Research

Currently the most important research program that the IMICS collective is embarking on is Reincarnation / Past-Life Memories.

Many of the schools of Eastern philosophy and medicine, with parallels in some other traditions around the world, convey the idea of a cycle of death and rebirth, and define liberation or emancipation (from this cycle and from suffering) as the purpose of human life. These schools portray some form of conscious energy getting embodied and disembodied.

On the experimental side, more than 2000 cases of children with past-life memories (PLMs) have been documented as part of the 50-year research program spearheaded by the Department of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) at the University of Virginia (UVA). Based on the statements of the children, their previous personalities have been identified in about two-thirds of the cases. These cases indicate some common features: (1) children start to make statements about a previous life typically at 2-3 years of age, (2) the memories fade by 9 years of age, (3) in many cases the children talk about coming from a different place and having a different family – parents, children and relatives –  and show a strong craving to meet their previous family, (4) in a (small fraction of cases (20%), people seem to remember the interval between the two lives,  (5) a median of 16 months is found between death and rebirth, (6) many children have unusual play, exhibit philias, phobias, birthmarks/birth defects (ascribed to the previous life), (7) the cases show high fraction (80%) of gender nonconformity, (8) 90% have the same gender as in previous life, (9) a large fraction (70%) of cases indicate an unnatural mode of death (51% being a violent mode of death), (10) high fraction (73%) of children reported to be male in the previous life (ascribed to high-risk behavior leading to violent mode of death), (11) in at least 25% of the cases the previous person died at a young age (15 years or less), and (12) in 5% of the cases the child had a birthmark that was correlated with a fatal wound on the previous person. Although alternative hypotheses have been considered, reincarnation has emerged as the leading explanation for the PLM phenomenon. The data from these hundreds of cases therefore suggests that an unnatural mode of death, especially at a young age, results in strong psychological impact during childhood in the next life.

These previous studies have substantially advanced our understanding of reincarnation, and at the same time motivated a new multi-faceted research program that addresses the limitations of these studies. First, criticisms such as poor number statistics (more studies needed for rejecting chance occurrence of memories), human biases and cultural programming, lack of double-blind tests, cheating by interpreters, have been raised against reincarnation research. This has led to low acceptance of reincarnation, as a phenomenon, within academia. Second, no theory has been developed to explain reincarnation or the formation of a physical body informed by past life. Third, most previous studies have neglected deep investigations of the Eastern schools of philosophy for understanding reincarnation and embryogenesis. Fourth, the investigations have not inquired into whether past life memories can be elicited in everyone. Past life regression, which is a technique to elicit such memories, has no systematic scientific validation and is currently enshrouded with high level of skepticism in the scientific community.

To address the limitations of previous PLM studies and to extend reincarnation research into scientific and philosophical domains, we are undertakinga comprehensive research program having the following facets.