Customer Reviews

Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is not a starry--eyed, dreamy retelling of tales of dubious authenticity. Rather, Stevenson, drawing from 40 years of carefully documented and researched case histories, adopts an academic approach and cool, detached tone in his analysis. He is not interested in convincing anyone of the truth of reincarnation; but he does want to force the reader to seriously consider the evidence. The detailed evidence is not in this book, but in his scholarly publications, although accounts of 12 cases are provided for purposes of discussion. After presenting these cases, Stevenson outlines his methodology and draws out some recurring patterns. He concludes with a thought--provoking, speculative chapter on the explanatory power of the reincarnation hypothesis, and considers some objections of those who are reluctant to accept rebirth.

Stevenson's cool, transparent discussion presents the sceptical reader with a dilemma: either accept that these are serious cases which deserve careful scrutiny on their own merits, or claim fraud or delusion. The latter begins to appear wildly improbable given the apparent thoroughness and care of Stevenson's research, and this reader felt that he had been relentlessly backed into a corner. A book well worth reading for anyone who is interested in the mind--body relationship, death, or how personality is formed.

Although not Stevenson's most convinving cases (if you take a look, his files contain many better ones), there is some value here.

Yes, there is a question of contact outside. However, making a fool-proof case for reincarnation is impossible. Even the amazing birth mark cases Stevenson has on file (and these are, indeed, frightening to read) could be ruled out in _some_ way. The real world is not a laboratory: just ask the poor social scientists. You can't study something like this easily. There will never be a 100% fool-proof case of reincrnation. Nevertheless, many of the verifications are truly impressive and give good evidence that there might be something to reincarnation. Considering it is the most common belief in organized, animistic, and folk religions, there may be a reason for that yet.

While I give it 5 stars becuase it is quite good, Stevenson's Where Biology and Reincarnation Intersect is a better, and more convincing read... Not that it is airtight. Still, the amount of evidence there IS makes me absolutely shocked that only few people are interested in it. I am guessing that scientists of all stripes, whether social or physical, tend to categorize faith as faith and science as science. Frankly, I think that this is sometimes a simply arbitrary opposition

In this book Ian Stevenson presents an empirical case for reincarnation. If that combination seems odd to you now it won't by the end of the book. He carefully and prudently refrains from arguing that reincarnation occurs; instead, he records some unusual and seemingly anomalous facts--carefully documented--and gives the reader the option of deciding whether reincarnation is or is not the best explanation for them. Stevenson remains open to the possibility of alternative explanations for how young, scarcely-verbal children can recite details about the lives of people they have never met, but by the end of the book it's clear that the usual mechanistic and biological explanations cannot suffice.

Simply put, Stevenson interviews kids between the ages of (usually) 2 and 7 who have stories to tell about who they were, by their own description, in a previous life. He then attempts to identify the previous personality, and to verify or disprove every detail of the child's story. He writes about kids who talk about being a fishmonger with a green jeep in a distant town they have never visited, and don't know anyone who has visited; kids who have birthmarks corresponding to entry and exit bullet-wounds they claim to have received when murdered, and who give the details of their deaths, later verified; and kids who claim to have another family and reveal that other family's secrets. Such cases are the tip of Stevenson's iceberg.

Stevenson makes a few speculative claims in his concluding chapters, and I think he could be more appreciative of the historical criticisms of vitalistic thinkers, from the alchemists to Goethe. He speculates a bit too much about the implications his research has for theories of personality, and in a few places his self-restraint feels strained. But his claims for a mind-brain dualism are excellent, as are his suggestions about the self-reconstructing capacities of the human psyche. This last is particularly important as some writers in this area, often under the spell of Jung, have denied the individual's capacity for self-reflective growth. If you seem backed into a corner after reading this book, remember that even if Stevenson's hypothesis is correct, the theory of reincarnation provides no definitive insights to the nature of the psyche, and offers no absolutes regarding conduct, morality, and change.

Ian Stevenson's thorough examination of children who claim to remember previous lives constitutes one of the most pioneering bodies of work in any scientific field in history. This text is geared towards a different type of reader than are his more comprehensive and technical works, such as 1997's two volume 2268 page magnum opus "Reincarnation and Biology," but the genius of his scientific approach remains apparent. The strength of Stevenson's arguments lies in the meticulousness of his methodology and the improbably consistencies among the thousands of cases he has personally investigated, and he would be the first to tell you not to draw conclusions from only a handful of cases, such as the group presented in this book. Nevertheless, "Children Who Remember Previous Lives" serves as an excellent introduction to a remarkable field, and is a must-read for anyone interested in psychical research.

I have now read this book and Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. I strongly recommend reading both volumes, but for a perfect overall introduction to Stevenson's perspective, I am suggesting this volume to people. I loved it from beginning to end, and I deeply respected the mature approach to the data that the author maintained. He was bright, articulate, and he impressed me as having been completely sound in his integrity, competence, and judgement. Everyone should read this book!!

What an interesting book!

You might expect Stevenson to be some new-age kook, but he actually shows much more circumspection than many scientists:

-He says that nothing in the book is "proof."
-He offers his field notes in a separate book for anyone who wants to look at the data he collected.
-He offers multiple alternative explanations.
-He's concerned with logic and evidence.

I don't know why anyone would think it more strange that we are born many times than that we are born once. Human beings, after all, are the result of an evolutionary process that began...when? With the beginning of life on earth? With the 'Big Bang'? Who knows? Whatever the answer, it is clear that 'the individual' is actually a multi-faceted being who origins, and destiny, lie far beyond the confines of what smug modernists think of as 'existence'.

And Stevenson has evidence for this. Come to think of it, the only evidence that can possibly be had for any theory of what 'happens' post-mortem. You will never prove that heaven or hell exist, in any scientific sense. But there is evidence for the idea of many lives, and Stevenson presents some of it here.

I'm impressed by Stevenson's integrity and honesty, but less so with his intellectual rigor. The 14 cases he cites rely on nothing more than anecdotes: all the "past life behavior" had been witnessed before the author met any of the players and so the veracity of the stories is hard to determine.

Of the 14 cases:

* Three were unsolved (ie, the identity of the "previous life" was unknown)

* Nine were solved, but the prior life person had (or could have had), some contact with the family of the child

* Two were solved, and the families apparently had no contact.

For me, the "unsolved" cases are worthless. The child could be fantasizing, repeating what he has heard on the TV or radio, or there could be other explanations that don't involve reincarnation.

The nine solved but with-contact cases are interesting. However, there are clearly other means that the child could have received this information. And some of these cases, in my opinion, look like wishful thinking on the part of the parents.

The two solved cases where the families had no contact, initially appear compelling. I have a few problems with them though, namely:

* They are anecdotes. In the first, Stevenson does not get involved until the child is 13 and in the second the child is 14. Virtually everything has already been observed (by others), by the time Stevenson arrives on the scene and so there is much scope for invention, misinterpretation, exaggeration and enhancement of stories. We just don't know what really happened and never will.

* Both occur in communities that believe in reincarnation, and where critical thinking is (shall we say), not thought of as a primary skill. The scope for self-delusion is high.

* One child only started having strong prior life memories when he was 11 years old. In all the other cases the child remembers things from around two years old but forgets them by about 11. That one of the only two strong cases in the book should contradict the trend makes it more likely that there is another explanation, in my view.

* The community of this same child believes that when you die you are instantly reborn - your spirit doesn't hover in limbo for even a day. However, his prior person died 12 years before he was "reborn". How did they account for this? The child said he had been reincarnated in an intermediate life for the 14 missing years, although he can tell us nothing about this life. We are expected to believe that he cannot remember a prior life, but he can remember the one prior to the prior life. A more prosaic solution is that he learned about the life of his "prior person" and had to invent the intermediate reincarnation to make it fit.

* The other child had an intermediate life too - in London England. Even Stevenson concludes that this is "at least party a fantasy", but still accepts the details of the much better remembered life prior to this "fantasy" one. Why? Surely this acknowledged fantasy discredits the other story?

Stevenson supplies an analysis from his wider studies. The first striking thing is that reincarnation is reported much more frequently in cultures that believe in reincarnation. Stevenson insists that this is because where they believe in reincarnation they are more likely to report it. Where they don't believe, they are less likely to recognize a child's stories for "what they are", or will suppress the child's "memories". This is one explanation. Another explanation would be that in the cultures that do believe, people are looking for such signs, and are more credulous than in cultures that do not believe.

Other trends are noted. For example, in cultures where they believe that you cannot change sex in a reincarnation, they report no cases of changed sex reincarnation. Where they do believe reincarnates can change sex, this is sometimes reported. In my view, these are likely indications that the children and/or the adults observing them are (knowingly or subconsciously), applying their pre-learned cultural beliefs to make the stories fit. Stevenson has another view. He believes that these cultural beliefs are carried over when the person is reincarnated, and this prevents the person being reincarnated in a form that conflicts with their cultural beliefs:

"If a person dies believing that he cannot in another incarnation become a person of the opposite sex, perhaps he cannot, even if he can reincarnate."

This does seem to be ad hoc reasoning. Of course it is entirely circular - the conclusion assumes the premise of the argument.

Conclusion

Clearly these cases cannot be disproved. But I believe there are more prosaic solutions than reincarnation.

Ian Stevenson has often wondered aloud why is work is neglected and obscure. I think the answer is obvious. His books are so expensive, even libraries don't want to buy them. I'd buy them, except I refuse to spend over $30 for a book, and certainly wouldn't spend over $100 to read one of his books. Carol Bowman's Past Lives of Children summarizes his work nicely for a reasonable price. Tom Shroeder wrote a fairly interesting travelogue about accompanying Dr. Stevenson, but you have to put up with his wining about the conditions in foreign countries.

Even the publisher would be better off if they reduced the price of the books about 80% or 90%. People would buy them, and consequently they would make more money. In the meantime, I and many others will remain in the dark about Dr. Stevenson's very interesting work, even though we'd prefer to read them in the original.