Paranormal & Fortean : Reincarnation Part Two

Some of the issues I would like to talk about in a set of posts are the varieties of experiences where reincarnation is a possible explanation for. The previous series about Iris Farczady (Two Souls-One Body) gives an excellent example of post-natal reincarnation. This would be where the soul of a person is taken over, sometimes almost completely, by the soul of a person who is no longer in the human realm of existence well after the birth of the 'possessed' person. In the case of Iris Farczady she was eighteen years old when 'Lucia' pretty much took over her whole being. Deja vu experiences are well worth mentioning-even though reincarnation is no the only plausible explanation for these. However, in the body of literature that covers both paranormal phenomena and others there are just to many cases where the person having the deja vu experience felt that this was the only explanation. Here at MFM I do not want ever to go much by 'the only truth' or 'the only explanation', but I can't express how important I think it is to take a person's word or intuition when they talk about their reincarnation or perhaps UFO, mystical, time-slip-really any of the wide variety of paranormal phenomena experiences. I get very angry at people who scoff at folks who have the courage to speak of any paranormal events that happened to them. In my own viewpoint humanity isn't at a stage where it understands even one percent of the universe or 'reality' and maybe never will be.


The great investigator of the psyche and soul, Carl Gustav Jung, had a deja vu experience that moved him deeply. This experience happened to him when he during a visit to Africa in the 1920s-in Jung's own words: "The train, swathed in a red cloud of dust, was just making a turn around a steep red cliff. On a jagged rock above us a slim, brownish-black figure stood motionless, leaning on a spear, looking down at the train. Beside him towered a gigantic candelabrum cactus. I had the feeling that I had already experienced this moment and had always known this world which was separated from me only by distance and time. It was as if I were at this moment returning to the land of my youth, and as if I had know that dark-skinned man who had been waiting for me for five thousand years. I could not guess what string within myself was plucked at the sight of that solitary dark hunter. I knew only that his world had been mine for countless millenia." I wanted to include this quote by Dr. Carl Jung not only because I greatly admire his work, but I also thought this quote was very beautiful and it brought me back to my ponderings on eternity (maybe time really does not exist and only our puny human perceptions make us think it does). The quote also made me think of how deeply at some level humanity is connected and in the 'theory' I am trying to develop this is very important.


Many other experiences exist that I think are important to mention that may suggest reincarnation. Some of these I will pay more attention to than others. Some children are born into this life with vast talents in many different areas, from music to mathematics and beyond. Though reincarnation is not the only explanation for their amazing abilities, it seems like it should at least be mentioned among the possible explanations. I think that the other 'explanations' for this and other areas I want to get into are also very fascinating and I am drawing on many of them for my so-called 'theory'. One of these would be the scientist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake and his theory of 'morphic resonance'. This theory directly ties into non-locality discussed in the 'Questions about the nature of reality' post. I will give a link to his website at the end of this post. Note to reader-although I am putting a lot of effort in the exploration of my experience and developing a theory that I hope has some validity, it is very important to note I think that -and I think delightfully so-human knowledge will always be incomplete. The quest for an understanding of our universe and where human beings fit in it will go on for a very long time, if not forever. The theory or hypothesis I am trying to develop is only a map-NOT the actual territory.


Here is a 'tricky' one to talk about and not get misunderstood-or in my case perhaps-Miss Understood (joke). This is the idea that some have that nations and races have certain characteristics that departed spirits are attracted to and souls will reincarnate, even in groups into these countries and races. I will give an example from a book I am reading as I do research for this series, it is one of many. This book is called Reincarnation: A Critical Examination by Paul Edwards. This quote is from page 49: "Many other puzzling facts seem to lend themselves to the same treatment. How are we to explain the characteristic differences between the English and the French? According to one of my favorite theosophists, Irving S. Cooper, the English display "a tendency toward colonization", a "lawmaking instinct", a "thoroughness in every undertaking", and a "massive style of architecture". These admirable characteristics, it must be noted with regret, are accompanied by a "sacrificing of beauty to utility and strength" and a "lack of imagination in art, religion and philosphy." In France it is just the opposite. There is very little interest in colonization and no lawmaking instinct worth mentioning. However the French have an "imaginative touch", a love of beauty, a "worship of form and expression", and a special "intellectual keenness". There is only one way of accounting for these differences in "racial" characteristics. May it not be, writes Cooper, in what is purely a rhetorical question, "that in a mass the egos of Greece have taken incarnation in France, the egos of Rome in England?"

Another note here. I was wary of putting this quote here because many of the points in it I completely disagree with and some I think are great over-generalizations. Theosophy itself, in my opinion, although I am by no means taking issue with all of it, had some founders and followers who were outright racists. Perhaps Mr. Cooper had not ever heard of Shakespeare or William Blake, and obviously not heard of Algeria, although perhaps he was not alive at the time.
As always you have to separate the wheat from the chaff and come to your own conclusions. I very much enjoy the work of Rudolph Steiner who was a theosophist. I think you have to look at the work of each individual carefully and use your own mind and take the best and leave the rest so to speak. I will also be looking more into Rudolph Steiner later in this series. I included the quote because the theory of group soul reincarnation is out there and mentioned by people in many different fields of study-going all the way out to Jane Roberts and the Seth material, some of which I also found very interesting and worth mentioning later in the series and of course some not so. I am no world traveller by any means, but I have noticed differences in the various countries I have been to, in the people and the culture. These differences are beautiful to me and are part of what makes each human on this planet a precious resource. Some countries I very much regret never having had the chance to visit (these are not the only ones by any means) are as diverse as Russia, India, the east European nations, the nations in Africa both in the moslem north and the heartland of the deepest rainforest and savannah, the south American nations, New Zealand and Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan-heck take me anywhere!

The image is of a statue of Shiva in Bengaluru, southern India sitting in meditation. Here are the links. http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism