Scientific Studies on Reincarnation

[ForumScribe]

(Originally posted by Steve Grenard)

An abridged version of Dr. Stevenson's financially unobtainable 2-volume set ($250.00) on the scientific basis of reincarnation using birthmark and birth deformities as markers is available for $24.95
from the publisher's website (enter P{raeger Publishers in search
engine) or from amazon.com. I am posting herewith the information on
this book:

Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect
By Ian Stevenson
Praeger Publishers. Westport, Conn. 1997. 248 pages
LC 95-34442. ISBN 0-275-95188-X. C5188 $65.00
Available (Status Information Updated 6/28/2001)
A paperback edition is available: 0-275-95189-8, $24.95


** Description **
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 has 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. Writing as a specialist in psychiatry and as a world-renowned scientific investigator of reported paranormal events,

Stevenson asks us to suspend our Western tendencies to disbelieve in "reincarnation" and consider the reality of the burgeoning record of cases now available. This book summarizes Stevenson's findings which are presented in full in the multi-volume work entitled Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, also published by Praeger.

"Ian Stevenson is the foremost researcher on reincarnation in this country and, indeed, the world. No one who studies his work can fail to be impressed with the carefulness of his fact-finding and evidence-gathering and with the honesty and candor of his conclusions. If you are interested in the evidence for reincarnation, buy this book. For those cases which particularly fascinate you, you will want to examine their details in Reincarnation and Biology."
Spiritual Frontiers

"This amazing book provides a synopsis of the multivolume series of books that Stevenson published over a course of nearly four decades....This book is of general interest and useful for undergraduate and public library collections."
Religious Studies Review

"Br Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia, US, has run a throrough investigation into the numerous claims of babies born bearing the scars receives in former lives. Many of his findings are documented in the 1997 book Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect."
The X Factor

"Dr. Ian Stevenson, a distinguished scholar and professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia has written a highly intriguing book about his experiences around the world that support the idea that birth marks and other skin lesions and abnormalities may provide evidence of cutaneous injurines sustained in a previous life, thus supporting the notion of reincarnation....Ian Stevenson' well written book, modest in its claims, is an interesting read with an intriguing challenge."
Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science

** Table of Contents **
-- Preface
-- Introduction
-- Bodily Changes Corresponding to Mental Images in the Person Affected
-- Bodily Changes Corresponding to Another Person's Mental Images
-- Birthmarks Related to Previous Lives without Verification of Possible Corresponding Wounds
-- Birthmarks Corresponding to Wounds Verified by Informants' Memories
-- Birthmarks Corresponding to Wounds Verified by Medical Records
-- Birthmarks Corresponding to Surgical Wounds and Other Skin Lesions on Deceased Persons
-- Birthmarks Corresponding to Other Types of Wounds or Marks on Deceased Persons
-- Nevi Corresponding to Wounds or Other Marks on Deceased Persons
-- The Prediction of Birthmarks
-- Changes in the Appearance and Relative Location of Birthmarks
-- Correspondences of Details between Birthmarks and Related Wounds or Other Marks on Deceased Persons
-- Discrepancies between Birthmarks and the Evidence of Reportedly Corresponding Wounds
-- Some Correlates of Birthmarks Attributed to Previous Lives
-- The Interpretations of Birthmarks Related to Previous Lives
-- Introduction to Cases with Birth Defects
-- Birth Defects of the Extremities
-- Birth Defects of the Head and Neck
-- Birth Defects Involving Two or More Regions of the Body
-- Experimental Birth Defects
-- Internal Diseases Related to Previous Lives
-- Abnormalities of Pigmentation that May Derive from Previous Lives
-- Physiques, Postures, Gestures, and Other Involuntary Movements Related to Previous Lives
-- The Face as a Type of Birthmark or Birth Defect
-- Twins with Memories of Previous Lives
-- General Discussion
-- Sources of Additional Information
-- Index

** Author **
IAN STEVENSON is Carlson Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Personality Studies at the Health Sciences Center, University of Virginia.

[sgrenard]

I am forwarding here for informational purposes a copy of a letter sent to the editor of The Paranormal Review which serves also to summarize this work and reference it insofar as Dr Stevenson's major works are concerned.
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In the Paranormal Review (July 2001) Peter Taylor opines that the cases investigated by Dr. Ian Stevenson from the perspective of comparing the human brain/mind to a pair of computers is "not, in fact, recincarnation." Taylor does this without referencing any of the numerous original case investigations performed by Stevenson and his team although he references
2nd party book reviews by Beloff as well as several papers by another investigator, E. Haraldsson. Clearly Taylor does not even indicate whether or not he has read any of the numerous works by Stevenson that are currently available (see references).

Stevenson has been studying reincarnation, xenoglossy, birthmark evidence and related phenomena at the University of Virginoa (USA) for some 40 years.
He has amassed a case file of 3,000 children with spontaneous past life recall and some few adults as well. These include not only cases in India and Lebanon, but many in Burma, the U.S. as well as in Western Europe.

Admittedly cases come to his attention more frequently in societies where there is belief in reincarnation. In cultures where this is not the case there is no reason to presuppose such phenomena do not occur. They do not surface, obviously, because they are not paid any attention by parents or teachers and in most instances, details are even actively suppressed by adults.

Taylor's analogy to the human mind as two computers, starting out with platforms but no files, and gradually filing up over time
with different files, until they no longer resemble each other, is apt. Had Taylor read Stevenson's work in detail, he'd realize how apt this similarity may be but for different reasons. Stevenson found that young children start speaking of their previous incarnation almost as soon as they can talk, and after a few years, gradually forget about it or become immersed in their present existence. Do these children fill up with different files and then no longer resemble or even remember their prior
existence?

Some very few adults Stevenson has followed after reaching adulthood, however, continue to remember details of the past life they first recalled as children. Perhaps not too many new files are placed on their hard drives. But many do completely forget about it. One can't help but to compare this with trying to find some file on a jam-packed computer. We end up having to buy utilizies to manage our files an devise all sorts of systems to do this quickly.

Also it is suggested that the life remembered in the next incarnation will now be the current one, with lives prior to that archived and made increasingly difficult to recall. Recall using the
the "utility" of hypnosis is apparently able to achieve such this.

Many of Stevenson's cases involve reincarnation of consciousnesses whose lives were cut short by violence such as gunshots, stabbings and accidents. He not only verified the existence of the prior lives but confirmed intimate details spoken by these "here and now" children of prior lives they could not possibly know anything about. Some of these children have distinctive birthmarks which correspond to wounds or deformities on the deceased prior incarnate. He has verified this not only with eyewitness accounts but with medical records and
autopsy reports.

While Taylor, and even Stevenson himself are grappling with the pros and cons of reincarnation, these carefully investigated cases make a compelling case for the phenomenon and
anyone who doubts this should obtain and
study Stevenson's original works, many of which remain in print or have been re-issued and are available commercially.


SGRENARD


References


Stevenson, Ian. 1974. Xenoglossy-A Report of a Case. John Wright & Sons, Ltd., Bristol. (available from the
Dept of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia)

Stevenson, Ian. 1984. Unlearned Language: New Studies in Xenoglossy.
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.


Stevenson, Ian. 1997. Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. Praeger
Publishers, Westport, Connecicut

Stevenson, Ian. 2000. Children Who Remember Past Lives - A Question of Reincarnation. (revised edition and a
synthesis of a much larger 2-volume work of
cases). McFarland & Co Publishers, Jefferson, North Carolina and London.

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