(Yet) Another look at reincarnation

Some years ago I bought and read a book entitled "Read How We Died". I picked it up at a local psychic fair and today, years later, I recalled that it contained some afterlife stories that might be relevant to things I had been pondering on lately. I found the book is available in Kindle format on Amazon together with a short biography of the author. 

One of the things I had been pondering upon was the nature and process of reincarnation. This has occupied my thinking for many years since I discovered that there does not seem to be a universal understanding of the process. Usually, one thinks of a linear process: life on earth, death, between lives in spirit, reincarnation and rebirth on earth. However, I gleaned many years ago from something in the Seth books that this is a distorted view and that we need to think in larger terms about the soul in order to understand reincarnation. Recently, I happened across an article by Michael Tymn describing some channeled material from Frederick Myers who echoed what I had gathered from reading Seth.

Myers further explained that the group soul might contain twenty souls, a hundred, or a thousand. “The number varies,” he said. “It is different for each man.  But what the Buddhist would call the karma I had brought with me from a previous life is, very frequently, not that of my life, but of the life of a soul that preceded me by many years on earth and left for me the pattern which made my life.  I, too, wove a pattern for another of my group during my earthly career.

Myers added that the Buddhist’s idea of rebirth, of man’s continual return to earth, is but a half-truth.  “And often half a truth is more inaccurate than an entire misstatement. I shall not live again on earth, but a new soul, one who will join our group, will shortly enter into the pattern or karma I have woven for him on earth.”

That last sentence more or less confirms what I remember from Seth although I seem to remember that Seth suggested this was the case rather than stating it so directly.

So, to come back to the book and author (Andrea Grieveson) I had rediscovered and how that ties in with my rumination on reincarnation, I'd like to draw your attention to the story of Alfredo from Ms Grieveson's bio, in particular the final sentence and how that seems to fit precisely with what Myers was attempting to explain.

One evening at home a spirit came through Alan who said we had met before. I could not remember him until he told me he had been sitting on my stairs! His name in his previous life had been Alfredo and he was just about to incarnate on to the earth again and that we would meet in about 20 years time. Apart from saying that he would be born in the Pays Basque, that was all he said.

Years passed with all of our spiritual work and in the year 2000 we flew off to London to go to a conference organised by writer Andrew Collins, on all things Paranormal. We were staying in a hotel at Heathrow and on the practically full train into London, a young man got up from his seat but I told him 'No thanks, I'm fine standing'. However he insisted and I sat down. All of the way into London he stood and stared at me. I just could not understand why and we got off at our stop and out of his life - whoever he was. Many years later Alfredo came into my head one day and told me that the young man on that tube train had been his new earth person!

Postscript: 

On second thoughts, that "psychic fair" I mentioned as being where I bought the book may well have been that Andrew Collins conference - I know I attended a couple of those around that period.

Usually, one thinks of a linear process: life on earth, death, between lives in spirit, reincarnation and rebirth on earth.

The evidence suggests that reincarnation happens exactly like that. There aren't any "group souls" or "higher selves".

Sometimes the previous personality makes a prediction that he will be reborn into a particular family. Some subjects also remember their death in a previous life, their life as a discarnate spirit between lives and how they chose their parents for their next life. I think these cases negate the group-soul theory. Furthermore, channeled information is unreliable.

I agree with Titus Rivas's view on reincarnation:

My own conceptualisation of reincarnation is personalistic. I hold that the mind is not some impersonal or collective category, but the life of a constant, substantial self.

AMNESIA: The universality of reincarnation and the preservation of psychological structure

The evidence suggests that reincarnation happens exactly like that. There aren't any "group souls" or "higher selves".[url=http://txtxs.nl/artikel.asp?artid=618][/url]

I think there might be, but in a different sense to how Kamarling suggests ~ souls in a soul group will often incarnate together and interact via their respective egos. Thus, these souls help each other to grow in various ways. The same group of souls will interact each other lifetime after lifetime through many different egos.

It would also make a lot of sense that those beings that many call their Spirit Guides are also from their soul group. This is the feeling I vaguely got from many of my own more minor Spirit Guides, though I didn't really understand my connection to them, nor could I at the time I last felt their presences. They didn't really play much of a role in guiding me, except to keep me company until I was introduced to my major Spirit Guides through Ayahuasca.

I also know that we have a Higher Self which are nothing more than a manifestation of our Soul, which is our Self, as defined by Jung, as being to whole of a person. I know this through my own experiences ~ the first was a manifestation of my Self as a tall, wise male figure, who was cast in shadow by the intense light behind him. I knew, somehow, that it was my Self, my Soul. The second was of a most deeply compassionate, kind, caring female figure who completely and fully understood everything I was going through, and was unconditionally loving.

The evidence suggests that reincarnation happens exactly like that. There aren't any "group souls" or "higher selves".

I'm not sure how you can be so definitive, saying "there aren't any". Nor am I sure to which evidence you refer. Any evidence is open to interpretation and we make assumptions based upon our earthly experience. Nevertheless, if the nature of time is different to our common experience or something of an illusion, then linear progressions in time would also be illusory.

I think there might be, but in a different sense to how Kamarling suggests ~ souls in a soul group will often incarnate together and interact via their respective egos. Thus, these souls help each other to grow in various ways. The same group of souls will interact each other lifetime after lifetime through many different egos.

I believe we are talking of two different things here and the confusion stems from the use of the word "group". That was the word used in the Myers communications whereas Seth and others use "group" to mean what you say - a kind of gathering of souls who sort of bond into families or relationships in both the earthly and spiritual dimensions. What Myers refers to as a "group" is what Seth terms a gestalt: an entity composed of many facets or personalities each with individual validity but part of a greater whole. That gestalt is, in turn, part of a greater gestalt and so on. All that is (Seth's term for God) is what he calls the Primary Gestalt - the source of all others.

I'm not sure how you can be so definitive, saying "there aren't any". Nor am I sure to which evidence you refer. Any evidence is open to interpretation and we make assumptions based upon our earthly experience. Nevertheless, if the nature of time is different to our common experience or something of an illusion, then linear progressions in time would also be illusory.

Children Who Report Memories of Previous Lives
Especially those kind of cases I mentioned in my previous post.

Children Who Report Memories of Previous Lives
Especially those kind of cases I mentioned in my previous post.

Again, with the concept of a gestalt soul, i.e. one that includes all the memories and experiences of the constituent personalities, it would be possible for a spirit to continue in the afterlife while a "new" personality, carrying those memories, is reborn into earthly experience. That seems to me to be the gist of what Myers is explaining in the quote above.

To be clear, I am not saying that reincarnation doesn't happen (nor is Myers) but that we cannot really appreciate the nature of time and parallel or simultaneous lives. Perhaps we need to rethink our notion of a soul?

If my past life story stuff is any indication then yeah, it's totally linear, unless for some reason it can't be, then you shift to the next most compatible timespace. Both that information combined with NDE reports of people fighting to stay out of their bodies after they've regained the ability to achieve homeostasis, or outright shooting back to them the moment they do also seems to indicate that incarnation may be a simple situation of the soul trying to get to it's lowest energy state. Just like literally everything else we see in nature. What defines that state may be very complex or at least seem that way since we don't have much to go on for it. But even in the reincarnation research that I'm aware of, plus my own story, it really seems like that's a strong possibility. Examples being people reincarnating into the same gender more often than not, in the same culture more often than not, arguably in the same overall life situation more often than not. The idea that this would extend to people you've previously incarnated with would just be more of the same. Likewise with interlife "karma" transference.

I can think of a few ways you could actually test this scientifically but it would never get past an ethics board. Plus I'm not sure we've quite got the tech yet to test it in the way I'm thinking. Basically the hypothesis is that the mechanisms behind people reentering their bodies during NDE's is the same mechanism behind reincarnation. If true, you should be able to pop someone out of one body, and then pull them down into a different one by making it more compatible with them than their first body.

It's a test based on part of my past life story stuff where at one point someone figure out you could literally do this. Then the military implemented it by making a bunch of engineered, military grade clones that they'd recycle dead soldiers back into by taking advantage of the lowest energy state mechanism. It was a bit of a big deal, caused a bunch of controversy in the early days when people who'd "died" would come home and their parents and others would go "how do I know it's really you?" It'd be interesting to know if that's actually how reincarnation works.

I imagine if group souls or gestalts or whatever exist they'd likely be made up of people with more submissive personalities who'd tolerate just being a cog in a machine they don't control. Likewise for the uncontidional love stuff, as it's a meme among those with high drive and passion that they get annoyed when people try to be overly positive about their work since they're always trying to improve and want to know what's going wrong in order to do that. Often preferring brutal honesty and whatnot. I can't imagine there'd be many of those types who'd want a scenario of some external thing unconditionally loving them while they are also just a facet in some greater soul who's karma they inherit even though they weren't personally involved in it's creation, fulfilling a purpose not chosen by themselves.

Again, with the concept of a gestalt soul, i.e. one that includes all the memories and experiences of the constituent personalities, it would be possible for a spirit to continue in the afterlife while a "new" personality, carrying those memories, is reborn into earthly experience. That seems to me to be the gist of what Myers is explaining in the quote above.

To be clear, I am not saying that reincarnation doesn't happen (nor is Myers) but that we cannot really appreciate the nature of time and parallel or simultaneous lives. Perhaps we need to rethink our notion of a soul?

In my opinion the concept of a gestalt soul is absurd. Some people have very clear memories of their life as a discarnate spirit between incarnations. They clearly remember how they chose their parents or were drawn to them. They may also remember verified events of this period, and some of them even remember several past lives.

Above all, I am very aware of having been the same person throughout these lives...

Jenny Cockell, Journeys Through Time page 257.

In my opinion the concept of a gestalt soul is absurd. 

Fine. At least this time you acknowledge it is your opinion rather than making a definitive statement such as 'there aren't any "group souls" or "higher selves"'.

I have to wonder why this subject seems to elicit the kind of dismissive response made by you and Mediochre.

I imagine if group souls or gestalts or whatever exist they'd likely be made up of people with more submissive personalities who'd tolerate just being a cog in a machine they don't control ...

All I'm trying to point out is that there may be another way of looking at reincarnation somewhat different to the strict linear process we are all intuitively comfortable with, perhaps because that's how things happen here on earth. I don't find it absurd to imagine a soul entity with shared memories and experiences between multiple aspects through multiple lives. Indeed, I see some parallels with human psychology where a single human can have multiple distinct personalities. Perhaps not an exact parallel but enough to be worthy of consideration.

Also, I think that it is wrong to imply that all the evidence points to the single-personality soul. I've already presented a couple of examples of material supporting the group/gestalt model. This might be another although I'm not really a follower of the Michael Teachings because of the diversity of channels who claim to be channeling Michael. Different terminology but similar concepts. "Essence" seems to be what Myers calls the group soul and Seth the gestalt. "Fragment" is the individual personality.

Following the death of the incarnating fragment, the soul returns to the astral. In a familial sense, essence resonates like a parental figure to the fragment, and the parent/child bond is strong and compelling. Eventually, the fragment returns to essence and is brought back into the fold.

Absorption is one term used to describe the process, but essence is not a blob-like creature that digests the fragment and absorbs its nutrients (or in this example, experiences). A better term would be coalescence. The fragment is coalesced with essence, meaning a unification of the two energies that creates a sense of oneness yet allows for an individuation of spirit. Essence is not a bloated mass of personalities, or even a soul-eater (as some of our students fear), but a collective spirit united by a greater awareness, in a network of divergent souls connected but also free to pursue their own existence.

Individual souls (or essence fragments) do not reincarnate but they are intimately aware of the other incarnations and are energetically a part of them. The individual souls, or children of essence, as it were, continue to evolve through their unification with essence and in their own aspirations for personal growth.