Why reincarnation is impossible

The most celebrated case of a person claiming to have lived a past life is that of Bridey Murphy. Bridey was a 19th century Irishwoman that Colorado woman Virginia Tighe claimed to have been in a previous life.

Tighe's amazing claim came about in during a session with an amateur hypnotist named Morey Bernstein. Under hypnosis — and through an Irish accent — Tighe related memories of her previous existence in the early s in Cork, Ireland, including being born on Dec. At first glance, Tighe's story seemed very compelling. She had never been to Ireland and presumably could not have known many of the details she remembered except by having lived them a century earlier. Bernstein wrote a best-selling book about the case, and Bridey Murphy became a worldwide sensation.

The story of Bridey Murphy began to collapse when investigative journalists went to Ireland to verify her story. While a few general statements were proven true, the researchers found virtually no evidence for the vast majority of Tighe's "memories. And so on. It seems that Bernstein and his publishers, in their rush to exploit the case for fame and profit, had neglected to check Bridey Murphy's account against the historical facts.

But this makes reincarnation the practical equivalent of not surviving death. It also raises the question, as St. These testimonies, such as those gathered among children by the late psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, are not convincing. This suggests that their stories were more likely the products of social conditioning than actual memories of past lives. Moreover, although the children in these studies were not thought to be capable of deceiving interviewers, they were capable of confusing fantasy with reality e.

Skeptic Robert Carroll offers the following example:. Finally, scientists agree that life on Earth began—at the earliest—billions of years ago.

This disproves the idea that souls have been reincarnating into physical bodies for all eternity. It sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but some scientists do believe that it is a feasible concept. Dr Ian Stevenson, former Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and former chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, dedicated the majority of his career to finding evidence of reincarnation, until his death in Dr Stevenson claims to have found over 3, examples of reincarnation during his time which he shared with the scientific community.

The cases of such children have been investigated. In a separate study, Dr Stevenson interviewed three children who claimed to remember aspects of their previous lives.