Ian Stevenson

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Lore & Background

Stevenson was born in Montreal and raised in Ottawa, the son of a Scottish lawyer and a mother with an interest in theosophy. He studied medicine at St. Andrews University from 1937 to 1939, then completed his studies at McGill University, graduating with a B.Sc. in 1942 and an M.D. in 1943. After residencies in Montreal and Phoenix, he held fellowships in biochemistry and medicine, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1949. He taught at Louisiana State University School of Medicine from 1949 to 1957 as assistant, then associate professor of psychiatry. He joined the University of Virginia, where he chaired the psychiatry department from 1957 to 1967, was Carlson Professor of Psychiatry from 1967 to 2001, and research professor of psychiatry from 2002 until his death in 2007. In the 1950s, he studied the effects of LSD and mescaline, one of the first academics to do so, and after trying LSD himself described three days of 'perfect serenity,' though he added that the feeling didn't last. He was married to Octavia Reynolds from 1947 until her death in 1983, then to Dr. Margaret Pertzoff in 1985, who did not share his views on the paranormal but tolerated them with what Stevenson called 'benevolent silences.'

Reader's Guide

Stevenson's significance lies in his systematic, decades-long collection of three thousand cases of children who claimed to remember past lives, which he presented in works such as Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (1966) and Reincarnation and Biology (1997). He argued that these cases could not be fully explained by heredity or environment, and that reincarnation was the best—though not the only—explanation for the strongest cases. However, his work was largely ignored by mainstream scientists, and critics contend that his conclusions were undermined by confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reliance on anecdotal evidence. His case reports were also criticized for containing errors and omissions. Upon his retirement, his research was continued by colleagues such as Jim B. Tucker, Antonia Mills, Satwant Pasricha, and Erlendur Haraldsson. Stevenson's legacy remains controversial: supporters saw him as a misunderstood genius, while detractors regarded him as earnest but gullible.

Did You Know?

• Stevenson maintained a list of books he had read, numbering 3,535 between 1935 and 2003.
• He was one of the first academics to study the effects of LSD and mescaline, and tried LSD himself, describing three days of 'perfect serenity.'
• Chester Carlson, inventor of xerography, left $1,000,000 to the University of Virginia to continue Stevenson's work after his death in 1968.
• Stevenson's mother, Ruth, had an interest in theosophy and an extensive library on the subject, which he credited for his own early interest in the paranormal.
• In 1958, Stevenson won a competition organized by the American Society for Psychical Research for the best essay on paranormal mental phenomena and survival after death.