Reincarnation research

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Reincarnation research is a field of inquiry that records and analyzes the discourse of people who claim to have had past lives. The field is roughly divided into two components: researchers and therapists. The researchers study the putative past life memories of children, as well as birthmarks that they interpret as the result of past life experiences, publishing their results in scientific journals. Therapists, usually using hypnosis, attempt to help clients recall these putative past life memories.^[1][2] Skeptics suggest that claims of reincarnation originate from selective thinking, confabulation, and the psychological phenomenon of false memories.

Contents 1 Research on early childhood memories and birthmarks 1.1 University of Virginia 2 Research based on hypnotic regression 2.1 Peter Ramster 3 Skeptical reactions 3.1 The fallibility of memory 3.2 Dr. Carl Sagan 4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography 7 External links

[edit] Research on early childhood memories and birthmarks

Researchers collect records of young children who claim to remember a previous life and describe the events and the people they knew in that life. Typically, the child will begin talking about these memories near three years of age, and loses these memories by age seven.^[3] In some cases these memories corroborate with actual people and events. If scientists can interview these children before contact is made with persons familiar with the supposed previous family, then an objective comparison can be made between the statements made by the child and the actual features of the previous life.^[4]

[edit] University of Virginia

University of Virginia psychiatrists Dr. Jim Tucker and Professor Ian Stevenson^[5] have published books and peer-reviewed research papers^[6] about their work in examining cases of early childhood past life memories and birthmarks. The most detailed collections of personal reports in favor of reincarnation have been published by Professor Ian Stevenson, in books such as Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation.

Stevenson has spent over 40 years devoted to the study of children who have spoken about past lives. In each case, Stevenson methodically documents the child's statements. Then, he identifies the deceased person the child allegedly identifies with, and verifies the facts of the deceased person's life that match the child's memory.^[7][8] Stevenson believes that his meticulous methods rule out all possible "normal" explanations for the child’s memories. However, it should be noted that a significant proportion of the University of Virginia's reported cases of reincarnation originate in Eastern societies, where dominant religions often permit the concept of reincarnation. In India — where this phenomenon is quite common — if a child from a poor family claims to be the reincarnated person from a rich family, this can lead to the child to be adopted by that family, a motive that has led to children making fraudulent reincarnation claims.^[9]

Stevenson has said about the 2500 cases of children who appeared to remember past lives, which he and his associates investigated:

"My conclusion so far is that reincarnation is not the only explanation for these cases, but that it is the best explanation we have for the stronger cases, by which I mean those in which a child makes a considerable number (say 20 or 30) of correct statements about another person who lives in a family that lives quite remote from his own and with which his family has had no prior contacts. When we talk about remoteness, we don't necessarily just mean physical distance. We know that two families can live only 10 kilometers apart and yet they can be very remote because they belong to different economic and social classes."^[10]

Professor Stevenson has also matched birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records such as autopsy photographs.^[11] Stevenson's research into birthmarks and congenital defects has particular importance for the demonstration of reincarnation, since it furnishes objective and graphic evidence of reincarnation, superior to the (often fragmentary) memories and reports of the children and adults questioned, which even if verified afterwards probably cannot be assigned the same value in scientific terms.^[12] Many of the birthmarks are not just small discolourations. They are "often unusual in shape or size and are often puckered or raised rather than simply being flat. Some can be quite dramatic and unusual in appearance."^[13]

[edit] Research based on hypnotic regression

Main article: Past life regression

The second major field of research requires the direct intervention of the researcher, who places subjects in a hypnotic trance in order to elicit memories of past lives. The advantage of this procedure is that almost anyone can provide testimony about reincarnation, not just the rare children who speak of past lives. The disadvantages of the procedure are that, first, the testimony of subjects is immediately suspect, because hypnosis is known to sometimes produce false memories, and second, that the events described are invariably so long ago, so patchily described, and so poorly documented in the historical record that no objective comparison can be made between the events described and actual events. Nevertheless, because so many hypnotic subjects spontaneously remember past lives, some psychologists have become convinced of the legitmacy of the phenomenon.^[14]

[edit] Peter Ramster

Peter Ramster, a psychotherapist, has used trance and hypnosis that induced a number of patients to make claims about past lives. Four of these patients, housewives who had never left Australia and who, under trance, had come up with all sorts of details, and names of people and places, were taken to Western European countries where they said they had been living in the 18th and 19th century. Prior to their arrival, in 1983, Ramster and local historians searched archives, looking for and finding the names given in Australia. Similarly, villages and hamlets mentioned under hypnosis were found on old maps. Some of these settlements no longer existed, yet some names given turned out to be correct.^[15]

The most suggestive case of all, according to Ramster, is Gwen McDonald who said she was Rose Duncan in Somerset, England, at the end of the 18th century. She described various details in England that appeared correct when they were then researched, such as the location of stepping stones. Ramster writes: "Short of some other explanation to the contrary, I have personally come to believe in the truth of both life after death and reincarnation."^[16] The investigation of the McDonald case was witnessed throughout by Dr. Basil Cottle of Bristol University.

Ramster's research has almost completely been ignored by the scientific community, and scientists such as Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker have some concerns about past life regression.^[17]

[edit] Skeptical reactions

The most obvious objection to reincarnation is that there is no evidence of a physical process by which a personality could survive death and travel to another body,^[18] and researchers such as Professor Stevenson recognize this limitation.^{[citation needed]} Another fundamental objection is that most people simply do not remember previous lives, although it could be argued that only some, but not all, people reincarnate. Certainly the vast majority of cases investigated at the University of Virginia involved people who had met some sort of violent or untimely death.^[19][20]

Skeptics suggest that claims of reincarnation originate from selective thinking, confabulation, and the psychological phenomena of false memories. Some skeptics, such as Paul Edwards, have analyzed many of these accounts, and called them anecdotal.^[21] In every case skeptics found that further research into the individuals involved provides sufficient background to weaken the conclusion that these cases are credible examples of reincarnation. Nevertheless, philosophers like Robert Almeder, having analyzed the criticisms of Edwards and others, say that the gist of these criticisms can be summarized as "we all know it can't possibly be real, so therefore it isn't real" - an argument from lack of imagination.^[22]

[edit] The fallibility of memory

See also: False memory

It is common experience that human memory may be unreliable to some degree, whether by failing to remember at all or by remembering incorrectly. Confabulated evidence presented by children in police cases such as the Kern County child abuse scare and McMartin preschool trial could cast doubt on the reliability of claims children might make with regards to reincarnation.

Stevenson argued that fallibility of memories is mitigated where birthmarks and birth defects are matched to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records such as autopsy photographs, and increases confidence in the accuracy of all informants' memories concerning them.^[12]

[edit] Dr. Carl Sagan

See also: Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was a noted scientist, teacher and skeptic.^[23] Sagan was a founding member of a group that set out to debunk unscientific claims, and wrote the book The Demon-Haunted World in which he said that there were several areas in parapsychology which deserved serious study:

"At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images "projected" at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any way other than reincarnation. I pick these claims not because I think they're likely to be valid (I don't), but as examples of contentions that might be true."^[24]

This is not to say that Carl Sagan believed in reincarnation, but he believed that reincarnation research should be taken more seriously ^[25] because to dismiss such research out of hand would be unscientific.

[edit] See also

• Children's Past Lives
• False memory
• Ian Stevenson
• Jim Tucker
• Life Before Life
• Past life regression
• Reincarnation
• Society for Psychical Research
• Xenoglossy

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

• Division of Perceptual Studies, University of Virginia
• Dr. Ian Stevenson: The Pioneer of Reincarnation Research
• Reincarnation, from the Skeptic's Dictionary
• Gesellschaft für therapeutische Hypnose und Hypnoseforschung (German)

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