Reincarnation

Origin and traditions

The doctrine of reincarnation is one of the most widespread religious concepts in human history. It appears centrally in Hinduism (where it is called samsara, "the cycle of death and rebirth"), Buddhism (with a nuance: there is no permanent "self" that reincarnates, but a karmic stream), Jainism, Sikhism. Outside India, it was also believed by the Celtic druids, the Greek Orphics and Pythagoreans, the medieval Cathars, the Druze and many esoteric traditions.

In orthodox Christianity and Islam, reincarnation was formally rejected in favour of the doctrine of one life followed by final judgement. However, there are mystical currents within each religion that have maintained it (Hebrew Kabbalah with gilgul, Islamic Sufism, certain early Christian mystics before the Council of Nicaea). In the 20th-21st centuries, much of the Western New Age movement has adopted reincarnation as a central belief.

How it works according to traditions

In classical Hinduism, the soul (atman) is eternal and migrates from body to body according to its accumulated karma. The goal is not to keep reincarnating indefinitely but to reach moksha: liberation from the cycle, fusion with the absolute. In Buddhism, the formulation is more subtle: what reincarnates is not a permanent "self" but a stream of consciousness that drags karmic patterns. The goal is nirvana: extinction of that suffering stream.

Academic research has documented suggestive phenomena: Professor Ian Stevenson, of the University of Virginia, compiled cases of children with verifiable memories of past lives over decades (places, names, events they could not normally know). His 3,000+ cases are suggestive but have not produced scientific consensus. Reincarnation remains belief, not proven fact.

Past lives and current life

Practices to access past lives include hypnotic regression (popularised by Brian Weiss and Michael Newton), deep meditation, psycho-spiritual tests that identify karmic archetypes, and karmic numerology. Although the verifiability of these methods is controversial, many people report that working with past lives (whether literal or symbolic) helps them recognise repetitive patterns in their present life and release them.