Psychiatrist Arthur Guirdham wrote extensively about a patient; a Mrs Smith. Going to Guirdham following nightmares in her early 30s, she began having memories of being a member of the sect, the Cathars, in 13th century France. Mrs Smith had suffered inexplicable blackouts since she was thirteen, describing them as if she was going out of time. The knowledge she woke up with allowed her to write down the lyrics of an old medieval song in an obscure French dialect. Her therapy came to a head in February 1966 when she actually re-lived her death by fire in graphic detail.
RAVI SHANKAR
The above is a classic case of reincarnation. India, predictably, has many cases. Ravi Shankar was born in Kanauj in Utter Pradesh, India, in 1951. Yet from a child he claimed he was the son of a barber called Jageshwar who had been murdered. As he grew older he became paranoid, arguing that the killer was still out to get him; an idea reinforced by a two inch birthmark under his chin, which resembled a knife wound. Determined to find out about this previous life, he eventually identified the murder, six months before his birth, of local barbers son, Jageshwar Prasad, who had been decapitated with a knife. The murdered boys father heard of the claims and met Ravi, who gradually became convinced he was his father.
ALEXANDRINA SAMONA
Five year old Alexandrina Samona died in Palermo, Sicily, in March 1910. Distraught, her parents began attending seances, and soon two spirits contacted the medium, one claiming to be Alexandrina. She further claimed that the two spirits would be born as twins before Christmas. They were born in November. One of the children had birthmarks where Alexandrina had had them, so she was named, also, Alexandrina. As she grew up, she seemed to have intimate knowledge of her dead sister, the most striking being on a visit to Monreale when she was ten. Insisting she had been there before with a lady with horns where she saw some red priests, the mother remembered the first Alexandrina going to Monreale with a woman with cysts on her forehead to see some red robed priests from Greece.