Ian Stevenson

Stevenson's method was that of a field investigator. When he learned of a child who was describing another life, he travelled to interview the child, the family, and independent witnesses. Where a deceased person matching the statements had been identified, he interviewed that family too, and compared what the child had said with the facts.

His first collection, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, appeared in 1966.^[1] Over his career he and his colleagues gathered more than 2,500 cases from many countries. Typical features are these.

• The child begins speaking of another life between the ages of two and five, and stops by about seven.
• The previous life usually ended in a sudden or violent death.
• The child may show fears, preferences, or play that fit the life described.

In Reincarnation and Biology he documented cases in which a child's birthmarks or birth defects corresponded to wounds on the deceased person, using medical records where they existed.^[2]

Stevenson distrusted hypnosis as a source of evidence and did not use it. His cases are spontaneous. This separates his work from past-life regression.

His colleague Jim Tucker has continued the research, with more attention to American cases.^[3]

Stevenson published in mainstream medical journals and was respected for his care. Most scientists were not persuaded. The main criticisms are that many cases came from cultures that expect reincarnation, that in most cases the two families had met before he arrived, so the child's original statements could not be separated from later additions, and that interpreters and informants may have shaped the record.^[4]

Stevenson answered that the strongest cases, in which statements were written down before any match was found, resist these explanations. He described his evidence as "suggestive" and never as proof.

The Bridge cites the Virginia research in support of reincarnation. Stevenson's work is the strongest evidence the framework has on that subject, because it does not depend on hypnosis. He had no connection to The Source of Aletheia.

1. Stevenson, I. (1974). Twenty cases suggestive of reincarnation (2nd ed.). University Press of Virginia. (Original work published 1966)
2. Stevenson, I. (1997). Reincarnation and biology: A contribution to the etiology of birthmarks and birth defects. Praeger.
3. Tucker, J. B. (2005). Life before life: A scientific investigation of children's memories of previous lives. St. Martin's Press.
4. Edwards, P. (1996). Reincarnation: A critical examination. Prometheus Books.