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Volume 19: Number 2: Article 2
Children of Myanmar Who Behave like Japanese Soldiers: A Possible Third Element in Personality
Ian Stevenson , Division of Personality Studies, Department of Psychiatric Medicine, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 800152, Charlottesville, VA 22908-0152
Jurgen Keil , Department of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Among more than 750 cases of persons in Myanmar (formerly Burma) who as children claimed to remember a previous life, 24 said they had been Japanese soldiers killed in Burma during World War II. Unlike most Burmese subjects of such cases none of these children stated any personal names or addresses that might have permitted verification of their statements. However, they showed habits of dress, food preferences, industriousness, insensitivity to pain, and other behaviors unusual in Burma, but typical of Japanese people, especially Japanese soldiers during their occupation of Myanmar (Burma). The oppressive rule in Burma of the Japanese Army during World War II makes it unlikely that any Burmese parent would instigate or encourage a child to behave like a Japanese soldier. Genetic factors cannot account for the children's unusual behavior because all of them were (with two exceptions) born after 1945, when there were no Japanese in the villages of Burma. The behavioral features of these children suggest a third factor (additional to genetic ones and known environmental influences) in personality.
Keywords: Myanmar (Burma), Japan, previous lives, parental influence
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