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Is Reincarnation the Key to Life’s Mysteries?Awake!—1994 | June 8
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Is Reincarnation the Key to Life’s Mysteries?
Have you lived before?
Will you live again in some form of life after you die?
These questions may bring to mind the doctrine of reincarnation.
The New Encyclopædia Britannica defines “reincarnation” in the following way: “A belief in the rebirth of the soul in one or more successive existences, which may be human, animal, or, in some instances, vegetable.”
Reincarnation plays an important part in Eastern religions, particularly those that originated in India, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Among Hindus in India, for example, life is considered to be a continual cycle of death and rebirth.
In more recent times, however, the idea of reincarnation has come to fascinate many living in the Western Hemisphere, including a number of young people. According to a columnist writing in Canada’s Sunday Star, the reason for much of this interest “is the result of the impact of Eastern religious ideas upon our Western society, which began in the 1960s.”
Another reason for the interest in reincarnation is that certain celebrities have raised their voices and seriously asserted that they have lived one or more former lives. Also, radio, TV, magazines, and other news media have shown an interest in reincarnation, as have various professional people such as doctors and teachers.
All of this has aroused much curiosity. Thus, according to some polls, about a fourth of the people in Canada and the United States have professed some acceptance of reincarnation.
Claims of Former-Life Experiences
Actress Shirley MacLaine claimed in an interview with Phyllis Battelle in Ladies’ Home Journal that she has made several “trips” back in the stream of time. “I remember many of my past lives—sometimes I was a male, other times a female,” she said.
In the book Coming Back, Dr. Raymond Moody described experiments he conducted among his students and others. He said that through hypnosis he took them back to the time before their birth, and they claimed they had memories from former lives. One person said that he had lived as an Eskimo in an Eskimo community. Another asserted that he had lived during a ‘stone age,’ thousands of years ago.
Dr. Moody himself claimed that he had lived nine former lives. These varied from a life in the treetops as some kind of “prehistoric version of man” to a life in the days of the Roman Empire, when, he said, he was attacked and killed by a lion in the arena.
The use of hypnosis to take inquisitive people back to a supposed time before their birth has also been described as beneficial for others. Doctors have used it in treating emotional disorders. It is claimed that mysterious phobias have been relieved by tracing the problem back to some event in a former life. How valid is this idea?
Near-Death Experiences Related
Near-death experiences related by some people have served to popularize the idea of reincarnation. In the book Life After Life, Dr. Moody reports his findings about near-death experiences from some 50 people.
While their experiences have varied, Moody thinks that they form a pattern. These people had the feeling of journeying through a long, dark tunnel. They felt as if they were separated from their bodies, floating freely. They sensed that they were zooming up the tunnel toward a very bright light, and at the end of the tunnel, they saw long-dead family members. Finally, they awakened in their own bodies. However, not all have experienced each of these stages.
It is claimed that such experiences have had a positive effect on those who had them. If so, it should have helped them to lose their fear of death and should have given them the confidence that there is meaning to life. But that has not always been the case. Many continue to fear death and lack confidence in there being real meaning to life.
Those who believe in reincarnation say that they find in such experiences support for the idea that the human soul is reborn in different forms of life. But can any credibility be given to this doctrine? Does reincarnation really provide the key to life’s mysteries? Can we find any answer at all to the questions, Have you lived before? Will you live again? Do humans possess a soul that leaves the body at death? These questions will be discussed in the following articles.
[Blurb on page 4]
Reincarnation is fundamental to Eastern religions
[Picture on page 4]
Hindu wheel of life
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Reincarnation Phenomena ExplainedAwake!—1994 | June 8
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Reincarnation Phenomena Explained
ONE of the objections to the theory of reincarnation is that the vast majority of people on earth have no recollection at all of having lived before. Furthermore, they do not even think that they could have lived earlier lives.
It is true that we sometimes have a strange feeling of recognizing a person that we meet for the first time. A certain house, town, or scenic area may seem familiar to us, although we know that it is the first time we have been there. However, these things can be explained without having to resort to the theory of reincarnation.
For example, certain places in widely separated areas may be somewhat alike, so that when we visit a new place, we may feel that we have been there before, though we have not. Many houses, offices, shops, towns, and scenic areas in some parts of the world bear a similarity to their counterparts in other places. That they seem similar to what we have seen before is not proof that we have been in those places in a previous life. They just resemble places we are familiar with.
This is also true regarding people. Some are quite similar to others in appearance, even having what has been called a double. A person may have mannerisms that remind us of someone else still living or even of one who has died. But we have known those people in this present life, not in some former existence. Similarity in looks or personality does not mean that these people were known to us in a previous life. No doubt all of us have at times mistaken one person for another. But both of those individuals have been alive at the same time as you and not in some former life. It has nothing to do with reincarnation.
The Influence of Hypnosis
Even experiences under the influence of hypnosis can be explained without having to resort to the theory of reincarnation. Our subconscious mind constitutes a storehouse of information much more comprehensive than we may imagine. Information reaches this storehouse via books, magazines, TV, radio, and through other experiences and observations.
Much of this information is stored away in some hidden corner of our subconscious mind because we have no direct or immediate use for it. Our subconscious mind is somewhat like library books for which there is little present demand and that have therefore been put away on a secluded shelf.
However, under hypnosis, the subject’s consciousness is changed so that forgotten memories can surface. Some people interpret these as being of a former life, but they are nothing more than present-life experiences that we had temporarily forgotten.
There are, though, a few cases that may be more difficult to explain in a natural way. An example is when a person starts to speak another “language” under the influence of hypnosis. Sometimes the language is comprehensible, but often it is not. Those who believe in reincarnation may say that this is a language the person spoke in an earlier life.
Yet, it is well-known that speaking in so-called tongues also occurs when people are in a state of mystic or religious ecstasy. Those having such experiences are convinced that it has nothing to do with a former life but that they are being influenced by some unseen power in the present life.
Opinions vary as to what power this is. In a joint declaration by the Fountain Trust and the Church of England Evangelical Council, it was stated with regard to speaking in tongues: “We are also aware that a similar phenomenon can occur under occult/demonic influence.” So to assume that such phenomena are proof that we have lived a former life would be jumping to a false conclusion.
Near-Death Experiences
What, then, of the near-death experiences that people say they have had? These have been interpreted by some as proof that a person has a soul that lives on after the death of the body. But such experiences are far better explained in several natural ways.
In the March 1991 issue of the French scientific magazine Science & Vie, the different stages of near-death experiences are called “a universal prototype of hallucination” that has long been known. Similar experiences have not been restricted to those in near-death situations. They can also occur in connection with “fatigue, fever, epileptic attacks, drug abuse.”
A neurosurgery pioneer, Wilder Penfield, who operated on epileptics who were under local anesthesia, made an interesting discovery. He found that by stimulating different parts of the brain with an electrode, he could cause the patient to have the feeling of being outside his own body, traveling through a tunnel, and meeting dead relatives.
An interesting detail in this respect is that children who have had near-death experiences meet, not their dead relatives, but schoolmates or teachers—those who are still alive. This indicates that such experiences have a certain cultural connection. What is experienced is connected with the present life, not with something beyond death.
Dr. Richard Blacher writes in the magazine The Journal of the American Medical Association: “Dying, or suffering a perilous physical situation, is a process; death is a state.” As an example, Blacher speaks of a person who for the first time is flying from the United States to Europe. “The plane flight is not [being in] Europe,” he writes. The tourist who departs for Europe, but whose plane turns around and returns some minutes after the start, can’t tell people more about Europe than anyone returning from a coma can tell anyone about death.
Those who have been near death have, in other words, never actually been dead. They experienced something while they were still alive. And a person is still alive even seconds before his death. They were near death but not yet dead.
Even those whose heart has briefly stopped and who have then been revived cannot really remember anything from those moments of unconsciousness when they could have been termed “dead.” What they remember, if anything, would be what happened at the time approaching that brief interruption, not during it.
The published near-death experiences are almost always depicted as being positive, although it is known that negative experiences also occur. The French psychoanalyst Catherine Lemaire explains it in this way: “Those who haven’t experienced a [near death] fitting the pattern imposed by IANDS [International Association for Near-Death Studies] have no interest in telling their story.”
No Memory
The fact is that we have no experience of life other than that which we now live, neither a former life nor a life beyond death. Hence, we have no legitimate memories of anything but the life we have actually lived.
Those who believe in reincarnation say that the very meaning of being reborn is to get a new chance to better our situation. If we really had lived earlier lives, yet had forgotten them, such a loss of memory would constitute a great handicap. It is by remembering our mistakes that we can profit from them.
Also, those who uphold so-called reincarnation therapy feel that you can better cope with present problems if, by means of hypnosis, you can remember earlier lives. The theory says that we are born again in order to better something, yet we have forgotten what that something is.
A loss of memory in the present life is considered a handicap. It must be the same in this case. Objecting by saying that such forgetfulness does not matter, since only good people are reborn as humans, is not a sound argument in this day and age when wickedness dominates the world scene more than ever. If only good people are reborn as humans, where did all the wicked people come from? Should not there be fewer and fewer wicked people? The truth is: Nobody, good or wicked, is ever reincarnated to begin another life as a human or anything else for that matter.
However, you may say, ‘Is not reincarnation a Bible teaching?’ Let us consider this question in the next article.
[Blurb on page 6]
Our subconscious mind is like a library of information that has been put away but may be recalled later
[Blurb on page 7]
“Death is a state,” not a process.—Dr. Richard Blacher in The Journal of the American Medical Association
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Does God’s Word Teach Reincarnation?Awake!—1994 | June 8
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Does God’s Word Teach Reincarnation?
ANYONE examining the Bible in hopes of finding support for the doctrine of reincarnation is bound to be disappointed. Nowhere will you find that humans have lived former lives. Furthermore, you will not find such expressions as “reincarnation” or “transmigration of the soul” or “immortal soul” in the Bible.
However, some who believe in reincarnation try to explain this lack of Biblical support by saying that the idea of reincarnation was so common in ancient times that any explanation would have been superfluous. True, the doctrine of reincarnation is very old, but regardless of how old it is or how common it was or was not, the question still remains, Does the Bible teach it?
At 2 Timothy 3:16, 17, the apostle Paul wrote: “All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.” Yes, the Bible is God’s inspired Word, his communication to the human family. And as Paul wrote, it enables the honest inquirer to be “fully competent, completely equipped” to answer all the important questions about life, including questions about the past, present, and future.
Paul also stated: “When you received God’s word, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but, just as it truthfully is, as the word of God.” (1 Thessalonians 2:13) Since the Bible contains God’s thoughts, not those of imperfect man, it should not surprise us to find that the Bible frequently differs from man’s thoughts even if these have been popular throughout the years. But you may say, ‘Does not the Bible, in certain places, at least suggest reincarnation?’
Texts Wrongly Understood
Those who believe in reincarnation say that the Bible touches on the subject at Matthew 17:11-13, where Jesus connects John the Baptizer with the ancient prophet Elijah. This text reads: “‘Elijah, indeed, is coming and will restore all things. However, I say to you that Elijah has already come . . .’ Then the disciples perceived that he spoke to them about John the Baptist.”
In saying this, did Jesus mean that John the Baptizer was a reincarnation of the prophet Elijah? John himself knew that he was not. On one occasion when he was asked, “Are you Elijah?” John clearly answered: “I am not.” (John 1:21) It had, however, been foretold that John would precede the Messiah “with Elijah’s spirit and power.” (Luke 1:17; Malachi 4:5, 6) In other words, John the Baptizer was “Elijah” in the sense that he carried out a work comparable to that of Elijah.
At John 9:1, 2, we read: “Now as he [Jesus] was passing along he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him: ‛Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?’” Some who believe in reincarnation suggest that since this man was born blind, his sin must have occurred in a former life.
But whatever it was that gave rise to the disciples’ question, the answer Jesus gave must be the deciding factor. He declared: “Neither this man sinned nor his parents.” (John 9:3) This contradicts reincarnation, which implies that disabilities depend on sins from a former life. The point that nobody can sin before being born was also made by Paul when he wrote about Esau and Jacob that “they had not yet been born nor had practiced anything good or vile.”—Romans 9:11.
Resurrection, Not Reincarnation
Although the Bible does not support the reincarnation doctrine, nobody needs to feel disappointed. The Bible’s message offers something far more comforting than the idea of being reborn in a world filled with sickness, sorrow, pain, and death. And not only is what the Bible offers comforting but it is the truth, God’s own Word.
Paul expressed the encouraging doctrine in this way: “I have hope toward God . . . that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.” The word “resurrection,” or some form of it, occurs over 50 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures, and Paul speaks of it as a primary doctrine of the Christian faith.—Acts 24:15; Hebrews 6:1, 2.
Resurrection from the dead means, obviously, that death exists. Nowhere in the Bible will you find any hint that man has an immortal soul. If man had an immortal soul that separated from the body at death and went to an everlasting destiny in heaven or in hell or was reincarnated, then there would be no need for a resurrection. On the other hand, some one hundred Bible texts show that the human soul is, not immortal, but mortal and destructible. The Bible consistently speaks of death as being the opposite of life, that is, nonexistence as contrasted with existence.
Death, or nonexistence, was the punishment for Adam and Eve’s sin against God. It was a punishment, not an entryway to an immortal life somewhere else. God clearly declared that they would go back to where they came from—the dust of the ground: “Out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19) They had no immortal soul before they were created by God and put on earth, in the garden of Eden, and they had none after they died.
Resurrection from death is likened to awakening from sleep, or rest. For example, Jesus said of Lazarus whom he was going to resurrect: “Lazarus . . . has gone to rest, but I am journeying there to awaken him from sleep.” (John 11:11) Concerning the prophet Daniel, we read: “You will rest, but you will stand up for your lot at the end of the days.”—Daniel 12:13.
Eternal Life on Earth
What will be the lot of those who are resurrected from death? The Bible speaks of two kinds of resurrections—a heavenly one and an earthly one. The earthly resurrection is going to be the lot of the vast majority of those who have ever lived and died. Very few have a heavenly resurrection, to reign with Christ in the heavenly Kingdom of God. (Revelation 14:1-3; 20:4) When will the earthly resurrection begin? It will begin after this present wicked system is destroyed by God and “a new earth,” a righteous new human society, has become a reality.—2 Peter 3:13; Proverbs 2:21, 22; Daniel 2:44.
In the “new earth,” there will be no more sickness or suffering. Even death will no longer exist but will be replaced by the prospect of eternal life. “[God] will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) Also, the psalmist foretold: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” (Psalm 37:29) Similarly, Jesus stated: “Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit the earth.”—Matthew 5:5.
Compare those grand promises of God with the doctrine of reincarnation. According to that idea, it is assumed that you return time after time to live in this same corrupt old system of things. That would mean you would continue to be surrounded by wickedness, suffering, sickness, and dying in an almost endless cycle. What a hopeless outlook that is!
Thus, the Bible answers the questions, Have you lived before? and, Will you live again? in this way: No, you have not lived any life other than the present one. But it is possible for you to make your life a lasting one, indeed, an eternal one. Today, in these “last days” of this present system, you can have the hope of surviving this world’s end and gaining entry into God’s new world without dying. (2 Timothy 3:1-5; Revelation 7:9-15) Or if you die before God’s new world arrives, you can have the hope of being resurrected to eternal life on a paradise earth.—Luke 23:43.
If you exercise faith in Jesus, no matter what may happen, Jesus’ words to Martha when her brother Lazarus died apply also to you: “I am the resurrection and the life. He that exercises faith in me, even though he dies, will come to life; and everyone that is living and exercises faith in me will never die at all.”—John 11:25, 26.
[Blurb on page 8]
Adam did not have an immortal soul but returned to the dust when he died
[Picture on page 9]
God’s Word teaches resurrection, not reincarnation
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