Do you believe in reincarnation—that after we die, we are born again into another life? Well, according to a recent survey, 51 percent of the world’s population holds that belief. More than 18,000 people in 23 countries participated in the survey conducted by the Global Research Society and the Institute for Social Research.

Interestingly, one of the most common sources of past-life research resides in the memories of small children. Studies have found that typically they spontaneously start talking about past lives between the ages of two and five years old, and those memories tend to fade by the time they are between the ages of six and nine years old.

The Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia studied 2,416 cases of young children who remembered past lives. The majority of those children lived in societies with a cultural belief in rebirth. Fifty percent of them lived in Asia, mostly in India, Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. Here’s what researchers found:

• In 50 percent of cases, children supplied details of the past life; in 60 percent of those cases, there were enough details to positively identify the person in their past life
• The average age of death in past life was thirty-three but varied. In the United States and Europe (less violence, better healthcare), age of death tended to be higher
• In 60 percent of cases, life ended violently by tragic accident or intentional wounding
• The average time between lives equaled twelve years but could vary. In the Druze culture in Lebanon, children were reincarnated immediately after death, in keeping with their belief system
• Children often lived in remote villages that were difficult to reach, were interviewed with an interpreter, and gave evidence of memories from a person too far away from the children for them to have knowledge of them
• When taken to the remote village where they remembered a past life, they could identify places and people

The above study, and many more about past lives and other mysterious phenomena, are highlighted in Sightseeing in the Undiscovered Country: Tales Retold by a Psychic Bystander. This anthology of more than 100 true paranormal tales will lift you out of your everyday existence and open a doorway into a new, inspirational way of experiencing life.

“A compassionate, intelligent survey of supernatural experiences.”—Kirkus Reviews