Dr. Ian Stevenson

Here's another Scorpio chart:

Dr. Ian Stevenson
born Oct. 31, 1918 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Sun in Scorpio. Moon either in Virgo or Libra.

Dr. Stevenson is a psychiatrist; the founding researcher on studies in Reincarnation. He has researched and published scientific investigations on Children who have vivid memories of their past lives. In the late 50s and early 60s, he noticed that young Children often will talk about memories of their past lives when they are around 2 or 3 years old and cease talking about them between the ages of 5 and 8. Since then, he has literally been able, in some cases, to match Birthmarks and Birth Defects in Children that seem to carry over from woundings that they claim to have suffered in the past life. He has been able to correlate these memories with actual autopsy reports. And, he has recorded over 3,000 cases in 10 different cultures.

Dr. Stevenson explains his life and work:
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/publicationslinks/some-of-my-journeys-in-medicine.pdf

Scorpio is both the sign of Research, Investigators, Detectives, Reincarnation, and Psychiatry. It's just so damn fine that Dr. Stevenson has three planets in this sign. His Sun, Mercury and Venus. His Sun is trining Pluto and squaring Neptune, the two outer planets associated most with psychic phenomena. His North Node is in Sagittarius showing his own past life connections with scholarship, travel, communication, and intellectual pursuits.

As you can read in his lecture, he was originally interested in Psychosomatic Medicine. This interest led him to study and practice psychiatry and he became the Head of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. In 1960 he published an article in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research about children who remember their past lives. This led to a chance to travel to India and Sri Lanka to research multiple case studies which he published into a book in 1966 called Twenty Cases Suggestive for Reincarnation.

During this time a configuration was activated in his chart which consists of an opposition from Uranus in Aquarius to Saturn in Leo that is sextiled/trined by his Mars in Sagittarius. During this time his Progressed Sun was passing over Mars and Saturn and Uranus were opposing themselves and conjunct each other in the opposition. In 1960, at the time of publication of his first article, Jupiter (luck, publishing) was passing over Mars as was progressed Venus. In addition, Neptune was passing over his natal Sun and squaring itself and the transiting Nodes were squaring his Natal Nodes. The Neptune, Scorpio, Nodal influences describe his work very well. Uranus, Saturn and Mars working together would not be my first choice for guessing Scientific Research. Mars often indicates Children and I suppose the prominence of Mars' influence indicates how he found his voice in Children and in Sagittarius shows work in Foreign Countries.

Apparently the first translator he worked with was unreliable so he had to go back and repeat the interviews with new translators. This problematic "challenge" tackled with high degree of persistant behavior can be seen by his natal Mercury in Scorpio in square to the Uranus-Saturn opposition.

I've noticed that during the time that Dr. Stevenson seems to have found his voice in the field of Reincarnation Research, I suppose around 1956 or 57, his progressed Mercury went retrograde in Capricorn. Mercury Retrograde often shows a stifling or scrambling of Mental processes and communications but is also good for mental reflection and, in certain cases, creativity. At this time, Stevenson also experienced a Nodal Return in Sagittarius and Gemini. He says that he wasn't satisfied with the narrow scope of the Psychiatric field, read widely in all kinds of subjects and kept his mind open to all types of unconscious mental studies not just the Freudian teachings which were accepted in his field. This, along with his studies amongst International Cultures show the influence of the Sagittarius/Gemini Nodes. This was his own Karmic Journey.