Reincarnation revisited: a puzzle for science

 

This brings us back to the idea of reincarnation. Of course, science can never “prove” that reincarnation is a fact. For that matter, science can never actually “prove” anything. Through science, all we can do is gather data as carefully as possible and then try to explain them in the most consistent and reasonable way. And when the body of data grows, our explanations have to grow with it.

Because of the work of Dr. Stevenson and other researchers, we now find ourselves facing a considerable body of data suggesting that reincarnation is a fact.

Yet science doesn’t go far in making clear to us what that fact is.

How does it work? Why does it happen? Who or what is reincarnated? How long do you have to wait between births? Does it happen to all of us, or only a few?

Perhaps one day scientific investigation will come up with answers to these questions. For now, investigators can do little more than gather data and speculate.

So if reincarnation happens to everyone, you can figure on going through it yourself—perhaps countless times—before science even begins to figure out what’s going on.