Although I am pretty well convinced that our minds survive death, I have never been partial to the reincarnation hypthesis. I realize that the majority of people on Earth do believe in reincarnation, and there are sophisticated religious and mystical traditions that endorse the idea. Personally, however, I just dislike the idea of an endless round of lives ... the dull repetition of the same heartbreak and disappointment ... and worst of all, having to go back to high school again and again!
Luckily, while there are a lot of data suggestive of reincarnation, other possible explanations are available.
The most impressive work in this field has been done by Dr. Ian Stevenson, a psychology professor (emeritus) at the University of Virginia who has investigated and logged thousands of cases of "spontaneous past life recall." Most of these cases take place in countries where belief in reincarnation is widespread - India, Pakistan, and Lebanon are three examples. Typically, a very young child, with no prompting, begins to talk about a past life, giving names and details that can be checked and verified. These cases differ from s0-called "past life memories" induced by hypnosis, which are much more dubious, since hypnotized subjects have a known tendency to confabulate. Of course, little kids can confabulate, too, but when their claims are tested by taking them to the site of their alleged past life, they have often proven remarkably adept at identifying friends, relatives, and significant locations from the life of the deceased.
Anyone who has studied Stevenson's work (and plowed through his rather dry prose) would be hard pressed to explain away the stronger cases in his collection as coincidence or fraud. Much of this material does seem to be paranormal in origin. But there are problems with ascribing all the case histories to reincarnation.
In a few (admittedly rare) cases, the child remembers a past life as a certain person, but it later develops that this person didn't die until after the child was born. This would cast doubt on the idea that the spirit of the deceased was actually reincarnated as the child.
Also, in most cases, the child remembers a past life that was relatively recent (within a generation) and that was lived in the same geographical area (maybe two or three villages away). But why would reincarnation involve spirits coming back to the same place and time?
And in a very large majority of cases, the deceased person died young, in pain and trauma because of some illness or violent act. "Past life" memories of old people who died peacefully in their sleep are rarely, if ever, found by Stevenson.
The deceased person typically has strong feelings of attachment to his family and home, often impelling the child to visit and "reestablish" old ties. In some cases the deceased seems anxious to bring his murderer to justice or to rectify some wrong done to him, or done by him.
When I add all this up, what I get is not reincarnation but a different though equally outre explanation: earthbound spirits.
What, you ask, are earthbound spirits? According to centuries of mystical tradition and to many accounts delivered by mediums, some people are so severely traumatized by their own death that they remain stuck (for a time) on the earth plane, lingering near their old homes and families, trying to communicate in any way they can.
My guess is that such spirits, if they exist, would find it particularly easy to influence a small child, whose own personality has not fully developed. (They may also find it relatively easy to influence an adult whose ego has broken down because of mental illness - perhaps explaining the common psychotic symptom of "hearing voices" or experiencing personality shifts. And if the material obtained under hypnosis is of any value, possibly these spirits can influence a hypnotized mind more readily than an alert mind.)
Let's assume, for argument's sake, that these wayward spirits do linger near their old haunts (so to speak), trying to find some way to "get through" to the living. Now let's say that one of them finds a receptive child - a child who serves as a natural medium. Wouldn't the spirit channel its memory and personality through the child, using him as an instrument to get what it wants? And the child, unable to clearly distinguish between his own thoughts and those impressed on him, could easily mistake the alien memories for his own. What we would have, then, is an explanation that incorporates aspects of (unconscious) channeling and outright spirit possession - two phenomena that have been well documented in parapsychology literature.
I think this hypothesis addresses Stevenson's cases at least as well the reincarnation idea. Better, actually. Even the birthmarks found on some of these children, which are said to correspond to marks or wounds on the deceased, could be interpreted as a result of the effort of the earthbound spirit to impress itself on the child, just as stigmata, rashes, lesions, and similar features are sometimes observed in cases of possession.
Unlike memories that allegedly surface under hypnosis, the spontaneous "past life" memories of children typically fade as the children grow older. I wonder if the child's ego, as it develops, gradually pushes out the intruding spirit consciousness. Or perhaps the earthbound spirit loosens its hold on its former life and goes "toward the light."
A reader with the screen name Sully asked me some questions about writing, which I'll try to answer here.
Sully started off by saying, Actually, part of me would like you to talk about your books more. Or at least, the construction of them.
I can understand that, but talking about my books is usually a little boring to me. I have written a fair amount about this subject on my Web site in the Interviews & Chats section. In this space I typically focus on other stuff.
1. Now that you've written all these books, do you have a good idea of how long it takes to do a first draft?
Normally it takes me a month or two to come up with an idea, another couple of months to develop the basic plot and do the initial research, and then about eight months to write the book (60 ms. pp. per month X 8 mos = 480 ms. pp. total). The eight months includes rewriting, which I usually do as I'm going along.
However, I am currently starting a more complex book that may take longer to do, because it requires more research and more work. So it's not a hard-and-fast rule.
I notice that a lot of thriller writers can pump one book out a year, more or less. Is this because you're contractually obligated to?
In some cases, yes. And there are writers who do two or even three books a year under different pen names (I'm not one of them). Some romance writers crank out a book every three weeks, although at a certain point, as someone once said, "That's not writing - it's typing!"
Can you reasonably predict a pace for yourself? The way a carpenter might know that they could create a canoe a week, say.
With experience you can predict the pace unless you're trying something new and difficult. Then it may be more of a crap shoot. Or it may just turn out to be crap ...
2. How much do you feel you have to offer something different up to your readers? That is, people buy thrillers partly because they are the same thing as before, with some variations. How conscious are you of changing up the mix, so to speak?
I try to figure out what works and stick with it but build on it. For me, I seem to do best with a female protagonist and a male villain. I don't know why; it's just the way my mind works. Maybe the image of Diana Rigg in her skintight jumpsuit on The Avengers impressed itself so deeply in my preadolescent brain that I cannot get away from the idea of a female crime fighter. (That was one hell of a jumpsuit.) I have written male protagonists and, once, a female villain, but the male heroes tended to be flat and the female villain bore a disconcerting resemblance to Cruella de Ville. So I stick with the tried and true.
But I do like to evolve and try new things and stay apace with the market. For instance, standard cop-vs.-serial-killer books are pretty old-hat now. My last three books either did not involve a serial killer (Dangerous Games, where the villains were a pair of kidnappers), or put the serial killers into new situations (Next Victim, where a serial killer gets hold of a terrorist's weapon; In Dark Places, where a serial killer is mixed up in a conspiracy of dirty cops).
When I do new things, I alienate some fans but probably attract new ones. For instance, the killer of In Dark Places was a realistically depicted street criminal with a foul mouth and a streetwise attitude. Some readers were quite offended by him - they prefer the debonair, suave, Hannibal Lecter style of killer, I suppose. That's understandable, but I had already written my share of urbane killers, and I wanted to try a more "urban" one instead.
3. How carefully do you outline beforehand?
I write up the whole plot as a 10- to 13-page synopsis. Normally I adhere to this fairly closely, but I feel free to invent new incidents as I go along, or to rearrange things. With Last Breath, I added a whole second climax that was not part of the synopsis. So I'm not married to the synopsis, or if I am, then I'm married to it in the same way that Bill is married to Hillary - for convenience.
4. I read somewhere, that usually the sale of a first book, if it's good, can garner a modest advance, and depending on how that book does, can garner a 2-book deal that is more generous. How common is this, do you think?
It's hard to say what conditions in the industry are like right now. What you describe was true when I was getting started back in the 1980s, and it remained true in the '90s. But most first (and second and third) novels are paperbacks, and there has been a big drop-off in paperback sales because of distribution problems. Supermarkets and drugstores have cut back on the number of paperbacks they display, leading to big drops in print runs. As a result, the situation today is more unpredictable.
In theory, if your first book sells well, it will lead to bigger advances. But ordinarily you have already signed your second contract before the first book has even come out. And to be honest, most first novels do not sell very well, anyway. Publishers are often willing to give a writer time to develop, but retailers are much less patient and will often be reluctant to order many copies of Book # 2 if Book #1 sold poorly. This is very shortsighted on the retailers' part, because it takes time to build an audience. In consequence, there is more pressure than ever to hit big right away - which is easier said than done.
Despite all the obstacles, though, new writers are published in large numbers every single year.
5. Do you have anyone in law enforcement fact-check for you after the first draft? For details and such?
I used to, but at the moment I don't. When I lived in L.A., I knew an LAPD officer who gave me a lot of inside info and was very helpful. But I'm not in L.A. anymore, and he's retired from the force anyway. Lately I have mostly done books with an FBI focus, and it is almost impossible to get anyone from the FBI to talk to you. Their rules forbid it even if the agent is retired. They are quite paranoid about the Bureau's image (it's a strange, insulated culture, the FBI). So I have had to rely on research - mainly Internet research, and also books.
Thanks for your questions. I appreciate your interest, but maybe you can see why I don't talk about this stuff too much. There are always so many negatives and difficulties to be faced in the publishing business that dwelling on them can get a little depressing. That's why I have not followed industry news or author blogs over the years, and why I don't want to do an author blog myself. It always turns into a whine-and-moan session.
The same thing happens when authors get together in person, by the way. It's just the way we are - miserable by nature!
Still beats working, though.