Old Souls

Compelling Evidence from Children Who Remember Past Lives

By: Tom Shroder

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

All across the globe, small children spontaneously speak of previous lives, beg to be taken "home", pine for mothers and husbands and mistresses from another life, and know things that there seems to be no normal way for them to know. From the moment these children can talk, they speak of people and events from the past - not vague stories of centuries ago, but details of specific, identifiable individuals who may have died just months, weeks, or even hours before the birth of the child in question.

For 37 years, Dr. Ian Stevenson has traveled the world from Lebanon to suburban Virginia investigating and documenting more than 2000 of these past life memory cases. Now, his essentially unknown work is being brought to the mainstream by Tom Shroder, the first journalist to have the privilege of accompanying Dr. Stevenson in his fieldwork. Shroder follows Stevenson into the lives of children and families touched by this phenomenon, changing from skeptic to believer as he comes face-to-face with concrete evidence he cannot discount in this spellbinding and true story.

©1999 Tom Shroder (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Engrossing...The journalistic objectivity Shroder brings to his material makes this an exceptionally valuable treatment of an often disparaged subject." ( Publishers Weekly)

Wanted to like it more

Account of travels with Ian Stevenson was somewhat interesting but was hoping to have more facts and less anecdotes.

This book concentrates on the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson

This book concentrates on the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson, who devoted his time to interviewing children from mainly Beruit,Lebanon, various parts of India and the US, who speak about a past life experience.Tom Shroder, A skeptic journalist, got an invitation to accompany Dr. Stevenson on his last trip to witness some of these interviews. Overall, the book is interesting and was worth reading. I would give it a 3-1/2 stars but you can’t do 1/2 stars on this site.

The best book on reincarnation I’ve read so far!!

I love the skepticism that the author keeps with him throughout the book. His resistance to accepting this notion of reincarnation seems so relatable and it really lends credibility to his research. This is a fascinating book.

Interesting

Motivational to do more research on the subject. Author tries to present in as believable format as possible.

Overacted narration, rough roads

Too much of the book is describing bad roads, poverty-stricken and war-torn towns. Narrator sounds condescending at times, and hammy.

Good telling of instances.

I enjoyed the examples, the travels with Stevenson , and the incidents in the USA. Some of the travel in India were a bit over-described.

Great additional evidence to theory

People who enjoyed this book should supplement their knowledge with the work done by Farsight Remote Viewers and look up sessions called the death traps. Our government leaders have traded the souls of humans on our planet as collateral for advanced technology from non-human species aka aliens. After humans die on earth they should be able to go anywhere in the universe, but because of this deal, their soul are trapped then zapped of their memories to be recycled back here on earth. Or they use these souls to animate inanimate creations to act as slave labor or soldiers for wars. Keep trying to piece together the puzzle of the afterlife and our souls!

A must read for the reincarnation skeptic

I am thankful for Tom Schroder's investigative reporting into the work of life's work of Ian Stevenson into children's past lives. I must admit that this books should be read after reading Stevenson's work Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and also peer reviews of his work.
Death and Personal Survival: The Evidence for Life After Death

Schroder provides real insight into the tireless work of Stevenson. He demonstrates how diligent approached his work, and that he approached it with great humility and curiosity.

This brings a human perspective to what I consider to be most import scientific discovery of modern times - reincarnation.

More of a Travel Log

This books was not as interesting as I expected it to be. I was expecting many stories of children claiming past lives and the methods used to document and/or debunk those cases. There are stories of this nature, but the majority of the book is spent detailing every sight, every sound, and every smell on the way to meet these children. The narrator did an excellent job of making mundane writing as interesting as possible, but the content of the book gave him little to work with.

So disappointing

The cover of the book is a little child, and immediately I was grasped by the idea of hearing their stories. Turned out the book was more about the narrator and the details upon details of his trips. Stories of streets of houses what they look like, etc. stuff that was so not germane to the title. Maybe they were five stories tops I can’t believe I even listened to this all the way to the end. I kept hoping to hear something interesting. I’d say the book was 25% about actual reincarnation stories and the other 75% was about the narrator.