0:04

And

0:05

one story that always kind of captures my

0:07

imagination.

0:10

On the street's lost culture. And

0:13

you're listening to Kerning Kerning

0:15

cultures. I'm

0:18

Dana Belutz, and this is Kerning cultures.

0:21

It's

0:21

good that we did this today because Tuesday

0:23

was kind of crazy. Our story today

0:25

starts with Hibati. She's

0:28

a Lebanese American woman in her thirties

0:30

and grew up between Lebanon and New

0:32

Jersey. And I wanted to talk to her

0:34

because of something that happened to her when she

0:36

was young. It might sound unusual

0:39

to you, but we'll explain a little bit later.

0:42

For now, I'm just gonna let the tape

0:43

run. Here's his Okay.

0:45

It started off when

0:48

I was around four or five. Every

0:52

night when I'd go to sleep, I feel

0:54

like someone's having my hands

0:56

and saying and

1:00

that was my early memory of why do I keep

1:02

having the same reoccurring? Kerning,

1:04

and I keep hearing the same name. And

1:07

I talked to my mom. I tell my mom and she never

1:09

really said anything until I got

1:11

older. And, you know, my mom would

1:14

call me and she and I'd say no, my name

1:16

is Nada, and I was like three at the time or

1:18

four. And I'd say no, my name is Nada. It

1:20

wasn't just that Hibo was asking her mom to

1:22

call her Nada. There were other things too,

1:25

like she'd sit next to a window of their home

1:27

in Lebanon, pretending to make a sandwich

1:30

for somebody named

1:31

Amin. No one in her family

1:33

was named Amin.

1:34

And my mom say what are you doing, and I say I'm waiting

1:37

for Amin. And when her mom would ask

1:39

her who Amin was, she'd

1:40

say, He's my husband.

1:44

She was five. I expected

1:46

her to know who mean was. I'd wait

1:48

for him every day. One

1:51

day her mom had a guest over the house, a

1:53

woman from the village, and she overheard

1:56

one of their conversations

1:57

about this man named, I mean.

2:00

Mom's like, yeah, she keeps saying her name is Nada, and

2:02

her husband's name is I mean, and the

2:04

lady's like, oh, well, not so

2:06

long ago, years ago, there's a woman I know

2:08

from our village and her name was Nadia and her husband's

2:10

name was Amin and she passed

2:12

away. My mom Kerning

2:15

Her mom brushed off the idea and she said

2:17

she didn't want to entertain it. But

2:19

her friends must have gone back and told

2:21

other people in the village who told other

2:23

people. Because

2:24

shortly after that, they just showed up at the

2:26

house one day. They got a knock on the door,

2:29

unannounced. It

2:31

was a means family. My

2:38

mom said she opened the door. And as soon

2:40

as she opened the door, and I saw the woman standing

2:42

at the door. I ran to her, and I was three four,

2:45

so I don't usually run strangers like

2:47

that. I ran to her. I hugged her.

2:49

was very comfortable with her. And

2:54

they talked to me for a bit. I don't remember the details,

2:56

but they talked to me for a bit, and they asked my mom if it

2:58

was okay. So my mom agreed and

3:01

when I got to the house, you said as soon as

3:03

you got out the car, you ran around the

3:05

whole house and you remembered everything

3:08

and you'd go into every room and say,

3:10

you know, where's

3:13

where's the old lady that used to live here? Or

3:17

why isn't this table here

3:19

the way it used or wears my jewelry

3:21

that I used to put here and it

3:24

kind of confirmed everyone's like, yeah, this

3:26

is where her grandmother used to stay and this is

3:28

where she put her jewelry, and this is where and,

3:30

you know, as a four year old, you can't make that up.

3:32

That's not your imagination.

3:40

So

3:41

Kerning HIPAA story to a lot of people

3:43

might sound, I don't know, maybe

3:45

unusual is the wrong

3:46

word, but it's not

3:48

something you hear about every day.

3:50

This is producer Alex Atak who helped

3:52

me out on this story. But to you because

3:55

your premise a background to HIPAA. You're

3:57

both Druze, which is a minority religion

4:00

in Lebanon. And lots

4:02

of Druze people believe in reincarnation. So

4:05

hearing her story, it wasn't

4:07

necessarily something unusual.

4:09

It wasn't something you

4:10

that was completely out of the ordinary view.

4:12

Not at all. Not at all. Like,

4:14

growing up in Lebanon. I grew up in Lebanon,

4:16

and I'm from a very small mountainous village

4:19

as most

4:19

jurisdictions. It's very

4:22

common that you hear people talk about

4:24

their past life. And

4:30

there's a word for it, like, we know a child

4:32

is born, they say, not which

4:34

is like she she

4:37

remembers her past life. Even

4:44

kids will start speaking of their past life.

4:52

It's very common and sometimes

4:54

it creates a lot of angst in people

4:56

as well. Like I remember, I had one friend that

4:58

was so anxious and

5:01

frustrated about the fact that in her past life,

5:03

she was very wealthy woman.

5:05

And she would talk to me about how she can

5:07

remember, like, brace you know, gold

5:10

bracelets going down her hands and

5:12

her her arms and and

5:14

in her current life, she wasn't at

5:16

all. She was struggling

5:19

for money and I remember her often

5:21

talking about how that was frustrating and

5:24

I've had other friends remember on what

5:26

hill they died and how they died.

5:28

I mean, it's quite it can

5:31

be quite vivid.

5:33

I there was no fear. Yeah.

5:36

I was In fact, looking

5:38

forward so to speak for

5:40

a new

5:41

life. I was saying, well,

5:43

if I'm going to die, I hope that

5:45

I will be born

5:47

again at a good home

5:49

with a good mother that can take care of

5:51

me.

6:00

And I mean, how

6:03

have you felt about it growing up? I

6:05

never gave reenquination much thought growing

6:07

up. I would say my family probably

6:10

I mean, my parents do believe in it.

6:13

I I'm undecided. It's

6:15

you know, in but in in the Druze

6:17

faith, you you have to be

6:19

reincarnated into another Druze soul.

6:24

So your drusul gets re incontinated into

6:26

another drusul, and that's mainly

6:28

because you know, you can't convert into

6:30

the religion, so there's a limited number

6:33

of truth souls. The story goes

6:35

that there was period in time in history where

6:37

almost like the door was opened to

6:39

convert into being a bruise. And

6:42

then the door closed. And

6:49

so all the souls that became Jews,

6:52

like my soul, I guess, There's

6:55

there's a limited number of them, so you

6:57

get reincarnated into another Jews

7:00

person.

7:03

Yeah. So it's kind of like, it's

7:05

sort of like a way of the community

7:08

almost like replenishing itself in

7:11

a way?

7:11

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And

7:13

so is there an element of it to which it's

7:15

like, Jerusalem is already a minority.

7:18

It's already a very small

7:19

community. And so like an element of the belief

7:21

in reincarnation is this thing of like

7:24

sort of wanting to keep the community

7:26

alive Yeah. Yeah. A big

7:28

part of being Druze is keeping

7:31

the community alive and your responsibility of

7:33

keeping the community alive. But, you

7:35

know, again, because you can't convert into

7:37

the religion. You can only be born into it.

7:40

And that's why there are things

7:42

that, like, marrying outside the

7:44

religion is a really really big deal.

7:46

Because it's almost like you're

7:49

messing with the gene pool almost.

7:52

On the on the larger scale, you're contributing

7:54

to the collapse of your

7:55

faith. By marrying outside the religion.

7:58

Yeah. It sounds though

8:00

to me like it's something that also

8:03

be really likely

8:05

to all kinds of, like, really complicated and

8:08

for emotional situations. Right?

8:11

It just I mean, it sounds like there's

8:13

a million ways that reconnecting with

8:16

your past life family can be

8:18

just an impossible emotional

8:21

situation to have to deal with?

8:23

Absolutely. I think sometimes, and in

8:25

the case of heav a story. It's

8:27

not always so positive.

8:34

I was fifteen. I was a sophomore in

8:37

high school. And I

8:39

was visiting Lebanon with my father once summer,

8:41

and we were at his friend's house And

8:44

we're sitting on the balcony talking and

8:46

they start talking about reincarnation and

8:49

how many different people from their villages that

8:51

have been reincarnated and they're sharing other people

8:53

both stories. And so I told my dad, I'm like,

8:55

oh, was an Irene Cardenated? And he said, yeah.

8:58

And he told the guy, oh, you know who

9:00

was. And I'm like, oh, you know who the where the people live?

9:02

And he said, yeah. And I'm like, can we go visit?

9:06

And I really didn't think about the

9:08

whole process. I was

9:09

young. I didn't think about the long

9:11

term effects. I was just curious. And

9:13

I'm like, oh, this is really cool.

9:15

Let me go see them. So

9:17

the next day, they went. Hiba,

9:19

her dad, her aunts, and two of her cousins.

9:22

They all got in the car and drove to this home.

9:25

And when they knocked on the door, the

9:27

woman answered it. When

9:28

she saw my dad, she recognized him. So

9:30

she knew it was me. It was HIPAA's

9:33

past life sister. And I felt

9:35

very uncomfortable as soon as we got there.

9:41

She sees my dad and she

9:43

automatically starts crying and she looks

9:45

at me and she says HIPAA, HIPAA, and

9:48

I said yes and I didn't know who she was.

9:51

She started hugging me and kissing me and it made

9:53

me feel uncomfortable because I didn't

9:55

know this person, but she was treating me like,

9:57

you know, we were best friends. And

10:00

then they're like, called, and

10:04

I had no clue who Sada was at the time.

10:06

So I

10:07

said, who Sada and they said,

10:09

oh, that was your daughter. Nada,

10:11

Himba's past

10:12

life self, had daughter named

10:14

Sada, who was now roughly

10:17

Himba's age. A teenager, this door

10:19

opens, and this teenager walks out. She was

10:21

a red head, you

10:23

know, curly red hair freckles.

10:27

And she looked angry and she

10:29

walked straight to me. And

10:32

she looked at me with, like, an attitude and

10:34

she said, basically

10:38

or also you're supposed to be my mom. And

10:41

I was like, oh, no. No.

10:44

I'm not. You know, mentally, I was like, no. I'm definitely

10:46

not. And I kinda was that's when it

10:48

hit me. Like, what am I doing here? Why

10:50

did I come here? You know, my

10:52

curiosity is opening up a lot of

10:55

pain for these people, and I didn't

10:57

think that through. And

11:03

we went back out on the balcony and my dad at

11:05

the time was like, Himba, why don't you and Sada

11:07

go for a little walk? And

11:10

I go for a walk with her. I remember we were

11:12

on someone's roof and we were just walking

11:14

on the roof back and forth. And

11:18

she was a year older than me. But

11:21

she was speaking to me like I was her mother.

11:24

She wasn't speaking to me like I was HIPAA. She

11:26

was speaking to me like

11:28

I was Nada. And she

11:30

started automatically be like,

11:33

you don't know what they did to me after you

11:35

left and her

11:39

dad remarried and, you know, her stepmom,

11:41

I guess, wasn't the greatest to her. She treated

11:43

her badly compared to the other siblings.

11:45

And She

11:48

said stuff like, I had a

11:50

like I left sweater for you

11:52

and she even burned that and she wouldn't

11:54

let me keep any memories of you

11:57

And I realized, you know, this girl had

11:59

a really rough life in this village,

12:02

and I'm gonna go back

12:04

to New Jersey a week and go back to high school

12:06

and move on with my life and why

12:09

did I just do this and it really hurt

12:11

me because I could and

12:13

do anything. Like, what was I supposed to do? You

12:15

know, how was I supposed to do as a teammate?

12:17

Like, how was I supposed to protect her from

12:19

that or help her in any way? Or

12:28

When Sara was

12:31

talking to her, when, like, you

12:33

know, your family from the past life

12:35

would talk to you and interact with you.

12:37

Are you answering as HIPAA

12:39

or are you answering as Nada? I

12:42

think they always asked me expecting

12:45

it to come out as nothing, but it always came out

12:47

as hip hop. I

12:49

couldn't I I was

12:51

not Nada. I I didn't

12:53

feel that motherly instincts towards

12:55

her, so I always spoke as HIPAA.

12:59

And I think that caused more pain for

13:01

them.

13:03

They stayed at the house for about two hours,

13:06

But when they went home that evening, the whole

13:08

thing still bothered HIPAA. She

13:10

couldn't shake it. That she hadn't

13:12

felt any strong connection with Sada

13:14

or anyone else in the family. Nothing

13:16

about it felt familiar. She

13:19

didn't sleep very well that night. And then

13:21

a couple of days later, Nada's family

13:23

showed up at her house again. Asking

13:26

HIPAA if she would stay over at their

13:28

place. I don't I don't know. So

13:31

we ended up I ended up going because

13:33

I didn't want to say no Sara, I really felt

13:35

bad for her. And I

13:37

went up one I think it was like

13:39

a Friday and I spent I couldn't sleep and

13:42

I I sat with Sara and we talked

13:44

about her life and the life

13:46

she had and it was completely different

13:49

from mine, completely different.

13:51

And The next

13:53

morning was when it got really weird.

13:58

She we woke up that morning and she said,

14:01

Well, we're gonna go to my dad's house.

14:03

Oh, no. And I didn't know if I

14:05

wanted to be there

14:06

anymore, like, let alone meet

14:09

her

14:09

dad. So this is I mean.

14:11

I mean. Okay.

14:13

I mean, Heba's past life

14:15

husband,

14:16

the one she was making all those sandwiches for.

14:18

And we end

14:21

up going to her dad's house and

14:24

I'm not exaggerating. I think half the

14:26

village was

14:27

there. There were probably

14:29

you think it's a wedding. There was probably like a

14:31

hundred people on the balcony inside

14:34

the living room

14:36

And

14:36

I get there and mind you, I'm fifteen sixteen

14:38

and everyone is just staring at me.

14:44

Everyone would be sending him. Everyone wants

14:46

to say hi and greet and they wanna kiss

14:48

three kisses on the cheek and that

14:52

everyone just kept staring at me and they'd say

14:54

stuff like,

14:58

or or outside of another.

15:01

A quick translation here. They're saying things

15:04

like who's

15:04

prettier, HIPAA or Nada. Oh,

15:07

HIPAA is shorter than Nada. Or,

15:09

you know, like, this is very weird.

15:12

And then Aimmune came out and

15:15

he was just crying. It

15:17

was very weird because, you

15:20

know, he was a man in his sixties, and

15:22

he just couldn't stop crying. And

15:26

I didn't feel anything towards him at

15:28

all. At all, I think

15:30

I was if anything, I just really wanted to get

15:32

out of there. So I left

15:35

and I had someone I think it was her uncle

15:37

or someone take me back home.

15:47

Even if that whole situation in Lebanon had

15:49

made her feel uncomfortable and she didn't

15:51

believe that she truly was Nada in her past

15:53

life, Hiba still felt some sort

15:55

of connection with the family. Because

15:57

when she came back to New Jersey, Hiba kept

16:00

a photo of her past life daughter, Sada,

16:02

in her bedroom. Which is how her younger

16:04

sister, also named Sada, found

16:07

out about her. This is Sada,

16:09

Hiba's sister.

16:10

I only discovered this because he had a

16:12

picture on her dresser. And,

16:14

like, we we shared the same bedroom for,

16:17

like, you know, the first I don't know

16:19

how many years of my life. And

16:21

when I noticed

16:22

it, that's when she told me that it was a picture of

16:24

Sada. I

16:26

was kind of like just

16:29

going with the flow. I was like, this is her story.

16:33

I believe it. You know, there are so many people

16:35

in our hometown in Lebanon and in general in

16:37

Lebanon. You know, if you're talking to Jews people, everyone

16:39

has this story of a relative

16:41

or a friend or a friend of a friend who's

16:45

reincarnated. And so I

16:47

was like, okay. Well, my sister

16:49

is not quote unquote crazy. You know, she's not

16:51

the only person in the world who has who has had these

16:53

stories. You know, it's as

16:55

if she told me that she like, I don't know that

16:57

she has like a secret talent.

16:59

I was like, oh, okay. Cool.

17:02

I don't understand it, but I believe, you know,

17:05

Yeah. Sarah

17:07

is more skeptical about past life experiences

17:10

and reincarnation than her sister. She's

17:12

a journalist, and she says she likes to

17:14

put her beliefs into things that she can touch,

17:17

feel, and see. And that's

17:19

partly why I wanted to speak to them together.

17:21

As a Druze person myself who

17:23

hasn't fully decided how I feel about reincarnation,

17:26

I wanted to hear what shaped their very different

17:28

beliefs and how they landed where they

17:30

did. I would say for the first ten

17:32

years of my life, the Jews religion

17:35

almost meant nothing to me, not that

17:37

I didn't like it or I didn't respect

17:39

it. It was more like we knew that our parents

17:42

or religious, and they would talk about being dupes

17:44

all the time. But, you know, we lived in

17:46

New Jersey and there was

17:48

no one in my life at the time that was asking me

17:50

about, you know, my religion at all. It wasn't

17:52

a conversation that came up with my friends.

17:55

When she was sixteen, Sada's father passed

17:57

away. And for her, that was a big

17:59

turning point in her relationship with

18:01

and it was kind of like,

18:04

you know, kind of just reaffirming like,

18:06

okay, there's no point in praying, there's

18:08

no point in, you know, assuming there's higher

18:10

God or higher power that's gonna look out for you

18:12

because the world is

18:14

totally random and totally totally arbitrary.

18:17

And I don't think you know, there's any anything

18:19

wrong with other people

18:20

praying. It's just not the way I live and the way I

18:22

see the world. It was relationship with the

18:24

faith. It went the other way. While Sada

18:26

was frustrated, how secretive the faith

18:28

was, Himba was fascinated, and

18:31

she dug deeper. Every time I was in

18:33

Lebanon, I'd visit those shines

18:35

or them emit or whatever you want to call them and

18:37

I'd look for books written in English and

18:40

I'd find them like but

18:43

I found a couple. I found the Druze faith by

18:45

Samim Katem, and I found mysticism in

18:48

the Druze faith. And

18:50

Druze an astrology and these are

18:52

very deep deep

18:54

books. When researchers have

18:56

studied past life experiences amongst

18:58

the Jews communities in Lebanon, Here's

19:00

what they found. Some children who

19:02

claim to have past life experiences are

19:05

more prone to daydreaming or attention

19:07

Kerning. And some of the reports

19:09

found evidence of PTSD like symptoms,

19:12

which might go some way to explaining why

19:14

so many children who grew up during the Lebanese

19:17

civil war have stories of past

19:19

life memories. But

19:21

Hiba's story about meeting her past life family

19:23

was so vivid and so convincing

19:26

and so many of these stories are. So

19:31

I've seen it check out so

19:34

often that I I

19:36

want to give more credit than

19:39

than a sense of imagination.

19:42

Natalie Laiid is writing her PhD project

19:44

on reincarnation. And in her research,

19:47

she's found this hard to

19:48

explain. I mean, the child's capacity

19:50

for imagination is almost unparalleled.

19:53

And a lot of through his people who do remember

19:55

remember as children, and they're remembering

19:58

at a very young age. But we also

20:00

have this verifications patient process.

20:03

Right? So when some

20:05

certain families allow it, they will kind

20:07

of explore or verify these

20:09

children's stories. Sometimes

20:12

they they don't check out, and sometimes

20:14

they do. And sometimes there's kind of these

20:17

gaps in understanding where

20:19

this could be right, but not

20:21

everything is spot on

20:23

or it it it doesn't always

20:25

fit. But there's also

20:28

verified stories. So what do you

20:30

do with with that? And then

20:32

whether or not it's true? What

20:34

does the belief in that do? What is

20:36

the impact of that? So if

20:39

you truly believe it, or

20:42

if the family that you're associated with

20:44

truly believes that, what does that

20:46

mean? That that kind of shifts things

20:48

for them? And then it can be very life changing.

20:53

This is something that a lot of research on reincarnation,

20:56

induced communities, misses, whether

20:58

you believe it or

20:59

not, Natalie told us that it does

21:01

have a real role in keeping

21:03

the community tied together. Yeah. And

21:05

what I find most interesting about that

21:07

for the Jerusalem is we're very small

21:10

estimated to be about one million

21:12

of us in the entire world. What

21:14

reincarnation does for us in the

21:17

sense of interconnectivity. So

21:19

there are people that I've spoken to who

21:21

will visit their Pascale families and

21:23

then begin visiting their Pascale families

21:26

over and over and over again and they

21:28

become part of their family in this

21:30

present life. So it's a way that we

21:32

remain connected to one another across

21:34

time and space to bite our limited

21:37

numbers. So, yeah, when when I'm

21:39

hearing kind of testimonies and

21:41

stories, the

21:43

idea of whether it's true or not has

21:46

never really mattered to me

21:48

because what matters to me is that the implications

21:50

or the belief of this for this

21:53

person for this family and for

21:55

this community.

21:57

There seems to be sort of like quite common

21:59

instances where people with

22:01

past life stories when they talk

22:03

about them or when they meet their past life families,

22:06

it can be very dramatic. And

22:08

I wondered how, like, drews

22:11

that you've interviewed or or or

22:13

yourself personally, like, how you sort of reflect

22:15

on or how you square this thing that's

22:17

like a deeply held belief, but also something

22:19

that can be very traumatic and

22:21

like emotionally difficult.

22:24

How how are those two things like squared

22:26

in your experience? It's

22:29

hard because there's so much pain and

22:31

sadness and trauma and these stories.

22:33

But at the same time, there is an immense

22:35

hope. There's and I think that hope

22:38

comes from the idea

22:40

that when we die, we do not die.

22:42

So it can be really hard

22:44

to go through these memories.

22:47

But for many people to remember

22:49

your past life despite its pain and

22:51

trauma, is it it seems

22:53

to be exciting and happy

22:56

and full of possibility. And

22:58

and again, that chance for connection

23:00

to another place in space and family.

23:03

So there's a bit of

23:05

a seesaw here, but it kind of

23:07

seems to balance itself

23:09

out.

23:12

Now, as an adult, HIPAA does believe in

23:14

reincarnation, even if she doesn't think she

23:16

was part of that particular family in Lebanon.

23:19

Her past life family. She's since

23:21

been through past life regression therapy, which

23:23

is a kind of therapy where patients undergo

23:25

hypnosis to try and remember past

23:27

lives. Practitioners say

23:29

it can help resolve trauma. And recently,

23:32

she had become a past life regression therapist

23:34

herself. After

23:36

doing past life regression, after

23:38

getting there, and When

23:43

I started getting into past life progression,

23:45

it wasn't until I started accessing other

23:48

past lives of mine. That

23:50

I noticed, the deep connection and

23:53

and the relationships that left

23:55

strong imprints that I was able

23:57

to say, you know, no, I really didn't feel much

24:00

towards my mother in that past life

24:02

because she didn't leave an printed to me.

24:05

I think maybe we didn't have that great of a relationship.

24:07

And but

24:10

I've I've experienced through

24:12

regression other past lives that were

24:14

connected to this one this one in

24:16

particular and it just made more sense and

24:18

it gave me more understanding and it

24:20

created more healing and those

24:22

are the past lives to me that I

24:26

just feel are more beneficial

24:29

for my growth or

24:30

from, like, me evolving at the current

24:32

moment?

24:34

Instead of, have you have you done

24:36

past life regression? You

24:40

know, I haven't. I

24:42

just know from her experience with some of her clients

24:44

that if they go into it and

24:46

they're not really there and they're not present

24:49

and they're not willing to go under and just follow

24:51

her her kind of questions

24:53

and and just sort of have faith in the process, not

24:55

gonna work. And frankly, I don't

24:57

think that it would work on me because I

24:59

just don't believe in it. You know, I don't think that it's

25:01

possible for me to access past life. I'm

25:04

also just sort of I

25:06

don't know. I'm also I just don't have the curiosity,

25:09

to be honest. You know, I'm more interested in learning

25:11

about this world. I feel like I don't know enough about

25:13

the world that I live in. The reason why

25:15

I think atheism is beautiful is because it

25:18

reminds people that, like, we're

25:20

literally all just human beings and

25:22

we're all gonna be alive for, you know,

25:24

a few years and we're gonna die and that's it.

25:27

Like, it to be very, very crude and and simplistic,

25:29

you know, but but yeah, who knows? Maybe

25:31

I'll change my mind in a few months

25:33

or in a few years. I don't

25:34

know. And I know him was right here. So if

25:37

I want to do it, she'll happily do it for

25:39

me. At

25:41

first, Sada was unsure about her sister's

25:43

new profession. But for a while they

25:45

moved in together in New York. And

25:47

she started to see him as fascination of

25:49

past lives for what it

25:51

is, the desire to understand the world,

25:53

and her place in it. We can all relate

25:55

to that. I don't know if this sounds weird to

25:57

say this. I was, like, proud of her. In

26:01

a weird way, like, mostly be because,

26:04

you know, I don't think I believe in it. don't think

26:06

I ever will believe in it. But she discovered

26:08

this. She's passionate about it. She's interested in

26:10

it. She could talk about it for days. She found

26:12

people that relate to her, you know,

26:15

and obviously she found a way to make

26:17

more sense of her experience with her incarnation.

26:20

So I actually was really

26:22

happy that she sort of found her individualistic

26:25

beliefs on her own and

26:28

just gained happiness out of it, you know.

26:31

But she was truly, like, wanting to learn more

26:33

about the religion the religion because she was curious.

26:35

And if I wanna get really clishay

26:37

and philosophical. Like, that's that's

26:40

why I went into journalism, you know, because because

26:42

I'm really curious about a lot

26:44

of things and I just want to know more and I wanna answer

26:46

and logic is like the one thing that I

26:48

believe in, you know. So

26:51

for her, she was just trying to make sense of her

26:53

world because she appreciated

26:55

the religion whereas I was always the kind of person

26:57

that was like, okay, maybe I'll read little bit about

26:59

it just so I know about my own

27:01

history, but I'm I'm not

27:03

really like you know ever going to have a

27:05

deep connection to it.

27:15

So this is where the story

27:17

was gonna end, and then something

27:19

happened. Yeah. True.

27:22

Okay. So the story, it's

27:26

unlike me to feel to have these

27:28

kinds of moments, but you know, the

27:30

facts or the facts. So I interviewed Hiba

27:32

and her

27:33

sister. We talked for many hours

27:35

about, like, re incarnation, about

27:37

being a young Druze woman and

27:40

one of my questions was

27:43

if I wanted to learn more about reincarnation,

27:47

where can I get more information? And

27:50

then Pippa said, I recommend

27:52

many lives, many masters by Brian

27:54

Weiss to

27:55

anyone. You know, you should view this book called

27:57

many lives, many masters. So

28:00

I was like, okay, that sounds interesting. I'll look

28:03

it up. And then

28:05

I think it was the next day or

28:07

like a couple of days later, I'm

28:11

going on my usual run-in in

28:14

my neighborhood. And in my

28:16

neighborhood, there are these things called, like,

28:18

you know, public libraries. Mhmm.

28:20

But they're, like, not like an actual public

28:22

library, but they they look like these bird houses.

28:25

And there's like books in them and then you take

28:27

one and you put one and it's like a nice community

28:30

neighborhood y thing. And I'm

28:33

doing major run and I shift my eyes to the

28:36

birdhouse library thing and

28:38

I see a book in there, a single book.

28:41

And it's many lives, many masters. And

28:45

I got goosebumps all

28:47

over my body and the first person that I

28:50

message with you, Alex. Alex,

28:53

sorry. That was an incomplete message. Okay.

28:55

So you know how I did the re incarnation. Interview

28:59

with and -- I've got -- add

29:01

to this, but I took it and then

29:04

inside of it with his

29:05

notes. I'm gonna send it to you now.

29:07

There was a note inside. It

29:09

says, to you who finds this.

29:12

I'm still not sure if I believe

29:15

in past lives but I will

29:17

say that it was a very underlined,

29:19

very interesting read. And I

29:21

believe everything that they experienced enjoy,

29:24

and keep exploring. Alex,

29:27

is there a god? And are they trying

29:29

to talk to me? I

29:32

honestly think in my scale

29:34

of like spirituality and

29:37

it's like belief in things

29:40

that I can't really explain, I

29:42

was definitely deep in the scientific

29:45

spectrum and I am a very

29:47

still a very secular person and

29:49

religion doesn't really play a role in my

29:52

life. But I

29:54

would say that after this, you

29:56

know, finding that book and even

29:58

reading it honestly, guess I've

30:00

like shifted a little bit

30:03

to be like maybe ten

30:05

or twenty percent more open to

30:07

the magic of the world's

30:35

This episode was produced by Meade, Inobaldives,

30:37

and Alex Aatak, fact checking by

30:39

tomorrow Jaboukie with sound design and

30:41

mixing by Paul Aloof. Our team

30:43

also includes Nadine Saket

30:45

and Zena Dubuidej. A

30:47

special thanks to Himansararide and

30:50

Nathalie Layed for speaking to us on this episode.

30:52

You can read Sada's essay about reincarnation

30:55

in The New York Times. The article is

30:57

called My Sister remembers her past

30:59

life. Somehow, I believe her.

31:01

Thanks for Kerning, and we'll see you next

31:03

week.