Book Review: Before: Children’s Memories of Previous Lives (formerly two books, Life Before Life and Return to Life) (2021). Dr. Jim Tucker.

I recently reviewed Soul Survivor, the astonishing story of a small Texas boy in the early 2000s who appeared to have detailed memories of a previous life as a World War II fighter pilot in the South Pacific. 

 

In that review, I mentioned two psychiatrists at the University of Virginia Medical School who are considered the leading experts on the scientific study of the phenomenon of very young children with apparent memories of past lives, and who (between the two of them) have been studying thousands of cases from around the world for over a half-century:  Dr. Ian Stevenson and Dr. Jim B. Tucker.

 

Dr. Tucker is the latter of these two researchers, who is still alive and actively writing about his research.  He has an endowed Professorship at UVA in Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences, and is the director of the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies, an academic unit within the medical school that includes several other noted UVA researchers working in related areas, such as Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and other forms of paranormal mind/brain/body and perceptual phenomena.

 

In this newly combined version of his two earlier books, Dr. Tucker shares some of his most surprising and convincing cases of past lives memories in children, and describes the process by which he conducted and organized his research. 

 

Like his predecessor Dr. Stevenson, he is intent on demonstrating the scientific and repeatable nature of this research, and describing the methods used for objectively collecting and analyzing the data from their case studies. 

 

He also refrains from insisting that these cases are absolute proof of reincarnation, but makes the case for reincarnation as the simplest and most likely explanation for small children being in possession of verifiable facts, personality traits, behaviors and physical stigmata associated with a deceased person, by also considering and comparing the arguments for other possible interpretations of the strange facts of these cases.   

 

This two-volume book is probably the most accessible and engaging account of the state of the academic research into this phenomenon by these two doctors and their colleagues over a fifty year period, and contains remarkable descriptions of a number of the better-documented cases from their files.  Highly recommended.