An in-depth study of the correspondence between birthmarks or birth defects and previous lives, covering many cases in various countries.

Offers an introduction to reincarnation, including the evidence that it occurs, the beliefs of various traditions, gaining access to past lives, karma, soul cycles, and the use of reincarnation in psychotherapy.

Children who claim to remember a previous life have been found in many parts of the world, particularly in the Buddhist and Hindu countries of South Asia, among the Shiite peoples of Lebanon and Turkey, the tribes of West Africa, and the American northwest. Stevenson has collected over 2,600 reported cases of past-life memories of which 65 detailed reports have been published. Specific information from the children's memories has been collected and matched with the data of their claimed former identity, family, residence, and manner of death. Birthmarks or other physiological manifestations have been found to relate to experiences of the remembered past life, particularly violent death. Writing as a specialist in psychiatry and as a world-renowned scientific investigator of reported paranormal events, Stevenson asks us to suspend our Western tendencies to disbelieve in reincarnation and consider the reality of the burgeoning record of cases now available. This book summarizes Stevenson's findings which are presented in full in the multi-volume work entitled Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects, also published by Praeger.

IS DEATH THE FINAL CHAPTER? In The Big Book of Reincarnation, Roy Stemman attempts to answer one of the big questions of existence: Is death the end? Or, is it merely the end of a chapter in the book of existence? A self-described "skeptical believer," Stemman uses his skills as a professional journalist to perform an in-depth exploration of reincarnation. Using case studies, anecdotes, and physical evidence from the best-documented cases from around the world, Stemman shines a bright light on this subject, inviting readers to decide for themselves on the basis of facts, rather than on the basis of hearsay, speculation, and superstition. Stemman finds fascinating examples of evidence of reincarnation in the nightmares of a Louisiana bayou boy, the past-life recall of a renowned neurosurgeon, the research of a highly respected university professor, and the unique system of governance in the mountains of Tibet, to name just a few. He examines the lives of those affected by reincarnation, such as children who can actually remember their previous lives. Instead of shying away from the skeptics, Stemman evaluates their leading theories and compares them to the findings that he has accumulated throughout his global research. The Big Book of Reincarnation is thorough, well researched, engaging, and the most comprehensive book ever published on this fascinating subject.

A festschrift in honour of Richard Slobodin, anthropologist and ethnologist of the Canadian North. Much of his research and writing focused on the Dene and the Mackenzie District Metis.

This book provides guidelines for evaluating the contribution of Spiritism to health. It is based on conferences presented in six European countries in October 2002 on the following themes: Principles of Spiritist Medicine and Bioethics, Perispirit, The Reincarnation Process, and Human Cloning. This book emphasizes the integral being: Spirit-matter, the complexity of subtle bodies, new concepts of health and illnesses, anamnesis and pathogenesis, and the integration of Spirituality into medical treatments highlighting the healing power of faith and love. It answers serious questions about Human Cloning, such as: "is it acceptable to clone people or to produce human embryos and then use them as a source for various tissues?". This book proposes a definitive union between Health and Spirituality in response to man's aspirations and scientific pursuits. What is the contribution of Spiritism to Medicine? Should people be cloned? Should human embryos be produced? This book answer these questions and many others, presenting topics such as •Principles of Spiritist Medicine and Bioethics •Human Cloning •Constitution of the Perispirit With them emerges an integral view of the Human Being: Spirit-matter. In pathological cases, it relates biological, social and psychological factors, but above all, the spiritual ones; in processes of cure, it mobilizes all available resources as well as those which are linked to the soul and its essence: faith, prayer and love.

James ‘The Amazing’ Randi is a stage magician who says he has a million dollars for anyone who can convince him they have psychic powers. No one has even come close to winning, proof, say sceptical scientists, that there is no such thing as ‘the paranormal’. But are they right? In this illuminating and often provocative analysis, Robert McLuhan examines the influence of Randi and other debunking sceptics in shaping scientific opinion about such things as telepathy, psychics, ghosts and near-death experiences. He points out that scientific researchers who investigate these things at first hand overwhelmingly consider them to be genuinely anomalous. But this has shocking implications, for science, for society and for even perhaps for ourselves as individuals. Hence the sceptics’ insistence that they should rather be attributed to fraud, imagination and wishful thinking. However, this extraordinary and little understood aspect of consciousness has much to tell us about the human situation, McLuhan suggests. And at a time when militants are polarising the debate about religion, its mystical, spiritual element offers an optimistic and enlightened way forward. Randi’s Prize is aimed at anyone interested in spirituality or those curious to know the truth about paranormal claims. It’s an intelligent and readable analysis of scientific research into the paranormal which, uniquely, also closely examines the arguments of well-known sceptics.

Frontiers of Knowledge is the story of unfolding developments that are revolutionizing our understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe. We are birthing a new era in which our ideas about the nature and source of reality are swiftly changing. Insights from quantum physics suggest that the basis of our physical world is actually mental—conscious thoughts. Other discoveries are causing us to redefine our concepts of mind and the elusive thing we call consciousness. All strongly hint that spirituality is the underlying source of everything. Frontier scientists and scientifically trained researchers are providing us with a rich and expanding base of knowledge through systematic investigations of startling phenomena that have been observed in quantum physics, cosmology, biology, psychology, disease and healing, death, near-death experiences, reincarnation experiences, and those occurring in spiritual hypnosis on the nature of the spiritual realm. New concepts of reality are especially needed to explain the incredibly finetuned characteristics and the mysterious nature of our physical universe. Ninety-five percent of the universe’s energy and mass are a mystery to scientists, and for the moment, we resort to naming them dark matter and dark energy. The last time a comparable knowledge revolution occurred was in the late sixteenth century when astronomers determined that the planets revolved around the sun, not the earth. Historians call it the Copernican Revolution because it led to modern Western science. From one perspective, the new era predicted in this book—a revolution in its own right—can be considered the completion of the quantum revolution by defining and explaining the role of consciousness in our universe. An underlying aspect of this new revolution is the sense that humanity is moving into a new era of rapidly expanding knowledge of the human spirit (our soul aspect) and non-physical realities. Until now, this emerging knowledge has not been organized into a coherent and comprehensive structure. Frontiers of Knowledge provides the first outline of this new structure of reality.

This book explores conceptions of the soul and the afterlife that are consistent with the findings of modern science. It approaches these subjects from many different angles: religious, philosophical, scientific, poetic, humorous, quasi-scientific, and even pseudoscientific (just to be fair). Many possible afterlives are examined, including physical resurrection (whether supernatural, biological or cybernetic in form), reincarnation, participation in a dream-like world or collective mind, and the persistence of recycling centers of pure consciousness. Philosophical, scientific and religious doctrines regarding the relationship between conscious minds and physical matter are reviewed. Centers of consciousness likely exist at many different hierarchical levels, from elementary particles, single neurons and organisms all the way up to supra-individual entities such as ant colonies or deities. Empirical evidence bearing on the nature of the soul and the afterlife is also reviewed, including that amassed by parapsychologists suggesting that some personality elements may survive death (as in the case of children who report memories of previous lives). The findings of modern neuroscience suggest that you cannot take it all (or even much of it) with you but you can at least take you with you.