The Telepathy Tapes - S3E1: The Boy Who Remembered Dying | The Reincarnation Records

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everyone, this is Kai Dickens, and you're listening to The Reincarnation Records from TTT Media. I don't think a three-year-old is supposed to be having nightmares about how they died in a fiery plane crash. For millennia, young children have reported something extraordinary. They remember their names. They remember places. Oftentimes, the kids remember how they died and was something traumatic. And in some cases, these memories can be verified. Allowing kids to talk about it is very important. Past life memories can heal.

Starting point is 00:00:29 What if memory doesn't? doesn't begin at birth. What if some part of us arrives already carrying a story? If reincarnation is real, I don't think we're supposed to remember. This season, we step into one of the most controversial and quietly persistent ideas in human history. Reincarnation. We are taught from a very early age in the Judeo-Christian culture that reincarnation doesn't exist. It's not an escape from the demands of religion.

Starting point is 00:00:55 We'll meet people who speak with striking clarity about other lives, and the researchers around the world who've spent decades studying these cases. Once you observe this in a child and the evidence is very compelling, you have to open up to another explanation for what is going on. Welcome to the Reincarnation Records. By now, you know that we're big fans of energy healing here at the telepathy tapes, and Luminarra is the best platform for finding energy work. Luminarra makes it simple to experience energy healing with private, one-on-one personalized sessions

Starting point is 00:01:32 that you can do from the privacy of your own home. Every practitioner is handpicked and vetted by Luminarra, so you're never guessing whether someone is legit or has credentials. You can get matched with the right practitioner for you or browse and choose the best one for your unique needs. And here's something new. Luminarra is currently working with researchers at Florida State University to study the science behind energy healing even further.

Starting point is 00:01:53 This isn't guesswork. It's an established practice getting validated by more science and more data every day. I booked a remote session, and it was amazing. If you listen to Season 2, remote energy healing works and I can't recommend it enough. And because it's online, you have access to gifted healers from all over the world and you can book whenever it's best for you. What I also appreciate about Luminarra, which is HIPAA compliant is how safe, supported, and approachable they've made this kind of healing. Each session is private, personalized, and designed to support your body's

Starting point is 00:02:20 natural ability to rebalance. Whether you're looking for support with stress, pain, sleep challenges, mood shifts, hormone changes, digestive issues, emotional well-being, or you're simply ready to operate at a higher level. The benefits are real. And if you're already a believer like we are, and you're finally ready to try it for yourself, Luminarra is offering 10% off your first session for telepathy tapes listeners. Just go to Luminarra.cair. That's Luminar.com and use code Tapes 10 at checkout for 10% off your first session. This is our first episode, and before we dive in, I thought it was important to give a little personal context. Reincarnation is something I never believed in.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Growing up, I was Christian, and interestingly enough, my dad was an atheist, and as far apart as our beliefs were, the one thing we both thought to be certain was that when this one life ends, that's it. And beyond that, the part of my personality that loves science and logic and reason could not take seriously the idea that consciousness or a soul could choose to come back into another body because it felt so tied to just one. And then, something happened that I never expected. I stumbled into a project that would become the telepathy tapes, a six-year investigation into claims from non-speaking individuals that they could read minds. That revelation was confounded. enough, it took me years to wrestle with it, test it, investigate it, and slowly come to believe

Starting point is 00:03:35 that something real was happening. But along the way, another pattern kept surfacing. About a third of the non-speaking individuals that I met across different countries and cultures and belief systems brought up remembering a past life. Often that statement stood in direct contrast to their parents' religious beliefs or even their agnostic or atheist beliefs. But these non-speaking individuals said it anyway, despite the spiritual bomb they might be dropping inside of their own families. And the first time this bomb hit me was with Mia's family. Mia was the first girl with non-speaking autism to enter my life. She lives in Mexico and her mother, Ileana is deeply Catholic.

Starting point is 00:04:13 And when Mia first said she could read minds, Ileana was so frightened that she even asked a priest about an exorcism. And then Mia said something even more shocking. And here's a clip from that interview. And you'll also hear the translator, Rebecca. Mia said, I had another life before this one. She said her name was Carlos in this previous life, Mexico City, in 1856, and her name was Carlos. But her mom has never really pursued asking her more about it, and it's mostly because

Starting point is 00:04:46 Ileana doesn't feel totally comfortable. When I first heard this, I remember thinking, why would Mia, who's so dependent on her family for everything, say something in exact opposition to their beliefs. It made no sense. And then the second thing I thought was, no. I mean, telepathy was already enough to deal with. I did not want to open another door that would shatter my reality even further, and especially not this door.

Starting point is 00:05:10 But the more families I met, the more it happened again and again, whether the families were Hindu or Christian or agnostic or Jewish. Like Jennifer, the mother of a non-speaker named Ethan, who we interviewed for the talk tracks. He remembers all his past lies. And he wants this life to be special because he says this is his last one and this is his hardest life. This is his first life with autism.

Starting point is 00:05:36 It's unbelievable. And he knows our past lives too. Wow. This is all, sounds crazy to say, but some of it's scary, but he knows how people passed. He knows how he passed in his last life. He knows how his brother passed. And some of the ways that we have passed, it shows the things. that we're anxious about now.

Starting point is 00:05:57 And of course, not all non-speakers mention reincarnation. Some have never brought it up, and some only discussed the world through a very traditional religious lens. But enough people did bring it up that has sent me on another investigation. And I want to be clear that I did not come into this wanting reincarnation to be true. My whole life, I've made serious choices, some with great regret and remorse, because I believed we only got one shot at our story, one lifetime to fit everything in, and one body on this earth. So I came into this with every normal objection. Maybe these were fantasies that people

Starting point is 00:06:29 were picking up, or stories from television or books or religion. Or maybe even more probable, in the case of children, adults were making meaning out of random things that were just meant as play or fantasy. But in this series, I'll take you on the journey I went through. What are these memories? Where could they possibly be coming from? And if any of these memories can be verified, what might that tell us about what happens after we die and maybe even about the nature of memory, consciousness and reality itself. But to get anywhere near those questions, we have to start where these cases usually begin

Starting point is 00:07:00 with a very young child saying something to a family member that they cannot explain. I went into shock, which is not unusual for parents to do when a child starts talking about a past life memory because I knew we were in new territory. That's Carol Bowman, who started off not as a scientist or a researcher,

Starting point is 00:07:19 but as a mother, trying to understand why her five-year-old son was suddenly terrified of loud booming noises. My son Chase, who was five at the time, started presenting phobias. He was terrified of loud booming sounds, which we were unaware of until we went to a fireworks display, 4th of July, 1987. And he lived out. He became hysterical, took him home from the fireworks. He couldn't tell me what was wrong, and I was trying to figure out what in his short life could causes phobia. What Carol didn't know yet because nothing in her life had prepared her to recognize it was that Chase was already exhibiting one of the most commonly reported patterns in past life

Starting point is 00:08:03 memory cases. Chase would cry when he heard the loud booming sounds. And then it happened again a couple of weeks later when we were in indoor swimming pool and people jumped on the diving board and made the booming sounds again. And again, he became hysterical. And I asked him what was wrong. And he said, those sounds scare me. I remember being unusually afraid of loud noises. And I remember even in my young age knowing it was a fear that felt different than a normal fear. That's Chase Bowman, Carol's son, reflecting on this now as a grown adult. You know, losing your mom at a grocery store is a fear,

Starting point is 00:08:41 but something about these noises felt like something deeper, and it caused me just to sort of lose control. I would try to leave. I would cry. I'd be like, can't be here. Don't want to be here. It was a parent that Chase had a phobia, and I didn't know where it had come from. At the time, the Bowman's were living in Asheville, North Carolina, and there weren't a lot of resources for helping Chase through his phobias. But in a twist of luck, Carol's friend, a hypnotherapist by the name of Norman Ing, was in town, and he agreed to help. The kids loved Norman. He was very good with children, and we were sitting around my kitchen table, and Chase was due to start kindergarten.

Starting point is 00:09:19 We didn't send him to preschool. I was home with my kids. And I was thinking, maybe he can help Chase by giving him some suggestions. So the next time he was exposed to loud booming sounds, he wouldn't have an hysterical reaction. So I said, Norm, can you work with Chase? He has this phobia. And Chase was eager to find some resolution to this. And Norman used what we call a bridging technique. He said simply, sit on your mom's lap, close your eyes, and tell me. me what you see when you hear the loud noises that scare you. Here's Chase Bowman again. The images were there. I just needed a little encouragement. It started sort of as postcards in my mind. And then it sort of started animating and becoming live action, like remembering a vivid dream. And I could see his eyelids fluttering.

Starting point is 00:10:10 And immediately, Chase started talking in a very matter of fact, serious tone. In the first person tense, I'm a. soldier. I have a uniform on. It's a dirty. I have a big gun with a sword at the end. I'm crouching behind a rock. There's smoke everywhere. I can't even see who I'm shooting at. I don't want to be there. I don't want to kill other people. And Norman hadn't said anything to him. This was just coming stream of consciousness. I remember the first image that came to mind almost instantly was a person that I identified as myself, but it wasn't me. It looked very different than me. It was an adult. I had darker skin, and I was holding a gun, and it just came right up.

Starting point is 00:10:54 Chase Bowman, the man sitting in front of me as we do this interview, is a very light-skinned man with some freckles and strawberry blonde hair. I believe that I was a black man, a tall man, and it wasn't strange to me. I remember in that moment seeing that was me, even though I looked so different than, you know, a five-year-old redhead. The next thing I saw was this person whom identified as me in battle, firing sort of indiscriminately at anything.

Starting point is 00:11:22 I remember the feelings that came with that, the feelings of fear, of chaos, of wanting to leave. This was not a fun moment. It felt very visceral. The emotion of it was the most real of it all. Do you remember what your weapon looked like? I described it as a kid is a gun with a sword at the end, not really knowing what that meant.

Starting point is 00:11:42 But yeah, it was sort of an old-school bayonet. I want to quickly interject here that Carol took detailed notes, writing everything down while it was still fresh in her brain. And this detail was very interesting. Because even if Chase had seen a toy gun before or wandered the same Toys or Us aisles as I did, bayonets were not exactly part of the toy store landscapes in the late 80s. So had you ever seen bayonets or like Civil War imagery?

Starting point is 00:12:05 To my knowledge, no. My mom was always watching Sesame Street with me and keeping our media pretty tight. And, you know, there's no internet back then. And you don't remember what like the enemy looked like. It was actually part of that memory was just that I didn't know who the enemy was. And that was part of the fear and confusion that came with that. There was smoke.

Starting point is 00:12:24 It was hard to see. I don't even think I was making a plan. I was just kind of firing. He said he didn't want to be there. He didn't want to kill other people. That was the thing. It was very adult. He wasn't glorifying more at all.

Starting point is 00:12:41 He thought it was awful. And all of a sudden, he said, I'm shot. And he held his right wrist. And all of a sudden he was quiet. And then he said, I passed out. So he had that awareness. And I remember that was enough to have me be pulled out of battle.

Starting point is 00:13:00 I remember a friend of mine grabbed me and grabbed me kind of under my arms and pulled me out and took me to this sort of makeshift hospital. And he said, they take me to this place and it's a big tent with material on top. with poles at the end. And he said, they put me on a bed, but it's not like a regular bed. It's a hard bench. And they bandaged my wrist. I want to interject again, because this little moment also stuck out to me.

Starting point is 00:13:27 Because raising a little boy and watching little boys play, if they're ever acting out getting shot, it's pretty epic. They're grabbing their chest. They're falling to the floor. I've yet to see it about the wrist. He was talking about his right wrist. And I remember being bandaged and resting there for a time. I remember feeling a relief from being there because I was out of the battle.

Starting point is 00:13:46 This is nothing. He saw in Mr. Rogers as Sesame Street, and I carefully monitored their intake of TV and movies. And as a mother myself, this part really hit me because I remember being hyper-aware of what went into my kids' heads when they were little. And when Carol's kids were growing up, she was home with them. And this was before endless streaming or YouTube or any of that stuff. There were just a few basic channels, and Carol monitored what they were watching.

Starting point is 00:14:12 And he said, they want me to go back into battle. I don't want to go. I miss my wife and family. Up until that moment, my mind was going very quickly trying to figure out what was going on. And when he said something about his wife and family,

Starting point is 00:14:27 I went into shock. It was the moment when I realized we're in past life territory. The battlefield was one of the more distinct memories that came to me just the shape of it. I was behind a rock and I was firing into a valley. and the walls of the valley were high. I feel like if I came to this spot,

Starting point is 00:14:46 wherever it may be, I would recognize it because that was rather vivid. In terms of my clothes, I remember it was nothing, just kind of some sort of makeshift uniform of sorts, sort of mid-tone, earth-tones, something. It wasn't anything fancy, for sure. And then, Chase, did you see the moment of your death? After being bandaged and spending some time at the field hospital,

Starting point is 00:15:09 I remember walking back into battle. I remember passing a cannon that was being pulled by a horse on a cart. Chase was still on my lap. He said, I'm walking down a dirt road, and I see chickens on the road. I see horses pulling wooden wagons with big wheels. I remember walking to the top of the same place and then finding a new post there. I was firing the cannon, banning some kind of bigger arms. And then I remember being shot and realizing,

Starting point is 00:15:40 that I died and a point of view above the battlefield sort of floating above. It was just like a bird's eye view of the battlefield. And that was it. It was over. Carol's five-year-old was back at the table. All of a sudden, he opened his eyes, jumped off my lap, ran into the other room to play with his Legos, and he grabbed a cookie in the process off the kitchen table. I had no idea children could have past life memories.

Starting point is 00:16:06 It didn't even occur to me. That was kind of the full breadth of the spontaneous. memory that I had. We're going to see that reincarnation research often falls into two broad lanes. One is past life regression, where adults often through hypnosis or psychotherapy, describe memories or scenes from what they experience as another life. And those cases can be powerful, but they're also a little complicated because adults carry a lifetime of movies and stories and history and books and trauma with them, and often in

Starting point is 00:16:37 the subconscious. But the other lane is children's memory. And those cases are different because when a very young child starts describing a life they've never lived with historical facts and cultural knowledge they haven't been taught, and in a family that does not believe in reincarnation, it becomes harder for a parent to dismiss as childhood fantasy. Children's memories are so close to the surface. And this will come up again and again in this series that for children, especially younger than five, these vivid, unexplicable memories seem to be right there. There's no need to really poke or prod or ask leading questions. if they are in there, they'll come out. You go into a mild state of shock.

Starting point is 00:17:14 Oh my God, what just happened. But as remarkable as Chase's memory was, what's even more remarkable is what happened to him after he released it, and the discovery that a wound from that battlefield may have followed him into his present life. That's coming up after this break. Our telepathy tapes and merch store means a lot to us,

Starting point is 00:17:35 because any money made from our merch goes directly to non-profits that support non-speakers. So when someone buys a hoodie, they're also supporting the community at the heart of this work. And I'm particularly grateful to Shopify, which we use as a platform behind the merch store. Shopify makes it so easy for listeners to shop our hats, shirts, and hoodies, and support the amazing community behind this project, because doing good should be as simple as possible. If you have something you want to bring into the world, I recommend looking into Shopify.

Starting point is 00:18:00 Shopify helps you launch a store and start selling in a few simple steps without needing to become an e-commerce expert. And its mobile app lets you manage inventory, customer support, and payments from anywhere. When you're balancing a lot like we are over here with producing a podcast and releasing a film and running a nonprofit, having flexibility matters. And if you're thinking about launching it all, do it now before the holidays to take advantage of that extra online traffic. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to shopify.com to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com. Go to Shopify.com today to hear your first.

Starting point is 00:18:34 This episode of the telepathy tapes is brought to you by Alloy Health. For women, we hear so much about changing hormones, and I have a few friends that I work out with in the park in the morning. And a common theme is how much hormone replacement therapy has helped them navigate paramedipause and the numerous benefits it can give you as you age, especially the estrogen patch. And this was all new to me. And when I decided to try it, I found it was way more difficult than I thought it would be to get a prescription. My primary care doctor referred me to an OB-GYN and she wanted me to test some other things first. And the whole process was really frustrating. And then I tried alloy.

Starting point is 00:19:05 And it is the solution for any working woman, I'd say over the age of the age of the. 35. Alloy can help you navigate the national patch shortage offering HART through pills, gels, and even a spray. And you just completed online intake form. Alloy connects you with board certified menopause specialized physicians and then a doctor reviews it and creates a professional treatment plan. And once approved, your prescription ships directly to your door. It was so easy and I cannot recommend them enough. Having access to that care without another pharmacy trip makes a real difference. So find relief that works for you. Head to myalloy.com and use code tapes, your menopause specialized doctor will tailor your treatment to your exact

Starting point is 00:19:40 needs. Plus, you get unlimited messaging with your doctor. Head to myalloy.com and use code tapes to get 20% off your first order. This code is valid on products only. Welcome back to the reincarnation records. So after Chase's spontaneous memory, there were a few people sitting at the table. Carol Bowman, Chase's mom, her good friend Norman, and Chase's older sister, Sarah. My daughter, Sarah said, mom, that place where Chase was shot on his wrist, that's where he has his eczema. Chase had a chronic severe eczema on his wrist since he was about nine months old that had not responded to medical treatment at all. We tried everything. And he scratched it so much at night that it got to the point where I'd have to bandage his wrist. I remember scratching

Starting point is 00:20:29 at it until it would bleed. And it seemed to be the same spot that I'd been shot. And after processing this memory, it healed. Gosh, that's wild. Within two days, his eczema cleared up completely. This is one of the first patterns I want you to register, because over this series, you're going to see versions of this again and again. Children who describe injuries or even death wounds from another life and then seem to carry a birthmark or birth defect or a scar or pain or physical symptom in that exact

Starting point is 00:21:00 same place. The experience helped me mature. and move forward in a number of ways. My eczema went away shortly thereafter, and my fear of loud noise is shortly thereafter as well. Just by remembering the past life death, his phobia just quickly disappeared. He asked for a drum kit for his sixth birthday.

Starting point is 00:21:25 I think I was taking ownership of the booming sounds, you know, and I've been a drummer ever since. So it had an immediate benefit and long-term benefits. And this is the second pass. I want you to register. In almost all of the cases, we'll be exploring this season. Children don't just remember a life. They seem to carry a strong emotion from it, like a fear or phobia, or often night terrors. And almost always, once the memory is heard and received and responded to, something begins to release and heal. For Chase, the booming sounds were unbearable. His body reacted

Starting point is 00:21:57 to them as if he was still in danger. But after he described the battlefield and confusion and injury and moment of death, something changed. His eczema cleared. His phobia disappeared. And for Carol, that opened up a question she could not let go of. I was driven to, just out of curiosity, figure out what happened? Like, what is this? Can other children have these memories? Can they be healed of problems that they bring in with them from previous lives? And Carol, maybe for a little context, like, what were you doing up until then? And, you know, same with your husband. I have a bachelor's degree in English. My husband, Steve, graduated with his class of 72 from Harvard, and he taught in a private school in Concord Mass. We decided we wanted to leave the Boston area

Starting point is 00:22:46 and ended up in Western North Carolina and we bought a 24-acre farm. I stayed home by choice with my kids and at one point, I'm sure all mothers go through this. I was a little frustrated, Is this all there is? We had a great community in Asheville. I had friends and we did things with our kids, but it's like, I know I'm supposed to be doing something more and I don't know what it is. And I'm not exactly a praying person, but I remember during that period, I was thinking, just show me what to do.

Starting point is 00:23:17 I know I'm supposed to be doing something. Just show me. And in that moment, when Chase remembered his past life on a battlefield, my research began. I wanted to find answers and I'll do whatever it takes to get there. And I started talking to my friends in Asheville about what happened with Chase. And I remember one person saying, you've really lost it, Carol. But other people were telling me stories about their young children and what they had said and they thought, maybe that was a past life. I started getting little cases from them.

Starting point is 00:23:52 Oh, yeah, my daughter remembered burying her children after a flood. It was just, yeah, that happened to my little girl or my son. Little cases like that, but to me it was like, wow, you know, they're here. They're everywhere. And my daughter had memories, too, but I don't want to go into that now. Same thing happened. She had a phobia of fires, especially house fires, and she was terrified. We'll come back to this in a later episode when we explore another strange facet of many cases

Starting point is 00:24:22 that some families have multiple people who remember past lives, which raises a fascinating question around memory, and if some families might be wired less for forgetting. And if that's true, could there be a biological predisposition for memory retention extending beyond our current physical life? But to stay on track, Carol's current question was more immediate. She was already hearing little stories in Asheville, but could any of it be validated beyond just anecdotes? Before the internet, our source of material was through bookstores and libraries. A lot of libraries didn't have any books on past lives. But through a twist of luck locally,

Starting point is 00:24:59 Carol was given her first handle to hold on to. I had a friend whose name was Kathy, and I had just experienced Chase's memories and was talking to her about it over at her house. Kathy and I were carrying on in the kitchen, laughing and talking about this, and her husband was there, Patrick, and he stuck his head around the corner,

Starting point is 00:25:21 and he said, I heard you talking about reincarnation. I don't believe that BS. But my friend does, Roger Wulger, he just wrote a book called Other Lives, Otherselves. Here, take it. So I got really excited that there was a book that I might learn a lot from. And tell me a bit about the author of this book, because I think for something like reincarnation, right? I mean, it really needs to come from a credible source. Roger Wulger was trained in behavioral psychology and analytical philosophy at Oxford.

Starting point is 00:25:52 He attended the Jungian Institute in Zurich and had a PhD in comparative religion from London University. Okay, so clearly impressive. Yes, absolutely. I did research on Dr. Woolgar myself. And what I found is that many of the authors in this space, reincarnation was nothing he went looking for. But during psychotherapy work, his patients would unexpectedly enter vivid narratives filled with historical details and names, dates, specifics, and often trauma. The experiences were often extremely emotional for his patients, almost like a full-bodied somatic experience. To give you an example, one patient came to him with extreme fear of the outside world.

Starting point is 00:26:33 Her condition grew so severe that she stopped leaving home entirely, keeping her curtains drawn and having her groceries delivered, which was very uncommon 40 years ago. Her fear of being around other people was so intense that Walger compared it to extreme agoraphobia or even psychosis. But when Dr. Wulger started to work with her and asked her to focus on the feelings themselves and what arose for her when she focused on the feelings, what emerged shocked him. The woman suddenly experienced herself as an enslaved woman, locked naked in a wooden cage at a slave market. She described crowds staring at her body while she stood chained and exposed. And then for this patient, the imagery shifted to plantation life, where there was repeated sexual assault and degradation and humiliation.

Starting point is 00:27:19 And what Dr. Roger Woolger started to realize was that she didn't simply have a fear of crowds. She had a terror connected to objectification and shame and violation. And after this patient expressed this trauma in a session, her symptoms began to ease. And he didn't say it was an overnight miracle, but he believed this woman's regression helped loosen something that had been frozen, you know, inside of her psyche for years. And that's common. Dr. Roger Wulger, in his book, Other Lives Otherselves, shows imperialism. that past life memories can heal. So it was very helpful to read that at that point when I was just beginning. Wolger was part of a larger wave that had been building for decades. By the time Carol

Starting point is 00:28:00 had found his book, hypnosis had gained more acceptance as a clinical tool, and past life regression had already exploded into the American psyche through the famous Bridie Murphy case. There erupted a storm of controversy. While in a hypnotic trance, Bridie Murphy recreated intimate details of the life of a young girl who was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1798. You know what year it is? 1806. Where do you live? I'm in Cork.

Starting point is 00:28:30 People called the story a hoax. So an interested newspaper reporter decided to go to Ireland and check it out. He astounded the world by finding concrete evidence that corroborated dozens of details outlined in trance. And though that case became a sensation, there was also a controversy. skeptics argued that what looked like a past life memory could be suggestion or fantasy or forgotten information resurfacing from the subconscious. But by the 1970s and 80s, a small group of therapists and psychologists kept reporting something similar. They would use hypnosis or regression

Starting point is 00:29:03 to help a client trace the root of a fear or symptom or trauma, and suddenly the client would describe another time, another body, another death. And many of these clinicians came to believe that whether the memories were literal or symbolic or something else entirely, working through them could help people heal. So this was the world that Carol was stumbling into through writers like Roger Woolger and Edith Fiore and Helen Wambach, who will return to later in the season. But these books were about adults in regression therapy. And Carol's situation was different. Chase was five years old, sitting on her lap in the kitchen, when he started describing vivid details about a battlefield. That was in 1988, and I just couldn't find anything about children's past life memories. Until she stumbled across the name, Dr. Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia, who did research on children's past life memories. I tried to find Dr. Stevenson's books or anything about him, and I couldn't find anything through the bookstores or libraries.

Starting point is 00:30:02 So I immediately called University of Virginia, and I found out that his book was available, or his books, I should say, he wrote. wrote many. So I said, please send me one. And the woman at the bookstore said, nobody ever talked to was excited about the books. But Carol was excited because Dr. Ian Stevenson was the first person she'd found who had taken children's past life memories seriously and as something that could be investigated. Dr. Ian Stevenson was a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia who spent decades traveling around the world meticulously investigating and documenting thousands of cases of children talking about their past lives with such specifics that many of them

Starting point is 00:30:42 could be tracked to an actual person who had lived. And when the book arrived in the mail, I was walking up the driveway from the mailbox and I opened the book. I couldn't even wait to get in the house. In the book, were deeply researched cases. He would interview anyone who observed the child and anything you can imagine was detailed and documented.

Starting point is 00:31:06 I used to joke when I first got the books that I think for a lot of people reading them before they go to bed would just put them to sleep. It was very academic. It was dry. It was not emotional. He was a scientist who was writing for his peers. But exciting to someone like me. And a little later in the season, I'll bring you on a road trip to the University of Virginia's Department of Perceptual Studies to meet the colleagues caring on his work because he fundamentally turned stories about reincarnation into valid science and data. I was in awe of Dr. Stevenson's work, but what was puzzling to me and very significant was they didn't say anything about healing. And healing is what led Carol to be reading these books in the first place. Chase's phobia around loud booming had disappeared, his eczema had cleared, and Carol's driving question was whether or not children remembering and talking about these memories could help them. I was wondering why he didn't mention this, and it took me a while to realize that since he was writing this, his peers. He was just looking at the evidence. So that was actually exciting to me because I felt like,

Starting point is 00:32:13 oh boy, this is new territory I can explore. So what did you do next, especially as you're starting to think, like maybe you're the person that needs to investigate this? I had found out there was an organization called the Association for Past Life Research founded in 1981 by therapists, psychiatrists, hypnotherapists who had discovered this phenomenon of past life therapy on their own. They were the first generation who were studying it, writing about it, and they had workshops and conferences once a year. And I ended up going. And there was only one person at the event whose work focused on children, a woman from the Netherlands named Tinica Nordegroff. As luck would have it, there was a banquet that night, and I was seated right next to her.

Starting point is 00:33:00 So I asked Tunica what she was doing, and she had different methods working with children. Instead of straight-out hypnosis, as the others worked with the adults, she created techniques to pull these memories out of the children by using drawing, sandplay, deep breathing, and she found that it worked. Once the memories started surfacing and the child could talk about it, she would ask them questions. of course, and lead them through it. They mostly remembered traumatic deaths, and she had success in working with them. And I said, well, are you going to write a book, Tinica?

Starting point is 00:33:41 And she said, you need to write the book. And it was almost like she was casting a spell in that moment. And she had, you have to start it now. And in that moment, something clicked into place for Carol. The search that had started at her kitchen table was no longer just about her son. It was beginning to feel like an answer to the prayer she'd quietly made when she said, show me what to do. I wanted to write the book that I wanted at the time when my children had their past life memories.

Starting point is 00:34:12 And I couldn't find anything. But Carol had never written a book. She wasn't a scientist. She didn't have a research team or a grant or really any idea how you were supposed to investigate something like this. She was working from her kitchen table and she needed to find American families willing to talk about something that most people dismissed. That's coming up after the same. break. I love glasses and I have multiple pairs of them and I can be very guilty of holding on to my super scratched lenses for way too long because the price of replacing them is just outrageous,

Starting point is 00:34:43 especially because all of my glasses, whether there are sunglasses or transitions or whatever, they're all prescription. But now I feel like I can have as many pairs as I want because of Zeni. Typically, a pair of glasses can cost a few hundred dollars and when you add on special features, it skyrockets above that. But through Zeni, they have stylish prescription glasses, sunglasses, and customizable lens options starting at under $30. That makes it easier to have multiple everyday pairs and ones that are just for fun. You pick your frames online, enter your prescription, customize your lenses, and then they ship right to your door.

Starting point is 00:35:13 There's even a virtual try-on so you can see how frames look on your face before ordering. That scratched up pair has done its job. Upgrade today with Zeni. Go to Zeni.com slash podcast and use code podcast 15 for 15% off your first order. Plus, free shipping on all U.S. orders over $65. The style sell out, so don't sit on it. That's z-en-n-I-com slash podcast, promo code Podcast 15. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what

Starting point is 00:35:44 Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. They're 100% Mongolian cashier sweaters, start at just $50, giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14-carat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. I actually recently discovered their jewelry, and I love the 14-carat gold station bead choker. I wear it with

Starting point is 00:36:22 everything. It can be dressed up, it can be dressed down, it can be layered with other necklaces, I love it, and you'll see it in a lot of our video podcasts. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the telepathy tapes.

Starting point is 00:36:44 It's the best way to support our show. Welcome back to the reincarnation records. I think that a lot of parents dismiss what the child is saying. we're in the Judeo-Christian culture and the children on some level realize that what they're saying will not be received well, might be from a very religious family, or just that this is scary. So, you know, what did you do next? I realized that I need to bind more cases because I had such a small sample for my friends. So I put an ad in Mothering magazine and I started getting letters in telephone calls.

Starting point is 00:37:25 I wouldn't say the cases flooded in, but they were coming in, and it was extremely exciting for me. I talked to all these parents on the phone, took notes, and I started to feel like a real researcher after that. And from inside the Bowman's home, Chase could see it happening. As I got older, it seemed like there were just more and more papers in her office, and suddenly there were just stacks of books and stacks of documents, and it seemed that she was just collecting physically, literally, just collecting all these cases and all this information. I was really on my own with the research of the healing effects of these memories.

Starting point is 00:38:03 No one had written a book about this for parents. I was pioneering in some way. But was Carol actually uncovering something no one had paid enough attention to? Or was she slowly spending her precious time and filling her house with evidence of something that wasn't real? What if all these parents were just misinterpreting normal childhood fantasy? What if the kids were picking up these stories somewhere and adults were, were just connecting deaths that weren't really meant to be connected. She would be with my dad and there'd just be index cards everywhere,

Starting point is 00:38:31 just all over the table, all over the chairs, and they're trying to put these pieces together. It was really cool to see her build this thing from a simple belief that it was information that needed to be out there. But Carol wasn't just trying to make sense of this for herself anymore. She was boldly stepping into the public sphere, telling other parents, maybe your child isn't imagining this. Maybe you should listen.

Starting point is 00:38:52 And without a university or a research team or even an established field behind her, that takes a certain kind of courage. Carol Bowman says many children do remember their past lives easily and look for opportunities to express them. It's one thing to privately wonder if your five-year-old somehow remembers another life. It's another to start putting your name behind that idea publicly.

Starting point is 00:39:13 Andrea's mother suggested she look into the work of Carol Bowman, supporting the proposition that sometimes the dead can be reborn. But maybe being a mother, Approaching this from healing, not science, is what allowed others to open up and tell Carol's stories and details that otherwise would have remained private. He said, a truck hit me. The wheels went over me. It wasn't a fantasy story. Maybe Carol is exactly what other parents needed. How can a three-year-old be clinically depressed when there's nothing that happened that would cause it? How do I go into a therapist? Well, they blame me. And as more families started to find Carol, the same. stories got better and bigger and harder to dismiss.

Starting point is 00:39:58 It's being called the case for reincarnation. Try to explain how a little boy could know specific details about a fighter pilot who lost his life more than 60 years ago. She started to uncover cases with names and places and paper trails, stories that had the power to change the most hard-nosed skeptics into believers. Two down-to-earth parents who thought they understood the mysteries of life. that is until their toddler began to talk. So would Carol's hunch that these memories are real and could heal

Starting point is 00:40:29 help other parents or mislead other parents? Would it damage an already controversial field? Or would Carol Bowman change it forever? That's next time on the Reincarnation Records from TTT Media. Thank you to the small team who made this season possible. Our amazing producer, Cooper Mal. Our audio mix and sound design was by Jeremy Cole. Music was by Mike Robino.

Starting point is 00:40:52 My right hand was Selena Kennedy. And I'm Kyn Dickens, your executive producer, writer, editor, and host. And if you haven't listened to our last season of the podcast, the consciousness cassettes, I highly recommend you do so, as it will give even more context to this season. And if you want to go in deeper, subscribe to our backstage pass by visiting our website. With it, you'll unlock access to bonus content. Ask Me Anything, interviews with myself and guests. You'll be able to connect with other members on our Discord.

Starting point is 00:41:18 You'll be able to enjoy the podcast ad-free. And hear and see exclusive content from the telepathy tapes of VIII. Vault. Visit our website at the telepathy tapes.com for more info on how to subscribe to our Backstage Pass. This is the reincarnation records from TTTMedia.

The Telepathy Tapes - S3E1: The Boy Who Remembered Dying | The Reincarnation Records

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.