81 of 86 customers found the following review helpful:
 Not what it purports to be -- Dr. Stevenson deserves better, 2000-04-17
Overall, this was a bit of a disappointment. The subtitle, "The Scientific Evidence for Past Lives," is typical of the "grabber" subtitles which publishers use to sell books but which often bear little relationship to the contents. Shroder accompanies Dr. Ian Stevenson (who is now 80 years old and has been meticulously documenting past-life memories for 40 years) on follow-up visits to Lebanon and India. A really huge portion of the book comprises Shroder's whining about the conditions he is forced to endure, which is interesting in small doses but eventually gets tedious. (Rethink your vacation to India, folks.) We do get snippets of Stevenson's interviews with subjects who remember past lives, but these are disjointed and hardly rise to the level of "the scientific evidence." In fact, all Stevenson seems to encounter on these visits are fairly weak cases and dead-ends. The real evidence -- reams of it -- is found in Stevenson's own works, such as "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" and "Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect." Shroder's book gives the reader some insight into Stevenson's personality and methodology, but no real understanding of the scope and depth of his work. Shroder's knowledge of this field is distinctly thin -- this book is at precisely the level of what you see in the newspaper every day, where a reporter spends a few days immersed in a highly complex subject to which others have devoted their entire lives, then purports to sum it all up in a few pages of generalities. Shroder's attitude was also somewhat off-putting to me. Although he frequently expresses admiration for Stevenson, his tone occasionally struck me as arrogant and condescending -- as though the reader were supposed to give him (Shroder) credit for even undertaking this project instead of laughing at a subject so widely regarded as silly by his journalistic peers. His doubts regarding Stevenson's research are standard fare which Stevenson and his colleagues have been wrestling with for decades, yet the responses are not fleshed out and the reader is left with the impression that Stevenson was no match for a hard-boiled journalist. I suspect that those who will derive the greatest enjoyment from this book will be those who have assumed that reincarnation is complete nonsense with no basis in fact, and who thus will be intrigued that "one of their own" came away puzzled if not convinced. For those who are already familiar with the work of Stevenson, this book may be worthwhile as an insight (albeit not a very deep one) into the man and his methods. For those looking for "the scientific evidence for past lives" -- well, it's really not here.
5 of 10 customers found the following review helpful:
 humble and honest challenge to top scientific assumptions, 2000-03-21
Shroder honestly recognizes his limitations in scientific literacy in the time of writing this book as opposed to his other journalist friend in the book who easily jump to the skeptic wagon due to his formation under the umbrella of scientific orthodoxy. And this is the virtue of the author for appraching the most important scientific subject of the millenium. Any personal compromise with mainstream scientific professional institutions would have worked against the simple and shocking objetivity of the book in depicting events that require a complete overhaul of our more cherished scientific assumptions about the physical substratum of consciousness. As the author describes through his dialogues with Stevenson and others we are in a loss of explaining at last two aspects of the cases showed in the book: a)What are the biological:spacetime, termodynamic, electromagnetic and complexity measures of the hypothetical entities that are necessary to postulate for understanding the "transitions" between personalities? b)Why the curious differences (even in the better cases) between the memories of some facts about previous personalities and the facts verified during the stage of research?. All this in middle of amazing quantity of true correspondences.
4 of 10 customers found the following review helpful:
On average, balanced..., 2000-03-07
but it falls short of any serious explanatory effort ( from thetraditional ones to the more "in" hypotheses based onnon-locality a la David Bohm's struggle for deciphering the universe). Be as it may, for a radical revision of our perception of Cosmos (and this book tacitly infers at this, notwithstanding the detective-thrill superficial layer ), much, much more has to be presented, because much, much more is at stake. As it is, we are now faced with, give or take, the following possibilities ( many of them virtually defunct ): 1. Materialist stance 2. Animist, with a few subvariants, spanning from some sort of immortality of one ( or more ) soul(s) among the entire spectrum of an individual, via survival in a tribe/group ( "antlike immortality" ), not as an individualized conscious subject ( because one hadn't been one during his earthly life, just a part of a group ), but as an "atom" or "cell" in group soul of a tribe, to the more familiar dungeon-like shadowy anemic quasi-existence in Hades/Sheol. 3. "Ethical immortality": after death, one either enters in a cataleptic hybernation, or is "judged" ( by his deeds or faith, doesn't matter ) once or many times. This is frequently set in a resurrectionist framework with heavens and hells. 4. Fall into matter & return into the source. This scenario can be staged only once, or many times ( reincarnation ). 5. In the case of reincarnation, it is either illusory ( Buddhism, Advaita ) or real. Also, it can be interpreted as a wheel meaninglessly circling, or as the crucial means of gaining experience, ethical perfection & so on ( various branches of theosophy ). Reincarnationist view refurbished as a simplified theosophy: Essentially, man is not a "soul", but "self". So, the structure of man is:physical/gross body, subtle body and atman (self) in/with causal body. Subtle body is storage of emotions and thoughts. In this world view the existence of "higher" worlds is presupposed; for the sake of brevity, physical, subtle and causal world with God as the source and all-encompassing Being. In the time of death, atman in causal body wrapped in emotions and thoughts (subtle body) leaves the physical body to disintegrate. After a while, the second death in the subtle world occurs ( with different "flavor" compared to the physical death; expansion of consciousness in dimensions & potency now dominant ), with disintegration of subtle body and all the information of the preceding life stored as a "computer record"/engram in causal body.Now, atman in causal body is living in the causal world, with eagle's view on phantasmagoria of existence, aware of all preceding lives and contemplating further opportunity for progress overseeing possible future lives as a possibility to process "karma" ( imprinted deeds in causal body, reflecting "good" and "bad" behavior). Two forces ( his inertia ( karma ); so, a deterministic factor "narrowing" possible choices ), and a will to incarnate to "improve" his "karmic" record; so, a free will element ) combine to drag him on downward-spiral into existence, first to obtain subtle, and physical body at the end. During this process centre of consciousness shifts from semi-divine at causal plane to progressively restricted on lower planes with final awareness of just the physical plane/world. New life begins. So, in this Weltanschauung the essence, atman in causal body "profits" from successive existences; it is, as Upanishads repeatedly insist, Lord, Inner Controller, Self-not the empirical psyche, who is just a "sheath" or coat in the string of existences. Personally, I remain skeptical.
As scientific as it can get, 2000-02-20
Shroder, a Washington Post journalist, starts off skeptical, but intrigued by the possibility of reincarnation. He persuades Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia, who has written extensively on the topic, to take him along on field trips to Lebanon and India so he can evaluate the quality of research for himself. His journalistic descriptions of the persons involved and scenes are a real delight. There were times when he might have been in danger of life and limb and he describes all this lightheartedly, but with a keen eye for color. More to the point, he carefully examines the rationale for Dr. Stevenson's belief that reincarnation is not only possible, but actually common. He summarizes the case made by the doctor's critics and weighs in with his views on the biases inherent in both. What impressses him most is the ambiguity inherent in the strongest of Dr. Stevenson's cases. There are scores of minor mistakes - misrecalling the number of siblings in a previous life, errors in recollection of dress etc. - in the subjects recollections of previous existence along with powerfully accurate memories of startling detail. Do such errors "prove" that the subject is lying or mistaken, or do they "prove" the opposite since human memory is faulty in this birth as well so how can we expect perfect recall of previous births? Where you plonk down on this has more to do with your own biases than anything else. What Shroder is convinced about is that Dr. Stevenson has done more than enough to establish that there is more here than meets the eye and that the entire subject matter is deserving of sincere investigation. The scientific community is still too far from undertaking such an investigation and this is Dr. Stevenson's greatest regret. Shroder does a fine job of depicting the 80 year old investigator's sincerity, diligence and frustration at his inability to get others to take up the baton he is ready to pass on. Excellent sources in bibliography for anyone who wants to do his/her own follow-on research.
2 of 45 customers found the following review helpful:
 fair, 2000-02-04
Read the bible before you read this book
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