Xenoglossy
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Another aspect of reincarnation investigation, albeit one very rare, is the incidence of xenoglossy, or the ability to speak in a foreign tongue not consciously learned in this life. Xenoglossy in either adults or children is very rare, even amongst reincarnation cases. Stevenson has devoted two volumes to accounts of such behavior, and indeed, it is almost more compelling than the usual cases simply for the very “foreignness” of it.
The two types of xenoglossy are recitative and responsive. In the recitative version, the subject speaks words or phrases in a foreign tongue without necessarily understanding. Usually this is done from rote memory and is considered to derive from subconscious stirrings and exposure to language in this present life which are triggered by some associative event, or perhaps during hypnotic regression.
Such an incident is described in Stevenson’s work, where a young man while hypnotized began to talk in a strange language and wrote out what he was saying. It proved to be a curse in an Italian dialect of third century B.C. Further investigation revealed that sometime before the subject had daydreamed while in a library, his eyes falling on an open book of Oscan (the dialect) grammar which lay on a table. Quite unconsciously he had absorbed the phrases, which surfaced when the conscious mind was relinquished under hypnosis.
Though this is a dramatic account, it is thought that we all have a “photographic” memory of sorts, but lack the ability to consciously recall such things. The absorption of material in this way usually occurs when the subject is consciously distracted or “open to suggestion” such as when tired or, as in the case above, daydreaming. This occurs quite frequently in those minutes before sleep and often accounts for strange dreams which one remembers, but cannot remember having “heard” or learned the significant events metaphorized in the dream (unconscious/subconscious) state. As a point, it is the very state that hypnosis induces in a kind of “stasis,” that very twilight where the subconscious/unconscious can reveal itself.
The second type of xenoglossy is responsive in that the subject is able to converse in the foreign language. Thus, if it develops that the subject neither learned nor was exposed to such a language in this life, it seems obvious that some paranormal explanation is in order.
The earliest known case of responsive xenoglossy being reported is in 1862, when a Prince Galitzen was conducting a hypnotic experiment upon a poor and uneducated German peasant woman. To his and his guests’ amazement, the woman began speaking in cultured French while relating a prior life in the 18th century when she claimed to have lived in Brittany. There, as a woman of high position, she took a lover and pushed her husband off a cliff. She claimed that her present life of impoverishment and ignorance was a direct result of this murder. Not only is this case unusual in its content, but also in the fact the Galitzen traveled to Brittany and verified her story. He also investigated the woman and found that she had never traveled out of the local village and spoke only the poor German dialect she grew up with.
Another account, and this one occurring in the modern era and recounted by Stevenson as well, concerns a Jewish-American woman who was hypnotized by her husband, who was a medical doctor. During regression she spoke the Swedish language of 200 years ago, a fact demonstrated again and confirmed by Swedish experts who gave written attestations to the fact.
Xenoglossy In Children
Stevenson’s work, as mentioned, deals primarily if not exclusively with young children for the very reason that their skills and intellect levels make it very difficult to consciously or unconsciously influence them regarding the types of details one looks for in investigating reincarnation. This is especially true with xenoglossy.
The first instance is that of a couple from Evanston, Illinois, who were awakened one night by strange sounds from their daughter’s room. When they investigated, she was sleeping quietly, but as they started to leave, she began to talk in her sleep. She spoke French very rapidly in an unfamiliar voice. The parents recognized the language as French from the sound, and the fact that the mother had once had an elementary course in the language. However she had never used it since years before in the classroom. Moreover, the little girl had never traveled outside the country or been exposed to the French language.
This continued for several nights in a row, with the parents unable to make out more than a word or two, when the husband finally used a portable tape recorder to record the incident. They took the tape to a French teacher at the local school who listened to it and said that the little girl on the tape was looking for her mother, whom she had been separated from when her village was attacked by Germans. The teacher said that the girl appeared to be lost and distressed.
Another Stevenson case involving xenoglossy is that of a Sinhalese boy living in a small village in Sri Lanka. All of the inhabitants were Buddhists, however, when he was four years old, the boy began to speak of a previous life where his family ate meat and of conditions that were very different. Their house had electricity, water came from a pipe and not a well or stream, and the streets were paved with asphalt. All of these conditions were beyond the primitive village they lived in currently. Also, he said his previous family worshipped in a place that had no idols nor any statues as found in Buddha temples. Indeed, many of this child’s eating habits and choices of dress were characteristic of Muslims, not Buddhists.
The most remarkable aspect of the case is that about a year before he began speaking of this, he would repeatedly rouse at night and sit cross legged on the bed while speaking words of a strange language. Then he would return to sleep. He continued to do this until at least eleven years old. When Dr. Stevenson saw him, he was able to obtain a tape recording and present it to a Muslim scholar for study. The scholar identified Tamil words used by Muslims, words not pronounced even in the usual way of the language. The scholar was particularly impressed by the boy’s pronunciation and said only a true Muslim could have spoken them so well. The words appeared to be a prayer from the child calling to God and to the boy’s former parents.
Dr. Stevenson’s work certainly makes a case at least for consistency both in method and in the substantial and ongoing number of incidences where this phenomena occur. Again, one is to bear in mind that the cases of Dr. Stevenson are rarely “sensational,” which, as we look for proof or disproof of reincarnation, seems to be what we crave. What Stevenson offers us instead is the “sensationalism” of thousands of well-documented cases where such phenomena has occurred and been verified. Perhaps simply because it is so voluminous, so methodical and, at times, so dry, does it seem to bear more the burden of scrutiny.