Systematic research on reincarnation experiences began with Ian Stevenson in the early 1960s and is continued today by Jim B. Tucker, Erlendur Haraldsson, Antonia Mills and others. These researchers not only collect accounts of past-life memories and other signs of reincarnation, they investigate them in the field, whenever possible matching the memories to a deceased person.
We now have a substantial number of verified cases of past-life memory and this has allowed us to see how they relate to other signs of reincarnation, such as otherwise inexplicable behaviors and phobias, birthmarks, and congenital physical abnormalities. We are also beginning to understand something of how reincarnation works, how it relates to psychology and biology, and how it interacts with culture.
Academic reincarnation researchers work with memories and other phenomena that occur naturally, in the waking state, dreams and sometimes meditation. They avoid dealing with hypnosis and regressions to previous lives, because this material has turned out to be very unreliable. Hypnosis is known not to be a reliable memory-enhancer, which is why testimony based on it is not allowed in court.
There are many fewer problems with spontaneous memories, it turns out, yet this fascinating and important research is little known outside a small group of researchers. One goal of this web site is to communicate our findings to a wider audience, both popular and academic.