Doctrinal Reincarnation

"I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe" - Leo Rosten

Reincarnation, in order to make sense, must somehow be fitted into a consistent belief system. A number of such systems now exist in the West.

But it seems to me that such systems have not generally taken hold even among people who accept reincarnation and that they  exhibit numerous internal contradictions.

Reincarnation, in fact, poses many logical problems.

• If we migrate as souls from one body to another, why is it that we remember so little, if anything, of our past lives?
• What is the purpose of this migration anyway?
• How is the personal identity of an individual safeguarded in spite of his or her succession of earthly lives?
• Where do souls stay while resting between earthly incarnations?
• How does reincarnation fit into a wider perspective of the universe?

There are doctrinal systems that provide answers. They can roughly be sub-divided under three categories: the classical Oriental belief systems, the adapted oriental systems, and the purely westernised systems.

It is not my task here to outline such systems in detail. I need to sketch them briefly to distinguish them clearly from the pragmatic reincarnationism I will describe later.

The classical oriental system is found mainly in Hindu and Buddhist sects that have spread to the West. Sai Baba, Hare Krishna, Rajneesh, the Divine Light mission, and more than a hundred other new religious movements teach classical forms of reincarnation to their followers.

Reincarnation as a cascade of births in ever lower life forms

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Another group of belief systems has been developed by western thinkers and religious leaders who borrow heavily from the oriental traditions, while giving their doctrines a more western approach. Typical of such systems is, for instance, the system proposed by Réné K. Mueller. He sees all reality as a manifestation of the ultimate life principle, the Higher Self, which is absolute and pre-existent.

This Higher Self is individualised in so-called "etheric doubles", which live on the ethereal plane. These etheric individuals, in turn, have realities as astral bodies on the astral planes of Venus, Jupiter, the sun and so on, which each incarnate in a number of lives here on earth in the physical, earthly plane.

If one accepts this structure of the universe, reincarnation makes sense. In the last analysis, all of us are then really one and the same Spirit. Each of our lives is an adventure by that deepest Spirit in a million new variations and progressive self-realisations.

Reincarnation as the conscious choice of an ambitious soul

In another kind of belief system God is de-emphasized, "spiritual energy" put instead. We find a clear example of this in the doctrines proposed by James Redfield. His books that have sold millions of copies, portray the whole of our earthly reality as vibrations of a spiritual reality. The energy manifests itself most in human beings.¹

All of us derive from another realm which he calls "the afterlife dimension" which is a world of utter beauty, clear form, and brilliant light. The afterlife dimension is populated by families of souls which he calls "soul groups". From time to time each soul chooses to reincarnate into a new existence for a specific reason. Before its re-birth, the soul has a "birth vision" through which it has a rather precise idea of what its future life in a particular incarnation will be like, and through which it formulates some specific objectives with its new birth.

Usually these objectives envisage self-perfection by accumulating useful experiences and by communicating some higher knowledge to others. After death, the soul has a "life review" in which it, together with its soul group, evaluates the failures and successes of the previous life.

Through the on-going cycles of birth and re-birth, the combined soul groups have an overall objective, called the the "world vision". This may be formulated as stimulating ever greater awareness among the earthly population and as gradually establishing an ever higher presence of love as the highest form of energy.

How many people really believe these doctrines?

I am reporting on such belief systems in a summary form to indicate that we do, indeed, find consistent belief systems, whatever their validity. Such systems pose as rivals to the other main belief systems in the western world: the orthodox Christian belief and the materialist humanist belief. Doctrinal reincarnationism merits and demands full examination.

However, it is my considered view, after studying the available material and meeting the people who believe in reincarnation, that such consistent reincarnational belief systems are only adhered to by a proportion, perhaps even a small proportion, of those people who say they believe in reincarnation.

• Reincarnation has not really succeeded in achieving respectability within the academic or scientific community.

Since 1980, reincarnation as a phenomenon has been discussed in more than twenty scientific journals in the West.² These publications ranged from psychological, medical, sociological, philosophical to specifically religious journals. They included the major language areas of English, German, French and Spanish. Characteristic were, for instance, prolonged series of articles in "Free Inquiry" and "Religious Studies". However, if we consider that the search covered 300 scientific journals in a 15 years' range (1980 - 1995), it is clear that the articles represent only 0.1% of the material or less. Reincarnation does not figure prominently in academic discussion. Moreover, though some articles defended reincarnation, the vast majority were critical of it.

• The doctrines of reincarnation are more widely spread by semi-academic books and pamphlets. In general, these focus on offering evidence to prove the occurrence of reincarnation rather than presenting consistent theories. In the English language area, Ian Stevenson has emerged as a prolific and influential author who is frequently quoted.³ The problem is that, even though Stevenson's arguments have been challenged by critics,⁴ they are cited as scientific and irrefutable proofs.

• Doctrinal reincarnation is also readily available on the Internet. I have identified more than a hundred websites that disseminate reincarnational beliefs.

In all this the popular defence of reincarnation emerges as an undercurrent of protest against the materialist assumptions of western science. The stress on soul as ultimate reality within the universe strongly contradicts the scientific establishment which reduces all reality, including our human spirit, to mere matter.

Section Three

From "Pragmatic Reincarnation. The belief in reincarnation among young people in western culture" by John Wijngaards

See also the following related documents:

• the increase of reincarnation belief in Europe;
• pragmatic reincarnationism;
• reincarnation belief and Christian ministry.