So first case in the book is Daniel Jirdi who in past life claimed to be Rashid. No log in the Psi Encyclopedia AFAICTell, but the case is mentioned in a few places online.
From Old Souls:
Quote:As I read the outline of the case in Stevenson’s notes, I was gratified: it had a number of important features, which, if they held up under scrutiny, would be very impressive. To begin with–and this is a common feature of Stevenson’s cases–the life Daniel Jirdi remembered was excruciatingly ordinary, virtually glamourless: a single, working-class man, childless, unmarried, unrenowned, killed in a completely routine accident–hardly a likely subject for a youngster’s fantasies.
However Shroder notes the case is imperfect:
Quote:Daniel’s case, however, also had one key weakness, one shared by all but a rare few of Stevenson’s cases: the two families had found each other and met before Stevenson interviewed either.
The case has a few discrepancies. Shroder also notes Stevenson essentially negatively weights any case where the families find each other before Stevenson interviews either one. This makes sense, especially for the Druze where reincarnation is both held as a sacred truth but also in "violation" of the local larger religion.
Also if the case is genuine it seems anger can also carry across lifetimes -
Quote:MAJD: Who was driving?
DANIEL: Ibrahim.
MAJD: Is he older than you?
DANIEL: Older by four years.
MAJD: Do you see him?
DANIEL: No. And if I see him, I’ll kill him.
Quote:While we were in the car, another car passed us and scolded us, so Ibrahim turned the car to go back and scold them, but the car spun and we crashed. They picked up my friend, who was near me, and left me. Everybody who was in the car was found outside after the crash. I also remember I was dropped from a balcony. That is all that I remember.
There ends up being another case in the same family of a 21 year old woman who claims in a past life she was tortured and killed during the fights between Christians and Druze. Sadly the evidence is pretty much nothing. Shroder does note the way the young woman tells the story seems very matter-of-fact and given the Druze belief in reincarnation as just a part of life accords no special status. However he also notes that this story could be a child internalizing the suffering they see around them.
The other important thing Shroder covers is the extent of damage the conflict caused, the way different sides can see the same war, and how humans -for better or worse- get on with life after horrific destruction and death.
They meet Daniel who is living with his wife and young son. His wife laughs about how she has two sets of in-laws from two lives. Shroder wonders about the advantage of a support system a past family might bring and if this could be motive for fabricating such a story. However he also notes:
Quote:On the other hand, it also meant that all over Lebanon, apparently, families in a position to know if a child’s statements were accurate, and with a reason to be cautious about accepting them as true, had accepted these claims unreservedly enough to enter into lifelong relationships.
Daniel seems to recall a few things, but has none of the mechanic skills Rashid has. However he claims to have met Ibrahim, the one who was driving the car in the fatal crash that resulted in Rashid's death which is new information for Stevenson. Also ->
Quote:You said you saw Rashid’s grave. How did that make you feel?”
Silence. A smile. “I thought, ‘Death is not a scary thing.’”
Majd, Stevenson's translaor, and Shroder go looking for some record of the accident. They find one, with some details matching Daniel's account of how his past life Rashid [had died] and some being different. Shroder feels more impressed by the possibility now than before.
Majd, Stevenson, and Shroder go to Rashid's house.
Quote:On a table in the center of the room, surrounded by a half dozen chairs and two deep burgundy sofas of crushed velvet, was a coffee table with a framed eight-by-ten-inch photograph: Daniel Jirdi’s wedding photo. The son whom they believed they had lost to death and regained through rebirth.
Quote:Muntaha had been knitting a sweater for Rashid before he died. One day, after they had begun to visit Daniel, the little boy said to her, “Did you ever finish that sweater you were knitting for me?” Muntaha immediately found the unfinished sweater where she’d put it away years earlier, after Rashid’s death. She unraveled the yarn, then used it to knit the sweater in miniature. She gave it to Daniel.
Quote:“No, we came without an appointment. We didn’t know the family. We just showed up at the door. Daniel was very happy when he saw us. He said to his mother, ‘Bring bananas for Najla and make some coffee, my family is here.’ We were astonished. Rashid had liked bananas so much that my mother and Najla had stopped eating them after his death because it reminded them of their grief.”
Shroder notes that Daniel doesn't remember Rashid's engagement to a woman named Muna, but seems to remember other details. There is apparently some potential connections between the families even prior to Daniel's claims, somewhat tenuous but enough to raise doubts for both Stevenson and Shroder.
Quote:I asked Majd about the Arabic vocabulary for reincarnation. I thought I had identified the word that kept coming up in her translations: takamous.
“Literally, it means ‘changing your shirt,’” Majd said. “The Druse believe that the body is just clothes for the soul, and when you are reincarnated, it is like changing clothes.
“Takamous is reincarnation in general, but when you are talking about someone who has been reincarnated, you use a different word: natiq for a boy, nataq for a girl. It translates to ‘one who talks about the previous generation.’”
Quote:And that’s what was so stunning about these Lebanese cases—they were all so checkable. The expectation was that the claimed memories could and would be tested against the living memories of relatives and friends of the deceased.
Next is the much stronger, aforementioned case of Suzanne Ghanem.