Chapter 1
Reincarnation
A belief in reincarnation -- the rebirth of the soul into successive bodies -- is as old as mankind's recorded history and is held by millions of persons throughout the world today. Within religious groups we find a full spectrum stretching from those with a basic tenet demanding the acceptance by all believers to those officially denying that such belief has any validity. Even within the latter groups there are often to be found members who publicly accept this denial but privately sometimes wonder if just perhaps there might not be something in it.
The Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism, as well as in Egyptian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths, either permit or demand a belief in the idea of reincarnation.
The older form of this belief, at least as presented to the Western world, has been represented as a spiral moving upward from a wide base, ever lessening the area enclosed until the point of perfection is reached. It includes the concept of punishment for misdeeds resulting in particularly difficult lifetimes. This is sometimes given as the total meaning of karma but would actually cover only the partial concept of the negative side of karma.
No attempt will be made to cover the subject of karma in this presentation so perhaps it is important that we state at this point that our view of karma is simply that of cause and effect. What we sow in one lifetime whether it is negative or positive will be reaped in a future time. This accounts both for difficult times when a lesson previously refused is given again in a more rigorous setting and for the presence of qualities of genius in young children.
In the Western cultures, there has been an awakening in recent decades to many facets of mysticism, including the concept of reincarnation. To determine the extent of the acceptance of this belief in the US, a Gallup Poll was taken in 1981 which the Gallup Organization describes as the most comprehensive survey on beliefs about the afterlife that has ever been undertaken. It was addressed to adults 18 years old and over. The question asked on reincarnation was quite explicit: "Do you believe in reincarnation--that is, the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death--or not?"
Cranston and Williams have summarized the findings: The query was addressed not just to religious people.... but to the general United States adult population. George Gallup, Jr., reports: "Of those adults we polled, 23 percent, or nearly one-quarter, said they believe in reincarnation." There were 67 percent non-believers, and 10 percent had no opinion. Among women, there were 25 percent believers; among men, 21 percent. As to Protestants, 21 percent of the Baptists believed in rebirth, as did 22 percent of the Lutherans and 26 percent of the Methodists. Among Catholics the figure was 25 percent. As to the 23 percent of the adult population who believe in reincarnation, using as a base the 1981 population figures of 166 million who are 18 years old and over, that would mean over 30 million reincarnationists in the United States.
As one begins to investigate what it was that influenced the thinking of this large segment of the adults in the United States, the name of Edgar Cayce will be one of the foremost candidates for recognition. From his first encounter with the concept in 1923, his work in this field is reviewed by Dr. Gina Cerminara in her book, Many Mansions, The Edgar Cayce Story on Reincarnation. She has also analyzed Cayce's work and states:
"Let us now sum up the evidence that testifies to the validity of the life-reading material over and beyond the mass of evidence which incontrovertibly established the validity of his physical clairvoyance. This evidence consists in seven principal facts. They are as follows:
"First: Character analyses and descriptions of circumstances were correct, on total strangers, at distances of hundreds of miles and in thousands of instances.
"Second: Predictions of vocational abilities and other traits proved accurate in later years not only for adults, but also for newborn children.
"Third: Psychological traits were plausibly accounted for by presumable past-life experiences.
"Fourth: The data was self-consistent over a period of twenty-two years; that is to say, it agreed with itself, both in basic principle and in minute detail, in hundreds of separate readings taken at different times.
"Fifth: Obscure historical details have been verified by consulting recorded history; the names of obscure former personalities have been found in the locality where the reading says they can be found.
"Sixth: The readings had a helpful, transforming influence on the lives of persons who received and followed them; this was true psychologically, vocationally, and physically.
"Seventh: The philosophical and psychological system which is implicit in and deducible from the readings is coherent, consistent, sufficient to all known facts about mental life, and conducive to the discovery of new explanations for unexplained aspects of mental life. It agrees, moreover, with the ancient and honorable philosophical doctrine that has been taught in India for centuries.
"In short, seven strong inferential arguments support the Cayce life readings and the reincarnation principle which they affirm. Although inferential evidence is not necessarily conclusive, it is frequently valid."
Dr. Cerminara has presented here one method of "verifying" material which cannot be "tested" in a way that is satisfactory to many scientifically-trained minds. Parts of the above method could be applied only after extensive work over a period of many years. For the clairvoyants not having this volume of material and for those persons who have received their information through recall sessions, the only "test" available will often be the effect that knowledge of the material has in the present lives of those involved. Such is the case in dealing with the lifetime which this author believes her soul experienced concurrent with that of Jesus of Nazareth.
Many popular writers have served to "educate" people about this concept. Among them are Hans Holster, Born Again: the Truth About Reincarnation; Jess Stearn, Yoga, Youth and Reincarnation and his Search For a Soul; Taylor Caldwell's Psychic Lives; Dick Sutphen, Reincarnation - the Unanswered Questions; Ruth Montgomery, Here and Hereafter; Joan Grant, Winged Pharoah and several other titles; Taylor Caldwell, Dear and Glorious Physician and other of her novels which are believed to be based on past-life experiences; and more recently Shirley MacLaine, Out on a Limb and Dancing in the Light have served to "educate" people about this concept.
But as the Western scientific-type mind has considered these ideas, there has been seen to be gaps between the believed and the provable. Various groups and individuals, using various means, have done a great deal to eliminate or narrow these gaps.
Dr. Ian Stevenson, Carlson Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia Medical School and former chairman of that department has been one of the leaders in recognized scientific research in this area. Much of his work has been directed toward simply proving the reality of the concept of reincarnation. Even the usually conservative American Medical Association has spoken positively of his work: "In reviewing the first volume in Stevenson's series, 'Cases of the Reincarnation Type', the Journal of the American Medical Association spoke of the "meticulous and extended investigations," saying he has "painstakingly and unemotionally collected a detailed series of cases in which the evidence for reincarnation is difficult to understand on any other grounds. ... He has placed on record a large amount of data that cannot be ignored." (Dec. 1, 1975).
As a result of investigations conducted through another group, the Religious Research Foundation of America (RRFA) which was founded and led by Dr. Franklin Loehr who is both a research scientist and an ordained minister as well as an author, we have been given a better simile for viewing reincarnation than the traditional spiral.
The RRFA suggests that we think in terms of the soul having been given a gigantic, complex jigsaw puzzle to complete through earth experiences. Thus, what we might view as a "good" lifetime would simply be a time when the soul was working on a part of the "puzzle" which was well lighted and bright. While a "bad" lifetime (viewed by some to be a punishment) would rather be a time when the soul was working in a dark and dreary part of the picture. Not punishment, but simply another lesson to be learned before the soul can complete its assignment.
Another misconception corrected through RRFA research into past lives is that the entire soul comes into incarnation for each lifetime. Dr. John Christopher Daniels, the discarnate end of the channel working through and with RRFA puts it this way:
"The soul has many different earth-lives. The soul takes on many different physical bodies, and the soul takes on many different personalities.
"That, really, is the basic essence of what you call "reincarnation". It is this soul coming into earth-living many times. But earth-thinking has developed misconceptions. Earth-thinking has the personality coming back to earth many times. This is wrong. This is where the confusion enters in.
"That which you see in earth-living -- that which you call "people" -- is a particular personality and a particular body being used by a soul for a particular experience. The soul will use that particular personality and body for a certain number of years. Then that body and that personality are taken out of earth-living, and the body, being a physical thing and belonging only to the earth plane, goes back to the earth.
"The personality goes on. The soul will use the personality to experience other planes of living just as it uses the personality to experience the earth plane. But the soul does not bring that personality back into earth-living again."
This explanation of the difference between the soul and the personality solves the apparent conflict with those such as Ruth Montgomery who, in contact with the spirit of Arthur Ford (deceased), was told that none of the spirits he had come in contact with believed in reincarnation because none of them knew of anyone who had experienced it. Thus, those who believe in reincarnation are seen to be looking at the soul level, and those who do not are looking at the personality level.
Other questions frequently asked by students of this field center around sexuality of the soul and its expressions or incarnates. This area will be better understood after studying the following paragraph from Noreen Quinn's "She Can Read Your Past Lives":
"The soul in its total beingness contains dissimilar elements, individualized qualities, identified in the Earth phrase of "polar opposites." As one example and expression of this, the soul has what Earthbeings call a basically masculine side and a basically feminine side. In other realms of expression and experience, those beyond the Earth realm, the soul operates with a balance of these polar opposites. But when it is prepared for Earthliving, the soul is split down the middle, as it were, into the basic masculine half and the basic feminine half. This is for personality experience only. The basic masculine half proceeds into Earthliving, has experiences in both masculine and feminine Earth lives, and grows, learns, and expands its beingness by all those experiences. Likewise, the basic feminine half of the soul will have incarnation in both masculine and feminine frameworks. Then, in time, these two halves reunite, bringing to that union all the learning each has had."
A conflict which continues to exist among teachers in the field of reincarnation involves the number of lives each soul experiences on the earth. Some researchers such as Dick Sutphen have found evidence which they interpret to mean that a soul will have many concurrent lifetimes and possibly a total of thousands of earth-experiences.
We do not find fault with their research but believe that a different interpretation should be applied. Research through the RRFA reveals that the minimum-maximum incarnations upon the earth is from 50 to 200. Why the great difference between this and the research done by Sutphen and others?
As pointed out above it is principally one of interpretation. An earlier quotation from Roy Smith contained the following: "The personality goes on. The soul will use the personality to experience other planes of living...." Among the experiences of these discarnate personalities will be many in close connection with incarnate personalities which are usually from other souls. Thus the "parent" soul may experience the 20th Century through one incarnate and several discarnates at the same time. This, we believe, is what Sutphen and others are tapping into without distinguishing between incarnate and discarnate personalities.
As both the popular writings and the more scientific material increases in volume we find it being put to use for much more than the satisfaction of curiosity. The dust jacket of one such book states, "A Renowned Psychologist Shows How Your Present Problems and Anxieties Are the Result of What Has Happened to You in Your Past Incarnations, Stretching Back Centuries."