A lot ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
people are resistant to the idea ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a
“soul” because ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ how this term has
gotten wrapped up in religious
superstition and dogma. Some people
think it is outright silly. But the
concept ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ consciousness being able to
detach from the body offers a lot ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
explanatory power when it comes to
phenomenon such as Near Death
Experiences, Out-************SPAM/BANNEAR************-Body Experiences,
astral projections, and even
reincarnation.
In fact, the evidence for
reincarnation is the best hard scientific
evidence we have for the existence ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a
soul. This is a bold claim, but the
evidence for reincarnation is
undeniable and cannot collectively be
attributed to chance or any other
physical explanation. If reincarnation
exists, the soul exists. Let’s take a
look!
Before we explore the evidence, it’s
helpful to remember that we do not
need hard PROOF in order to be
justified in believing in something. If
the weatherman says there is a 70%
chance ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ showers, I don’t need proof
that it’s going to rain before I am
justified in bringing an umbrella with
me. I don’t have to be certain that a
meteor isn’t going to fall on my head
before I go outside. I don’t need hard
scientific proof ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ extra-terrestrial life
in order to be justified in believing that
life exists on other planets, because
there are so many good reasons that,
when taken together cumulatively,
provide a plausible account for belief
in life on other planets. This is known
as “abductive reasoning” and is the
kind ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ reasoning we use most in our
every day lives.
Reincarnation is not something you can
objectively measure in the same way
you can measure a chemical reaction,
so it may even be in principle non-
provable using the scientific method. So
the question is, “Are there enough solid
pieces ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ evidence that, when taken
together, justify a belief in
reincarnation?” I think the answer is a
resounding yes. Here we go:
Dr. Ian Stevenson, Ph.D., former
Professor ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Psychiatry at the
University ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Virginia School ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Medicine, spent 40 years researching
reincarnation stories within children.
This former chairman ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
Department ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Psychiatry and
Neurology investigated over 3000
independent stories ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ children who
claimed to have memories and know
people from their alleged past lives.
According to Stevenson, the number ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
cases that are worth considering is so
high that it exceeds the ability ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ him
and his team to investigate them all.
Facial recognition software confirmed
that there was in fact a facial
resemblance to their alleged prior
incarnation. Some had birth marks on
places where they allegedly suffered
fatal wounds from in their past life.
They were often dramatic and
sometimes bizarre lesions, such as
malformed digits or missing limbs,
misshapen heads, and odd markings. As
Dr. Stevenson writes in his paper
“Birthmarks and Birth Defects
Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased
Persons” in the peer-reviewed Journal
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Scientific Exploration:
“A bout 35% ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ children who claim to
remember previous lives have
birthmarks and/or birth defects that
they (or adult informants) attribute to
wounds on a person whose life the
child remembers. The cases ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ 210 such
children have been investigated. The
birthmarks were usually areas ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
hairless, puckered skin; some were
areas ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ little or no
pigmentation (hypopigmented macules);
others were areas ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ increased
pigmentation (hyperpigmented nevi).
The birth defects were nearly always ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
rare types. In cases in which a deceased
person was identified the details ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
whose life unmistakably matched the
child’s statements, a close
correspondence was nearly always
found between the birthmarks and/or
birth defects on the child and the
wounds on the deceased person. In 43
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ 49 cases in which a
medical document (usually a
postmortem report) was obtained, it
confirmed the correspondence between
wounds and birthmarks (or birth
defects).”
The memories the children recalled
were far too specific to be chalked up to
chance. In an article where 3 cases
were looked at in great detail by Dr.
Stevenson, he reported that each ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
3 children made roughly 30-40 claims
regarding memories that had ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ their
past lives, 82-92% ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ which were both
verifiable and correct. The
particularities and specific details that
were given by the children ranged from
anything from the names, personalities,
and occupations ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ their former parents
and siblings to the precise layouts ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
the houses they lived in. It was not
uncommon for Stevenson to encounter
a child who could go into a town he
had never been in before and give him
the details ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the village, former
personal belongings, the neighbourhood
in which he lived in a past life, and the
people who he use to associate with.
As he concludes: “It was possible in
each case to find a family that had lost
a member whose life corresponded to
the subject’s statements. The statements
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the subject, taken as a group, were
sufficiently specific so that they could
not have corresponded to the life ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ any
other person. We believe we
have excluded normal transmission ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
the correct information to the subjects
and that they obtained the correct
information they showed about the
concerned deceased person by some
paranormal process.”
Something which interested Dr.
Stevenson was the phobias that were
developed from past-life traumas. As
Dr. Jim Tucker writes:
“Another area that interested Ian was
the behavior ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ these children. He
wrote a paper about phobias that many
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the children showed, usually related
to the mode ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ death from the life they
claimed to remember (Stevenson,
1990a). He reported that 36% ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
children in a series ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ 387 cases showed
such fears. They occurred when the
children were very young, sometimes
before they had made their claims
about the previous life. For example, he
described a girl in Sri Lanka who as a
baby resisted baths so much that three
adults had to hold her down to give her
one. By the age ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ six months, she also
showed a marked phobia ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ buses and
then later described the life ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a girl in
another village who had been walking
along a narrow road between flooded
paddy fields when she stepped back to
avoid a bus going by, fell into the flood
water, and drowned.” The original
journal article these findings were
published can be found here .
What seems to be more than mere
chance is that children were able to
accurately identify former
acquaintances and relationships they
had with people in their prior lives.
Most impressively was a Lebanese girl
who was able to remember and identify
25 different people from her past life
and the interpersonal relationships she
had with them. His best findings were
put together in a book called Twenty
Cases Suggestive ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Reincarnation. For
further reading, this book would really
be your best bet. The American Journal
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Psychiatry reviewed these cases
and said there were ‘‘cases recorded in
such full detail as to persuade the open
mind that reincarnation is a tenable
hypothesis to explain them’’. He had
several other books and papers
published and widely accepted in the
mainstream community.
As a review in the Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
American Medical Association stated ‘‘In
regard to reincarnation he has
painstakingly and unemotionally
collected a detailed series ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ cases from
India, cases in which the evidence is
difficult to explain on any other
grounds.’’ The reviewer added: ‘‘He has
placed on record a large amount ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
data that cannot be ignored’’. His one
paper called ‘‘The Explanatory Value ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
the Idea ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Reincarnation’’ had
thousands ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ requests for reprints by
scientists all over the world. His
findings were also published in peer
reviewed journals the Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Nervous and Mental Disease, and the
International Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Comparative
Sociology.
During a presentation at Penn State
University in 2005, Dr. Jim B. Tucker, a
child psychiatrist at the University ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Virginia, described how a mother was
leaning over the changing table to
change her son’s diaper. Her young
toddler unexpectedly said, “When I was
your age, I used to change your
diapers.” Sam Taylor, ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Vermont, was
born 18 months following his
grandfather’s death. When he made this
comment, he was ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a few years old.
When he was four and a half years old,
however, Taylor was able to pick out
his grandfather from a class picture ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
about 20 people and identify his
grandfather’s first car from a
photograph.
Here is video ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a young boys
reincarnation story covered by ABC
news to provide you a glimpse into the
nature ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ these cases. It’s important to
note that this case is American, so the
parents are not influencing or
encouraging the boy to believe in
reincarnation in the name ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ culture or
religion:
This is just a small fraction ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
amount ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ evidence that exists for
reincarnation. Upon coming to a
conclusion about all his findings and
his publications, we have to ask
ourselves “What is the best explanation
that can accommodate all ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ this
evidence?” Why would there be so
many cases ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ children who claim to
have been other people, who know the
specific names and interpersonal
relationships ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the person they recall
being, who have similar behaviour and
personalities as the people they claimed
to be, who have birthmarks and
abnormalities where they claimed to
have suffered wounds in their past
lives, and who have specific phobias
linked back to alleged past life traumas
if reincarnation did not exist? What
are the odds ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ all ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ this evidence
existing without the soul existing? The
accounts are far too precise to be
chalked up as chance, and all other
explanations are impoverished in trying
to explain such a wide array ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ data.
Reincarnation can no longer be looked
at as some woo-woo, pseudoscientific,
religiously dogmatic New Age fantasy,
and neither can the soul. We can infer
the reality ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the soul because it is the
best explanation for all ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the given
data. This is a hypothesis which has
gotten serious attention in the
mainstream academic community, and
is still ripe with investigation to this
day. When we take all the evidence
together and look at it without religious
or scientific bias getting in the way, it
seems as though we are not ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
justified in believing in reincarnation,
but it also may be the best ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ all
explanations for the strongest cases.
“It is not surprising to be born more
than once; everything in nature is
resurrection” —Voltaire
More evidence for the existence ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
soul can be found in the links below:
Harvard trained brain neurosurgeon
has the most legitimate NDE ever
recorded
Dr. Robert Lanza and Dr. Stuart
Hameroff offer scientific models/
explanations for the existence ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
soul.
Sources:
Sources to original articles can be
found in the highlighted words in the
article.
Laidlaw, R. W. (1967). Review ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Twenty Cases Suggestive ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Reincarnation. American Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Psychiatry, 124, 128.
King, L. S. (1975). Reincarnation.
JAMA, 234, 978
Medicine ? School ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Medicine at the University ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Virginia
clinical/departments/psychiatry/
sections/cspp/dops/case_types-
page#CORT
http://www.examiner.com/article/
reincarnation-scientific-evidence
Recommended read: Life Before Life by
Dr. Jim Tucker, and Journey ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Souls by
Dr. Michael Newton.
people are resistant to the idea ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a
“soul” because ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ how this term has
gotten wrapped up in religious
superstition and dogma. Some people
think it is outright silly. But the
concept ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ consciousness being able to
detach from the body offers a lot ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
explanatory power when it comes to
phenomenon such as Near Death
Experiences, Out-************SPAM/BANNEAR************-Body Experiences,
astral projections, and even
reincarnation.
In fact, the evidence for
reincarnation is the best hard scientific
evidence we have for the existence ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a
soul. This is a bold claim, but the
evidence for reincarnation is
undeniable and cannot collectively be
attributed to chance or any other
physical explanation. If reincarnation
exists, the soul exists. Let’s take a
look!
Before we explore the evidence, it’s
helpful to remember that we do not
need hard PROOF in order to be
justified in believing in something. If
the weatherman says there is a 70%
chance ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ showers, I don’t need proof
that it’s going to rain before I am
justified in bringing an umbrella with
me. I don’t have to be certain that a
meteor isn’t going to fall on my head
before I go outside. I don’t need hard
scientific proof ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ extra-terrestrial life
in order to be justified in believing that
life exists on other planets, because
there are so many good reasons that,
when taken together cumulatively,
provide a plausible account for belief
in life on other planets. This is known
as “abductive reasoning” and is the
kind ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ reasoning we use most in our
every day lives.
Reincarnation is not something you can
objectively measure in the same way
you can measure a chemical reaction,
so it may even be in principle non-
provable using the scientific method. So
the question is, “Are there enough solid
pieces ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ evidence that, when taken
together, justify a belief in
reincarnation?” I think the answer is a
resounding yes. Here we go:
Dr. Ian Stevenson, Ph.D., former
Professor ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Psychiatry at the
University ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Virginia School ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Medicine, spent 40 years researching
reincarnation stories within children.
This former chairman ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
Department ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Psychiatry and
Neurology investigated over 3000
independent stories ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ children who
claimed to have memories and know
people from their alleged past lives.
According to Stevenson, the number ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
cases that are worth considering is so
high that it exceeds the ability ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ him
and his team to investigate them all.
Facial recognition software confirmed
that there was in fact a facial
resemblance to their alleged prior
incarnation. Some had birth marks on
places where they allegedly suffered
fatal wounds from in their past life.
They were often dramatic and
sometimes bizarre lesions, such as
malformed digits or missing limbs,
misshapen heads, and odd markings. As
Dr. Stevenson writes in his paper
“Birthmarks and Birth Defects
Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased
Persons” in the peer-reviewed Journal
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Scientific Exploration:
“A bout 35% ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ children who claim to
remember previous lives have
birthmarks and/or birth defects that
they (or adult informants) attribute to
wounds on a person whose life the
child remembers. The cases ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ 210 such
children have been investigated. The
birthmarks were usually areas ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
hairless, puckered skin; some were
areas ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ little or no
pigmentation (hypopigmented macules);
others were areas ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ increased
pigmentation (hyperpigmented nevi).
The birth defects were nearly always ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
rare types. In cases in which a deceased
person was identified the details ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
whose life unmistakably matched the
child’s statements, a close
correspondence was nearly always
found between the birthmarks and/or
birth defects on the child and the
wounds on the deceased person. In 43
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ 49 cases in which a
medical document (usually a
postmortem report) was obtained, it
confirmed the correspondence between
wounds and birthmarks (or birth
defects).”
The memories the children recalled
were far too specific to be chalked up to
chance. In an article where 3 cases
were looked at in great detail by Dr.
Stevenson, he reported that each ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
3 children made roughly 30-40 claims
regarding memories that had ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ their
past lives, 82-92% ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ which were both
verifiable and correct. The
particularities and specific details that
were given by the children ranged from
anything from the names, personalities,
and occupations ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ their former parents
and siblings to the precise layouts ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
the houses they lived in. It was not
uncommon for Stevenson to encounter
a child who could go into a town he
had never been in before and give him
the details ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the village, former
personal belongings, the neighbourhood
in which he lived in a past life, and the
people who he use to associate with.
As he concludes: “It was possible in
each case to find a family that had lost
a member whose life corresponded to
the subject’s statements. The statements
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the subject, taken as a group, were
sufficiently specific so that they could
not have corresponded to the life ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ any
other person. We believe we
have excluded normal transmission ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
the correct information to the subjects
and that they obtained the correct
information they showed about the
concerned deceased person by some
paranormal process.”
Something which interested Dr.
Stevenson was the phobias that were
developed from past-life traumas. As
Dr. Jim Tucker writes:
“Another area that interested Ian was
the behavior ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ these children. He
wrote a paper about phobias that many
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the children showed, usually related
to the mode ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ death from the life they
claimed to remember (Stevenson,
1990a). He reported that 36% ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
children in a series ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ 387 cases showed
such fears. They occurred when the
children were very young, sometimes
before they had made their claims
about the previous life. For example, he
described a girl in Sri Lanka who as a
baby resisted baths so much that three
adults had to hold her down to give her
one. By the age ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ six months, she also
showed a marked phobia ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ buses and
then later described the life ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a girl in
another village who had been walking
along a narrow road between flooded
paddy fields when she stepped back to
avoid a bus going by, fell into the flood
water, and drowned.” The original
journal article these findings were
published can be found here .
What seems to be more than mere
chance is that children were able to
accurately identify former
acquaintances and relationships they
had with people in their prior lives.
Most impressively was a Lebanese girl
who was able to remember and identify
25 different people from her past life
and the interpersonal relationships she
had with them. His best findings were
put together in a book called Twenty
Cases Suggestive ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Reincarnation. For
further reading, this book would really
be your best bet. The American Journal
************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Psychiatry reviewed these cases
and said there were ‘‘cases recorded in
such full detail as to persuade the open
mind that reincarnation is a tenable
hypothesis to explain them’’. He had
several other books and papers
published and widely accepted in the
mainstream community.
As a review in the Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
American Medical Association stated ‘‘In
regard to reincarnation he has
painstakingly and unemotionally
collected a detailed series ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ cases from
India, cases in which the evidence is
difficult to explain on any other
grounds.’’ The reviewer added: ‘‘He has
placed on record a large amount ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
data that cannot be ignored’’. His one
paper called ‘‘The Explanatory Value ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
the Idea ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Reincarnation’’ had
thousands ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ requests for reprints by
scientists all over the world. His
findings were also published in peer
reviewed journals the Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Nervous and Mental Disease, and the
International Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Comparative
Sociology.
During a presentation at Penn State
University in 2005, Dr. Jim B. Tucker, a
child psychiatrist at the University ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Virginia, described how a mother was
leaning over the changing table to
change her son’s diaper. Her young
toddler unexpectedly said, “When I was
your age, I used to change your
diapers.” Sam Taylor, ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Vermont, was
born 18 months following his
grandfather’s death. When he made this
comment, he was ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a few years old.
When he was four and a half years old,
however, Taylor was able to pick out
his grandfather from a class picture ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
about 20 people and identify his
grandfather’s first car from a
photograph.
Here is video ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ a young boys
reincarnation story covered by ABC
news to provide you a glimpse into the
nature ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ these cases. It’s important to
note that this case is American, so the
parents are not influencing or
encouraging the boy to believe in
reincarnation in the name ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ culture or
religion:
This is just a small fraction ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
amount ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ evidence that exists for
reincarnation. Upon coming to a
conclusion about all his findings and
his publications, we have to ask
ourselves “What is the best explanation
that can accommodate all ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ this
evidence?” Why would there be so
many cases ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ children who claim to
have been other people, who know the
specific names and interpersonal
relationships ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the person they recall
being, who have similar behaviour and
personalities as the people they claimed
to be, who have birthmarks and
abnormalities where they claimed to
have suffered wounds in their past
lives, and who have specific phobias
linked back to alleged past life traumas
if reincarnation did not exist? What
are the odds ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ all ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ this evidence
existing without the soul existing? The
accounts are far too precise to be
chalked up as chance, and all other
explanations are impoverished in trying
to explain such a wide array ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ data.
Reincarnation can no longer be looked
at as some woo-woo, pseudoscientific,
religiously dogmatic New Age fantasy,
and neither can the soul. We can infer
the reality ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the soul because it is the
best explanation for all ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the given
data. This is a hypothesis which has
gotten serious attention in the
mainstream academic community, and
is still ripe with investigation to this
day. When we take all the evidence
together and look at it without religious
or scientific bias getting in the way, it
seems as though we are not ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
justified in believing in reincarnation,
but it also may be the best ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ all
explanations for the strongest cases.
“It is not surprising to be born more
than once; everything in nature is
resurrection” —Voltaire
More evidence for the existence ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
soul can be found in the links below:
Harvard trained brain neurosurgeon
has the most legitimate NDE ever
recorded
Dr. Robert Lanza and Dr. Stuart
Hameroff offer scientific models/
explanations for the existence ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ the
soul.
Sources:
Sources to original articles can be
found in the highlighted words in the
article.
Laidlaw, R. W. (1967). Review ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Twenty Cases Suggestive ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Reincarnation. American Journal ************SPAM/BANNEAR************
Psychiatry, 124, 128.
King, L. S. (1975). Reincarnation.
JAMA, 234, 978
Medicine ? School ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Medicine at the University ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Virginia
clinical/departments/psychiatry/
sections/cspp/dops/case_types-
page#CORT
http://www.examiner.com/article/
reincarnation-scientific-evidence
Recommended read: Life Before Life by
Dr. Jim Tucker, and Journey ************SPAM/BANNEAR************ Souls by
Dr. Michael Newton.
