Research on past life memories resumes the work of Hernani Andrade

Eric Vinícius Ávila Pires (photo) is a Family and Community doctor in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. He is doing a Master’s degree at the Centre for Spirituality and Health Research (NUPES) in Juiz de Fora, also in the state of Minas Gerais. His research focuses on the work of the late Brazilian Spiritist researcher, Dr Hernani Guimarães Andrade (1913-2003), who carried out extensive research on accounts of past life memories:

How did you get interested in the work of Dr Hernani Guimarães Andrade?

At the beginning of my medical studies, I had serious doubts and really questioned my faith. But one day I attended a symposium about the links between the mind and the brain and became interested in one day doing more research on that. I was intrigued by this issue since I was a teenager, when I “lost” two close family members in the same year. I initially came into contact with the work of the [Canadian-born] psychiatrist and researcher, Ian Stevenson. I was amazed by his capacity to structure his research in a way that preserved rigour of scientific methodology even in non-conventional matters. He had the method and the open mind to raise questions that many in the scientific community would describe as odd or bizarre. When I decided to go ahead with my project of examining memories of past lives as part of my Master’s degree, I had the idea of going back to people who had been previously interviewed. But I didn’t know whether there was anyone in Brazil who had researched the issue with the same methodology of Ian Stevenson. My tutor, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, mentioned the work of the late Hernani Guimarães Andrade and suggested that I followed up on his previous research, contacting the people he had previously investigated. 

Tell us about your research, which takes into account the data previously collected.

My goal is to assess the current quality of life, the mental health, the level of religious involvement, the impact and interpretations of people assessed in previous decades by Hernani Andrade about their spontaneous allegations of previous life memories, as well as how much they still remember from those initial statements. After my research got the approval of the Ethics Committee, I found out that Hernani Andrade’s material was available at the State of São Paulo Spiritist Museum and Library, which kindly granted me full access. I was able to locate the people involved in the original research (from the late 1960s to 2001) and their relatives. Those who agreed to take part in the new study were given a pre-structured questionnaire. I also interviewed on average one family member of each person involved, to compare the statements and give some up-to-date family perspective. I will compare the new material gathered in my research with the previous studies done by Hernani Andrade. 

Which aspect of your research so far has surprised you the most?

Most of the people researched seem to consider that the experience they had in their childhood, when they said they had memories of previous lives, hasn’t had a long term impact on their lives. We normally get a very different result from people who have Near-Death Experiences (NDE). This “anomalous phenomenon” is usually associated with profound life changes, which tend to persist even after many decades. The people examined in our research, instead, often remember only what people around them had told them. They don’t account for many details and there are some discrepancies with their original statements, which were given when they were very young. It was a huge challenge to locate them and the first contact was usually very tense. People reacted badly, thinking they were victims of a scam. Others preferred not to go back into memories of a distant past. But once we managed to get over the initial suspicions, most people cooperated and were very kind and welcoming. 

Tell us a bit more about the work done by Dr Hernani Andrade. 

I found in his archives the cases of more than 30 children who spontaneously alleged that they remembered past lives. There were also some 50 other cases that dealt with the following issues: people who were adults when they alleged to have previous life memories; people or family members who couldn’t remember a previous life but affirmed that they were reincarnated; investigations that were not concluded; missing files of particular cases. I have prioritised the cases of alleged spontaneous memories. Hernani relied on the support of a team, who helped him with the interviews, transcriptions and summaries. He discussed many cases with Stevenson, with whom he kept correspondence, with the aim of finding out more information about people who said they had lived outside Brazil in a previous life. He carried out a robust piece of work, interviewing family members and people who witnessed the allegations and the change in behaviour at the time, as well as the children, when possible. In some cases, he was able to speak to people a short time after they first mentioned the memories of a previous life. 

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Research on allegations of previous life memories has struggled since the death of Ian Stevenson [in the United States in 2007]. New researchers have become involved in this area in Brazil, but the number of studies and publications is still low and hasn’t expanded in recent years in the same proportion as those in other fields. So, I would like to invite people interested in carrying out serious research to get involved, bearing in mind that scientific methods and good research can also be applied to the study of previous life memories and so many other natural phenomena that we can observe around us.