Ian Stevenson - Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation, rev. ed.

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

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e-ISBN: 978-0-7864-5087-9

2001 Ian Stevenson. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover Image: 2000 Corbis Images

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For Margaret

In my books containing detailed case reports, I have already thanked many persons who have ably and selflessly assisted my investigations. I will not repeat all their names here, but instead will confine my thanks to those persons who have helped me in the field work of recent years and in the preparation of this book.

For special assistance in my recent field work I should like to thank Rita Castrn (Finland), Daw Hnin Aye (Burma), Nicholas Ibekwe (Nigeria), Tissa Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), Majd Muakkasah (Lebanon), Satwant Pasricha (India), Godwin Samararatne (Sri Lanka), Nasib Sirorasa (Thailand), and U Win Maung (Burma). Can Polat (Turkey) has sent me information about cases in his country.

Several colleagues and friends have generously read and given me helpful comments to improve one or several chapters, and for this invaluable aid I wish to thank Carlos Alvarado, John Beloff, Stuart Edelstein, Brian Goodwin, Nicholas McClean-Rice, George Owen, and James Wheatley. They have removed numerous faults, and at least some of those that remain may be due to my not having followed their advice on all points.

My former and present research assistants have also greatly improved the book with their suggestions. For this help I thank Carolee Werner, Susan Adams, and Emily Williams Cook, the last with special gratitude, because she read through the entire book twice.

Thanks are due also, and warmly given, to Elizabeth Byrd and Patricia Estes for typingand much retypingof high quality.

Elsevier Science Publishers (Biomedical Division) gave permission for a quotation from one of their journals. The National Technical Information Service of the United States Department of Commerce authorized citation of a passage from a monograph by L. L. Vasiliev.

I drafted much of the book during a sabbatical leave at Darwin College, Cambridge University, and I cordially thank the master and fellows of Darwin College for providing me with this opportunity.

My wife, Margaret, generously gave up much time that we could have spent pleasantly together so that I could finish this book, and I dedicate it affectionately to her.

Finally, I acknowledge gratefully the support of my research by the Bernstein Brothers Parapsychology and Health Foundation.

Happy is the author who can claim advances in his subject when he revises a book written only a little more than a decade earlier. I claim such happiness for several reasons.

The first advance derives from the publication of replication studies. Until the 1980s I worked almost alone on the investigation of the children who claim to remember previous lives. I had the blessing of unusually competent and diligent interpreters and assistants, but they could not conduct and publish independent investigations. Soon after the publication of the first edition of this work other investigators began to publish reports of these cases independently of me. More than that, in different ways these new investigators have undertaken imaginative projects that have advanced the research beyond what I accomplished. Much of the additional text and many of the added references in this edition derive from their work. I am thinking here (in alphabetical order) of Erlendur Haraldsson, Jrgen Keil, Antonia Mills, Satwant Pasricha, and Jim Tucker. As they have traveled more, I have traveled less. I have slowed my own investigations to spare time for writing. I investigated the cases that I summarize in chapter 4 many years ago. This is true even of the two cases that I added to the twelve included in the first edition of this work. I advise readers who wish to study reports of recently investigated cases to study the publications of my colleagues.

The second noteworthy development is the publication in 1997 of my two-volume monograph on the cases whose subjects had pertinent birthmarks and birth defects. This work includes many cases that I had studied before the publication of the first edition of this book. I had held back case reports with these features in order to present their evidence all together. Having done that, I can include in this edition additional information about birthmarks and birth defects.

This edition also contains the results of numerous analyses of the data (from a large number of cases) that my colleagues and I have made since the first edition was published.

Apart from the new material, I have tried wherever I could to improve the clarity of the text and bring it and the references up to date.

Attentive readers may note that I give scant references to recent publications in neuroscience. I have not failed to follow developments in this important field, which has greatly advanced with the infusion of funds it received during the decade of the brain. I remain skeptical, however, that the reductionist approach of nearly all neuroscientists will contribute to understanding the mind-brain problem. I believe that only the recognition of the experiences now called paranormal will do that. I look forward eagerly to the decade of the mind.

One political development since the first edition of this book deserves comment. The country long known as Burma has been governed by a military dictatorship for almost four decades. In l989 the government changed the name of the country to Myanmar. Some other place names were also changed; for example, Rangoon became Yangon. My investigations of cases in this country occurred between l970 and l987, when the country was called Burma, and I have generally retained that name in this book.

Readers should understand that the names of subjects and deceased persons mentioned in this book are a mix of real names and pseudonyms. Persons wishing more information about particular cases can often find these in detailed case reports to which the Appendix provides a directory; if these reports prove insufficient, readers may write me for more information.

Many of the persons whose assistance I gratefully acknowledged in the first edition have continued to help me selflessly. A few persons have been especially important, indeed essential in the task of revision. I wish to thank two colleagues who kindly read through the revision and offered helpful comments for its improvement; they are Emily Williams Kelly (formerly Cook) and Jim Tucker. Dawn Hunt also read the full text; she gave special attention to the references and much other help. Patricia Estes retyped the book with inexhaustible patience and awesome accuracy. In doing this she was greatly helped by Irene Dunn.