REINCARNATION REFUTED ONLINE

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Question:
Where's the harm believing in reincarnation?
Answer:
A psychically sensitive person may believe in reincarnation because his (or her) mind may have been impressed with memories of a past life by a discarnate personality. In a culture, or social milieu, in which belief in reincarnation is the norm these memories will, naturally, be interpreted as evidence of a "previous" life, especially if the person in question possesses recondite information known only to specialists or knows things about the life of the previous personality that could not have been obtained by normal means. This "overshadowing" can, in severe cases, lead to identity confusion, depression and suicide. Dr. Ian Stevenson investigated a number of such cases in the Indian sub-continent and elsewhere and found that past life memories in children were often associated with personality and behavioural disorders, underachievement and social maladjustment. Belief in reincarnation is harmful to these children because they are not getting the treatment they need. Instead, their condition is exacerbated by those who have a vested interest in it such as the relatives of the previous personality and researchers into reincarnation. The case of Jasbir is a prime example.

People who are not "overshadowed" by discarnate personalities sometimes become obsessed with the need to discover who they may have been in a "previous" life and try to contact "spirit guides" for information. Joe Fisher is a typical example but he - unlike most - discovered, through careful investigation, that he had been lied to on an industrial scale. His subsequent disillusionment and disorientation, arguably, led to his premature death. As Joe Fisher reveals in his book, The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts, the purpose of these "spirit guides" is to control and manipulate the lives of the incarnate though an assiduous campaign of misinformation, "counselling" and lies. To be sure, they gild their communications with the language of "love" and "wisdom" but that is the bait to catch the unwary; their real intent is to ruin the lives of their dupes. But, is it surprising that these entities should promote the doctrine of reincarnation? Nothing could be more designed to render the newly discarnate earthbound than belief in re-embodiment. Instead of progressing to more ethereal planes of consciousness, the newly discarnate hang around, waiting to reincarnate but obsessing incarnates instead; and so the cycle continues. The destiny of the self is the infinite eternal. Belief in reincarnation is harmful because it keeps the self imprisoned in the straitjacket of the temporal.

Question:
Are all spirit guides bogus?
Answer:
“Spirit guides” who promote the idea of reincarnation are really “spirit misguides” though not all of them, I would suggest, have malevolent intentions. Malevolent “guides” should be distinguished from the merely deluded because the former are seeking the spiritual downfall of their “captives.” In practice it’s almost impossible to tell the difference because the malevolent “guides” are masters of deception. Nevertheless, all “guides” who promote the doctrine of reincarnation – in whatever form – should be rejected in toto because, then, nothing they say can be trusted. Discarnate personalities who pose as “spirit guides” are much like incarnate personalities who pose as “spiritual counsellors” the main difference being that, while the former can tap into the thoughts, feelings and memories of their listeners, the latter must make inferences. This gives the “spirit guides” an enormous psychological advantage over the incarnate – an advantage they never fail to exploit. But, this display of “omniscience” is no great feat – any obsessing entity can do it. In a fairly commonplace poltergeist disturbance, for example, the entity involved – when it chooses to communicate - can show remarkable knowledge about the lives of those present and absent. This ability to ‘read the minds’ of the incarnate has its counterpart in the ability of psychically sensitive individuals to “soak up” the thoughts, feelings and memories of any discarnate personalities who may be obsessing them. While the former is intentional, the latter is quite involuntary.
It is sometimes thought that “spirit guides” who give healing advice are necessarily benevolent. Actually, this is not the case because any spirit entity – however malevolent - can read an individual’s “aura” at no cost to itself; but it’s a highly effective way of gaining the individual’s confidence and readiness to accept its agenda. “Free” gifts are always suspect. Rejecting “spirit guides” who promote the doctrine of reincarnation will eliminate the great majority of them but it won’t repair the damage they have already done. More than a few spiritualist organisations have incorporated the doctrine of reincarnation into their Principles and cannot drop it without discrediting their founders – which goes to show how clever these “spirit guides” are.

Question:
Advanced spirits speak of the material and the spiritual. Are the material and spiritual different from the temporal and the eternal?
Answer:
No. It’s a difference of language only. When discussing the Four Postulates, I sometimes use the terms interchangeably. Using these terms, Postulate I would read: The material to the spiritual is unreal. Postulate II: All things belong to the material or the spiritual. I prefer the terms “temporal” and “eternal” because they lead directly to the formula: time to eternity is zero. It has also been said that the material is a pale reflection of the spiritual. This is merely saying that temporal things are a pale reflection of eternal realities e.g. personal love is a pale reflection of divine love; time is a pale reflection of eternity, the physical body is a pale reflection of the self etc. Actually, the expression “pale reflection” is a euphemism for “corruption.” Greek philosopher, Plato was closer to the truth when he said: “Time is a corruption of Eternity as Becoming is a corruption of Being.” Thus, personal love is a corruption of divine love, and the physical body is a corruption of the self. All material manifestations are corruptions of the spiritual. Nevertheless, it is still true that time is unreal in the face of eternity; the physical body is unreal in the face of the self; personal love is unreal in the face of divine live; and Becoming is unreal in the face of Being.
To shed one’s materiality is to shed one’s temporal body. This is the resurrection to eternal life referred to in the New Testament. At the resurrection, the self emerges from the “tomb” of the body to be at one with God. “Lazarus come forth!” The idea of physical bodies rising from their graves at the day of judgement is a material corruption of a spiritual message.

Question:
Is the temporal body the same as the physical body?
Answer:
No. The temporal body is a composite of concentric material bodies (or 'vehicles of expression') the outermost being the physical. All these bodies are temporal in the sense that they have no reality in relation to the eternal. In the esoteric tradition there are six material bodies: the physical, etheric, vital, emotional (astral), lower mental, higher mental, each corresponding to a different sphere of consciousness. But this division is somewhat crude because the expressions of the self form an infinitely variable continuum like the wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. Wavelengths can be divided into broad wavebands such as ultra violet, visible light, infra red etc. and the expressions of the self can be similarly divided. The approach to eternal life is the successive shedding of the material bodies and the ‘awakening’ of the self into new levels of consciousness.

Question:
Why do most communicating spirits say we all reincarnate?
Answer:
Most spirits who communicate anything at all are usually close to the Earth, either because they desire to influence earthly affairs or because they have not shed their materiality; either way their spiritual vision is limited. If three-quarters of the world believe in reincarnation, the majority of those ‘passing on’ will be believers and since they will remain close to the Earth waiting to reincarnate it follows that the majority of communicating spirits will believe in reincarnation. The obsession the majority of communicating spirits have with the doctrine of reincarnation is merely a reflection of the state of affairs on Earth; it has nothing to do with spiritual truth.

Question:
John Faraway [ in Chapter 1 of Refuted ] mentioned something about reincarnation not being dependent on karma. This interests me because I'm still up in the air concerning not only whether we have multiple Earth experiences or not, but the nature of how this takes place, and more importantly, why. A great deal of material that I've read concerning messages from 'advanced' spirits claim that experience and lessons, not necessarily karma (in the way it's normally thought of) are the sole reasons why we (allegedly) choose to reincarnate. You stated that reincarnation is dependent on Karmic Law, and without the concept of karma the doctrine of reincarnation falls apart. My question here is whether you're open to the possibility of reincarnation being something different than what's taught by many New Age and eastern ideas. I ask this because the 'lessons' mantra seems to be more common than karma from what I've read.
Answer:
In the eastern doctrine of reincarnation, karma is the motive force for reincarnation and without karma the doctrine collapses. Numerous 'bastardized' versions of the doctrine have appeared in the West - some with karma, some without it, some replacing karma with 'lessons' and some eliminating all ideas of retribution. But, ultimately, none of this is of any consequence because reincarnation is incompatible with immortality and individuality. (See Chapters 3 and 12). If you accept that the human self is immortal and uniquely expressive then it follows logically that the human self does not incarnate more than once (Proposition E, p.439). This means that reincarnation is not a question of choice but a question of logic. The immortal self can no more reincarnate than a physical body can occupy two places at once. (See Chapter 5 on 'circumscriptive replication'). Spirit entities who promote reincarnationist ideas - in whatever form - simply do not understand the relationship between time, eternity, immortality and individuality, probably because they failed to understand the relationship when on Earth and because they are still time-bound on the spirit-side. Therefore, don't be fooled by spirit entities who teach it. They are, merely, purveying their mistaken earthly beliefs to a credulous audience. My book is meant to be a corrective to all that.

Question:
Why do many spirits who communicate back through many mediums claim that they've had a chance to view their previous lives? Sometimes this comes up in near-death experiences too where typically a spirit who had attempted suicide was told by an entity that they would have to repeat the very life experience they attempted to avoid in a future life if they decide to stay in spirit instead of returning to their 'physical' bodies. Source: Kevin Williams near-death experience website.
Answer:
Discarnate personalities who have memories of past lives are no different from incarnate personalities who have memories of past lives. In Chapters 6 and 8 of my book, I spend some time showing how discarnate personalities can impress the minds of incarnate personalities with their thoughts, feelings and memories leading them to believe they have lived previous lives. That this is true is demonstrated by the case of Jasbir who - because he had acquired many of Sobha Ram's memories - believed he was Sobha Ram in a previous incarnation. In fact, Jasbir and Sobha Ram were contemporaries of one another living in different villages in India until the latter passed over. Now, when someone passes over to the spirit-side, they retain all their memories - including impressed memories - and if they report back, say through a medium, they would most likely report memories of previous lives. But, these memories relate, not to previous incarnations of themselves, but to incarnations of other personalities - as demonstrated by the case of Jasbir in Chapter 8.
The fact that some people - following a near-death experience -  have memories of being warned by an 'entity' about repeating the very life experience they are attempting to avoid, must be balanced against all those who have no such memories. But, in any case, the warning should be regarded as an encouragement to return to the physical body - not an endorsement of reincarnation. A spirit entity - if indeed it is a spirit entity and not some aspect of the person's self engaged in an 'inner dialogue' - is quite capable of telling an 'untruth' in order to achieve a desired result - especially if it is a good result; much like warning a child that the 'bogeyman' will get him if he is naughty. But, a more likely scenario is that the person - in the out-of-body state - was contacted by a spirit entity who believed in reincarnation. One must remember that the near-Earth planes are swarming with discarnate personalities waiting to reincarnate. (A reflection of the sorry state of affairs on Earth - see Chapter 1). Sobha Ram, in the post-mortem state, was contacted by a sadhu (holy man) - apparently waiting to reincarnate himself - and urged to "take cover" in the body of Jasbir. (See Chapter 8). This resulted in the obsession of Jasbir by Sobha Ram. It seems that in the out-of-body state, a person may well be urged by benevolent spirit entities to re-establish the link with his physical body if only to avoid obsession by ignorant or mischievous spirit entities. The reference to a "future life" should not be taken seriously.