Ian Stevenson

Lore & Background

Stevenson was born in Montreal and raised in Ottawa, the son of a Scottish lawyer and a mother interested in theosophy. He studied medicine at St. Andrews University and McGill University, graduating with an M.D. in 1943. After residencies in Montreal and Phoenix, he held fellowships in biochemistry and medicine, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1949. He taught at Louisiana State University School of Medicine before joining the University of Virginia, where he chaired the department of psychiatry from 1957 to 1967 and remained a professor for fifty years.

His interest in reincarnation grew from his broader question of why one person develops a particular disease or fear while another does not. He believed that neither genetics nor environment fully explained certain phobias, philias, unusual abilities, and illnesses, and that reincarnation might represent a third contributing factor. In 1958, he won an essay competition on survival after death, which led to a grant to travel to India, where he quickly found twenty-five cases of children claiming past-life memories. His first book, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, was published in 1966.

Stevenson was cautious in his claims, stating that his evidence was suggestive but not flawless and did not compel belief. He argued only that reincarnation was the best explanation for the stronger cases he investigated. His work was supported by Chester Carlson, inventor of xerography, who left $1,000,000 to the University of Virginia to continue the research. Upon Stevenson's retirement, colleagues including Jim B. Tucker, Antonia Mills, Satwant Pasricha, and Erlendur Haraldsson continued his work.

Reader's Guide

Ian Stevenson's significance lies in his systematic, decades-long effort to collect and analyze cases suggestive of reincarnation, a topic largely ignored by mainstream science. He published around three hundred papers and fourteen books, including Reincarnation and Biology and European Cases of the Reincarnation Type. His position was that reincarnation might be a third factor, alongside genetics and environment, in shaping certain human traits. However, his work attracted sharp criticism. Detractors argued that his conclusions were undermined by confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reliance on anecdotal evidence rather than controlled experiments. His case reports were also criticized for containing errors and omissions. Most scientists simply ignored his research. An obituary in The New York Times noted that supporters saw him as a misunderstood genius, while detractors regarded him as earnest but gullible. Stevenson himself acknowledged the absence of evidence for a physical process by which personality could transfer between bodies. His legacy remains controversial: a body of suggestive evidence that has not been accepted by the scientific mainstream but continues to be studied by a small group of researchers.

Did You Know?

• Stevenson maintained a list of books he had read, numbering 3,535 between 1935 and 2003.
• He studied the effects of LSD and mescaline in the 1950s, one of the first academics to do so, and described three days of 'perfect serenity' after trying LSD himself.
• Chester Carlson, inventor of xerography, left $1,000,000 to the University of Virginia to continue Stevenson's reincarnation research.
• Stevenson's 1957 paper arguing that personality is not more plastic in infancy and childhood was poorly received by his colleagues, which he said prepared him for rejection of his paranormal work.