Chaz Bono: Is there a karmic prequel?



(Madame Blavatsky)

Chaz Bono, formerly Chastity Bono, has authored a thought-provoking book titled Transition:  The Story of How I Became a Man.  It is not so much a coming-of-age story as it is a coming-into-identity story.

Although the book draws upon childhood memories, those who are karmically inclined might be wondering whether the roots of this transition began way before then.  According to certain types of karmic theory, even though past-life memories can be difficult to consciously access, they nevertheless can significantly influence our

present-life tendencies.

So what might be the karmic influences for someone who feels trapped within a physical body that seems at odds with who they really are?  According to some past-life therapists, this might mean that the person had incarnated within an opposite-gender body enough times to now greatly miss that past identity.

At the University of Virginia, there is a Division of Perceptual Studies that investigates the paranormal.  For a long time, the head of this division was psychiatrist Ian Stevenson.  For more than 40 years, Dr. Stevenson researched thousands of childhood cases of alleged past-life memories.  He considered that reincarnation

might be just as instrumental as biology and environment in affecting personality.  Although some have criticized his research methods, others have heralded his work as being conducted with scientific rigor.  According to iisis.net, in 95% of Dr. Stevenson’s cases, “the child returns assuming the same sex as in the prior lifetime.”  For the other 5%, life could become quite confusing.

Dr. Jim Tucker has continued this work after Dr. Stevenson’s retirement and death.  He, too, is at the University of Virginia, and heads the Child and Family Psychiatry Clinic there.  Whereas Dr.

Stevenson researched many Asian cases, Dr. Tucker concentrates more upon American ones.  He has suggested that quantum physics may provide some explanations for the existence of consciousness as a non-physical entity.  If this be true, then it may also be possible for consciousness to retain its identity from one incarnation to the next.

Madame Blavatsky, a founder of Theosophy, said this:  The soul is sexless.  It may reincarnate in either sex and it may change from one to the other gender in different lives.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaz_Bono

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation_research

http://www.amazon.com/Transition-Story-How-Became-Man/dp/0525952144

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Stevenson

http://www.blavatsky.net/topics/reincarnation/reincarnation.htm

http://www.iisis.net/index.php?page=semkiw-ian-stevenson-reincarnation-past-lives-research&hl=en_US

Copyright May 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved