mdinaz, I will come full-circle to Chiron and past-lives in a moment! I need to preface it with some background information.
I hope you do read the Jim Tucker book,
Return to Life! The author is a University of Virginia profesor of psychiatry, with an endowed chair. I know you are sceptical of credentials, but his are solid.
http://www.jimbtucker.com/
I read many such books years ago, I may have read it already and just don't recall. I'd have to look at it and see.
Tucker's work isn't about past-life regressions or hypnotism, but rather he interviews little kids who either claim to remember past lives; or else who start saying things and exhibiting behaviours at a young age that a little child wouldn't normally have the life experience or cognitive development to do. Tucker covers the sceptics' bases, which he has to do in order to publish his findings in academic journals. The main sceptics' base that he covers is actually locating the child's previous incarnation through research.
I think anybody can claim to be a reincarnation of somebody or other, or of having had a specific past-life experience, yet without external verification. What impressed me about Tucker's work is that he and his research team painstakingly verify that these previous people existed and match the child's memories in specific ways-- he's able to trace military records, living family members, biographical materials, and so on.
Tucker is highly sceptical himself of past-lives claims of older individuals, as usually the child's memories fade when they get older. Also, as a psychiatrist, he's well aware that several adults can simultaneously claim to be the identical famous figure from the past; or simply have a good-faith yet unverifiable belief about a past life.
The vast majority are going to be unverifiable because the vast majority of people who have ever lived were not documented in any meaningful way. Unless they lived in the 20th century there is just too little data to check and make positive confirmation. I understand what he's trying to do but too few will be ever able to be proven conclusively. In my particular cases, I cannot prove them nor would I ever attempt to convince anyone of them - I am personally satisfied with everything I have perceived and achieved and that's good enough for me.
One thing none of these researchers manage to understand is that lives don't always follow in a perfectly linear fashion - lives can over lap and you can live more than one life at one time. I am aware of at least six lives that I lived in the late 19th century, and I have vivid memories of several. That period of history was very dynamic and a tremendous source of learning and life experience. There are other periods of history that I also know I lived many lives in. Because of this, yes, more than one person can claim to be connected to a particular life. I am aware of at least two other lives I'm living at this moment elsewhere in the world. The soul is not limited in such a fashion - it can project and experience any where at any time because the Universe is not constrained by ideas of time or distance. Everything occurs at once in a perpetual now, there is no past or future in a linear fashion. Psychics and channelers can "see" the future because the future already exists. I am aware of several future lives as well, and so are many other people.
All the ones I remember have not been derived from regression therapy or hypnosis, all are the result of vivid or lucid dreams over many years. Seldom do I get enough specific details that I could actually track one of them down to a specific individual. I have, however, on many occasions gotten details in dreams, such as the name of a town in a particular place and after research discovered that it did indeed exist in the location indicated. Another example was once I saw a photo of a mountain that I had never seen before, yet I instantly knew where it was - not only the country, but the name of the region as well. I went on to read the article the photo was in and it indeed was where I thought it was. The reason I instantly knew where it was without even thinking about it was because of a past life I was already aware of that had been in that area and my one current parallel life that is there now.
Everything you do in this life affects your other lives, and they you. The more you grow spiritually in this life enables them to grow as well. It's not static. Sudden talents or inspiration are often from your other selves, places where they have experience that maybe you do not in this life. We've also all seen the child prodigy - a kid who shows sudden and great talent in music, math, whatever.
I think it is a good idea to keep an open but sceptical mind about past-lives and astrology, namely because astrology itself is not an exact science, and because few astrologers (outside of Nicholas Campion) seem to have much background in history.
I have a strong background in history and I do understand the ability or tendency for people to want to embellish. I always take any dream or vision I have at face-value; I don't interpolate or try to manufacture a narrative around a snippet I may perceive. Some of the lives I'm aware of have taken years to develop into a coherent whole - small snippets here and there that eventually coalesce into a narrative. Your higher self only lets you see what you need to see when you need to see it.
As an example, I became aware recently that one of the lives that I was only vaguely aware of was actually also a famous historical entity (and no, I will not name it). I was aware of tiny bits of it over the past 20 years, but could not ever really place it or put a face on it. But then recent events between myself and other people whom I have karmic relationships came to a head in a dramatic fashion and then it all came together - I only need to see what is needed at that time, and at that time finally, as Paul Harvey used to say, "now you know the rest of the story". These other people were also part of that life and it was finally time to resolve it and put it to rest. I don't believe you remember any past life just for entertainment, but because there is still something to resolve or to learn from it.
I became very sceptical of the past-lives astrology of Jan Spiller and others, based largely on the moon's nodes and pre-natal eclipses, when their pronouncements about people today with a given placement just couldn't match up with the historical demography. There just weren't enough members of the clergy or royal families to match up with the millions of people in the population today who would have the diagnostic placement. Mary Devlin's book is some better, but not entirely convincing.
Most of us have lived hundreds if not thousands of past lives, and many of us are living more than one right now. No astrology chart can reflect that - it can only reflect YOUR life, right now. While who you chose to be in this life can be influenced by some of your other adventures, your incarnation today is still highly specific.
I am so tempted to write to Tucker to see whether it might be possible to get some birth data, and to match up horoscopes between a past life and a child today. One doubts that he would agree, but this is where you could look at Chiron across lives to see whether your theory (or any other astrological theory about past lives) pans out. What sorts of placements would you anticipate for Chiron between this life and the previous one?
I don't think you would get anything meaningful out of it. The only real place where I see past life connections that have clear current-life implications are when doing composite charts of karmic relationships, in which case I can often see very clear past-life connections. This is because a relationship between two people is very specific and often tied to a very specific life. Your natal chart is the sum of all of YOUs, however many there were.
And then some phobias have clear present-life associations. For example, I once had a friend who was terrified of dogs. But she was bitten as a child and had to undergo the whole series of rabies shots when the dog couldn't be found. Possibly in her case we would see an afflicted Chiron in the 6th house of small animals or something; but I've lost touch. But we don't need to postulate a previous life trauma to explain her fear. I've known two women with severe cat phobias, and it is hard to see how a cat might have killed them in a past life. (No, cats do not jump up on baby's cribs to suck the life out them, as the old wives' tale would have it.)
Not if they had been fed to the lions in a previous life, for example. That's pretty traumatic. Some phobias people have are completely irrational, such as a morbid fear of the ocean for a person who has never seen the ocean, for example.
My feeling with Chiron is that there are probably enough this-life episodes to explore that we don't need to delve into past lives episodes that cannot be externally substantiated-- and may be primarily the intriguing result of a vivid imagination.
When I deal with Chiron in a person's natal chart, I always stick to current life issues, unless node-vertex-chiron aspects indicate otherwise, which is pretty seldom. Past-life patterning is still pretty powerful and cannot be completely discounted, but you are correct that it should not be a first-resort.