Signs of Reincarnation provides a 15-week (semester-long) inter-disciplinary introduction to reincarnation research and theory. It draws on psychical research and anthropology, religious studies, psychology, and philosophy. You will read the Signs of Reincarnation textbook and PDFs of articles from the academic literature. The course is self-paced with an estimated time commitment of 6-8 hours per week, including the discussion periods. There may be additional requirements for students taking the course for credit.
This course will give you a comprehensive and up-to-date acquaintance with serious reincarnation studies, especially of children who claim to remember previous lives in the waking state, not under hypnosis. You will learn to assess reincarnation claims critically and come to appreciate the relation of beliefs to cases. You will learn how cases are investigated and analyzed and will be prepared to make your own contributions to the field.
The picture above is of an American girl with past-life memories at about the age she began to relate them.
Unit 1: Introduction to the Study of Reincarnation Signs
Reading 1.1: The Case of Rylann O’Bannion (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 1-33). The case of Rylann O’Bannion introduces the type of reincarnation case that is the main subject matter of the course.
Reading 1.2: What is Reincarnation? (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 33-42). Different beliefs systems have different ideas about how reincarnation works. Before we can discuss the subject intelligibly, we must agree on some basic definitions..
Reading 1.3: Challenge to Materialism (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 42-52). Reincarnation is usually treated as a religious belief in academia but signs allow it to studied scientifically. The data provide a strong challenge to materialism, which would rule out the possibility of postmortem survival a priori.
Introductory Video: In Search of the Dead. This BBC documentary introduces Ian Stevenson and his colleagues and shows how they conduct the research that is the main subject matter of the course.
Unit 2: The Belief in Reincarnation
Reading 2.1: Signs, Beliefs, and Customs in Animistic Cultures (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 53-63). About 50% of the world’s tribal societies have reincarnation beliefs and these beliefs are related to social practices in ways one does not find in more developed societies.
Reading 2.2: The Brief History of the Belief in Rebirth, West and East (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 63-75). Reincarnation beliefs are found in many state-level societies in both the West and East. The notion of karma was introduced by the Indian tradition.
Reading 2.3: Karma, God, and the Individual in Reincarnation Theory (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 75-86). This reading describes three resolutions of the Selection Problem, the problem of how new parents are selected in reincarnation.
Reading 2.4: “Lives-Long Learning: Reincarnation Beliefs in England.” Sociologists Tony Walter and Helen Waterhouse discuss findings from interviews with survey respondents regarding the effects of their beliefs in reincarnation.
Unit 3: Research Styles and Interpretive Frames
Reading 3.1: Accounts of Past-Life Memory Recorded Before 1960 (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 87-98). The same sorts of signs, including claims by children to remember previous lives, have been reported in relation to the belief in reincarnation for many centuries.
Reading 3.2: Ian Stevenson’s Field Research and Its Critics (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 98-110). Ian Stevenson began to study of past-life memory claims in the 1960s. This reading discusses his investigative techniques and the criticisms they have received.
Reading 3.3: Interpretive Frames for Reincarnation Cases (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 110-121). Fraud, self-delusion, parental guidance, spirit possession, and psi have been advanced as explanations for the reincarnation case data, but all fail to account for it adequately.
Reading 3.4: “The Super-Psi Hypothesis.” Philosopher Stephen Braude argues that super-psi should be taken seriously as an explanation for phenomena taken as evidence for postmortem survival and reincarnation.
Unit 4: Child Studies: Episodic Memories, Statements and Recognitions
Reading 4.1: Involuntary Memory of Previous Lives (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 112-136). Children’s past-life memories closely resemble memories of the present life. Both classes are associative and mistakes are made under similar conditions.
Reading 4.2: “The Case of Nazih Al-Danaf.” Erlendur Haraldsson and Majd Abu-Izzeddin describe how a Lebanese Druze child’s statements and recognitions led to his being identified as the reincarnation of a specific deceased person.
Reading 4.3. “Three Cases with Written Records Made before Verifications.” Ian Stevenson and Godwin Samararatne report three Sri Lankan cases in which written records were made prior to investigation and verification.
Reading 4.4: “Memory and the Self.” In this important article, memory researcher Michael Conway touches on many issues in present-life memory that are important also to past-life memory.
Unit 5: Child Studies: Behavioral Signs of Reincarnation
Reading 5.1: Behavioral Identification with the Previous Person (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 136-148). Children with past-life memories typically behave in ways reminiscent of the person whose life they recall.
Reading 5.2: “Unusual Play in Young Children.” Ian Stevenson documents ways in which children’s play in reincarnation cases may be related to the previous person’s vocation, avocation, or circumstances of death.
Reading 5.3: “Burmese Children who Behave like Japanese Soldiers.” Ian Stevenson and Jürgen Keil describe the striking behaviors of a series of children who said they had been Japanese soldiers killed in Burma during World War II.
Reading 5.4: “Children Who Speak of Lives as Buddhist Monks.” Erlendur Haraldsson and Godwin Samararatne report three cases of Sri Lankan children who claimed that they were Buddhist monks in their previous lives.
Unit 6: Physical Signs of Reincarnation
Reading 6.1: Birthmarks and Other Physical Signs (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 148-161). Physical signs in reincarnation cases include similarities in features as such as stature and facial structure, in addition to birthmarks and congenital abnormalities.
Reading 6.2: “The Case of Chatura Kanuraratne.” Erlendur Haraldsson describes a Sri Lankan boy whose statements were written down before being confirmed and whose multiple birthmarks matched wounds noted in military records.
Reading 6.3: “Bodily Malformations Attributed to Previous Lives.” Satwant Pasricha and colleagues report a series of unusual cases with birth marks and birth defects, two from the United States.
Reading 6.4: “Experimental Birthmarks: New Cases of an Asian Practice.” Jim Tucker and Jürgen Keil discuss Thai and Burmese reincarnation cases in which marks made on dying or deceased bodies were reproduced as birthmarks.
Unit 7: Child Studies: The Interval between Death and Rebirth
Reading 7.1: Signs of Discarnate Agency (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 163-177). Children’s intermission memories and other evidence suggest that an active consciousness survives bodily death.
Reading 7.2: “Searching for a Womb.” Anthropologist Jean-Guy Goulet describes apparitions of spirits coming to be reborn in a Canadian first nations society.
Reading 7.3: “Asian Versus Western Intermission Memories.” Iris Giesler and I compare the intermission memories described in Western and Asian reincarnation cases. We show that there are both consistencies and differences in the experiences.
Reading 7.4: “A Case of the Possession Type in India.” In this important case reported by Ian Stevenson and colleagues, a reincarnating spirit replaces the one with which the subject was born.
Unit 8: Child Studies: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Historical Patterns
Reading 8.1: Universal, Near-Universal, and Culture-Linked Patterns (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 177-189). Beliefs about reincarnation have a clear relationship to cases of apparent reincarnation but the association is not as strong as the psychosocial theory implies.
Reading 8.2: “Two Correlates of Violent Death.” Narender Chadha and Ian Stevenson report statistical analyses of reincarnation cases in which the previous life ended violently.
Reading 8.3: “Indian Cases Two Generations Apart.”Satwant Pasricha and Ian Stevenson compare Indian cases from early in the twentieth century to later cases they investigated, finding them to be very similar in their main features.
Reading 8.4: “Cases in South India: Why So Few Reports?” Satwant Pasrcha addresses an important theoretical question: Why are there so many fewer reincarnation cases reported from South than from North India?
Unit 9: Child Studies: The Psychology of Past-Life Memory
Reading 9.1: Psychological Impacts of Past-Life Memory (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 189-200). Children who recall previous lives may be better rather than less well adjusted than their peers, but they may also have special needs stemming from their past-life memories.
Reading 9.2: “Children Who Speak of Past-Life Experiences.” Erlendur Haraldsson reports on a comparison of 30 Sri Lankan children with and 30 children without past-life memories on psychological variables including suggestibility, dissociation, social isolation, and attention-seeking.
Reading 9.3: “Phobias in Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives.” Ian Stevenson shows that phobias in children’s reincarnation cases nearly always correspond to the circumstances of the previous person’s death.
Reading 9.4: “Nightmares in Western Children.” Antonia Mills reports three cases of American and Canadian children with nightmares that seem to relate to previous lives.
Unit 10: From Child to Adult: The Developmental Continuum
Reading 10.1: Developmental Factors in Past-Life Memory Retrieval (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 201-213). Past-life memories are expressed differently in adults than in children, but transitional cases show them to be related along a continuum.
Reading 10.2: “State of Consciousness Factors in Reincarnation Cases.” D. Scott Rogo argues that child and adult forms of past-life memory do not lie along a developmental continuum but are fundamentally different.
Reading 10.3: “An Adult Reincarnation Case with Multiple Solved Lives.” In this first of a series, KM Wehrstein reports the first study of an adult who claims memories of multiple past lives, more than one of which is solved.
Reading 10.4: “Search for Sharada.” V. V. Akolkar describes his investigation of an important adult case previously reported by Stevenson and colleagues.
Unit 11: Past-Life Memories in Altered States of Consciousness
Reading 11.1: Fantasy and Fact in Past-Life Regression under Hypnosis (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 213-223). Age regressions under hypnosis are not a reliable way of learning about past lives, perhaps because they encounter psychological blocks against recall.
Reading 11.2: “The Psychotherapist’s “Fallacy.” Ian Stevenson’s discusses the problems inherent in accepting that past-life imagery that comes up under hypnosis is real, even if it has some benefit in therapy.
Reading 11.3: “A Case of Xenoglossy under Hypnosis.” Researchers Ohkado and Okamoto describe a Japanese regression case in which a woman spoke responsively in Nepali.
Reading 11.4: “Evidence for the Akashic Field from Modern Consciousness Research.” Stanislav Grof discusses cases of apparent past-life recall under the influence of LSD and argues that they are evidence in support of Ervin Laszlo’s Akashic Field theory.
Unit 12: The Contributions of Shamans, Mediums, and Psychics
Reading 12.1: Psychic Identification and Information Acquisition by Shamans, Mediums, and Psychics (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 223-233). Past-life identifications by shamans, mediums, and psychics can be more reliable than memories arising under hypnosis, perhaps because they bypass psychological defenses.
Reading 12.2: “Past Life Readings as Religious Symbology.” J. Gordon Melton shows that Edgar Cayce’s life readings were strongly influenced by Theosophical concepts.
Reading 12.3: “Past-life Recall in Brazilian Spiritism.” Stanley Krippner explores the role of past-life recall in Brazilian Spiritist psychotherapy for multiple personality disorder.
Reading 12.4: “Archetypal Synchronistic Resonance.” Jeffrey Mishlove and Brendan Engen draw on Jungian theory to explain the network of connections between people and lives expressed in age regressions and past-life readings.
Unit 13: Mind/Brain Relations, Survival of Death and Reincarnation
Reading 13.1: Beyond Materialism (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 235-246). There is a great deal of evidence for a dualistic relationship between mind and body independent of the reincarnation data.
Reading 13.2: “Terminal Lucidity: A Review and a Case Collection.” Michael Nahm and colleagues describe numerous cases in which comatose and brain-damaged patients suddenly regained awareness shortly before they died.
Reading 13:3: “An Assessment of Ostensible Communications with a Grandmaster.” Researchers Wolfgang Eistenbeiss and Dieter Hassler describe an extraordinary chess match between a deceased grandmaster, communicating moves through a medium, and a living a Russian grandmaster.
Reading 13.4: “A Communicator of the ‘Drop-In’ Type in Iceland.” Erlendur Haraldsson and Ian Stevenson report a case of mediumship with clear evidence of purpose from a discarnate agent whose identity was confirmed.
Unit 14: Postmortem Survival and Reincarnation: Philosophy and Theory
Reading 14.1: Personal Identity and Postmortem Survival (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 247-259). Philosophers have long struggled with issues central to developing a satisfactory theory of reincarnation. The data point toward panpsychism as the most promising approach.
Reading 14.2: “F. W. H. Myers’ Approach to the Problem of Survival.” Emily Cook (now Emily Kelly) discusses Myers’ concept of consciousness as composed of subliminal and supraliminal strata and how he deployed this in survival theory.
Reading 14.3: “Personal Identity and Survival.” Philosopher C. D. Broad explains his idea of Ψ-components, or minds, and how personal identity might survive bodily death.
Reading 14.4: “Compatibility of Contemporary Physics with Personality Survival.” Henry Stapp argues that quantum physics is not incompatible with personal survival after death.
Unit 15: The Process of Reincarnation
Reading 15.1: Reincarnation and Life (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 259-271). An adequate theory of reincarnation must be able to explain a range of phenomena. It must supplement and yet not conflict with established findings in psychology and biology.
Reading 15.2: “Changes in Heart Transplant Recipients that Parallel the Personalities of their Donors.” Peter Pearsall and his colleagues describe ten heart transplant recipients who took on personality traits of their donors, similar to what is seen in reincarnation cases.
Reading 15.3: “The Explanatory Value of the Idea of Reincarnation.” In this 1977 journal paper, Ian Stevenson lists various problems in psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and biology that reincarnation upon which might shed light.
Reading 15.4: “Implications of Reincarnation Cases for Biology” (Signs of Reincarnation pp. 273-287). Biologist Michael Nahm discusses how evolutionary biology can accommodate reincarnation, with a focus on the data from reincarnation cases.