Do you believe in reincarnation? Well, this incredible reincarnation case of Pollock twins would definitely make you believe.
Reincarnation is the concept that a soul could be reborn into a new life. This theory has always been debated for its origin, questioned its truth.
Reincarnation, or rebirth, or in Ancient Greek-inspired texts metempsychosis, is a philosophical concept that believes that life goes through a cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2021, 33% of Americans believe in rebirth.
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Ever have deja vu? You know, the feeling that what you’re currently doing is something that you already did before, only the memory of it only comes to you now, in the present.
Sometimes it can be unsettling, other times it’s just a mild curiosity but now imagine having deja vu not just about something you are currently doing, but about an entire life lived.
The Tragedy
Deja vu is a common occurrence that scientists still can’t explain, and one experienced by millions of Americans every year. Here I’m going to tell you the incredible true story of the Pollock sisters.
The Pollocks were your average family living in Hexham, England. They lived a quiet, ordinary life. John and Florence ran a milk delivery business, had 4 sons, and then welcomed 2 daughters.
They were happy and life was good. Until tragedy struck them in their small town on the morning of Sunday, May 5th, 1957. The family was busy getting ready for church when the doorbell rang.
It was the neighbor-boy, Anthony. He wanted to see if Joanna and Jacqueline wanted to walk with him up to the church.
And while they would usually travel to St. Mary’s as a family, John and Florence saw no reason not to let the three young children walk on ahead. After all, they’d be seeing each other in just a short while.
As the three children walked hand in hand towards the church, a car turned onto the road and as it neared the children, it veered into the opposite lane, jumped the curb, and hit them.
Onlookers were in pure shock. 11-year-old Joanna, 6-year-old Jacqueline, and 9-year-old Anthony Layden were pinned between the car and a brick wall.
Almost instantly, the two sisters were killed. Anthony died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital. He was supposed to be the altar boy at church that morning.
The driver was a local woman named Marjorie Winn, who never should have been behind the wheel. She was under the influence of a number of substances.
The Faith
The woman took what she believed to be lethal quantities of aspirin and phenobarbitone. In a twisted act of revenge, she had intentionally hit the three children after losing custody of her two daughters.
She’d also planned to take her own life that day but would be the only one to walk away from the accident. She was later committed to a psychiatric hospital.
The death of her husband five years earlier had been the start of a deep depression. Her life had been slowly spiraling out of control.
And when she lost custody of her teenage daughters, she snapped. Devastated doesn’t even describe the Pollock family. And how could it?
As Catholics, they had their faith to rely on, but one thing was certain – their girls had been taken far too soon. Or had they?
8 months later Florence discovered she was pregnant! The family was overjoyed. For the 1st time since the accident, they could finally feel some of their grief lifted.
The Reincarnation of Pollock Twins
Nearly a year and a half after losing Joanna and Jacqueline, Florence gave birth – to twins if you can believe it! And there was no history of twins in either John or Florence’s family.
Throughout her whole pregnancy, even Florence’s doctor had believed she was only carrying one child. And there was only ever one heartbeat heard.
But against all odds, Florence gave birth to identical twin girls on October 4, 1958. They were named Gillian and Jennifer. John and Florence noticed Jennifer had two birthmarks.
One was a mark on her left hip, identical to a birthmark that Jacqueline had. It was so distinct because John and Florence had always said it looked like a thumbprint and now Jennifer has one just like it and in the same spot.
The other was a mark on her forehead above her right eye that was so similar to a scar Jacqueline had in the very same spot.
Those weren’t the only coincidences. When the twins were only a few months old, the family moved east to Whitley Bay 30 miles away.
Past Life Memories
As the girls got older, it became clear that Gillian and Jennifer seemed to remember Hexham, and in detail, despite not really having grown up there.
Because they’d left when the twins were just a few months old, there was no way they could remember any of it. But they talked about it constantly as if they had grown up there.
When the girls were four, the family visited Hexham and amazingly the twins pointed out and even knew the names of landmarks they’d never seen before!
They even knew the school that Joanna and Jacqueline attended. And get this – they knew how to get to Joanna and Jacqueline’s favorite playground despite having never seen it.
They could even identify old friends and neighbors! When the girls were a bit older, Gillian recalled experiencing visions of herself playing in a sandbox at a home in Whickham.
And even though she’d never been there, she was able to describe the house and even the garden, perfectly. Which was where the family had lived prior to moving to Hexham.
Joanna was just a toddler. Florence and John even started to notice the twins had very similar personalities to their older sisters.
Before their deaths, Joanna, as the older one, was very protective of Jacqueline, likewise, Gillian, who was born 10 minutes earlier, was protective of Jennifer.
Proof of Reincarnation of Pollock Twins
The twins enjoyed the same games and food as their older sisters. Now, after losing Joanna and Jacqueline, Florence had packed up the girls’ toys and stored them away; she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of them.
So, you can imagine Florence’s shock when the twins started to ask for certain toys back – they even asked for them by name.
It was as if the twins remembered the toys as their own. When I got these two dolls out, one said “Oh that’s Mary and that’s Susan.”
And it was exactly the same name as my other daughters had named them. And as 4-year-olds, they didn’t even fight over any of the toys.
Gillian took Joana’s old toys while Jennifer picked out Jacqueline’s. They even knew which toys were gifts and which ones came from Santa Claus.
In John’s eyes, the evidence was beyond question – Joanna and Jacqueline had been returned to them. Florence, on the other hand, refused to believe and dispelled any notion of it.
A little bit of skepticism is healthy, right? And as a devout Catholic, she believed reincarnation wasn’t something that occurred, rather, we only have one life.
But even she began questioning things after hearing the twins talk about the accident. That sent chills down her spine.
The Ultimate Evidence
In the playroom one morning, when Florence overheard the girls talking. She said what she saw that day haunted her. They were recreating the accident.
Jennifer was lying on the floor, her arms and legs stretched out, Gillian was cradling Jennifer’s head saying “The blood is coming out of your eyes. That’s where the car hit you”.
What?! Could you repeat that? Gillian was cradling Jennifer’s head saying “The blood is coming out of your eyes. That’s where the car hit you”.
No! I can’t! Stranger yet, was the twin’s overwhelming fear of cars. They’d often have recurring nightmares about being hit. Was it remnants of their old lives as Joanna and Jacqueline?
And this went beyond the typical fear. One day the girls were out with John and Florence when a nearby car in an alleyway had started its engine.
The girls grabbed onto each other in pure terror. Shouting: “The car is coming to get us!” As the twins turned five, memories of their past lives slowly began fading away….
But not before it was brought to the attention of US-Canadian professor of Psychiatry Ian Stevenson. He studied the twins from 1964 to 1985.
At the time, he had already developed a reputation for his investigations into cases of reincarnation. Now, I know what you’re thinking, he sounds like an oddball but Dr. Stevenson was actually a well-respected figure in the psychiatric community.
Dr. Stevenson’s Research
Dr. Stevenson created a specialized department known as the Division of Perceptual Studies so that his research could be carried out, with scientific methods, to investigate phenomena that scientific assumptions and theories can’t explain.
He was studying things like paranormal experiences, telepathy, deathbed visions, poltergeists, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and children’s memories of previous lives.
This case illustrates not only the statements that these children make but the behavior, the unusual behavior, and the involvement with the other family.
And that’s the point that I will be emphasizing repeatedly during my remarks.
It’s part of a lesson for myself because when I first began studying these cases I thought they would consist only of statements that the child made, and all you had to do was verify those and make sure the child couldn’t have learned about the other person normally, but there is much more to the cases than that – as I subsequently discovered.
Dr. Stevenson noted a recurring feature with the Pollock twins that he’d seen in his research on reincarnation many times before – birthmarks or birth defects like those from the deceased person they are believed to have been reincarnated from.
He referenced those 2 birthmarks on Jennifer. Now, at that time, in post-war Britain, the idea of reincarnation was still a fairly uncommon concept, so for a Catholic couple to announce in 1962 that their daughters were living proof of reincarnation was a big deal.
Reincarnation of Pollock Twins or Coincidence?
Not only that, Florence constantly struggled to reconcile the evidence of her own eyes with the teachings of the Catholic church.
The possibility that the girls had been reincarnated brought her no comfort. John on the other hand was the complete opposite. It allowed him to reconcile the idea that he’d lost his daughters forever.
And even later on in life, he saw no point in visiting their graves, because in his eyes, he had his daughters back. By 1985, the Pollock Twins had stopped feeling a connection to any sense of a former life and Professor Stevenson’s studies came to an inconclusive end.
What do you think? Were Joanna and Jacqueline reincarnated back into their family? Or were Gillian and Jennifer absorbing their parents’ unimaginable grief?
I truly don’t know what to think! It’s possible they may have gotten information and details from their brothers but it certainly doesn’t explain everything.
If you’re open to possibilities, the evidences found in the reincarnation of Pollock twins would definitely make you believe.
