Reincarnation and Past Lives Essay Example for Free

spiritual rebirth and Past Lives EssayReincarnation is the belief that when one dies, ones luggage compartment decomposes but something of oneself is reborn in other body. It is the belief that one has lived before and will live again in a nonher body after wipeout. The bodies one passes in and out of need not be human. One may have been a Doberman in a historical intent, and one may be a mite or a carrot in a future life. Some tribes avoid eating certain animals because they believe that the individuals of their ancestors dwell in those animals. A man could even mystify his own daughter by dying before she is born and and then entering her body at birth.The belief in past lives used to be mainly a belief found in Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but now is a central tenet of much woo-woo ilk dianetics and channeling. In those ancient Eastern religions, reincarnation was not considered a good thing, but a bad thing. To achieve the state of ultimate bl iss (nirvana) is to go from the wheel of rebirth. In most, if not all, ancient religions with a belief in reincarnation, the soul entering a body is seen as a metaphysical demotion, a sullying and impure rite of passage.In New Age religions, however, being born again seems to be a kind of perverse goal. Prepare yourself in this life for who or what you want to come back as in the next life. Belief in past lives also opens the door for New Age therapies such as past life regression therapy, which seeks the causes of todays psychological problems in the experiences of previous lives. L. Ron Hubbard, author of Dianetics and the founder of Scientology, introduced his own version of reincarnation into his new religion. According to Hubbard, past lives need auditing to get at the root of ones troubles. He also claims that Dianetics gave impetus to Bridey Murphy and that some scientologists have been dogs and other animals in previous lives (A Note on Past Lives in The Redisc everywherey of the Human Soul).According to Hubbard, It has only been in Scientology that the mechanics of death have been thoroughly understood. What happens in death is this the Thetan (spirit) finds itself without a body (which has died) and then it goes looking for a new body. Thetans will hang around people. They will see a woman who is pregnant and follow her down the street. Then, the Thetan will stumble into the newborn usually two or three minutes after the delivery of a child from the mother.A Thetan usually picks it up about the time the ball up takes its first gasp. How Hubbard knows this is never revealed. Channeling, like past life regression, is distinct from reincarnation, even though it is based on the same essential concept death does not put an end to the entirety of ones being. In classical reincarnation, something of the consciousness of the deceased somehow enters a new body but as that body grows only one unified consciousness persists through time.Channeling might b e called temporary intermittent past life invasion because at that place is a flood tide and going of the past life entity, which always remains distinct from the present self-conscious being. For example, JZ Knight claims that in 1977 the spirit of a Cro-Magnon warrior who once lived in Atlantis took over her body in order to pass on bits of wisdom hed picked up over the centuries. Knight seems to be carrying on the work of Jane Roberts and Robert Butts, who in 1972 hit the merchandise with Seth Speaks. Knight, Roberts, and Butts are indebted to Edgar Cayce, who claimed to be in touch with many of his past lives.One would think that channeling might muck things up a bit. afterwards all, if various spirits from the past can enter any body at any time without destroying the present person, it is possible that when one remembers a past life it is actually someone elses life one is remembering. From a philosophical point of view, reincarnation poses some interesting problems. What is it that is reincarnated? Presumably, it is the soul that is reincarnated, but what is the soul? A disembodied consciousness? Reincarnation does seem to offer an explanation for some strange phenomena such as the ability of some people to regress to a past life under hypnosis.Also, we might explain child prodigies by claiming that unlike most cases of reincarnation where the soul has to more or less perplex from scratch, the child prodigy somehow gets a soul with great carryover from a previous life, giving it a decided advantage over the rest of us. Reincarnation could explain why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people they are being rewarded or punished for actions in past lives (karma). One could explain deja vu experiences by claiming that they are memories of past lives. Dreams could be interpreted as a kind of soul travel and soul memory.However, past life regression and deja vu experiences are best explained as the recalling of events fr om this life, not some past life. Dreams and child prodigies are best explained in terms of brainpower structures and genetically inheritable traits and processes. And since bad things also happen to bad people and good things also happen to good people, the most reasonable belief is that there is no design to the distribution of good and bad happening to people. Stories, especially stories from children, that claim knowledge of a past life, abound.One collector of such stories was the shrink Ian Stevenson, who made a weak case that the stories offered scientific evidence for reincarnation. Finally, since there is no way to tell the difference between a baby with a soul that will go to heaven or hell, a baby with a soul that has been around before in other bodies, and a baby with no soul at all, it follows that the idea of a soul adds nothing to our concept of a human being. Applying Occams razor, both the idea of reincarnation and the idea of an unceasing soul that will go to hea ven or hell are equally unnecessary.Referencehttp//www.skepdic.com/reincarn.html