Guest Article Number 1
An Article by Malcolm Robinson
Strange Phenomena Investigations (November 2004)

Cellular Memory

The transfer of characteristics and behaviours from the donor to the recipient via the cells of the transplanted organ

I watched a really interesting programme on Discovery UK Health recently, (November 2004) one of those satellite programmes that one flicks through when trying to look for something else. The programme was entitled, 'Transplanting Memories'. I'll tell you what, this was a cracker of a programme. It was all about people who have transplants, be it a heart, liver, or something else. Then after a short period of time, those people suddenly crave for something, be it a blackberry pie, bitter almonds or indeed want to take up a sport like baseball or basketball. All these things that they have never been interested in before! Now I've heard of this phenomenon before but never actually sat down and watched what turned out to be a cracker of a programme. The programme featured a number of top medical authorities, and people who have experienced the phenomenon known as 'cellular memory'.

So, dear reader, can memory 'survive' in people's bodily organs, and, when transplanted into someone 'new', somehow give those memories over to the 'new' recipient. ? It's a fascinating concept and something to this writer that gives rise to many an inquisitive thought. One woman on this TV show who received an organ transplant had a strange dream in which appeared a young man who spoke to her and related certain things which later checked, proved to be true ! Not only that, the final words spoken by this young man in her dream, were the actual words etched on his tombstone, something that she could never have known until she finally traced the donor's family who confirmed all that she said. Another lady, who had had a transplant, suddenly had a passion for karate, something that was certainly not in her agenda before. Don't get me wrong, people can go through life not being interested in karate and then for one reason or another, they may wish to take it up, whether they have had a transplant or not.

I've always held the belief that 'some' alleged past life regression where people claim (for instance) to be a 17th century sea-farer under hypnosis, may not necessarily be what they think is them as that sea farer in a past life, it could just be a 'genetic memory' of one of their ancestors, a memory of a great great grandfather for instance. Some genetic disorders can be passed from generation to generation, so the concept of 'cellular memory' may not be that strange. DNA is basically the human tree of life and every human being stores the ancestral DNA history within them of their father and forefathers.

Those UFO abductions that surface under hypnosis may not necessarily be real either, they could be the result of what's known as cryptomnesia, where the mind has forced a memory back to the deepest recesses of the mind, be it from something that was read in a book, magazine, or seen on a television programme. A good 'For Instance' was the case during the 1960s where a Finnish psychiatrist Reima Kampman, related the story where several schoolgirls seemed to recall past-life experiences, but under hypnosis it was ascertained that they had remembered reading of the incidences in books as children. Cryptomnesia is the retention of unconscious memory of information learned through normal channels. Information that was previously learned and is consciously forgotten may be indefinitely stored within the subconscious. If it were not for cryptomnesia the human mind would always be cluttered or overloaded with basic random information.

The conscious mind doesn't always recall all daily information and the individual will swear that 'in no way' is their claimed UFO abduction or encounter, something that they have read in a book. They'll tell you it's real. However, as I say, the 'subconscious' mind stores all and they may have forgotten that that UFO book they forgot reading 15 years ago, comes into play under hypnosis as a scenario story that they believe happened to them. So when under a good hypnotherapist who may be looking for answers, the subconscious memory starts working like some state of the art computer processor, a Google Search Engine, if you like, where it will try and find the answer, or as in our Google 'mind' search analogy, come up with some matches which at least come close to, or relate to the issue in hand. The human brain is a fascinating organ. Some say we know so little about it and that we basically only ever use around 10% of it at any time. I believe that psychics and Eastern mystics/Yogis, can somehow tap into or open up, the store room of the mind where they somehow have a magic key to enter rooms and corridors of the mind that are kept locked to most of us.

Certain people view the subject of 'cellular memory' in different ways depending I guess to the way that they themselves 'view life'. Take for instance the spiritual medium James Van Praagh whose regular appearances on U.S. television draw large audiences. He speculates that cellular memory is down to the presence of the donor's spirit that has not yet moved on to it's next home, more so in those cases where the donated heart is coming from a young person. He maintains that the young person's spirit may feel that it has not properly conducted lived out it's proper time on Earth, and as such, will linger in the physical donated organ in a new host body. Mmmm. Not so sure if I go along with that.

Noted psychiatrist and philosopher William James once nobly stated, and I quote;

"If you wish to disprove the laws that all crows are black, it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white".

So are these reported instances of cellular memory 'medical white crows'?

The more I thought about writing this article on the subject of cellular memory the more I wanted to learn as much as I could about it. Marlene my partner kindly found me numerous well-written medical articles on the Internet to do with this subject. I e-mailed University of Arizona scientist Gary Schwartz (who appeared on this TV show) and Gary personally submitted to me his paper on the subject co written by Paul Person PhD and Linda G.S. Russek PhD Now I don't actually refer to this paper here in this article as I had researched and looked at other papers prior to receiving Gary's but it's fair to say that much of what Gary Schwartz relates in his paper my partner had already found. Not that I am taking anything away from Gary's paper, quite the reverse in fact. Gary's paper is enormously educational and full of other cellular memory case studies. My research society, Strange Phenomena Investigations, (SPI) aim to place this paper on our web site and readers can view it at www.spiuk.net  Anyway, I'm going to go into reference mode here and refer to some of these medical articles that Marlene found on the internet. In this way it gives you the reader the opportunity to grasp the severity and scope of cellular memory. But moreover, it makes for interesting reading.

Physical therapist assistant Leslie A. Takeuchi, BA, PTA from Orinda California related in her report about her studies with people with chronic pain and the relationship of mind, matter, body and emotions. She studied the possibility of 'emotions' or 'memories' somehow being stored in the very tissue of human beings and she states, "Is it possible that our memories reside deep inside our bodily cells in addition to our minds" Well Leslie is clearly not alone when it comes to thinking along those lines. Candace Pert a professor at Georgetown University in America who is the author of 'Molecules of Emotion, Why You Feel The Way You Feel', discovered what she called 'neuropeptides (or peptides for short). These chemicals can be found in all the tissues, muscles, and major organs of the body. Candace firmly believes that the mind is not just in the brain that it exists all throughout our body. The hard drive of our brain, which stores memory, may therefore not be alone as hard drives go.

Not all medical practitioners share Leslie and Candace's presumptions. Jeff Punch a transplant surgeon from the University of Michigan states, and I quote,

"A transplant is a profound experience and the human mind is very suggestible. Medically speaking, there is no evidence that these reports are anything more than fantasy"

Jeff goes on to state that organs are not capable of transferring memory to a person's mind and that if the phenomenon of transferred memories exists, then it's got to be 'supernatural'. ? Mmmm, are we substituting one mystery with another one here ? Well this writer certainly would think that Jeff is. But to be honest Jeff does state something, which I guess the reader has to take into consideration whilst contemplating this article, and that is, these memories, or indeed the desire to do something totally out of character and 'brand new' may have nothing whatsoever to do with cellular memory, but to do with the medication that recipients of donated organs take. This may make them feel weak, weird, or as Jeff points out in his article, taking the drug prednistone will make them hungry. But the bottom line as far as Jeff is concerned is that, the subject of cellular memory may be nothing more than pure coincidence? Yes, it may well be Jeff, but clearly there is still a heck of a lot of unanswered questions.

When we look at these cases of cellular memory (and I'll come to those in a moment) Admittedly 'some' if not 'all', of these cases, more so the ones with the sudden desire to take up a sport or other type of leisurely pursuit, could be down to what Jeff states as, just someone watching a TV programme whilst they are recovering from their transplant. This programme may for instance be about roller-blading. The patient thinks that, 'hey this is fun' but puts it to the back of their mind as something that they don't think they would ever do. However further down the line, they may be out shopping, spot a pair of roller blades and peruse the sport. If it was uncovered that the new organ that was 'fitted' into their body belonged to a young chap who was a keen roller blader, then hey the connection is made, must be cellular memory, but as Jeff states, no it's not, it's pure logical coincidence.

When writing an article of this nature, one has to provide two sides of the argument, hence the comments above, which to this commentator is indeed fair. OK, let's have a look at some of these so called cellular memory cases. What do you make of the following?

CASE STUDY 1

There was a case in which an 18-year-old boy who amongst other things, wrote poetry, played music and wrote songs. Sadly he was killed in a car accident. A year later, his mother and father came across an audiotape of a song he had written entitled "Danny, My Heart Is Yours". Apparently this song was about the way he felt at that time and he believed that he was about to die and that he was giving his 'heart' to someone. Now, the donor recipient of this young boy's heart was an 18-year-old girl called Danielle. The story goes that Danielle met up with the deceased boy's parents and the parents played them a song on audiotape that their son had written. Now Danielle had never met the parents, never met their son never heard his music, but was able to there and then complete the phrases of his songs !!!!

CASE STUDY 2

A seven-month-old baby boy received a heart from a 16-month-old boy who had drowned. The donor child had a mild form of cerebral palsy mostly down its left hand side. Now the recipient child did not display any systems whatsoever of cerebral palsy prior to the transplant, and, you've guessed it, once the transplant was completed the recipient child developed the very same stiffness and shaking on it's left hand side.

How about this one ?

CASE STUDY 3

A 47-year-old white male received the heart of a 17-year-old African-American male. Shortly after the transplant the recipient was astonished by his newly found love of classical music. And again you know what's coming, the recipient of the heart found out that his donor absolutely loved classical music and played the violin. Indeed, the donor had died in a drive by shooting clutching his violin case to his chest.

It get's stranger ?

CASE STUDY 4

A 29-year-old lesbian, who was a serious fast food junkie, received the heart from a 19-year-old woman vegetarian who was 'man crazy'. The recipient reported that after her operation that eating meat made her sick and she was…..wait for it….no longer attracted to women. Indeed she became engaged to marry a 'man' !

One of the more unusual cases that I noted whilst watching this TV documentary the other evening, was a lady called Claire Sylvia. Claire received a heart and lung transplant and like most cellular memory cases, after the operation she started to crave for beer and chicken nuggets, neither of which she had a taste for prior to the transplant. She later tracked down who her donor was and was astonished to learn that her donor's favourite food was chicken nuggets, indeed, he had just purchased some chicken nuggets prior to being involved in a motorcycle accident and these nuggets were found inside his motorcycle jacket.

His Favourite Making Up Saying.

CASE STUDY 5

You know, the more one looks at the testimony and case studies as I have done for this article, the more the subject of cellular memory astounds me. Here is another case that I come across. After a young man came out of his transplant surgery he said to his mother, "Everything is copastic". His mother stated that her son had never ever used those words before the surgery but now he was saying it all the time. It later transpired when he tracked down the donor's wife, that this sentence "Everything is copastic". Had been used by the donor to signal to his wife after they had had an argument, that everything was okay. He used it all the time. The donor's wife was reported as saying that her husband and herself had had an argument just before his fatal death and they had sadly never made up.

My final example of what could be 'cellular memory' will shortly bring me into something which I was asked to keep out of my article by my girlfriend due to the strong possibility, that this article may well, (depending on who reads it) cause concern for anyone going under the surgeon's knife to await a transplant. Before we go their however, let me tell you about this case and how it leads me into what could be a controversial topic.

Murder.

CASE STUDY 6

This case study comes from Paul Pearsall, MD a psychoneuroimmunologist, (glad I don't have to type that a few more times !) Anyway Paul has done his own research into cellular memory and the possibility of transfer of memory through organ transplant. He has reached the conclusion that cells of living tissue have the capacity to remember. What follows is one of Paul's best cases.

An eight-year-old girl received the heart of a ten-year-old girl who had tragically been murdered. Not long after the transplant the recipient of the heart, had terrible and distressing nightmares of a man murdering her donor. The dreams got so bad that her family had to seek out the services of a psychiatrist. Now such was the distress of this young girl and the vividness of her dreams more so the face of the murderer in her dreams, that they took the unusual step of contacting the police. They informed the police all of what the little girl had described in her dreams. The face of the man, his clothes, the weapon, the location, the very clothes that he wore. Not only that, they also told the police what the little girl who was murdered said to the murderer and who told the donor recipient girl in her dream. Using the young girl's description, the police managed to track down and catch the killer who was easily convicted with the details provided by the donor recipient.

Now this leads me into what I mentioned above, the territory that my partner said I shouldn't mention for fear of playing on the minds of those who require transplants. But when one looks at the overall picture of this phenomenon, I've always said that no matter what, we should always relate the facts, put forward suppositions for other people to assess and look at. This is the dilemma.

INHERENT DANGERS

If the phenomenon of cellular memory is true, does it have any inherent dangers? What I mean is, if someone were to be given the transplanted heart of a serial killer, would macabre and evil thoughts surface to the recipient individual making him or her commit a crime that previously went against his or her own physiological make up? And if so, how would this go down in a court of law? Would they try and get out of this crime on a technicality? People are now accepting that some people have these donor implanted 'inherited memories', but would this be good enough to present as 'evidence' in a court of law? To re-iterate. Say someone who has received the heart of a serial murderer, goes out to commit a crime, their defence is to say this is something that they would never have done prior to receiving the heart of a killer and as such they don't want to go to jail because the donor's 'memories' has somehow infringed onto their very psyche and led them to commit this atrocity. Now tell me this reader, which lawyer would take that one up !!!!

One lady doctor who was interviewed on this TV show stated that it was hard enough to get organ donors at the best of times, but if people were suddenly to be informed that if they have a transplant that they 'might' have the other deceased person's memory', well that could really reduce the stock of organ donations to hospitals around the world. Fair point, I mean, if you the reader of this short article had to go into hospital to have a transplant and knew that cellular memory may be something that could effect you, would you still be happy to go through with it ? (Of course if it was a matter of life or death 'we would') But would it make us concerned to think twice about it ? We learned from the programme that nearly all (if not all) hospitals won't reveal who the organ donor was so most people would have a hard time trying to find out if their sudden and compulsive desire to climb trees was just something that they wanted to do, or was something that someone else 'had done'.

CLONING

Then of course we could extend this point to cloning. If we took stem cells from a donor and used them to create another life form, would that cloned life form have a soul a mind, child hood and adult memory? Cloning another human being is not pie in the sky or some Frankenstein improbability; it's something that is just around the corner. Dolly the sheep for instance was the first step on the cloning ladder, will a human being be next ? Are we playing God, where does medical science breach what's right and enter areas that to some, seem improper? And who decides this? I have no problems with medical science trying to find cures for cancer and other human illnesses. Science is ever progressing and we will never stop those young entrepreneurs of the medical world having a go at medical issues. Fair play to them I say. But do we create a Frankenstein monster by prying too deeply into areas that we really should leave alone? How far can things go ? How far 'should' things go. ?

KIRLIAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Another interesting concept that was giving airtime on that TV show which brought me to write this piece was, that of Kirlian photography. Basically this is a photographic process that captures the auras or biofields of persons or objects within a photograph. What happens is the subject is photographed in the presence of a high frequency, high-voltage, low-amperage-electrical field, which shows glowing, multicoloured emanations which some class either as auras or biofield. These emanations can either be from a 'subjects' fingertips, or in some of the earlier classic examples, a part of a leaf was cut and then put under the Kirlian device, and much to the astonishment of those gathered, all could clearly see that although cut off, one could make out the 'outline' of the cut leaf in the Kirlian photograph.

Kirlian photography was named after Seymon Kirlian, a novice amateur inventor and electrician of Krasnodar, Russia, who pioneered the first efforts on the process in the early1940's. Is Kirlian photography a paranormal phenomenon then or is it something on the fringes of a science that we don't fully comprehend. ? For me I think we 'are' indeed photographing a 'bio field' or aura of a human being. We are capturing the energy from ourselves. (Life force energy!) Kirlian studies have shown marked differences on certain individuals whose 'before and after' photographs showed them with very different 'auric colours' This set the mark where Kirlian researchers could then detect when people were happy, sad, ill, or in good health all through their Kirlian photograph. Of course something like this, although having been around since the 1940's, is still not readily accepted within the halls of medical science. Fringe science and belief systems are always up against it when it comes to claims such as this. But like I have said many times before, just because something 'seems' silly and ridiculous, does that necessarily mean that it is ! Do we throw the baby out with the bathwater, because we don't care to look that little bit further ? Where would the pioneers of medical science and Industry be if the likes of Marconi, John Logie Baird, the Wright Brothers etc just said,

"Ah well, everyone is giving me a hard time saying that what I'm trying to do won't work or won't get off the ground, maybe their right, I'll just pack it in".

I hope the reader can see what I mean.

Science will never go forward if we turn our back on what 'appears' to be ridiculous. Some people laugh at UFO and Paranormal researchers thinking we're all a bunch of (to put it lightly) 'nutters'. Well OK maybe some of them/us are. But in the main, UFO and Paranormal researchers are just trying to find out what's going on, to get to the truth and claims of UFO sightings/abductions and ghosts. Researchers have to ride roughshod over comments by others, which can cause pain and anguish. One has to have a tough skin whilst working on fringe sciences. But for all that many stay the course because they 'know' that there is more to learn and that science does not in any way shape or form, know it all. The planet Earth is but a school where each and every one of us is learning. We don't all want to be soldier's sailors or men of the cloth. Each one of us has their own direction in life. One should never knock another for their beliefs or aspirations. Life is partly about gathering information, and the subject of cellular memory is as interesting as any number of 'fringe beliefs' (if not more so) I say the above, as I mentioned this television programme to a work colleague the following day and she replied by saying, "What nonsense". I questioned her as to why she felt it was nonsense, as she hadn't watched the programme to reach that opinion. She replied with, "But it stands to reason doesn't it ? Something like this can't happen". Oh the joy's of one-sided blinkered opinion!!!!!!

Professor Gary Swartz was interviewed on this TV show about cellular memory and amongst many other things he said, he mentioned this. If we look at the sky at night, what we are seeing is the light coming from stars and planets that exploded and died millions of years ago, and the light from their explosions is only now reaching us. So in effect, energy, be it light or whatever, never dies, it moves forward. Another way to look at it would be this, when we heat a block of ice, what does it do ? It melts into water, it changes. When a flower dies, is that it, ? No it returns the following year. When the leaves on a tree fall in the autumn, is that it, ? No they return again, a 'different cellular rebirth occurs'. When a human being dies, what happens. ? Well that my friends is the base work of another SPI article.

MALCOLM'S SUMMING UP

In summing up the above then, all I can say is that clearly there is something happening here, of that there is no doubt. Now whether this is just pure coincidence as Jeff Punch a transplant surgeon from the University of Michigan states, or indeed there really is some form of genetic cellular memory, which is deeply ingrained within the very fabric of the DNA, which makes up each and every one of us, is open to question. We have the cases, and I guess this is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure there are many more cases 'out there'. What I will say is this. If this truly is cellular memory that's giving recipients their 'newly found' thoughts and talents, then one must accept that this is a natural (if not wonderful) thing, it's not spiritual, it's not even paranormal. It's purely the wonder of the human body and all it's intricacies. But then dear reader, who made the human body!!

© Malcolm Robinson (Founder Strange Phenomena Investigations) 2004.

Notes: 

References: 

e-mail: malckyspi@yahoo.com 

SPI Web Site: www.spiuk.net