Reincarnation in History (A summary by Paul Von Ward)
In the modern Western world, reincarnation has generally been seen as a subject for anthropologists, theologians, spiritualists, hypnotists, and, more recently, a few psychologists. The vast majority of Americans think of it as a naive fantasy of aboriginal tribes, a supernatural belief of Hindus and Buddhists, or a minority religious belief among ancient Jews and early Christians. Polls show only a fifth of the U.S. population is open to the idea of reincarnation, while the rest consider it outside modern science or incompatible with their religious beliefs.
However, oral traditions and written legends around the world make it evident that reincarnation has been an integral part of human worldviews from the early days of civilization. They document perennial beliefs in the existence of spiritual beings who assume human form and survive death to appear in subsequent lives. In the ancient cosmologies, sequential lifetimes gave a larger sense of purpose to each human life.
Among the traditional Yoruba people of West Africa, a child born in a family where the death of a grandparent had recently preceded its birth was sometimes thought of as the rebirth of that being. The child might be called Babatunde for "Father has returned" or Yetunde for "Mother has returned".* In Bali the pregnant mother asked the village healer to help her dialogue with the unborn child to discover its identity and purpose in this lifetime. Australian Aboriginals believed the spirit of the child existed before this incarnation (in a transcendent realm they called Dreamtime).** *[John Ferguson, Encyclopedia of Mysticism.] ** Reported by Richard Heinberg in Intuition Magazine, Vol. 1, Issue 4.]
The Mbuti pygmies of central Africa, according to anthropologist Colin Turnbull, believed that potential human beings existed in a non-physical state for long periods before conception. Cherokees thought that the soul chooses a family where it believes its gifts may flourish, and where it can complete a cycle of learning.
Scholars report that traditional Teutons, Celts, and Gauls accepted the "reality" of reincarnation.* Other historical sources referring to reincarnation include the sagas of the Northmen, the lore of the Druids, Eskimos, Sioux, Zunis, and Incas, and the tales of the Pacific peoples of Hawaii, Australia, and the South Sea.** In the Orient, including Japan and Eastern Russia, such reports are pervasive and detailed. *[The Enigma of the Hereafter, Paul Siwek] **[Reincarnation: The Hope of the World, Irving S. Cooper]
With such a range of traditions, we can reasonably conclude that they are based in actual human experiences. Perhaps early humans noted the same similarities of physical traits, apparent past-life knowledge and skills, and the other kinds of evidence discussed in the following chapters. If that was the case, it should come as no surprise that they arrived at conclusions similar to those of today’s researchers.
It is also clear that concepts of reincarnation have waxed and waned over the millennia, with the prevailing Western belief systems in the modern era having rejected the reincarnation hypothesis. To understand that development, let’s review the evolution of these worldviews from at least their “cradle”, if not their birth.
The Cradle of Western Civilization. Four river valleys are associated by modern historians with the rise of civilizations whose cultures shaped the way Westerners think. The ancient Indo-European kingdoms that gave the Western peoples their languages, alphabets, institutions, science, and religions flourished along the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile and Indus rivers. (The birth of East Asian culture is placed in the Huang-He-Yangtze river system of China.) The oldest (Vedic) texts from this “cradle of western civilization” indicate belief in a transcendent atman (what we call soul).
These texts, alleged to be Hindu records of traditions more than 5,000 years-old passed from the rishis (sages) through generations of Brahmins, clearly discuss reincarnation (sometimes referred to as transmigration or metempsychosis). The Satapatha Brahmana (Brahman of 100 Ways) describes specific forms in the process of rebirth. The 3,500 year-old Upanishads had many such references.
In one Vedic text, the advanced being known as Krishna, who allegedly taught the South Asian humans much about the universe, told them "many a birth have I passed through, and so have you." This Hindu view of reincarnation as the means through which humans can reach enlightenment is shared by Jainism and Sikhism.
Buddhism on Reincarnation. The reformist teacher Buddha (c. 500 BCE) retained the same basic concept as he attempted to urge Hinduism’s return to its simpler, more natural worldview. However, the concept in Buddhism is called rebirth or re-becoming (Punarbhava in Sanskrit). This places the ongoing focus on the consciousness embodied in an individual instead of the physical body.
The Buddhist text known popularly as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, teaches that incarnations of the soul involve the principles of birth, life, and transition. These cycles repeat themselves as the soul progresses toward "enlightenment". The Buddhist believes that if the soul does not make sufficient progress during a series of physical incarnations it must keep returning for further development. Only by achieving “enlightenment” can the soul escape the wheel of birth and rebirth.
Ancient Chinese texts are quiet on the subject of reincarnation, although the I Ching from about 2,500 BCE refers to eternal cycles of life and multidimensional development that could involve many lifetimes. About 200 years after Buddha the concepts described in the previous paragraph was incorporated into Chinese Taoism.
Mesopotamia and Persia. The Zoroastrian Avesta, analogous to the Hindu Vedas, represents the oldest (1,000 BCE or earlier) worldviews from the tribes of Persia (Persians, Medes, or Parthians). This cosmogony includes the view that souls are judged on their actions in life by advanced beings known as Mithra, Rashner, and Szaoshe. While the Avesta appears to draw much from the earlier Vedic era, it does not explicitly and prominently incorporate the reincarnation concept as we know it.
Some Avesta scholars, including Zoroastrian ones, interpret possible references differently.* They see intentional references to reincarnation in some ambiguous phrases, but the orthodox Zoriastrian concept of resurrection precludes the reincarnation of a single soul in successive bodies. This concept plays a role later in the development of Christianity’s denial of the possibility of reincarnation. *[A Zoriastrian Education Institute at www.vohuman.org and Zoriastrian Cosmogony at www.frashogard.com.]
Mesopotamia historically included Sumer, Babylon, and Akkadia. In this region, from 6,000 to 4,000 years ago, elements of reincarnation theory were widely accepted. However, later documents from the Middle East describe a struggle between worldviews that encompass reincarnation and those that do not. As we’ll see in the following discussions, by the 6th and 7th centuries CE the earlier beliefs in reincarnation had been dogmatically rejected by all Western supernatural religions.
An Egyptian Perspective. Writers like Siwek referenced above believe the primal Egyptian texts speak of the soul's metaphysical or immortal existence, but do not make an explicit case for the sequential lifetimes of reincarnation. For instance, the Egyptian Book of the Dead describes a soul's passage to a subsequent existence (Hades) after death, but does not suggest it reincarnates in another human life.
On the other hand, contrary evidence comes from the jackal-like Egyptian hieroglyphic for the word me-su (to be born). The Egyptians used totem animals as symbols for natural phenomena, with the jackal associated with the process of death and birth. Thus, the me-su symbol, consisting of three jackal skins, suggests multiple rebirths or reincarnation.* [*From Light Into Darkness, Stephen S. Mehler (Adventures Unlimited Press: Kempton, IL, 2005) p. 109, 146.]
The idea of reincarnation seems to have flourished while the Egyptian culture was ruled by “gods, demigods, and kings”. However, by the end of the Old Kingdom, after the advent of pharaohs, the appearance of elaborate ritual mummification (about 2,600 BCE) indicates a growing belief in the notion that an individual's soul had only one physical life.
The Greek Worldview. For the earliest known Greek writers on the subject of reincarnation we turn to 8th-century BCE poets Homer and Hesiod. Homer, in his version of classical poems taken from more ancient oral traditions, reflected a natural perspective of the cosmos. In his universe the advanced beings (ABs) known now as the “gods” and humans both experienced cycles of death and resurrection.
While the ABs were more powerful, they possessed the same emotions and warlike traits as humans. In The Odyssey and The Iliad, his historical AB characters such as Zeus, Apollo, etc. interacted directly with humans - not unlike Krishna, Mithra, Ishtar, and Toth in other cultures.
Hesiod's Theogeny describes his understanding of the then-absentee "gods" (ABs)* alleged to have been involved in the earliest history of the Achaens who settled the Greek peninsula around 4,000 BP, and of the Dorians who arrived there about 3,000 BP. By the time Achaens moved to Greece from the Black Sea or farther East, the "gods" were no longer physically present in the lives of these proto-Greeks. [*Note. It must be recalled that the Greek word for the "gods" at that time was "deos" (derived from "devas" in the earlier Sanskrit) which referred to the advanced beings who flitted around Earth in flying vehicles . They were seen as very much flesh-and-blood beings, not unlike humans, but more advanced technologically and in their knowledge of multidimensional reality.]
Later Heraclitus (in 544-484 BCE), wrote of cycles of incarnation, with “mortals” becoming “immortal” and “immortals” becoming “mortal”. Pindar (518-438 BCE) gave us a Greek perspective on the profusion of various cults and the manner in which they described reincarnation, karma, and transformation. For instance, the Dionysian cult representing a naturalistic tradition espoused the doctrine of reincarnation. Pindar and (later) Pericles, Thucydides, and Socrates, appear to have expressed their beliefs about reincarnation in natural, not mystical terms.
Plato, in his early transitional dialogue Meno, has Socrates introduce the Orphic and Pythagorean idea that souls are immortal and exist before our births and after death. All knowledge, he explains, is actually recollected from this prior existence. In his 'theory of reminiscence', he wrote "Knowledge easily acquired is that which the enduring self had in an earlier life, so that it flows back easily". In perhaps the most famous passage in this dialogue, Plato has Socrates elicit recollections about geometry from the past life of one of Meno's slaves.* *[Meno, 81a-86b] [Plato's Phaedo includes the scene where Socrates utters his final words before dying from the self-administered libation of hemlock. In it Socrates spoke of his journey to “that other world” and “the joys of the beyond”. He expressed no fear of judgment in Hades and looked forward to the opportunity to speak with other great minds. Similar accounts of the transmigration of souls may be found, with somewhat different details, in Book X of the Republic and in the Phaedrus, as well as in several dialogues of the late period, including the Timaeus and the Laws.]
These and other Greek writings during the period from about 1,500 BCE until the 6th century CE suggest Western sages shared the Hindu view on reincarnation. These philosophies held that the thinking human intuitively feels himself or herself a seeker of deeper and deeper knowledge. Further, that the reflective person learns from each lifetime and builds on that experience in successive reincarnations.
Orthodox Versus Esoteric Judaism. Reincarnation (gilgul in Hebrew) is not explicitly mentioned in the Torah. Thus, most orthodox Jews today do not believe in the notion of reincarnation discussed in this book. A few traditional Jewish scholars accept that some souls may be sent back to Earth (up to three times) until under divine guidance they perfect their observation of the Torah’s law. They may refer to Genesis 38:8 that implies Yehudah and his sons believed in reincarnation and acted accordingly.
The Torah and other Jewish texts were slowly evolving, being adapted to fit a supernatural monotheism, up to the written Masoretic version done at the beginning of the Current Era. Nevertheless, they still today contain many references that seem to imply the concept of a natural principle of reincarnation.* Some independent and Kabbalah scholars believe the earliest versions of the Torah (maybe 1500 years BCE) included oblique references to reincarnation congruent with Eastern concepts. *[In Ecclesiastes 41:8-9, when Solomon spoke to people who disobeyed Hebrew dicta said if you have “forsaken the law” and “if you be born (again), you shall be born a curse”. Jeremiah 1:4-5 implies one’s birth involves a transcendent soul: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart.” These and others may indirectly refer to reincarnation.]
Prominent Jewish writers of the period just prior to and during the time of Jesus also taught the doctrine of reincarnation. They included Flavius Josephus (37-93 CE) Philo Judaeus (of Alexandria), the Chaldean sage Hillel who led the Pharisees in Jerusalem during the 1st century CE, and Jehoshuah ben Pandira. This theory survived into the 13th-century through the Kabbalist tradition when it resurfaced in commentary on the Torah by Moses de Leon in his Sefer ha-Zohar (Book of Splendor). In the Kabbalist view “reincarnation takes place so that people may progress spiritually through healing or correction (tikkun in Hebrew)”.* *[http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CTCR/Kabbalah.pdf; The Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. William Wiston.http://www.reincarnation.ws/reincarnation_in_the_old_testament.html]
Jesus and Reincarnation. In the absence of confirmed contemporaneous records of Jesus’ comments on the subject, we cannot definitively describe his views on reincarnation. However, from a number of references in the Gospels (first written down decades after his public teaching), one can reasonably assume that the Jesus personality embraced or passively accepted the early Hebrew view of reincarnation.
Even after several “official” revisions, involving Aramaic, Greek and Latin texts, the orthodox Gospels still have numerous references that encompass reincarnation. Matthew 11:14-15 and 17:12-13 indicate John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah. “I tell you that Elijah has already come and people did not recognize him... Then the disciples understood that [Jesus] was talking to them about John the Baptist.” Such texts allegedly show Jesus’ acceptance of the reincarnation tradition.
Other references include: John 9:1 reads “The disciples asked Jesus 'Teacher, whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents?'” This implies not only reincarnation, but also includes the notion of karma. John 3:6 reads “A person is born physically of human parents, but he is born spiritually of the Spirit.” This remains consistent with the Eastern concept of soul incarnation. Galatians 6:5-8 reads “Each man should examine him own conduct....measure his achievement by comparing himself with himself...”
During the period when early followers of Jesus’ teachings were developing their various retrospective views of them, a lively debate about reincarnation took place. The Greek Plutarch (46-125 CE) who was associated with the Gnostic inclination, clearly stated in his Moral Essays "...the soul is indestructible...(and) it will alight back in the body again birth after birth..." He allegedly urged his wife (upon the death of their daughter Timoxena) to remember the Dionysian view that the soul is indestructible and is reborn eternally
Gnostics and Reincarnation. One, among the many groups of early Jewish followers of teachings associated with Jesus, was the community known as Gnostics. They did not think Jesus’ teachings contravened long-held views on reincarnation. As did most Jews at the time, they did not see Jesus as the physically incarnated, supernatural messiah whose coming would herald a return of the Elohim (the gods). In their view, Jesus was a living example of the potential each human has to rejoin his/her "Eidolon" (incarnated self) with the "Daemon" (universal soul).
The Gnostics' Exegesis of the Soul suggests a pre-existing soul incarnates, but then seeks to reunite with its spiritual source. During earthly life, these souls are continually drawn to heaven like beams of light to the sun. That such a mystical rejoining in this lifetime could be achieved through "gnosis" (gaining knowledge) set Gnostics squarely in the mainstream of reincarnation. The Gnostic sage Basilides believed that "...Gnosis was the consummation of many lives of effort".
The 2006 translation of the Gnostic text known as the Gospel of Judas* has Jesus saying to Judas, “...you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” It makes the point that the physical body only clothes the soul which survives death. This view was compatible with the Eastern assumption that physical incarnations involved a conscious and self-directed process in which the soul could master this level and rejoin the universal Daemon to "rest in the place of pure light" (or nirvana).
Orthodox Christianity. Up to the Council of Nicea in 325 CE, most followers of Jesus likely continued to include reincarnation in their worldviews, even if only a passive acceptance of it. However, the newly converted, Roman emperor Constantine’s consolidation of disparate Christian groups and their contradicting views ending up favoring the belief that a soul only incarnated once.
The leadership of the Rome/Constantinople axis decided that Jesus (as the Christ) was the unique soul (direct from the Godhead) who incarnated to suffer and die as a human in order to release all other humans from the wheel of (karmic) justice. In opting for this "ritualistic redemption-for-all-time" concept, they rejected the idea that pre-existing souls could embody in human form, live to the best of their ability, learn their life’s lessons, and reincarnate to experience the consequences.
It became the task of the Church's formative theologians to discredit the idea of reincarnation. Given the widespread knowledge of human evidence that supported the reincarnation hypothesis, they had to resort to ad hominem assaults on the idea and the character of people who talked about it. The Latin side of the house (St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose (bishop of Milan), and Lactantius) rejected out of hand any support for reincarnation, calling it "heretical," "stupid," and a "fable".
The Hellenic side of the house, to the shame of that culture's noble intellectual tradition, did no better. St. Gregory of Nyssa called it a "fable"; St. Basil the Great attacked it as "unreasonable; St. Cyril labelled it an "absurdity". St. Irenaeus and Tertullian, originally from Carthage, charged that accounts of past-life memories were no proof of past lives. Clement of Alexandria charged it was "arbitrary" evidence and Basilides said it was " misinterpretation of Scripture".
Islamic Worldview on Reincarnation. Almost universally, Islamic theologians and scholars declare that "There is no reincarnation; death and resurrection happen only once." This stark Muslim statement captures the essence of the above described Roman Catholic view contemporaneous to the prophet Mohammed. By the 7th century CE, when Mohammed directed the messages he allegedly channelled from the angel Gabriel be written down, the increasingly supernatural Middle East had widely suppressed the earlier traditions of reincarnation.
Not surprisingly, the Qur'an generally followed the widespread Christian view that a soul would only rise one time, on the day of judgment when the dead will be lifted up and justice will be rendered to all. One Sura reads "Allah hath caused you to grow forth from the earth and afterwards He maketh you return thereto, and He will bring you forth again." This phrasing seems to imply each human is born new from matter, decays back into the soil, and is brought forth on the day of final judgment. This concurs with the Christian "one-incarnation/one resurrection" scenario.
This Islamic vision of resurrection and judgment, like the Christian one, involves a future date which only Allah knows. The Qur'an calls this day of reckoning by many names among the 67 Suras that discuss the subject of Resurrection. The judgment rendered will depend on whether a person believes in the Muslim faith (as in the Christian notion of salvation through belief in the Church's definition of Jesus), and whether one followed the "right path" and acknowledged Allah's blessings.* *(A Guide to the Contents of the Qur'an. Faruq Sherif. Ithaca Press: London, 1985. pp.97-8/p. 103)
The soul is a stream whose waters disappear into the sands of the desert. Once the soul surrenders itself into the arms of the wind and loses itself within it, it will be borne aloft and lifted over the sands and into the clouds. Then it will fall as rain and become a stream again. Its true essence will never be lost.
The Dark Ages. During the era some historians call the Dark Age (5th through the 10th century), the orthodox bodies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all decided in favor of a dogma that focused on a single incarnation per soul. In their view it had one lifetime and one possible route (through their theology) to determine if it would rejoin its creator. This theology served to strengthen the hand of religious leaders who wanted to maintain the role of spokesmen for and gatekeepers to their God.
The notion of a transcendent, unique soul charting a self-learning journey through many lifetimes provided too much scope for free will and self-accountability. When the Albigenses and Cathars revived discussion of reincarnation within the broader community of Christianity in the 12th and 13th centuries, they were decimated by Papal-directed inquisitions as were the Gnostics and Manicheans in earlier days.
In the 15th century, Neo-Platonists resurrected earlier concepts of reincarnation, but in a mystical manner that did not threaten the supernatural religions. In the next century, the likes of Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella and cosmologist Giordano Bruno incorporated reincarnation into their models of a natural universe.
In the late 17th and 18th centuries, while Enlightenment scholars like David Hume, John Locke, and Thomas Hobbes saw the individual as paramount in the order of nature, they did not embrace the notion of reincarnation. Romantic poets like Percy Bysshe Shelly and William Blake energized private discussions about reincarnation, but the established religions would not touch it. Open discussion of it by public figures in the founding era of the American republic was not fashionable.
One can imagine a conversation among James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and others in the 18th century about the time of the American Revolution about the notion of reincarnation. Later, serious consideration of it was then possible with esoteric traditions like the Rosicrucians and the Theosophists.
But poets kept the concept alive in the 19th century. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) wrote of reincarnation in "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And Cometh from afar." In the early 20th century Arab poet Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) wrote: "A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me."
Not until the second half of the 20th century did scientists like psychiatrist Ian Stevenson begin to focus their techniques on evidence in our everyday world for human reincarnation. The Reincarnation Experiment takes the work of the late Stevenson and other researchers into the 21-st century.