Tucker, Stevenson, Weiss, and life: Renditions of the transcendent view from past-life memories.

Abstract

The work of researcher Jim Tucker and regression therapist Brian Weiss on past-life memories suggests a transcendent or non-reductionist view of human life.In this view, mental life or consciousness does not entirely reduce to the neural activity of the brain, and bodily death involves a return to a nonphysical realm.This view is also suggested from other phenomena such as near-death experiences.The transcendent view from past-life memories entails two renditions.One rendition derives from Tucker's-and late senior colleague Ian Stevenson's-empirical verifications of children's past-life claims.Weiss's psychotherapy-based rendition is more impressionistic and subject to the vulnerabilities of the hypnotic method-as noted by both Tucker and Stevenson.Both renditions must contend with the theodicic problem (intensely rendered by Harold Kushner).Many questions remain.Nonetheless, Tucker's, Stevenson's, Weiss's, and other authors' related work may suffice to support a transcendent understanding of human life.