Cameron Macauley The Boy Who Lived Before

Extraordinatry Children ^ | july 15th, 2007 | DancesWithCats

[DancesWithCats]

Ever since he was two years old and first started talking, Cameron Macauley has told of his life on the island of Barra. Cameron lives with his mum, Norma, in Glasgow. They have never been to Barra.

He tells of a white house, overlooking the sea and the beach, where he would play with his brothers and sisters. He tells of the airplanes that used to land on the beach. He talks about his dog, a black and white dog.

Barra lies off the western coast of Scotland, 220 miles from Glasgow. It can only be reached by a lengthy sea journey or an hour long flight. It is a, distant, outpost of the British Isles and is home to just over a thousand people.

Cameron is now five, and his story has never wavered. He talks incessantly about his Barra family, his Barra mum and Barra dad. His Barra dad he explains was called Shane Robertson and he died when he was knocked down by a car.

He has become so preoccupied with Barra and is missing his Barra mum so badly that he is now suffering from genuine distress.

Norma considers herself to be open-minded, and would like to find out if there is any rational explanation for Cameron's memories and beliefs that he was previously a member of another family on Barra. Her first port of call is Dr. Chris French, a psychologist who edits The Skeptic magazine which debunks paranormal phenomena. Not surprisingly, he discounts any talk of reincarnation mooting that a child's over-active imagination can be fed by the multitude of television programmes available and the easy access to the Web. Norma is not convinced, she does not believe that Cameron has ever watched programmes that could have provided this information.

[Tax-chick]

Dr. Jim Tucker: Assistant Professor: Division of Personality Studies, Department of Psychiatric Medicine, University of Virginia Health System. 1999 - Present.

"Division of Personality Studies" does the "past-life" evaluations, and one can certainly see how that is relevant to Psychiatry.

Although a British source couldn't be expected to sort out the details, "University of Virginia Health System" is a separate entity from "University of Virginia" as a educational institution. Nonetheless, iirc, UVa is not immune from the "Goofball Studies" trend that afflicts most large public universities, however good their programs are in the aggregate.

[ml/nj]

UVa is not immune from the "Goofball Studies" trend that afflicts most large public universities

Do you know this, or do you assume this? Maybe you could cite at least one "goofball study," that was done at UVa. My experience down there includes interaction with dozens of professors. Sure, I've disagreed with a number about some things, but I never had the impression that any that I have interacted with were Space Cadets or charlatans.

ML/NJ

[Tax-chick]

Here’s an example of what I mean by “Goofball Studies”:

http://www.virginia.edu/womenstudies/home.htm

Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Queer Studies, blah blah blah.

I agree that UVa is an excellent university. However, if you went through their records, I’m sure you’d find they have professors getting grants to study nutso stuff in various departments. That’s how the government grant system works!

[ml/nj]

However, if you went through their records

I was asking you if you had done this, and to provide an example. Is that unreasonable?

When I have visited UVa, I have mined their catalog for classes I might like to sit in on. I have also done the same thing at one of the Ivys, because these are the places my kids went. (I'm sure I've sat in on, and participated in, 60+ classes by now.) I can assure you that UVa, while it does offer a number of ridiculous classes, the overall proportion of ridiculous classes at the school is so low as to be virtually unnoticeable.

BTW this Tucker guy has a regular UVa email address and apparently a six figure salary.

ML/NJ

[Tax-chick]

I just pulled up the site for “Women and Gender Studies.”

Quod Erat Demonstrandum, they’ve got some Goofballery.

I’m not saying Dr. Tucker isn’t doing legitimate research. However, his “Division of Personality Studies” is not a “Department” at the University of Virginia devoted to “reincarnation” cases.

[Stallone]

I believe I was reincarnated from a stud horse.

[SunkenCiv]

---

Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation: Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by Ian Stevenson	Other Lives, Other Selves: A Jungian Psychotherapist Discovers Past Lives by Roger J. Woolger, PhD.

---

[ml/nj]

More about Tucker's work

ML/NJ