Thought Snack: Evidence for Reincarnation or Possession?

“[E]vidence for reincarnation… is derived from the memories of those who claim to have lived another life at some earlier time. These memories, which often fade with age, can be either produced spontaneously... or derived regressively from hypnosis or by dreams. Many reincarnation researchers consider the former type of case more impressive, but they do not ignore the latter…

The heart of the issue is simple: Are there hypotheses other than reincarnation that can account for much the same data? Interestingly enough, reincarnationist advocate Ian Stevenson thinks that at least one rival option should be taken very seriously – possession of the living person by a foreign spirit. Having said this, we want to quickly point out that Stevenson does not consider demonic intrusion to be as likely as possession by the discarnate spirit of the actual person who had previously died. So we need to look at these two options – reincarnation and possession – to see if either explains the data. In both types of possession, either the demonic or the deceased human spirit could potentially explain [those] memories… Both types of spirit could presumably know even the sorts of intimate details concerning [someone’s] relatives, friends, and previous dwelling place. Perhaps a demonic spirit could learn the needed information from any of several sources, while the departed human spirit… would, of course, be intrinsically familiar with the details of his own past human existence… the possession scenario – a spirit entering another body after birth – rules out reincarnation in those instances. And we know this has occurred in a number of cases where the deceased person died after the birth of the individual who was later influenced.”

– Excerpts from Beyond Death by Gary Habermas and J.P. Moreland