Tomo - Japanese / scottish case of 2000

Hello there

I was wondering if you guys are familiar with this asian case:

https://www.academia.edu/12232504/A_Case_of_a_Japanese_Child_with_Past-Life_Memories

A japanese child from the Kansai region that told his parents (and the author of the above link) about his past life as a scottish boy that died in 1997. As the article says in the beginning, it's an unsolved case. I for myself however think it's one of the best cases I've ever heared of. There are so many unbelievable details that can only be explained by the reincarnation theory.

I'm curious about your thoughts!

Cheers
SF

Intriguing but still unsolved. Relatively short time between the death of a British/Scottish child in Oct 1997 in Scotland and his supposed rebirth in Japan to Japanese parents in 2000, given the extraordinary distance between Scotland and Japan. I read the paper and it looks like figuring out the name of the hospital will be key to solving this long distance case. The Japanese toddler told his mother that the name of the hospital in which the previous personality died (a 9-year-old British/Scottish boy who lived in Edinburgh and was apparently the son of a local restaurant owner/ restauranteur ) was "Muginba Paresu", about 115 km north of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Could "Paresu" be Perth, Scotland? I couldn't find anything corresponding to "Muginba" (or "Mugin" of . . .) as the name of hospital, especially a 13-story hospital, anywhere in Scotland, but maybe someone else might come up with something. The paper is about 6 years old.

Thanks for your answer!
However I'd like to know your personal opinion on that case? Considering the subjects given information and it's behavior I've got the impression he definitely used to be a scottish boy even if some of the hardcore facts (date of birth & death) might not be exactly right... Many japanese are having difficulties speaking the english language and this little man just sang along to an old Carpenters song from the 70's ?! Japanese are also often a little prude and introverted. Why should a young boy talk about his ejaculation in a former life? Even if it actually happened to a japanese child at the age of 9: I'm pretty sure no one would tell his mother about that.

If you ask me: it's too weird to be untrue!

cheers
SF

Am I the only one who's fascinated by that case? :-(

I haven't read that article (requires more info than I'm willing to provide for it), but we have to be aware that there might be other explanations for having perceived memories or abilities that seem unexplainable.

This brings to mind a book by Ian Stevenson & others about a Polish clairvoyant who lived during the first half of the last century, Stefan Ossowiecki.

He demonstrated a special kind of clairvoyance and psychometry that allowed him to witness and recount in detail what people were looking like, doing, thinking at the time of handling a given object. Very impressive, rigorously tested, and well documented.

What he was describing could be easily confused with past life memories.

See attached how he describes his experience:

Except that the little Japanese boy spoke of events that happened several years before his birth in a country 9000 km from where he was living.

How could one tell the difference between a memory based on psi (all of our past lives and all of our present lives, and even all of our lives between lives, are connected and therefore accessible) vs. a memory based on reincarnation. Or do you think there such a thing as reincarnation? I don't doubt that the psi connection is real at some level of reality and can operate over vast distances. But there are enough accounts of young children describing the process of their rebirth, choosing their parents etc., not to mention birth defects and birth marks, to really doubt some MORT (memories of the reincarnation type).

baro-san said:

Stefan Ossowiecki.

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your answer. I've never heard of Ossowiecki before. Unfortunately there are barely english articles that document his life. Most of them, for sure, are written in Polish.
How did you learn about him?

GuySittingintheStands said:

...

Click to expand...

First of all: I feel honored that this specific topic made you come back to the forum!!!

GuySittingintheStands said:

Or do you think there such a thing as reincarnation? I don't doubt that the psi connection is real at some level of reality and can operate over vast distances. But there are enough accounts of young children describing the process of their rebirth, choosing their parents etc., not to mention birth defects and birth marks, to really doubt some MORT (memories of the reincarnation type).

Click to expand...

That's why I'm here and why I'm studying cases like this one.

I just was expecting some personal/emotional thoughts from the community about Tomo's case because it's one of the cases that really make me believe in the concept of reincarnation. I don't know why I still have inner doubts about CORTs. I just want to "get used" to it and free my skeptic mind...

baro-san said:

... other explanations for having perceived memories or abilities that seem unexplainable.

Click to expand...

Are you referring to Tomo's ability to peel garlic with his left hand although he's a right-hander?
Just to point out another detail via google/Wikipedia:

"Japanese love to eat foods with garlic. It's just garlic is maybe not so much used a lot at home."

Not to mention that the Scottish kitchen / the Scottish themselves really like dishes that contain a certain quantity of garlic ;-)

Sure, it still doesn't discredit your argument that says it's possible that people perceive memories or abilities which are unexplainable. However, your argument could refute the whole reincarnation theory itself except the cases in which children were born with birthmarks/disabilities. Sorry if I'm being too pushy here....

Condensed version:

Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 27, No. 4, 2013: 625-636 (published Jan 31, 2014)

“A Case of a Japanese Child with Past-Life Memories.”

Ohkado Masayuki, Faculty of General Education, Chubu University, Aichi, ohkado@isc.chubu.ac.jp

“This article reports the case of a Japanese child who claims to have lived in Edinburgh, Scotland, in his past life. His statements are basically compatible with a possible life in Edinburgh, and some of them are quite striking. He shows a strong desire to go back to his previous mother. The search for the past-life personality has not been successful and the case is at present unsolved. However, the present article shows the existence of a clear Case of the Reincarnation Type (CORT) in Japan.”

“The subject, Tomo, is a Japanese boy living in the Kansai region. He was born in Jan 2000. When the subject was 11 m old, he began to show behavior that can be interpreted as related to his past-life personality. When he was 3.11 y.o., he started talking about his past-life memories as a boy living in Edinburgh and continued to do so until his father took him to Edinburgh to look for the mother of his past-life personality when he was 7.6 y.o..…. nformation about the subject’s statements and behavior came from the subject’s parents, especially his mother, who kept a detailed diary. ….. It is worth pointing out that at the time of the first interview, the subject was saying “I still have a visual image of my British mother,” “I still want to go to the UK to meet my mother,” and “You’ll see, when I become old, I’ll go there myself.” He also remembered a phrase “John, John, very my John, John,” which he repeatedly said when he recalled a dog he kept in his past life. ….. When the subject was 11 m.o., he was very attracted by the roman letters he saw on TV commercials such as “AJINOMOTO,” “TOYOTA,” etc. Before he learned any Japanese letters, he learned some roman letters. At 2.9 or 2.10 y.o., he signed his name as “tomo” using roman letters…. Also around this time (at 2.9 or 2.10 y.o.), when he heard the English song “Top of the World” for the first time, he was able to sing along, which greatly surprised his mother.”

“At 3.11 y.o., the subject and his mother had the following conversation (as recorded in the [mother’s] diary):

Subject: I want to peel garlic. Mother: Why do you want to do that? Subject: I did this before I came to be called “Tomo.” Mother: What? What do you mean? Subject: I was a child of a restaurant in the UK before I came to be called “Tomo.” Mother: When was he born? Subject: He was born on August 9th, 1988. I was called ‘Geiris.’ I lived in a seven-story building. Mother: Where is the former “Tomo” [referring to the past-life personality] now? Subject: He had a high fever of 45 C [113 F] and died.

Because the subject insisted on peeling garlic, the mother bought and handed garlic to the subject the next day. …. [H]e peeled garlic with his left hand, which is surprising because he is right-handed. He became left-handed only when he peeled garlic. The mother recorded the conversion he had on that day as follows:

Mother: Tomo, have you ever peeled garlic? Subject: Yes. I have done this when I was “former Tomo.” Mother: Who is “former Tomo?” Subject: Tomo who was born on August 9th.
. . . . At around the same time the subject, who had never taken a pill, said to the mother,
" 'British Tomo' was taking a pill, called EMD." When asked by the mother, "What pill?"
he replied, "Yellow and round . . ."

….. when he saw a globe at a store, he pointed out the UK (the upper region) and said “Tomo lived around here.” When they went back home and his mother showed him a map of the UK, the subject pointed to around Edinburgh and said “I lived in ‘Edinbia.’”

….. [When the subject was 4 y.o. he said:] “When British Tomo died between 24th and 25th of October 1997, British mother looked troubled. She was saying, ‘Now there are only five of us.’ When the surprised mother asked him, ‘What? Did you see that?’ he replied, ‘Yes. They buried me.’

….. “British mother often said ‘I love you.’” [Japanese mothers rarely say this.]

….. “In the UK, I bathed in milk (bath).” Pointing to the washbasin, the subject repeatedly said “Washbasin” in English. “In the UK, I took ‘healing herb.’” Making his mother hold him, and imitate as if she gave a glass of healing herb to him, he said, “British mother said to me ‘Take this, take this. It will help you feel better.’ ….. The subject tried to explain what he ate in his past-life. “With chopped carrots and Japanese radish-like vegetables, with cheese. We heated it for about 4 minutes and when the cheese melt, we eat it.” ….. [At 4.1 y.o.:] “When I was British Tomo, on Feb 16th, white liquid came out of my penis for the first time.” …..

[Also at 4.1 y.o.:] “I got on a double-decker bus. The money I used was not yen, but pound.” [At 4.2 y.o.:] “My mother made me drink ‘healing grass’ mixed with pineapple juice, but I knew it was medicine.” “There was a special shopping mall in front of our restaurant. They sold Japanese soy sauce.” (His mother thought this statement remarkable because it was unlikely that the subject, who had never been abroad, would know that soy sauce is Japanese seasoning.)”

“British Tomo was hospitalized at ‘Muginba Paresu’ [as transcribed in the diary in Japanese letters] hospital. At first no room was available. When room 4 on the 13th floor became available, four of us, father, mother, (elder) brother, and me went there by car. It was 115 km from my house to the hospital. Since it was far away, we used a highway. …. In the hospital, there was a place like a bath, and there was a doctor who put powder medicine into hot water and massaged me. The treatment didn’t work and I had an operation. I had a fever of 40 C [104 F] [figure different when he first stated about his death] and died.”

[At 4.7 y.o.:] Subject: (Seeing a picture in a picture book titled Human Body, in which food sticks in a person’s throat) “Oh, no! This guy has become British Tomo!” Mother: “Did British Tomo die because something stuck in his throat?” Subject: “I had throat disorders. I was hospitalized and stayed on the seventh floor of a 13-story hospital. I felt so sick and died.” Mother: “Did you die of asthma, perhaps?” Subject: “Yes. The healing herb didn’t cure me, either. The former Tomo was weak and died young. So, this time I chose a strong body.”

(Watching news of a train crash) “There was also a train accident in the UK, in Southall. I watched the news on TV. It said ‘Accident! Accident!’ Two trains collided, and a fire occurred. Eight people died.”

“The blood type of British Tomo was B. I was weak and couldn’t exercise, and there were many things I wanted to do.” Mother: “Why did you recall British Tomo?” Subject: (Crying) “I want to meet my British mom.”

[At 4.9 y.o.:] (About a meal the subject ate in his past-life) “I ate Chili Con Carne. Red kidney beans were in it and it was hot.” [He had never eaten the dish in the present life.] [At 5 y.o.:] “I died between 24th and 25th of Oct, 1997.” Mother: “How did you know that you died?” Subject: “My British mother looked troubled. She said ‘Now only five of us were left.’” Mother: “Did you see that?” Subject: “Yes, I did.” Mother: “Then, what did you do?” Subject: “I was doing something like riding on a slide or on the escalator of a 25-story building.”

….. “British Tomo was hospitalized in Muginba Paresu hospital. At first there was no room available. Then, room 4 of the 13th floor became available, so my father, mother, brother, and I went there. We used a highway because the hospital was far away. It was located 115 km to the north from my house….. In the hospital, in a bath-like place, a doctor poured powder medicine into hot water and massaged me. It didn’t work and I had an operation. But I had a high fever of 40 C [104 F] and died. My house was about 30 seconds away from the station. There was news of a train crash. TV said ‘News! News!’ and I saw crashed trains on TV.” [At 5.6 y.o.:] From room 4 on the 13th floor, I could see fireworks.”

(cont'd in next post)

“Like many other CORTs, the subject showed a strong emotion to go back to see his “previous” mother. Also, like other CORTs, the subject states that he had some unfinished job in his past life. …..Most of [his] statements concerning his life in Edinburgh seem to be compatible with a possible life in Edinburgh and beyond the knowledge an ordinary Japanese person, including the subject’s parents, would have. Especially striking is the subject’s statement about the train accident that occurred at Southall station in the UK, which did take place on September 19, 1997. The subject’s father, who had regarded the subject’s statements as mere imagination, changed his attitude when he searched for the information about the train crash and found that there was an incident in the Southall station in 1997. He decided to take the subject to Edinburgh to look for his “British mother.” From August 1st to 8th, 2008 (when the subject was 90 m old), the subject and his father went to the UK…..They stayed in Edinburgh for three days, looking for the past-life personality’s house in vain. The subject’s father said, “I thought my son would easily find the way to his house once we got to Edinburgh. If I had known that this would not necessarily be the case, I would have made more preparation.” …..

[In addition to interviewing the family] “[t]he investigation … included an Internet search based on the subject’s statements, calling for information from people connected to the UK, including members of the Society for Psychical Research and the Scottish Society for Psychical Research, and visiting Edinburgh myself in 2011. At present, however, the search for the past-life personality has been unsuccessful.”

It turned out that no death comparable to the present case seems to be recorded in the city of Edinburgh. ….. I consulted with the National Record of Scotland, whose role includes the administration of the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and adoptions in Scotland, and Mr. Blair Kane helped me with this search and checked all the death books for the Edinburgh area for the year 1997. According to Mr. Kane, there were no deaths of children in that age range. Nor were there any cases of asthma-related deaths in those months.”…..

“The present case falls into a category of long-distance cases, in which the subject’s family belongs to a different community from the past life personality’s family. The subject’s family has no connection to the UK, nor were they in the country around the time of conception, which echoes the following words of Stevenson (2001:238): “[F]or the majority of long-distance cases I have no clues whatever as to why the subject was born in his family. Nor have the informants for the cases.” Concerning long distance cases Stevenson also (2001:242) says that “[t]he majority of the subjects of cases in which the two families are not related or acquainted speak of a life that was lived within a radius of 25 km from the subject’s home.” The distance between Edinburgh and the subject’s present residence (9,154 km) is unusually long. This exceptional characteristic makes the case all the more interesting.”

“Conclusion. This article reports a case of a Japanese child who claims to remember his past life. Despite the subject’s detailed statements concerning his past life, the search for his past-life personality has not been successful and the case is “unsolved.” However, some of the highly specific information the subject gave and the unusual behavior the subject showed are strongly indicative of the paranormal nature of the present case. The overall pattern of the development of the case shows that CORTs can be observed in modern Japan.”

“Notes ….. The mother worried about the subject’s unusual statements including past life memories, and consulted [a] psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with Asperger’s Syndrome. In the [mother’s] diary, the name is written as “ge-i-ri-i-su” in Japanese letters. The subject’s mother, who does not speak English, naturally chose to write it down in Japanese, and if the subject had pronounced the word in English (or English-like pronunciation), the transcript might not be very reliable.”

“…..Dr. Jim Tucker of the University of Virginia, … read an early version of this paper and gave invaluable comments.”

(end)

SleeplessFox said:

Thank you very much for your answer. I've never heard of Ossowiecki before. Unfortunately there are barely english articles that document his life. Most of them, for sure, are written in Polish.
How did you learn about him?
...

Click to expand...

I was searching for books by Ian Stevenson, and found this book:
"A World In A Grain Of Sand: The Clairvoyance Of Stefan Ossowiecki".

SleeplessFox said:

Are you referring to Tomo's ability to peel garlic with his left hand although he's a right-hander?
Just to point out another detail via google/Wikipedia:

"Japanese love to eat foods with garlic. It's just garlic is maybe not so much used a lot at home."

Not to mention that the Scottish kitchen / the Scottish themselves really like dishes that contain a certain quantity of garlic ;-)

Sure, it still doesn't discredit your argument that says it's possible that people perceive memories or abilities which are unexplainable. However, your argument could refute the whole reincarnation theory itself except the cases in which children were born with birthmarks/disabilities. Sorry if I'm being too pushy here....

Click to expand...

I was referring to the possibility that some "past life memories" might actually be information perceived clairvoyantly, like the experiences described in Ian Stevenson & others' book about Ossowiecki, information about other people's lives across the space-time.

If interested, you can browse a book preview at books.google, and read the descriptions of some of his experiences.

GuySittingintheStands said:

...

Click to expand...

WOW! Thank you so mouch for your work! I had no idea there was a published print media that contained this case!! It slidely differs from the entry on academia.edu but also adds new details. Great!!

GuySittingintheStands said:

Asperger’s Syndrome.

Click to expand...

I'm not a psychologist, but it's often said that children who "suffer" from autism or Asperger syndrome can't tell lies like peoplpe that are not affected by developmental disorders.

GuySittingintheStands said:

“…..Dr. Jim Tucker of the University of Virginia, … read an early version of this paper and gave invaluable comments.

Click to expand...

Again & again: thank you!
I really was searching for such a "professional" statement on the internet. However one doesn't know what he said in detail, right?


And just to add something to my prior postings: there's no indication that might tell us Tomo is clairvoyant since he never did things or said things that step out of his memories of a past life like in the case of the "Oklahoma boy" Ryan Hammons (a well known Jim Tucker case). Therefore I personally would not assume that he "just perceived knowledge" of a deceased person. I'm not a die hard protectionist of the reincarnation theory but there's little evidence that makes us believe Tomo knows more than just details of a life of a Scottish child that used to live in the late 80's/ 90's.


And also a big Thank You to all involved users on that topic! I'm so pleased that we kind of set the ball rolling now again

Some random thoughts:

This is an unusual case in two respects. Firstly, the subject, a young Japanese boy, is reported to have memories, dispositions, and at least one behavior of a British or Scottish boy who died a little more than 2 years before subject was born in Japan to Japanese parents – over 9000 km away from the previous personality’s supposed place of death (a hospital in Scotland, north of Edinburgh). The case is unusual in that the rebirth occurs into a culture and by parents literally a world apart from the previous life. Secondly, and please correct me if I’m wrong, in no other documented case can one find the amount of specific detail cited by the researcher in this paper: the subject claims he was born on a specific date in 1988 (Aug 9, 1988); the subject claims he died on a specific date (or on the night of a specific date) in 1997 (Oct 24-25, 1997); the subject claims he died in a hospital or in the tower block of that hospital that had 13 floors and he happened to die on the 7th floor, after having been checked into Room 4 of the 13th (presumably top) floor of that hospital; the subject claimed to have type B blood; the subject claimed his temperature rose to 45C (108F) (very, very rare!), and on another occasion claimed that it rose to 40C (104F) (much more reasonable, given coma would ensue in the 108F range) and he died; the subject gives his name, presumably his first name, or his Japanese rendition of that name (as interpreted by his non-English-speaking Japanese mother); the subject gives the name of the hospital in which the previous personality died (again, as rendered by a Japanese child and interpreted by his non-English speaking mother); the subject gives the name of his dog in his previous life, the subject is able to point to the country he lived in on a globe (UK), and later the city he lived in when presented a map of that country, which the subject purportedly was able to pronounce, more or less (“Edinbia” for Edinburgh); the subject purportedly could sing along, in English, to a 1973 pop hit by the Carpenter’s; the subject had a memory of watching a UK TV news report on a fatal train accident in a western suburb of London, even giving details of the location of the accident, including the name of town (Southall) and number of victims (8 deaths). The amount of specific detail in this case, even as compared to the James Leininger case, is startling. These are specific details that the subject gives, not ones later deduced by the parents or researcher, by the way. That’s remarkable.

I got the impression that although the subject’s mother was non-English speaking, his father certainly must have had at least a grasp of the English language: the father was able to do an internet search with regards to the Southall train accident; he travels with his son to Edinburgh, Scotland for a 3-day investigative trip with no qualms about language barriers between Japanese and English. I got the impression he may have been (or is) a professional of some sort, maybe a professor, an architect, a doctor, engineer, or commercial airline pilot. And an older, established professional at that, as he is able to adjust his schedule to take his son to the UK for this seemingly bizarre little junket. He most likely is educated and has some money.

However, the case still remains unsolved, meaning, we don’t know how many of the subject’s claims are factually correct (or nearly factually correct), if any. The subject’s strongest claim is the supposed memory of watching a UK TV news broadcast regarding the fatal train accident in Southall, England (a western suburb of London) (which did occur Sept 19, 1997, although only 7 fatalities were reported, not 8). I would like to know how the subject pronounced “Southall”, as the “th” sound is difficult for most foreigners. The little boy really said “Southall”? or something like it? What exactly?

I think we should put aside the name of the hospital for now – too many issues trying to disentangle the name through the various spoken and written language lenses. (“Paresu” could be Parish, but that’s just a thought). I think it less likely that the height of the hospital tower block was garbled, and I am willing to accept anything in the 10- to 13-floor range as positive evidence. That’s a big hospital by the way, and definitely google-able. It would have to be a hospital that was open in 1997 (date of the Southall train accident), and probably still around given the NHS’s chronic shortage of hospital beds. The Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland looks about right – it is at least 10 stories and could be 12 or 13 based on one of its google images. And it is north(east) of Edinburgh, although not nearly as far as the subject claimed his hospital was from his supposed home in Edinburgh. How many large hospitals with 13 (or nearly 13-) floor tower blocks could there be in Scotland? Also, I thought the subject’s claim that he could see “fireworks” from the 13th floor of his hospital interesting. Fireworks are shot off in Scotland on two occasions: New Year’s Eve and “Bonfire Night” (celebrates Guy Fawkes failed plot to blow up the King and Parliament in London in 1605). Bonfire Night is usually celebrated November 5th (a Wednesday in 1997) but can be celebrated any night from Nov 1st to Nov 5th to attract the biggest crowds. This is very close to the date which the subject claims to have died (Oct 24-25, 1997).

I have been using www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk to search birth dates and deaths in Scotland covering the period in question (roughly 1987 to 1997) for boys around 9 years old. For names, I’m using James, George, Jerry, Gerry, Craig, Greg, as a first name, but will have to go back at some point and search again using them as last names. Of course, I wouldn’t mention a specific name here even if I did come up with a candidate as that would violate this site’s privacy agreement. I do have a couple of names but would need to support them with more data to make sure they’re as close a match as possible to the subject’s original statements, before divulging the name to anyone. I don’t have any really eye-popping leads as yet. We all have access to the internet. If others have hours of free time on their hands and have a knack for laterial-thinking research feel free to join in. Just no publicizing specific names of individuals. That wouldn’t be fair to any family involved.

GuySittingintheStands said:

...

Click to expand...

I'm so thankful for your input!!! These informations are new door openers in my opinion. I really appreciate your contribution! Finally there are some people who recognize the potential of that case For me it's definitely another page turner (after cases like J. Leininger, Ryan Hammons, Cameron Macaulay, Mandy Seebrook, Jeremy Anderson, Luke Ruehlman, Kendra Carter etc.).

I just want to add one thing: we don't know anything about the religious background of the family. In Japan, most of the people are Zen Buddhists and Shintoists However their imagination of an after life is more like the one shared by Pantheists which means they do believe in "rebirth" but not acutally in a thing called "reincarnation". So they say that consciousness fades and just the "soul" will continue. The only case that most Japanese are familiar with is the case of Katsugoro:

http://www.educatinghumanity.com/2015/10/japanese-boy-reincarnation-from-200-years-ago.html

GuySittingintheStands said:

If others have hours of free time on their hands and have a knack for laterial-thinking research feel free to join in. Just no publicizing specific names of individuals.

Click to expand...

I'd love to! However I'm not a native speaker and I get staggered as soon as too many incomprehensible sentences pop up to me. Sorry for that! I'll keep googleing around and I'll also try scotlandspeople.gov.uk to find out more details about the case.

All the best to you GuySittingintheStands and all the others that are involved in this!

cheers
SF

Wish I had more time as it’s a very interesting case. As it is I’m still solving my own previous life case.

Just a thought regarding the fireworks. Burns Night is another time when fireworks are let off in Scotland and it occurs end of Jan. Doesn’t match the October date, but putting it out there.

In 1997 hospitals were not nearly as overcrowded as they are now.

Could newspaper archives be another resource ?

Thanks, landsend, every little bit of information helps. I didn't know about Burns Night. Apparently, Scots celebrate their National Poet, Robert Burns, Jan 25th (his birthday), with a lavish dinner, drink, poetry reading, tartans, family and friends. From what I read on the internet, fireworks don't play as large a part (I couldn't find any mention of fireworks in any contemporary internet descriptions) as Hogmanay (Scotland's New Year's Eve celebration Dec 30 - Jan 1 ) or Bonfire Night (Nov 5). Burns Night sounds like an indoor thing with family and friends. Hogmanay and Bonfire Night sound like outdoor community celebrations with fireworks and bonfires, but I'm not Scottish, never been to Scotland, so what do I know. You seem to have first-hand knowledge so we'll go with it. The hospital comment is based on what I've heard and read of the NHS health care system, and a comment the Japanese boy made about having to wait for a hospital bed to become available in his past life as a British/Scottish boy in 1997 (his death). I subscribe to newspapers.com which is great for American genealogical and biographical research into the 21st century, but is very sketchy for British Isles newspaper sources and then only up to the end of the 19th century. There are numerous other on-line resources for British newspapers which I will look into, thanks for the tip.

Schlaflos -- I have heard that the Japanese, by and large, are about as religious as we are in the West, ie, not very, and then only on the major religious holidays. But I thought the father's description of their 3-day visit to Edinburgh to search for the home of his young son's previous incarnation, revealing. Such a Zen approach, as if they could control the outcome because his son seemed to be "in the zone". I don't think it works like that, however, not for reincarnation.

I go back and forth on the remark that the Japanese boy could sing along to the Carpenter's 1973 pop hit "Top of the World". On the one hand, by the 2000s, this old pop hit had become what we call "elevator" music or Muzak you might hear waiting in the dentists office reception area, or out shopping while at a supermarket or shopping center. So he could have learned the tune through normal means. And of course, how would his non-English speaking mother know how well he was singing along. I don't know the words past the first line, and I grew up with that music in the early 70s.
But then, on the other hand, in the 1990s, there were "oldies" stations on the radio that played hits like "Top of the World" while people went about their day-to-day work lives in construction, in small restaurant kitchens, painting home interiors accompanied by plaster dust, drop-clothes, Karen Carpenter, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. It made work easier and the day go by so much faster and so much more pleasantly. Now imagine a 9-year-old boy working in a small family restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland peeling garlic while listening to music being piped in from an oldies radio station in the 1990s. You get the picture.

Just a thought:
If one really wants to find out where and when the boy, described by Tomo, died you'd need a private detective or something that lives in the UK/Scotland. There will always be information which are hold back for confidential reasons. I thinkt we can only concentrate on the behaviour-related details like you mentioned them GuySittingintheStands.
The most "disturbing" thing I guess is Tomo's passing mentions about his fomrer life's puberty experience like his first ejaculation ("white liquid" or how he described it). I used to work with a lot of Japanese in a volunteer conservation programm in New Zealand ( boys & girls between of 18-30 years). Conversations about sexuality are totally taboo among them.

Your assumption considering Tomo's father:
Unfortunately there are no given details about him. Maybe it was just him and Tomo who took the journey because the mother had to look for their other children (if there are some). And about the duration: Japanese never have that much vacation generally. But for sure: a three day trip to Scotland seems ridiculous considerung the background of their journey :/

Using scotlandspeople.gov.uk I was able to come up with the full names of 6 boys age 8-10 years old who died in Scotland in 1997. One of the available search options was "Name begins with", so I used "J", then "G" both beginning the fore (first or middle) name. I tried both "J" and "G" beginning the last name but the handful of results were either duplicates of the results of the names having first names beginning with "J" or "G" (including middle names), or last names that were no where close to "Geiris" (for example, Jackson, Johnson). I think we have to be firm about the year 1997 as that was the year Tomo remembered seeing the UK TV news report about the Southall train accident (which occurred Sept 19, 1997). As far as the year of birth, I was willing to be a little more flexible: 9 +/- 1 year (8-10 years old, so 1987-1989). The boy coming closest to the name Tomo remembered as his own ("Geiris"), having a date of birth most closely matching Tomo's claimed birth date (Aug 9, 1988), and RD (Registered Death) town or city having a hospital with a 10- to 13- floor tower block wing will of course be the best candidate.

Here are the candidates:
Fore Name (First or Middle) Age RD

1. Gary 10 Dumbarton
2. Jack 10 Linlithgow
3. John (as a middle name) 8 Edinburgh
4. George (as a middle name) 10 Edinburgh
5. Greg (as a middle name) 9 Aberdeen
6. Garry 9 Dundee


I don't know whether the RD (registry of death) means the deceased's home town or the town in which he died in.

Viewing death certificates on-line is not permitted for deaths less than 50 years from present (which these are), but it looks like one can order a hard copy of the certificate for a small fee for deaths less than 50 years from present. (it's something like 12 pounds which is reasonable.)

I have a 7th name (a James) but I'm being to suspect this was a 91-year-old who died and is buried near Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, Scotland, although he did die in the right month in the right year. And Victoria Hospital has a 10-13 floor wing which was open in 1997.

Coming by this information was not too difficult and arriving at a best candidate should also not be too hard: you just need to find a "9" year old who died in Scotland in a hospital with a "13-" floor wing, whose fore name sounds something like "Geiris". We may not come up with any candidates, by the way. As Baro-san hinted at in a previous post, some of the information the little Japanese boy provided may not be related to Tomo's previous personality.

If you are playing this game at home, please remember that last names (or full names) are not permitted publicly (ie. in a post on this site) in order to protect the privacy of any family involved.

It's starting to get interesting so I thought I'd give a quick update. Please remember that no matter how good a lead looks now, it can and usually does fizzle out once more data come in. That's just the nature of research. Are you sitting down?

Focusing on Candidate 6 "Garry", age 9, died 1997, Registry of Death -- Dundee (Scotland). There is a massive NHS hospital in the western part of Dundee called Ninewells Hospital and Medical School (NHS Tayside). The name "Ninewells" bears no resemblance to the so-called "Muginba Paresu" hospital mentioned by Tomo as the place where he was treated for some respiratory illness before running a temperature of 40C and dying sometime during Oct 24-25, 1997 in "Room 4" on the top floor ("13th Floor") of the particular wing of the hospital where he had been admitted. But re-reading the account of Tomo's past life memories, you can see that he said he was hospitalized in "Muginba Paresu" which may or may not be the name of the hospital. I suspect "Paresu" was Tomo's way of pronouncing "Parish", an older term still used as a shorthand for the more modern Civil Council area (Civil Parishes were all converted to council areas in 1930). But I'm getting ahead of the story.

I did some googling of Ninewells Hospital (Ninewells Hospital at Dundee maps). The floor plans are available on-line at the NHS Tayside website. So I looked at them too. According to the floor plans for "Main Ward & East Block" (labeled as such when you scroll down), you discover that the top floor is called Level 7 (presumably 7th floor) where Wards 1-6 are located. Ward 4 ("Room 4" by Tomo's account, the room he was admitted to and died in) is on Level 7 --the top floor -- of the Main Block wing. According to the Main & East Block floor plans, the hospital's pulmonary labs and therapeutic departments are located on Levels 4 and 5, Ward 42, not far from Ward 4 of Level 7. These include the hospital's Bronchoscopy [lung and respiratory function] lab on Level 5 and the Pulmonary Function X-ray Department on Level 4 just below it. Here's where it gets weird:

If you look at an overview of the whole hospital -- and it is a massive, sprawling hospital complex spread out over many many city blocks on a hill on the western edge of the city -- you'll notice a tall, circular tower, with 3 smaller and shorter circular towers attached or imbedded into the main tower. This tower is in the center of the hospital complex and looks to be about 13 stories tall, judging by the height of East Block (which tops out at 7 floors). This tower has no windows, but does have what look like observation decks on the top of the main tower, and lounge areas on the tops of the 3 smaller, embedded circular towers. The towers are not labeled as to their purpose, but the views looking eastward toward city center and southwards towards River Tay must be nice on a clear day or night. You can take a virtual tour of the outside of the hospital by googling Ninewells Hospital at Dundee maps.

So how far is Ninewells Hospital, Dundee from Edinburgh, you may be wondering. Tomo said when his British family drove him there over the highway it was 115 km from his house. According to google maps, Dundee is 103 km from Edinburgh driving north and northeastwards on the M90/ A90 highways via Perth. If Tomo lived in an eastern suburb of Edinburgh, then the distance between his house and the hospital would most likely be closer to the 115 km figure Tomo gave. Ninewells Hospital is actually in Ninewells, a western suburb of Dundee. The political gerrymandering around the city of Dundee and the surrounding "parishes" in the 1970s and 1990s were complex and didn't get sorted out until 1996, a year before British Tomo supposedly died in 1997. People living in the Edinburgh area might not have been aware of the redistricting around Dundee -- itself, its own separate council area -- and so may have assumed Ninewells was still part of the "Parish" surrounding the city of Dundee, namely Angus Parish (Scots Gaelic: Aongas). I have no idea how a 5-year-old Japanese boy could garble "Angus" and come up with"Muginba", but one might start by inverting / transposing the n and g, which is an easy mistake to make. I also don't know how he would have come up with the initial "M" in "Muginba" (from the M90 highway? Or the "-ba" at the end of Mugin- (regressively assimilating the "P" in Parish to "Aongu"?), I don't know. Are we dealing with Scots Gaelic here?) But he did so, or at least that's how his non-English speaking mother transcribed the name into Japanese characters. So, in short, I think maybe Tomo was trying to say he was hospitalized in "Angus Parish", 115 km from his house in "Edinbia" (Edinburgh), which is close, anyway.

Bonfire Night. Dundee, the fourth largest city in Scotland, does indeed celebrate Bonfire Night (usually November 5th) with massive fireworks over Baxter Park just up from the wharf area in city center -- about 2.5 miles due east of Ninewells Hospital. From the circular observation deck on top of the 13 story circular tower in the center of the hospital complex, one would get a nice view of the fireworks on a clear night.

Still unknown is the exact date "Garry" passed away in Dundee sometime in 1997 at age 9. This should be available on the death certificate which will take some time to get. But at least we know it is available.

Your are AMAZING! Extrem good research! We can't rely on every little detail that is given by Tomo or his parents because all these things were mostly "just" written down in a little book that his mother carried around and you're totally right about the phonetic aspects. Scottish is an heavy dialect language and even the English aren't able to understand every little word I guess. When I remember talking to young Japanese in English, there were always misunderstandings because their way to pronounce L, R and O is so different.
I might read your last posting once again and refer to some points later because it's just so much you found out....

All the best
SF

I'm looking at a google image labeled UODT_location_image_2.jpg. (The UODT presumably stands for University of Dundee Teaching [Hospital], which is co-located at the NHS Tayside Ninewells Hospital and Medical School in Dundee, Scotland). If you google search Ninewells Hospital at Dundee and search through the google images you will come across it. The bottom half of the photo shows the lush green hillside on which the Ninewells hospital/ Medical school is built. The upper half of the photo shows a portion of the hospital/ medical school including the window-less circular tower prominently rising several stories above the entire complex. On expanding the photo one can count the number of stories/ floors that the tower rises above a 7-level wing of that portion of the hospital. I count 6 stories (5 visible + the top of 1 that is mostly obscured by the 7-level building block in front of it). So, doing the math, 7 + 6 = 13 stories. This tower must rise 13 stories above its foundation, and 6 stories above the adjacent 7-story/ level wings It is too large for a utility tower, but does have some sort of transmitting/ receiving antena(e) affixed to the top of the main tower. Tomo mentioned that he was treated at and died in a 13-story / floor hospital 115 km from his home in Edinburgh. Ninewells Hospital is 103 km from Edinburgh on the M90/ A90 highway via Perth. The top of the tower appears to be an open-air observation deck. There are 3 smaller and shorter towers imbedded into the architecture of the main and taller circular tower on one face, and a similar fourth on the opposite face. The tops of the smaller towers appear to be open-air lounge areas. It would be interesting to find out what this tower is used for.

Tomo's two documented statements with regard to the height of the hospital or wing in which he was admitted, seem to conflict:

“When room 4 on the 13th floor became available, four of us, father, mother, (elder) brother, and me went there by car. It was 115 km from my house to the hospital.”

“I was hospitalized and stayed on the seventh floor of a 13-story hospital. I felt so sick and died.”

In the first statement he says he was admitted to the 13th floor. In the second statement he says he was hospitalized on the 7th floor.

Could Tomo have confused Ninewell Hospital's 13-story circular tower with the 7-story wing top floor Ward 4, where he was admitted and later died?

It looks like there is a discrepancy between Tomo's claim that his prior incarnation, "British Tomo", was born in 1988, and the birth year of our lead candidate, Candidate 6, "Garry". I went searching again through the scotlandspeople.gov.uk website for "Garry's" birth information. For one thing, RD, does not stand for "Registered Death". It more likely stands for "Registration Document", "Reference Document", or "Refering/ registering District" ie, the source of a particular document (birth, death, marriage, divorce). scotlandspeople lists Garry's birth year as 1987. The associated birth document was registered or referenced in Dundee, meaning he was born in Dundee, Scotland. This is not hugely problematic, since British Tomo could have been born outside the Edinburgh area, then moved and grown up there. But the 1987 birth year is a discrepancy. No one said this was going to be easy. Welcome to the wonderful world of research.

Sorry! Couldn't find a bigger thumb

On the analogy of Tomo's pronunciation of Edinburgh ("Edinbia") could Tomo's "Muginba" be interpreted as "Mugin"-burgh or "Mugin" Burgh? Angus Burgh would be an archaic way of referring to Dundee, which was part of the Angus Civil Parish up until 1928, when it became its own civil council area. I still don't know how you get Angus from "Mugin", but I do know that -ng- and -g- are in free variation in Japanese, and in the Kansai dialect (which is where Tomo is from), " -ng-" is more often than not pronounced "-g-", which would mean Tomo's "Mugin" may refer back to an original "Mung-" -- closer to Angus, but not quite there yet.

I went back to scotlandspeople.gov.uk to try to fish out some more candidates for British Tomo. This time I set the criteria more strictly given that Tomo stated he was born August 9, 1988 and died Oct 24/25, 1997. This means he was age 9 at time of death, and born in 1988. There are only 2 boys in Scotland who fit that criteria in scotlandspeople.gov.uk's data base:

Candidate 8, "Kristofer" born in Scotland 1988 and died in Rosskeen, Scotland, 1997, at age 9; and
Candidate 9 "Michael" born in Scotland in 1988 and died in Dundee, Scotland, 1997, at age 9.

Rosskeen is nearly 300 km from Edinburgh which makes Candidate 8 less desirable than Candidate 9 (Tomo claimed he died in a hospital 115 km from his home in Edinburgh area), although I do like Kristofer as an approximation of Tomo's "Geiris". "Michael" of course looks nothing like "Geiris".

I went through both forenames that begin with the letters A-Z, and surnames that begin with the letters A-Z, letter by letter, using the strict criteria. There just aren't any good candidates.

They also shoot off Bonfire Night fireworks in Lochee Park, Dundee -- about a mile east of Ninewells Hospital (check out youtube for Bonfire Night fireworks Lochee Park Dundee for dozens of youtube video clips). Fireworks from Lochee Park would easily be visible from any of the top floors (or rooftops) of Ninewells Hospital a la Tomo's reported statement.

Excellent researching, am very impressed. It gets more and more interesting and yes the Dundee hospital is a good candidate.

I think the discrepancies are most likely down to the mother mistranslating. I’ve had this problem when in my memories I’ve recalled Vietnamese (a language I do not speak or know, and to which past me did not know perfectly either) then trying to write those words up. The ideal thing in this situation is to record the person speaking the language — I do this and it helps. These days translation tools like Google translate and online tools with native speakers help a great deal.

Scottish accents are notoriously hard to understand. So if this boy was emulating his past self it would be near impossible for the mother to translate to a language she herself did not know. Hence why I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on the garbled words.

The Carpenters song. My view here is that he probably heard his mother / parents listening to that song or singing it to him and that stuck with him. I’ve also experienced song recall from a previous life and the songs in question were related to a significant event in that life (hence burning into my subconscious).

Guy are you available for hire? Only half kidding here. I’m in dire need of help in my own research of a previous life.

Got the results back for Candidate 6. He is definitely not a match. It was interesting, however, what sort of information you can get from Scotland’s National Registry (General Register Office), all for just under 20 US dollars. The one-page copy of the registration document included:

The district the registration (in this case, death registration) was made; (RD stands for Registered in the District of, by the way); The full name as it appears on the registration; date of birth, date of death including time of death, age at time of death, place of death, cause of death; usual residence; occupation of each parent, district where the death was registered, and a number of other pieces of information that aren’t relevant to our current search.

A summary of the pertinent statements Tomo made regarding his British/Scottish previous personality’s life and death: he was born in August, more specifically, August 9, 1988; he died in October, more specifically, October 24/25, 1997; he was from the Edinburgh, Scotland area; he died in a hospital, more specifically, in a hospital 115 km from his home; he died of a high fever due to complications of a severe asthmatic attack or a post-operative infection relating to his severe asthma or other respiratory illness; he died in a hospital with "13-stories"; he died in “Room" 4 either on the "13th"(top) floor or on the 7 floor of a "13-story" hospital; his name was “Ge-ir-is” as written by his non-English speaking Japanese mother in Japanese script; one or both parents were involved with running a restaurant. There were several other pieces of information that can be reviewed later assuming we ever get a likely candidate.

Other than the year of death and possibly the name, the information associated with Candidate 6 failed on all accounts. The particulars of his death are not important, so we need to move on.

Just a note on the lay-out of Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. Some of you may have looked at the floor plans of the various hospital wings and noticed that only Levels 4-7 are drawn. Levels 1-3 are service levels, the first two of which are likely subterranean or partially subterranean: Level 1 “Supply” (lorries, vans), Level 2 “Treatment” (ambulances), Level 3 “Contact” (cars and buses). Also, the 13-story window-less circular tower that you see rising out of the center of the complex was described to me as a “lift block” containing 3 passenger lifts (elevators), which I interpret as service elevators transporting staff and equipment up and down the various levels of the hospital. The elevators (lifts) do go to the tower's roof-top, but is accessible by hospital employees only. I asked about floors or rooms in this tower but got back no response.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files...ll-list/1980-1989/babies-first-names-1988.pdf

Guy have you seen this?