Dr Tucker's research: Taylor excerpt #20

Dr Jim Tucker

Greg Taylor writes: In his final years, and subsequent to his passing in 2007, Dr. Stevenson’s work was continued on by other researchers, perhaps most notably child psychiatrist Dr. Jim Tucker, who in 2014 became the director of the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia. In that time, focus has moved beyond simply tracking down individual cases to also include examination of groups of cases to get a ‘bigger picture’ view of the phenomenon. To do so, each case of past-life memories collected by researchers is coded with regards to 200 variables and entered into a database, allowing large-scale analysis of the reports.

For instance, a strength-of-case scale – based on birthmarks/birth defects, behaviors related to the previous life, and other aspects – was applied to 799 cases. It showed that the apparent strength of cases “did not correlate with the initial attitude that the children’s parents had toward their statements, indicating that parental enthusiasm did not make the cases appear stronger than they actually were... The strength of the cases also correlated with the age that the children began talking about the previous life in a negative direction (so the children started earlier in the stronger cases), the amount of emotion that children demonstrated when discussing the memories, and the amount of facial resemblance between the children and the deceased individuals.”

DOPS now has over 2500 cases of past-life memories in their files – from every continent apart from Antarctica - 1400 of which have resulted in identification of the “previous personality." 400 cases involve a child with a birthmark or birth defect that corresponds with the fatal wound on the previous personality, along with another 200 in which such a mark or deformity matches a non-fatal wound. Most of the children only ever describe one past life, and their memories are mostly from near the end of that life; 75% of the subjects mention how they died. The average interval between the two lives (i.e.. the death of the previous personality, and birth of the child relating the memory) is 4.5 years (though the median is only seventeen months) – however, in a small number of cases the interval is much longer, sometimes more than half a century.

Greg Taylor, “What is the Best Available Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death?” An essay written for the Bigelow contest addressing this question. I am presenting excerpts without references, but this essay is available with footnotes and a bibliography at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.