Reincarnation is a concept which is tolerated by some religious traditions, strongly embraced by others, and vehemently denied as a form of blasphemy by a few. The concept of reincarnation is fairly simply: the non-material essence, sometimes called a soul, continues after the physical death of the body and is reborn in another body. Reincarnation is an ancient human concept, pre-dating the emergence of the Abrahamic religions by many thousands of years. It is considered by some scholars to be one of the elements of the earliest human religious beliefs and may in fact pre-date the first Homo sapiens some 200,000 years ago. While reincarnation appears to answer the basic question: “What happens when we die?” it also generates lots of other questions. Some of these questions can be found below the ghostly orange thingy.
For early humans, the origins of the idea of reincarnation, of a cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth seems apparent through the observation of the natural world: the cycle of the seasons seems to suggest a kind of reincarnation with new plants appearing in the spring, maturing during the summer, dying in the fall, and then reappearing again in the spring. There are a number of scholars who feel that reincarnation may be one of the earliest religious concepts.
Do only humans experience reincarnation?
While the focus of many religious traditions is on human reincarnation, there are some traditions which view the souls of animals as also reincarnating. In some of these traditions, humans are reborn as humans while animals are reborn as animals. In some traditions it is possible for a human to be reborn as an animal and vice versa.
Among many Native American hunting and gathering peoples, a hunter will thank the spirit of the deer that has just been killed so that the deer spirit will be born again as a deer with a favorable attitude toward the hunter. Failure to thank the spirit of the deer may result in the deer spirit being reborn as a grizzly bear or rattlesnake with a resentment toward the hunter.
Can some people remember their previous lives?
There are many stories about people, particularly young children, who claim that they have memories of earlier lives. While some of these stories have been debunked, others seem to be fairly accurate accounts of past lives. Among children, these stories appear both in cultures in which reincarnation is accepted and in those in which reincarnation is rejected.
With regard to American Indians, nineteenth century Sioux physician Charles Eastman in Light on the Indian World writes:
“Many of the Indians believed that one may be born more than once, and there were some who claimed to have full knowledge of a former incarnation.”
With regard to death among the Gitxsan on the Northwest coast, Shirley Muldon, in a chapter in
Listening to Our Ancestors: The Art of Native Life Along the North Pacific Coast, writes:
“We believe in reincarnation of people and animals. We believe that the dead can visit this world and that the living can enter the past. We believe that memory survives from generation to generation. Our elders remember the past because they have lived it.”
Writing in 1817 about one Lenni Lenape man, Christian missionary John Heckewelder, in his book
History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations Who Once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States, reports:
“He asserted very strange things, of his own supernatural knowledge, which he had obtained not only at the time of his initiation, but at other times, even before he was born. He said he knew that he had lived through two generations; that he had died twice and war born a third time, to live out the then present race, after which he was to die and never more to come to this country again.”
In European traditions, in the sixth century BCE the Greek philosopher Pythagoras taught a doctrine of reincarnation or transmigration of the soul. Pythagoras claimed that he had once lived at the Trojan Euphorbus who had been slain at Troy.
How is reincarnation controlled?
In some religious traditions, such as that of Hinduism and Buddhism, reincarnation is controlled by a natural law often called karma which refers to the actions, works, and deeds of a person’s life. As a person acts in one life, so he or she enjoys happiness or sorrow in the next.
In some religious traditions, reincarnation is controlled or directed by supernatural entities such as gods. For example, with regard to reincarnation, one Umbanda manual states:
“Reincarnation is a divine precept of the Father, through which he rewards or punishes, according to each person’s merit, since reincarnation has the following as its predetermined ends: to rescue the individual from errors and sins committed in previous lives; to furnish spiritual development for the individual; and to impose on each new arrival certain missions of great importance which must be fulfilled while on Earth.”
Other questions?
This is Street Prophets Saturday, an open thread. You are encouraged to post additional questions, answers, affirmation, and skepticism in the comments.
