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to reside in after death. Plato taught
the migration of a fixed number of
souls. Pythagoras, another Greek
philosopher and mathematician,
claimed in past lives he had been a
Trojan warrior, a prophet burned to
death, a peasant, the wife of a shop–
keeper anda Phoenician prostitute.
In its divers forms reincarna–
tion is an important part of many
Oriental religions. Simply stated,
reincarnation is the belief that
after death a person's ..soul"
takes up residence at birth in
another human body, an animal,
an insect or even a plant, until
death of the receptacle once again
causes the ..soul" to migrate.
There are different ideas as to
where "souls" come from and
where tbey are headed. The most
prevalent bel ief, is that through a
process of many reincarnations
humans finally attain a state of
perfection. The Hindu religion
has perhaps the most complex set
of beliefs.
A "Better Llfe"
The idea of reincarnation carries
with it the hope for a better life
(or lives) in the future. A lecturer
put it this way: "The process of
reincarnation is man's drive to
become perfect. EventuaJiy every
man will be divine."
The sufferings of this life are
assumed to become more bear–
able, or more understandable.
Consider the following note,
left by a student who committed
suicide because he deeply yearned
for a better life: "What. do
1
expect to achieve by this?" the
seventeen-year-old son of a psy–
chiatrist wrote. " Ancient sages of
India as well as sorne modern phi–
losophers say the soul incarnates
itself many times on its way to
perfection.
1
am merely jumping
one life in hopes of a better
one ... I'm rid of .. . this roast–
ing weather, the torture of four
more years of school and two
more years of detestable military
life, the threat of having to go
into sorne sort of monotonous
manual labor."
To him, reincarnation seemed
to offer escape from this life's
problems.
Reincarnation attracts people
28
plagued with doubt. The inequi–
ties of this life are only tempo–
rary; they will be rectified in a
future life, they hope.
Current lnterest
There are other reasons for the
increased interest in reincarna–
tion: psychology and parapsycho–
logy.
To sorne extent this facet of the
subject has been sensationalized
by stories of famous individuals,
usually in the entertainment
industry, who claim to have had
past "lives." For example, one
periodical recently told of severa]:
a stage personality who said she
was Queen Hatshepsut (explain–
ing that since childhood she has
felt an "eerie link" with Egypt
and made drawings of camels and
pyramids when she was three
years old). A well-known mu–
sician who credits his musical tal–
ents to a previous life as Stephen
Foster. An actor who believes he
was a cowboy in the OId West.
An actress who thinks she was a
Christian who was fed to the lions
in ancient Rome.
One of the most prominent
persons seriously examining rein–
carnation today is Dr. Jan Steven–
son of the University of Virginia
School of Medicine. For the last
twenty years he has been objec–
tively exploring the subject. He
has files jammed with reports on
sorne 1,
700
subjects he has inves–
tigated. These a re individuals
who claim to have lived previous
Ji
ves.
Sorne of the stories of those who
claim to be reincarnated raise
questions that cannot be adequate–
ly answered by standard explana–
tions. There are the publicized
cases such as Bridey Murphy, who
had never been to Ireland and yet
who spoke of a place in Cork called
the Meadows. Or Dolores Jay, a
Virginia housewife who claimed to
have been murdered in Germany
one hundred years ago, and who,
under hypnosis, could speak Ger–
man, though Dolores Jay had nev–
er been exposed to anyone who
spoke the language.
Many other accounts have
been compiled where previous
existences have been "recalled,"
usually under hypnosis. For
example, one man suffering con–
stant migraine headaches, suppos–
ed1y revealed under bypnosis that
as an officer in the Air Force dur–
ing World War 11 he had gotten
drunk and walked into a whirling
airplane propeller that cut off his
head. A check of official military
records revealed the death in
1942 of just such an officer with
the exact serial number given
under hypnosis.
There are many similar cases
where individuals apparently are
able to accurately recall details of
circumstances and locations
where they have never been in
their present lives. How can this
be explained?
Such strange recollections are
to Dr. Stevenson at least "sugges–
tive of reincarnation." However,
Dr. Stevenson confides:
" 1
have
to admit that the results in para–
psychology [the study of psychic
phenomena] aren't that good.
There have been no great break–
throughs."
Cases indicating reincarnation
are set forth in the book
Psychíc
Voyages.
" But," the author adds,
"there may be other explanations.
The first that springs to mind is
that tbey are all due to fraud or
sorne sort of delusion. However,
there are too many anecdotes and
too many carefully investigated
cases on record for this easy solu–
tion to be acceptable. The
only
other
explanation that seems at
all tenable is that the alleged
memories of former lives are
acquired by extrasensory percep–
tion." (Emphasis ours.)
Extrasensory perception. That
means perceiving information
from other than " normal" senso–
ry channels. Keep that in mind
because we shall come back to
it.
Other phenomena have also
been offered to explain the con–
cept of reincarnation, but such
phenomena as childhood fears,
alter-personalities, "st range
memories," recurrent dreams and
sexual identity problems bave
other possible explanation than
reincarnation.
So to many people the belief in
reincarnation seems to offer solu-
The
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