On The Front Lines
OldSpeak Talks with Dr. Jim Tucker About Life, Death and Reincarnation
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.--Oldspeak, an online publication of The Rutherford Institute, hosts an interview with Dr. Jim Tucker, a medical doctor and researcher with the University of Virginia and author of the ground-breaking book Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005). In the interview "Life Before Life: Does Science Prove Reincarnation?" Dr. Tucker discusses his ongoing research and his own beliefs regarding issues of life, death and the possibilities of reincarnation and even divine intermission.
Raised a Southern Baptist, Jim Tucker had never taken the notion of reincarnation seriously until he encountered the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, a fellow researcher at the University of Virginia. After reading about Stevenson's work on near-death experiences in the local newspaper, he was sufficiently intrigued. He has since taken over the research of Stevenson's research into children's reports of past-life memories, which he chronicles in Life Before Life. Dr. Tucker is a board-certified child psychiatrist and research director at the University of Virginia Division of Personality Studies and also acts as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia Health Systems. He considers himself a skeptic today "in the sense of being open-minded and trying to look at what the evidence says" rather than being a "certain debunker."
In the OldSpeak interview, Dr. Tucker stresses that he is not pushing any particular viewpoint, asserting, "We are not trying to be zealous for any particular point of view but are just looking at what we think is an interesting phenomenon in trying to understand it." He also stresses the scientific nature of his research, noting, "There is no reason that unusual phenomenon or paranormal phenomenon can't be studied with the same sort of scientific approach that you would use to study any other phenomenon." Dr. Tucker conducts research throughout the globe by investigating reported cases of children recounting their past lives, conducting interviews, seeking out "past personalities," making detailed records of their claims, and attempting to verify these claims. In many cases "children are giving numerous names, places and details about how they died or people they knew near the end of their lives." Through this research, Dr. Tucker has become receptive to the possibility of reincarnation; as he describes it, "When you come to that sort of conclusion, it opens you up in subtle ways to experience things a little differently than you did before and hopefully with a little more perspective."
OldSpeak, the online journal of The Rutherford Institute, is dedicated to publishing interviews, articles and commentary on subjects often overlooked by the mainstream media in the areas of politics, art, culture, law and religion. The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.
