AN ending is just a new beginning in disguise it’s been said. This perfectly describes the ancient belief in the soul’s immortality and continuity through reincarnation.The spiritual eye of light,(represented in the human brain by the pineal gland), is more and more activated as we progress through spiritual evolution’s wisely appointed reincarnations.
Such stages are necessary to finally achieve “conscious god-hood,” in the words of Theosophical Pioneer W. Q. Judge, all the while living a human existence on Earth, Judge concluding:
“Getting back the memory of other lives is really the whole of the process…”
Mr.Judge in his Letter 5 also notes: “if some people don’t understand certain things, it is either because they have not got to that point in their other lives, or because no glimmer of memory has yet come.” Some people do have such glimmers, and as often such recalls have the power to heal, physically and emotionally.
Healing Memory
“Many religions believe in reincarnation, but for most Christians, it’s not something they expect. So when memories of past lives hit them, it can come as an unwelcome surprise.”
“I never was a believer in reincarnation,” says Patricia Austrian, until her four-year old son Edward revealed a physically disabling memory from a past life.
Growing Belief
In “Remembrances of Lives Past,” an article that appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek’s religion editor Lisa Miller takes a look at our nation’s growing belief in reincarnation.
According to data released by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a quarter of Americans believe in reincarnation.
Interestingly, according to the Times piece, women are more likely to believe in reincarnation than men, and democrats are more likely to believe than republicans. 😉
“This emerging belief in reincarnation is a steep departure from the traditional Judaeo-Christian narrative that most Americans are familiar with: In religious terms, the human narrative — birth, life, death and rebirth — has for millennia been relatively straightforward in the West.
“You were born. You lived. You died. After a judgment you went to heaven (or hell) forever and ever. Eternity was the end: no appeals allowed.
“But nearly a billion Hindus and a half-billion Buddhists — not to mention the ancient Greeks, certain Jews and a few Christians — have for thousands of years believed something entirely different. Theirs is, as the theologians say, a cyclical view.
“You are born. You live. You die. And because nobody’s perfect, your soul is born again — not in another location or sphere, and not in any metaphorical sense, but right here on earth.”
The Only Known Video
The Reincarnation
of Anne Frank
This video points to the personal testimony of Barbro Karlen, from Sweden, who speaks of childhood memories of being Anne Frank. She meets those who killed her; they have also reincarnated. For both sides, there is unfinished business.
A Previous Life?
According to the article, a growing number of Americans are turning to Eastern religious beliefs out of dissatisfaction with Western religions and because of our country’s relative prosperity: Western religion is failing to satisfy growing numbers of people — especially young adults.
College students Mr. Dasa encounters, most of them raised as Christians or Jews, “haven’t given up on the idea of spirituality or religion,” he said.
It’s not unusual for little boys to have vivid imaginations, but Ryan’s stories were truly legendary. His mother Cyndi said it all began with horrible nightmares when he was 4 years old. Then when he was 5 years old, he confided in her one evening before bed.
The Permanent Astral
“It is a body formed of astral substance during a life-time by the reincarnating ego; when so formed it remains with all its powers and functions as the astral form for succeeding lives. In ordinary cases, a new astral is projected for each birth …”
See link:
Reincarnation not Religion
“They’re tired of the dogma they grew up with.” According to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey, 15 percent of Americans express no affiliation with any religious tradition, nearly double the number in 1990.
“Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University and author of “God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World,” has made a study of Western interest in Eastern religious practice and suggests that our fascination with reincarnation is related to Americans’ relative prosperity.”
Tom Harpur
on Reincarnation
“I’ve come to the point with regard to reincarnation, that I think not only is it a worthy subject of investigation, but that the evidence strongly suggests that it may, in fact, be true. Well over fifty-percent of the Earth’s inhabitants believe in some form of reincarnation.”
Never Say You’re Dead
“Modern Americans, in their optimism and material success, see reincarnation as a chance to postpone eternity for another day, Stephen Prothero explained by e-mail. ‘Reincarnation means never having to say you’re dead,’ he wrote.Interestingly, the article makes the claim that it is therapists — who Miller identifies as ‘intermediaries between science and religion who authenticate irrational belief’ — that are popularizing the idea of reincarnation in the West.
“Though many scientists still question the practice of hypnosis and past-lives therapy, the treatments have led some patients to experience parts of what they believe to be their past lives.”
♥
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Theosophy Watch 
Is reincarnation in the Bible? Did Jesus teach reincarnation?
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Jesus affirmed the doctrine, and also affirmed the old ideas in relation to the return to earth of the prophets by saying that the ruler had killed John not knowing that he, John, was Elias “who was for to come.” (William Q. Judge)
http://www.theosophytrust.org/170-reincarnation-in-the-bible
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