Reincarnation

The concept of reincarnation is the belief that the soul survives physical death and is reborn into a new physical body. This belief has been the basis of most of the major world religions. The Aboriginal peoples of Australia believe that during the Dreamtime, many millennia ago, their ancestors were born many times, and are reincarnated in the children born today. This reincarnation takes place when a woman passes where an ancestor has been buried, and the spirit of the deceased enters her womb as a pregnancy. When the child is born, it is recognized as a relative, and as a person who has the wisdom of many lifetimes.

The historian, Herodotus, reported that the ancient Egyptians believed that they could return in future lives as various other species, such as crocodiles or herons. The ancient priesthood of the Celtic lands, the Druids, were also believers in reincarnation, as were the people of Scandinavia and surrounding countries. The Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists were early believers (Buddha is said to have reincarnated 500 times, as an elephant, a priest, a prince and a hermit) and there were several Jewish sects, such as the Essenes, who believed, as do present day Cabbalists. But there are many passages in the New Testament about reincarnation. It was suggested that John the Baptist might be a reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet, Elijah. Jesus told Nicodemus that “unless a man is born again, he could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. Jesus was asked “If a man is born blind, whose sin caused the blindness?” Jesus replied that in no way was the blindness related to sin. There was also speculation that Jesus was the reincarnation of the high priest, Melchisedek. In the early Christian Church, there were Christian sects who also believed they were physically reborn, such as Gnostics and Cathars, prior to their persecution and extinction by the established church. Many Native American tribes were believers, prior to their compulsory Christianization. When someone died, a newborn child was given a dead person’s name to retain the qualities and values of the deceased. Leading ancient Greek philosophers, such as Socrates and Pythagoras believed, and many recent philosophers also, such as Giordano Bruno, Schopenhauer and Goethe, all who seriously explored this subject.

Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet promoted the belief. Martin Buber’s stories in the Baal Shem Tov are explicit about this subject and Gotthold Lessing was interested enough to explore this subject too in his writings. Even some Muslim sects, such as Sufis, despite persecution, still hold to this belief. Rudolf Steiner was a believer, as were many Theosophists and Rosicrucians. The car magnate, Henry Ford remembered a previous life as a soldier killed at the Battle of Gettysburg and General George S Patton was convinced he was the reincarnation of the Carthaginian General, Hannibal. The actor, Glenn Ford remembered being a French cavalryman under Louis XIV and actually spoke in a Parisian dialect that was shown to have been from the seventeenth century. The late author, Joan Grant, remembered many of her previous lives and described them in more than a dozen books. When she wrote her first book, the ‘Winged Pharaoh’, released in 1937, she was thirty years old, and no-one k new that she was writing from memory about her life in ancient Egypt. ‘Speaking from the Heart’, was posthumously released in 2007 describing her extraordinary ability to remember her previous lives.

There is a housewife from the UK who remembers a previous life as a Jewess in York in the twelfth century. She describes how she wore a badge to denote her Jewish origins. Badges were not known to have been issued prior to 1215. She described the crypt of a church. Investigations later revealed that Jews did wear badges in the time in which she describes and the church was discovered to have a blocked up crypt. Her memories demonstrate the accuracy of her memory and research has proved her correct in many extraordinary details. In another well known case, Jenny Cockell described dream-like memories of being a young Irishwoman by the name of Mary Sutton in the mid twentieth century. Mary died leaving eight children motherless. She tracked down these children and brought them together and several were convinced by her story.

In Western New Age movements, such as Seth, a being who speaks through the medium Jane Roberts, successive lives are accepted. Far more people in the world today believe in reincarnation than refute it. There have been several interesting studies into childhood memories and birth marks and some convincing scientific research has been conducted by Dr Brian Weiss and Dr Walter Semkiw. Prof. Ian Stevenson, Director of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia has studied 3,000 cases over forty years and suggests that strange dreams, phobias and health problems could indicate an unresolved issue from a previous life. Many researchers now state that reincarnation is a legitimate phenomenon, at least for some people.
Author: Wendy Stokes Visit: www.wendystokes.co.uk