Supervised by Ms.M
Affiliation: KARASU CHANNEL
Traditions studied: 12+ (Western astrology, Four Pillars of Destiny, Nine Star Ki, tarot, runes, palmistry & physiognomy, name numerology, numerology, feng shui, Vedic astrology / Zi Wei, Onmyodo, spiritual reading, and more)
Personal readings: by request via Contact,
currently booked years out
Read about Past Life
About this reading: Past-life readings take the idea of reincarnation as their theme. Reincarnation runs deep in Buddhist and Hindu thought, but enjoying a past life as a lighthearted diagnosis is a more modern development within spiritual culture.
From your birth date, this page picks one of 12 "stories" — an ancient shrine maiden, a warring-states shinobi, and so on — using this site's own assignment. It doesn't read your current traits or what draws you, and your birth time and gender aren't used. It makes no claim that past lives are real; it's a piece of storytelling to enjoy.
Lore column: The Edo-Period Boy Who Spoke of a Past Life: Katsugorō
A short read on the legends and strange tales around this reading, with this site's own view.
Japan's best-known record of a "past-life memory" comes from Musashi Province in the Edo period. In 1822 an eight-year-old boy named Katsugorō, from Nakano village (now part of Hachiōji), is said to have begun telling his family that he had once been a boy called Tōzō from Hodokubo village (now part of Hino), and that he had died of smallpox at the age of six.
When his grandmother took him to Hodokubo, the boy is said to have found Tōzō's house without being guided and even pointed out how the house had changed since his time. The story caused a stir: the scholar Hirata Atsutane interviewed Katsugorō himself and wrote it down, the literary daimyo Ikeda Kanzan also recorded it, and in the Meiji era Lafcadio Hearn introduced it to readers abroad. It is considered unusual because the people, places and dates are all clearly identified, and the city of Hino still studies it today.
As we see it here, what is truly strange about this story is not whether he was really reborn, but that the adults took his words seriously and that two families were joined by them. This is our own conjecture, but in an age when losing a young child to illness was common, a story that one's child was still alive somewhere may have been the greatest comfort to those left behind. Beneath the wish to know a past life, too, may lie a longing to connect once more with what we have lost.
Add this to your favorites to find it again anytime from your My Page.