Reincarnation

1984
Lakeland (Probably)

Have we lived before? Will be live again? In attempting this second part of a discussion on reincarnation, I reminded myself of what Jacob Bronowski wrote in THE ASCENT OF MAN: “There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility.” I trust my observations [will] also be properly modest.

With such an attitude, I would like to comment on:

1)The surprising extent of belief in reincarnation in all parts of the ancient world.
2)The suppression of the belief in reincarnation in the early Christian centuries.
3)The appeal of the idea of reincarnation to many well-known 19th century Unitarians and Universalists.
4)The powerful sense of justice that is inescapable when reincarnation is posited as an inexorable consequence.
5)But also I would like to point out some difficulties to be confronted in accepting reincarnation.

1: As Harold Cole pointed out to you, reincarnation is not just an Hindu and Buddhist idea, but also has roots in ancient Egypt and Greece, not to speak of the ancient nature religions of the Druids, Celts, and Teutonic tribes.

One scholar (Cranston, p. 203) writes that reincarnation seems to have been a part of the ancient Orphic mysteries of Greece before the time of Pythagoras, although that famous philosopher and mathematician advocated reincarnation as one of his main teachings. Many famous names in the seminal tradition of Greek philosophers also held the belief: Heraclitus, Herodotus, Socrates, Plato. Many later Roman classical scholars held this belief.

2: When they [the Christians] became the power in the Roman Empire, the idea of reincarnation was suppressed, became a heresy [CJW note: gnostic religion]. One would expect this, for the idea of the reincarnated soul is a contradiction of Christian dogma and doctrine. The Christian scheme of salvation taught that all persons inherited Adam’s sin and consequently, all were condemned to death. In the salvation scheme, Jesus – who was God – made the atoning sacrifice thus enabling some, at least, to be saved. That atonement was the only way – nothing else made a difference.

Reincarnation provides that through the law of Karma one must make restitution, be punished in future lives or rewarded for one’s good works and achieve a higher spiritual state in future incarnations.

But although dogmatic zealots manage to suppress reincarnationist ideas, including destroying documents, the idea persisted and there were sporadic groups holding the belief. The Albigensians, who held such ideas, were stamped out in the 13th century. The persecution of the Albigensians was the reason the Inquisition was established.

The idea of reincarnation can be seen in the Christian legends of the Holy Grail. One of the King Arthur legends carries the prophecy, “He shall come again full twice as fair, to rule over his people.” Or as it has been poetically condensed, “The once and future King.”

There could be many examples in modern times. Many of the famous German philosophers and composers knew of Indian philosophy. Beethoven – so many of us are awed and mystified by his genius - “was fond of copying mystical sentences from Eastern literature. Framed on his desk was this quotation, “I am that which is, I am all that was, that is, and that shall be.”

3: Harold Cole in his eloquent and clear statement last week (tape) referred to “slow but inevitable progress – the Creator, an evolving deity” and then said “Sounds Unitarian, doesn't’ it?” Well, it was. [CJW notes: In every congregation, met Unitarian Universalists who believed in reincarnation | Freed from Christian scheme of salvation they found meaning in the doctrine of reincarnation]

In my opinion, one of the neglected areas of our Unitarian Universalist history is the presence of the reincarnation thought in our history, particularly in the 19th century.

The Transcendentalists – Unitarian ministers, literary figures, teachers – were an important element in our tradition. Emerson, through his study of the Hindu scriptures, was the spearhead, but there were many others.

On October 1, 1840 (quoted by Head & Cranston, p. 309), Rev. George Ripley, a Unitarian Universalist minister who founded Brook Farm, wrote the Unitarian friends, “There is a class of persons who desire a reform in the prevailing philosophy of the day. These are called Transcendentalists because they believe in an order of truth which transcends the sphere of the external senses. Their leading idea is the supremacy of mind over matter. Hence they maintain that the truth of religion does not depend on tradition, nor historical facts, but has an unerring witness in the soul.”

There are many references in Emerson’s writings to reincarnation, but his last published essay (“nominist & realist”) he affirmed it clearly, “It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again.... Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out the window, sound and well in some strange new disguise. Jesus is not dead; he is very well alive; nor John, nor Paul, nor Mohamet, nor Aristotle; at times we believe we have seen them all and could easily tell the names under which they go.”

In the hymnbook, there are hymns written by Frederick Henry Hedge, a famous Unitarian minister of that period who had a reincarnation belief.

James Freeman Clarke, author of the Unitarian “5 Points” on the last point “The Progress of Mankind: onward and upward forever.” Many of us (I’m one) have been cynical at times – wars – etc. Is that progress? But he was referring to reincarnation process, writing at one point, “Evolution has a satisfactory meaning only when we admit the soul is developed and educated by passing through many bodies.” [CJW note: It is probable he meant by ... salvation by character....]

4: When one believes the implications of Karma and reincarnation one can feel assurance that there is justice in the cosmos, or the “Universal Soul.” I do not need to expand on the competent way that Harold presented it last week. We carry the handicaps of misdeeds from previous existences; we improve our soul by the character and kindness we exhibit in a current existence. We learn by living and doing. There is no escaping the report card and its consequences.

5: However, I said at the beginning that there are difficulties I must confront before embracing the idea of reincarnation. You know that I am a creature of feeling; but also I have been, and am, a “skeptical inquirer” (long before there was a journal by that name). [CJW note: I am one who seeks a basis for hope.]

I have not dealt with the many cases where persons have discussed their lives in previous incarnations. The remarkable reports of Edgar Cayce are astonishing. There are others. Yet there are critical inquiries that I would want answered, so I do not use these anecdotes as evidence for reincarnation.

I feel something like the Belgian dramatist, essayist & poet (Maurice Maeterlinck) who wrote “Even though (reincarnation) is the religion of six hundred million people, the nearest to mysterious origins, the only one that is not odious and the least absurd of all, it will have to do what the others have not done, to bring unimpeachable testimony; and what it has given us hitherto is but the first shadow of a proof begun.” [CJW note: Assumption of a “soul” entity apart, “ghost in the machine.”]

Isaac Asimov, the scientist and prolific science-fiction writer, wrote that “human beings have the habit (a bad [one] perhaps, but an unavoidable one) of being human; which is to say that they believe in that which comforts them.”

Then he goes on, and I quote him because he summarizes, better than I can, my own attitude when I am a skeptical inquirer:

“To take the greatest, most universal and most unavoidable inconvenience, consider death. Tell people that death does not exist and they will believe you and sob with gratitude at the good news. Take a census and find out how many human beings believe in life after death, in heaven, in the doctrines of spiritualism, in the transmigration of souls. I am quite confident you will find a healthy majority, even an overwhelming one, in favor of side-stepping death by believing in its nonexistence through one strategy or another.

“Yet as far as I know, there is not one piece of evidence ever advanced that would offer any hope that death is anything other than the permanent dissolution of the personality and that beyond it, so far as individual consciousness is concerned, there is nothing.

“If you want to argue the point, present the evidence. I must warn you, though, there are some arguments I won’t accept:

“I won’t accept any argument from authority (the Bible says so)

“I won’t accept any argument from internal conviction (I have faith it’s so)

“I won’t accept any argument from personal abuse (What are you, an atheist?)

“I won’t accept any argument from irrelevance. (Do you think you have been put on this Earth to exist just for a moment of time?)

“I won’t accept any argument from anecdote (My cousin has a friend who went to a medium and talked to her dead husband).

“Then why do people believe? Because they want to. That is why a manufacturer of toothpaste finds it insufficient to tell you that it will clean your teeth almost as well as the bare brush will. Instead he makes it clear to you, more or less by indirection, that his particular brand will give you a very desirable sex partner. People, wanting sex somewhat more intensely than they want clean teeth, will be the readier to believe.”

So that’s where I am. I am a feeling creature, and I feel a strong sense of the procession of injustices and cruelties in the human pageant. Should that not be righted? Should there not be a “certainty of just retribution for sin” as the old Universalist principle had it? If so, what other answer than reincarnation, where old debts must be paid; old credits reimbursed in the form of a better, more loving character, more in tune with the Universal Soul which must be at the heart of things?

But I am also a skeptical inquirer – where’s the evidence?

John Wheeler is a world-renowned physicist. I met him a few years back when he was a member of our Princeton, NJ, church. He is close to genius rank in his field. When discussing the phenomenon of the “black hole” which implies that eventually the whole universe will collapse in on itself, he observed, “I am thinking of the oriental concepts of reincarnation and of cycle after cycle, not only of man, but of the universe itself. I would be the last person to know how to analyze this kind of idea in a sensible way.”

Then he commented, “No theory of physics that deals only with physics will ever explain physics. I believe that as we go on trying to understand the universe, we are at the same time trying to understand man (sic). Today I think we are beginning to suspect that man is not a tiny cog that doesn’t really make much difference to the running of the huge machine but rather that there is a much more intimate tie between man and the universe that we have heretofore suspected.”

Could be! Maybe his suspicion is so, but ... that’s where I must leave it. In any case, the odds are that I will discover for myself before any of you do what the truth of it is.