Transmigration - Reincarnation

Reincarnation Mystery

Reincarnation simply means leaving one life and moving on to another. The soul is reborn as a human, animal, or plant in the next, according to the moral quality of the previous life. However, even if the person passes into another body, the core personality remains the same.

Reincarnation is often featured in religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. But religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity generally reject reincarnation. Reincarnation also takes place in Greek philosophy.

Reincarnation in the Ancient Western World

Mysterious religions, sometimes transforming from secular social clubs or fraternities, may adopt a wide variety of reincarnation rites and beliefs. Some of these are Orphism, Pythagoras, and Plato.

Orphism was a popular mystery religion that began in the sixth or seventh century BC. The followers studied the supposed writings of Orpheus, a legendary musical figure. They believed in a spirit that resisted death and could incarnate in human or animal form. Orphics believed that the soul was divine and imprisoned by the body. A soul living a righteous life can go to the afterlife, Elysium; on the other hand, the evil spirit suffers in hell. But life after death is not eternal, and after a while, the soul is reborn in a new body. A soul can only end its cycle of reincarnation after it has passed through three good Orphic lives.

Another mystery community-based in Southern Italy is the Pythagorean brotherhood. Philosophers and mathematicians from the fraternity believed that the soul could be revived in a human or animal body. This belief led to the birth of vegetarianism. The Brotherhood adopted the doctrine that the soul comes from the stars but falls to earth and merges with the human body.

The philosopher Plato also believed that the soul reincarnated many times over. Plato thought that seven planetary spheres and an eighth sphere of fixed stars surround the Earth. According to this idea, souls came from planets, descended to earth, merged with bodies, and then tried to free themselves and ascend to the stars.

Reincarnation Research

Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia, a pioneer in scientific research on reincarnation, has studied many reports of young children who claim to remember a past life. He has worked on more than 2,500 cases spanning a 40-year period and has published 12 books, including Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation and Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect.

Stevenson methodically documented each child's statement and then identified the deceased person with whom the child identified and confirmed that the facts of the deceased's life matched the child's memory. He also compared birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, which are confirmed by medical records, such as autopsy photos in Reincarnation and Biology.

Stevenson, who often describes reincarnation as "the survival of the personality after death," saw the existence of past lives as a potential explanation for differences in the human condition. He believed that genetics and environment, as well as past experiences, could help illuminate gender dysphoria, phobias, and other unexplained personality traits.

Stevenson claimed that he only wanted to show that reincarnation could be plausible, not to prove it. Stevenson's work was largely rejected by the scientific community. Skeptics argue that claims for evidence for reincarnation stem from selective thinking and false memories, often stemming from one's own belief system and core fears, and therefore cannot count as empirical evidence.

There is currently neither strong objective evidence nor specific research methods that can reveal the mystery of reincarnation.

Well, as Stevenson mentioned, how do some unexplained phobias and personality traits occur? As you know, some unexplained phobias can be observed not only in children who claim to be reincarnated but also in many other people. Even if we have not experienced any traumatic events before, we can experience phobias such as fear of the dark, gasping in closed spaces, or feeling stressed and trembling in high places. If we can't explain it scientifically with reincarnation, how else can we explain this situation?

With genetics…

Our genes may be inheriting some phobias…

When we are afraid of heights for no reason, let us not immediately think of “I must have fallen from a high place in my previous life”. Because there is a scientific explanation for this. Our genes from our ancestors.

Research shows that some of our memories, fears and behaviors are passed down genetically from our ancestors.

We can inherit our fears through genetics, as well as some diseases that are congenital and inherited through genetics. Recent research by scientists shows that we inherit a lot of genetic memories from our parents, grandparents, and other ancestors through an instinctive effort in their DNA to better prepare us for the difficult experiences they faced, such as fear, illness, or trauma.

Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered that small rodents can transmit knowledge and phobias across generations. The scientists took the rats and, with a series of small electric shocks, instilled a revulsion at the smell of cherry blossoms. They observed that mice exposed to this and exhibiting this fear eventually produced offspring who were also afraid of the smell of cherry blossom, even though they had never been exposed to electric shocks and had no reason to be afraid. The researchers also discovered that the brains of these rats were structurally different from those of other rats without conditioning parents or ancestors. Even if the rats were created by artificial insemination, it was observed that they had a fear of cherry blossom, although they did not have any interaction with the parents who first developed the fear.

Similar experiments were conducted at Tel Aviv University in Israel, and scientists discovered that conditions such as starvation and virus in worms affect the DNA of their offspring. The researchers concluded that these specific genes were passed on in an instinctive attempt to prepare the generations for challenges.

Scientists have yet to test this phenomenon in humans. But the experiment shows some strong evidence that memories can be transmitted biologically, and the consequences of these genetic transmissions could be seen as key to understanding some human behaviors. While we are very different from the species tested, the findings of this research are quite remarkable in terms of human genetics.

In light of this research, we know that illness, fear, and memories can somehow be passed down from generation to generation. Why shouldn't we start talking about our previous life when our brain is an organ that can produce false memories?

Memories can be manipulated, shaped, and formed by combining several different events.

Every event has as many different points of view as the number of witnesses. Everyone interprets the same situation from their point of view, but none of them exactly match reality. If there are gaps in our memory of the event, well congrats. Cause our brain will fill those gaps by interpreting the information it has. However, we cannot be sure whether it is using the truth or purely fiction in making these comments. This is what we call false memories. Memories that seem real but partially or completely fabricated…

Our genes can inherit some feelings, fears, ways of thinking, or diseases related to situations we have not experienced. Our brain is able to present the events we have not experienced as if they are memories of us by blending the information we hear from here and there with other information accumulated in our subconscious. As a result, we may experience situations that are not possible in our lives, but that we remember and believe that we have traces of them. If at that very moment, someone comes out and says, "What if these are memories from your previous life," all the pieces fall into place and you may start to think that you remember your previous life. Of course, that's just my opinion. There could be many other ways, but perhaps memories of someone who actually lived in the past have leaked into your brain through one of the cracks in spacetime. I do not know.

In other words, the only scientifically proven and plausible example of reincarnation is factors such as diseases and fears passed down from our ancestors. I can't say anything if you want to see yourself as a reincarnation of your previous generations because it was transferred from another body to yours. But this is just a matter of inheritance. How you interpret the rest is up to you.

If you're going to have another life, may the good karma be with you...