The University of Virginia's academic unit for research into phenomena suggesting survival of consciousness after death — including children's past-life memories, near-death experiences, and cases of the reincarnation type.
Institutional legitimacy for fringe research: DOPS is unusual as an academic division at a major research university (UVA) dedicated to investigating phenomena that mainstream science regards as impossible. Ian Stevenson's core research: systematic cross-cultural investigation of children who spontaneously recall past lives, finding hundreds of cases with verifiable matches to deceased persons. Jim Tucker (Stevenson's successor) continued this research. Also studies near-death experiences (Bruce Greyson) and psychic phenomena. The existence of DOPS demonstrates that some empirical anomalies are robust enough to maintain institutional support.
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