Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation
(This is the revised edition of Stevenson’s 1987 book, sum...)
This is the revised edition of Stevenson’s 1987 book, summarizing for general readers almost forty years of experience in the study of children, who claim to remember previous lives.
Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects
(Based on some 30 years of research on people, who claim t...)
Based on some 30 years of research on people, who claim to remember past lives, this work encompasses the full spectrum of theory and case study on the subject to date.
(Children, who claim to remember a previous life, have bee...)
Children, who claim to remember a previous life, have been found in many parts of the world, particularly in the Buddhist and Hindu countries of South Asia, among the Shiite peoples of Lebanon and Turkey, the tribes of West Africa, and the American northwest. Stevenson collected over 2,600 reported cases of past-life memories, of which 65 detailed reports have been published. Specific information from the children's memories has been collected and matched with the data of their claimed former identity, family, residence and manner of death. Birthmarks or other physiological manifestations have been found to relate to experiences of the remembered past life, particularly violent death.
(Many cultures accept, that a person may die and then come...)
Many cultures accept, that a person may die and then come back to life in another form, but Westerners have traditionally rejected the idea. Recently, however, surveys, conducted in Europe, indicate a substantial increase in the number of Europeans, who believe in reincarnation, and numerous claims of reincarnation have been reported. This book examines particular cases in Europe, that are suggestive of reincarnation.
Ian Stevenson was a Canadian-born American psychiatrist and educator. For the biggest part of his career, he worked at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. However, Ian was mostly known for his research into reincarnation, particularly the cases in Asia and the Middle E. Other areas of his interests included out-of-body experiences and precognition.
Background
Ian Stevenson was born on October 31, 1918, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was a son of John Alexander Stevenson, a Scottish lawyer, who was working in Ottawa as the Canadian correspondent for The Times of London or The New York Times, and Ruth Cecilia (Preston) Stevenson.
Education
Between 1937 and 1939, Ian studied at the University of St Andrews. However, because of the outbreak of World War II, he had to continue his studies in Canada. Stevenson entered McGill University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1942 and a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1943.
After graduation from the university, Stevenson conducted a research in biochemistry. Between 1944 and 1945, he acted as an intern and assistant resident at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Later, during the period from 1945 till 1946, Ian served as an intern and resident at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. Between 1946 and 1947, he held a fellowship in internal medicine at the Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation in New Orleans. In 1947, Stevenson was made a Commonwealth Fund Fellow in Medicine at Cornell University Medical College, where he remained till 1949.
In the late 1940's, Ian became dissatisfied with the reductionism he encountered in biochemistry and wanted to study the whole person. It was at that time, that he began to develop his interest in psychosomatic medicine, psychiatry and psychoanalysis.
In 1949, Ian began working as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at Louisiana State University School of Medicine, a post he held till 1952, when he was made an Associate Professor of Psychiatry there. Stevenson continued to hold the position until 1957.
Also, between 1952 and 1957, he acted as a visiting physician at Charity Hospital of New Orleans. During the same period of time, he was an honorary staff member at De Paul Hospital.
It was in the 1950's, that Stevenson got acquainted with the English writer Aldous Huxley, who gained prominence for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs, and became one of the first academics to study the effects of L.S.D. and mescaline.
In 1957, Ian was appointed a Professor of Psychiatry and Chair of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, the positions he held till 1967, when he was promoted to the post of a Carlson Professor of Psychiatry. Stevenson remained in that post until 2001.
From 2002 until his death in 2007, Ian acted as a Research Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. Also, he was a founder and served as a director of the Division of Perceptual Studies there until 2002.
During his career, Stevenson also acted as a consultant for different institutions, including New Orleans Parish School Board (1949-1952), Louisiana State Department of Welfare (1950-1952), Southeast Louisiana State Hospital (1952-1957).
During his career, Ian followed up leads, suggesting survival of memories from past lives in children. He studied mediumship and the rapport between agent and recipient in extrasensory perception. In his later years, he turned his attention to xenoglossy, or speaking in tongues.
Ian believed, that certain phobias, philias, unusual abilities and illnesses could not be fully explained by heredity or the environment. He also believed, that reincarnation provided a third type of explanation. Also, Stevenson argued against the orthodoxy within psychiatry and psychoanalysis at the time, that the personality is more plastic in the early years.
Stevenson was also a public advocate for open-mindedness on the question of the credibility of parapsychology.
Quotations:
"The most promising evidence bearing on reincarnation seems to come from the spontaneous cases, especially among children."
"Reincarnation, at least as I conceive it, does not nullify what we know about evolution and genetics. It suggests, however, that there may be two streams of evolution - the biological one and a personal one - and that during terrestrial lives these streams may interact."
"In cases, in which the related previous personality had committed suicide, the subject has shown an inclination to contemplate and threaten suicide."
Membership
Ian was a member of the American Federation for Clinical Research, American Psychosomatic Society, American Psychiatric Association, Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, American Society for Psychical Research, American Medical Association, Washington Psychoanalytic Society, Parapsychological Association (charter member), Oxford and Cambridge Club, Colonnade Club, among others.
Society for Psychical Research
,
United Kingdom
1988 - 1989
Society for Scientific Exploration
1982
Personality
As a child, Ian was often bedridden with bronchitis, a condition, that continued into adulthood and engendered in him a lifelong love of books. According to Emily Williams Kelly, a colleague of his at the University of Virginia, he maintained a list of the books he had read, which numbered 3,535 between 1935 and 2003.
Connections
Ian married Octavia Reynolds on September 13, 1947. The couple was married until Octavia's death in 1983. Later, in 1985, Stevenson married Margaret Pertzoff, a Professor of History at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Margaret died in 2009.