Jim B. Tucker facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jim B. Tucker
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| Born | North Carolina, US |
| Occupation | Bonner-Lowry Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences |
| Alma mater | University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Virginia |
| Genre | Parapsychology Child psychiatry |
| Subject | Reincarnation research |
Jim B. Tucker is a child psychiatrist and a special professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He studies children who say they remember past lives. He also looks into memories from before birth or during birth.
Dr. Tucker wrote a book called Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children’s Memories of Previous Lives. This book talks about over 40 years of research into reincarnation. He worked with another researcher, Ian Stevenson, for many years. Dr. Tucker took over the research in 2002 when Dr. Stevenson retired.
Dr. Tucker has also appeared on TV to talk about his work. He investigated the case of Cameron Macaulay. This story was shown in a British TV show called Extraordinary People - The Boy Who Lived Before.
About Jim B. Tucker
Jim B. Tucker went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned degrees in psychology and medicine there. Today, he is a special professor of psychiatry. Besides his research, he was also the medical director of the Child & Family Psychiatry Clinic at the University of Virginia for nine years.
He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife, Christine McDowell Tucker. She is also a psychologist. Dr. Tucker has given talks at many different meetings.
Dr. Tucker felt that his work as a child psychiatrist was missing something. He wondered if people were more than just their bodies. He wanted to explore this idea further. He grew up in a Christian church, but he doesn't follow any one religion now. He says he is careful about believing in reincarnation. However, he feels it is the best way to explain some of the strong cases he has studied. After reading about Ian Stevenson's work, Dr. Tucker became very interested in children's memories of past lives. He decided to study them himself.
Researching Past Lives
While Dr. Stevenson mostly studied cases in Asia, Dr. Tucker has focused on children in the United States.
Dr. Tucker says that in about 70% of cases, the children who remember past lives say the person they used to be died in a sudden or violent way. This might mean that a difficult death could be linked to memories carrying over. He also found that the time between a death and a new birth is usually about 16 months. Sometimes, unusual birthmarks on a child might match old wounds on the person they remember being.
Dr. Tucker created a way to measure how strong a past-life case is. It's called the Strength Of Case Scale (S.O.C.S.). This scale looks at four things:
- Do birthmarks or defects match injuries from the past life?
- How strong are the child's statements about the past life?
- How do the child's behaviors relate to the past life?
- Is there a possible link between the child and the person they remember being?
Some people say there's no scientific way to explain how memories could survive death. But Dr. Tucker thinks that quantum mechanics (a part of physics) might offer a clue. He suggests it could be a way for memories and feelings to pass from one life to another.
Dr. Tucker in the Media
Since Dr. Tucker took over the research in 2002, he has been interviewed a lot. He has talked about reincarnation in newspapers, on radio, and on TV. This includes media in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
In 2006, Dr. Tucker studied the case of Cameron Macaulay. This was part of the Channel 5 TV show Extraordinary People: The Boy Who Lived Before. Dr. Tucker first went to Glasgow to talk to Cameron, who was six years old. He also spoke with Cameron's mother, Norma. Cameron remembered living on the island of Barra, which is about 200 miles from Glasgow. Dr. Tucker then went with the family to Barra to check Cameron's memories. Cameron's descriptions of his old home were very accurate. The family name "Robertson" also seemed right. However, they couldn't find any records of the man Cameron remembered as his father on the island.
The TV show also briefly talked about another of Dr. Tucker's cases. This was Gus Taylor from the Midwest U.S. From about 18 months old, Gus claimed to be his own grandfather who had come back. Dr. Tucker noted that both Cameron and Gus talked about falling through a 'hole' or 'porthole' from one life to the next.
In 2009, Dr. Tucker was interviewed on the TV show Larry King Live. He discussed the interesting cases he had studied there.
See also
In Spanish: Jim B. Tucker para niños
