the answers would probably depend on the background...many eastern traditions would certainly point in this direction, while Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions would definitely not. 

I have always found it very interesting to consider the near-hybrid motif that is present in Native American traditions, where there is a close bonding and reverence between the souls of animals and humans.


What a great topic for today, in light of the fact that today is the Feast Day of St. Francis, a patron of animals who completely saw the divine purpose and spirit of the animal kingdom.

dave_a_mbs wrote on Oct 4^th, 2006 at 2:01pm:


So what you're saying is that the soul stayed consistant, but it was the body incarnated into which was different.
So whats the thoughts on human bodies being occupied by souls other than human souls?

I don't know how animal reincarnation works. Different sources say different things so I can't go by them.

Here's what makes sense to me.

Every soul is precious and divine, regardless of what kind of body it wears for a while. It is only human vanity which causes some of us to believe that there is something more special about a human body, as compared to an alien or animal body.

Since animals have divine souls like the rest of us, perhaps they don't have to become human in order to spiritually evolve. I say this with the thought that sophistication doesn't come by being a life form that can sit down and take part in tea party. It comes by learning to become a spirit who can live according to love and wisdom.

Animals are probably more intelligent than people give them credit for. To the extent that their intelligence "is" more limited than human intelligence, perhaps these limitations drop away when they stop functioning through an animal body nervous system. Some people claim that they've run into former pets during near death experiences, and these former pets were intelligent. 

Consider a mentally challenged person. Do they remain mentally challenged when they cross over,  or does the absence of a limiting nervous system allow them to become intelligent again? They may be able to do so without going through a lengthy transition period. I've had expanded states of consciousness experiences which didn't require me to go through a lengthy transistion period.

If the process of creation is going to be explored thoroughly, there are all kinds of experiences and gifts that need to be brought back to the Godhead. Spirits that experienced animal incarnations bring back their unique experiences.

Plus, if the World ecosystem is going to work, some spirits need to play the role of an animal for a while. In a way spirits that incarnate as animals provide a special service to the overall plan.

There are so many animals that live on this planet  (including the huge number bred by human beings so they can be eaten),  it is hard to imagine that things would mathematically work out so that all animal spirits can eventually take on a human incarnation. Especially since human beings continue to have the need of making use of them. Plus if the disc/I-there/oversoul/higher self view is true, new incarnations don't have to start out from an unevolved form over and over and over again.

Also, perhaps animal oversouls freely exchange information with human oversouls. This could even be done while a self is incarnated in the physical. Sometimes when I talk to a person I wonder if my higher self communicates with this person's higher self.

In my personal experience doing clinical work, the only cases in which a person "retrogressed" to a prior animal state were accompanied by a displacement in time as well, and in all cases they were to learn a specific lesson - sort of "Let's go back and look and see how nicely God has arranged all this stuff," and then followed by more human experiences.

I've done only a hundred or so regressions in which I asked people to "go back as far as you can" to see what would turn up. I personally recall being something like a hundred versions of an ugly ape, but nothing earlier.

I have never encountered a case in which there was anything but the proper human owner who was in and operating a human body, although fairly often entities can stick on. These are generally confused souls who need some TLC, because they're afraid that God is going to whack them. There are also non-embodied energy forms, some self directed, some not, that can get attached to strong (and especially negative) emotions, but these are generally minor and cause no problems.

While I have no basis except what people have told me, I see no problem with the idea that God squirts out lifeform energies that then get nurtured to fruition as "real people". Of course it's not very dignified to view your past as a twinkle in the Creator's eye, followed by incarnation as a glob of slime - but mammalian reproduction isn't much better if you really think about it. (I actually think that God has a fantastic sense of humor!) And if you make the proper choices as a slimeball, you get to put on fur or feathers, and so on, until you arrive here where people are still arguing about karma, which is  the mechanism by which it all works.

It's actually extremely simple to master the very rudimentary hypnotic skills needed to send our friends into past lives. Then we can literally go back and discover these things directly, which has got to be better than having someone like me telling about them. In fact, if you're so inclined, Bruce's "Book Five" is a good introduction to "inner space" and will facilitate past life inquiry as well.
dave