Before: Children’s Memories of Previous Lives by Jim B Tucker MD

544 Pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, St. Martin’s Essentials
Release Date: April 13, 2021

Nonfiction (Adult), Parenting, Families, Religion, Spirituality, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Children

The book is divided into the following chapters.

1. Children Who Report Memories of Previous Lives
2. Investigating the Cases
3. Explanations to Consider
4. Marked for Life
5. Remembering the Past
6. Unusual Behaviors
7. Recognizing Familiar Faces
8. Divine Intermission
9. Opposing Points of View
10. Conclusions and Speculations

The author discusses past lives and reincarnation. The organization researches and investigates claims by parents of children who claim to have lived before. He tells of the challenges the group faces with fraud, false memories, and other actions that could cause or interfere with the children’s experiences. If you believe in past lives, this is an interesting read.

"It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection." Voltaire

There has been research conducted into the accounts given by children of having lived a previous life.
They are described in Life Before Life and in Return to Life.
This is a nonfiction book which presents as an insight into the research cases and thus I would recommend to those who enjoy complex theories and research.
In these case studies some children provided intriguing details and sometimes verifiable information such as recalling details of their parents' lives around the time of pregnancy. The information can become quite complex in regards to scientific theories venturing into quantum physics. "There's a reason why Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory, said he regarded consciousness as fundamental and he regarded matter as being derived from consciousness." The author provides an investigation into some of these cases with explanations to ponder. He also addresses the fact that there are many opposing views and speculations of such research. Some cross over the religious and spiritual beliefs of reincarnation and rebirth as well as karma. The Division of Perpetual Studies emerged as a new addition in academic psychiatry studies and research. The book ends with many references regarding the case studies and speculations.

Before: Children's Memories of Previous Lives by Jim B. Tucker, MD, includes the author’s two books, Return to Life and Life Before Life, and focuses on life, death, and reincarnation. Fascinating reading. #Before #NetGalley

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley!

Before is a book that touches on the topic of kids who have had past lives. What an unique concept.
Whether you believe in this concept or not, the book was well-written and informative.
I'd definitely read other books by this author.

This is 2 books in 1; both talking about children with past life memories. Both books take a scientific approach to the concept, so I wouldn't consider this a casual read. The first book focuses on past life cases and looking at them scientifically - going through what could and couldn't be the cause of the memories. While I appreciated the unbiased look into these cases, I found the writing a bit hard to read through on my end.

The second book started out more conversational when talking about more past life memory cases. Then came the whole chapter on quantum physics that I really could not understand. I ended up skipping it because it was beyond my reading comprehension.

Overall, I enjoyed reading about the cases and not being fed information to believe one thing or the other. I like to make my own decisions on things. I found the writing to be too dry for my own personal tastes.

As a person who firmly believes in reincarnation, these 2 books were wonderful. Doctor Jim Tucker work and recollection of evidence of past lives deserves several books, so it's my hope that he writes more about it.

I just completed Before by Jim B. Tucker, M.D. I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review. This book examines the stories provided by children of their past lives. Dr. Tucker provides an exceptional argument in defense of reincarnation. The stories of these children are many. Too many. I am a believer in reincarnation but I found this book a little bit tedious to digest. I felt I like was reading a textbook for school. With that said a lot of the information was fascinating.

Interesting book and topics covered. It is quite detailed and reads in places like an article for JAMA but those areas can be skimmed to get to the meat of the matter. Quite scientific in places and sometimes seems repetitive. Read the cover, it gives adequate information. It does seem that there are more incidences of the past life experiences in countries that solidly believe in re incarnation. There seem to be a few more in the US and he is apparently in search of more in the US which should be interesting. We may never know what or why these events occur. Many things we are not meant to know. I was provided an advanced reader copy of this book and was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions expressed are my own. Thanks to the author,, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.