Reincarnation Conventions and More

"Road Once Traveled" MM Sikes

Reincarnation conventions have become popular in our country, according to a segment on CBS Sunday morning. Dr. Brian Weiss, a specialist in hypnotic regression, was one of the speakers at a recent convention in New York. I have read about Dr. Weiss and learned that he was skeptical about reincarnation when he regressed one of his patients who instead of going back to an earlier age went back to a previous lifetime. He is said to have lost his skepticism when the patient began channeling about the space between lives.

According to the CBS segment, 18% of Americans believe in reincarnation. Those who believe in reincarnation think we are spiritual beings having a human experience. The theory dates back nearly 4000 years.

 Dr. Jim Tucker at the University of Virginia doesn't trust past-life regression. He believes the results of that therapy are unreliable. However, his research at the university is on reincarnation and focuses on children. Many of the children he has interviewed remember past lives that ended violently. These children often have scars or birth defects featuring an injury from the prior life they recall. Photographs of these children's scars were part of the program.

Some of the research I studied for my novel, Hearts Across Forever, was done by the late Dr. Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia.