is reincarnation real or just a belief?

Vic Shayne
author
Consciousness: The Potentiality of All Existence: Exploring reality and belief as a subjective experience

The late Ian Pretyman Stevenson, psychiatrist and founder of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, has had a resurrection of sorts. His name comes up often in spirituality circles when a serious discussion arises about whether reincarnation is real. In the 1960s Stevenson wrote a seminal book called Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. It was a landmark work, despite other books on the market covering the same topic. The difference is that Stevenson was a credible, credentialed medical doctor who prided himself on thorough research. He lived the life of an investigator, traveling around the world to find out if claims of reincarnation were verifiable. His case subjects were children, because unlike adults, children before the age of 7 are not yet versed in matters of history, psychology, sociology, or religion.

we cannot quite say for certain
When it comes to reincarnation we have everything but the absolute proof connected to the end of claims, coincidences, detailed accounts, corroborative experiences, and life experiences. For this reason, even Stevenson’s successors over the past 50 years are quick to say that all their evidence is still not proof. Stevenson’s seminal book was called 20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, with the key word being “suggestive,” because he knew that proof is not evidence.

Stevenson was able to match his subjects’ statements to facts about the their former lives). His successor Jim Tucker, MD, wrote that Stevenson made painstaking efforts to determine exactly what the various children (subjects) reported, and then he verified that their statements matched the lives of the individuals they claimed to be remembering. Stevenson’s book “consisted of detailed case reports that included lists of every person he had interviewed, along with lengthy tables in which each statement the child had made about a previous life was listed along with the informant for that statement and the person or persons who verified that it was correct for the life of the deceased individual.”

A reviewer in the Journal of the American Medical Association, wrote: ‘‘In regard to reincarnation he [Stevenson] has painstakingly and unemotionally collected a detailed series of cases…in which the evidence is difficult to explain on any other grounds.’’ The reviewer added: ‘‘He has placed on record a large amount of data that cannot be ignored’.’

what is it that reincarnates?
If you are interested, you can watch Jim Tucker, Ian Stevenson, and others from the Division of Perceptual Studies online. But besides all of their work, the case for reincarnation leads to the question of what it is that reincarnates. Obviously, the physical body dies at some point, whether by sickness, old age, or accident, but what is it that carries over from one lifetime to the next?

The Hindus and ancient Greeks spoke of a soul as a non-corporeal body that inhabits the physical body. The existence is one of downward causation — the subtle, nonphysical body creates and operates the physical body. Despite that the physical body dies, the subtle body continues its existence. From here, some “thing,” some essence, is united with a new body, usually through physical birth.

To add more confusion and complication to this topic, there are certain teachers of self-enquiry — Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, Krishnamurti, etc. — who have stated that reincarnation is not what it seems to be. What are they talking about?

it all points back to the sense of self
We must return to a topic that I have written about extensively: the sense of self. Briefly, the self is what we take ourselves to be, based on what we have been told we are by authority figures, parents, teachers, culture, etc., since an early age. The self is made out of thoughts and is not any more real than any belief system and is founded on attachments and identities. It is this self that persists as an idea that we are individuals living apart from, and in contrast to, the physical world, nature, animals, objects, and people. The self is perceived as an individual separate from consciousness. As such, it forms a very strong resistance to physical death and departure from all the ideas it depends upon for its perceived existence. It is this self that believes it reincarnates out of fear of death and attachment to people and things in each lifetime.

the reincarnation of mental tendencies
Ramana Maharshi spoke of “mental tendencies,” which are ways we tend to think based upon our conditioning and our experiences that have impressed our minds in various ways. Mental tendencies survive physical death unless a person has fully realized the falsehood of the self and all that it deems essential and important to its existence. So, the body dies and the sense of self continues on in its pattern of desire, wanting, self-interest, preservation of relationships, and attachments. Reincarnation, so the theory goes, ends when the self ends. But does the self end?

Ramana said, “The wrong identification of one thing with another is the work of the contaminated mind…Similarly, over-powered by activity (rajas), it identifies itself with the body and, appearing in the manifested world as ‘I’, mistakes this ego for the reality. Thus, swayed by love and hatred, it performs good and bad actions, and is, as the result, caught up in the cycle of births and deaths.”

in the end there is no proof of reincarnation
In the end, the materialists are correct when they say there is no proof for reincarnation; it is just a belief. But what the materialists do not realize is that they too are believers and they too are heir to the falsehoods, deceptions, delusions, and illusions of the self — simply because they are conditioned human beings who have attached themselves to the world of ideas, memories, and the physical body.

There is a trove of studies and research on reincarnation, including anecdotal stories, hypnotherapy sessions, past life recall, and the work at the Division of Perceptual studies. They are interesting and point to compelling coincidental circumstances. But is reincarnation a real phenomenon? It’s most truthful to say that we do not know; and we should have no problem in not knowing.

But how can reincarnation be proven? In short, it cannot. This doesn’t mean that Stevenson wasn’t successful, but it begs the question of whether some things are just impossible to prove because they lie outside the means of scientific methodology. And, more importantly, evidence is not proof. Evidence may point to the proof, but it is not proof itself. So what are we left with after all of Stevenson’s evidence has been presented? We have information pointing to something curious and compelling regarding the nature of life, death, and an existence that is beyond the physical laws of the universe.

science is not the authority
There are many, many things about our experience as beings of consciousness that cannot be adequately explained, with reincarnation and thought being two of them. Physics, philosophy, biology, and neuroscience cannot prove that we have thoughts, because they cannot see, hear, taste, smell, or feel thoughts. And science cannot prove that you know that you are alive and what it feels like to be alive, yet you know that you are. So, clearly, science is not the answer to all of our unanswered queries, no matter how much authority any scientist can speak with.

If you are curious about reincarnation, a qualified hypnotherapist may be able to help you remember a past life, and you can dive into the work of Stevenson’s 50-plus year-old research facility. But if you are trying to prove the reality of reincarnation to others you may want to save your energy.