| Subject: Re: reincarnation |
Author:
Rabid_Wolverine
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Date Posted: 21:05:23 06/02/05 Thu
In reply to:
Rabid_Wolverine
's message, "Re: reincarnation" on 19:55:13 05/24/05 Tue
A few more ...
ALMOST all witches believe in reincarnation. It is probably true to say that they share this belief with a majority of the human race (or of those members of it who believe in survival after death in whatever form), because the concept of a single life followed by a one-off, heaven-or-hell judgement is peculiar to the patriarchal monotheist religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - though the Jewish belief is perhaps more shadowy than the other two, and reincarnation is certainly implicit in Hebrew Cabalistic thinking.
Belief in reincarnation was widespread among early Christians, and was general among the Gnostics. St Jerome (AD 340-420) says that a form of it was taught to a select few in the early Church. But it was declared anathema by the Second Council of Constatinople in AD 553, for obvious reasons. The Church had become a State disciplinary machine, with its structure inseparable from that of the Imperial civil service; and the promise of heaven, or the threat of hell, as a reward or punishment for behaviour in this immediate life, was therefore an essential Establishment weapon. Gnostic versions of the teachings of Jesus (some of them probably with as much claim to authenticity as the official Gospels) had to be banned, hunted down and destroyed for the same reasons; they saw salvation in terms of individual enlightenment, whereas the official Church saw it in terms of obedience to the bishop.
The theory of reincarnation holds, briefly, that each individual human soul or essence is reborn again and again, in a series of bodily incarnations on this earth, learning its lessons and facing the consequences of its actions, until it is sufficiently advanced to progress to the next stage (whatever that may be).
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We all know that someday we will experience death of the physical body. This destiny is part of the human condition, and for most there is no escape. For those who believe in reincarnation, however, a return from death into a new body marks an adventurous beginning after a period of rest.
Many religions teach us that when we die, we are returning to our spiritual home - the Otherworld or the land of the ancestors. The return home is symbolic of death, yet it does not indicate total destruction of the self. Rather, it implies a reintegration of the human spirit with the Great Spirit; the soul and spirit have simply relinquished their human form to return to their true essence for a time.
Tibetan Buddhists perceive an afterlife wherein the soul is said to travel through three states of transition. First, there is light and bliss. Next, the soul has a series of visions, some good and some bad. The soul is then judged according to the actions and responses it demonstrated in life. Finally, the soul is called to a new incarnation and proceeds to follow a path leading back into rebirth.
The belief in reincarnation does not solely originate from Eastern religions; many leading Christian and Jewish religious scholars support the idea, and it is taught among our European, African and Native American ancestors. For, instance, when death calls to the Nordic and Germanic peoples to return to their ancestral home, it is common to hear the old ones say "We shall come again". Among the Lapp, a deceased relation is said to appear in the dreams of a woman who is near to giving birth, informing her which ancestor will be born again in the body of her infant. Reincarnation was also a dominant theme among the Celts in Druidic times; they believed that the spirit rested after death, until it was time for the soul to return again to earth. Some West African tribes refer to reincarnation as "the shooting forth of a branch". The Yoruba consult a Santero, or priest of Ifa, god of divination, soon after a child is born, in order to determine what ancestral soul has come back to life.
The Paiute Indians of North America perform the Ghost Dance, a ceremony wherein the dancers enter into a trance-state in order to commune with their ancestors. Spiraling round and round, they sing " We shall live again", in hopes the ancestors will return to repopulate the earth. The Lenape Indians of Delaware and New Jersey say that the pure of heart can recall their former lives. These days, anyone who has had an out-of-body or near-death experience knows they will survive death to live again.
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