I Saw A Light And Came Here is the result of decades of scholarly research and investigations into past-life memories, primarily of children. The first author, Erlendur Haraldsson, a psychologist, has over two decades of experience behind him, having investigated some one hundred cases in the field. He worked closely with Ian Stevenson, M.D., of the University of Virginia, who began systematic studies of “cases of the reincarnation type,” but soon broke new ground with psychological studies of children who insist they remember episodes from past lives. Haraldsson invited anthropologist James Matlock to join him because of his thorough familiarity with research around the globe. This book deals with various aspects of past-life memory and attempts to answer the questions that will inevitably come up in the minds of thoughtful readers.

Jim Matlock talks Reincarnation with Simon Bown on the PastLives podcast.

Erlendur Haraldsson (November 3, 1931 – November 22, 2020) was a professor emeritus of psychology at the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Iceland. Despite having retired from his former post at the University of Iceland, he continued to be an active academic until his death.

He published works in various psychological and parapsychological journals and worked with Ian Stevenson on reincarnation research and Karlis Osis on deathbed visions.

As well as doing research in Iceland, Haraldsson worked in the United States and at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany. While in the United States, he worked with J. B. Rhine.

He authored and co-authored several books including Modern Miracles: Sathya Sai Baba: The Story of a Modern Day Prophet (2013), At the Hour of Death (1997), The Departed Among the Living: An Investigative Study of Afterlife Encounters” (2012), Indridi Indridason: The Icelandic Physical Medium (2015) and I Saw A Light And Came Here: Children’s Experiences of Reincarnation co-authored with Jim Matlock (2017).

James Matlock received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the Southern Ilinois University in Carbondale in 2002. His 1993 M.A. thesis from Hunter College in New York City was a cross-cultural study of reincarnation beliefs in relation to social practices. He has been engaged in reincarantion research since the 1980s and has published on reincarnation experiences and beliefs in both parapsychology and anthropology. He teaches an inter-disciplinary online course, Signs of Reincarnation. For more information on his background, publications, research interests, and online course, see his website, http://www.jamesgmatlock.net.