A Case of a Japanese Child with Past-Life Memories

Abstract

This article presents the case of a Japanese child who claims to remember his past-life memories. The case shows the pattern frequently observed in Cases of the Reincarnation Type (CORTs) extensively investigated by Dr. Ian Stevenson and others: At the age of three, the child started to talk about a life he claimed to have lived before, and showed behavior that is unusual in his family and unexplained by his current life, but that apparently matches the “past life;” he also showed a strong desire to go back to his previous mother. His memories, however, began to fade at about the age of seven and were almost completely gone when the child was interviewed at the age of nine. The unusual character of the present case is that the place the child claimed to have lived in is far away from his current place of residence. Despite the detailed information the child has given, the case is unsolved at present. The main contribution of this paper will be to report virtually the first Japanese CORT since the 19th century case of Katsugoro, one of the 44 cases that inspired Dr. Ian Stevenson to begin researching the topic.