James G. (Jim) Matlock, Ph.D.
> Jürgen Keil - The Principal Reincarnation
Researchers
Jürgen Keil, Ph.D.
Herbert Hans Jürgen Keil was born
in Freiburg, Germany, on May 30, 1930. As a young man he emigrated to
Australia, settling on the island of Tasmania. He attended the University
of Tasmania at Hobart and earned his B.A. degree in 1957, followed by
a Dip. Ed. in 1959 and B.A. hons. in 1960. He was a Teaching Fellow
in the university’s Department of Psychology for the 1960-1961
academic year and later a Lecturer in Psychology before earning his
Ph.D. in Psychology from the same institution. He has now retired from
teaching but retains the status of Emeritus Professor.
Keil supported himself during his undergraduate studies working part-time
as a fitter and turner in the university’s machine shop. One of
his tasks was to create some parts of a microbalance to be used in a
professor’s experiments on psychokinesis (PK). To Keil’s
astonishment, the experiments showed that some persons were able to
influence the apparatus through mental intention alone. He became interested
in parapsychology and wrote to J. B. Rhine at Duke University in Durham,
North Carolina. This led to his spending nine months at Rhine’s
Parapsychology Laboratory in 1961-1962, after which he returned to teaching
at the University of Tasmania. He remained actively engaged in parapsychology,
however, contributing to several studies of what is called macro-PK
(large-scale, observable PK) to distinguish it from micro-PK effects,
which can only be measured statistically. Some of this work was with
parapsychologist J. G. Pratt, a collection of whose writings he later
edited and published as Gaither
Pratt, a Life for Parapsychology.
Pratt spent the latter part of his career with Ian
Stevenson at the University of Virginia and this brought Keil
into contact with Stevenson. Keil was not initially interested in Stevenson’s
reincarnation research, but when Stevenson announced that he would provide
funding for three investigators to study children who claimed to remember
previous lives in an effort to “replicate” his findings,
Keil signed on. In 1988 he went to Burma (Myanmar), Thailand and Turkey
to study 23 new cases. He reported this work in a solo publication (Keil,
1991) and in a joint report with the other two investigators, Antonia
Mills and Erlendur
Haraldsson (Mills, Haraldsson & Keil, 1994).
Keil has continued his studies of children with past-life memories since
his introduction to them, concentrating on the same three countries.
He and Stevenson compared features of cases they had independently investigated
and showed them to be very similar (Keil & Stevenson, 1999), requiring
some sort of “paranormal” explanation (Stevenson & Keil,
2000). Among their independently investigated cases were some of Burmese
children who asserted that they had been Japanese soldiers who died
in Burma during the Second World War (Stevenson & Keil, 2005). Keil
also worked with Jim B. Tucker, M.D. in Thailand and Burma and reported
another series of papers with him, including a case with a change of
sex between the previous person and the subject (Tucker & Keil,
2001) and a study of “experimental birthmarks” (marks placed
on the body of the deceased with the express purpose of tracking that
person’s spirit into its next life) (Tucker & Keil, 2013).
In another paper, Keil drew attention to “silent” cases,
those which are very similar to cases with past-life memory claims but
which consist only of “announcing dreams” (dreams in which
a figure appears and announces its intention to be reborn to a particular
woman) or physical signs such as birthmarks (Keil, 1996).
From the beginning of his work with children with apparent past-life
memories, Keil recognized that they presented a real phenomenon and
agreed with Stevenson’s conclusion that “normal” explanations
were not adequate for them. But unlike the other principal reincarnation
researchers, he is not confident that reincarnation is the best possible
answer. Keil believes that birthmarks can be explained as maternal impressions
(a mother’s influence on her baby’s body in utero) and that
rather than remembering previous lives, the child subjects of these
cases are somehow reaching out and absorbing psychic “thought
bundles” left by deceased persons (Keil, 2010b).
Keil's publications on reincarnation are listed below.
Sources
Berger, A. S., & Berger, J. (1991). The
Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon
House.
Keil, J. (1987). Gaither
Pratt, a Life for Parapsychology. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland,
1987.
Pleasants, H. (Ed.) (1964).
Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix
Press.
Publications on Reincarnation
Keil, [H. H.] J. (1991). New cases in Burma, Thailand,
and Turkey: A limited field study replication of some aspects of Ian
Stevenson's research. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 5, 27-59.
Keil, [H. H.] J. (1996). Cases of the reincarnation
type: An evaluation of some indirect evidence with examples of “silent”
cases. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 10, 467-485.
Keil, [H. H.] J. (2010a). A case of the reincarnation
type in Turkey suggesting strong paranormal information involvements.
Journal of Scientific Exploration, 24, 71–77.
Keil, [H. H.] J. (2010b). Questions of the reincarnation
type. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 24, 79-99.
Keil, [H. H.] J., & Stevenson, I. (1999). Do cases
of the reincarnation type show similar features over many years? A study
of Turkish cases a generation apart. Journal of Scientific Exploration
13(2), 189-198.
Keil, [H. H.] J., & Tucker, J. B. (2000). An unusual
birthmark case linked to a person who had previously died. Psychological
Reports, 87, 1067-1074.
Keil, H. H. J., & Tucker, J. B. (2005). Children
who claim to remember previous lives: Cases with written records made
before the previous personality was identified. Journal of Scientific
Exploration, 19, 91–101.
Keil, H. H. J., & Tucker, J. B. (2010). Response
to “How to improve the study and documentation of cases of the
reincarnation type? A reappraisal of the case of Kemal Atasoy.”
Journal of Scientific Exploration, 24, 295–298.
Mills, A., Haraldsson, E., & Keil, H. H. J. (1994).
Replication studies of cases suggestive of reincarnation by three independent
investigators. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research,
88, 207-219.
Pasricha, S. K., Keil, [H. H.] J., Tucker, J. B., &
Stevenson, I. (2005). Some bodily malformations attributed to previous
lives. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 19, 359-383.
Stevenson, I., & Keil, [H. H.] J. (2000). The stability
of assessments of paranormal connections in reincarnation cases. Journal
of Scientific Exploration, 14, 365-382.
Stevenson, I., & Keil, [H. H.] J. (2005). Children
of Myanmar who behave like Japanese soldiers: A possible third element
in personality. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 19, 172-183.
Tucker, J. B., & Keil, H. H. J. (2001). Can cultural
beliefs cause a gender identity disorder? Journal of Psychology and
Human Sexuality, 13, 21-30.
Tucker, J. B., & Keil, H. H. J. (2013). Experimental
birthmarks: New cases of an Asian practice. Journal of Scientific Exploration,
27, 269–282.
Fonte: http://jamesgmatlock.net/resources/researchers/keil/
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