The Oregon daily journal., February 09, 1908, Page 25, Image 25

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PORTLANU-' OREGON SUNDAY MORNING FEBRUARY ;I905
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Striking Evidences of
Reincarnation That
Science is Studying
-HOSE soul is inhabiting you?.
Your own, you say"
Yes; it is yours, for the time
being. But it may have belonged to a Ran
goon coolie forty years ago; it may have
swayed the murderous arm of a French
revolutionary under the Terror; it may
have been the despairing soul that impelled
some peasant woman martyr of love to fling
herself into the sear
Out of the faith of the 400,000,000
of India flashes the startling light of rein
carnation; and out of the cynical science
of France and England and America flares
the haunting fear of multiple personalities
as well as of that reincarnation which is the
commonplace of life in the credulous East.
Experiment and deduction by minds
of the caliber of Sir William Crookes, Pro
fessor Lombroso, Professor Richet and Ca
mille Flammarion are making reincarna
tion one of the supreme issues of the twen- .
tietltf century
k ?- In the light of those experiments,
scientists assert, no man dare now affirm
that he is exclusively himself, or even ex
clusively male; and no woman may deny
that she is woman only, or assert that she
is herself as she knows herself alone.
FROM Rangoon, India, where the doc
trine of reincarnation ie the basic be
lief of Buddhism, come two 6tartling
reports of "minzas' as those children
are commonly termed into whom the eoul of a
dead person has 'passed, carrying with it the
memory of its former identity.
In March, 1904, Major D. J. Welsh and 1
lieutenant A. W. Quinlan, of the Border Regi-
ment, with Mrs. Meade, were sailing on Meik
t ilia lake. They had neglected to lower the
centerboard of vhe boat, when a squall struck
and Capsized it. All were drowned.
A. few weeks ago the son of a poor Burmese
couple, now between 3 and 4 years of age, light
haired and blue eyed, began to tell his mother
a child's wonder tale of a' house in which he
used to live, of the number of ponies he for
v merly owned, of various details of a life which
she speedily- identified as being the life led by
some white officer of rank.
$ Affrighted, the woman consulted her neigh
bors,' who flocked to see the prodigy. The boy,
with all the detail possible only, for a partici-
pant, described the accident on Meiktilia lake
in which he was drowned.
He amplified his descriptions of his former r
' life and surroundings, giving details more and
more convincing. Today crowds are still flock- ',
ing to hear the "minea's" marvelous tale, for he"
is almng witness of tne righteousness of their
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statement which it has not proved by, f .
nil five senses, has attacked the prob- I -
lem of reincarnation as though it were soma ;
hitherto unrecognized emanation of radium.
Extracting evidence which would bend the Ori- i
ent to the earth in reverent submission, western j
science still doubts, and says merely; "It is po- J; -sibly
true." j '-
Here, however, is the latest and most ur- "
prising case of asserted reincarnation, a series ' .
of romances of reality, borne witness to by
every Agency which doubting science could ap-
ply, and yet still doubted by science, because f
science demands that it be convinced, not mere 1 -ly
beyond the probability of truth, but beyond - -the
possibility of doubt. y,, J ,
Colonel Albert de Rochas, associate of Pro
fessors Richet and Lombroso. of Flammarioa
and Sir William Crookes, of I)rs. Marwell, Von; ;
Schrenck-Notzing and Ochorowicz,' in the con-j '
.duct of the Annals of Psychical : Science, re-;
sided with the family of Mile. Marie Mayo, at
girl of 18 years, who was in perfect health and
had never heard a word of magnetism or of V'
spiritism. , ' , . .
She was thj daughter oIJl French engineer,( ;
who, having passed a part of his life in con-' , '
structing railways in the East, died there. Her . , .
mother married again, the second husband be- .
ing an engineer also, engaged ' upon the con-
struction of eastern railways. ' ,
, The girl was brought np at Beirut, in Syria,
until she was 9 years old, in the care of native
servants and in attendance, at a school kept by -" -nuns-who
taught her to. read 'and write in .
Arabic. . '
Being brought to France and placed under
the care of an aunt, who lived in Provence, she
t-amo under the' observation- of Colonel de Ro- ' -chas,
who, as one of the foremost investigators
of psychological phenomena upon a scientific ba (;
sis, had for years been engaged in the exposure;
of charlatans and in the study of varying phases '
of personality under the influence of hypnosis. ' '
Circumstances- placed him under the same i
roof with the girl for a period of two months,
during which- he was; able ' to proceed with ex- ,
periments at ample leisure and under all condi-
tions requisite to preclude harm to the subject.
All the sittings took place in the presence '
of Dr. Bertrand, the family physician, and M.
Lacoste, an engineer, who is the friend of Miss
Mayo's stepfather. These gentleman took down ,
the notes, which Occupy nearly fifty pages of ' '
the report. -
Neither Dr. Bertrand nor M. Lccoste had ever
witnessed experiments of the kind undertaken' t
with Miss Mayo, and neither had any bias for
or against' the scientific merits of manifesta- a
tions of personality secured under conditions of , "
trance. . ' - ,
. As for Miss Mayo herself, it may be rem arked .
here that, -apart from the known facts of her
education and environment up to the "age of 18,'
when the experiments were made, the . evidence
of the report, given as precisely and as minutely:
as any important summary of testimony in a
court of law, makes it apparent that the young
when the district superintendent of police, A. nition
All India is now recalling the appearance w t,i- . jk I.-. J
.1 . u;m " t .t10"0"." yi-
vi au caiuvi uwki v vuuu xcAUJctrxi avion
lady -was absolutely free from the neurotic taint
of its native population, has accepted t& facts . X
VUCI DJ1B VIUUKUf UUUV vvmw - -
that every word sho spoko
MAaf MmavlraMA fooriifaa f 4 ha hi M aF ito "TniTtrna ' da cr monv rrri im oi aiahw. "
tka fmm aa m . j.: 1 i l j ai j. e - c 1 . j.x. 1 j.i Lif. i ; kicbi uiiiiLuiLV. ouu
. of a maninwhom the survival of wdmduahty when he began to tell how he had been killed a death with peculiarities of speech and action Indians admit that the native humility and sub-- at.would be ?pectedof uca a norraa.,
was as aoteworthy as the possession, of thetre- few years arUerfc describing his own rashness which proved to have been characteristic of the jection are direct attributable to tho belief in . h?aldfe'naffect!?rlat. r .lilt "wnrt
incarnated memory. - . in attacking the Mlacoits at dose quarters and - official whose death occurred at the time of his Buddhism and its doctrine of resignation to the - 1.Sere er!uthirt?VomS(c c'; r
In the district of Pegu a Burmese woman w .ij v:.v , . ,. V , v" until the seventh seance, that complete cxt.r...r
Te , "n : 007 UM ';"; tiw(i to hia orderly to' fetch him additionat arnmu- India, throughout the length'apd breadth But westerri science, dogged in its denial of
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