Dr. Jim Tucker is the protégé of the late Dr. Ian Stevenson, who in 1960 began publishing case studies of children who recall alleged past life memories. Since that time, Dr. Stevenson, Dr. Tucker, and their colleagues have compiled an unparalleled quantity of case studies (over 2,500 to date) in which young children, usually between the ages of two and eight, spontaneously discuss experiences and memories of a previous existence. The children often provide a wide range of evidence, including specific names of people and places from an alleged previous life, knowledge of specific events from that life, and even birthmarks in the same shape and location as the mortal wounds of the previous incarnation, to support the notion that a part of their consciousnesses have somehow remained intact and been transferred from one life to another. The cases become more exciting when a specific identity of an alleged previous incarnation is successfully discovered, usually by the family and neighbors of the child, and even occasionally with the help of Dr. Stevenson’s research team. Dr. Tucker has compiled a summary and discussion of many of these cases into the first account of this work intended for the general public.

Dr. Tucker presents his findings clearly and systematically throughout the book; in a typical middle chapter he will begin by summarizing a specific series of the children’s cases with a common trait, such as the presence of birthmarks on the child that correspond to injuries of the child’s previous personality, or the existence of written records detailing a child’s statements that are dated before the child’s alleged previous personality is identified. After thoroughly delineating the cases, he discusses the potential alternative explanations to reincarnation for those cases (‘normal’ explanations, which include fraud, faulty memory, and coincidence, or ‘paranormal’ explanations, which include possession and ESP) and then concludes whether reincarnation provides the most convincing explanation for each case. He brings the reader on a global journey into regions of the world with vastly differing views on reincarnation, into homes pervaded by widely-varying socio-economic circumstances, and into the lives of children with extremely diverse stories. However, his conclusion that reincarnation as he defines it is the most plausible explanation for most specific cases, and certainly for the body of cases as a whole, remains steadfast throughout the book.

In several of Dr. Tucker’s cases, the amount of information allegedly recalled by the child in question is quite remarkable. In one particular case, Dr. Tucker tells of a child from Sri Lanka who, at less than three years old, began recounting her life as a seller of incense in a village approximately 145 miles away. For four years she mentioned specific details about the life she led as this man, including the specific brand of incense he sold (a brand unavailable to and relatively unknown in the town where she lived), the specific location where he lived, the names of his mother, his wife, and the school he’d attended, and the manner of his demise, which was an automobile accident involving a large vehicle. One of the little girl’s teachers eventually traveled to this village with his brother-in-law, who did not believe in reincarnation, in search of information relating to someone fitting the description the girl made. After a series of inquiries they found a small family-owned incense company, the owner of which had lost his brother-in-law and business associate in an accident two years before the girl was born. En route to the local market to sell the family’s incense (which bore the names the girl described), the brother-in-law was hit by a large truck and killed. The young child and her family eventually visited the family of the deceased incense peddler, and the two families compared the twenty specific statements the girl had made about the family prior to meeting them. They determined that fourteen of the statements were correct (including the incense brands, the manner of the man’s death, and the names of the man’s wife, daughter, and school), three were incorrect, and the accuracy of three could not be determined. Additionally, the girl possessed birthmarks over her chest and ribs that corresponded with the injuries of the man described in his autopsy report, which included fractured ribs and abrasions running across his chest.

Dr. Tucker presents this case and several others that comprise large amounts of precise information reported by the subjects, and as the cases begin to mount through the progression of the book, the ability of the skeptic to explain away the information Dr. Tucker presents as the product of fraud, faulty memory, or coincidence is rigorously tested. Through the various chapters, Dr. Tucker analyzes whether these cases can be understood using any of these three ‘normal’ explanations, and invariably decides that reincarnation is as good as or better than any of them at explaining the various phenomena. While the reader can find herself continually convinced by Dr. Tucker’s logic that reincarnation is a better explanation than the alternatives he presents, she may also question whether Dr. Tucker has really provided a complete list of all possible alternative normal explanations. In the Christian faith, for example, there exist myriad accounts of the faithful who have been convinced of some specific moment of direct divine intervention on their behalf. Some report seeing angels or Jesus while others merely recount a particularly intense feeling of some sort that leads them to a particular decision. The believer later uncovers that this ‘divine intervention’ saved him from some catastrophe that actually happened, whether it be a traffic pile-up or the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. In such cases a skeptic could potentially explain these stories as those of a believer using facts learned later on to support his or her belief system. While this sort of explanation could be related to the fraud or faulty memory explanations that Dr. Tucker mentions, it does seem to be at least subtly different, as at least the claimants would not consider their accounts to be fraudulent or faulty. Dr. Tucker could have only further strengthened the argument for reincarnation if he had discussed and refuted this specific possibility as it applies to cases of previous lives as well.

Despite such potential limitations, Life Before Life provides the reader with a substantial glimpse into a massive body of work, the size alone of which is effective at refuting the skeptic’s argument that the phenomena of these cases are mere products of fraud, false information, coincidence, or whatever other normal explanation we might consider. While some of the weaker cases could certainly be dismissed as mere products of misinformation, strange coincidence, or fraud, such an explanation begins to lose strength as Dr. Tucker repeatedly supplements his body of evidence with strong cases like that of the Sri Lankan girl/incense salesman. As the evidence mounts, Dr. Tucker delves deeper, relating accounts of children who describe the period of time in between their most recent incarnations, or some variation of the ‘life between lives’ that we have repeatedly discussed here at Past Life Answers. He then spends a chapter expounding on and refuting the various critiques of reincarnation, and in the style of What the Bleep Do We Know, invokes quantum theory and various notable scientific studies as predictors of or supporting arguments for the existence of a consciousness that is separate from our physical bodies. He counters science-based and faith-based arguments with equal vigor, and concludes that “we do not have an adequate reason to reject the concept and this body of work out of hand.”

Amidst the various speculations and conclusions of the final chapter, Dr. Tucker paints a rather gloomy picture of past life regression as a means to recapture the memories that these children experience spontaneously for ourselves, stating that, while “hypnosis produced some dramatic results… unfortunately, it is a very unreliable tool, whether being used to uncover memories from the present life or from past ones.” A proponent of past life regression might take a less pessimistic view, acknowledging the potential for the mind to create false memories under hypnosis, but also considering that the children in these accounts may hold the key to determining which of our memories are constructs of our imagination and which are real. As our ability to analyze brain activity continues to increase, perhaps we will eventually be able to compare the brain activity of children like those in Life Before Life to the brain activity of subjects undergoing past life regression, and uncover the similarities that would help us to determine whether a memory is real or imagined.

In the end, Tucker’s study provides compelling evidence for the optimistic believer in past lives and a substantial test for the determined skeptic. Dr. Tucker’s approach in analyzing this phenomenon, while not perfectly objective, is sufficiently even-handed in discussing the various potential explanations for these children’s accounts other than the existence of previous lives as well as the various criticisms of reincarnation in general. While Dr. Tucker leaves no doubt about his belief in the existence of previous lives, he makes no attempt to force-feed such a belief to the reader, which is an achievement for which Past Life Answers continually strives as well. On a personal note, I recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in this subject, and hope that you may find it as informative and enlightening as I have.

Matt Winfree
www.pastlifeanswers.com

Top 5 Extraordinary Things That a Past Life Regression Session Could Enable You To Do:

5. Explain and resolve your ‘unexplainable’ habits and quirks
All sorts of people have anxieties, nervous ticks, irrational fears, and other mental or physical maladies that they can’t figure out. If your problem can’t be traced to an experience from this life, it’s possible that you’re clinging to a memory from a previous life that was too traumatic for you to properly deal with back when you were living through it, so you’ve brought it with you into this life. The past life regression process enables you to reencounter these sorts of memories, understand that there is nothing to fear from them, and put whatever negative symptoms you’re experiencing to rest—permanently.

4. See dead people
This one’s pretty common sense, but it’s still extraordinary: past life regression takes you into the past—sometimes just decades ago, and sometimes centuries ago—and during your experience you’re likely to witness yourself interacting with people from that time, in that historical locale, who have been dead for decades, centuries, or even millennia. Not only could you revisit a conversation you once had with Emperor Titus, but imagine having that conversation in the brand-new, just-finished Roman Colosseum. Crazy, huh?

3. Uncover amazing things you didn’t even know you knew
Want to learn how to load a Civil War-era cannon? Interested in an extinct Asian dialect? Curious about the table manners of the 17th century French aristocracy? The memories you recall through past life regression can be phenomenally vivid and detailed, and experienced practitioners have come away from regression sessions with an extraordinary understanding of various historical events, skills, and languages consistent with the particular culture and time period of their memories. Click here http://www.open-sesame.com/memorybank.html to read some amazing examples of the sort of information that past life regression subjects have retrieved during their travels into the subconscious.

2. Connect with your soul mate
There are a few facets of the past life regression experience that seem to be nearly universal among all practitioners. One of the most notable is that, throughout various incarnations (including their current lives), subjects report traveling among a fairly consistent, recognizable, and recurring group of souls. Generally, these are individuals who seem to be growing and learning at a similar pace from one life to the next, and who have a special relationship with and understanding of one another that is quite remarkable (Does, “It feels like we’ve known each other for years,” sound familiar?). Additionally, subjects repeatedly identify one of these souls in particular as more special to them than all the rest; one who is uniquely attuned to their own character and with whom they share a natural rapport unlike any other relationship: their soul mate. Whether you’re searching for your life partner or you think you might have found him/her, past life regression can allow you access to the memories of those special souls who have traveled with you through many lifetimes, who understand you like no one else, and with whom you are meant to be, and you can see for yourself if you’re on the right track.

1. Learn the answer to The Big Question
Why are we here? What’s it all for? What is the meaning of life? Everyone’s big question is phrased a little differently, but it generally refers to the same concept, namely: what purpose do human life in general—and your individual human life, in particular—serve in this impossibly vast universe? Past life regression attempts to help you answer this greatest of all philosophical questions by walking you through it step by step. As you continue to practice, gain experience, and strengthen your connection with your subconscious mind, your journey may very possibly take you beyond your various incarnations on this planet and into what some PLR experts call the ‘life between lives.’ Here you will uncover an extraordinary, intricate network of a spirit world that provides compelling answers to perennial philosophical problems ranging from the nature of human suffering to where we go when we die. And most importantly, in the end, you are empowered, with nothing other than your own experience to bias or influence you, to decide what to believe for yourself.

Photo by alicepopkorn

In my travels through various past life regression hypnosis websites, chat forums, and blogs, I’ve noticed a recurring and (at least to me) somewhat unsettling thread. For whatever reason, people in this field have frequently offered the common notion that whether or not the past lives one encounters in a regression session are real is unimportant; they posit that, as long as you achieve positive personal benefits from your past life regression experience, the accuracy of the past life memories doesn’t really matter. While this may not seem like such a bad idea on the surface, I feel like it undermines a lot of the positive therapeutic benefits you can gain from sessions like those we offer here at Past Life Answers, and that it casually dismisses the notion that there could very possibly be fundamental truths about humanity, spirituality, and the purpose and meaning of our lives existing within our grasp right now.

There’s no doubt that people benefit from past life regression sessions regardless of whether or not the memories they supposedly re-experience are real. Whether it offers an explanation for a particular nervous tick, puts a troubling hyperanxiety issue to rest, or just provides a general peace of mind, the past life regression process has affected positive change in thousands of subjects including myself, and the inherent truth of the memories we uncover doesn’t affect this outcome; as long as we are willing to believe the memories might be true we can allow the process to work. However, an inherent mechanism for dealing with pain or hardship in human behavior is self-delusion. We tell ourselves things like, ‘no one saw me trip over my own feet just then–those people over there are giggling at something completely unrelated to me,’ or ‘I’m sure she really likes me, she’s just been too busy to call,’ or ‘I hold down a job and take care of my family, I can’t be an alcoholic.’ Sometimes this mechanism is therapuetic and sometimes it’s damaging, but even at its most beneficial it is a means for us to lie to ourselves in order to cope with a particular situation more easily, and most would agree that there is something at least mildly troubling about that notion.

If past life regression results in memories that are merely figments of our imaginations, the whole process would fall into a similar category of self-delusion. Unwilling to own up to our mistakes in this life, we suddenly have an easy means to disown responsibility by passing the blame off to previous incarnations of ourselves. And if that is indeed the goal of a practitioner of past life regression, detractors can make a pretty strong case for the inherent faults in the process; sure it can be therapuetic, but is it worth the lies we are telling ourselves?

But if past life memories are real–if we actually have the ability to occasionally tap into that superconscious record of who we used to be–the self-delusion argument flies out the window, and the therapuetic benefits of past life regression instantly become impactful and legitimate. As someone who has always tried to strive for self-awareness, the revelations I discover through this process will bear a great deal more weight if I know I haven’t conjured them up as a defense mechanism or a crutch.

As important and as valuable as the self-improvement we can experience through PLR is, I believe something even bigger than personal therapuetic benefit hinges on the truth of the memories we reencounter. If reincarnation is real, and we are able to access the memories of our previous lives and, more importantly, the space/time between our various incarnations, the answers to fundamental questions about our purpose on earth are suddenly dropped within our easy grasp. We have the potential to discover for ourselves the fabric of the spirit world and learn first-hand why we are here and what the meaning of our existence is. For those like me who have consistently struggled with dogma- or faith-based answers to these questions, past life regression offers something different; as long as we have faith in the accuracy of what we are witnessing, we can achieve the enlightenment that it takes yogis and gurus entire lifetimes to attain.

But that leads us to the paramount concern with this process: how can we really place any faith in the accuracy of our memories? As amazed as I have been by what I have experienced during my journey in this field, I am absolutely certain that, just as the memories of my current life have grown hazy or convoluted over time, there is equal potential for the past life memories we recall to be at least skewed, or at most fabricated entirely. How can we tell which, if any, of these memories are true, and which are false?

I am still wrestling with this question–this website wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. While I have gained great insight from all of my regressions, my foremost desire in each has been to come away with conclusive, verifiable information of which I can say with absolute certainty I had no prior knowledge. This would be conclusive enough evidence for me to accept that at least some of the past life memories we encounter are accurate, and that perhaps we can refine the state of trance to enhance the accuracy of past life memories and decrease the likelihood of false memories.

Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened for me–yet. I have recalled phrases in languages I don’t know, and names and faces I’ve never seen, but I have yet to be able to link them to a real language or a real person from the past. But I remain optimistic and excited about the process nonetheless, and I hope the day comes when I can share my incontrovertible evidence of the truth of this phenomenon.

Until that day, I will continue to approach this process with an open mind and a willingness to imagine that reincarnation could really happen, and I encourage you to do the same. I invite you to contact me if you are wrestling with any philosophical questions about the subject; I would love to impart my limited knowledge and learn from whatever insights you’ve discovered in your journey.

Matt Winfree

Photo courtesy of Fox Broadcasting Company

Once again, mass media has shown an interest in past life regression (and its potential profitability) as the Fox network prepares to air the first regular episode of its new show, “Past Life,” next week. Based loosely on the M.J. Rose novel The Reincarnationist, the show chronicles the exploits of two detectives who use clues from the past lives of their troubled clients to solve various mysteries and crimes.

The cast of “Past Life” includes Kelli Giddish as Dr. Kate McGinn, a detective, regression therapist, and believer in reincarnation and Nicholas Bishop as Price Whatley, her extremely skeptical and troubled partner. Richard Schiff of The West Wing plays Dr. Malachi Talmadge, McgInn’s mentor and the founder of an institute devoted to the cognitive exploration of past lives. Ravi Patel plays Dr. Rishi Karna, the newcomer to and comic relief of the group.

Reviews of the show’s pilot have been fairly favorable, and Fox is giving the show a fair shot by airing it adjoining an episode of American Idol. Depending on the quality of the series, we can expect another surge of interest in past life regression, which is always a good thing.

The show will premier on Fox on Tuesday, February 9th, at 9pm eastern, and subsequent broadcasts will air on Thursdays at 9pm eastern.

We would love to hear your thoughts on the show, and whether it portrays past life regression and reincarnation in a positive and accurate light. Enjoy the show!

Photo by jared

We’d like to thank all of you who have visited this site, left comments, and tried our past life regression audio sessions during our inaugural year. We’ve been excited by the amount of interest in our products and are extremely excited for what 2010 will bring for all of us, and we hope that you continue to gain insights, knowledge, and peace from your past life experiences throughout the year.

And at the expense of sounding shameless, we’d of course recommend our sessions in case you’re in desperate need of last-minute truly unique Christmas gift ideas!

Photo by totalAldo

8. Because everyone’s talking about it

From Oprah Winfrey to Jerry Springer, past life regression (PLR) has recently captured the imaginations of media figures of the highest and lowest caliber. Springer made footage of his own past life regression experience available on YouTube, and Winfrey recently brought Dr. Brian Weiss, one of the most highly-regarded figures in the field, on her show to regress several of her audience members. Scientology, the controversial and somewhat strange religion of celebrities like Tom Cruise, Beck, and John Travolta, uses PLR as a tool of its ‘auditing’ process for personal development. Want testimonies from more reputable sources? Check out this website for some quotes of famous folks who believe they’ve lived before (and may be living again as we speak): Famous Figures Who Believed in Past Lives.

7. Because there are some things about yourself that you just can’t quite explain

Got an irrational aversion to all things orange? Do you lash out aggressively whenever someone touches your knees? Is there a nervous tick, a twitch, or a particular neurosis that you’ve had since you can remember but have no idea where it came from? If you can’t find the source of these or other bad habits, personal quirks, or impulsive behavior in the memories of your current life, maybe you’re looking at the wrong life entirely. One of the most common reasons that people seek past life regression is to resolve unexplainable personal issues, and the results of their experiences are often extremely beneficial.

6. Because it feels really good

The process of past life regression with the help of one of the audio sessions available at www.pastlifeanswers.cominvolves a slow progression into a peaceful state in which you imagine, visualize, and often very tangibly experience the sense of a healing light filling your body with positive, cleansing energy. You empty your mind of all the stress, hang-ups, and anxieties you’ve built up throughout your day and let go for up to an hour at a time. Even if you don’t believe in past lives or reincarnation, the process can serve as a pretty potent reset button for that lousy day you’d been having.

5. Because it brings ‘social networking’ to a whole new level

Looking for your soul mate? Wondering who your real friends are? Curious why the guy behind the counter at the coffee shop looks so familiar? Past life regression frequently reveals that the important people in your life are not there by accident—in fact, they have very likely been traveling through many of your existences by your side, playing a special role in your life just as you have in theirs. Your mother in this life could have been your best friend or worst enemy in a previous one; your grandfather centuries ago could even be your wife today. Through PLR you can understand where all of these people fit in the scheme of your life, and where you fit in theirs, and you may even learn the identity of the person you are meant to share so many of these experiences with in the most profound and intimate way possible: your soul mate.

4. Because the blind faith thing just isn’t working for you

Got questions for your priest/rabbi/pastor/imam/etc. that he or she just can’t seem to answer well enough for you? Do the words ‘religious doctrine’ bother you a little? Are you skeptical of everything you can’t see for yourself? Do you wear the term ‘agnostic’ as a badge of honor, but still have the hope that there’s something bigger than us out there—some sort of grand purpose or design? Past life regression provides you with a glimpse into the architecture of a potential ‘spirit world’—one that makes a surprising amount of logical sense—without forcing you to accept any rules, laws, or beliefs that you don’t want to—in fact, you don’t have to accept any rules at all. Just sit back, enjoy the experience, maybe do a little research on your own, and come to your own informed conclusions about what it means.

3. To see how far you’ve come, and how far you’ve got to go

The past life regression experience can be simultaneously inspiring and humbling—in the best way possible. Through the PLR process you are confronted with the idea that this life that you hold so dear—with all its drama; with all of the daily problems you face; with all of your monetary, relationship, and career issues—is just a tiny sampling of your entire existence, you’ve come a long way, and you’ve more than likely got a long way to go before you’re done learning everything you need to learn. But unless you’re Gandhi or Mother Teresa, that day is probably quite a long way off, so stop worrying so much, enjoy yourself, and make the most out of the short time you have in this life to learn and experience as much as you can.

2. To learn the answer to the big question

Why are we here? What’s it all for? What is the meaning of life? Everyone’s big question is phrased a little differently, but it generally refers to the same concept, namely: what purpose does human life in general—and your individual human life, in particular—serve in this impossibly vast universe? Without putting the fear of condemnation, hell, or any of the terrible punishments for a life poorly led that many religions describe into your mind, past life regression attempts to help you answer this greatest of all philosophical questions by walking you through it step by step. You can witness the beautiful cycle of birth, growth, evolution, death, healing, and preparing for your next birth over and over again as you move to the goal of nirvana, higher consciousness, heaven, or whatever that next step happens to be. Or you can go through the process, decide that it’s completely bogus, and at the very least check ‘reincarnation for the purpose of evolution into perfect human beings’ off the list of possible explanations for our existence. It’s totally up to you.

1. Because what matters most isn’t the destination, but the journey

Whatever you decide about reincarnation, whether you conclude that it’s all just a figment of your imagination, whether it forever changes your belief system, or whether in the end you remain skeptical but hopeful, the process of delving deep into your own mind in order to search for truth and enlightenment is nothing less than extraordinary. You will feel the power of hypnotic suggestion, achieving a state of mind of such concentration and peace that, if you’ve never experienced it before, will thrill and inspire you just to know that the human mind is capable of such feats. If you approach the PLR process with an open mind and a willingness to devote some honest effort, you will almost certainly ‘see’ memories from these potential previous lives. The incredible detail of these memories, the relevant life lessons they can teach you, or the basic truths you may have temporarily forgotten that they can help you recall will profoundly impact you regardless of whether or not you decide they are real. You may suddenly remember a sentence from a long-extinct Asian dialect, or uncover the small but significant role you played in a history-changing Roman battle. Some of these details may be beautiful, and some may be unpleasant or even traumatic, but if you are willing to work through them, the positive benefits could be immeasurable.

Still interested? Go to www.pastlifeanswers.com today, download one of our audio sessions, and let your journey begin.

Photo by Wonderlane

At Past Life Answers, we are committed to providing you with accurate, unbiased information regarding reincarnation and past life regression hypnotherapy. However, through the research, development, and refinement of this site, we’ve also realized that the line between objectivity and bias is extremely thin. A critic of our site might claim that the product line we offer–our very existence, in fact–assumes a certain bias, because how can we offer audio files that may facilitate a past life regression without some assumption that the regressions we are facilitating are true?

As the founder of this site, I will concede that I am certainly excited by the potential truth in reincarnation and past life regression experiences, but I must also state that I have not reached a point in my five-year exploration of the phenomenon to consider myself convinced. Perhaps you could term the tone of this site as one of “hopeful objectivity,” as it at least accepts the possibility that the experiences and memories revealed through these audio sessions may have some validity; I for one hope that there is an underlying truth in the work we are doing here. But I would contend that this is no more bias than that of any scientist who performs an experiment hoping for a particular result; as long as the scientist does not allow that hope to corrupt his or her methodology, then the results can still be considered unbiased and objective. By the same token, our sessions do not assume that there is truth in past life regression, and we have taken great care in the production of our sessions to ensure that we do not use language that could lead our clients to fabricate false memories just to make the process seem more genuine.

We will continue to strive for objectivity at Past Life Answers in the face of the considerable bias of some of the web’s most visible and easily-accessible resources for past life regression. If you google “past life regression” today, in the first several entries you will inevitably find www.mypastlives.com, a British site by hypnotherapist Andrew Parr, which unabashedly advertises “real” past life experiences. Another entry or two down, you will find the Skeptic’s Dictionary entry (http://www.skepdic.com/pastlife.html), which offers the opposite bias, attempting to refute the process of past life regression. Both of these websites are worth looking at for their interesting and contrasting points of view. More troubling, however, is Wikipedia’s current entry concerning past life regression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_life_regression), which attacks past life regression even more aggressively than skepdic.com, offering no description of any positive benefits of PLR therapy and making claims such as “the belief [in PLR] gained credibility because some of the advocates possess legitimate credentials, though these credentials were in areas unrelated to religion, psychotherapy or other domains dealing with past lives and mental health.” While I find no fault in a critical or skeptical analysis of PLR, statements like this one, which disregards some of the leading names in PLR therapy (i.e. Dr. Brian Weiss, Ph.D., Psychiatry, and Dr. Michael Newton, Ph.D., Counseling Psychology) are troubling and only serve to mislead the public. I look forward to making adjustments to the Wikipedia entry in the near future to help to accurately provide both sides of the PLR debate, and I hope to build trust in our visitors by ensuring that the information we present is consistently fair.

Matt Winfree

I am currently in the process of reading this fascinating book, as well as a list of Stevenson’s scientific journal articles and some of the foremost articles by Stevenson’s detractors, who argue that his scientific method and conclusions are faulty. In the coming months I hope to provide a synopsis of both sides of the story here.

In the meantime, I offer a summary of Dr. Tucker’s book from its website, www.lifebeforelife.com. If you’re interested in the book after reading the synopsis, you can buy it on the website. Enjoy!

(FROM LIFE BEFORE LIFE WWW.LIFEBEFORELIFE.COM)
What would cause young children to think they remembered living before—and dying before?

For the past forty years, doctors at the University of Virginia Medical Center have tried to answer that question. Researchers have investigated more than 2,500 cases of young children who reported memories of previous lives. The founder of this work, Ian Stevenson, M.D., has always written for a scientific audience. Now, Jim B. Tucker, M.D., a child psychiatrist who currently directs the research, shares these studies with the general public in LIFE BEFORE LIFE: A Scientific Investigation of Children’s Memories of Previous Lives.

Children who report past-life memories typically begin talking about a previous life when they are two to three years old. The children tend to show a strong emotional involvement with the apparent memories and often cry to be taken to the previous family. In many cases, parents have taken their children to the places they named, where they found that an individual had died whose life matched the details given by the child. During the visits, some children have recognized family members or friends from that individual’s life. Many children have also had birthmarks that matched wounds on the body of the deceased individual.

LIFE BEFORE LIFE explores the various features of this worldwide phenomenon, describing numerous cases along the way. Though Dr. Tucker eventually concludes that the best explanation for the cases is that memories and emotions can sometimes carry over from one life to another, the purpose of the book is not to convince people to believe in the reality of previous lives. Instead, Dr. Tucker seeks to make readers aware of this material so that they can form their own judgments.

So this site is essentially a means to facilitate that process. We have done a great deal of research in the effort to create a series of self-hypnosis sessions that, if successful, will allow you the ability to experience alleged past life memories and assess their truth or validity on your own. Additionally, we want to keep you informed about any new research being done in this field, either supporting or rejecting the possibility that this process is real, and help you to continue your quest for knowledge in any way we can, whether by expanding our online services or through facilitating a meeting with a qualified hypnotherapist in your area who can help to guide you further through this process.

We are aware that everyone is different, and that some listeners will be less receptive to our sessions than others, so if you have any difficulty with our products, PLEASE CONTACT US! We will gladly offer any help we can to facilitate your quest for knowledge.

Thank you so much for finding us on the web. We hope that your exploration of past life regression and reincarnation is meaningful and valuable!