George, there is no evidence for belief in reincarnation in the Bible or in the Judaism of late antiquity.  I challenge you to find a single example.  You cite Jesus' reference to the need to be "born again."  The Greek here literally means "born from above" and refers to spiritual transformation and the resulting change of relationship with God.  No modern biblical scholar takes this as a reference to reincarnation.

Matthew to Seraphis: "Many hypnotic therapists like Michael Newton write of linnear reincarnation as a way human souls "get it right" or achieve things/work their way through problems.  If all incarnations are simultaneous in the mental planes, then there is no sequential learning from previous lives..."

I agree with Matthew's reply to Seraphis.  I would only add that Seraphis misses the point: possession creates the illlusion that the memories of the possessing entity are the past life memories of the posessed person.  So when the past life recall of young children recalls a prior personality who was still alive after the child's birth, the natural and documented way to construe this is spirit merger rather than simultaneous reincarnation.

Matthew: "First, Don - where were you before you were born, and what was your state of consciousness?"

Of course, the prior question ia whether I existed at all before I was born.  The Bible does imply a belief in the preexistence of the soul, in which sin can be committed and future divine callings can be experienced.  I have no idea what this means in terms of actual prenatual experience.  But it certainly need not imply reincarnation on this earth. 

Matthew: "Second question is, why does reincarnation have to be an all or nothing proposition?  If a stuck soul was bound to the earth life system and could not ascend to a higher heaven based on love, due to earthly attachments, does it not make sense that the soul would find a way back to earth and reincarnate if it were possible - even if it meant a loss of memory?"'

You point to a theoretical possibility that I don't categorically deny.  But there is no evidence for this.  My point in this thread is that reincarnation (linear or parallel) lacks evidence that cannot be interpreted with equal validity as spirit mergers or clairvoyance.
 So why not avoid need-based belief and just keep an open mind?

Matthew: " Also, how do you account for TMI people visiting focus 27 and going over their past lives or incarnations there?  All just a belief system?"

These TMI people are precisely the sort that ES refutes through the corrections revealed to him on higher heavenly planes.  Like attracts like and determined reincarnationists can always band together to reinforce arbitrary beliefs, perhaps much to the amusement of lurking spirits into whose memories these innocents unconsciously tap.  On the other hand, ES's refutations were not directed against the New Agers of his day.  Such New Agers did not yet exist!  ES has no ideological ax to grind here.  Besides. unlike believers in karmic linear reincarnation believers in parallel reincarnation can offer no compelling justification for why such reincarnations are necessary. 

Don

No, George, I'm afraid it's your problem, not mine. Modern Bible scholars universally recognize that everything you just said is false.  There is no evidence for reincarnation belief in first and second century Palestine.  And except for a very few minority Christian sects (the Basilideans, Carpocratians, and Elchasaites), there is no Christian belief in reincarnation in late antiquity.  I have read the many relevant documents on this issue and you have not.  Give me at least one primary ancient text in support of your claims.  You need to know what you don't know before you pontificate on subjects on which you have little or no formal education. 

Don

Berserk2 wrote on Jan 6^th, 2010 at 12:03am:


Hi berserker: The Universe just 'IS'. It has no rational, yet is ultimately completely rational.

Answer me this: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

S.

smidee wrote on Jan 6^th, 2010 at 10:53am:


Hi Don: It used to be in the bible much of it was purged under the Constantine's Nicean Councel consolidation of the writings. google bible reincarnation you may find some interesting references..

S.

Maybe the real question we need to address is this: What difference does it make whether reincarnation exists or it doesn't?

Suppose we had incontrovertible evidence that it's true.  How would that change our life? 

Or if we had similarly irrefutable evidence that it's not true.  What would be our reaction?

In other words, what is really the subtext behind the obsessive debate?  Is it fear of death?  Is it fear that our unique identity might be extinguished when we die?

Maybe it's the fear that we really need to deal with, and not whether reincarnation is true or not.

Because the former can be dealt with, whereas the latter will never be resolved.  At least not in this lifetime.

R

Aside from biblical doctrine, for me a key issue is, what is our unfettered conscious mind capable of doing?  We hear that in Focus 27, we have access to virtually unlimited information.  I have heard that Cayce, the sleeping mystic would freely access these archives to come up with cures for various ailments.  Yet when I looked at what was prescribed as a cure, the ingredients fell short of any modern medically accepted treatment.  For example, as a physician, I could tell that Castor oil and cod liver oil supplements would have little to no effect on systemic lupus - yet there it was.  Cayce came back after an astral journey, and told this woman with lupus to take it in order to heal her lupus.  Parenthetically, it should be noted that many of cases remedies found in Cayce's  akashic records were popular remedies of his time (such as cleansing enemas), which have since fallen out of favor by modern medicine....

From the above, one may conclude that while here on earth, our abilities to access this limitless information may be colored by our own preconceptions, or that the limitless information isn't in fact there - (I prefer the notion that while incarnate, our brains misinterpret information from the mental planes). 

Now as to reincarnation, a similar issue comes up.  What can we do with our consciousness after we die?  We can clearly explore and travel in our plane according to how loving we are (our vibratory rate of love so to speak).  Yet incarnating in the physical world seems to be unrelated to love, since the world is full of both hateful and loving souls in a mixture. 

Bruce had found a reincarnation center where people were line up into little condensed curls waiting to be injected into physical reality. 

Is that possible?  If not, why not?  From my perspective, our belief systems seem to limit us the most, or free us up to experience more.  In that regard, a reincarnationists beliefs may facilitate true reincarnation on the earth plane - whether or not that is a spiritually desireable thing to do.

I suppose for me, I have the most trouble with the Eastern notion of the "wheel of karma" whereby we are all destined to be helplessly drawn back time and again to reincarnate until we give up egoistic thinking and we become enlightened (which, according to most Eastern thought is very rare).  This "forced or inevitable" reincarnation theory bugs me, as it strips us of our free will, and assumes that after we die, we will be plagued by illusions until we are tricked or seek out a willing womb to be reborn into (Bardo Thodol - Tibetan Book of the Dead). 

Matthew

DocM wrote on Jan 6^th, 2010 at 4:53pm:


Hi M: I don't remember much of my EC stuff, but, didn't those who folowed his weird perscriptions get cured in all cases??

S.

Hi Seraphis,

I'm a full believer in Free will, but not in being bound helplessly to the wheel of karma.  You see, I disagree with your premise.  We always have free will; the freedom to act lovingly or hatefully in any situation.  The more lovingly we act, the more love is given to us.  The more unlovingly we act, the more misery comes to us.  In that sense, the law of Karma holds.  However, your premise that one who acts ruthlessly gives up free will rings false to me.  More likely, one who acts hatefully, ruthlessly will continue to do so, and will use free will to confine themselves into environments both on earth and in the afterlife, where they can continue to act that way.

However, we are perceptive thinking beings.  We are bound only in that we don't exert our intent and will in a positive way.  There is no prior action that permanently binds us.  We can forgive ourselves.  Seek the forgiveness of others, and move on.  Make new choices, and the karmic merry-go-round is broken. 

     Free will is there, always, unless we forget and lose our ability to move on.


Matthew