University of Virginia Library

Ian P. Stevenson

Researching A Third Dimension

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By BILL BARDENWERPER

How would you like to be a
duck? How about a mosquito?
Then again, have you ever
considered what it might be
like to be a pyramid builder in
ancient Egypt? Or maybe just a
plain old Indian chief?

Well, think about it, because
in a previous life, you may
have already been one

Holder Of Endowed Chair

One person who has already
given this idea some very
serious consideration is
Psychiatry Prof. Ian P.
Stevenson, holder of one of
only four endowed chairs of
parapsychology in the world.

Parapsychology is a branch
of science which attempts to
investigate and scientifically
understand certain phenomena
such as ESP, psychokinesis and
reincarnation. While the
Division of Parapsychology as a
whole deals with all these and
other subjects, Dr. Stevenson
works primarily with the last
mentioned.

He usually spends about
three months per year abroad

studying particular cases and
interviewing the people
involved. He spends the rest of
his time at the University
where he analyzes data and
writes books while his agents in
various countries conduct
preliminary investigations on
their own.

Cases of claimed previous
lives as subhuman animals are
occasionally presented to him.
However, Dr. Stevenson claims
that supportive evidence for
such cases is negligible and, in
most such instances, utterly
worthless.

He recalls, however, one
instance of a child who claimed
to remember the life of the
family ox. But the mass of
evidence involving purely
human rebirths is better
documented and more detailed
he insists.

One typical case which Dr.
Stevenson has researched
involves a young Lebanese boy
who claims to remember his
previous life in a nearby village.
Dr. Stevenson says most
children start talking when
they are between two and five
years old, and usually then give
a great many details about
where they say they lived
before and possibly also about
a previous wife and children.

Mixing Up Memories

"Either under pressure from
the child or because of their
own curiosity, the parents
usually have taken the child to
the other village before we get
there," he explains.

"When that happens, there
is always some doubt about
how much this may have mixed
up their memories."

Record Of Other Life

But in the case of the boy in
Lebanon, Dr. Stevenson met
the child before the child went
to the other village where he
claimed to have originally lived.

"I was able to get a written
record of just what he was
saying about this other life and
the village in general. I then
took him with interpreters to
the other village," explains Dr.
Stevenson.

Identifying The Individual

"At first we had some
trouble identifying the person
he was talking about. We made
an initial mistake of tentative
identification, When we drew
up a list of all the statements
he had made, they didn't
adequately fit the person we
were thinking about.

"But then, one of our
informants thought of another
person who was a relative of
the first one. So we tried to fit
him into the framework of the
boy's statements, and found
that 95 per cent fit the person
exactly. This was clearly the
person he was talking about.

"Actually the boy made
quite a number of impressive
recognitions of people and
places where this other person
who had died eight years
before him had lived."

"For example, he pointed
to a place where the deceased
man had kept his rifle. The
mother of the deceased man
said there were only two
people who knew where that
rifle was kept – the deceased
man and she.

"That's very plausible,"
concluded Dr. Stevenson,