Why is it that everytime someone is a reincarnated being, they were once a queen, princess or king? Nobody was just a small nobody whom nobody else noticed and nobody else cared about whether he lived or died, nor someone who never thought much about himself. Everyone was always someone great and famous and influential. A recent poll shows that 21% of people who claim to believe in reincarnation, have all been once been Cleopatra. So will the real Cleopatra stand up?
Some have tried to explain that reincarnation is not a one on one thing, and Cleopatra could split up into many different souls. But there's gotta be like 2 million Cleopatras!
Perhaps we need alternate explanations to reincarnation. Could those expensive hypnosis regressions therapy sessions simply be unlocking our narrative fantasies and triggering our sense of vanity? Could unexplainable memories be attributed to extracerebral memory? Could we be tapping on to collective consciousness? Has it got anything to do with getting information from "spirit helpers?"
Many eastern reincarnationists believe that we carry over from a past life, anything from memories to actual physical traits, birthmarks, skills, character traits, to fears. Yet I'd be willing to bet there are few consistent similarities between all the 2 million Cleopatras.
Here is an excerpt from some 'Life After Death' about research into reincarnation, citing the investigations of a Ian Stevenson
Cases that Cannot be Explained as 'Simple' Reincarnation
The case of Said Bouhamsy, also thoroughly investigated by Ian Stevenson, is a beautiful case in point. Bouhamsy was a Druse (a member of a Muslim sect that teaches reincarnation) who died in Lebanon in 1943 in a road accident. Six months later, his sister gave birth to a son. When the boy first learned to speak, practically his first words were the proper names of Bouhamsy's children. The boy also described the truck accident which had ended his precious life and developed a phobia centring on trucks which lasted for many years. It was a splendid case of a past-life recall except for one hitch. In 1958, in a town only 25 miles away, a lad named Imad Elawar was born. From the age of 2 he also remembered a previous life apparently as Said Bouhamsy! He recalled the truck accident, remembered how many children he once had, and of a former mistress, Jumille, whom Stevenson (the reincarnation researcher) ultimately discovered was the mistress not of Said, but of his cousin.
So here we have a case in which 2 children recalled the same previous life. Obviously this type of case cannot be explained very easily as 'simple' reincarnation.
And then there's the puzzling case of Jasbir Lal Jat, a 3½ year old Indian boy who, after almost dying of smallpox in 1954, spontaneously began speaking of a previous life as Sobha Ram, who lived in a neighboring village. He stated that his father's name was Shanka, that he died from eating poisoned sweets during a wedding procession (which had caused him to fall from a cart), and many other true incidents in Ram's life. On being taken from his home in the Uttar Pradesh province of India to the neighbouring village of Vehedi, where Ram had lived, he correctly recognized several of his precious relatives and spoke to them in detail about his past life. All these details were checked and verified by Ian Stevenson during his field trip to India in 1961.
So here we have what seems to be a becautiful case of reincarnation . . . excpet for one sobering fact. Sobha Ram didn't die before Jasbir was born. Ram's life only came to an abrupt end when the boy (Jasbir) was fully 3 years old.
How can we explain this odd case? Is it an instance of genuine reincarnation? Spirit possesion? Transmigration ofthe soul? Did Jasbir actually die during his bout with smallpox, during which time his body was re-animated by the soul o Sobha Ram? If nothing else, such cases alert us to the fact that instances of extra-cerebral memory are by no means cast-iron evidence for reincarnation. The data which can be gleaned from these cases just isn't clear enough, and they are full of paradoxes that can't be overlooked.