h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A615395
Well, here it is, my piece on reincarnation, I'dlike to throw it open to discussion/review, is it acceptable?

Metempsychosis is a ~very~ large subject. While I applaud your first effort, I must say this is a tad short on substance. Perhaps you should consider doing more research, and try to be a bit more objective.

I would like to see at least a mention of the Dalai Lama, who is believed by his followers to be a reincarnate. On the other hand, you could also discuss the Bridey Murphy controversy..

You did mention Origen, and it would be informative to mention the anathemas imposed upon him and his group - and the question of whether the anathemas were politically, rather than religiously, inspired..

Because reincarnation is inextricably linked with the notion of karma, it may be a good idea to briefly discuss this as well.

I realize one of the problems in doing such a topic is the sheer volume of literature available - and most of it is, unfortunately, 'new age' crud: extremely biased toward unscientific acceptance. In your extensive reading, did you not come across any rationalist or critical analyses of the notion?

I think this is a topic that will interest many people, so it would be worthwhile to put a bit more into it.

Hiya!

I agree with Talesin; a little bit sparse - the topic of reincarnation is very, very big.

There are a few things that you might want to correct/add:

>'Is it said that memories, phobias, preferences and strong dislikes all may indicate 'bleed through' from a previous incarnation. Children with very marked likes and dislikes and very strong ideas may be evidence of this.'

This is wrong (Ok, that was harsh - sorry). Phobias and preferences are based on our experiences in childhood. Children learn when they are babies to associate certain things, eg spiders, at first with a benign quality. It is only when a spider is presented to a child with, say, mother's obvious disapproval (screaming, loud sounds etc.) that the child associates it with fear. There is a similar pattern for dislikes and preferences, although, especially with food, there may be a more serious reason.

>The title - I was expecting to read something about reincarnation across the board; including Buddhism, Hinduism, to name but two. You will probably need a change of title; perhaps Christianity and Reincarnation? Again, I leave it up to you

>Pythagoras was a fervent believer in reincarnation, as were the Ancient Greeks; he once stopped a man beating his yelping dog, and said, 'Stop, stop! That's my dear friend! I recognise his voice!'

>A definition of reincarnation - at the moment, you seem to describe re-birth, which although similar, it is different, in that you describe the soul becoming 're-born' in a human body in their next life. Reincarnation involves 'karma', sort of a record of all your good and bad deeds in your current life, which will determine what will become of you in the next. You will definitely need to mention karma, and distinguish between re-birth and reincarnation.

For the record, I am a strong believer in reincarnation - being a Buddhist it kinda comes with the whole package....

I'll tell you if I think of more to add - it is a good topic!

Stay ,
WD

Hi WD,

Contemporary psychological and psychiatric speculations suggest phobias etc are the result of early imprinting and childhood experience, but this is not an absolute fact, even though it seems reasonable, and behavioural psychologists can offer substantial experimental data to support the theory. Many who believe in reincarnation believe such personality characteristics are the result of experiences in prior lives. Such is the nature of belief that this is not provable, one way or another. The use of modifiers such as 'may' and 'it is said' are sufficient to indicate the speculative nature of such notions.

I agree that this article may have to undergo a title change, but that depends on how extensive the author wishes to make it.

BTW, I did not know that bit about Pythagoras' friend being reborn as a . LOL

Yes, Taliesin, in order not to be fooling myself, I read books from all points of view - including rather a large amount of indigestible 'New Age' crud! Christians agin it, Christians in favour, Paul Edwards (American sci-cop guru) and such. You are right, there is SO much more I could say about it. Probably will.

WD - my experience with childhood phobias, preferences influenced what I think. My son ended up with a spider phobia because my brother (12) at the time was teasing him with a big rubber one on an elastic band. But the same son manifested a violent phobia of emergency vehicles and sirens which had *no* origin in his life experience. (He was 3, I had spent all my time with him, I would therefore know..)I had 3 notable phobias when I was a child:dogs (Caused by an incident when I was two, involving visiting a man who bred bulldogs and was a friend of my parents; heights (no explanation) fire and explosion (no explanation.) When I was 20-something, my mother explained the heights/stairs one - she had left me in my highchair at the top of a flight of stairs. I fell down of course. Mum had never told anyone, for fear of being charged with neglect. The 3rd one has never been explained. Other preferences and similar, ditto. The 'this life' ones, I know and recognise! (Both in myself and my kids.) the others.. well.. younger son and bridges for instance. What's that about?

Della:

In retrospect my comments were very harsh; I hit post before preview by accident and well, it was badly worded. I'd never heard of that theory before... However, in terms of life experiences vs phobias etc, like Taliesin said, it is just a theory which seems more probable to me than the reincarnation theory, even though I *do* believe in reincarnation.

Re the phobias which do seem unexplained; I'm not going to be able to explain it wholly, but in current theory, all children are wary of sudden, unpleasant and alarming noises, regardless of whether it is a siren or a loud sound from the television - a kind of natural defence system if you will, a residual reaction from the pre-historic age. Some children will react benignly, others will react differently. Association theory only goes part-way to explain some behaviours; I think (but don't quote me on this) that it was Freud who said that it was a fear of death and dying which explained many aspects of the human psyche, and that was an unconscious association with death and dying with something like spiders or indeed, loud noises, however, it need not be a traumatic experience. That kind of experience only heightens the fear of dying etc, and elevates it more to the conscious level. However, the fear of death is inherent in all of us (so the theory goes), and is thought to be the main source of such aspects of the psyche as phobias.

The area of child psychology is very woolly and the theories presented only partially explain child behaviour and the development of such aspects of the psyche as phobias. I would be interested to read the theory of 'bleed through'; are there any good sources on the net that you can recommend?

Again, I apologise if I did come across as sounding really harsh; it was a lack of consideration on the part of myself.

Stay ,
WD

Personally my ultimate authority on reincarnation is Sri Aurobindo who has written a book on this topic in which he deals in a rather scientific manner with reincarnation and the multitude of misconceptions associated with it. If you really want to write on reincarnation there is - in my opinion - lacking quite a lot. If the topic comes up in conversation there are always voiced many different opinions about the why and the how (immediately after death, after a regular or unregular interval, same sex or other sex, back to animal...). Some people have been in India and have met this or that yogi who has told the this or that "truth" - and when they meet each other, everyone is convinced that his Yogi knows things better.
So, as you have read 240 books on this subject, you should be able to provide a lengthy entry which puts before the reader the great variety of views and schools (as there is no ultimate authority on the subject) and a critical statement on the matter.
I hate to say it, but the way the entry is written only adds to the confusion about reicarnation rather than informs.
Best wishes
chybrain

unbecoming is not a verb, but an adjective meaning unflattering or uncharacteristic. I suggest disbecoming.

Hi, WD - no, you weren't overly harsh, that's fine. Red rag to a (cliched) bull, tho', ol' Siggy Freud - I despise him and all who sail in him! I've studied psychology twice at different tertiary institutions and the more I hear old b****r, the less I can accept any of it! (Which is nothing against you). Re phobias etc.,in childhood - I think that my childhood experiences with dogs, flights of steps possibly exacerbated fears already there! (The heights/steps one was particularly intractable.) Still... I have different ones now,so who knows what the *next* life will bring?

I hereby re-incarnate this thread....as the phoenix rises from its own ashes, so shall this thread rise from the bottom of peer review!

Has anyone met someone that you are certain you have known in a previous life? I have, and quite a good many of them too... of course with instant global communication (i.e. internet) its much easier to meet up with old chums

a slight problem with reincarnation and karma.

The theory (as I understand it) states that your good behaviour results in your getting a "higher form" next time around. this is fine.

but by implication, bad behaviour must result in you getting a "lower form", which is used as justification by various groups for prejudice and racism.

examples include racism in the indian cast system against the "lower casts", and prejudice against the disabled, "as they must have done something in a past life to deserve it".

This needs to be mentioned in any entry covering reincarnation and karma.

ps the entry is quite unstructured, anda bit sparse, so when you add to it, restructuring wouldn't hurt it.

xyroth,

those "rascist" comments you you mentioned are just that, and have never had anything to do with real reincarnation, they have always been just a means of subjugating people... The truth of the matter is much more simple, and yet more complex :
The idea (as I understand it) is that life is like a big school, and we are here to learn and grow..so if you don't learn your lessons then you are doomed to repeat them (like being held back in third grade) The various problems and trials of life are just that, lessons to learn from, and grow as a being... It is true that Karma plays a large role in all this, but it isn't just a system of reward and punishment, it is the Cosmic balance of nature...it is not up to us to decide what Karma is doing, it just happens.... in a Karmic sense the oppressed people are doing quite a bit better than their oppressors, even though from our physical perspective it seems quite the other way around... with Karma you get what you give, so if you treat people badly you will also be treated badly and vice versa....Now you look at the world and say,"Hey! wait a minute! Good people have bad things happen to them all the time, and evil people are successful!" But this does not mean that life isn't fair, its just too much for us to see from our very limited perspectives...if we could al see the whole of existance and comprehend it, then the universe and its balance would make sense, but we are not omniscent... All we can do is be true to ourselves and kind in everything we do...after all, if everyone did that, the world would be a much nicer place to live in

And as for the entry.... yeah a bit more work is in order.....

I just know I'm asking for trouble, but I have to inquire - who is supposed to be running the reincarnation system?
I know a little of Tibetan Buhddism, and the human form is supposed to be the highest attainable, but why? Why not a worm or an antelope? Reincarnation goes hand in hand with past life experience. Frequently we hear people proclaiming to be the reincarnation of someone well known from history, but never do we hear of people proclaiming to have been a diatom, or an ant.
And Hiram, you rightly object to the more racist aspects of selection, but then you talk of karma and cosmic balance as if the whole show is run specifically for human. Seeing as we're late arrivals on this planet, was the 3.5 billion years of life previous to our evolution merely some sort of test run or warm up? Doesn't that rather rubbish the existence of everything that has past before us? (Speciesist?)
If this answer to the first question is 'God', and the reason for reincarnation is 'because humans are terribly special', I shall be most disappointed.
Frogbit.

Hi friends

While a discussion of the notion of reincarnation/karma may indeed be intriguing, it may not be considered appropriate in a peer review thread, which is specifically dealing with an article, and not necessarily the veracity or lack thereof of the theories contained within the article.

Edited entries must be factual, but the concepts they discuss do not. Hence, there are articles about such concepts as astral projection, http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A593002, which many peole believe in, and many do not...

Why not start another thread? Who knows, I might even join in

BTW I don't believe in reincarnation, but in a former life, I did!

Well, er, Frogbit, I am sorry to disappoint - in my view the answer to the first question *is* God. (Maybe She delegates, but..?) I don't think it's because humans are terribly special - and (none of the 240+ books I've mined for info., says so)but I theorise that as earth is obviously just one of 100s,1000s,10,000s or more inhabited worlds in the galaxy, let alone the Universe, then we recycle through and around these worlds. Maybe no one remembers being an ant or diatom, because she hadn't been - but she has been a multi-limbed tree dweller above the violet lake of Kinruh, on the largest continent of the 3rd planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani. (Oops,that's Vulcan, isn't it?)

bookmark

Hi Della, Hi all,

A simple question: What is this entry for?
A second question: Does it have a single argument or thesis?

It clearly does not seek to evangelise (which is defintiely a good thing). But as some of the other researchers have commented it lacks some structure.

Others have suggested looking at Buddhism and Hinduism. Perhaps you wish to show how Christian Reincarnation differs from beliefs in other more obviously reincarnation-based religions.

Someone suggested a look at the theories of the mechanics of it all.

I think this either needs to show how a belief in Christian Reincarnation differs from mainstream Christianity, from Buddhism and from Hinduism; or else it needs to be an entry about reincarnation and karma.

And for the record, I am nearer to being a Buddhist than anything else. And it seems to me that karma is a blind force, a sort of spiritual Newtonian physics, with every action having a clear consequence. There is no element of external judgement in karma, which is where it differs strongly from Christianity, of course. Imho.

So to re-work this entry I would recommend working out what you do want to say, and what you don't want to stay, and starting from there.

Ben
*hoping to come back as a dolphin*

Hello, Ben - yes, I feel a major re-do of this coming on.. The idea is to definitely be (is that a split infinitive?) about Christian reincarnation, which is supposed to be something impossible - my thesis is that Christian reincarnation is perfectly acceptable.

Well, my father was a clergyman in the Church of England, and defintitely believed in reincarnation, though did not preach on the subject.
And my sister is a high anglican and once said to me that in her opinion reincarnation was the only thing that made sense. Since 'God in his big blue heaven, sitting in his big gold chair' makes so sense to me at all, and the conversation was about my husband anyway, I did not ask her what aspects of anglicanim do make sense to her.

Which is a long paragraph saying 'go for it, girl; you are in good company!'

Ben