The Problem of Pre-Natal Mentation

A paper on pre-natal mentation was published in this REVIEW some years ago, and therein Dr. J. Sadger (1) gave instances where a patient claimed he could actually recall snatches of his psychic life as a fetus, and even as a spermatozoon.

In a general way, in various folklores, the culture hero is shown to have been a sort of godling before he submitted to an incarnation to get into this world of mankind. He is shown to have been aware of the situation while still in the womb. Raven, as hero of the Tlingits in Alaska, refused to be born into a hole that was lined with soft furs such as the aristocrats allocated unto themselves, but issued into this world when he saw the hole lined with mere moss such as birds might line a nest with (2). Gotama Buddha, who sat entranced in his mother's womb, came to consciousness the instant he perceived that she had taken hold of the limb of a satin tree, and immediately then he effected his birth (3).

A Winnebago shaman said: “Even in my prenatal existence I never lost consciousness… I came from above and am holy. This is my second life on earth.” This Indian told how he was killed on the warpath in his former life (4). The Aztec deity Huitzibpochtli was conscious while yet unborn. The fetus was able to hear and comprehend the details of a plot against his life as planned by his older brothers and sisters. He was kept informed of the plot by his kindly uncle or mother's brother, speaking of course outside the abdominal wall. This thoughtful fetus provided himself with such weapons as spears, prior to birth, so that on emergence into this world he fell upon his mother's slanderers and slew them all (5).

A thoughtful man, a Sufi by religion I believe, tells me there has never been a day in his life whereof he does not retain a conscious memory. He said this when I told him of a mutual acquaintance who asserts that he surveyed or reviewed “ten thousand previous lives,” and had seen himself again and again in process of being born from hi