Donald Lindsay
Jun-22-93 07:41PM
Peer Reviewed Reincarnation

Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
From: lindsay+@cs.cmu.edu (Donald Lindsay)
Message-ID: 
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic


Over on alt.religion.scientology, I foolishly said that I wasn't
interested in any reincarnation researcher that didn't make it to
peer-reviewed journals. So, sure enough, someone took me up on it.
He posted the following. Anyone know anything about it?

--------------------------< cut here >--------------------------------

According to Sylvia Cranston's book "Reincarnation: New Horizons...",

        "Ian Stevenson is Carlson Professor of Psychiatry
         at the University of Virginia Medical School and
         was formerly chairman of that department. He spec-
         alizes in cases in which children, both in the
         West and East, have spontaneous detailed memories
         of what they claim are former lives."

In September 1977, the 165th volume of the psychiatric peri-
odical "Journal of Nervous and Medical Disease (JNMD)" had
almost the entire issue devoted to Stevenson's reincarnation
research, which followed an inclusion of his paper "The Explan-
atory Value of the Idea of Reincarnation" in the same journal
in May of 1977.

Additionally, I found this from the "PsycFIRST" database, at
epic.prod.oclc.org:

------------------ Start of Reference ---------------------------

    DATABASE: PsycFIRST
      SEARCH: reincarnation

    RECORD NO: 80-04420
       AUTHOR: Anderson, Rodger I.
        TITLE: Commentary on the Akolkar and Stevenson reports.
       SOURCE: Journal of the Amer. Society for Psychical Research
         DATE: 1992 Jul Vol 86(3) 249-256
         YEAR: 1992
    ISSN/ISBN: 0003-1070
     LANGUAGE: English
    DOC. TYPE: Journal Article
     ABSTRACT: Comments on the reports of V.V. Akolkar (see PA. Vol
               80:4418) and I. Stevenson (1984) of a case of xeno-
               glossy (sudden usage of foreign language) in a 32-yr-old
               Indian woman. The agreement between the reports shows
               how the case lends itself to a reincarnation explana-
               tion and indicate how difficult it is to dismiss the
               case as due to deceit, cryptomnesia, or malobserva-
               tion. (PsycINFO Database Copyright 1993 American
               Psychological Assn. all rights reserved)
   MAJOR DESC: EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION
               PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA
               MULITPLE PERSONALITY
   MINOR DESC: CASE REPORT
               PROFESSIONAL CRITICISM
               LANGUAGE
   KEY PHRASE: alteration of personality into young Bengali. 32-yr old
               female with xenoglossy. India. case report. application
               of ESP vs possession vs reincarnation explanations. com-
               mentary.
  CLASS: CODE: 2390
    LIBRARIES: CT GTA WLU
               MA bti BOS CKM FTB NDA WCM WNE WZW
               ME mef
               NH FPR PSM
               NY nak nyg nys vsi BUF NAB NAM SDE VFR VHB VWR VXW VYF VYL
               VZB VZH XBM XMA YGM YSM ZDG ZGM ZLM ZNT ZOW ZSJ ZXC
               RI CCW RCM
               VT VTU

---------------------- End of Reference -------------------------
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--
Don           D.C.Lindsay     Carnegie Mellon Computer Science