now this is Jim Tucker who's that old
00:02
low friend of mine he's got lots of
00:04
academic care what kid sent us some of
00:06
your academic qualification well I'm a
00:10
medical doctor I'm a physician and I'm a
00:12
board-certified child psychiatrist I am
00:16
the director of the division of
00:17
perceptual studies and I'm also the
00:20
Bonner lowery professor of psychiatry
00:22
and neurobehavioral Sciences at the
00:25
University of Virginia so shut up listen
00:27
to me more now I want to talk to you
00:30
because you know about as much about
00:33
reincarnation as anyone on the planet
00:36
I think um start off by telling me about
00:39
Ian Stevenson and then why you got
00:42
interested yeah yeah so Ian Stevenson
00:45
was the chairman of the department
00:47
psychiatry here having a perfectly
00:50
successful mainstream career when he got
00:52
intrigued by reports of young children
00:55
who said they remember to past life and
00:58
these were from all over the world and
01:00
he went and investigated a number of
01:02
them got more and more intrigued
01:05
eventually stepped down as chairman of
01:07
the department and focus full-time on
01:09
this work looking mainly to see could
01:14
the children's statements be verified to
01:18
confirm that the child actually did
01:20
remember a past life and he started this
01:24
in the early 60s and we've been going
01:27
ever since and now it got over 2,500
01:30
cases 2,500 cases
01:33
so what drew you to this well I got
01:39
intrigued by the question of life after
01:43
death which is one that I think in
01:45
Treece everyone to at least some extent
01:48
they all do yes so the opportunity arose
01:52
where I I called here and volunteer to
01:56
give some time to help with their
01:58
studies and at that point
02:00
Ian Stevenson was in his late 70s and
02:02
and sort of unbeknownst to me he was
02:05
hoping somebody could carry on this work
02:08
with reincarnation memories
02:11
I actually called about near-death
02:12
experiences to begin with but then my
02:14
niche sort of ended up being with the
02:17
reincarnation memories and that's what
02:19
I've been doing
02:19
so are those 2,500 cases what can you
02:24
say about the that's sort of pretty hard
02:27
scientific fact well in the strongest
02:31
cases we have been able to verify that
02:35
the children's statements match with a
02:38
past life and one of a stranger that the
02:41
child and the family knew nothing about
02:43
before the child started making these
02:45
statements so we never take anything at
02:48
face value but we determine as carefully
02:53
as possible what exactly this child has
02:55
said and then we go looking to see and
02:58
how do you find out what the show said
02:59
your superiors friends yes the parents
03:03
and the friends and sometimes the child
03:04
him or herself some of them will talk to
03:07
us some won't but we go sort of
03:11
statement by statement and try to be
03:13
clear about what the child has said and
03:15
then you go to the village where the
03:20
original person was well that's right so
03:24
we start by studying sort of the side
03:26
the child side of the case and then we
03:28
go to the previous life side and in the
03:32
international cases it might be to
03:34
another village here it might be to
03:37
another state or another town or or my
03:40
email with another family and try to see
03:43
what we can find out what I said village
03:45
because I tend to think of these things
03:47
happening more in places where
03:49
reincarnation is part of a religious
03:51
faith but you know you do get them from
03:55
America yeah I mean certainly the cases
03:57
are easier to find in places with a
03:59
belief in reincarnation because people
04:01
talk about them and then little bit
04:03
marrows here goes that's right so I'm an
04:05
Ian Stevenson head associates in various
04:09
countries who were on the lookout for
04:10
cases now with the internet the cases
04:15
the American cases find us so we get
04:18
emails from parents all the time
04:20
reporting what their children are saying
04:22
so it's
04:24
yeah used to people would criticize
04:26
Ian's work and say that it was just a
04:28
cultural phenomenon and we now have
04:30
truth that it's not just a cultural
04:32
phenomenon because it happens here tell
04:35
us one of the best best research cases
04:39
just to show what the possibility yeah
04:42
well one that I studied was a little boy
04:45
named Ryan who started talking about a
04:51
life in Hollywood when he was four years
04:53
old and he would beg and crying his
04:55
crying beg his mother to take him to
04:58
Hollywood he was in Oklahoma so
05:03
eventually she got some books out of the
05:05
public library about Hollywood to try to
05:08
help him kind of process this and they
05:10
were looking through one of them one day
05:12
and they got that picture from an old
05:14
movie called night after night and he
05:17
pointed to one of the guys and said hey
05:19
mama that's George we did a picture
05:20
together and then he pointed to another
05:23
person and said and that's me I found me
05:26
now the first person he pointed to is
05:28
George Raft who was a well-known actor
05:31
back in the day but the other one he
05:34
pointed to that he said he had been was
05:35
an extra with no lines in the movie so
05:39
Ryan's mom wrote to me to see if I could
05:41
help figure out who this person was and
05:44
as we were working on it she was sending
05:46
me emails sometimes on a daily basis
05:48
with all these statements that Ryan was
05:50
making so we got documentation of
05:52
everything he was saying
05:53
and then eventually with the help of a
05:56
Hollywood archivist we were able to find
05:59
out who this person was that this
06:00
archivist went to the library of the
06:03
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
06:04
Sciences got all the materials on this
06:07
movie night after night and there was
06:09
one shot that included him it gave his
06:11
name a guy named Marty Martin and Ryan
06:17
had described quite a life which to be
06:19
honest I thought was unlikely for an
06:21
extra with no lines in a movie but it
06:24
fit Marty Martin's life so Ryan said how
06:26
he advanced in New York and Marty Martin
06:29
danced on Broadway Ryan said that he
06:31
then went and worked in the movies which
06:33
Marty Martin didn't mostly working on
06:35
in the movies he said that he then
06:39
worked at an agency and Marty Martin
06:42
started a successful talent agency he
06:46
described this life of going to Europe
06:50
on ships and so forth which Marty Warren
06:52
did he also said that the street address
06:54
of his house had the word Rock or mount
06:58
in it and Marty Martin lived on north
07:01
Roxbury and then also one time he said
07:04
he didn't see why God would let you get
07:06
to 61 and then come back again as a baby
07:11
and Marty Martin's death certificate
07:15
actually said he was 59 but when I
07:17
looked into it I found census records
07:21
and marriage listings and passenger
07:23
lists that all gave ages which made in
07:26
fact he was 61 when he died nine so all
07:29
together we were able to verify that
07:32
over 50 of Ryan's statements mash Marty
07:35
Martin's life and Marty Martin was an
07:37
obscure person who died in 1964 and then
07:42
so there was no information dig well
07:46
that's right and and now there is more
07:49
on the internet because of this case but
07:51
at the time there was nothing on Marty
07:53
Martin on the inner so what conclusion
07:57
do you have well what we can conclude
08:00
from that case is that most
08:04
conservatively we can say that Ryan had
08:07
knowledge of this life in the past now
08:10
his experience of this knowledge was
08:12
that it was memories of a life he
08:15
experienced and that's certainly the
08:17
most straightforward explanation but but
08:20
clearly we have very good evidence that
08:21
that he had knowledge of a life that it
08:24
would have been impossible for him to
08:26
gain through some sort of ordinary means
08:29
so that's the kind of case that we were
08:33
trying to explore can we rule out that
08:38
the knowledge that this the warden of
08:40
ordinary means where the child learned
08:42
it and
08:43
case like weather could be twice your
08:44
ordinary means Nathalie that has to be
08:47
some code of SCI explanation somewhere
08:50
along the line that's right it certainly
08:53
seems to be something sigh or psychic
08:58
like you say that to explain it because
09:00
that there's no way to explain it away
09:04
thank you