Rebirth and the Western Buddhist - Khamkoo

Observational Evidence for the Fact of Rebirth 29
life by hypnosis or otherwise and recognise someone
now kno-wn to you in it, you can tell him; but he will not
necessarily understand.
So one need not be too surprised when an English
psychiatrist, Dr. Guirdham, is recognised by one of his
patients, a Mrs. Smith, as having been her lover in the
Languedoc in the thirteenth century. 60 Mrs. Smith's
flashes of far memory come mainly in dreams, and provide
a string of names of persons and places, and recollections
of events. What is most remarkable about this case
is the extent of the historical confirmation which Guirdham
managed to find. Despite the lapse of seven centuries,
the existence of many of the persons named is
established from the records of the Inquisition; for they
were Cathars, many of whom were interrogated and
imprisoned or executed. An event which for years had
haunted the dreams of both Guirdham and Smith is
identified as the massacre of the Inquisitors at Avignonet
on 28 May 1242, which is well documented. 61 Some of this
success in historical research is apparently due to "discarnate
entities" who helped Guirdham to look in the
right place. The story expands with the help of several
psychic friends of Guirdham, the discarnate entities
(often the same friends after their decease), and the
recovery of his own faculty of far memory, to fill several
books and build up a picture of a group of twenty-odd
people, members of which have been reborn together on
at least seven occasions, apparently in order to practise
healing and to disseminate the "Dualist" ideas taught by
the Cathars. 61 a Guirdham may well be effective as a
healer, but his expositions of Catharism carry surprisingly
little conviction for one who claims to have been the
favourite disciple of Guilhabert de Castres, most famous
of Cathar teachers, to converse with him in visions, and
to be writing at his request. 61 b That the priestess in The
Island, one of the wisest of the group, should say that to