Abraham Kovoor’s Case Diary: Rebirth and Prodigies

Abraham Kovoor

Explanations for congenital
variations are better sought in the science of genetics and the Mendalian laws
of heredity than in karma and Rebirth.

Man has succeeded in producing prodigies
among domesticated animals by selective breeding making use of his knowledge
in the science of genetics. The prodigious egg-layers like the ‘High Line’hens,
and the prodigious milk-yielders like the Jersey and Cape
cows are the products of such selective breeding. The prodigious
characteristics of the high-yielding hens, cows, cultivated plants etc., are
governed by their genes and DNA molecules, and not by their Karma and ‘previous
births’.

Time will not be long before man
will be using his advanced knowledge of genetics to improve the congenital
qualities of his own species – Homo sapiens. Future man will surely find the
need for discarding religious taboos, and to put into practice the knowledge he
has gained by scientific researches to improve the quality of his own
offspring. I visualize a future when the State will be interfering with the
freedom of the individual in the field of procreation. By this I did not mean
that individuals will be deprived by legislation their freedom to quench their sexual
thirst by legitimate means.

Human procreation may become one
of the most important nationalized concerns guided and controlled by expert geneticists
and far-sighted statesmen.

It may be that semen banks, like blood
banks, will be established at state expense for preserving specially selected
semen for artificially inseminating specially selected women possessing desired
qualities. Thus, if man adopts selective breeding for improving his own
species, it will be possible to plan the births of more and more child
prodigies than at present. Today such prodigies are few and far between, being
the product of mere chance.

It will not be too long before
science works out a safe and satisfactory method of sex determination with
chemicals. When such a possibility is available, man may be determining not only
the quality of his offspring but also the sex.

 

Abraham Kovoor with his wife investigating a case

To say that child prodigies are
born with the knowledge they had acquired in their ‘previous lives’ is as
absurd as the assertion of some investigators of rebirth in Ceylon that
acquired physical characteristics like wounds can reappear as scars on the
bodies in subsequent births. If it is so, it will be a death-blow to the Eye
Donation Society of Ceylon. The fear of being reborn blind will prevent people
from donating their eyes!

A protagonist of rebirth goes
about in this country proving the genuineness of an alleged case of rebirth at
Balangoda on the basis of his pet theory that acquired physical characteristics,
like wounds, could reappear on ‘reborn’ body. Another champion of rebirth – a
university don, and a close friend of mine – says, “Human birth is accountable
in terms of the deaths of human beings, animals and non-human beings in this world
or on other planets in this vast universe          The
experimental evidence in rebirth is derived by using the age regression
technique to regress a subject to antenatal period. The subject is deeply hypnotized
and taken back in time by suggestion. At any point in time in his past, the
subject may be made to recount his experiences as well as to re-live them”.

Indeed, this is the first time a
claim is made that rebirth can occur with both the body and mind of the
previous birth intact. If this claim is correct, then there is no foundation
for the don’s theory that one organism can be reborn as a member of another
species. If organisms retain the same bodies with all the congenital and acquired
characteristics when reborn, how is it that the genital organs of a woman changed
into male organs when she was reborn as a boy? If the pet theories of these exponents
of rebirth are true, tigers and zebras should retain their stripes when they are
reborn as human beings! Mathematical prodigies should be able to retain their mathematical
knowledge even when they are reborn as donkeys or monkeys! We can then look forward
for the wonderful day when a donkey – a mathematical prodigy will be occupying
the Chair of Mathematics in one of our universities!

The three-pound mass of human brain
built of 10 billions or so of nerve cells known as neurons, together with a
mass of supporting glia cells is an organ crammed with much physicochemical activity.
A great deal of physical and chemical activities takes place in its tissues. In
short, it is a physicochemical laboratory where work goes on day and night
throughout the period of its life. The force that makes the brain work is electricity.
An adult brain works on 20 watts of electricity. Each neuron is in effect a tiny
dynamo. All mental activities such as thought, will, cognition, volition, memory,
reasoning, emotion etc., result from physicochemical activities which go on in
the brain tissue. Mind does not exist apart from the brain. Damage to one’s
brain affects ones mental processes. With the death of the brain, consciousness
and individuality (ego) also end.

Just as there cannot be fire
without a substance to burn, there cannot be life and mind without a body to
respire. Mind cannot survive the death and decomposition of the brain. To say
that mental faculties can remain intact after the death of the person is as absurd
as saying that the body-less and brain-less spirit can appear in physical form
(often dressed in white) as ghosts, and perform volitional acts.

Stories about children recalling
the memories of their ‘previous births’ have to be discarded as myths, like the
numerous ghost stories appearing in weekend newspapers.