Considered a fanciful New Age notion by contemporary Americans, reincarnation is a foundation of the religious faith of much of the rest of the world. More people currently extant on the Planet Earth believe in reincarnation than do not. They take it very seriously and plan their behavior in this life with an eye on the ramifications it will have on the next one.

An Age-Old Tenet

Reincarnation is a basic tenet of Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as many other religions. Early Christian sects believed in reincarnation until the church dogma was codified some 400 years after the death of Jesus. Reincarnation, along with many other spiritual beliefs, was subsequently removed from the official scrolls and deemed to be heretical thought.

Plato believed in reincarnation. Voltaire wrote of it as a possibility. He said that if you are born once, why not again and again? General George Patton was surprisingly candid about his belief. He believed he was always being reincarnated as a warrior of some sort, from a belligerent cave man to a Roman soldier to one of Napoleon's officers, up to and including his most famous military incarnation. One wonders what army he is currently “being all he can be” in?

Pythagoras and his followers also believed in reincarnation. They believed that both humans and animals had souls that reincarnated after death. They also believed that, based on our behavior in this life, we would come back as another human or take an evolutionary step backward to a lower life form. Pythagoras and his followers did not use the word karma, but it is essentially the same thing as the Hindu/Buddhist concept.

Reincarnation has captured the imagination of people since the dawn of time. It is comforting to believe that if you don't quite get it right in this life, you will have an opportunity to try again the next time around.

It's All about Karma

Hindus and Buddhists believe in karma. As discussed in an earlier chapter, karma is the belief that there is a cosmic scorecard that keeps track of our comings and goings during our living and dying. Rewards and punishments are doled out based on our behavior. If you are a thoroughgoing S.O.B. in this lifetime and feel that you have gotten away scot-free when you give up your ghost, think again. Karma knows what evil lurks in the hearts (and deeds) of men and women. Payback is horrible, and inevitable. There is no escaping your karma. And, conversely, if you are a perpetual victim in this life, or a kindhearted and magnanimous soul, you will be rewarded in the next life based on your clean living and good deeds in this incarnation.

Writings on Reincarnation

Today, there is great interest in past lives among Europeans and Americans. While for Hindus and Buddhists, reincarnation is part of their faith, for those in the Western world, it is more of a secular pursuit. An Amazon.com search results in more than 700 reincarnation-related books. And not all of them are written by Shirley MacLaine!

Dr. Brian Weiss has a series of books about past lives and the intermediary period between lives, which in the Tibetan Book of TheDead is called the bardo state. This is the place where the “life review” occurs. The newly deceased takes a long hard look at the life just lived, sees what he or she can learn from the experience, and prepares for the next go-around. In this bardo state, according to Dr. Weiss's books, we meet the Ascended Masters, who also appear in Buddhist tradition. They are enlightened spiritual beings that once lived on earth and now guide and teach those of us remaining on the earth plane. Dr. Weiss is an M.D. and psychiatrist who, through hypnotizing patients to uncover buried traumas, ended up discovering their past lives and their encounters with the Masters, who are quite opinionated and vociferous for dead people.

Criticism

Lest we become too flippant, reincarnation is taken seriously by a great many people, and much of the criticism is unfair. For example, a common snipe is that everyone who believes in reincarnation claims to have been Henry VIII or Shakespeare or Marie Antoinette. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that most past lives recalled are pretty pedestrian peasant existences. They confirm cranky old Thomas Hobbes's credo that life is nasty, brutish, and short. It certainly describes the overwhelming majority of past lives recalled by contemporary people. And this makes perfect sense because until very recent times, the majority of the residents of this planet lived harsh, hazardous, and hardscrabble lives.

One of the main themes in Weiss's books is the reuniting of soul mates. This is another popular aspect of the New Age that is actually a very old idea.