Research on reincarnation

IAN STEVENSON'S REINCARNATION STUDY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Ian Stevenson, MD, who died in 2007, served as Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was also awarded the title of Professor of psychiatry at the Carlson Institute.

Since 1961, for forty years, Dr. Stevenson has been researching children who spontaneously recalled past lives that could be confirmed by facts. He decided to study only children because he believed that children were unlikely to falsify memories of past lives. Jim Tucker, MD, succeeded Dr. Stevenson at the University of Virginia.

In 2018, Dr. Tucker reported that Stevenson and his colleagues had collected "more than 2,500" cases of childhood memories of a previous life. In 1,567 of these cases, a person from a previous life was identified during the study. In another 150 cases, the identity of a past life was identified "tentatively."

Thus, in my opinion, the number of confirmed cases of childhood memories of past lives is best represented by the number 1567.

Most of the cases studied by Stevenson originate from Asia, India, and other regions where the doctrine of reincarnation is accepted. Where reincarnation is not a generally accepted belief system, it is believed that parents prevent the child from showing memories of past lives.

The childhood cases studied by Jan Stevenson have a common pattern, marked by the following features:

1. As soon as a child has the ability to communicate, he begins to describe his past life. Often, a child claims that his or her name is different from the name given to the child by his or her biological parents. The child insists that the current family is not his real family, but his or her real family lives in another village or city. The child remembers the names of various family members and geographical locations from a previous life. The physical features of the house and its surroundings from a previous life may be recalled. In a series of cases investigated by Dr. Stevenson, the average age when a child starts talking about a past life is 3 years, and the average age when children stop talking about a past life is 7.5 years.
2. The child remembers the details of his death in a previous life. In about 66 percent of the cases of childhood reincarnation studied by Dr. Stevenson, a violent or premature death occurred in a previous life. Dr. Stevenson found that people who died from traumatic wounds, such as bullet or knife wounds, are often born in a subsequent incarnation with moles or scars that reflect wounds received in a previous life. In modern life, a child may develop a phobia related to the cause of death in a previous life. It has been estimated that among children who remember violent deaths in a previous life, 35 percent have a phobia related to the cause of death.
   
3. Based on the information provided by the child to the biological family, the child's family from a previous incarnation is eventually identified. When a child meets this family for the first time, he is able to identify family members by name or kinship. A child often knows family secrets that only members of the previous family can know. As a result, a family from a previous life often accepts a child as the reincarnation of their deceased relative.
   Biological parents of a child in the current incarnation often fear that the child will leave them for a family from a previous incarnation, as the mutual bond between the child and the family from a previous life becomes so strong. This fear turns out to be unfounded, since the bond between the child and modern parents persists. However, a long-term relationship is usually established between a child and a family from a previous life.
4. Character traits, personal preferences, and habits often persist from one incarnation to the next.
5. The gender usually remains the same. In 90 percent of the cases observed by Dr. Stevenson, the child returns, assuming the same gender as in a previous life. Thus, in ten percent of cases, gender changes from one life to another. The observation that gender changes in only 10 percent of reincarnation cases may shed light on homosexuality, transsexualism, and gender identity issues.
6. The physical appearance can be similar from one life to another. Stevenson's cases show that appearance can remain unchanged from one incarnation to the next. Two cases in particular clearly demonstrate how facial features can remain unchanged from one life to the next. Jan Stevenson studied Suzanne Ghanem and Daniel Giurdi in the late 1960s, when they were young children. Photos of these people from their previous incarnations were available. Stevenson revisited Suzanne and Daniel in 1998 and discovered that the two men, now adults, had the same facial features as in their previous incarnations. These cases were published in Tom Schroeder's book "Old Souls". Two other cases of reincarnation, cited by Ian Stevenson, for which it was possible to compare photographs showing similar facial features, relate to the so-called Burmese twins.
   In his book "Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect," Dr. Stevenson advised researchers to systematically study "facial similarities between subjects and previous personalities."
7. During reincarnation, the relationship is resumed.
   Burmese sisters reborn as twins. As noted above, Stevenson's cases showing physical similarities concern Burmese twins who were sisters in previous lives. They were part of a study involving 31 pairs of twins whose past lives were objectively confirmed. In 100% of these cases, the twins had close relationships in past lives, which clearly demonstrates that souls plan their lives to reunite with loved ones through reincarnation.
8. Children remember the time they spent between their lives. In 20 percent of the cases studied by Stevenson, children show memories of what happened between their lives in the spiritual world.

It is interesting to note that the average interval between death in a previous life and rebirth is 16 months, or about 1.5 years. The usual interval between death and rebirth is 4.5 years. For cases of reincarnation involving suicide in a previous life, the average interval between death and rebirth is only 3 months.