Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but not best of Stevenson
Review: Although not Stevenson's most convinving cases (if you take a look, his files contain many better ones), there is some value here.

Yes, there is a question of contact outside. However, making a fool-proof case for reincarnation is impossible. Even the amazing birth mark cases Stevenson has on file (and these are, indeed, frightening to read) could be ruled out in _some_ way. The real world is not a laboratory: just ask the poor social scientists. You can't study something like this easily. There will never be a 100% fool-proof case of reincrnation. Nevertheless, many of the verifications are truly impressive and give good evidence that there might be something to reincarnation. Considering it is the most common belief in organized, animistic, and folk religions, there may be a reason for that yet.

While I give it 5 stars becuase it is quite good, Stevenson's Where Biology and Reincarnation Intersect is a better, and more convincing read... Not that it is airtight. Still, the amount of evidence there IS makes me absolutely shocked that only few people are interested in it. I am guessing that scientists of all stripes, whether social or physical, tend to categorize faith as faith and science as science. Frankly, I think that this is sometimes a simply arbitrary opposition

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but not best of Stevenson
Review: Although not Stevenson's most convinving cases (if you take a look, his files contain many better ones), there is some value here.

Yes, there is a question of contact outside. However, making a fool-proof case for reincarnation is impossible. Even the amazing birth mark cases Stevenson has on file (and these are, indeed, frightening to read) could be ruled out in _some_ way. The real world is not a laboratory: just ask the poor social scientists. You can't study something like this easily. There will never be a 100% fool-proof case of reincrnation. Nevertheless, many of the verifications are truly impressive and give good evidence that there might be something to reincarnation. Considering it is the most common belief in organized, animistic, and folk religions, there may be a reason for that yet.

While I give it 5 stars becuase it is quite good, Stevenson's Where Biology and Reincarnation Intersect is a better, and more convincing read... Not that it is airtight. Still, the amount of evidence there IS makes me absolutely shocked that only few people are interested in it. I am guessing that scientists of all stripes, whether social or physical, tend to categorize faith as faith and science as science. Frankly, I think that this is sometimes a simply arbitrary opposition

Rating:
Summary: Prosaic examination of exotic idea
Review: I don't know why anyone would think it more strange that we are born many times than that we are born once. Human beings, after all, are the result of an evolutionary process that began...when? With the beginning of life on earth? With the 'Big Bang'? Who knows? Whatever the answer, it is clear that 'the individual' is actually a multi-faceted being who origins, and destiny, lie far beyond the confines of what smug modernists think of as 'existence'.

And Stevenson has evidence for this. Come to think of it, the only evidence that can possibly be had for any theory of what 'happens' post-mortem. You will never prove that heaven or hell exist, in any scientific sense. But there is evidence for the idea of many lives, and Stevenson presents some of it here.

Rating:
Summary: Prosaic examination of exotic idea
Review: I don't know why anyone would think it more strange that we are born many times than that we are born once. Human beings, after all, are the result of an evolutionary process that began...when? With the beginning of life on earth? With the 'Big Bang'? Who knows? Whatever the answer, it is clear that 'the individual' is actually a multi-faceted being who origins, and destiny, lie far beyond the confines of what smug modernists think of as 'existence'.

And Stevenson has evidence for this. Come to think of it, the only evidence that can possibly be had for any theory of what 'happens' post-mortem. You will never prove that heaven or hell exist, in any scientific sense. But there is evidence for the idea of many lives, and Stevenson presents some of it here.

Rating:
Summary: actually read the book before you state an opinion
Review: I have read some of Stevenson's other work but I have not read the book in question yet but I will and then post an appropriate review. I wanted to point out that the person who titled his review as "unconvinced" above did not read it yet either but plagerized thier review from a skeptics report web site. check it out. http://www.skepticreport.com/psychics/stevenson-book.htm

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Introduction to Stevenson's Incredible Research
Review: Ian Stevenson's thorough examination of children who claim to remember previous lives constitutes one of the most pioneering bodies of work in any scientific field in history. This text is geared towards a different type of reader than are his more comprehensive and technical works, such as 1997's two volume 2268 page magnum opus "Reincarnation and Biology," but the genius of his scientific approach remains apparent. The strength of Stevenson's arguments lies in the meticulousness of his methodology and the improbably consistencies among the thousands of cases he has personally investigated, and he would be the first to tell you not to draw conclusions from only a handful of cases, such as the group presented in this book. Nevertheless, "Children Who Remember Previous Lives" serves as an excellent introduction to a remarkable field, and is a must-read for anyone interested in psychical research.