himself averse to such crueky, and performed the task only because it become his obligation to do so as subject of his chieftain, conceivably he would suffer no karmic penalty But ifhe did his office-giving inner consent-having, that is, within himself a cruehy colTesponding to the crueky ofthe custom, then he generated a kaimic cause.
“This issue is admilably treated in the Bhagava~<Gita-an excellent and subtle treatise that can be highly recommended to any
one interested in formulating a new ethic of conduct taking as its point the kaimic concept . Its principal message is this: in impersonal detachment from action lies the clue to the non-creation of fliture karma. Even love must become impersonal love, unattached love, ungraspmg love, loving detachment-else ft shall
for~new bonds in the fliture.
In Buddhism, the facuky of remembering previous lives and off discemiiig the previous lives of others is one that is developed in the course of meditation on selected subjects. But it is acquired only when a certain precisely deIThed stage so jhana, or mental absorptio, has been reached. The subject is deaft within the Canomcal Texts of Buddhism, and at considersable length i~he ~isuddhimagga of Buddhaghos~ rc;. Those who have practised meditation to this poin~ previous lives without having attained complete liberation from rebirth may be reboni with the facuky in a latent form. In the case of otheres,hyponsis seems to provide a short out technique to releasing some at least of the dormant memoiies of former lives just as it provides a short cut to resuft di~arily reached by deep psycho-analysis.th~a ~B~51)rnirac~e man.
Sai Baba
We have now another i~a cle man (Besides Edgar Cayce) in the person of ~thya ~ 1), who is a religious leader living
Baba still, I think, in the Andbia 4~esh state of Ind~. He has a large number of followers and devotees who believe that he has possessed a vanety of paychokinetic powers (such as mateijalisation, teleportation, healing etc.,) as well as vaijous forms of ESP (Extra Sensoiy Perception) and out-of-body projections. Several popular books have been published about him, all dealing with his paranormal phenomena. He does not appear to think too highly of his own psychic phenomen(He used to call them “trivialities” or “sm~il~~ems”, and stressing the importance of spiritual and ethical issues he ha~ejected requests for formal expeiiments with the remarks that he uses his paranormal powers for religious puiposes such as ‘isIping his devote~s when they are in dire need or for invoking faith in agonostic persons, but never for purely
demonstrative purpose~ ~P~~inent psychol~ts and scientists as well as the most knowledgeable magicians of the world who have visited him are of ti~ opinion that the variety and richness of the phenomena associated with Sai Baba may provide unique research opportunities for both western and Indian s~entists.
According to those who have had a long association with Sai Baba, the seemingly paranormal flow of objects has lasted for some 40
years or since his childhood.
Vol.1 No.2 of January 1953 published by the Union of Burma Buddha Sasana Council, which runs inter alia as follows:-
“In those parts of the world where scientific and religious thought alike are allowed fill liberty, res~ bodies composed o~ doct~rs, physicists, biologist~psychologists and other specialised experts have been set up for the puipose of investigating telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, spiritualist manifest~ions and other classes of psychic phenomena. The resuks have been profoundly significant. The evidence for telepathy (thought-transference) is now so firmly established that it is being used as a recorgirised scientific explanation of other psychic activities, though fts precise nature is not yet known. An instance of this occuiTed recently when a scientist, one of a board set up for the investigation of spiritualism in England, reported that most of the phenomena by the “medium” in a trance state could be ascribed to telepathy, and that they were no proof of the persistence of an immortal spim. For the Buddhist, the importance of this lies not in the denial of a suiviving entity, which
is in accordance with Buddhist teaching, but in the matter-of-fact acceptance by a scientist of an unnnown mental power that functions independently of material media. Not only has telepathy been accepted thus, but experiments carried out in America have power of affecting the body, and even to a certain extent of controlling objects at a distance without any physical connection. These tests are carried out on selected subjects by means of
cards and dice.
“A board    the of psychic formed investigation phenomena in
Landon included LordAmwell, Sir John Anderson, Mrs. Charlotte
Holdane, Mr. LAG ~rong, a distinguished surgeon and a medical psychiatrist. Dr. CEM Joad and Mr. JB Rhine have also investigated and reported on P~ycho-kinetic, ESP (Extra-Sensory-Perception) and other branches of Parapsychology. JB Rhine’s verdict is that “Parapsychology has established itself as a new science to the extent of making a case for the occui~ence of phenomena that are not physical in type. The materialistic view of man has been expeiimentally reflited. ~ A series of important experiments carried out at Duke University, USA confirmed this verdict. In England the work was carried flirther by the scientists, Th~rell, Carington, Sold, Goldney and Dr. Thouless of CambridgeUniversity whose evidence and conclusions have been widely discussed in
scientific circles.
“Clairvoyance, clairaudience and telepathy (Dibba-cakkhu, Dibba-sota, Adesana-patihariya of Buddhism) are now so well attested as obliective realities that they have been scientifically grouped together under the heading of Extra-sensory perception (E. S.P) and classified with other natural laws that are known to science
but are aye~ explained.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A talk on scientific research on rebirth by Dr Stevensan, professor of Psyhiatry of the ~ersity.Sequel to this subject of Kamma and Rebirth, I must say that I was so fortunate that I had to attend an interesting talk on the subject of scientific research on reincarnation (which is, in my opinion, synonymous with rebirth of Buddhism), on the   November 1975 at the residence of Mrs. Hansan of No.26 Kaba~ Road, Rangoon, by Dr. Ian Stevenson, Professor ofpsychiatry of the Virginia University of the United States of America, thanks to U Win Maung of No.65, Myaunggyi Road, Yegyaw Quartei; Rangoon, who is the representative of Dr. Stevenson in Bui~ia. Dr. Stevenson, I am told, is an international authority on scientific research on reincarnation. He has devoted much of his time and energy to this research and collected so far 1300 cases of reincarnation from various countries ranging from Alaska to Zamsiba, including about 200 cases contributed by his agent U ~m Maung from Burma. His book “The Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation” was published by the American Society for Psychical Research in 1966, followed by a revised edition in 1975. The book is unique because it represents the flist critical study of the reincarnation problem on the basis of well documented cases, each of which is the authoi~~flrst-hand study of the places and people concerned, interviews with the subject as well as with his family and witnesses, analysis and evaluation ofthe data, verification of the subject’s statements, study of the personality and
behavior; follow-up reports, etc., etc.,
The history of Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation follows an almost conventional pattern all over the world including Bui~a. It usually starts when a young child begins talking to his parents or
siblings of a life he lived in another life and place. The child usually feels a considerable pull-back towards the events of that life and he often urges his parents to take him back to his family in his previous life. if the child makes enough particulal- statements about his previous life, the parents begin to enquire about their accuracy. On ~;ei~ification there½{ members of the two families used to visit one another and ask the child to identity places, objects and people of his previous life. More often than not, the child recognize them sponta~ously and sometimes he shows a behaviour pattern suniliar to that of the deceased personality with whom he identifies himself In one of the cases from India, however, the unusual feature is that the previous personality with which the subject, ( a young male child) became identified did not die until about 3 l(jj~ars after th~h of the “p sysical body of the present personality”. A short summary of the facts of the case is: “In the spring of 1954, Jasbir, 3½ year old Indian boy of Rasulpur was thought to have died of small pox. His father went to his brother and other villagers for as,sistance in the burial of his dead son. As it was then too late at night, the decided to postpone the burial until the moniing.A few hours later t~ father of the so-called dead child happened to notice some stfrflng in the body ofhis son which then gradually revived completely. Some days passed before the boy could speak again or before he could express himself clearly. When he recovered the ability to speak he showed a remarkable transformation of behaviour. He then stated that he was the son of another man in another village and wished to go there. Jasbir then began to communicate flirther details of his life and death in that village. The details of his death and other items nalTated by him corresponded clearly with the details of the life and death of a young man of 22, Sobha Ram ofthe other village, i.e., Vehedi village. Sobha R½m died in May l~54 in a chariot accident as
related by Jasbir and th~J~i~~ he described.
In another case, a boy named Munna, a six-year old son of a barbar    name~rasad of Chip atti District, a city of Uttar Prasad near ~~anpur, was found murdered, January 19, 1951. In the following
July 1951, i.e., ij., six months after the murder of Munna, another boy who later became identified with Munna was born in another district town of Kanpui. His name was Ravi Shankar. At the age of about three years, he gave the details of his murder, naming the murderders, the place of crime,other citrcumstances of the life and death of Munna, and kept asking his parents for various toys he claimed he had in the house of his previous life as Munna. He,(Ravi Shanker), had on his neck a linear mark resembling closely the scar of a long ki~ife wound across the neck. His mother noticed this mark when he was 3oi/~4 months old. It was apparently a congenital mark. When he talked  out the murder of his p~cv~~~~? life, he would say that the scar on his neck derived from the wou~;(-he mmdei’. As he grew up this congential scar on the neck gradually changed position until now it lies under~
ch~n and fades a little.
No ~ Stevenson has presented his cases after a most thorough study, but most ofthem will, of course, baffle many of those who scoff at the idea of a fliture life. But the general discussion of the cases in the context of hypotheses bearing thereon deserves serious consideration by the sceptic and non-sceptic alike. The cases contain three distinct features that will have to be explained on the basis of reincarnation or afternative hypotheses, viz., (1) Evidential memories of events relating to a deceased personality; (2) Recognition of places, things and people in a previous life; and (3) Resemblance between the behaviour patterns of the deceased personality and the child who remembers him. Dr. Stevenson does not believe that there can be any fraud in the matter because the child, the members of his family and the witnesses can have hardly any opportunity together information about the deceased personality, and we must not forget that much of the information concerns intimate matters or details of fan~y life not likely to be known outside the family circle
concerned. Nor can we thj+~y motive at will lead the child and his family to stage a~x, for a Iuwin~za (reincarnate) child and his parents get neither money~¼eward nor favourable publicity. Cryptomnesia may be a better hypA~hesis than fraud. According to this theory of cryptomnesia, the child would somehow have known a person or other source having the information about the deceased personality. Later~n he would forget both the source of his informaL,
tion and the fact that he had ever obtained it akhough he would remember the information and present it dramatically as derived from a previous life. But cryptomnesia cannot account for all the cases of uwinza (reincarnate) or for all the features of a single case investigated by Dr. Stevenson. Next comes the question of ESP (Extrasensory Perception) which is the modern term for the paranormal facuky of some gifted persons who can gain information about other people without the use of the senses. Over the years, the S~cieties for paychical Research founded by eminent scientists, philosophere and psychologists in Europe and USA have gathered an overwhelming mass of evidence for the amazing powerof ESP (Extra-Sensory Perception.) Time and space are not its barriers. The mass of evidence here means mass of evidence for the reality oftelepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, zenoglossy, pokergeist and other psychic phenomena of parapsychology that
still def~ scientific explanation.
Then there are authentic cases ofmediums who can tell us much about the past or fliture of a distant living person or about the life of a deceased personality as the coiTesponding events flash vividly across their minds. ESP (Extre- sensory Perception) fails to account for some of the features of the cases and the last one, suggested by those who reject the theory of reincarnation, is the hypothesis of “possession” by discarnate spirit. The literature of psychial research contains documented cases of possession and some of these cases bear stiiking resemblance to the cases mentioned by Dr. Stevenson. Usually the man or woman allegedly under the influence of a discarnate spirit can give much evidential information about a deceased personality He shares the latter’s habits, mannerisms, and behaviour patterns. Moreover, he exhibits spontaneous recognition ofpeople, places and things relating to the latter. But the ~~oes not fit in with all the facts. Most of the persons supposedly possessed by spirits were grown-up men and women, not children. The cases of possession usually do not involve identification with a dead person that is so characteristic of luwinza (or) reincarnation ca;e~s. Nor does possession account for the presence of congenital birth-marks on the child’s body similar to those of the dead   as m some of the cases investigated
by Dr. Stevenson.
It is believed that Dr. Stevenson’s cases in the present series are really suggestive of reincarnation since every one of the other hypotheses fails to explain all the facts. Dr Stevenson concludes his review of the cases wintout opting firmly any one theory as explanatory of all the cases. He believes, however, that the “evidence favouring reincarnation has increased since he published his review in 1960.” This increase has come from several different kinds ofobservation of the behaviour of the children claiming the memories and the study of cases with specififor idiosyncratic skills and with congenital birth-marks and
deforunties.
Now, let us see what he exactly means by “reincarnation” whether it is the same or nearlythe same as the Buddhist idea of “rebn~h”. On page~370, Chapter VII of his book Dr. Stevenson says in his General Discussion o~ the subject of ESP (Extra-sensory Perception) applied to ~~~ional features of the cases. “But the theory of reincarnation does not put matters in quite this way. It merely supposes that a personality having sh~~e physical body at death,
after an interval, activates another body and dev~;;rther in it. It may be that at death personality persists largely unchanged or undergoes a reduction so that what persists is a collection of dispositions and aptitudes which we may call individuality rather than the actual habits and skills we call personality. But, the idea I wish to convey now is that according to the theroy of reincarnation some organisation, whether personality or indi~duality, ~ersists from one terrestrial life to another,
essentially in a continuous sequence.
I am afraid the word “personality” so often used as above is most technical and needs some elucidation as to its defintion in the context of this complex sliject b0f reincarnation or rebirth. I would, thereJforeji~mvite attention to page 115 of chapter 111 of Dr. Stevenson’s book which runs inter alia as follows:-”I shall, however, mention briefly some important feature of Buddhism which bear on the study of cases suggestive of reincarnation in which Buddhists believe as much as Hindus do. Both believe also that terrestrial life, inevitably in~udes some suffering, that such suffering resuks from sens~’£l~sfo%nd our desiring the    in terestrial life, that such desires pull us back again and again to successive lives and that final liberation from the wheel of rebirths comes only with the abandonment of such desires and the attaimment of detachment from terrestrial pleasures. This goal can be reached by various techniques, including right conduct and assiduous practice of meditation, which gradually lead to the extinction (i.e., Nibbana) of the craving which promotes terres
trial incarnations”.
“Hindus believe in the persistence after physical death of an essential element or Atman in each person,which idea corresponds roughly to the western idea of a soul. The Atman (after a vaiying interval) associates itself with a new physical organism and comes into terrestrial existence again, thus continuing the growth (or decline) of the personality that lived before. These ideas call for the postulation of a continuing and presumably ~ermanent entrty. In contrast most Buddhists, especially of the Theravada branch, do not believe in the persistence of a permanent entity or souLThere is a constant flux of desire, action, effect and reaction, but no persisting soul. When a person dies, the accumulated effects of his actions set in motion a flirther train of events which lead to other consequnces, one ofwhich may be the terrestrial birth of another personality if the first personality has achieved detachment from sensuous desires, a birth into another plane may occur instead of a new terrestrial birth. But this newly boin personality will relate to the first one only as a flame of a candle (before it finally extinguishes) can light another candle’s flame. Buddhists often prefer the term “rebirth” to
incarnation” to emphasize this distinction. Different schools Hinduddism subscribe to somewhat different concepts of what may persist after physical death. But they agree among themselves (and also with Hindus) in believing that the conduct of one personality can affect the behavior of physical organism, and
life events of another later personality”.
Interesting cases of rebirth type investigated by Francis story
Subdivisional officer of Pyinmana U Khin Nyunt and
his daughter Win Win Nyunt
The following are excerpts from the report on a few interesting cases of rebirth type investigated by Francis story in Burma, vide Volume 2 of the collected Writing by fh late Francis Story, edited and published in book form entitled “Rebirth” by Ven: Nyana ponika There of Kandi, Sri Lanka:In the year 1948 Win Win Nyunt’s father U Khin Nyunt was Subdivisional officer of Pyinmana in Upper Buima. U Khin Nyunt’s mother Daw U Shwe (67) was then in Rangoon. One night U Khin Nyunt dreamed that his mother was ill and yeaming to see him Khin Nyunt was at Thandaung when his wife became preguant and about the same time U Khin Nyunt had another dream in which he saw his mother (in Rangoon) lying dead. His wife Daw Mu Mu also had a dream in which he saw his mother who said that she was coming to live with them. In her dream the mother got into the bed and lay down between U Khin Nyunt and herself (Daw Mu Mu). It was only after this dream that Daw Mu Mu had realised that she was
pregnant.
In due course the child was born. It was a boy and they named him Maung Maung Lay About three months after his birth U Khin Nyunt had another dream. He dreamed that his son was dead. Soon after this dream an apportunity came for them to return to Rangoon. On reaching Rangoon U Khin Nyunt learned that his mother had died. For some time before her death she had been weeping and asking for him. U Khin Nyunt was with his wife and the child in Rangoo~~ then. Soon after wards the child’s heafth began to give him ai~iety In April 1953, the little boy, then five years old, fell seriously ill. The child was taken to a WHO Specialist who sent a apecimen of his blood to USA for a report. when it came the diagnosis was leukemia-cancer of the blood for which there is no known cure as yet. There followed another dream. U Khin Nywit and his wife both dreamed they saw his mother leaving their room and going downstairs. Still dreaming U Khin Nyunt turned to his wife and said, “Just look at my mother. She didn’~ even speak to us! Two months after that Maung Maung Lay died. During his final illness the little boy had wanted desperately to stay alive. He repeatedly said, “Can’t you help me? Can’t you help me from death? About half an hour before the end he looked up at his parents and cried out”I shall be coming back! On March 22, 1957, a ~ir~as~born whom they named Win Win Nyunt. On her left ankle the bab~ had a rectangular birth-mark looking exactly like a mark 4ft by adhesive tape. It was precisely in this spot that the WHO Specialist Dr. Perabo had given a blood transfiision to their son Maung Maung Lay dulmg the three days preceding his death. U Khin Nyunt had a driver who had been very fond of the deceased little boy when the newly born little    was driver the first thing he did was to turn
the     on er stomach.
Then he pointed triumphantly to a dark patcb~~~lier buttock. “This is the mark I made!” he said. He them told the parents (U Khin Nyunt and wife) taht just before Maung Maung Lay’s burial he bad made a mark with charcoalon the dead child’s buttock. The mark borne by the new babe girl was identical with~e one he had made on
Maung Maung Lay’s he said.
When the little girl Win Win Nyunt was able to speak as a child she claimed that she was not only the former Maung Maung Lay but also Daw U Shwe, the mother of U Khin Nyunt. By mentioning the names of persons she could not have known in this life and referring to incidents in the lives of Daw U Shwe and Maung Maung Lay she convinced both U Khin Nyunt and his wife that they were indeed her foimer personalities. She sometimes forget herself and
addressed her father as if he were her son.
While this history was being relat~d to the author (Francis Story) by U Kilin Nyunt and his wife at their home in Campbell Road, Rangoon, Wm Win Nyunt was present. The conversation was in English but whenever the name Daw U Shwe was mentioned the little
girl exclaimed, “That is me!”
The following is a resume of comments on the case by the late
author Francis story:
“Like most of the children who claims to remerber previous lives, she seemad a precocious child. Several times she said in Burmese, smiling happily, “Daw U Shwe that is nobody else but me!”
“A general survey of the cases of previous life seems to indicate that rebirth tends to take place in the same locality and social group, often in the same family, as that of the previous life. This is one of the common features which is easily understandable on the ~ basis of attachment and emotional pull. This principle is well illustrated by the case of the little girl Win Win Nyunt.
“This interesting case brings into shai~ focus the problems
attached to the concept of personality.
“In Buddhism the diffecuky is overcome by holding that personality is purely an idea. The term merely signiiies a cun~nt of cause and effect in which no enduring antity is to be found. At death all that we consider to be personality passesx~aw~~ leaving only the potential ofthe past kamma (actions) to produce a new
psychophysical aggregation a new “person~ality”.
“Whatever the finally correct intei~retation may be a case containing so many diverse elements of paranormal expericnce would be difficult to explain away without recourse to the doctrine of rebirth. Rather than strain beyond reasonable bounds the possible scope of telepathy psychometry, clairvoyance, precognition and other ESP (Extre-censory Perception) Phenomena I find it easier to believe that Win Win Nyunt is precisely what she claims to
be;Daw U Shwe and Maung Maung Lay rebirth.
S.T. (San Tun), Karean youth 
remember past life by Late Francis Stroy
S.T. (San Tun) Karean youth ~la~g to remember past life was a Karen house-boy employed by a friend of the author (Late Francis Stroy) who met and examined him in Rangoon, Buima, in 1949. He was well built and well proportioned, but suffered from an unusual malformation ofhands and feet. Across his right hand a fairly deep, straight indentation, rougly following the heart-line ofpalmistry, but much deeper and shairer than any of the normal lines of the hand, and extending right across the palm, divided the hand into two sections. Above this line the hand was not as well developed as at the base of the palm, and the fingers had something of the childish, unformed appearance that is one of the physical accompanlment of ini~m, akhough not to the same degree. Lower down on the hand and across the forearm there were similar marks, but not so pronounced as that at the base of the fingers. The left hand was indented in the same unusual fashion, but to a lesser degree; and linear indentation of the same kind appeared less distinctly across both feet and on the calves. In addition
two toes of the left foot were joined together.
The boy’s previous employment had been with a leading Rangoon surgeon who, after examining these marks had declared that afthough they had been present from present from birth they could not have been caused by any prenatal injury or abnormal condition in the womb. Questioned about them, the boy conurmed that they were congenital and stated that all the indentations had been much pronounced in childhood. Furthermore, three ofhis toes had beenjoined, but his father, with the rough surgery of village
folk, had separated two of the toes himself.
According to the boy’s own narrative, as a child he had been very reluctant to talk about his physical defects, but one night, lying under the mosquito net with his mother, he told her that he remembered incidents of his previous life. He had been, he said, the son of a rich man, possibly a village headman, who had died leaving him three adjoining houses and a large quantity of silver stored in large vessels of the types known as Pegn jars; besides other treasure secreted in various parts of the buildings. After his father’s death he had lived alone, unmairied and without servants, in one of the three houses. One night a band of dacoits, armed with bamboo spears, broke into the house and demanded to be told where the treasure was hidden. when he reflised to tell them, the dacoits bound him with wire in a crou&hing position, with his hands firmly secured between his legs. In this position, tightly bound and unable to move, they left him huddled in a corner while they ransacked the other two houses, finally making off with the entire store of silver and jewellery. For three days he remained in that position in acute agony, and one ofthe things he remembered vividly was that blood, dripping from the deep cuts made in his hands by the wire, fell on to his feet and congealed i)etween three of his toes. Some time during the third night he suddenly became aware, in his afternating periods of consciousness and insensibility, that he was looking down at a still form crouched in a corner, and wondering who it was. It was only later that he realized the body was his own, and that his consciousness was now located in a different and less substantial form. The rest of his recollection was conflised and obscure. ft seemed to him that for a long time he wandered about the scene ofhis former life, conscious only of a sense of loss and profound unhappiness. In this condftion he appeared to have no judgment of the passage of time, and was unable to say whether it lasted for days or centuries. His sence ofpersonal identity, too, was very feeble, his thoughts revolving entirely around the events just prior to his death, and the memory of his lost treasure which he feft a longing to regain. He seemed, he said , to have his whole existence in a single idea which was like an obsession; the loss of his weafth and the desire
to recover it.
After a long time he again became aware of living beings, and he felt an attraction towards a certain woman. He attached himselfto her, following her movements, and eventually another transition was effected, in a manner he was unable to describe clearly, as the resuft of which lie was reborn as the woman’s child. These were the memoiies that lingered with him in connection with the strange malformations of his hands and feet, and which he told his mother in hafting, childish words when he was able to speak.
Commenting on this case the author says interalia as follows:
“Certain interesting and very significant features emerge from an analysis of this particular case. In the first place, the craving motive is strongly marked throughout. After death, in the Peta state (i.e as an unhappy ghost), his attachment to the lost treasure and to the locale of his previous life persisted as the strongest element in his consciousness up to the time when he again became attracted to another human being. So far, this important part played by the impulse of craving and attachment links the story with other instances of Petas haunting the spots where their former property was located; but here haunting the spots where their former property was located; but here there was another element, that of fear, combined with the attachment. This fear was generated during the days and nights when he was bound with wire in the empty building with no possibility of escape. An intensely strong mental in]pression of the wire cutting into his flesh must have been formed during this period and it was probably the last image present in the consciousness at death. In accordance with the principles of Abhidhamma psychology, this last thought-moment would determine the character of the Patisandhivii~~ana (connecting-consciousness or rebirth consciousness), and thus become the chief factor in determining the conditions of the
new birth.
There are several lines of enquiry on which investigation into rebirth may be carried out. It has been possible to indicate only a few of them here. The serial continuity of life, which so many people in all ages have feft instinctively to be a trnth, however, carries with it the force of an intellectual conviction to all who seek for a pui~ose and a moral pattern in human experience. It is not too much to say that the whole of man’s fliture development depends upon an acceptance of rebirth and a fliller understanding of the ethical principles it brings to light. Mankind is now ripe for a complate re-assessment of values and a re-statement of the imiversal principles on which moral and spiritual convictions rest. Unless this is undertaken we stand in danger of a catastrophic destruction of all these virtues by which man has risen to his present position in the hierarchy of living beings. It is only by the acceptance of rebirth as a fact that the sense of moral responsibility in an ordered universe can be restored.

“A rather typical case of the above kind is that of the Ven: Phra Rajsuthajarn, a Buddhist monk of Pa Yodhaprasiddhi monastery, Changwad Surin, Thailand. He was born on October 12, 1908 at Nabua Village, City District, Burin Province. He remembered his previous life before he was able to talk. In that existence, he had been a farmer named Leng, who had four sisters and two brothers. He died of an undiagnosed fever at the age of 45 on October 14, 1908. He left three daughters named Pah, Poh and Pi who were still living in 1963, aged 74, 67and 65 respectively. Phra Rajsuthajarn stated that after dying as Leng he was reborn as the child of Leng’s younger sister, Rian; but that the rebirth did not occur in the usual way The personality of Leng passed into the body of the babe which had been born to his sister a day before his death. The woman who was formerly his sister thus became his mother in this present life. His account of the brief interlude between Leng’s death and rebirth is vivid. It appears that after his death he saw his body laid out on a mat on the veranda, then he witnessed his cremation, saw the remaining brought back to the house, as is customary, and was present while Buddhist monks chanted the usual fimeral scriptures~ Describing his state of consciousness at that time he said he had the impression of being able to see in all
directions.
While the runeral rites were in progress he remembered that one of his sisters had given birth to a boy the day before he died. As soon as the thought of her he found himself beside her where she lay with her babe. At the sight Leng fek a sudden surge of affection for both of them. He had a strong urge to touch the child, but was afraid of disturbing it. Apparently the mother saw his spint form for she addressed him telling him that he was dead and ought to go to his own place. He went away but continued to watch from outside, and when he thought his sister was asleep he approached again. Once more she saw him and told him to leave her. He went away a second time, but the force of attraction was too strong for him. At the moment when he decided that he really ought to leave the place and was turning to go, he feft himself spinning around and lost consciousness. His last impression was of
falling.
Next he was aware of being a young babe lying in a crib. He feft that he was still the same personality, Leng, and tried to recall his past life. His new situation was very unplessant to him for he feft finstrated at being unable to speak or to get up or to walk. At this stage he was not able to recognise anyone and his ideas were conflised; but he then found that when he changed his positon and lay on his stomach he could call to mind all the people he had known in his previous life, and wanted to see them again. He first remembered the names, appearances and characteristics of his relatives, then of his friends and neighbours, and he wished to see
them again.
Phra Rajsuthajarn started talking about his previous life as soon as he could speak and without prompting gave the names of Leng’s
relatives correctly, including those of his sisters and brothers and of his mother. Ma Chama, and his father, Wa Sawa, who were now his grandparents. At the age of 16 he became a novice in the Buddhist monastic order (Sangha) and remained as such till the age
of 25.
This is a short summary of the case as recorded by the late Francis Story, whose comments thereon are also summarised inter
alia as follows;
“A number of them (cases of rebirth) include what are claimed as being distinct memories of the intermediate state of consciousness between one human life and another. In some of these cases long sequences of events, more vivid than those of a dream, are described in great detail. If these accounts relate to real psychic experiences they throw an interesting light on the states of consciousness possible in a disembodied existance, or rather in a state of being associated with a body of a different substance from that of earthly life. Maff er, being merely a form of energy, may be capable of manifesting in states that normally are imperceptible to human senses yet nonetheless are physical on their own
plane of being.
“In the Buddhist view the stream of consciousness continues unbroken between death and rebirth, so that every state it passes through has to be considered as a rebirth, no matter how short or how long its duration or on what plane of existence it occurs. To put the case briefly, where a western statement would be that at death the spirit passes from the body, the Buddhist would say that after death rebirth as a spirit may take place. This is because Buddhism regards the entire life-continuum as an unintermpted succession of deaths and rebirths taking place from moment to
moment.
“The fact that he (Phra Rajsuthajarn) was born before the previous personality, Leng, died, suggests that the psychic cuiTent of
Leng, through a powerfill attraction, must have projected itself into the body of the new born child, permanently displacing the personality of the individual whose Kamma had actually formed the
body in the womb.
The author (Prancis Story) went on to say “While studying the case I had the opportunity of discussing it with some of the highest authorities on Buddhism in Thailand, including the late supreme Patriarch of the Thai Sangha. I was interested to find out whether they considered this as a case of rebirth, since it does not fit into the generally accepted pattern of events as defined by Buddhism. According to Buddhist teaching, the Kamma of a person who has died operates upon the psycho-physical organism from the moment of conception, forming the fetus in conjunction with the hereditary biological factors contributed by the parents. But assuming that the case of Phra Rajsuthajarn and several others like it that are on record are genuine, apparently sometimes the disembodied personality projacts ftself after death into a body afready prepared by the kamma of another deceased person, displacing the original personality completely and for good. This presumably might happen through a strong force of attraction such as that which existed between Leng and his younger sister, as well as from other causes. ft does not therefore necessarily conflict with the Buddhist teaching in this regard, I was told”.William Maritin of England 4 rebfrth case like that of Phra
R~suithai~jan of miland.“A case remarkably similar to the present one has been reported from England. It is almost a rebirth case, but not quite. It is perhaps the most interesting of all, but unforta;~tely since it happened many years ago it has been
impossible to obtain confirmatory evidence
The subject (W. Martin) wrote out an account ofhis experience which was published in the Sunday Express (London) on May 26, 1935. He related that in his youth he was working in a town many miles from his home. One day he was struck on the head by bricks from a collapsing wall. He was taken to hospital in an unconscious state and it was feared that he would die. A telegram was sent to his parents and was received by them at lunch time. They caught the next train and visited him in the hospital, where he was still in a deep coma. 1NWer a few hours he revived. As soon as he was able to speak he told them that he knew everything that had happened to them while he was unconscious. While his body was lying in the hospital his consciousness had been present m his home. He had seen his mother open the telegram, and had been with them throughout the jomney He repeated the conversation his father and mother had had on the train, and described how his father had looked at his watch from time to time, worried because the
train was late.
‘Thiring part of this out-of-the-body experience he had been in the house of a neighbour, where a woman, a Mrs. Wilson, had just given birth to a female child. Seeing the babe he had fek a strong desire to enter its body and to take up life again. He felt that he could have done so, and indeed had to struggle against the temptation. Only the thought of his grieving parents prevented him. Later enquiries proved that the woman he named had in fact given birth to a girl at the time he stated. The youth afterwards made a complete recovery, but the memory of his experience remained with him throughout his life. His written account of it ended with the words: “I am convinced that ifI had willed myseff into that baby’s body, to-day I would be a Miss Wilson, instead of
still being W. Martin.”
“The particular interest of this case is in the fact that it very closely resembles the after-death experiences described by Phra
Rajsuthajarn who entered the body of the child that was born to his sister one day before his death. That such parallel experiences could happen to two persons of widely different cuftural background, religion, race and geographical situation, between whom there could be no connection whatever in thought or belief, is strongly presumptive evidence that such experiences, afthough
not normally remembered, are universal.
        A Burmese lady claims to remember past life.   
In Burman,, a lady, the wife of a government officer, told Frasics Story how in childhood she had been able to recall several important events of her previous life. Her husband in the former life had been a gambler and she was always short of money But she had a strong desire to get her eldest son ordained as a bhikkhu, so over a long period she had been saving up small amounts, which she kept buried so that her husband should not find theim ft was the dearest wish of her life, and she was looking forward with keen delight to the great day (ofher son’s ordination). But, as so often happens, she was taken ill, and in a very short time she had passed out of that existence. The Burmese lady was reborn straight away in the world of spirits. She then saw her own dead body, with the mourners all around and wondered what they were weeping and wailillg for. She herself felt quite happy, for in life she had always kept the Buddhist precepts faithflilly. She knew that she had nothing to be afraid of now she was dead. On the contrary, she feft a great freedom, away from the old body which had started to worry her with unexpected pains here and there of late. It was pleasant, too, to feel herself free of all responsibilities and for the first time, as far as she could remember, able to do exactly as she liked. The only thing that troubled her was that she wanted to tell her relatives about the money she had hidden, and ask them to have her son ordained with it. But when she tried to speak to them she found that they could neither see nor hear her. All their attention was fixed on the dead body which seemed very silly to her. She had finished with that body, and feft no flirther concern for it. Her relatives were carrying out all kinds of ceremony and making offerings. She even thought, a little wistfiilly, that her husband and relatives had never spent so much on her when she was alive. There was nothing she could do about it, so when the time of the fimeral arrived she followed the procession out of the house. She found that she could move about freely anywhere she liked, and it was interesting to be a guest at her own fimeral. It was quite a stately affair for a modest person like herseif~ and while she was following it she came to realise that fimerals in general are more for the purpose of showing the
family’s importance than for honouring the dead.
After a time, the party came to the Salween River and everybody got into boats to cross over, together with the coffin. But the lady had heard that spirits could of cross runnmg water; and as whatever we believe strongly enough is true to us, she was obliged to stay behind. She watched the boats cross the river, and followed the procession with her eyes until it vanished from sight on
the other side.
For the first time, she began to feel rather sad and lost, not knowing what to do with herself next. She was beginning to feel bored already It is the best side of a woman’s nature that she finds her greatest happiness in serving those she loves. That is one of the reasons why it is more difficuft for a woman than it is for a man to find peace and flilfilment in the monastic life.
She did not know how long she stayed by the river bank, for when there is no daily routine to be followed and nothing is
happening it is diffi~cult to keep track of time. At last,
however, she saw a man on horseback approaching. As he came nearer she recognished him as a neighbour of hers; a man whom she knew slightly He was taking the road back to the village, so quick as thought she jumped up hehind him, and in that way she returned to
her old neighbour-hood.
After that she remembered nothing more until she found her-self in the present life, a child of the man from whom, all unknown to him, she had got a lift back. She was about two years old when she began to speak, and as soon as she could form connected sentences she told the story. The people she named were identified and she was able to point out to her former husband the clothes she had worn in the previous life. But when she wanted to show him where the money for her son’s ordination was hidden, there was an
embarrassed silence.
Commenting on this case, the author (the late Francis Story) observes; “In the case of this lady, it may have been her strong desire to have her son made a bliii~u which enable~ her to remember from one life to another. No one can estimate the power of a wish when there is sufficient good Kamma to bring to about. But to make such a wish effective there must also be single-mindedness of purpose, and continual renewal of the idea. That is one reason why some people get what they wish for while others do not; a very strong desire-force has ot be generated. But that also has had its dangers, for what we crave for is seldom the best thing for us; and when we get it we no longer want it, but have already fixed our desire on something else. It is better far to be without desire, as the Buddha taught, or at least to keep our desire as few and as simple~as possible. Craving can never bring us anything but un
happiness in the long run.
It is interesting that similar cases of rebirth (or reincarnation) in which the subjects claim to have remembered one or more previous lives have been reported from India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma, and it is more interesting that such cases are reported
from western countries as well.
“Bala Pyan” (Return of Aung Bala)
The next interesting case in Burma wheje the subject, Daw Nan Shwe, a famous stage actress, claims to remember her previous life as the celebrated Aung Bala, is known as the Bala ByanReturn of Aung Bala- a nick name given to her by her fans in recognition of her style of dancing and singing just like the famous male actress, the late Aung Bala, who made his name as a most accomplished stage actress, co-staning with the late Great Po Sein, the celebrated stage actor of Burma, in their very popular perfor
mances for several years in the country.
Aung Bala male actress rebor~ female actress Bala byan (a) Saw Nan Shwe Bala Byan (a) Daw Saw Nan Shwe has been one of the seven children of the Karen husband and wife, U Chan Aye and Daw Shwe Meik, of Ye-Aye-San village, near Htongyi Town, in Pegu Distriet. At the age of six she Bala Byan (a) Daw Saw Nan Shwe- began to recall her past life when her name was Aung Bala and the name of his or Aung Bala’s wife was Daw The Nyunt. She Bala Byan (a) Daw Saw Nan Shwe wanted to see nephew Ba Hia and niece Ma Nyunt Yi of
her past life as Aung Bala.
On hearing the above news story Daw The Nyunt, wife of deceased Aung Bala, visited Ye-Aye-San village, when Bala Byan (a) Daw Saw Nan Shwe at once recognised her, Daw The Nyunt, at first sight. Bala Byan (a) Daw Saw Nan Shwe followed Daw The Nyunt to Rangoon with her parent’s peimision. At Rangoon U Ba Hla and Daw Nyunt Yi, nephew and niece of deceased Aung Bala did not at first believe that Bala Byan (a) Daw Saw Nan Shwe had been their deceased uncle Aung Bala in the previous life. Later when fiw#t Saw Nan Shwe asked them about the    books of deceased Aung Bala, pointed out his (Aung Bala’s) personal effects and picked up the clothings belonging to Aung Bala from amongst similar ones, belonging to other~U Ba Hia and Daw Nynnt Yi began to give credit to her story that ½hej~a~ Byan (a) Saw Nan Shwe was the reincarnate of their
deceased uncle Aung Bala.
Daw The Nyunt then took Bala Byan (a) Saw Nan Shwe to Kyauktan. At kyauktan Bala Byan (a) Saw Nan Shwe pointed her fingers at the ricernill owned by Aung Bala, telling Daw The Nywit and others present that the said ricernill had been originally a joint venture between the late Aung Bala and the late Great Po Sein before the late Great Po Sein had sold out his shares to Aung Bala. She Saw Nan Shwe also told them quite correctly about the land estate
belonging to her in her previous life as Aung Bala.
On return to her own village ofYe-Aye-San from Rangoon she began all of a sudden to cherish a derire to sing and dance. The songs she had sung happened to be the famous songs ofthe late Aung Bala as an actress and the style of her dancing was also the same as that of Aung Bala’s. Her parents would not give their consent at first, but Saw Nan Shwe’s desire to join the dancing and music profession was so strong that her parents had no other afternative but to yield to their daughter’s wishes; so she became a blooming
actress at the age of 12.
Saw Nan Shwe’s parents U Chan Aye and Daw Shwe Meik were, no doubt, Aung Bala fans. During his life time Aung Bala’s troupe visited Pegu every year to hold public performances during the Shwemawdaw Pagoda festival. And Saw Nan Shwe’s parents never niissed their chance to wi~ess their favourite singing and dancing idoL In course oftime they became very friendly with Aung Bala who was very fond of their younger son Naw Shwe San. Aung Bala once asked the old couple to give their son in adoption to him. They promisted to do so as soon as the child became old enough for ordination as a novice in the Buddha’s sasana. Unfortunately, Aung Bala contracted tuberculosis two or three years later and
succumbed to that awfiil disease in 1913 at Mandalay.
Daw Shwe Meik, mother of Bala Byan (a) Saw Nan Shwe had a dream in the early months of her pregnancy in which the late Aung Bala, dressed in the costumes of an actress, came to her and said; “Sister! I am very fond of Naw Shwe San, so I have come here to
live with you.”Before his death Aung Bala had a surgical operation due to his in(‘estine swelling. In her statement Bala Byan (a) Saw Nan Shwe says that there are seven birth marks on her stomach which look like stiching marks or those of surgieal operation ‘~hato” Rulith cases where subpiel are said to have been eineacived
or carborn before deeths off frcuious pertorlaticts.
There are nearly similar cases of reinarnatlon type among the Haida, as I understand it from Dr. Stevenson; where the subject was conceived or born prior to the death of his previous personality It is said that the Haida people have inhabited the Queen Charlotte Island of British Columbia for centuries. Nearly all of them are today nominal Christians. Many of them continue to believe in reincarnation according to the oral tradition of their tribe. In all of the 24 cases investigated by Dr. Stevenson the interval between previous personality’s death and subject’s birth was eight months or less, indicating that in these cases, assuming the accuracy of the data. the subject was conceived prior to the death ofthe previous personality In three of these cases the related personality was reported to have selected premortem his parents for his next incarnation. For example, the previous personality had said that he wished to be taller, better looking, or have a fairer complexion in his next incarnation. One of the most extraordinary cases of this kind is that of a fisherman who, tired of working hard all his life, repeatedly expressed a wish to be reborn with only one hand so that he would not have to work at manual labot’ in his next in~Thation. After his death the next child born in his family (the fisherman’s grandson) was born with a normal left arm, but his right arm stops about three inches below the elbowjoint and has no trace of a hand in the stump. There is no other instance of a congenital deformity in his family The pregnancy of the mother of the deformed child was entirely normal; she took no drugs and had no illness during it. The subject of this case was born in 1949. Both his parents said that they had heard his grandfather, the prestirned previous presonality, repeatedly say that he would be reborn with one arm (or one hand) only Independent witnesses, one of whom was the contemporary of the previous personality, also stated that they heard the subject’s grandfather make a similar prediction about having only one hand in his next incarnation. The subject claimed no memories of a previous life, and his mother did not claim to have had an
announcing dream.
It is quite acceptable among the Haida for a subject to be
conceived before the death of the previous personality with whom he will later be identified as already mentioned. They believe that a person can, before he dies, choose the parents for his next incarnation, and also that he can, by his premortem wishes, ilifluence the features of his next physical body. They attach importance to dreams as indicators of the previous personality of a babe to be born. Such “announcing dream” usually occurs during the pregnancy ofthe babe’s mother. After the babe’s birth it may be examined for birth marks, deformities, and other physical features that, according to their correspondence with wounds or with wishes expressed by the presumptive previous personality when living, may give flirther indications of the babe’s previous identity As the child begins to speak and to manifest post-infantile behavior he may make statements indicative of imaged memories of a previous life. He may also show behavior corresponding to that of the deceased person he claims to have been or with whom he has been identified by his elders. For example, a child who remembers the life of a man who was drowned may show a phobia for water, afthough other members of his family do not. Or a boy who remember the previous life of a married man may show particular affection for that man’s widow and express jealou~½ other men
pay attention to her.
                Ma Hla Gyi
There are numerous cases m which specific skills are believed to have been carried over from one life to another. In Burma we have the case of a six-year-old girl Ma HIa Gyi, reported in the Sangayana Journal of the Buddha Sasana Council of the Union of Burma in its issue of July 1954. “She shows”, the report stated “remarkable intelligence for her age, combined with a phenomenal memory. She can read the most diflicuft Pali verses, a few lines, memorise and recite them promptly and correctly In a test given to her she recited the final staza of the sub-commentary on the Buddhist Compendium of Philosophy in Pali without an error after reading it five times. She was able to recite without a single error a page of the Pali Patthana Text (an abstruse Abhidhamma passage) after looking at it for one minute. This might be explained by the possession of a photographic memory, but for the fact that the child could understand what she read and was able to
give its meaning.
Mg Tun Kyaing
A similar case of child prodigy came to public notice fifty years or more so ago in the Defta area of Lower Burma when a four-year-old male child by the name of Maung Tun Kyaing, son of farmer Ko Ba Maung and wife Ma Ngwe Yi, was acclaimed far and wide as a wonder-child able to recite the Ti-Pitaka by heart, but how much of it has not been known. We still remember, however, that he had delivered a series of lectures on Buddhism in various places of Kyalkiat, Pyapon, Dedaya, Maubin, Yandoon and in some quarters of Rangoon City. Rumour had it that he was a reincarnate of
Yungyanggyi Sayadaw who was a Ti-Pitakadhara.Maung Tun Kyaing and party visited Mandalay, Bhamo and other parts of Upper Burma to preach Buddhist sermons. His sermons were so inspifing that the people went by the thousands to hear him and once it so happened that a monastery where he was delivering a religious lecture had collapsed under the weight of the crowd; but fortunately, without fatality. Maung Tun Kyaing’s fame had spread far and wide and eyentually reached the ears of the then Governor of Burma, SitH¼rcourt Butler, who sent for the boy to his summer residence at Mayniyo to convince himselfthat the wondeit~l stories about the child’s genius were really true. Maung Tun Kyaing not only acquitted himself most creditably but also made a most masterfiil exposition of the abstruce tenets of Buddhism, and Sir Harcourt was so pleased that he presented to the boy a box of sweets and a hunderdrupee note. The boy accepted the sweets only and not a hundred rupee note; perhaps he still regarded himself as a Bhikkhu as in his previous life. Maung Tun Kyaing also wanted to give a present in return to the Governor, and the only thing he then possessed was a rosary. He took it off his wrist and handed it over to the Governor~ who said ‘~ow you must tell me how to use this rosary, “where~pon Maung Tun Kyaing explained: “This is to meditate on the three marks of life : Anicca (inipernance), [)ukkha (surifering) and Anatta (No-self). And then he explained the meanings of these three words in detail. The Governor was very much impressed by the most profound words from the mouth of a little boy of four speaking not like one who has been taught to repeat words which he himself cannot flilly understand. In spite of his age, Maung Tun Kyaing spoke with such conviction and sincerity that Sir Harcourt was visibly moved and having expressed his deep appreciation the Governor asked the boy to bring his message to all the people of Burma. ‘You should go from one end ofthe country to the other”, he said, “and preach to high and low, even to prisoners in the jails, because no body could touch
the heart of the people deeper than you
The following is an extract from the editorial of the ‘tight of Buddha”Vol.VNo .5 ofMay 1960: “Iii Burma aboutthe year 1920 a prodigious boy named Maung Tun Kyaing appeared in the Pyapon Distrct. At the age of six (four)? he became famous as a Buddhist preacher (Dhamma Kathika) touling all over the country. He himself stated that in his previous life he was a monk by the name of U Pandecca from Pantanaw. The maivelous feat in him was that without any tuition or schooling he could read high Burmese
literature in Vesantara Jataka backward and forward and could recite holy scriptures (Kamava etc) at the Government House
before Sir Harcoui Butler, the then Governor of Burma .Futher enquiry in 1971-72, that is about 50 years later, by U Win Maung, Burma Representative of Dr Ian Stefenson5 Professor of Psychiatry of the University of Vaginia USA elicited that the child prodiyg had faded out together with his genius four or five years after
his limelight.
While on this subject of Kamma vipaka (cause and effect or action and reaction) dealing with the problem of rebirth and the allied subjects of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy, telekinesis, materialisation, alteration of personality, etc., etc.
A case of alternation of sex
our attention was dra~ to a press report on the recent occurrence of a strange phenomenon of sex change (a case of alternation of sex) in the Burmese Daily ‘kyemon” dated April 23, 1977. The story runs as follows: “To U Kyi and Daw HIa Aye of Kyaungshagon village, Wettigan Circle, Prome Township, in Burma, was born in the year 1957 a daughter named Ma Aye Myint. In 1974 when Ma Aye Myint was 17 years of age, her sex changed automatically (without surgical operation) She (Ma Aye Myint) renamed herself as Maung Aung Shwe (which is the name of a boy). Recently, the boy Maung Aung Shwe, the metamorphosis of the former girl Ma Aye Myint fell in love with a girl friend Ma San Kyi of the same village and lived with her as husband and wife. On a complaint lodged by Ma San Kyi’s parents Maung Aung Shwe was taken to the Police Station. On medical examination Maung Aung Shwe (former Ma Aye Myint) was found to have completely changed the old female sex into male’s. Thus, the girl, the former Ma Aye Myint, has now become a boy named Maung Aung Shwe. Maung Aung Shwe has since donned the yellow robes April 21, 1977 and is now studying the Buddha Dhamma at the
Man-Aung-Toya monastery in Prome Township”
the sex change, Zaw Htu Han, (the former Ma San San Tint)
A similar paranormal phenomeuon of sex change has taken place recently in Kyagan village of Kyauktan Township, Rangoon
Division, when a girl, Ma San San Tint, daughter of U Chit Han and Daw Khin Htwe became a boy through mutation of her female sex
organ into her male counterpart.
At birth Ma San San Tint was a girl and in her subsequent childhood when she was reading in the 5th and 6th Standards in school she behaved herself as a girl and played with girl friends. At the age of 13 when she was reading in the 7th Standard she began to behave herselfneither as a girl nor as a boy, so she was sent to Dr. Daw Mya Mya of the Central Women’s HospitaL On medical examination she was found to ha~ e developed a male sex organ. To conflim this medical report and take flirther steps, if necessary, Ma San San Tint was sent to Dr. Daw Kiiin Win ofthe Anatomy Department ofMingaladon Medical Institute. Dr. Daw Khin Wm reported that the girl, Ma San San Tint’s genital organ had been 90 percent masculine. In spite of the subsequent disappearance of her congenital female sex organ and appearance of the male sex, Ma San San Tint still sufferd from some irregrularities in her urinal discharges, so she had to be sent to Dr. U Kyaw Lin of the Dept. of Urinary Diseases at the Rangoon General Hospital for necessary surgical operation. Since then Ma San San Tint is reported to have become totally a~oy, able to pass urine from the newly developed
male organ.
Ma San San Tint is now studying in the 10th Standard at the Govt. High School in Kemmendine. To the press reporters of the ‘~Thror” (Kyemon) Ma San San Tint said: “I am no longer a girl and my name is now Zaw Htu Han. The National Registration Dept., also has issued a new National Registration Card in the name of Zaw Htu Han. But you see there is some difficufty now that I am going to sit for the forthcoming 1 0th standard examination in my new name of Zaw Htu Han akhough I have passed the the 9th standard in the old name of Ma San San Tint. I have already sent in an application to Government with the necessary recommendation from the local Town-ship authorities as well as from the National Registration Department and the surgeon who carried out the operation
of my person.”
Subsequent to the sex change, Zaw Htu Han, (the former Ma San San Tint) returned to their native village of Kyangan and asked for permission from the village to don yellow robes as a novice. The senior monks who had known Ma San San Tint as a homosexual reflised permission saying that a homosexual could not be allowed under the Buddhist Disciplinary Rules for Bliikkhus to joins the Buddhist Order. Ther+pon, Ma San San Tint’s parents explained the situation to the senior monks who then agreed to depute fivejunior monks to check up Ma San San Tint and report. On receipt of their report that Ma San San Tint had already developed a proper male sex organ the senior monks permitted the ordination accordingly
The National Registration Card issued to Maung Zaw Htu Han carries a note to the following effect: ‘keference Director General’s letter No. Ma-li 214 Mala 45 (Lein) 77, dated 4-3-77 of the Records Branch ‘~a San San Tint is allowed to after her name to Maung Zaw Htu Han.”Maung Zaw Htu Han is now leading his new life as a boy and moving with his new boy friends on amicable terms.
“Kyemon”Sept.19, 1977.
Note    :Maung Zaw Htu Han is reported to be working on this date (January 13, 1981) in the Irrigation Department ofthe Government
of Burma at Rangoon.“Photo”
Female become male.
Sandoway, February 2, 1978
press reports on cases of paranormal sex change are rather
frequent recently.The lastest case concerns a woman Ma Thein Shwe (23), daughter of U Maung Maung Gyi and wife Daw Ma Kyaw Tha, residing at the Aung-Tun-U Road, Maw Laik Quarter, sandoway in Burma. It is said that Ma Thein Shwe began to change her sex (into male organ) since 14 years of age. She is now 23 years and has since become a male person by the name of Mg Thein Shwe, the metamorphosis of the former Ma Thein Shwe eariiing his new life as a trishaw peddler. Tri-shaw peddler Maung Thein Shwe, The former Ma Thein Shwe, has been the fifth child ofthe seven children of U Maung Maung Gyi and Daw Ma Kyaw Tha. Ma Thein Shwe born on february 13, 1955 attended No-2 State Middle School and studied up to 7 Std; as a girl student at the age of 14 Ma Thein Shwe was moving closely with boyfriends when she began growing a spiri{of
homosexual along with the gradual change of her sex.
Subseqantly, that is once in 1971 and once in 1973 Maung Thein Shwe (a) Ma Thein Shwe went to the state Hospital in Sandoway for medicial examination by surgeon-rn-charge Dr. U Maung. The doctor advised him to wait till the time was ripe for surgical operation afthough her genital organ had been 90 percent masculine.
At the time of this report, the sex organ of tri-shaw peddler Maung Thein Shwe (a) Ma Thein Shwe has been changed into a male
sex organ completely.
During Buddha’s life-time, Soreyya, a millionair’s son with wife and children became a woman and had two children with her hushand
before returning to the original manhood.
We have in the commentary to Dhammapada the case of a youth Soreya during Buddha’s life-time, relating to a sudden change of sex, due to exceptionally weighty kamma. He had a wife and two children already when he became a woman as a resuft of a thought of lust directed towards an Arahat, Maha Kassayana, who was famous for his exceptionally good looks amongst the Buddha’s disciples. Aho vata ayam thero mama bhariyabhaveya, the meaning of which is “1t would be quite well and good if this Bhikkhu should become my wife!” No sooner had this thought crossed over his mind than his male sex organ to appear and other characteristics of masculinity were
transformed into those of a female.
Most deeply humiliated and disgraced Soreyya, (now a woman) decided to run away from his home. He came across a caravan of merchants on their way to Taxilla. At Taxilla the leaders of the caravan introduced Soreyya (now a beautiflil girl) to the bachalor son of a milljonair of Taxilla, by whom she (Soreyya) had two
sons.
A few years later, an old friend from Soreyya Town and his 500 caravan friends arrived Taxilla. On his advice Soreyya invited Arahat Maha Kassayana to her residence and apologised to him for the sin committed in the form of mano kamma (mental action or
thought of lust).
“Therena khamamiti vatta matteyye va itthilingam antara dhayi purisa lingam patubhavi” No sooner had the Bhikku uttered the words:“I forgive you all” than did the female sex and all other characteristics of feminity disappear and in stead the male sex
and characteristics of masculinity appears.
These and many instances of the appearance from time to time of child prodigies not exclusive of the births of perculiarly conjoined twins, triplets, quadruplets and quintuplets, constituting no direct evidence for reincarnation or rebirth and other paranormal phenomena such as changes of sex, not only from life to life but in the present life time, are strange occurrences for which the latest biology and psychology of the modern sciene have
not yet been able to account.
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