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Ian Stevenson

Dr. Ian Stevenson
Born	October 31, 1918(1918-10-31) Montreal, Canada
Died	February 08, 2007 (aged 88) Charlottesville, Virginia
Residence	Charlottesville, Virginia
Citizenship	Canadian
Nationality	Canada
Ethnicity	Caucasian
Field	Psychiatry
Institutions	University of Virginia
Alma mater	St. Andrews University, McGill University
Known for	Reincarnation research
Influences	Theosophy
Influenced	Dr. Bruce Greyson. Dr. Jim Tucker, Satwant Pasricha

Ian Pretyman Stevenson, M.D., (born October 31, 1918, in Montreal, Canada, died February 8, 2007, in Charlottesville, Virginia), was a Canadian-American psychiatrist whose research interests included: children who claim to remember previous lives, near-death experiences, apparitions (death-bed visions), the mind-brain problem, and possible survival of the human personality after death. [1] Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Shortcut: WP:NPOVD Articles that have been linked to this page are the subject of an NPOV dispute (NPOV stands for Neutral Point Of View; see below). ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Nickname: Motto: Concordia Salus (well-being through harmony) Coordinates: , Country Province Region Montréal Founded 1642 Established 1832 Government  - Mayor Gérald Tremblay Area [1][2][3]  - City 365. ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... Charlottesville is an independent city located within the confines of Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the wife of King George III of England. ... Charlottesville is an independent city located within the confines of Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the wife of King George III of England. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Look up Caucasian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Psychiatry is a branch of medicine dealing with the prevention, assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of the mind and mental illness. ... The University of Virginia (also called U.Va. ... University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews was founded between 1410-1413 and is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the United Kingdom. ... McGill University is a publicly funded, co-educational research university located in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. ... Reincarnation research is a field of inquiry that records and analyzes memories that subjects claim to have of past lives. ... Theosophy, literally god-wisdom (Greek: θεοσοφία theosophia), designates several bodies of ideas. ... Jim Tucker, M.D., is the author of Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children’s Memories of Previous Lives, which presents an overview of more than 40 years of research at the University of Virginia Division of Personality Studies. ... Dr. Satwant Pasricha is the head of Department of Clinical Psychology at NIMHANS, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences at Bangalore. ... is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Nickname: Motto: Concordia Salus (well-being through harmony) Coordinates: , Country Province Region Montréal Founded 1642 Established 1832 Government  - Mayor Gérald Tremblay Area [1][2][3]  - City 365. ... is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... Charlottesville is an independent city located within the confines of Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Princess Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the wife of King George III of England. ... For other uses, see Psychiatrist (disambiguation). ...

The Early Years

Ian Stevenson was raised in Ottawa, where his father was the Canadian correspondent for the New York Times and his mother influenced her son with an interest in Theosophy. Stevenson studied at St. Andrews University in Scotland and at McGill University in Montreal, where he received a B.S. in 1942 and an M.D. in 1943, graduating at the top of his class. [2] In the 1950s, inspired by a meeting with Aldous Huxley, he became a pioneer in the medical study of the effects of LSD. [3] This article is about the capital city of Canada. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Theosophy, literally god-wisdom (Greek: θεοσοφία theosophia), designates several bodies of ideas. ... University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews was founded between 1410-1413 and is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the United Kingdom. ... McGill University is a publicly funded, co-educational research university located in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. ... Aldous Leonard Huxley (July 26, 1894 – November 22, 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. ... Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly called LSD, LSD-25, or acid. ...

Stevenson was the founder of scientific research into reincarnation and was best known for collecting and meticulously researching cases of children who seem to recall past lives without the need for hypnosis. After Professor Stevenson published his first paper on reincarnation in 1960, the inventor Chester Carlson funded his first field visits to India and Sri Lanka. In 1963 Carlson died and Stevenson was astonished to learn that Carlson had left $1 million to endow a Chair at the University of Virginia, and a further $1 million for Stevenson himself to continue his research into reincarnation. [4] This article is about the theological concept. ... Professor Charcot was well-known for showing, during his lessons at the Salpêtrière hospital, hysterical woman patients – here, his favorite patient, Blanche (Marie) Wittman, supported by Joseph Babiński. ... Chester Carlson he is also a homosexual Chester Floyd Carlson (February 8, 1906 - September 19, 1968) was an American physicist, inventor, and patent attorney born in Seattle, Washington. ...

Field research on claimed memories of previous lives

In 1967, Stevenson was appointed as Director of the Division of Personality Studies (later renamed Division of Perceptual Studies) (DOPS) and, for a period was also Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. [5] The University of Virginia (also called U.Va. ...

Stevenson went on to conduct additional field research about reincarnation in Africa, Alaska, British Columbia, Burma, India, South America, Lebanon, Turkey, and many other places. The children studied usually started recalling their past life story between the ages of two and four, yet seem to have forgotten it by seven or eight. There were frequent mentions of having died a violent death, and apparently clear memories of the mode of death.[6] In 1997, Stevenson released Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, a two-volume, 2268-page examination of cases in which persons were born with birthmarks or birth defects related to traumas purportedly suffered by a "previous personality," and medical records associated with such cases. (Praeger, 1997, ISBN: 0-275-95282-7.)[7] A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... Official language(s) None[1] Spoken language(s) English 85. ... Motto: Splendor Sine Occasu (Latin: Splendour Without Sunset (diminishment)) Capital Victoria Largest city Vancouver Official languages English Government - Lieutenant-Governor Iona Campagnolo - Premier Gordon Campbell (BC Liberal) Federal representation in Canadian Parliament - House seats 36 - Senate seats 6 Confederation July 20, 1871 (6th province) Area  Ranked 5th - Total 944,735... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ...

Stevenson published only for the academic and scientific community, and his over 200 articles and several books—densely packed with research details and academic argument—are in places difficult for the average reader to follow. His research, over 3,000 study cases, provides evidence suggestive of reincarnation, though he himself was always careful to refer to them as "cases suggestive of reincarnation" or "cases of the reincarnation type." [8] This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Professor Stevenson himself recognized a problem with his argument for reincarnation: the absence of any evidence of a physical process by which a personality could survive death and travel to another body.[9] Further, some have questioned his objectivity in drawing conclusions from his research. [10] However, as The Washington Post reported in its obituary on Stevenson, "[I]n 1996, no less a luminary than astronomer Carl Sagan, a founding member of a group that set out to debunk unscientific claims, wrote in his book, The Demon-Haunted World: "There are three claims in the [parapsychology] field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study," the third of which was "that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation."^[1] The Washington Post is the largest newspaper in Washington, D.C.. It is also one of the citys oldest papers, having been founded in 1877. ... Insert non-formatted text here Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer and astrobiologist and a highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics, and other natural sciences. ...

Tom Shroder, a Washington Post editor, wrote a popular book on Stevenson's work titled Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives (Simon & Schuster, 1999. ISBN: 0=684-85192-X). Shroder interviewed Stevenson extensively and accompanied him on field investigations in India and Lebanon. In a magazine article drawn from the book, Shroder wrote: Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence For Past Lives is a nonfiction book about Tom Shroders interviews with Dr. Ian Stevenson. ...

In scores of cases around the world, multiple witnesses confirm that children have spontaneously supplied names of towns and relatives, occupations and relationships, attitudes and emotions that pinpointed a single, dead individual -- often apparently unknown to their present families. Trying to make sense of these cases is what has involved Stevenson for almost 40 years. It is what we have been doing in Lebanon and India: examining records, interviewing witnesses and measuring the results against possible alternative explanations...

If Stevenson is largely ignored by his mainstream peers, in some circles he is a scientific legend. His dogged collection of cases -- closing in on 3,000 now -- his meticulous documentation and cross-checking, his prodigious and scholarly publication have made him a hero to many people who would like respectable reasons to distrust the radical materialism of Western science. For his own part, Stevenson has reached this conclusion: "I think a rational person, if he wants, can believe in reincarnation on the basis of evidence." ^[2]

Retirement

Professor Stevenson retired in 2002, leaving his work to successors led by Dr. Bruce Greyson. Dr. Jim Tucker, a child psychiatrist, is continuing Ian Stevenson's work with children, focusing on North American cases. [11]

Stevenson married Margaret Pertzoff in 1985. (His previous wife, Octavia Reynolds, died in 1983.) Professor Stevenson died of pneumonia at the Blue Ridge Retirement community in Charlottesville, Virginia, on February 8, 2007. [12] Charlottesville is an independent city located within the confines of Albemarle County in the state of Virginia. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...

Books

• Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. (1966). (Second revised and enlarged edition 1974), University of Virginia Press, ISBN 0813908728
• Cases of the Reincarnation Type Vol. I: Ten Cases in India, (1975). University of Virginia Press.
• Cases of the Reincarnation Type Vol. II: Ten Cases in Sri Lanka. (1978). University of Virginia Press.
• Cases of the Reincarnation Type Vol. III: Twelve Cases in Lebanon and Turkey. (1980). University of Virginia Press.
• Cases of the Reincarnation Type Vol. IV: Twelve Cases in Thailand and Burma. (1983). University of Virginia Press.
• Unlearned Language: New Studies in Xenoglossy. (1984). University of Virginia Press, ISBN 0813909945
• Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects. (1997). (2 volumes), Praeger Publishers, ISBN 0-275-95282-7
• Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. (1997). Praeger Publishers, ISBN 0-275-95282-7 . (A short and non-technical version of the scientific two-volumes work, for the general reader)
• Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Quest of Reincarnation. (2001). McFarland & Company, ISBN 0-7864-0913-4 , (A general non-technical introduction into reincarnation-research)
• European Cases of the Reincarnation Type. (2003). McFarland & Company, ISBN 0786414588

Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation is a book written by Ian Stevenson Categories: Substubs ... Xenoglossy is the ability to speak in a language which the individual has not learnt. ...

Articles published in scientific journals

• "The Explanatory Value of the Idea of Reincarnation" (1977) Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 164:305-326.
• "American Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives" (1983) Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 171:742-748.
• "The Belief in Reincarnation Among the Igbo of Nigeria" (1985) Journal of Asian and African Studies, XX:13-30.
• "Characteristics of Cases of the Reincarnation Type Among the Igbo of Nigeria" (1986) Journal of Asian and African Studies, XXI:204-216.
• "Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons", (1993). Journal of Scientific Exploration, 7:403-410. (with Cook, E.W., Greyson, B.) (1998).
• "Do Any Near-Death Experiences Provide Evidence for the Survival of Human Personality after Death? Relevant Features and Illustrative Case Reports",Journal of Scientific Exploration, 12(3): 377-406.
• "Past lives of twins"(1999). Lancet, Apr 17; 353(9161):1359-60.
• "The phenomenon of claimed memories of previous lives: possible interpretations and importance"(2000). Medical Hypotheses, 54(4), 652-659.
• "Ropelike Birthmarks on Children Who Claim to Remember Past Lives" (2001). Psychological Reports, Aug 89(1):142-144.
• (with Pasricha, S.K., Keil, J. and J.B. Tucker), (2005). "Some Bodily Malformations Attributed to Previous Lives" Journal of Scientific Exploration 19(3):359-383.

Dr. Satwant Pasricha is the head of Department of Clinical Psychology at NIMHANS, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences at Bangalore. ...

Biographies

• Fox, Margalit. (2007). "Ian Stevenson, Academic Psychiatrist Who Studied Claims of Past Lives, Dies at 88." New York Times, February 18, p. 27.
• Shroder, Tom (1999). Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives.
• Tucker, Jim B. (2005). Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives.

Old Souls: The Scientific Evidence For Past Lives is a nonfiction book about Tom Shroders interviews with Dr. Ian Stevenson. ... Life Before Life is a book written by psychiatrist Dr. Jim Tucker, which is a very readable overview of more than 40 years of research at the University of Virginia Division of Personality Studies into past life recall by children. ...

References

1. ^ "Ian Stevenson; Sought To Document Memories Of Past Lives in Children," by Tom Shroder, Washington Post, February 11, 2007, Page C06, quoting The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan (Random House, 1996, ISBN 0-394-53512-X), p. 302.
2. ^ "A Matter of Death & Life: Ian Stevenson's scientific search for evidence of reincarnation," by Tom Shroder, Washington Post Magazine, August 8, 1999.

See also

• Afterlife
• Jim Tucker
• Life Before Life
• Reincarnation research
• Satwant Pasricha
• Xenoglossy

For other uses, see Afterlife (disambiguation). ... Jim Tucker, M.D., is the author of Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children’s Memories of Previous Lives, which presents an overview of more than 40 years of research at the University of Virginia Division of Personality Studies. ... Life Before Life is a book written by psychiatrist Dr. Jim Tucker, which is a very readable overview of more than 40 years of research at the University of Virginia Division of Personality Studies into past life recall by children. ... Reincarnation research is a field of inquiry that records and analyzes memories that subjects claim to have of past lives. ... Dr. Satwant Pasricha is the head of Department of Clinical Psychology at NIMHANS, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences at Bangalore. ... Xenoglossy is the ability to speak in a language which the individual has not learnt. ...

External links

• Biography and Bibliography
• Division of Personality Studies (DOPS), University of Virginia
• Obituary from Daily Telegraph
• Obituary from The Washington Post