James Matlock received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the Southern Ilinois University in Carbondale in 2002. His 1993 M.A. thesis from Hunter College in New York City was a cross-cultural study of reincarnation beliefs in relation to social practices. He has been engaged in reincarantion research since the 1980s and has published on reincarnation experiences and beliefs in both parapsychology and anthropology. He teaches an inter-disciplinary online course, Signs of Reincarnation. For more information on his background, publications, research interests, and online course, see his website, [...]

FOREWORD: A TALE OF TWO THEORIES, by Jeffrey Mishlove

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF REINCARNATION SIGNS
What is Reincarnation?
Challenge to Materialism

CHAPTER 2: THE BELIEF IN REINCARNATION
Signs, Beliefs, and Customs in Animistic Cultures
A Brief History of the Belief in Rebirth, West and East
Karma, God, and the Individual in Rebirth Theory

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS AND INTERPRETATIVE FRAMES
Accounts of Past-Life Memory Recorded Before 1960
Ian Stevenson's Field Research and Its Critics
Interpretive Frames for Reincarnation Cases

CHAPTER 4: CHILD STUDIES: THE PRINCIPAL SIGNS OF REINCARNATION
Involuntary Memory of Previous Lives
Behavioral Identification with the Previous Person
Birthmarks and Other Physical Signs

CHAPTER 5: CHILD STUDIES: SECONDARY SIGNS OF REINCARNATION
Signs of Discarnate Agency
Universal, Near-Universal, and Culture-Linked Patterns
The Psychological Impacts of Past-Life Memory

CHAPTER 6: PAST-LIFE RECALL IN ADULTHOOD AND THIRD-PARTY REPORTS
Developmental Factors in Involuntary Past-Life Memory Retrieval
Fantasy and Fact in Past Life Regression under Hypnosis
The Contributions of Shamans, Psychics, and Mediums

CHAPTER 7: THE PROCESS OF REINCARNATION
Beyond Materialism
Personal Identity and Postmortem Survival
Reincarnation and Life

AFTERWORD: IMPLICATIONS OF REINCARNATION CASES FOR BIOLOGY, by Michael Nahm