The over 50 years of intensive and extensive research conducted by Ian Stevenson and other researchers, such as Erlendur Haraldsson (University of Iceland), Antonia Mills (University of Northern British Columbia, Canada), Satwant Pasricha (National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences at Bangalore, India), Jürgen Keil (University of Tasmania, Australia), James G. Matlock (Parapsychology Foundation, the US), and Stevenson's successor Jim B. Tucker (University of Virginia), have collected more than 2,000 cases of children claiming to have past-life memories.1 The accumulated data has revealed recurrent features in the cases, which are listed in (1)-(9). For ease of reference, the following abbreviations are used below: PP = past-life personality2; S = present personality (the subject of the investigation).

Statements: S makes statements about PP.

Desire to Visit PP's Family: S shows a desire to visit PP's family members.

Desire to Visit Places Related to PP: S shows a desire to visit a place related to PP.

Behavior:

Emotions: S shows emotions toward persons related to PP appropriate for the memories S claims to have and behaves accordingly.

Traits: S shows phobias related to PP's death, philias related to PP, exhibits play that is related to PP's life. For instance, S has a memory of being a solider in the previous life, likes to play at being soldier, and has unusual skills like performing a dance he claimed to have danced in the past life, but has never learned in the present life, or being able to speak a language claimed to have spoken in the past life but not in the present life (xenoglossy).

Recognition: S recognizes persons, places, objects, etc., that PP was familiar with or comments on changes since their lifetime.

Acceptance: PP's family accepts S as PP reborn.

Prediction: PP predicts that they will be reborn in a particular family.

Announcing Dreams/Departing Dreams: PP appears in a friend or family member's dream to let them know that PP will be reborn (Announcing Dream); PP appears in a friend or family member's dream to inform them that PP will be reborn in a new family.

Birthmarks, Birth Defects, Diseases, Pigmentation of the Skin and Hair, Facial Appearance, Physique, Posture, and Gait: S has birthmarks, etc., related to PP.

The case data collected by researchers affiliated with the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia have been coded with more than 200 variables and entered into a database (henceforth, the Division of Perceptual Studies database, or the DOPS database) for various statistical analyses. The figures concerning the recurrent features (1)-(9) obtained by database search conducted in September 2019 are shown in Table 1.3

Of these nine features, the case of Takeharu, reported here, has the first five (= (1)-(5)), as described in detail below. These features were recorded in writing before the investigation began, which is important since there are not many cases in which written records were made before the cases started to be investigated: Matlock (2021) lists 31 such cases. Also, the past-life personality the child claimed to have been was apparently identified. The person in question appears to have no relationship with the S's family, another noteworthy feature since the majority of Japanese cases that are solved have family relationships11. Another noteworthy feature of the case is that the intermission period of 67 years (1945–2012) is relatively long; the mean and the median are, respectively, 45.8 months (3 years and 8 months) and 13 months (1 year and 1 month) for cases with reliable records in the DOPS database.