Reincarnation

The word "reincarnation" derives from Latin, literally meaning, "entering the flesh again". The Greek equivalent metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις) roughly corresponds to the common English phrase "transmigration of the soul" and also usually connotes reincarnation after death. Reincarnation may be said to be a repertoire of states of consciousness which guides our behaviour in productive adaptive ways.

Some southern European Christians believed in reincarnation until the Council of Nice banned such beliefs in 553 A.D. In The Republic, Plato described souls about to be reborn as choosing their future lives. Schopenhauer took it seriously, and Voltaire's observation that it is no more surprising to be born twice than once is well known. In Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Carl Jung wrote that as a boy he remembered in great detail being a very old man in the eighteenth century. Yet most scientists nowadays do not believe in survival after death. Presumably Darwinian ideas contributed to a sort of dethroning of the soul.

However, more than half the world’s people believe in reincarnation. What is the basis of this belief? Is it rooted in delusions or wishful thinking? Or, is there a tangible basis for such ideas?

The philosopher David Hume said, in his essay ‘Of the immortality of the soul’  – Metempsychosis is …. The only system of this kind that philosophy can hearken to. Some philosophers, psychologists and thinkers admit that reincarnation is a very sensible idea, because it would answer so many questions and problems about human existence.

Charles Darwin had concluded that that human facilities are a result of their evolutionary history. Neurotheologists have further expanded on this, saying - If reincarnation is true and Darwin right, then isn’t reincarnation evolutionary adaptation that contributed to the survival of our species.

A human being has a bio-plasma body, which the evidence tells us must contain a structure of consciousness - the soul. The soul has structured the bio-plasma by recording the essence of a person’s life experience. Because bio-plasma is a property of living matter an unborn child would also have a bio-plasma, but would not yet have had any concrete experiences that would form a soul structure in the bio-plasma. At a certain stage the unborn human child, in short, does not yet have a soul. Therefore, when a person dies, their soul must be transmitted to an unborn child, which then structures the bio-plasma of the child with the bio-plasmic pattern of the dying person’s soul. The death and transfer are part of the method of the evolution of consciousness.

If child psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as paediatricians, family doctors, and parents, would listen to children and observe them with reincarnation in mind, they would make valuable discoveries. Children often seem to express memories of previous lives in their play and sometimes in their drawings.

Dr. Ian Stevenson, an academic psychiatrist, led the study of reincarnation in the United States until his death in 2007. The lab, which later became known as the Division of Perceptual Studies, focuses on examining children who remember former lives, near-death experiences, apparitions and after-death communications, out-of-body experiences and deathbed visions.

Dr. Stevenson, who often called reincarnation the "survival of personality after death," saw the existence of past lives as a potential explanation for the differences in human condition. He believed past experiences plus genetics and the environment could help elucidate gender dysphoria, phobias and other unexplained personality traits.

To sum it up, the question often asked is, if rebirth is possible, is there any scientific basis for believing in rebirth? Since time immemorial, man has been struggling to find a solution to this mystery but conclusive evidence has thus far eluded him. Can science uphold the belief in rebirth? It is beyond the current tools of science to definitively prove the general theory of reincarnation to a sceptical public. Likewise, it is also beyond the tools of modern science to disprove it.