After careful review of available phenomena that had suggested the possibility of reincarnation, Stevenson, following the methodology of early psychic researchers (Gurney et al. in 1886 and Myers in 1903), devised a protocol for recovery and evaluation of memories of apparent previous lives, a process Stevenson described in 1977.

In the study of spontaneous paranormal phenomena we must usually interview and cross-question informants about events that have happened before we arrive on the scene. In principle, the methods are those that lawyers use in reconstructing a crime and historians use in understanding the past. Once we have the best account possible of the events in question, we consider one by one the alternative explanations and try to eliminate them until only the single most probable one remains. Then we try with further observations to confirm or reject the initially preferred explanation. In addition, we search through series of apparently similar phenomena for recurrent features that may provide clues to causative conditions and processes of occurrence.

This paradigm for investigation focused on spontaneous cases suggestive of reincarnation that were described in young children, two to four years old, who begins talking to the parents about another lifetime. Why young children? Because young children should be less likely to be exposed to information about life details of a dead individual who is reincarnated. Generally, the parents will dismiss such talk as nonsense -- even in cultures where reincarnation is believed to occur. However, the child may persist and even insist upon visiting the community of his former residence. If the child supplies many details the parents may initiate an inquiry. Ideally at this stage, a scientific investigator is introduced to the scene. Careful records are made of all the child's statements. Verification can then begin by visiting the indicated community. If a family exists meeting the child's descriptions of his former household, the investigator can arrange for the two families to visit. Tests are then arranged to determine if the child can recognize places, objects, and people. Often it seems these memories are lost as the child grows older.

A brief description of a typical case of the reincarnation type would show the following features:

• Starting in years 2–4, the child spontaneously narrates details of a previous life. 2) Volume and clarity of statements from the child increase until ages 5–6, when the child talks less about them.
• By age 8, remarks about previous life generally cease. 4) Unexpected behavior unusual for child but concordant with behavior of deceased person occur, e.g., phobias for guns or special interests and appetites.
• In many cases the child has a birthmark or congenital deformity that corresponds in location and appearance to fatal wounds on the body of the previous personality. A high number of reincarnated personalities report violent death, which the child alludes to.
• In some cultures the individual who "reincarnates" predicts his or her next incarnation and may appear in a dream to the expectant mother of the child to announce an intention to reincarnate in the baby.
• After the age of 10 these child subjects usually develop normally.

Stevenson has discovered two important laws in reincarnation

1. Reincarnation seems to happen everywhere and and there are strong similarities between cases found in Asia, Africa, and Northwest North American native tribe. Whatever the collection of behaviors and physical manifestations of reincarnation, there is a substantial element of invariance in their manifestation. Stevenson has followed this information-gathering protocol since the early days of his worldwide travels to investigate spontaneous cases suggestive of reincarnation, which have been published over the years as separate volumes covering different cultures.
2. Further evidence of invariance is to discover that vastly different cultures appear to share with very similar behavioral and physical manifestations in these phenomena such as the apparent increase in death due to violence in those who reincarnate and the startling correspondence found between birth marks on the child and similar marks or distinguishing features present on the body of the reincarnated personality during their lifetime, such as wounds, injuries, and other stigmata.

Among thousands of reports that have been investigated so far, some very strange facts appear that cannot be discounted. As an example, the case of Swarnlata Mishra is instructive.

On March 2, 1948, Swarnlata was born the daughter of the district school inspector in Chhatarpur, Madya Pradesh, India. At the age of three and a half, while on a trip with her father passing through the town of Katni, she made a number of strange remarks about her house in this village. The Mishra family had never lived closer than 100 miles from this town. Later she described to friends and family further details of a previous life. Her family name, she claimed, had been Pathak. She also performed unusual dances and songs which she had had no opportunity to learn.

At the age of ten Swarnlata recognized a new family acquaintance, the wife of a college professor, as a friend in her former lifetime. Several months later, this case was brought to the attention of Sri H. N. Banerjee, of the Department of Parapsychology, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He interviewed the Mishra family; then, guided by Swarnlata's statements, he located the house of the Pathak family in Katni. Banerjee found that Swarnlata's statements seemed to fit the life history of Biya, a daughter of the Pathak family and deceased wife of Sri Chintamini Panday. She had died in 1939.

In the summer of 1959, the Pathak family and Biya's married relatives visited the Mishra family in Chhatarpur. Swarnlata was able to recognize and identify them. She refused to identify strangers who had been brought along to confuse her. Later Swarnlata was taken to Katni and the neighboring towns. There she recognized additional people and places, commenting on changes which had been made since Biya's death. Unfortunately Sri Banerjee was not present during these reunions.

It was not until the summer of 1961 that Dr. Ian Stevenson, an eminent psychiatrist and psychical researcher from the University of Virginia, visited the two families and attempted to verify the authenticity of the case.

Stevenson determined that of 49 statements made by Swarnlata only two were found to be incorrect. She accurately described the details of Biya's house and neighborhood as they were before 1939. She described the details of Biya's disease and death as well as the doctor who treated her. She was able to recall intimate incidents known only to a few individuals. For example, she knew Sri Ciantimini Pandey had taken 1200 ruples from a box in which Biya had kept money. He admitted this, when questioned, and stated no one but Biya could have known of the incident. She accurately identified former friends, relatives, and servants in spite of the efforts of the witnesses to deny her statements or mislead her. Most of the recognitions were given in a way which obliged Swarnlata to provide a name or state a relationship. It was not a case of asking, "Am I your son?" but rather, "Tell me who I am."

Perhaps because of her family's tolerance, Swarnlata's impressions of Biya's life have not faded. In fact, Swarnlata continues to visit Biya's brothers and children and shows great affection for them. Remarkably she continues to act as an older sister to the Pathak brother--men forty years older than her. Furthermore, the Pathak family was rather westernized and did not believe in reincarnation before their encounter with Swarnlata.

Swarnlata also talked about another intermediate life as a child named Kamlesh in Sylket, Bengal, where she died at the age of nine. While this claim has not been verified in detail, many of her statements were found to correlate with the local geography. Her songs and dances were also verified as Bengali, although she had lived all her life only among Hindi speaking people.

If one rules out the possibility of fraud in such cases -- and there are many which are as evidential as this one--one might assume a child like Swarnlata was recalling the memories of stories which she had overheard during her very early childhood or infancy. The other explanation -- as with mediumship -- involves ESP along with a remarkable skill for impersonation.

References

• Stevenson I: Some of My Journeys in Medicine: A Lecture About Science and Reincarnation: The Flora Levy Lecture in the Humanities. Lafayette, University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1989 http://www.childpastlives.org/stevensonlecture.htm
• Stevenson I: Reincarnation: field studies and theoretical issues, in Handbook of Parapsychology. Edited by Wolman BB. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977, pp 631–663
• Stevenson I: Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation. Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 2001
  Stevenson I: Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1974
• Stevenson I: Cases of the Reincarnation Type, vol I: Ten Cases in India. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1975
  Stevenson I: Cases of the Reincarnation Type, vol II: Ten Cases in Sri Lanka. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1978
• Stevenson I: Cases of the Reincarnation Type, vol III: Twelve Cases in Lebanon and Turkey. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1983
• Stevenson I: Cases of the Reincarnation Type, vol IV: Twelve Cases in Thailand and Burma. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1983
  Stevenson I: Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect. Westport, Conn, Praeger, 1997