Recently had a book recommended to me. it was an older book, Many Lives, Many Masters. The book was about reincarnation and past life regression therapy. While reading, I kept thinking, why did this person recommend this book to me? I was never really into reincarnation, but I think they did it because it speaks of growth in life, which I do think about a lot.
My questions to you are:
is reincarnation any more believable than the concept of a deity?
why or why not?
also, given a choice to come back, would you?
would coming back to a physical plane again and again be less boring than an eternity in heaven?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
21 responses to “Is reincarnation any more believable than the concept of a deity?”
While those are attempts to understand the existential human condition they are apples and oranges.
The idea of a deity recognizes that we are keyed to work the best when we Aim High, carry a burden and make the proper sacrifices as a sort of contract with the future.
Reincarnation ties in with what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, where the grand archetypes of Life dwell. They are the things that we know that we don’t know that we know until they are presented to us in a form we can relate to.
For example you don’t really need to teach a child that a fire breathing dragon hoarding treasure makes sense. Or that Pinocchio had to dive to the depths of the great chaos to save his father from the most monstrous thing before he could become “real”. Even adults will accept these things without raising an eyebrow.
In more primitive philosophies it was far easier to believe that when something triggers an archetypical memory in you that you are remembering another life rather than tapping into the collective unconscious.
Other philosophical disciplines have different names for the same thing. Various native cultures believe this wisdom came from the spirits of those who came before us. Even in Christianity there’s the idea of a great body of witnesses in spiritual places.
My personal thought is that reincarnation keys off of just the physical world. Our ancestors saw how physical matter was recycled and then tried to apply the same thinking to the spirit in a way that helped manage the fear of death and give a sense of ongoing meaning.
But stop to think about the exact set of combinations and permutations the make you what you are probably have never existed before and never will again.
It would seem to make more sense to me that while the physical components are a cycle the spiritual is a continuum.
If you become someone else how are you still you?
I’ll try to answer the rest of your questions each in its own post.
@griz we do have a tendency to apply only what we see and what we think we can know to the entire universe. the book I read was from a past life transgressionist who claimed that one of his patients recalled having 86 lives, and that some “masters” spoke to her from beyond. it was said he uncovered all of this from hypnosis. as to archetypal memories, where are they stored? are they stored in our cells?
@Scarlett
A wise teacher/parent allows a child their childish understandings without judging them harshly. I think we are wise to do the same with past attempts to understand the Human Condition.
And also keeping in mind that sometimes the child can surprise us with very simple understandings of things we have made overly complex!
If someone says they relate the grand picture through 86 past lives, it is not my place to say no that never happened.
But it may be my place to say that if I tried something 86 times and still didn’t get it right, I would not want to make that a point of boasting or “special-ness”!
And I would also note that if we doubt our unique specialness, our minds are capable of coming up with some amazing constructs to reinforce that which is deeply doubted.
(And this could be tied to the modern proclivity of preaching to children over and over how uniquely special they are; and not seeing it manifest in their adult lives they become desperate to prove it is so. I know this opens the door to another discussion, and would welcome it).
Jung proposed that the collective unconsciousness was either programmed into us at a genetic level. Some might add that either this; or that the ability to access it from somewhere beyond self, was genetically programmed into us.
But this view is not popular with social constructionists. Their ideology relies upon us being an undifferentiated blank slate that the society than stamps an image of itself upon. It is all “nurture” and no “nature”; which then gives them the Divine Right of stamping what the collective thinks is right upon the individual.
This strays into a kind of Neo Marxism that seeks to undo some of the greatest revelations of Western Society like sanctity of the individual, and each person having a spark of the Divine in them that makes them innate worth.
The atrocities of Marxism were only possible, in a framework of the individual having no innate worth.
The belief of people born as entirely blank slates makes Marxism inevitable.
(that’s still just a supposition and I’m open to challenges on it)
I personally think it would be rather fun to try everything all over again.
And this is what gives reincarnation its appeal, especially with the idea that knowledge wisdom and personality are somehow preserved in whole or in part.
As for the continuance of spirit in some spiritual reality, we really have less than zero notion of what that may manifest as. The religious notion of stagnant Perfection really doesn’t have much appeal to me personally.
But who’s to say religion got it right?!
I think the spiritual afterlife will be magnificent beyond comprehension.
So much so that we will wonder how the toy of physical existence ever amused us so.
(Where are the toys of your Youth and how much are they missed? If you are doing adulthood correctly you probably don’t miss them all that much save for the sake of nostalgia).
@griz Awwwwe! I miss sitting in dirt and serving my cousins tiny mud cakes on itty-bitty saucers, with tiny tea cups filled with germy hose water. The tea pot had hose water, too, so we could all drink a second cup.
@ladybarbara
And having everything to rediscover as if for the first time again, would be an amazing adventure!
Especially if I could somehow retain the wisdom of how anti-fragile I can be when not glorying in victimhood.
I’d believe in reincarnation before a deity, yea. Though, are we talking about a soul transferring kind of reincarnation? Or just the idea that our consciousness could be created again? I’d believe the latter more, but both more than a deity. Just the idea of a conscious cosmic creator is just so more far-fetched. I mean, we know humans exist. We know our consciousness was created at least this one time. It is so much more reasonable to believe it could happen again than it is something we have never experienced before.
No, I wouldn’t come back. If I had to choose one or the other, I’d do Heaven since I am assuming there is a lack of pain or pain causing things there. I’d go with neither though if given the choice. I’d rather not deal with pain or boredom. I mean, boredom is sometimes painful. I fear coming back. I got pretty lucky this time. The likelihood that I’d be as lucky or luckier next time is just not a good gamble. I don’t gamble with those kind of stakes.
@yin the book I read suggested much of what lb and ip say below. The book was by a past life transgression therapist who claimed to have had a client who reported 86 past lives. The claim was that we choose to come back. the purpose of coming back is to resolve debts that we have caused through our behaviors. it is also to learn and grow, and to have relationships. it suggests these bodies are just vehicles for us. yeah, it seemed a little tough for me to believe. I don’t mind exploring different schools of thought, tho. When it was over I completed a past life meditation on you tube. do you ever do those hypnotic meditation type thingy’s? well at any rate, I do. I have found that I go into different dream states or trance states when I do them. this time the meditation said for me to recall something from a life I had 10,000 years ago. I did not do this, but I saw a clear image of a Guatemalan woman screaming.
@Scarlett I used to believe in reincarnation when I read so many stories of kids who would tell some wild stories of them dying or had accurate information of someone’s life they have never met. Then there was story after story of kids who were declared dead for a little that ended up going around saying they saw Heaven, but then those stories usually ended up being discovered of being created by the parents. I just started feeling that there just was too much dishonesty that I couldn’t trust any of it.
If the debt thing is true, then this must be my first life because I’m not resolving anything with how my life is going, lol. No, I don’t do meditation stuff. I mean, I sit with my thoughts, but I never do those kinds of exercises. I just don’t think I could do that or hypnosis. Seems like one needs to drift off with it. If I sit down to do that, I’m not drifting anywhere. I’d be too focused on listening or thinking of other things. That’s too much mental control for me. I find it pretty interesting though.
In it’s simplest, reincarnation is the recycling process for the soul. One keeps coming back until all necessary lessons have been learned to enable one to transcend to a higher plane of existence. There are two major schools of thought that follow this concept of reincarnation:
A) Ascension, where the soul advances to the next higher plane through good deeds/ works in each lifetime, incrementally until nirvana or a heavenly afterlife is reached.
B) Descention, where the soul is punished by incarnating to a lower life form such as a dog or cow, or cock roach (you really must have fucked up to become a cock roach and it sucks to be you).
In either case, one has a participatory choice in ones ultimate destiny. The same could be said of a monotheistic deity based belief system. Ones afterlife destiny is strongly tied to ones behaviors in this life.
@immortal_pirate
it is an interesting philosophy with a certain appeal: endless chances to get it right.
But while the idea of recycling is echoed in physical nature, the idea of endless chances to get it right doesn’t seem to be. I wonder if there was a realistic basis for this in the natural world; if it was their take on the idea of collective consciousness; or if it was just wishful thinking?
I also wonder what kind of life would result in coming back as a hillbilly.
ReinTarnation!
@griz One would come back as a Canadian…(ROTFLMAO)
@immortal_pirate
Oy v”eh”!
@immortal_pirate do you believe thats true? or is that just something humans made up – the afterlife being tied to our behavior?
Reincarnation is most believable to me, simply because I had dreams of the end of my last life when I was a baby. The terror of drowning stayed with me. I could even work it out in my baby mind —- as Grandma changed my diapers and I stared up at her red window curtains —- I had been in a wagon pulled by horses, or the first of the Ford motorcars. I remember only the frame of a window — a wooden bridge — panic as I was fleeing from an abusive man!!! I broke through the guard rail and went into the water. My dress skirts, my bussel, and high top laced boots with high heel did not allow me to swim. I was tangled in my skirts, then the laces of my boot got caught on the hook tabs of the other boot — locking my ankles together. I could not swim!!! The last memory in the dream was a burning in my lungs. I would always wake up crying. Grandma didn’t know what was wrong with me, and I was too young to express myself in words.
When I was 2 years old, I was living with my Aunt Katherine. The dream of drowning was still haunting my sleep. I could tell Aunt Katherine, but she just laughed at my silly dream. “I can’t swim!!!” was all I could get across to her and I HATED my Dr. Scholl’s shoes with the laces and tab-hooks at the top!
As a teen ager, I still could not learn to swim. Only doing a dog paddle got me to shore as I learned to surf. My roller skates had high top boots that had laces and tab-hooks and I would take pliers and squeeze my tab-hooks closed — so my boots would not lace up. It looked sloppy when I danced on roller skates. I had to get a low-cut boys skate. I can’t stand for my ankles to be bound up.
As a grown-ass adult, who should be able to overcome silly fears, I still cannot swim. I have tried and tried to swim, but always panic. I have combat boots to wear here in the rugged desert. The tab-hooks are pinched closed with pliers, and I will not lace the laces tight. —– I know, such silliness, but it is a real fear that I tried to shake and cannot rise above it.
Well, I will try again in my next life.
@ladybarbara yeah, the book said that the woman in q was stabbed in the throat in a past life and every time she comes back she has fears related to her neck/throat.
Not really… tho there is some limited evidence…
@Jear77 such as?
@Scarlett children speaking languages they never heard. Various religions have their leader choose from objects and if they can, they’re said to be reincarnated
MAybe God keeps dying and reincarnating, and that’s why it gets dark at night…
Tomb stone…lol