About Us
ICRR was formed to raise and grant funds for research on reincarnation and related topics, to disseminate that research to the academic community, and to provide helpful resources to people with past-life memories and their families.
Our mandate is also to publicize the findings from reincarnation research (whether funded by us or not) through popular outlets – mass media and social media – so as to bring them into the public discourse.
We want to increase the pace of discovery through research and the level of public awareness due to the importance of the topic. The fact that there is much empirical evidence that reincarnation truly happens, and happens in the ways that it does, needs to be part of the public discourse and become common knowledge in our society and worldwide.
ICRR History
Historically, academic reincarnation researchers have sought institutional funding from general parapsychological grantors such as the Society for Psychical Research, the Parapsychological Foundation, the parapsychological sector of the BIAL Foundation, and some others. Due to his prodigious work, Ian Stevenson was able to secure funding from the inventor of the Xerox copying process, Chester Carlson, whose endowment enabled Stevenson to set up and lead a department within the University of Virginia medical school. The Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS) as it is now called, continues through its own funding program to conduct reincarnation and consciousness research.
Our aim is to supplement these grantors and programs by providing grants for which reincarnation researchers will not have to compete with parapsychologists writing on other topics, allowing more reincarnation research to be done sooner than can be done currently. We also conduct our own projects to increase the research capability of the field, such as the Published Reincarnation Case Database (PRCDb), which will enable statistical analysis as never before.
Our mandate is also to disseminate the results of research we conduct or fund as well as evidence-based reincarnation information generally both to academia and the public, and provide resources and support to individuals and families affected by reincarnation phenomena.
The idea of ICRR was first raised by KM Wehrstein on James G. Matlock’s Facebook group Signs of Reincarnation in 2015, and discussed intermittently there. We were inspired to start in late 2021 by several signs that we felt indicated that time had come, including burgeoning public interest, two studies suggesting past-life memory in children is much more common than thought, and an essay contest by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies that sent an inspiring jolt of both money and energy into the field. The name “International Centre for Reincarnation Research” was chosen after a democratic consult with members of the Signs of Reincarnation Facebook group. We were incorporated as a non-profit in Canada on March 28, 2022.
Robert Giacalone was interested right from 2015 and joined the Steering Committee at its founding in 2021, drawing on experience gained from his stellar academic career to keep us on the scientific straight and narrow. Benjamin Bagley, who created our preliminary website as well as this one and also designed our beautiful logo, was also on the Committee when it became the Board of Directors upon incorporation. Gabriela Gomes and Will (his public name) have left the Board but were helpful in setting up our infrastructure, particularly Will with our Facebook presence. Psychologist Melanie Oborne began the work of contacting therapists for our reincarnation-friendly therapists directory. Alexei Medvedev joined the Board in August 2023. Our Science Council and Supporting Researchers mostly joined those bodies in 2022. Climate scientist Michael Smith has been very helpful in growing ICRR-affiliated Facebook groups, which have a collective membership of more than 100,000.
Our first major project, the Published Reincarnation Case Database, was launched on January 2, 2025 after we successfully applied for a BIAL Foundation grant in 2024. See details here.
In the next few years we are looking to open an American office (we are based in Canada) and gain charitable status in Canada and the USA while continuing to expand our membership, donor and volunteer bases. Let us know which of these crucial groups you are interested in becoming part of, if you are!
Our Bylaws
Our current bylaws are viewable online.