Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation

Reviews of the 1987 first edition called it "an impressive book...both scholarly and readable...thoroughly analyzed...highly recommend[ed]"--Journal of Scientific Exploration; "excellent...offers us a fascinating and compelling book with the distinct potential for profoundly changing our way of understanding the nature of human existence and death. Standard reading for any person who wishes to be regarded as literate and educated"--Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. This is the revised edition of Dr. Stevensons 1987 book, summarizing for general readers almost forty years of experience in the study of children who claim to remember previous lives. For many Westerners the idea of reincarnation seems remote and bizarre; it is the authors intent to correct some common misconceptions. New material relating to birthmarks and birth defects, independent replication studies with a critique of criticisms, and recent developments in genetic study are included. The work gives an overview of the history of the belief in and evidence for reincarnation. Representative cases of children, research methods used, analyses of the cases and of variations due to different cultures, and the explanatory value of the idea of reincarnation for some unsolved problems in psychology and medicine are reviewed.