Jim B. Tucker: Children’s Memories of Previous Lives

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Tami Simon

Religion, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Explore the scientific evidence for reincarnation with renowned University of Virginia researcher Dr. Jim B. Tucker and host Tami Simon, as they reflect on the thousands of cases of children’s past-life memories.

Is the survival of a self beyond physical death just a wishful notion? For decades, psychiatrist and researcher Jim B. Tucker has continued the legendary work of Dr. Ian Stevenson to build a compelling case for the past-life experiences of more than 2,500 children—many of them supported by astonishing and verified evidence.

In this new Insights At The Edge episode, Dr. Tucker shares how this research raises profound implications about why we are here, and the very nature of consciousness and this reality.

Highlights:

The abundance of evidence for past lives and reincarnation
How these findings challenge the materialist worldview
"Consciousness is fundamental, and physical matter is derived from it."
What these findings suggest about our purpose, here and now

Note: This interview originally aired on Sounds True One, where these special episodes of Insights at the Edge are available to watch live on video and with exclusive access to Q&As with our guests. Learn more at join.soundstrue.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Sounds True Podcast Network.
0:07.3	There's a metaphor sometimes using Buddhism where it's like there's a candle being lit,
0:13.7	and as it burns down lower, another candle takes that flame and then continues on.
0:21.6	Jim, you know, will die at some point, but there may be this aspect of me that then continues on.
0:28.6	And in rare circumstances, even continues on with some of the memories of this life.
0:36.6	Welcome friends to our series Once More, exploring reincarnation and the gap between lives.
0:44.8	In this episode, we're here with Dr. Jim B. Tucker, child psychiatrist and professor emeritus
0:52.6	of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia.
0:59.0	For more than 10 years, Jim was the director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia,
1:08.1	where he took over the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson studying reports from
1:13.9	children who claim to remember their past lives. Friends, stay with us. Jim, I'm so glad you're part of the series that you're making time for this.
1:34.0	Thank you so very much and welcome.
1:35.9	Well, thank you.
1:36.7	It's great to be here.
1:38.8	To begin, for people who are hearing about the division of perceptual studies for the very first time, set the table for us. What has this division been doing in the halls of the University of Virginia? That's right, in Metzford Jefferson's University. So Ian Stevenson, who was initially the chair of the Department of Psychiatry, became intrigued by work looking largely at the question of, is there a survival act of death?
2:12.9	And also sort of the interplay between mind and brain, challenging the idea that brain is purely
2:20.7	produces what we experience his mind. So anyway, he stepped down in his chair in the late 1960s
2:27.1	to start this division that we now call the division of processual studies. And we continue to look at those questions.
2:35.3	And in particular, he focused largely, not completely, but largely on cases of young
2:43.3	children from various parts of the world who said that they had memories of a previous life.
2:50.3	And I then picked up on that work when I joined the university in the late 1990s.
2:57.7	And what we do is learn about these cases and study them and see, can it be verified that what the child reports is memories, that they actually
	...

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