Ian Stevenson

Ian Pretyman Stevenson (31 Oktober 1918 – 8 Februari 2007) adalah seorang psikiatis Kanada-Amerika. Beliau adalah seorang ilmuwan yang menggunakan hampir setengah abad berkeliling dunia untuk melakukan penelitian secara teliti dan mendetail mengenai ratusan kasus anak kecil yang dapat mengingat kehidupan lampaunya (secara spontan, tanpa menggunakan cara hipnotis). Beliau merupakan penemu dari Penelitian Ilmiah pada kelahiran kembali.

Penelitian Stevenson yang berkaitan dengan kelahiran kembali, dipandang sebelah mata oleh sebagian orang sebagai hal yang tidak biasa. Pada tahun 1977, dalam menanggapi hasil penelitian Stevenson pada Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, seorang psikiater bernama Harold Lief menggambarkan Stevenson sebagai ”seorang penyelidik yang metodis, hati-hati bahkan sangat hati-hati yang personalitasnya menghantuinya.” Ia juga menulis: ”Ia membuat kesalahan yang sangat besar, atau ia akan dikenal sebagai Galileo abad ke-20.”

Pada tahun 1943, Stevenson mendapatkan gelar medisnya dari Universitas McGill di Montreal, dan lulus sebagai peringat teratas di kelasnya. Pada tahun 1957, diusia 39 tahun, Beliau menjadi ketua Departemen Psikiatri di Universitas Virginia. Dan karena pengaruh sang ibu yang merupakan seorang teosofi yang taat, yang digambarkan oleh Stevenson sebagai contoh Buddhisme bagi Orang Barat, Beliau tertarik dengan paranormal, dan merasa terpanggil setelah melakukan perjalanan ke India pada tahun 1961 yang meyakinkannya bahwa kasus anak-anak yang dapat mengingat kehidupan lampau terjadi dimana-mana dan sangat mengesankan.

Tinggi dan kurus, kebapakan dalam penampilan dan perkataan, Stevenson merupakan seorang peneliti yang tidak kenal lelah dan sering lupa untuk makan. Ia mengatalogkan lebih dari 2500 kasus-kasus luar biasa yang sama, kebanyakan di Asia dan Timur Tengah tetapi juga di Eropa, Afrika, Amerika Utara, dan Amerika Selatan. Buku pertamanya berjudul: “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation,” diterbitkan pada tahun 1966, dan karyanya yang terakhir: “European Cases of the Reincarnation Type,” pada tahun 2003.

Pada tahun 1967 Beliau menjadi direktur Division of Personality Studies, sekarang Division of Perceptual Studies, yang didanai oleh Chester Carlson, orang yang menciptakan proses Xerox.

Stevenson pensiun dari aktivitas penelitiannya pada tahun 2002, meninggalkan pekerjaannya untuk dilanjutkan oleh Dr. Bruce Greyson, M.D. Dan juga oleh Dr. Jim B. Tucker, M.D seorang psikiater anak yang melanjutkan pekerjaan Stevenson terhadap anak-anak, yang difokuskan pada kasus-kasus yang terjadi di Amerika Utara.

Dengan menyadari bahwa tujuan akhirnya agar ilmu pengetahuan ”secara serius mempertimbangkan kelahiran kembali sebagai suatu kemungkinan”, tidak dapat direalisasikan pada kehidupan sekarang, Prof. Dr. Ian Stevenson yang telah berusia 88 tahun, meninggal dunia karena penyakit radang paru-paru, pada tanggal 8 Februari 2007 di komunitas pensiunan di Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge, di Charlottesville, Virginia.

Referensi

• Almeder, Robert (1992). Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life After Death. Rowman and Littlefield.
• Almeder, Robert (1997). "A Critique of Arguments Offered Against Reincarnation", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11(4), pp. 499–526.
• Bache, Christopher (2000). Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind. State University of New York Press.
• Brody, Eugene B. (1977). "Research in Reincarnation and Editorial Responsibility: An Editorial", The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 165(3), September.
• Cadoret, Remi J. (2005). "Review of European Cases of the Reincarnation Type", American Journal of Psychiatry, 162(4), April.
• Carroll, Robert T. (July 7, 2009). "Ian Stevenson (1918-2007)", The Skeptic's Dictionary.
• The Daily Telegraph (February 12, 2007). "Professor Ian Stevenson" (obituary).
• Debus, Allen G. (1968). World Who's in Science. Marquis-Who's Who.
• Edwards, Paul (1992). "Introduction" and "The Dependence of Consciousness on the Brain," in Paul Edwards (ed.). Immortality. Prometheus Books.
• Edwards, Paul (1996). Reincarnation: A Critical Examination. Prometheus Books.
• Fox, Margalit (February 18, 2007). "Ian Stevenson Dies at 88; Studied Claims of Past Lives", The New York Times.
• Hopkins Tanne, Janice (April 2, 2007). "Obituaries: Ian Pretyman Stevenson", British Medical Journal.
• Kelly, Emily Williams (2007). "Ian P. Stevenson", University of Virginia School of Medicine, February (obituary).
• Kelly, Edward F. and Kelly, Emily Williams (2007). Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Rowman & Littlefield.
• Lief, Harold (1977). "Commentary on Ian Stevenson’s 'The Evidence of Man’s Survival After Death'", The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 165(3), September.
• McClelland, Norman C. (2010). Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland.
• Pandarakalam, James Paul (April 2 2007). "Professor Ian Stevenson, an emperor in parapsychology", British Medical Journal (obituary).
• Shroder, Tom (February 11, 2007). "Ian Stevenson; Sought To Document Memories Of Past Lives in Children", The Washington Post (obituary).
• Stevenson, Ian (1957). "Is the human personality more plastic in infancy and childhood?", American Journal of Psychiatry, 114(2), pp. 152–161.
• Stevenson, Ian (1966). Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. University of Virginia Press.
• Stevenson, Ian (1977). "The explanatory value of the idea of reincarnation", The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 164(5), pp. 305–326.
• Stevenson, Ian (1989). "Some of my journeys in medicine", The Flora Levy Lecture in the Humanities.
• Stevenson, Ian (1992). "Birthmarks and Birth Defects Corresponding to Wounds on Deceased Persons", paper presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, Princeton University, June 11–13.
• Stevenson, Ian (2000). "The phenomenon of claimed memories of previous lives: possible interpretations and importance", Medical Hypotheses, 54(4), April, pp. 652-659.
• Stevenson, Ian (2006). "Half A Career With the Paranormal", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 20(1).
• Tucker, Jim B. (2007). "Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives: Past, Present and Future Research", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 21(3), 2007, pp. 543–552.
• Tucker, Jim B. (2005). Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives. St. Martin's Press.
• University of Virginia (undated). "Ian Stevenson, MD", School of Medicine.
• University of Virginia (undated). "Division Staff", Division of Perceptual Studies, School of Medicine.
• University of Virginia (undated). "History and description", Division of Perceptual Studies, School of Medicine.
• Woodhouse, Mark (1996). Paradigm Wars: Worldviews for a New Age. Frog Books.

Bacaan tambahan

Ian Stevenson/reincarnation

• Almeder, Robert (2000). "Reincarnation Evidence: Stevenson's Research", interview with Robert Almeder, professor of philosophy at Georgia State University (video).
• Almeder, Robert (1988). "Response to 'Past Tongues Remembered'," Skeptical Inquirer, 12, Spring.
• Almeder, Robert (1987). Beyond Death. Charles C. Thomas.
• Alvarado, Carlos S. "Ian Stevenson, Selected Bibliography", Parapsychological Association.
• Edelmann, Jonathan and Bernet, William. "Setting Criteria for Ideal Reincarnation Research", Journal of Consciousness Studies, 14(12), p. 92.
• Edwards, Paul (1986). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 1," Free Inquiry, 6, Fall, pp. 24–34.
• Edwards, Paul (1986/7). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 2," Free Inquiry, 7, Winter, pp. 38–43.
• Edwards, Paul (1987a). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 3," Free Inquiry, 7, Spring, pp. 38–49.
• Edwards, Paul (1987b). "The Case Against Reincarnation: Part 4," Free Inquiry, 7, Summer, pp. 46–53.
• Griffin, David Ray (1997). Parapsychology, Philosophy, and Spirituality: A Postmodern Exploration. SUNY Press (particularly chapter 6, "Evidence from Cases of the Reincarnation Type").
• Hales, Steven (2001a). "Evidence and the afterlife", Philosophia, 28(1–4), pp. 335–346.

• Almeder, Robert (2001). "On reincarnation: A reply to Hales", Philosophia.
• Hales, Steven (2001b). "Reincarnation redux," Philosophia, 28(1–4), pp. 359–367.

• Irwin, Harvey J. (2004). An Introduction to Parapsychology. McFarland.
• Martin, Raymond (1994). "Survival of Bodily Death: A Question of Values", in John Donnelly (ed.) Language, Metaphysics, and Death. Fordham University Press.
• Rockley, Richard (1 November 2002). "Book Review: Children who remember previous lives, A question of reincarnation, Ian Stevenson", Skeptic Report.
• Spence, Lewis (2003). "Stevenson, Ian", Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Kessinger Publishing.
• Stanford, Rex (2008). "Ian Stevenson: A Man from Whom We Should Learn", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 22(1), pp. 120–124.
• Tucker, Jim B. (2008). "Ian Stevenson and Cases of the Reincarnation Type", Journal of Scientific Exploration, 22(1), pp. 36–43.
• Wilson, Ian. Mind Out of Time?: Reincarnation Claims Investigated. Orion Books Limited, 1981.

Consciousness

• Almeder, Robert (2011). "The Major Objections from Reductive Materialism Against Belief in the Existence of Cartesian Mind-Body Dualism", in Alexander Moreira-Almeida and Franklin Santana Santos, Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship, Springer, pp. 16–33
• Graziano, Michael S. A. and Kastner, Sabine (2011). "Human consciousness and its relationship to social neuroscience: A novel hypothesis", Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(2), January 1, pp. 98–113.
• Levine, Joseph (2001). Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness. Oxford University Press.
• Penrose, Roger (1994). Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. Oxford University Press.
• Velman, Max and Schneider, Susan (2007). The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. University of Oxford Press.
• Zelazo, Philip David; Moscovitch, Morris; and Thompson, Evan (eds.) (2007). The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness. University of Cambridge Press.

Miscellaneous

• Almeder, Robert (1998). Harmless naturalism: The limits of science and the nature of philosophy. Open Court Publishers.
• Kurtz, Paul (2006). "Two Sources of Unreason in Democratic Society: The paranormal and religion", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 775(1), pp. 493–504.
• Schumacher, Bernard N. (2005). Death and Mortality in Contemporary Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.