ABOUT THIS BOOK

The untold story of an iconoclastic scientist: a psychiatrist who dedicated his career to documenting consciousness after death.

While Ian Stevenson (1918–2007) was an academic psychiatrist with a serious demeanor, right down to his three-piece suits and wingtip shoes, he made his name researching an unusual topic for a behavioral scientist: the afterlife. For over four decades, Stevenson traveled the globe investigating cases of reincarnation, apparitions, possessions, and near-death experiences. At the time of his death, Stevenson was widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in parapsychology, a field devoted to psychic phenomena and paranormal experiences.

Set against the colorful backdrop of parapsychology’s rise and fall, from Victorian séances to modern media spectacles, The Incredible Afterlives of Dr. Stevenson captures Stevenson’s relentless quest for evidence of consciousness beyond the grave. Jesse Bering, himself a psychologist, interweaves Stevenson’s research with vivid stories of the larger-than-life characters who shaped his path—from Eileen Garrett, the fearless medium, to Chester Carlson, the inventor of Xerox photocopying and Stevenson’s unlikely patron. Through never-before-seen letters and candid interviews with Stevenson’s surviving family members, readers glimpse the inner turmoil of a scientist struggling to balance his revolutionary ideas with the skepticism of his academic peers as well as those closest to him. Along the way, Bering, a researcher whose own trailblazing work on the psychology of afterlife beliefs had led him to believe it was all just an illusion, is forced to rethink his own worldview. Are psychic phenomena examples of our living brains giving credence to the absurd? Or tantalizing glimmers of life after death?

Equal parts scientific detective story and intimate biography, The Incredible Afterlives of Dr. Stevenson shines a light on a significant figure whose life and work have not yet been fully explored. Bering boldly confronts readers with the complicated legacy of a man who many see as a Galileo-like rebel with groundbreaking ideas, ones that still have the power to upend everything we know about what it means to be human.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jesse Bering is a science writer, research psychologist, and head of the Science Communication program at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He is the author of The Belief Instinct: The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life, Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? And Other Reflections on Being Human, Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us, and Suicidal: Why We Kill Ourselves, which was published by the University of Chicago Press. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Discover, The Guardian, The New Republic, The New York Times, Playboy, Scientific American, The Telegraph, Slate, Vice, and other outlets. He currently writes a weekly column for the French magazine Le Point.

REVIEWS

“Here is a balanced biography of Ian Stevenson that is sensitive to our twentieth-first century concerns as it connects the psychiatrist’s humanity to his many books and ideas, including his early psychedelic studies and his final speculations on birthmarks and the ‘psychophore’ of the reincarnating soul. In these pages, the reader encounters both a humane fairness and a potential ontological shock.”

— Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of “How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else”

“The Incredible Afterlives of Dr. Stevenson is the most enjoyable, informative, and surprising book I’ve read in a very long time. I was vaguely aware of Stevenson’s research into reincarnation, but Bering’s elegant and witty writing helped me see that research in the context of Dr. Stevenson’s profoundly unusual, brilliant mind. Rarely has the relationship between the discoverer and his discoveries been explored with such insight, understanding, and indeed, grace.”

— Christopher Ryan, author of “Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress”

“Through Ian Stevenson’s life, Bering deftly examines the ignored and mocked corners of the behavioral sciences. Never dismissive and never credulous, Bering shows how parapsychology—ESP, survival, reincarnation—walked the same academic corridors as psychology and psychiatry. Bering’s clever biography shows that what’s been marginalized deserves a place in the light. A revealing tale, and a fun one.”

— Joshua Blu Buhs, author of “Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers”

“Bering has written a brave, surprising, and deeply compelling book. What begins as a skeptic’s attempt to ‘explain away’ belief in an afterlife becomes something far more interesting: a witty, clear-eyed, and beautifully told examination of Ian Stevenson, the psychiatrist whose investigations into reincarnation and other anomalies remain some of the most enigmatic in modern science. A fascinating and wonderfully humane read.”

— Paul Bloom, author of “Psych: The Story of the Human Mind”

“Bravo! This deeply researched and engagingly written biography does much more than tell the story of Ian Stevenson’s life and work on children with past-life memories, mediumship, apparitions, and extrasensory perception—it is a meditation on the implications of Stevenson’s findings for the relation of mind to body and the survival of consciousness after bodily death. Bering’s account is especially powerful because he comes to Stevenson from the perspective of cognitive psychology. It should inspire others who think they know what Stevenson was about, but have not read anything he wrote, to take up his extensive writings and form their own opinions about them.”

— James G. Matlock, author of “Signs of Reincarnation: Exploring Beliefs, Cases, and Theory”

“Bering’s book kept me hooked like a good novel does. Is there an afterlife or not? You need to keep turning the pages to find out, and Bering does a great job of keeping you on the fence. He does so effectively because he is a cautious, skeptical scientist writing about Ian Stevenson—another cautious, skeptical scientist. Well done!”

— Robert Epstein, American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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