From 2017... Remembering Past Lives: The Cognitive Foundations of why People Believe that They have Lived Before

Remembering Past Lives: The Cognitive Foundations of why People Believe that They have Lived Before. Claire White. IAPR Conference, Jun 2017.

Abstract: This research concerns the question of why people think they have lived before and, in particular, the role of memory in supporting this conviction. Although popular representations of reincarnation assume that the veracity of past-life memories are evidenced by distinctive and verifiable details contained in the memory our results, based on of a series of semi-structured interviews with over 200 Western spiritual seekers, suggests otherwise. People reasoned that memory plays a fundamental role in past-life beliefs because of the sense of personal identity (i.e. that the event happened to them) contained in episodic memory. Contrary to popular portrayals, people were not at all concerned or motivated with fact checking the details of recounted episodes. Rather, they expressed the powerfulness of the experiential process of evoking a memory they did not, otherwise, know they had, how it moved them, and gave them insight into the self that was, they believed, hidden from sight until now. We conclude that past-life convictions are underpinned by the common sense association between memory ownership and personal identity in line with cognitive accounts of religion.

Keywords: past life, episodic memory, new age, spiritual seekers, personal identity, experimental philosophy