Nexus - 1903 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

In 2006, Ron van der Maesen obtained his PhD in the Psychiatry and later the Division of Perceptual Studies research area of past-life therapy from Utrecht — until his 2002 retirement. He did not use the method of University in the Netherlands. His doctoral thesis was ypnosis to verify whether a person had a recollection of based on different studies with people who underwent a previous life; instead, he studied thousands of cases reatment with past-life therapy. The studies included in children in the USA, England, Thailand, Burma, one in Suriname, one with the Dutch Association of | Turkey, Lebanon, Canada, India and other countries who Reincarnation Therapists and another with patients with ad spontaneous memories about their previous lives. Tourette syndrome. The studies showed that the past- First, he verified all the information from a child about ife treatments had statistically significant beneficial heir previous life. Next, he identified the deceased results in patients compared with the controls (with no person whom that child claimed to be in their previous ealth problems). The level of satisfaction among the ife, patients who had improvements with past-life therapy Later, he verified the facts of the past life of the was very high. deceased person that coincided with the memories of Psychologist Dr Helen Wambach, who carried out he child. He also compared and verified body marks past-life research from the mid-1960s until her death in and birth defects with wounds and scars of the 1985, conducted a 10-year survey of past-life | deceased, all of them confirmed by medical records. recollection and reincarnation. She performed her main A good example of a birthmark case involved Ravi study with 26 regression therapists who had worked Shankar. This child remembered being decapitated in with a total of 17,350 patients. his previous childhood by a Among those, 63 per cent family member who was hoping reported an improvement in for a patrimony from the child's physical symptoms whereas 40 Dr Wambach had very father. Ravi Shankar had a per cent reported an oreo . birthmark around his neck. improvement in their specific questions about When Dr Stevenson interpersonal relationships. Dr the time periods in which investigated this case, he was Wambach had very specific . . able to confirm that the child questions about the time people lived other lives, whom Shankar told him abou periods in which people lived the types of clothes and from his past life had in fac other lives, the types of clothes been decapitated. and shoes they wore, the kinds shoes they wore... It was Jim Tucker, MD, who of utensils and money they took over Dr Stevenson's used, the style of house they research. At the University o lived in, and so on. Virginia, Dr Tucker is currently She concluded that the results were very accurate,and Medical Director of the Child and Family Psychiatry that fantasy and genetic memory could not account for Clinic as well as Associate Professor of Psychiatry and the patterns that emerged from the results. With the | Neurobehavioral Sciences. His book Life Before Life: A exception of reports from 11 subjects, all descriptions of Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives clothing, footwear, utensils, housing and so on were (2005) summarises the 40 years of investigation o consistent with historical records. reincarnation which Dr Stevenson performed during his career. In August 2011, we conducted an email interview Evidence for Reincarnation with Dr Tucker about the scientific evidence for life after Psychotherapist Brian Weiss, MD, is Chairman death. He responded: sa AE Mankind aH the Raat fend NAA ADAA1 UNA BA een were atin the want tenn Psychiatry and later the Division of Perceptual Studies until his 2002 retirement. He did not use the method of hypnosis to verify whether a person had a recollection of a previous life; instead, he studied thousands of cases in children in the USA, England, Thailand, Burma, Turkey, Lebanon, Canada, India and other countries who had spontaneous memories about their previous lives. First, he verified all the information from a child about their previous life. Next, he identified the deceased person whom that child claimed to be in their previous life. specific questions about the time periods in which people lived other lives, the types of clothes and shoes they wore... Evidence for Reincarnation Psychotherapist Brian Weiss, MD, is Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medica Center in Miami. One day he found that one of his patients started to recall past-life traumas in recurring nightmares and began to give astonishing details abou Weiss's family and his dead son. Although at the beginning he was very sceptical, he decided to do some in-depth research. He has since published severa books where he describes his investigations of pas lives. In Many Lives, Many Masters (1988), Dr Weiss explains the reality of reincarnation and the spirit world from the psychiatric perspective. lan Stevenson, MD, who died in 2007, was one of the most well known researchers to have provided strong evidence for the reality of reincarnation. From 1957, a the University of Virginia, he headed the Department o "As to your questions, the most important evidence for life after death, other than near-death experiences, includes controlled mediumship studies, carefully studied reports of apparitions, and verified claims by children of past-life memories. The most important evidence of reincarnation is this last phenomenon: children's reports of past-life memories. lan Stevenson spent 40 years studying such cases, documenting them as carefully as he could. Most of his cases came from cultures with a belief in reincarnation. I've been focusing on western cases, and I'm finding that the phenomenon is essentially the same here as it is in Asia. At this point, we certainly don't have as many really strong cases here as lan found in Asia, but we do have some interesting ones.” APRIL - MAY 2012 NEXUS ¢ 45 Dr Wambach had very www.nexusmagazine.com