Mystery of Reincarnation

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, eating bats and marveling at your own pale skin, you’ve probably heard of the legendary lost city of Atlantis. Said to have existed around 11,500 years ago, Atlantis was a utopian society, supposedly founded by demigods. The island was rich in gold, silver, precious metals, and exotic wildlife. Over time, the Atlanteans developed into a powerful naval force and an advanced civilization. However, in a story that’s all too familiar, they grew greedy and morally corrupt. The gods responded by sending a night of catastrophic destruction, with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions so intense they sank Atlantis to the ocean floor, never to be seen again. Unlike the city itself, the legend lives on, thanks to the philosopher Plato, who first told this story around 360 BC. Unfortunately, his writings are the only records we have of this tragic event. It’s like one of those situations where you’re stuck next to some guy at a wedding who won’t stop telling you how he invented memory foam, but NASA stole the idea from him when he was drunk. It’s highly unlikely, but you just can’t disprove it.

Most scientists and historians agree that Plato likely made up the story of Atlantis as a vehicle for his philosophical ideas, mainly to illustrate that pride comes before a fall—literally. But there have always been those who believe Atlantis was real. The problem is, they can’t agree on where it was. The leading theory, if you can call it that, points to the Greek island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. About 3,500 years ago, the island was home to an advanced civilization called the Minoans, who were likely wiped out by a massive volcanic eruption. This seems to fit the Atlantis story, except for the minor issue that the two events happened 6,000 years apart. Other proposed locations for Atlantis include Bermuda, the Bahamas, Peru, India, Crete, Turkey, Britain, Sweden, Gibraltar, Indonesia, the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or maybe even Antarctica. In other words, it could be anywhere. Scientists, however, have had more pressing questions to answer, like what happens when you fast in space. So, the whereabouts of Atlantis are mostly debated by people in captain’s hats who listened to too much Donovan in the ’60s.

Fortunately for them, the mystery was “solved” in 2014 by Academy Award-winning actress Shirley MacLaine. According to MacLaine, Atlantis was originally located in the area we now know as the Canary Islands—a realization that apparently came to her during a film shoot. MacLaine claims she’s had visions of past lives in Atlantis, which she describes as a huge island continent built by “Star Nations.” In case you’re not up to speed on your celestial terminology, “Star People” are said to be either enlightened aliens or their descendants, who are hiding among us, ready to usher in a new age of joy and prosperity. The concept was introduced by Brad Steiger in his 1976 book Gods of Aquarius, and the Star People have since become a beloved trope among New Agers and others who enjoy singing to crystals. But when you hear MacLaine speak, she doesn’t come across as someone who’s about to try to sell you a dreamcatcher or burst into a chorus of “Kumbaya.” She has a very no-nonsense, pragmatic air about her as she describes the many past lives she remembers from different countries and eras. Could it be that she’s onto something? Are Shirley MacLaine’s recollections of past lives accurate? In other words, could reincarnation be real?

Like the concept of life after death, many people around the world believe in reincarnation. You might associate the idea with religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, which teach that we’re all part of a cycle of death and rebirth, influenced by our actions in life—our karma. But reincarnation has also gained a larger following in the West in recent times, thanks to practices like past life regression. This is an experience under hypnosis where you begin to recall or even relive past lives. Fans of the process claim they’re transported back in time, sometimes thousands of years, where they see the world through the eyes of Cleopatra, a World War II soldier, a Russian peasant girl, or a medicine man selling fake therapies. Unfortunately, there’s not a shred of evidence to support the validity of past life regression. All we have are the stories of those who’ve undergone the therapy, and since many of them already believe in reincarnation, that’s hardly an objective data set.

The thing is, if you were really the reincarnation of someone who lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago, you ought to possess some pretty useful information about humanity’s past. You might be able to speak a long-dead language, know details about the climate or geopolitical situation of your era, or perhaps describe the customs of civilizations that existed before written records began. Yet, those who’ve undergone past life regression are suspiciously unable to provide information on any of these things. The obvious reason? The only past lives they’ve ever actually lived are old save files of The Sims. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not making a bold statement about reincarnation in general. It’s more complicated than that, as we’re about to discover. I’m just saying that if someone who really wants to believe in reincarnation undergoes past life regression, you can bet they’ll end up with an incredible origin story about being an ancient prince or some other important historical figure. I’d be more inclined to believe in the whole thing if there were more reincarnated Hitlers and Pol Pots knocking around.

None of this is to say that everyone who undergoes hypnosis and believes they were once Elvis is intentionally trying to deceive themselves or others. They’re simply victims of human memory. If you’ve been following this channel, you’ll know that we’re all surprisingly susceptible to remembering things that never actually happened. For something you probably see as a factual repository of your own life story, your memory is actually extremely creative—filling in blanks and connecting dots to create a coherent story of the past, even when parts of that past never actually took place. It’s this flair for invention that likely explains many claimed instances of reincarnation. Several studies have demonstrated that people who believe they’ve lived past lives are significantly more likely to create false memories than the rest of us. A natural propensity for creating false memories isn’t only common in those who believe they’ve experienced past lives; it’s also seen in people who claim they’ve been abducted by aliens. So yeah, that sore spot you’ve been telling everyone about might just be hemorrhoids after all.

It’s also been shown that the very act of undergoing past life regression itself increases your susceptibility to forming false memories. For this reason, the vast majority of medical practitioners consider it to be not only unscientific but flat-out unethical, as it violates a key part of the Hippocratic Oath: to do no harm. As I’ve said, just because past life regression seems like pseudoscience doesn’t mean reincarnation is automatically a made-up concept too. There certainly seem to be plenty of reincarnation claims that have nothing to do with past life regression or hypnotism. For example, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, is regarded in his religion as the 14th reincarnation of a past Lama or spiritual leader who wished to be reborn to continue his work. In Tibetan Buddhism, the search for the new Dalai Lama begins as soon as the previous one dies, and it really is a search. In the case of Tenzin Gyatso, the current Dalai Lama, it took four years to locate him. The high Lamas of the religious order look for signs, including dreams or visions from Lhamo La-tso, the sacred lake. These signs should lead the Lamas to the boy they believe to be the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. They then show him a mix of objects, some of which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, and if the boy accurately picks out his old belongings, it’s regarded as proof that he is indeed the reincarnated Lama. Tenzin Gyatso, for example, reportedly picked out a bell and prayer beads belonging to the 13th Dalai Lama, exclaiming, “It’s mine! It’s mine!”

Then there’s the story of the Pollock twins. In 1957, two sisters, Jacqueline and Joanna Pollock, were tragically killed in a car accident. Their parents were devastated, but the next year, they became pregnant with twins, Jennifer and Gillian Pollock. Shortly after the twins were born, the family moved away from the town where their first two children had been raised. But when they moved back a few years later, the surviving twins began pointing out landmarks they couldn’t possibly recognize since they were only three months old when they left. Not long after, they started asking for toys that had belonged to their deceased sisters, despite never having seen them before. They also reportedly became hysterical whenever they saw moving cars.

There’s also the story of Dorothy Eady, also known as Omm Sety. Born near London in January 1904, Dorothy had a regular childhood until she was three years old when she suffered a terrible fall down the stairs and was pronounced dead. Miraculously, an hour later, she sat up in bed, but from that day on, something was different about her. Not long after the accident, her family visited the British Museum, where Dorothy became mesmerized by the displays of ancient Egypt. She began kissing the feet of the statues, and when her mother tried to take her away, Dorothy begged to be allowed to stay with what she called “her people.” Over time, Dorothy had recurring dreams of a particular building with columns, surrounded by lush vegetation. She also experienced episodes