The Shiva-Sumitra Possession Case – Notes on the frustrations of a quick return

On 12^th May 2011 I attended the Gwen Tate Memorial Lecture organized by the Society for Psychical Research in London. The introductory blurb for the lecture with a summary of the study and background to it is reproduced below. The case basically involved a young Indian woman who was probably murdered, who apparently took over the body of a similarly aged woman from a different caste and village who had been very ill in a coma. While Dr Mills gave a very reasoned and factual account of who said or wrote what to whom, it was in the subsequent question and answer session that questions of motivation and speculation as to what might have happened at a non-material level arose. Possession cases of this type, in which one personality seems to have been completely and permanently replaced by another are rare, although there are parallels with cases of (apparent) rapid reincarnation. In this case of possession the woman who was killed was both angry at her sister-in-law and husband’s family for murdering her and covering up the murder, and concerned about her two young children who were left with her husband, who cut them off from her family. The motivation, sudden violent death and extreme concern for others, especially for surviving children, that often seems to generate rapid reincarnation, was similar in this case. Taking over the body of a woman whose spirit had left, could plausibly have been an opportunistic decision, agreed or not between the two women (in spirit) or even, less plausibly, part of some pre-birth plan (see Robert Schwartz on Pre-Birth Planning). The frustrations and futility of attempting to return in another’s body became apparent through the lecture and subsequent discussion. If an adult returns (reincarnates) as an infant they may be able to remember and identity their former family and this may even be accepted and details verified, but a baby or child cannot look after others, and the original desire to continue with the previous life is not possible. The search for and identification with the previous life can pose limitations on living the current life in the new body (see, for instance, Jenny Cockell’s account of her search for ‘her’ children in a previous life; Yesterday’s Children, Platkus 2004).

            In the possession case described here the husband and family of the woman who had been in a coma, Sumitra Singh, were understandably upset to have their wife/daughter/mother claim to be someone else, and to say that she didn’t belong with them. While both she and they came eventually to accept the situation, and the new Sumitra re-learnt to live her life as a rural Khastiya woman, it was not a happy solution. For the murdered and reborn Shiva Tripatri the situation was arguably even worse. As her former husband’s family had seen to it that her body had been rapidly cremated to remove any evidence there was no way the police, although suspicious, could actually press charges for Shiva Tripatri’s murder. Not surprisingly they refused to recognize the revived Sumitra Singh as Shiva Tripatri, maintaining that she was a fraud. She was never able to see ‘her’ children again, who remained with her husband’s family, although she never stopped trying. Sumitra’s own natal family did accept her as their daughter/sister/relative in a different body, but that gave little comfort to any of the parties involved and did not change the situation for the better. The lesson one might draw from this and other similar cases in which a strong sense of unfinished business leads to a quick return to earth, is that whatever the circumstances of death one needs to detach and move on. Any help that can be given will need to be from the ‘other side’, and that little is to be gained by trying to relive or regain a life that has passed.

Athropologist Dr Antonia Mills gives the Gwen Tate Memorial Lecture. Dr Mills will report on her recent follow up investigation of the Shiva-Sumitra possession case originally studied by Ian Stevenson. The talk will include photographs, letters and new assessments made by various members of Sumitra and Shiva's families. The speaker will argue that the case presents strong evidence of the survival of Shiva's consciousness after her bodily death.

Antonia Mills received her PhD in Anthropology & Child Development from Harvard University and has been engaged in studies of Cases of the Reincarnation Type since 1984, both among North American Indian peoples and in India. She was a Research Assistant Professor in Ian Stevenson's Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia from 1988-1994 and since has been teaching First Nations Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. Ian Stevenson and Satwant Pasricha, researched and reported on the case of Sumitra Singh, a young woman of the Khastiya caste, who apparently died and then returned to consciousness but experienced herself as Shiva Tripatri, a young college-educated Brahmin housewife and the mother of two who had died under suspicious circumstances. The two families were unknown to each other. Sumitra had never gone to school although she had learned how to write somewhat from her cousin. Stevenson and others documented that Sumitra and her family had no knowledge of Shiva and her family, and yet Sumitra recognized Shiva's father when he came to see her, and other family members when Sumitra and her husband went the 75 kilometers to the Tripathi home. Last year, Dr Mills and Dr. Kuldip Dhiman conducted a follow up study to translate and assess letters written by Sumitra/Shiva and to compare them with a letter written by the original Shiva.  Dr Mills will argue that the case presents strong evidence of the survival of Shiva's consciousness after her bodily death.

For a comparison to this case see Mary Roff and Lurancy Vennum: http://www.mysteriouspeople.com/Lurancy_Vennum.htm  Brian Haughton.

Ian Stevenson compares cases of reincarnation and possession at the end of his book 20 Suggestive Cases of Reincarnation, University of Virginia Press 1974.