Imagine browsing through a friend’s library of books on psychical research and coming across a volume whose cover featured a voluptuous female, cloaked in purple, with one shoulder tantalisingly exposed and a hand resting lightly on a pregnant bulge. One’s reaction might well be that this is a Mills & Boon romantic novel that belongs in a different collection and to slip it quickly back on the shelf. Even a surreptitious delve between its covers would do little to dispel that initial conclusion. We should not judge a book by its cover, of course, but in the case of Reborn For Love, which tells the story of an unusual case of apparent reincarnation in Brazil, it is not only the cover’s artwork which sends out confusing signals.
Hernani Guimaräes Andrade (right) – who was President of the Brazilian Institute for Psychobiophysical Research at the time he produced this work, and in whose Proceedings it was first published in 1995 – is clearly identified as the author, yet over half of its pages are not written by him: they were penned by one of the subjects, referred to throughout by variations of the pseudonym “(Mrs) Dona Marine Waterloo”.
And since she is an educated Brazilian woman with a flair for writing, the account reads very much like fiction at times, particularly her extensive use of quoted childhood conversations which are clearly constructed from memory rather than having been recorded verbatim.
Fortunately, the accuracy of these quotations is not important: their purpose is to capture the essence of an unusual love story between a young girl and a much older priest, whose identity is also hidden behind a pseudonym, “Father Jonathan”.
He taught at her school, where many of the girls regarded him as ugly. Most readers will struggle to understand the attraction between the two —a strange, chaste and almost unspoken ‘affair’ which ended when Father Jonathan was moved to another post. They lost touch apart from an occasional letter and Dona Marine gave little thought to him as she became an adult, married and started a family. It was her husband who drew her attention to a radio news item one day which reported that Father Jonathan had been killed in a road accident.
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| Guy Lyon Playfair, the book’s editor, and a portrait of Allan Kardec, whose research inspires Spiritist teachings. |
It is at this point that Andrade’s book begins to live up to its promise, which is to provide compelling evidence for reincarnation. (Guy Lyon Playfair, who edited and revised this English edition of Renasceau por Amor, says he has “seldom come across such a persuasive case in any area of psychical research”.)
What transformed a schoolgirl’s crush into a case worthy of parapsychological investigation was a series of paranormal events in the Waterloo household, immediately following Father Jonathan’s passing on 30 May, 1972, and then statements made by her young son, “Kilden”, who was born more than seven years after the priest’s death.
As a Roman Catholic, Dona Marine gave no thought to the possibility that Kilden could be the reincarnation of the priest when he was born, but she was forced consider that possibility when her young son began making statements about how he had died in a previous life. He also insisted on being called Alexandre (his second name) which was also (confusingly!) Father Jonathan’s name. When his mother began to consider that her son might be the priest reborn she wrote to Father Jonathan’s sister, who confirmed the details given by Kilden about how he had died. Kilden even identified “himself” and others in old photographs and gave other details about Father Jonathan’s life that were confirmed by those who knew him but were unknown to Dona Marine.
Having allowed the main subject to tell her story, Andrade – several of whose 21 published papers and books are on rebirth, including Reencarnagäo no Brasil—explains how the case was brought to his attention by Luiz Antonio Brasil and how they set about investigating it.
One of Brazil’s most respected psychical researchers, Andrade regarded this as a very strong reincarnation case and when he takes over the narrative from the subject, discussing and dismissing alternative explanations, the book begins to have far greater appeal for a parapsychological readership. It does, however, become repetitive, as he quotes again large chunks of the subject’s literary testimony. Some of Andrade’s statements about the modus operandi of reincarnation will also be a step too far for most other researchers, however open-minded.
His views reflect, one suspects, the Spiritist philosophy, based on the teachings of Allan Kardec, with which Andrade would have been very familiar. For example, he assures us that six years is the average “intermission” period between one life and the next in children who appear to recall a past life, whereas “for normal people who do not remember past lives, the intermission time is approximately 250 years” – a finding he credits to Karl W. Goldstein.
Andrade suggests that his own Biological Organising Model (BOM), which offers an explanation of how a discarnate spirit interacts with the ovum at an early stage in the reincarnation process, could also be used to explain the appearance of connected paranormal phenomena occurring in advance of that rebirth.
Donna Marine Waterloo’s detailed story is a useful reminder that, although books such as this need to be evidence-based to satisfy a scientific readership, the events they describe usually happen to ordinary people and have a huge impact on them, transcending the cold facts and even transforming their lives.
Reborn For Love sets out to demonstrate the existence of a soul which not only survives death but also is able to incarnate again, and to show that love can be a major factor in determining where that rebirth occurs. It may not satisfy everyone in that respect but it is clearly an important piece of a very complex jigsaw puzzle.
This review by Roy Stemman of Reborn For Love by Hernani Guimaräes Andrade (Roundtable Publishing, London, 2010. 174 pp. £10) was first published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research [Vol 74.4, No 901] in October 2010.
Earlier today I was honoured to participate in the launch of 
Notable among these is his account of a séance which he and Heather attended – before they married – with Welsh physical medium Alec Harris. The couple witnessed materialised spirit forms walking out of the curtained “cabinet” in which the entranced Harris was seated and being greeted by their loved ones who not only recognised them but conversed with them.
In my foreword to the book (I am pictured, left, with Eric and his editorial collaborator Susan Farrow), I make the point that some of the mediumistic events Eric shares with us are so extraordinary “that many readers may doubt his testimony, and even his sanity. But not those who know him.”
I promised in my last Blog, which was about the impressive evidence Lionel Logue received from psychic Lilian Bailey, to share more information about the famous London medium’s royal connections. Logue, as I explained, was the speech therapist to the future King of England, George VI, and he also received messages from dead royals which he passed to the king.
I must add that Buckingham Palace poured cold water on the story, after a newspaper picked it up, with a spokesperson commenting that it was a nice after-dinner story but totally untrue. My response is that, having known the medium concerned and her son-in-law I have no reason to disbelieve the story. Besides, I also know that The Queen Mother consulted society clairvoyant Tom Corbett, but that was also denied by the royal household.
I don’t need to be psychic to predict that a new book, The King’s Speech, is going to be a best-seller this Christmas, and a movie with the same title, to be released in the UK in early January, is destined to be a box office blockbuster. The film focuses on the fascinating story of how King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II, overcame a serious stammer with the help of a remarkable Australian speech therapist, 
The authors acknowledge Logue’s interest in Spiritualism with these dismissive words:
“Although otherwise a rational man, he became attracted to Spiritualism in the hope of making contact with her on the ‘other side’. As a result, he got in touch with Lilian Bailey, a ‘deep trance medium’. Over the years, Bailey had been consulted by a number of prominent figures and abroad – among them the Hollywood actresses Mary Pickford, Merle Oberon and Mae West, and Mackenzie King, the Canadian prime minister.”
According to William F. Neech in his biography of Lilian Bailey, Death Is Her Life, Logue told Swaffer (left) in 1946, “I am a broken man. I have lost my wife and I cannot go on.” He also revealed that he was so grief-stricken that he had even contemplated suicide. The journalist promised to help if he could. A few days later Swaffer, who was often referred to as “the Pope of Fleet Street”, met with Lilian Bailey at a Spiritualist circle and asked, “Can you come to my flat to help a man in grave trouble?”
In his introduction to the book, Mark Logue tells of the discovery of boxes of correspondence and scrapbooks in July 2010, when the book was close to completion. It would be fascinating to learn if they provide any further information about his sessions with Lilian Bailey.
Congratulations to 
We leave this world, he explains, to return to the spirit realms – “our real home” – adding, “When someone dies, there’s no need to worry about them. They’ve gone home. They’ve finished their toil, their time at school. They’re being released – early maybe because they have done a good job.”