Reincarnation has remained on the fringe of scientific inquiry for a long time, despite a number of scientists urging the mainstream community to research it further — and for good reason. Decades ago, American astronomer and astrobiologist Carl Sagan said that “there are three claims in the (parapsychology) field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study,” with one being “that young children sometimes report details of a pervious life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation.”

This topic falls into the ever-growing study of non-material sciences. At the end of the nineteenth century, physicists discovered something that could not be explained by classical physics. This led to the development of quantum mechanics, which has now proven that the material foundations of our world are not the real foundations we think they are. Quantum mechanic suddenly introduced the mind into its conceptual structure, because all of the results coming from quantum mechanics suggest that the physical world is no longer the primary or sole component of reality.

“Despite the unrivaled empirical success of quantum theory, the very suggestion that it may be literally true as a description of nature is still greeted with cynicism, incomprehension and even anger.”

– T. Folger, “Quantum Shmantum”; Discover 22:37-43, 2001

The quote below is from Dr. Gary Schwartz, a professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery at the University of Arizona. He and a number of other sciences explain these concepts in their Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science:

The ideology of scientific materialism became dominant in academia during the 20th century. So dominant that a majority of scientists started to believe that it was based on established empirical evidence, and represented the only rational view of the world. Scientific methods based upon materialistic philosophy have been highly successful in not only increasing our understanding of nature but also in bringing greater control and freedom through advances in technology. However, the nearly absolute dominance of materialism in the academic world has seriously constricted the sciences and hampered the development of the scientific study of mind and spirituality. Faith in this ideology, as an exclusive explanatory framework for reality, has compelled scientists to neglect the subjective dimension of human experience. This has led to a severely distorted and impoverished understanding of ourselves and our place in nature.

When it comes to reincarnation specifically, it directly relates to the study of consciousness — something that Max Plank regarded as “fundamental” in relation to quantum mechanics. In fact, Eugene Wigner, another Nobel Prize winning scientist/mathematician, once told the world that “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics without reference to consciousness.”

The Scientific Study of Reincarnation

University of Virginia psychiatrist Jim Tucker is arguably the world’s leading researcher on this topic, and in 2008, he published a review of cases that were suggestive of reincarnation in thejournal Explore.

A typical reincarnation case, described by Jim, includes subjects reporting a past life experience. The interesting thing is that 100% of subjects who report past life remembrance are children. The average age when they start remembering their past life is at 35 months, and their descriptions of events and experiences from their past life are often extensive and remarkably detailed. Tucker has pointed out that these children show very strong emotional involvement when they speak about their experiences; some actually cry and beg their parents to be taken to what they say is their previous family.

According to Tucker, “The subjects usually stop making their past-life statements by the age of six to seven, and most seem to lose the purported memories. This is the age when children start school and begin having more experiences in the current life, as well as when they tend to lose their early childhood memories.”

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters in U.S. cities are set to protest Monday against immigration policies to mark May Day. The roots of May Day, or International Workers Day, stretch back over a century. USA TODAY

Artemio Arreola, an organizer with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, speaks to advocates in downtown Chicago on April 24, 2017. The group plan to march in a May 1 rally in Chicago.(Photo: Sophia Tareen, AP)

May Day — also known as International Worker’s Day — has spawned protests around the globe in past years highlighting workers’ rights. But on Monday, the impetus for the U.S. marches span from immigrants' rights to LGBT awareness to police misconduct.

“There’s a real galvanization of all the groups this year,” said Fernanda Durand of CASA in Action, which will lead a march of about 10,000 people for immigrants' rights through downtown Washington. “Our presence in this country is being questioned by Donald Trump. We are tired of being demonized and scapegoated. We’ve had enough.”

Durand’s protest is part of the Rise Up umbrella movement that promises 259 events in more than 200 cities in 41 states focusing on immigrants' rights, she said.

Another widespread effort, dubbed Beyond the Moment, will feature a collection of racial-justice groups and include protests and marches in more than 50 cities, from Portland, Ore., to Miami.

Erick Sanchez, another Washington-based organizer, said he’s seen the melding of different groups in previous events this year, from the Women’s March on Washington to climate change awareness protests. Monday will be the culmination of gelling these disparate groups, he said.

“There’s really a sense that we’re in this together,” he said. “That an attack on one is an attack on all.”

Trump released a statement Friday declaring May 1 “Loyalty Day” as a way to “recognize and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles” upon which America was built, calling on all government buildings to display the U.S. flag and schools to observe the holiday with ceremonies.

The holiday has been proclaimed by every president since Dwight D. Eisenhower, on differing dates, but Trump’s critics skewered the timing of the proclamation on social media.

Wrote @LibyaLiberty: “They said 'Loyalty Day' is to uphold 'the inherent dignity of every human being' -- a few days after launching a hotline for 'removable aliens'”

“If I were like, the worst president ever & wanted to make my critics look like traitors, I would declare May 1st Loyalty Day,” wrote @Onision.

Originally a pagan celebration dating back two millenniums and heralding the return of spring, May Day has morphed into a global observance of workers’ rights. But its emergence as an international worker’s rights day actually arose from a May 1, 1886, Chicago strike for the eight-hour workday.

“The fight for leisure — clearly lost today — was a great unifying aspiration of the immigrant workers movement a century ago with its slogan, ‘eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what we will,’” Nelson Lichtenstein, professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, wrote in a 2006 essay in Slate.com.

Demonstrations by U.S. workers followed in coming decades, including a walkout by Arab workers in 1967 protesting U.S. support of Israel during the Six Day War and millions of black workers protesting after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2006, the focus of May Day demonstrations shifted to immigration when roughly 1 million people, including nearly half a million in Chicago alone, took to the streets to protest federal legislation that would have made living in the U.S. without legal permission a felony.

Immigration-themed May Day gatherings dwindled since but are expected to ramp up Monday as groups protest executive orders signed by Trump and seen as attacks on immigrants' rights.

Durand, the Washington-based organizer, said her group’s march will start at Dupont Circle, travel down to Lafayette Square near the White House and culminate with speeches from immigrants and elected officials. Marchers will be joined by other groups, swelling their numbers by tens of thousands, she said. More than 200 immigrant-owned businesses in the area will also shut down.

“We’re going to be able to show we are one voice, one people speaking for those whose lives are being trampled on,” Durand said.

(USA TODAY)