::::::BİLYAY

REINCARNATION CASE STUDIES: ALI MASAT AND YADIGAR MASAT
Two Turkish Siblings Remembering Their Past Lives

While we were conducting our research on reincarnation amongst the people claiming to
remember their previous lives in Adana (one of the big cities in the south of Turkey), we
encountered similar problems to the ones Dr. Ian Stevenson and his Turkish
assistant Reşat Bayer faced during their reincarnation research around the
same area years ago. We also interviewed some common subjects, amongst them
Hayri Boğa, who had been interviewed by Dr. Stevenson when he was just 6 or
7 years of age. Now he is almost 30 and has an M.D. in architecture. During
our visit he showed us his photograph with Dr. Stevenson, taken by Reşat Bayer.
In the following report, we would like to inform you about the son and daughter
of the Masat family from Adana. We interviewed them with their father, Mr.
Masat, in September 1989. Ali Masat, the son, was a primary school student
then. He was one of the top pupils in his class, and purported to be an active
and quick learner. Throughout our interview, however, he was quite reluctant
and shy, and perhaps a large measure of this shyness can be attributed to
the fact that we were allowed to meet him at one of the teashops in the Adana
neighbourhood where their house was located. This was far from an ideal venue,
for the people coming into the teashop were very inquisitive about the nature
of our research, so much so that our progress was very slow. Under these circumstances,
we had to encourage our subject a good deal, to share with us his recollections
of his previous life, which he claimed to have spent in the same city.
Ali remembers the very last moment of his previous life, which ended with
a bullet going through the upper part of his left cheek. He claims that he
had two sons and a wealthy family living in Ankara, the country's capital.
Hoping to help his son remember more easily, Mr. Masat added that Ali's children's
names were Cengiz and Kemal, and that although they lived in Ankara, they
used to go to Istanbul (the famous city in north-western Turkey) quite often.
Mr. Masat also informed us that Ali, as a young child of 2-5 years, used to
dislike his present house and family and was eager to go to his previous family.
''From time to time, we used to see him collecting and packing his personal
things and getting ready to leave his current house for the previous one.''
Mr. Masat continued, ''More often, we used to see Ali get up early in the
mornings and look quite thoughtful due to his desire to meet his previous
family and his insistence that this was not his real family.'' We waited for
Ali to calm down a little, and then asked as to why he was shot to death.
Ali's answer was, ''Because I was very wealthy.''

Ali's birthmark on the upper part of his left cheek is easily visible. It
always stays wet with a tear-like liquid, so much so that he has to occasionally
wipe it with his handkerchief.

Also, when Ali started to talk in his present life, he could surprisingly
pronounce with great ease some words that he had not heard before (from his
parents or anybody else). Mr. Masat gave us an example: ''Although nobody
had taught him the word 'leylek' (stork), he used to call it 'leylek' instead
of generally saying, ''Look, there's a bird flying . . .' and so on. There
were lots of words that I cannot remember now, but he was able to pronounce
them correctly. He has got a very good memory. He's very good at his lessons.
He learns everything easily. However, I know that he is very tired of this crowd
watching us so attentively right now, and that is the reason why he is so
shy and reluctant to talk.''

Yadigar Masat, our second subject, is the elder sister of Ali Masat. We left
the minor details about Ali for our future research, and went with Mr. Masat
to his house to interview Yadigar. (Here, we also got a chance to meet Mrs.
Masat, who contributed to our research about her children's memories of their
past-lives.)

After a few minutes of preliminary talk, Yadigar told us, ''I was born in
1974. In my previous life, I lived in Cyprus. On the island, when our village
was invaded by the foreigners, I fought against the enemy so as to defend
our village. I was shot in my back. My two children¸ Can and Cengiz, were
at home at this time. After I was born to this life, I used to call out my
sons' names often, and from time to time start packing for a trip to my home
in Cyprus. Of course, my current parents were very perplexed and bewildered
by my references to my previous life.''

To help her remember other details about her past-life, we asked her if she
remembered her husband. Though she didn't remember him, she thought her home
had been around Lefkoşe. Her past life memories had been more vivid during
her early years.

At this point in our conversation, Yadigar's father jumped in and said, ''During
her early years, she used to disappear for hours. We would then go out and
look for her in different parts of this area, and eventually find her walking
around far away, looking for her old family or house with her children in
it. These houses, however, did not look like her house in Cyprus at all.''
Upon noticing our incredulous looks, the father continued to give more details
about his daughter. ''From time to time, we used to see her walking up to
groups of children playing here and there, and stroking one of the kids while
claiming that he/she looked like her sons. She would even sometimes cry, ''Hey,
look! This boy looks just like my son . . ..'' This used to happen quite often
when she was in primary school. It had become normal for her to get lost in
the city while looking for the members of her previous family, and for us
to look for her throughout the city.''

Yadigar's parents also told us another interesting thing. Especially during
her early years, Yadigar used to dislike the Arabic language (which is spoken
by the Masat family), and preferred to talk in Turkish, which was her mother
tongue in her previous life. We too noticed that her Turkish was much clearer
than the Turkish spoken by her current parents and her brother Ali

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