The awareness of past lives weaves through many cultures and peoples throughout history including the philosophers of ancient Greece, the sacred texts of Hinduism, and the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Each culture embraced their own tradition of recognizing, accessing and honoring the knowledge of past lives. Tibetans have a term, Tulku, which means an officially recognized incarnation of a specific highly realized person. The 14th Dalai Lama is a well-known example. In Hinduism it is taught that the soul incarnates again and again until the soul perfects itself through many experiences and forms. The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita states: “Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and wears new ones.” Twenty-five hundred years ago in Greece, scientist, religious teacher and philosopher, Pythagoras, believed in reincarnation. His religious teachings are thought to have been based on the doctrine of metempsychosis, which teaches that the soul never dies and is destined to a cycle of rebirths until it frees itself through the purity of its life. Other respected Greek philosophers, Plato and Socrates, also believed in past lives.
In current times there has been a renewed interest and much has been written by physicians, psychologists and other researchers who bravely speak about their experiences and write about how their clients heal and learn from exploring their past life memories. Some of these contemporary researchers and authors are:
Dr. Linda Backmam
Dr. Michael Newton
Dr. Brian Weiss
Dr. Ian Stevenson
Dr. Helen Wambach
Dr. Raymond Moody
Dr. Deepak Chopra