Matthew Jackson
Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read

Hi Erman,

Thanks for your response. Some facet of the data would probably be described as self-report, though generally speaking it doesn’t do much good to interview 2–4 year olds who spontaneously begin talking about a previous life. Often something in their “new” lives — an event, person, object — jars memories loose from the “old” one, prompting these children to share very specific details about an individual who previously lived.

If the parents don’t immediately dismiss such talk as gibberish, they might record what the child says so that researchers like Stevenson can later investigate the child’s claims to see if they match an individual who once lived and died. In more recent cases, DOPS researchers have turned their attention to cultures that don’t believe in reincarnation, and are even violently opposed to it — such as fundamentalist Christian culture in the US.

One interesting feature of some children who talk about past lives is that they have very odd birthmarks, 225 of which are the subject of Stevenson’s two-volume academic book “Reincarnation and Biology.” In these cases he’s found a possible match based on the facts given by the child, and then applied for access to the medical records where he’s matched the wounds on the dead person’s body to see if they correspond with the birth defects exhibited by the children who are describing a past life. They often do. For example, several children who talk about dying of gunshot wounds have birth defects that correspond to the entrance and exit wounds of a bullet.

If you want a brief overview, plus a description of one such case of a Christian couple in Louisiana, Google the phrase, “Is there life after death? Fifty Years of Research at UVA.” The video is a presentation and panel discussion held at the UVA School of Medicine in 2017. Jim Tucker, the current head of DOPS, describes Stevenson’s research in brief and then discusses an interesting American case (from the 4:00 to 16:00 minute mark).

Also, I have a question about this statement:

“All the neuroscientific data I know supports the idea that brain function, along with its interactions with the body, wholly creates the consciousness we experience. So I personally don’t believe we can disentangle the two.”

I know mainstream neuroscience believe that brains CAUSE consciousness. When you say we can’t disentangle the two, do you mean that it’s impossible to say whether current research suggests correlation or causation, but that causation is assumed because we can’t envision another workable model? (Ie. It’s hard to envision how consciousness could be anything but a product of brain activity?)

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

All the best,

Matt

    Matthew Jackson

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