Old Souls: Compelling Evidence from Children Who Remember Past Lives

First, I have to say that several of the reviewers have said that somewhere on the cover it was stated that this book provided PROOF of reincarnation, and they then rated this book poorly for not providing such iron-clad proof. After reading these reviews, I studied the cover once again, trying to find where it states that any proof will be given - yet, there's no such statement ANYWHERE! What it states is that they will provide "compelling evidence" - and in my opinion they have achieved this goal. "Old Souls" discusses some of those cases suggestive of reincarnation that Dr. Ian Stephenson had investigated during his career. These cases are found all over the world, but this book tends to discuss only those found in Lebanon, India, and a few in the US. Much of the info. provided tends to be clinical in a sense, but one has to remember that Dr. Stephenson is trying to pursue this from a scientific point of view - in an effort to bring this sort of research into the mainstream. The author, Thomas Shroder, is a journalist skeptic who followed Dr. Stephenson on the last few of his journeys. I must say that it's hard at times to read how the skeptics view the evidence, as it seems to show without a doubt the saying that believers don't need extraordinary proof, but to the skeptic, no proof is good enough. However, by the end, this skeptic was at least left wondering - not willing to deny everything he saw and heard - at least thats a start... Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in spirituality in general, and more specifically reincarnation. It provides an excellent view into the research, and how & why the skeptics tend to rip it apart.

Not as informative as I thought it would be, but I enjoyed it just the same.

This book was highly recommended on Facebook I am very interested in this subject so I purchased it. It’s an absolutely fascinating book and I could not put the book down!! Very easy reading with a lot of food for thought. The price was very good too. Highly recommended seller.

I am having a little difficulty staying interested while reading this book. The parts that focus on the actual subjects/cases are extremely interesting, however most of the reading consist of all the things that happened in between the cases. There is allot of material expressing the atmosphere, transportation, rooming, conditions, ect... that really could have been left out. I suspect that he wanted to give the reader an idea of what all he had personally experienced, which takes the focus off the subjects. I am still making my way through there are 18 chapters and I have read 13. Normally I would be finished this in a day but as I said it's challenging keeping interest. All in all if you want a tiny bit or a glimpse as to what is an example of past life and reincarnation than sure read the book. I personally feel there is much better information out there, for example Dolores Cannon book on Between Death and Life is 1 example or any number of books that talk about NDE(near death experiences), past lives, and after life. Maybe even the book from the actual researcher Ian Stevenson would make for a better read. It's not horrible but could be better in my opinion

I bought 'Old Souls' because I have an interest in reincarnation, but wanted a book that approaches the subject from a more scientific point of view, which 'Old Souls' does. The book is based on journalist Tom Shroder's journeys with Dr. Ian Stevenson in Lebanon and India to seek out promisingly verifiable accounts of young children who appeared to remember past lives in some detail. Shroder's task as a journalist was to observe Stevenson and his interactions with the children and their families, to try to discern whether or not the children's stories truly could be believed, or were there to be debunked. (As it turned out, there were, with reservations, some of both.) The first half of the book was about Lebanon, and the second about India. During that first half, the question of reincarnation was uppermost in my mind, even in the face of Shroder's vivid descriptions of war-demolished and sometimes dangerous Beirut. When I started reading the second half of the book, however, the part about India, the issue of reincarnation faded far into the background for me when compared with the grip that Schroder's description of the living conditions in India had on me. It made me wonder why anyone would want to have even one life in those utterly miserable surroundings, much less more. Four words pretty much sum up what I garnered from Shroder's description of India: "raw sewage," "flies" and "malnutrition." Another question raised in my mind by the second half of 'Old Souls' was why on earth Dr. Ian Stevenson would keep going back to India to interview these children, knowing the horrendous conditions he would sometimes have to suffer right along with them. It's one thing to be highly interested in a subject; it's completely another to be willing to make repeated journeys into a veritable hell in order to conduct research you well know may never be given a fair look by mainstream scientists. Stevenson reminds me somewhat of people who try to climb Mount Everest; I greatly respect and admire them and think they are more than a little crazy. I'm so glad that Schroder wrote this book to chronicle Dr. Stevenson's story and that of the 'old souls' that he studied. The world truly does deserve to know. P.S. I do want to be sure to point out that Tom Shroder writes wonderfully well. He describes what he sees in vivid detail, and he also is generous in sharing his own emotional reactions and insights into what he sees. I ordered another book written by him simply because I so enjoyed his prose in 'Old Souls.'

I personally found this book very interesting. It delves into personalities claiming memories of past lives, sometimes with uncanny accuracy and sometimes with vague memories. Throughout the world there are populaces that embrace reincarnation while others totally reject the idea as absurd. For years, Dr. Ian Stevenson has expended countless hours and energy in trying to establish a foothold in the mainstream scientific community. The author of this work accompanied him on several trips and independently sought answers to the existence or nonexistence o of reincarnation. The topic is interesting at the least and deserving of continuing exploration. For me, many questions remain unanswered and yet there is definitely some factor that causes me to feel uneasy about entirely dismissing the existence of reincarnation. As with much in life, the answer may never definitively reveal itself.

About 20% of the book is concerned with a very small number of actual cases, While 80% of the book is the author accompanying Ian Stevenson, who is perhaps most famous for his original book _20 Cases suggestive of Reincarnation_. The author has a propensity to often stop his narrative and describe in incidental detail what the various people are wearing ( ! ) I think the greatest underlying theme that I've come away with from this book is that investigating these cases is astonishingly tedious and the idea that Stevenson has accumulated some 2000 of these in his files is beyond remarkable ! The final resolution or proof for reincarnation, after all is said & done however, is not terribly strong, many of the cases and incidents are indeed very intriguing, but the sparsity leaves a great deal to be desired. Also; I find it very curious that he's traveling to all of these exotic places around the world to find these cases; whereas I would think that it would be much simpler to simply send out questionnaires to all of the local daycare centers, asking if the caretakers have overheard very young children in their care, talk about crazy things and that you could just follow up on that... ?

This book is REALLY NOT about OLD souls. It's a study of Ian Stevenson's work. He wrote one of the first detailed studies of what seems to be proof of reincarnation. One book called something like "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" and "Children Who Remember Previous Lives." He went to India, Thailand, Burma and other countries where there were children born into families that started saying as soon as they could talk, that these parents were not their real parents. This fellow rode around with Ian and reports in detail what he saw, heard and learned. Ian Stevenson used the most exacting and demanding methodology that he could manage. I really enjoyed this book! But the souls that were reborn seemed rather YOUNG. Just jumping back into a body not long after they suffered a violent death. That is, I have ideas about what OLD souls are—people that have lived through many many lives and have grown wise. To jump right into some new baby's body soon after your death is not so wise! But that does not take away from what the book teaches you.

Fascinating book really enjoyed reading it and couldn't put it down.

Mejor de lo que esperaba!

Compelling reading, I had no previous interest in the subject and chose to read it on a whim while waiting for a plane, I was pleasantly surprised. This is a delightful, well written and researched book, it attempts to provide a balanced look at a subject which one would not normally consider worthy of scientific investigation. It charts the attempts by one academic to bring this phenomena which is so distant from Western concepts of reality under the scientific lens and gets as close as is possible to offering a convincing case. I'm sure you will enjoy reading this book, no matter what conclusion you reach for yourself at the end.

Excellent Book... everyone should read it atleast once in their life team

Had I known this book is an account by someone who accompanied Dr. Ian Stevenson on his last two research trips (to Lebanon and India), I would have bought it long ago. Shroder engagingly maintains a good balance between skepticism and qualified belief which should be valued by anyone who has ever considered whether 'souls' survive bodily death. Dr. Stevenson's heroic efforts to scientifically investigate the best evidence we have that reincarnation is real should be much more widely appreciated.