Reincarnation, Its History and Believers

Birth or rebirth? Do you believe in reincarnation? That is the question, one might say. It is by searching to understand the origins of the soul what we might discover whether it is reborn, and where it goes…

It was mainly in India that belief transmigration (the ability of a soul to pass from one body to another after death) spread and became a religious doctrine. Some ancient Greeks, early Christians, and Gnostics, also believed in various forms of transmigration: The works of Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotin all make reference to it. But the Mesopotamian people – Sumerians, Akkadians, Chaldeans, Hebrews – who held a fatalistic view of human existence, were too down to earth and realistic to believe in the possibility of an immortal soul being reborn in a new human body.

In the same way, even though the Egyptians believe with certainty in life after death – The Book of Dead, the tombs of the Pharaohs and the funeral rites which took place in Egypt are tangible historical proofs of this – there is never any reference, in their beliefs, to the rebirth of a single soul in a new body. Therefore, except for beliefs drawn up in the Hindu religion on the one hand, and in the Buddhist religion, on the other hand, there are no other serious and searching philosophical of reincarnation.

Of course, here and there, there have been tales, anecdotes, and evidence that could support the hypothesis connected with the theories of reincarnation. But nowhere will you come across such serene and profound conviction the millenniums, the same soul will be reborn many times in new bodies as you will in India and Tibet.

Also, you can check this interesting article – Chinese zodiac signs.

The believers in reincarnation

Believing in reincarnation clearly requires believing in certain basic principles. Firstly, it is necessary to believe in the real existence of the soul, as a relatively autonomous entity, that can exist apart from the body and without it. The point is, therefore, to believe that the soul is capable of surviving after physical death and bodily decay, in a place where it can continue its evolution until it is ready to inhabit a new body. This also implies the belief that in the womb, or just at the moment of birth, something happens which allows the soul to enter a body and give it life, that is to say, to give it a soul and human qualities.

Finally, since everything needs a meaning, a justification, a purpose, it is necessary to believe that the soul has a destiny and to consider the possibility that if nothing from our experiences in previous lives is ever totally lost or forgotten, the mission of the reincarnated soul is to fulfill a task, to put itself through a variety of tests which will allow it to reach a higher level of evaluation and knowledge – which leads naturally to a final principle: The belief that the soul is potentially capable of transcending human experience.

Let us, therefore, sum up the six conditions which need to be taken into consideration, if one is to genuinely understand the criteria upon which the belief in reincarnation rests:

1. The soul exists.
2. The soul survives after physical death, separately from the body.
3. There is a sort of purgatory, a place where the soul, once separated from the body, can rest and prepare itself for reincarnation.
4. The same soul is reborn in a new body. This phenomenon can happen many times, over centuries and millenniums.
5. The soul retains knowledge of experiences in former incarnations. As a result, each reincarnation gives the soul a task, a mission, a destiny to fulfill.
6. The successive reincarnations of the same soul have a purpose: to help the soul achieve a higher level of knowledge.

However, this does not answer other fundamental questions raised by such basic principles. Such as: Where does the soul come from? It is eternal? If so, how many and why is it eternal? By what criteria does the soul cease its reincarnation? When it no longer needs to reincarnate in a human body, what becomes of it, and where does it go? In future issues, you will see how Hindus and Buddhists have answered these questions, but also how evidence, from sources unknown to these religions, at times corroborates these theories.

Can we find out about our previous lives?

If the soul reincarnates, this obviously implies a previous incarnation. Can we, should we, and if so, how can we find out and learn about our former lives? It is possible to do so? Certain mediums, who claim to have the power or the gift of reading in the big book of souls, of seeing and of revealing, most of the time under hypnosis, the successive manifestations of such or such a soul, believe so.

An astrological method, based on the Zodiacal signs, enables one to examine the origins, the whereabouts, and the mission of a person’s soul. It concerns Karmic Astrology, recently attracting renewed interest and whose principle rests on the theory of lunar nodes and retrograde planets. Should we try it? This question depends on our individual conscience and our own personal choice. However, we should point out that such an interpretation of life on Earth could lead certain psychologically more fragile people, towards fatalistic, over tolerant and laissez-faire attitudes which are in total contradiction with the real beliefs in reincarnation and the lessons that the believers can learn from it.

A brief history of the soul

Belief in the existence of the soul probably goes back a long way. It coincides with the belief in an afterlife, which emphasizes the immortality of the soul after physical death, that is to say, the belief in a part of our self that does not die completely. Our Neanderthal ancestors, some 80,000 years ago, used to observe elaborate funeral rites, and therefore you can assume that they believed there had to be more to follow after death.