Reincarnation – A Controversial Concept | I of V 4 March 2020 – Posted in: Reflections – Tags:

An overview

In the Northern hemisphere, the spring equinox is upon us – on Friday 20 March to be precise. The Anglo Saxon’s associated this time of year with Ostara, a goddess of rebirth, who represents the dawn and budding plants. Predating and including the Anglo-Saxon era, people believed in gods and goddesses for things that helped them explain life, why there are seasons, why there are strange meteorological events. It was a way to explain what they didn’t understand. What was outside of their own doing or creating – if there was a flood, the god or goddess of water was unhappy. To have Ostara, the goddess of rebirth, was a way of celebrating the end of winter, the rebirth of the land, budding plants for food and the birth of animals. So, it is easy to associate in the Northern hemisphere this time of the year, the spring equinox, when the light of day and the dark of night are equal, as a time of rebirth.

Then, of course, Easter is only a few weeks later, also a time that is represented by rebirth. The symbology of Easter is mostly represented by eggs and baby animals chicks, lambs and rabbits.  But I wonder if this symbology is closer to that of Ostara. Easter is meant, in part, to celebrate the resurrection of Christ three days after his death. Which, as a Spiritualist, clearly demonstrates to me it was the spirit of Christ that rose up after his death. Nevertheless, whether you are religious or not, it is a time associated with birth (rebirth)/ resurrection/ life, dare I add; life after death.

 

 

 

 

 

It only seems fitting to start posting this blog series on the hot topic of reincarnation and the theories I’ve encountered, over this time of birth, rebirth and resurrection. I have struggled to come to my own conclusions on the matter over a number of years. By sharing my thoughts on the various theories, I thought it would give you pause for thought and things to consider and contemplate in order to make your own conclusions.

The topic of reincarnation has been a controversial one for aeons. The Egyptians were obsessed with life, death and rebirth. Buddhists are of the philosophy that the soul has multiple human life experiences to learn lessons until it reaches oblivion or Nirvana depending on which Buddhist philosophy you follow, this will be discussed further in section IV. The topic of reincarnation has been the focal point of many interesting debates. In reality, past lives and the soul living multiple physical (human) lives to learn lessons has never really settled with me, mainly because I haven’t found any compelling proof or evidence to convince me.

The ankh is the ancient Egyptian symbol for physical life, eternal life, immortality, death, and reincarnation

Now, I will say, if you are a firm believer in reincarnation because of your experiences, whether they be through past life regression sessions, hypnosis, reading about it or just your belief, that is wonderful, and I wouldn’t want to take that away from you. However, for me, there is no firm evidence to prove to me that our individual soul experiences more than one human life. I have used the word individual. Because it is my understanding that each of us is an individual. None of us has the same DNA, magnetic energy, mind-consciousness or even experiences. We might have the same parents, but we will have individual experiences of them. If 100 people watched the same play, they would all interpret and experience it individually. Each person reading this blog series will experience it individually and have their own thought process on it.

To my reckoning, there are three core theories that I have come across and that I will try to rationalise each concept within this series. Each theory has its own philosophy to try to convince in favour of the soul reincarnating into multiple physical life experiences. For each, I give my own theory or reason why I am not convinced by the soul living multiple lives.  The three categories are listed below.

    1. Hypnosis/ mesmerism/ past life regression theory;
    2. Children recounting ‘a past life’ theory;
    3. Karma – the religious-based theory;
    4. My own conclusion.

Due to the vastness of the topic, it will be covered over 5 blogs, as a series, starting with this one. The next part to be published on the reincarnation series is Hypnosis/ mesmerism/ past life regression theory.