Reincarnation in Tribal Societies with James G. Matlock

James G. Matlock, PhD, an anthropologist, is coauthor (with Erlendur Haraldsson) of I Saw a Light and Came Here: Children’s Experiences of Reincarnation. He is a regular contributor to the online Psi Encyclopedia sponsored by the Society for Psychical Research in London. He has authored dozens of academic papers concerning reincarnation and related areas.

Here he points out that tribal beliefs concerning reincarnation can be found among indigenous people throughout the world. Furthermore, these beliefs typically include knowledge of the very same signs of reincarnation that researchers have found in case studies of children who remember past lives. Tribal beliefs regarding kinship patterns seem to influence the verifiable cases of past-life memory found within tribal groups, reinforcing the notion that individuals, based on their beliefs, can exert a measure of control over the reincarnation process.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980).

(Recorded on November 14, 2017)

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