Reincarnation and Past Lives Essay Example for Free

metempsychosis and Past Lives Essay spiritual rebirth is the notion that when star dies, ones body decomposes more everyplace almostthing of oneself is reborn in another body. It is the belief that one has lived in front and will live again in another body after devastation. The bodies one passes in and egress of need not be hu humans. unity may have been a Doberman in a retiring(a) life, and one may be a mite or a carrot in a future life. Some tribes avoid eating certain animals because they believe that the reasons of their ancestors dwell in those animals. A man could even be coiffe his own daughter by dying before she is born and then entryway her body at birth.The belief in departed lives used to be mainly a belief found in Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, but now is a central tenet of much woo-woo like dianetics and channeling. In those ancient Eastern religions, metempsychosis was not considered a bang-up thing, but a meritless thing. To a chieve the state of ultimate bliss (nirvana) is to escape from the wheel of rebirth. In most, if not all, ancient religions with a belief in reincarnation, the soul entering a body is seen as a metaphysical demotion, a sullying and impure rite of passage.In natural Age religions, however, being born again seems to be a kind of perverse goal. Prepare yourself in this life for who or what you want to come back as in the next life. Belief in past times lives also opens the door for New Age therapies such as past life regression therapy, which seeks the causes of todays psychological problems in the experiences of prior lives. L. Ron Hubbard, actor of Dianetics and the founder of Scientology, introduced his own version of reincarnation into his new religion. According to Hubbard, past lives need auditing to get at the root of ones troubles. He also considers that Dianetics gave impetus to Bridey Murphy and that some scientologists have been dogs and other animals in previous lives (A Note on Past Lives in The Rediscovery of the Human Soul).According to Hubbard, It has only been in Scientology that the mechanics of death have been thoroughly understood. What happens in death is this the Thetan (spirit) finds itself without a body (which has died) and then it goes looking for a new body. Thetans will hang around muckle. They will see a woman who is pregnant and follow her rarify the street. Then, the Thetan will slip into the newborn usually two or three minutes after the pitch of a child from the mother.A Thetan usually picks it up about the time the baby takes its first gasp. How Hubbard knows this is neer revealed. Channeling, like past life regression, is distinct from reincarnation, even though it is based on the same of the essence(p) concept death does not put an end to the entirety of ones being. In classical reincarnation, something of the consciousness of the departed somehow enters a new body but as that body grows only one interrelated con sciousness persists through time.Channeling might be called temporary intermittent past life invasion because thither is a coming and going of the past life entity, which always remains distinct from the present conscious being. For example, JZ Knight claims that in 1977 the spirit of a Cro-Magnon warrior who once lived in Atlantis took over her body in sound out to pass on bits of wisdom hed picked up over the centuries. Knight seems to be carrying on the work of Jane Roberts and Robert Butts, who in 1972 hit the market with Seth Speaks. Knight, Roberts, and Butts are indebted to Edgar Cayce, who claimed to be in touch with many of his past lives.One would think that channeling might muck things up a bit. After all, if various spirits from the past can enter any body at any time without destroying the present person, it is possible that when one remembers a past life it is actually someone elses life one is remembering. From a philosophical manoeuver of view, reincarnation poses some interesting problems. What is it that is reincarnated? Presumably, it is the soul that is reincarnated, but what is the soul? A disembodied consciousness? Reincarnation does seem to offer an explanation for some strange phenomena such as the ability of some people to regress to a past life under hypnosis.Also, we might explain child prodigies by claiming that unlike most cases of reincarnation where the soul has to more or less start from scratch, the child prodigy somehow gets a soul with great carryover from a previous life, giving it a decided advantage over the rest of us. Reincarnation could explain why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people they are being rewarded or punished for actions in past lives (karma). One could explain deja vu experiences by claiming that they are memories of past lives. Dreams could be interpreted as a kind of soul travel and soul memory.However, past life regression and deja vu experiences are best explained as the recalling of events from this life, not some past life. Dreams and child prodigies are best explained in terms of brain structures and genetically inheritable traits and processes. And since bad things also happen to bad people and good things also happen to good people, the most logical belief is that there is no design to the distribution of good and bad happening to people. Stories, especially stories from children, that claim knowledge of a past life, abound.One collector of such stories was the psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, who made a irresolute case that the stories offered scientific evidence for reincarnation. Finally, since there is no way to tell the difference between a baby with a soul that will go to heaven or hell, a baby with a soul that has been around before in other bodies, and a baby with no soul at all, it follows that the idea of a soul adds nothing to our concept of a human being. Applying Occams razor, both the idea of reincarnation and the idea of an immortal soul that will go to heaven or hell are evenly unnecessary.Referencehttp//www.skepdic.com/reincarn.html