Cutting-edge research often leads into areas that are difficult for the rational mind to accept. Such is the case with the theory of the continuous “transmission” of life, a more recent term for “reincarnation,” categorically rejected by the “religions of the Book” (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), but accepted by Eastern religions and supported by research conducted by Russian and American scientists, according to Formula As.
Married in Two Lives
In the final decade of the last century, the case of the Johnson couple caused a sensation in Belarus, a former Soviet republic, dominating the front pages of major newspapers for days.
The story began with Gerard Johnson, an ordinary resident of Philadelphia, United States, who, after completing courses in hypnotherapy, attempted to demonstrate that the human soul can incarnate multiple times and that certain memories from previous lives are never completely erased.
The results of his studies exceeded all his expectations!
He conducted his first regression therapy sessions using his wife, Lidia, as the subject. Once placed in a trance, she began speaking in an unknown language, describing what appeared to be a tragic event. Even more astonishing was the fact that Lidia's voice had transformed into a deep, masculine one.
The woman was clearly distressed, yet remained calm. Suddenly, however, she grabbed her head with both hands and began screaming in agony. Johnson was forced to bring her out of the trance immediately, and he struggled to calm her down.
Fearing that the therapy might negatively affect her psychological well-being, the researcher decided that he himself would become the subject of the next experiment.
After inducing a hypnotic state in himself, Gerard Johnson also began speaking in an unknown language. Unlike Lidia, however, his voice sounded distinctly feminine.
Both hypnosis sessions were recorded on audio tape and subsequently submitted to several experts for examination.
The researchers who analyzed the recordings were stunned: the two spouses had been speaking the same language — Belarusian.
Lidia had identified herself as Viktor and explained that he was “married” to a woman named Wanda, while Professor Johnson called himself Wanda, the woman whose husband was Viktor.
Both recounted that they had died on the same day, March 22, 1943, burned alive.
Deeply intrigued, Gerard Johnson immediately packed his bags, boarded a plane, and traveled to Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
He began searching through newspapers and historical documents, and his efforts were not in vain.
The American soon discovered that this date had remained one of the darkest in Belarusian national history, permanently engraved in the collective memory as the “Khatyn Massacre.”
It was during World War II when, one day, a punitive detachment composed of Nazi collaborators entered the village of Khatyn and massacred its inhabitants in retaliation for the support the villagers had provided to partisans fighting against Nazi German forces.
Everyone, from infants to the elderly, was forced into a barn. The doors were locked, and the building was set on fire.
Among the victims of the horrific blaze were more than 70 children under the age of 14!
While examining the archives, Gerard Johnson discovered two names on the list of those killed: Wanda and Viktor Iaskevici, both approximately 20 years old and apparently recently married.
They were the very same names that Gerard Johnson and his wife Lidia had spoken during their hypnosis sessions!
For the American psychiatrist, there was no longer any doubt: in the 1940s, he and Wanda had also been husband and wife!
Gerard Johnson published his study in both Russian and American scientific journals, and the love story that had seemingly transcended time deeply moved hundreds of readers.
Later, the American researcher revealed another truly astonishing detail: his wife, Lidia, had suffered since early childhood from pyrophobia, an overwhelming and inexplicable fear of fire.
Now, everything seemed clear to him: Lidia's fear of fire could only be explained by the tragic event that had become deeply imprinted in her memory during a previous life!
The “Scars” of Previous Lives
The idea of passing from one life into another was also explored by American psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
His extensive research, spanning more than 40 years and involving thousands of investigations using regression methods, led Professor Stevenson to conclude that emotions, memories, illnesses, and even wounds and scars on the human body could be transmitted from one life to another.
Most of his subjects were children because, according to his hypothesis, children between the ages of four and ten can spontaneously recall detailed information about other lives.
In his book Reincarnation and Biology, published in 1997, the American psychiatrist also describes the case of a six-year-old Indian boy who, astonishingly, remembered vivid details of another life.
To his parents' surprise, the boy often complained that the birthmark on his chest, near his heart, felt as though it were burning.
Based on the details the boy provided while under hypnosis, Professor Stevenson discovered that he was describing a monk named Agni, who had lived 30 years earlier in a monastery in the Antara Gange mountains, located in Karnataka, southwestern India, and who had died of a heart attack!
Agni's story was not an isolated case.
In his studies, Ian Stevenson presented dozens of cases in which children described accidents they claimed to have suffered in previous lives, with physical marks appearing in corresponding areas of their bodies in their present lives.
“I have analyzed the cases of several children born with deformed limbs or even missing fingers or toes, who claimed to remember being killed in a previous life and having their fingers or hands cut off.
In more than 50% of these cases, I managed to verify the information provided by the children and discovered, to my own astonishment, that it was remarkably accurate!
I remember, for example, a Turkish boy who claimed that he had been shot in the head.
In his present life, his ear was deformed in a way that closely resembled a bullet wound.
According to the medical records I managed to locate and examine, approximately 20 years earlier, a man who perfectly matched the Turkish boy's description had indeed been fatally shot in the skull,” Ian Stevenson reported.
In conclusion, the American scientist suggested that, in many cases, psychological disorders or illnesses might originate in a previous life.
“A spine that is curved from birth could be a sign that, in a previous life, the person suffered a severe back injury, for example, during a battle.
A fear of darkness might be explained by the possibility that the person died at night, in a cave, or inside a tunnel.
A phobia of reptiles might originate from a previous death caused by being thrown into a pit filled with venomous snakes.
It is known that this horrific method of execution was frequently used in medieval Europe,” claims psychologist Leonid Kozlov, director of the Regression Therapy Center in Moscow.
“According to my patients' accounts, some of them lived during the Middle Ages.
During that period, devastating events took place throughout Europe. Many people were murdered, tortured, or thrown from cliffs.
Thus, in the following life, strangely enough, a person may develop a fear of heights from the earliest years of childhood without understanding why!”
According to the Russian professor, the terror experienced by someone who was executed becomes so deeply imprinted upon the soul that the person carries that fear into their next life.
Although still controversial, regression therapy is now used in numerous clinics around the world in attempts to alleviate pathological states of anxiety and obsessive, seemingly unjustified fears.