More Notes on Rebirth

In pondering the notion of reincarnation, certain questions arise. The evidence available (and it is strong) suggests that people are born again; but the number of such cases is relatively small. If it were universal, we’d have much larger numbers who remember, not just a few. Therefore it may well be that some people are reborn after death, but not all. The generalization from a small sampling to all of humanity is not based on evidence but on philosophical projections trying to explain the few cases that seemingly always arise—and not just in regions where reincarnation is generally accepted.

In the West the general belief is that souls are created by God at or around a baby’s conception. In Catholicism reincarnation was anathamized by the Second Council of Constantinople (533), which declared both that the “fabulous pre-existence of souls” as well as “the monstrous restoration which follows from it” were wrong. In the East (Hinduism, Buddhism) the pre-existence is assumed—and souls are assumed to be, as it were, sparks of the Ultimate itself, entangled in the material realm by their own illusions and held here until, overcoming them, they rejoin the Ultimate.

The belief held in the East, however, was also articulated by Origen (185-254), an early theologian of the Church in his book, Peri Archon (I’m cribbing from the Catholic Encyclopedia here). He also held that souls pre-exist their incarnation, having been created outside of time; their presence in time, thus in bodies, is the consequence of their own willful behavior. To quote the Encyclopedia: “Origen’s theory excludes both eternal punishment and eternal bliss; for the soul which has been restored at last to union with God will again infallibly decline from its high state through satiety of the good, and be again relegated to material existence; and so on through endless cycles of apostasy, banishment, and return.”  If Origen used those words literally, he was surely mistaken about satiety, but never mind…

In any case, fascinating. Origen ultimately derives this cycling from the operations of free will—which is at least a coherent sort of doctrine. It assumes that each of us, individually, caused our own fall rather than, as it were, getting our original sin by mere genetic inheritance. The alternative, that of being created in a fallen state, at birth, is, for me, incoherent. In the latter instance all we must try to explain is why we don’t remember the initial act that sent us to a realm where, every morning, we have to put on socks.

Just a handful of those who remember having lived one life before also remember the intermediate state between lives in another and always rather magical realm. And some very few among them also recall having been urged by one or several angels to come back to earth again. Why? Because, evidently, they needed to do so to develop further. Those are interesting cases. In most others, it just happens.

So what does all this suggest? Is the model developmental? If so, the engineering of such intricate machines as bodies would not have been done by the fallen creatures themselves but would be part of the divine plan (which, of course, is the orthodox teaching, but I find it hard to believe); this is a big subject; I will have to enlarge on it later. Something more complex is going on here. I suspect, however, that I’ll have to wait until my own border crossing before the structure that brings us here and receives us back over there—and what’s really behind it—becomes clearer. I’ll put this in that notebook I’ll take with me when I die.

The Monstrous Restoration

In the context of yesterday’s post on a verse in Genesis, it is sometimes instructive to contemplate the vast process by means of which ancient writings have been raised to the rank of revelation and how orthodox doctrines are formed by a process that functions exactly like legislation—thus hammered out, voted in or voted out. How this observation fits the general thematic of the last few posts, the Fall of Man, will become plain as we proceed. The Genesis view is that the Fall was occasioned by sin and brought death as its consequence. (Paul: “The wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23). One of the very prominent early Christian theologians, Origen (c. 185-254), held a view that is at least mildly conformant to this doctrine, at the abstract level, anyway, if not in detail. Whenever the Church Fathers are mentioned, there you will find a mention of Origen—but invariably followed by the annotation that, well, technically, he was not a Church Father because he had heretical views. Of that in a moment.

Origen’s fascinating view was that souls pre-exist their incarnation, thus that they were created at the very beginnings of Reality. The very fact that we are material bodies was proof for Origen of the Fall, but the disobedience took place before such objects as bodies existed. You might say that humanity’s disobedience took place in a higher realm and that all those here were personally disobedient. The problems associated with “inherited” original sin therefore go away. The disobedience produced a degree of nonbeing in those who disobeyed, and a consequence of disobedience was, is, bodily existence. Origen, therefore, believed in reincarnation, metempsychosis. “Every soul comes into this world strengthened by the victories and weakened by the defeats of its previous life,” Origen wrote. A source I found for that is here—on page 42 of the referenced book. Origen’s scholarly labor involved work in discerning the origins of the New Testament, thus he participated in the process that turns old writings into revelation. But some of his own theological ideas were later condemned as anathema by a legislative body, the Second Council of Constantinople, in 533. He thus exemplifies in person the processes by which doctrines evolve.

The Council declared the “fabulous pre-existence of souls” anathema and condemned those who believed in “the monstrous restoration which follows from it.” The use of those energetic adjectives pleases me—none of the usual bland-talk in the sixth century. The monstrous restoration, of course, is reincarnation. Well, perhaps it is monstrous—if seen from a much, much higher perch in the order of creation.

Two observations. First, it is interesting to note that a very broad hermeneutical interpretation of Genesis’ Chapter 3—viewed as a poetical take on a real state of affairs—could result in so enlarging the picture that Origen’s view becomes credible. Second, that view is widely held in Hinduism, not least the eternal nature of souls and the fact that their capture by Wheel of Karma is the consequence of desire for the low. In that context the death of someone who has become purified is, indeed, a blessing, devoutly to be wished.

Forgotten Bricks

It amused me to note today, again, how selective humanity is in choosing what to remember and what to emphasize. I was looking up Plato’s views on the “simplicity of the soul,” which, I’d noted, reading another post, had come to be reduced, by twists and turns, to the simplicity of intellect. Now Plato’s doctrine of the soul’s immortality, based on its unity, immateriality, lack of any parts, and its invisibility is widely known, indeed has become a kind of token. But in the very same dialogue, the Phaedo, in which this conception of the soul is artfully developed, we also get the equally fascinating doctrine that souls pre-exist their births, that life results in death but that death generates life as well—a doctrine that Socrates explains by the analogy of sleep and waking, each generating the other. Ancient intellectual structures remain forever sound, as it were, but it is nevertheless possible to mine them for just those bricks and stones that fit a current fashion in architecture—while others are left untouched in their places. With Origen (185-254 AD), among the ancients, the notion of metempsychosis was still alive until purged from Christianity in the Second Council of Constantinople held in 553. That was at least one kind of fundamental change in the way doctrines of the soul had to be built in the future.

Reincarnation: Western Perspectives

Modern cases of reincarnation studied by westerners mostly involve children who remember a previous life in detail. They remember the names of previous family members. In many such cases, the child reports dying of violence or early in life in some traumatic fashion—while giving birth, for instance. The previous (remembered) family may live in the same or in a distant town. The child usually insists. It says that it does not belong here, in its current family. Some children carry birthmarks at those sites where they were injured in their supposed previous life.

Dr. Ian Stevenson, then at the University of Virginia documented such reports in Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (University of Virginia Press, 1974) and in Reincarnation and Biology: A Contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects (Praeger Publishers, 1997). He maintained a database of some 3,000 reported cases; of these 200 were “suggestive” of reincarnation in his opinion. Stevenson was an original, erudite, and courageous figure. He was trained in medicine, worked in biochemistry, and, with a partner, made a discovery about oxidation in kidneys. He later took another degree and qualified as a Freudian psychoanalyst; but dissatisfied with Freudian approaches, he eventually began investigating paranormal phenomena. In the process he became the leading scientific investigator of reincarnation. I ought to put “scientific” in quotes because he was treated as an outlaw by many would-be spokesmen for science, described (because he had to be) as objective, careful, and disciplined—but he was said to entertain an “unacceptable hypothesis.” Here is a classical case of the clash between the search for truth on the one hand and of an orthodoxy on the other.

Stevenson labeled only those cases as suggestive of reincarnation where no other explanation of the data seemed as plausible. Even so he studiously avoided making any claims. Hence he used the word “suggestive” rather than some stronger term like “evidentiary.”

All such cases rely on memories—of children. The memories are vivid, including, for instance, the location where some money was buried or what the names of the reincarnated person’s children were. The child recognizes previous locations, the layout of residences and neighborhoods it had never visited before, and people who were its claimed relatives in the previous life. The child greets these people by name, sometimes by nickname known only in narrow family circles. In all of these cases, the will not to believe causes doubters to reach for concepts like telepathy to argue for an alternative means whereby information may have reached the child.

The cases are much more persuasive than the “super-psi” explanation, outlined here, used to explain them away. Indeed the raw data become almost banal, and the birthmarks, where present, suggest that the minds appearing now in new bodies actually participated in their formation along lines that remind one of stigmata, but here caused by unpleasant memories.

Stevenson’s cases come from all over the world, but many more from cultures where reincarnation is accepted. In cultures where the doctrine is taboo, children are shushed when they first begin to talk about such things. They are certainly not believed. No doubt they sense their parents’ anxiety and disapproval. In any case, these memories tend to fade away as the children grow older, no matter which culture they inhabit.

Now for some older western views of reincarnation. The concept has been around from very early on and seems to have been widespread. It was and is held by Hindus and by followers of the Jewish Kabbalah today. The Kabbalah calls the process gil-gul. One of the greatest if also admittedly one of the more controversial of the Church Fathers, Origen (185-254), taught the preexistence of the soul. Origen had an, ah, original view of the scriptures too, declining to follow the “letter” of the scripture strictly where he judged it unfit to be the word of God. He wrote: “Every soul comes into this world strengthened by the victories and weakened by the defeats of its previous life.” One source is here, on p. 42.

Platonist ideas influenced Origen, but he seems to have held his belief in “preexistence” as a matter of logical necessity based on an argument I personally find silly. Origen thought that souls coexist with God and thus have no beginning. Origen argued that God could not be omnipotent without subjects. No one is master without servants. Souls therefore had to coexist with God. Origen’s father died as a martyr; Origen himself was tortured for his faith. He was a teacher of great renown and wrote many books—a shining light, in other words, much admired by numerous people who were later canonized. He was not.

Belief in some Christian version of reincarnation seems to have been held by various groups for at least 300 some odd years in the West—dated from around the time when Christianity formed. With the coming of the Emperor Constantine (reigned 306-337), the Church gained power and began consolidating its ideological rule. The process took the form of various councils, the first of which Constantine organized himself. Bishops gathered at various places and hammered out the shape of orthodoxy. Until then all kinds of sects coexisted uneasily, snarling at each other in their tracts. All this had to be organized. Competing groups now morphed into heresies. At the Second Council of Constantinople, held in 553, “preexistence” was finally rooted out. Souls had to be created within time and only went round once. The council published some 13 anathemas in the summer of that year. One dealt with the “fabulous pre-existence of souls” and condemned those who asserted the “monstrous restoration which follows from it.” If the belief had not been common, it wouldn’t have required quite so firm a sanction. This event, in the sixth century, was not really a philosophical but a political resolution of an article of faith. It is well to hold that in mind. The organization of churches, while deeply intertwined with ideas and their meanings, is an expression of social force aimed at regulating society, not at clarifying thought.

Traditions on the Soul

As briefly sketched in the last post, we have at minimum indicators that souls can persist without a bodily substrate; the same reports also indicate that while the disembodied self is able to perceive the world through some analog of sight and hearing, it seems unable to affect the material dimension that it can see and hear. Today I want to glance briefly at humanity’s traditions concerning the soul—and how those views resonate with near-death reports.

The picture out there is the usual wondrous confusion. Within Christianity, for instance, we have conflicting view. The Apostle’s Creed specifically singles out “the resurrection of the body” just before it concludes with the final article of belief in “life everlasting.” Within Catholicism—but not exclusively in Catholicism—the focus is on the soul, not on the body-soul composite. Here we encounter the concept of purgatory, for example. At the same time the Church also asserts the resurrection of the body as a dogmatic article of faith. Souls are immortal and hence cannot be said to return to life—therefore resurrection of the body. What we encounter here is a mixing of scriptural and philosophical conceptions not satisfactorily sorted—in my opinion, anyway. The sorting, in effect, is accomplished by dividing time into two great sections; the first is the reality in which we now find ourselves; the second is another one that, curiously, begins “at the end of time,” thus at the beginning of another dispensation.

The popular Greek and the Hindu views of soul present an interesting contrast. The Greeks conceived of embodied life as the proper and, as it were, the full expression of the self. Souls survive the death of bodies but, thereafter, live as ghosts or shades; they lack something they ought to have; hence they continue to exist but in a diminished form. This view is nicely put by Homer in the Odyssey. Ulysses visits Hades and there encounters the great hero, Achilles. In conversation with the hero, Ulysses lauds him as a great prince among the dead.

“Say not a word,” [Achilles] answered, “in death’s favour; I would rather be a paid servant in a poor man’s house and be above ground than king of kings among the dead.” Odyssey 11.488.

In the Hindu conceptualization the soul is something permanent and eternal, indeed uncreated, a particle of divinity. Thus it pre-exists any and all of its incarnations. But its incarnations are, in effect, a form of inferior existence that selves suffer rather than enjoy; the suffering comes from ignorance. Ultimate bliss comes from successful detachment from the material realm, thus from bodies. If any karmic weight clings to the soul on its departure, it will be drawn into yet another undesirable incarnation. Where the ancient Greeks deplored the shades, the Hindus still grieve over the living.

In the Christian tradition, incidentally, Origen (185-254) also held that souls pre-existed their appearance in bodies. Not surprisingly he also denied the body’s resurrection. His views were later anathamized by the Fifth Ecumenical Council (545).

Plato’s view of soul is functionally similar to the Hindus’—but with none of the pessimistic coloration that darkens Indian cosmology. The soul is immaterial and therefore immortal (“incorruptible” in the sense that it’s indivisible); it continues after death. Aristotle—whose enormous powers of rationality, I think, caused him to lean in the direction of materialism—conceived of the genuinely real, or actual, as formed matter. Thus people are substances composed of bodies and souls, but the soul is the form of the body and the body is the matter of the soul—and if you separate these two, you don’t have anything real. This is known as the doctrine of matter-form or substance dualism. Only substances are real. Unformed matter or immaterial soul have no ontological status. They’re merely potentials—reminiscent of ghosts or shades. Aristotle, therefore, did not believe that souls survive the passing of the bodies. He did, however, indicate a vague sort of belief in the permanence of intellect. But it's best, in this context, not to confuse “intellect” with “person.”

Ancient materialists—the only two I’m able to name are Democritus (c.460-370 BC) and Lucretius (c.99-55 BC)—both held the doctrine that souls were formed of very subtle atoms. These, much like the coarser atoms that make up the body, disperse into the flux of the world on death. Hence souls do not “survive,” meaning that the clusters of fine atoms do not continue to cohere.

* * *

In looking at these traditions in light of what we can discern of souls in the early stage (I call it the “worldly” phase) of near-death experiences, what seems evident is that the Aristotelian matter-form doctrine may not be right; the “form” seems to survive—if indeed the soul is the body’s form or constituting agency.

The conventional Greek view of “ghost” or “shade” seems mildly confirmed in that the disembodied self is incapable to acting on the world—isn’t heard when Mary or John attempt to speak to doctors, nurses, or their relatives. Experiencers report frustration when they can’t communicate. But that the “life in Hades” is indeed wretched is denied in the later phase of this experience, what I’ve called the “other-worldly” phase of NDEs—as we shall see.

The early phase certainly doesn’t contradict the Hindu view of things; the soul is still there even though the body is in its last stages of cohesion; it might go on and be reborn again. Contrarian indications are present in that, upon departure from the body, no person undergoing such an experience appears to regain memories of previous lives—while still fully possessing memories of this one. But nothing here suggests that later on such memories might not return.

That form of the Christian view which emphasizes the importance of the soul is certainly confirmed. As for the unique importance of one particular body, such that its resurrection becomes important, on that subject the near-death experience is largely silent.