…both with involuntary past-life memories and memories induced under hypnosis. Stevenson distinguished responsive from recitative xenoglossy, and later writers added passive xenoglossy for subtler unlearned linguistic carry-over. Many supposed cases collapse under scrutiny, making careful field investigation essential to any evidential claim. A recent analysis links stronger xenoglossy with emotion,…
…unknown language. That ability is called responsive xenoglossy. However, the body of evidence for responsive xenoglossy is quite controversial, for several reasons. First, critics can argue, without much difficulty, that the linguistic competence displayed is not as impressive as survivalists maintain. Typically, subjects do not even speak responsively in complete…
…paperback edition. Xenoglossy Xenoglossy is the use of language unlearned in the present life. Stevenson studied examples of it in spontaneous reincarnation cases but also in past life regression under hypnosis. Although he recognized from the beginning of his research that most regressions provided much less evidence for reincarnation than…
…prodigies, both in sports: Hunter (pseudonym) in golf,141Tucker (2013), 130-35. and Christian Haupt in American baseball.142Byrd (2017). Children’s unlearned skills may include language skills, or xenoglossy. Researchers recognize three types of xenoglossy: responsive, recitative, and passive. Responsive xenoglossy is the ability to comprehend and converse in an unlearned language; recitative…
…published the case as one of responsive xenoglossy rather than reincarnation, and included it in his book Unlearned Languages: New Studies in Xenoglossy.1Stevenson (1984), 70-71, 169-203. All information in this article is drawn from this source except where otherwise noted. Carroll Jay published a book on the case in 1977.2Jay…
…Stevenson, I., & Pasricha, S. (1979). A case of secondary personality with xenoglossy. American Journal of Psychiatry 136, 1591-92. Stevenson, I., & Pasricha, S. (1980). A preliminary report on an unusual case of the reincarnation type with xenoglossy. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 74, 331-48. Stevenson, I.,…
…A case of secondary personality with xenoglossy. American Journal of Psychiatry 136, 1591-92. Stevenson, I. & Pasricha, S. (1980). A preliminary report of an unusual case of the reincarnation type with xenoglossy. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 74, 331-48. Thomason, S.G. (1995). Xenoglossy. [Web post.] Tucker, J.B….
…and international reincarnation cases, including reports involving xenoglossy, foreign identities and same-family return. A study of Burmese children who claimed former lives as Japanese soldiers found that Japanese raters judged them more Japanese-looking at statistically significant levels. His surveys and collaborations treated birth, prebirth, intermission and past-life memories as related…
…did not exhibit xenoglossy. Results indicated that variables related to an ordinary explanation were not associated with the presence of xenoglossy. Rather, in support of the emotion-trauma hypothesis developed by this research group, such variables as children’s emotionality, desires to return to purported previous family, claims of having died by…
