Reincarnation

In Occident: a mainly Greek idea, at the dubious origin

Although some see beliefs in the reincarnation at the Druide S Celtes or other group pagan, it is mainly in the Greek world that the doctrines of the Métempsycose flower. In Greek, métempsycose means “transmigration of the hearts”. In these doctrines, the heart continues its evolution of existence in existence, and can be possibly incarnated in an animal or a plant.

It is about sixth century BC that this belief appears in the Greek world. Its origin is not known with certainty. One does not find of it trace at Homère or Hésiode, it is thus doubtful that it comes from the Greek mythical past. For the Greek historian Hérodote, the belief in the métempsycose would be of Egyptian origin. It is also possible that it was inpirée by the Indian Hindouisme. The contacts between Greece and India however were complicated a long time by the fact that the Perse, enemy hereditary of the Greeks, was between two civilizations (it is mainly with the conquests of Alexandre Large the that the Greek world and the Indian world were in constant contact).

At the Greeks, the orphism and the pythagorism will constitute the stones of sitted of the doctrines of the métempsycose. It will influence then poets like Pindare and of the philosophers like Plato. One finds discussions direct of the reincarnation or allusions to this one in the Phédon, the Ménon, the Banquet, and particularly in the Mythe of er .

In the Greek thought, the reincarnation is primarily regarded as a process of purification allowing the rise to be it matter towards the divine one (towards the Platonic Ideas, in particular).

Among Romans

The " religion romaine" was multiform and in constant evolution, in particular influenced by the religious beliefs of the conquered territories (in particular divinities of the Mediterranean East).

However, of the currents of orphic inspiration and pythagorician always existed in Rome, in particular among the easy classes, the philosophers and the artists - and thus the belief in the Métempsycose. One finds for example allusions to the transmigration of the hearts in the Enéide of Virgile (VI, 713 and S).

In the Judaism

The doctrines of the reincarnation do not form part of the traditional Judaïsme, which prefers the concept of to him Résurrection of the flesh, which must take place after the arrival of the Messie come to release the Jewish people.

However, the idea of the reincarnation seems to have been present in the Jewish popular beliefs. It seems for example that many Jews believed the heart of Adam returned in Seth, then in Noah, Abraham and Moïse. Nevertheless, much of these characters not having died but having been " removed with the ciel" , it is advisable here to make the distinction between Assomption and reincarnation (see below, In the Bible , in connection with Elie). The Judaism also refers several (for example: 2Rois 2:15) with the fact for a prophet of being " inspiré" by the spirit of another prophet, which is different there still from the reincarnation.

Certain comments in work of the Roman Jewish historian Flavius Josèphe are sometimes interpreted like a belief in the reincarnation. In addition, in its famous judaïques Antiquities, Flavius Josèphe explains why the Pharisiens, one of the schools of Jewish philosophy, seemed to accept the possibility of a new life on ground for those which would have been virtuous - i.e. the reincarnation like reward. The community of the Esséniens which lived under Jewish protectorate also seems to have had affinities with the idea of reincarnation (see the books of Anne Givaudan and Daniel Meurois).

It is in fact in the Kabbale, the mystical and esoteric tradition Jewish, that the concept of reincarnation is most present. The work which treats some most directly is the rear Sha' Ha' Gilgulim ( the door of the reincarnations ). It is inspired by the Sefer ha Zohar (section Mishpatim ), the Livre of Splendor , one of the most important works of the Cabal. The concept used in Hebrew is that of Gilgulei ha Neshamot , or more simply gilgul , meaning " cycle" , neshamot being plural d'" âmes". The work describes the " cycle" hearts through various lives or incarnations, reasons of this cycle, as well as the means allowing to accelerate its spiritual evolution.

In Christianity

Argument of a " censure réincarnation" for political reasons

There exists a mobility of groups esoteric and " spiritualistes" (for example the spiritistic movement or the Théosophie), often born at the 19th century with the renewed interest for the Occultisme, which believes in the reincarnation, and propose the fact that it is about a belief shared by very many religions and spiritualities through the ages and the places. They include in this list the Christianity of the origins. According to them, the first Christians (or at least a part of them) believed in the reincarnation, but this belief would have been censured and declared heretic in the IIe council of Constantinople, for political reasons. These political reasons were intense conflicts of capacities between the Roman Empire of the East and the Western Empire (Rome and Byzance), between the various churches and patriarchates of the Christendom of the first centuries, and especially of the important theological conflicts between various obediences of the first Christians, at one time when the Christian doctrines were the subject still of sharp debates: origenism, Monophysisme, Nestorianisme, orthodoxe, etc

Holding of this thesis is based in particular on certain passages of the Evangiles, which would comprise according to them allusions veiled to the reincarnation (see below, In the Bible ). They also underline that, if the Fathers of the Church condemned the doctrines of the métempsycose, one finds several allusions ambiguous, which show that it was at least " in the air of the temps". Thus for example at the Holy Augustin, undoubtedly most influential of all the Fathers of the Church, in its Confessions:

Say to me, Seigneur… say to me, my childhood it succeeded an age which I would have lived, stopped by a preceding death? Was this that which I passed in the center of my mother? … And before this life, O God of my joy, did I find me some share, or in another body? To answer, I find anybody, neither father, neither mother, neither the experiment of others, nor my clean mémoire.

Or, in Academicos Countered:

The message of the Plato, purest and most luminous of all philosophy, finally dispersed the shade of the error and it shines now especially at Plotin, the Platonic one, which resembles its Master so much that one could think that they lived at the same time, or rather - since if long period separates them - that Plato was born again in Plotin.

According to them, there is well a beam of elements tending to show that the belief in the reincarnation - that they allot to the first Christians - would have been censured for political reasons.

Refutation

However, this approach is vigorously disputed by the majority of the theologists, in particular catholic. It is for example the case of the Schonborg Cardinal, in many articles published in the Catholic Documentation .

These theologists stress that this vision is often resulting from a new anticlericalism (for example, in France, around the philosopher Michel Onfray), who evacuate the Dogme history of the church to the profit of the only political arena.

They propose the fact that the first Christians were above all " croyants" , and that the doctrines of the métempsycose, when it existed, were the fact of hétérodoxes group and minority. For them, the dogma of the Church on this question was always that of the Résurrection of the flesh. None the Pères of the Church taught the reincarnation, recall. As of Irenee of Lyon (towards 130-208), she is refuted without ambiguity. It will be also the case of Tertullien, Hyppolite or Jean Chrysostome. As for Augustin, if we saw higher of the comments being able to seem ambiguous, he clearly affirms in the City of God :

Isn't it much more honourable, say I, to believe that the hearts turn over once for all in their own body at the time of resurrection rather than to return many times in various bodies?

When the Father of the Church mention the reincarnation, it is always while passing, and to refute it most of the time.

The origenism is sometimes evoked in support of the idea of an ancient Christian belief in the reincarnation. Indeed, at the time of the IIe council of Constantinople in 553, mentioned above, the origenism and Origène itself (death since three centuries, but having preserved a great influence), were declared Anathème S. Cependant, the origenism constitutes vast doctrines, and his relationship with the reincarnation is not clear. What underlies the origenism, it is the preexistence of the hearts in the center of God, but the exégètes divergent about to know if Origène taught the métempsycose or not. The ambiguous sentence: “As for knowing why the human heart obeys sometimes the evil, sometimes the good, it is necessary to seek of it the cause in a birth former to the current body birth. ” was interpreted by certain like a validation of the reincarnation, but it returns more probably simply to the preexistence of the hearts. The result of the theology of Origène is the Apocatastase, i.e. the integral forgiveness of all the creatures morals - the human beings, angels, but also demons - and their final reconciliation in the Kingdom of God.

In fact, as of the First council of Constantinople in 380-381, which gave the dogmatic summary of the preceding councils, the Christian creed is defined. It is the Symbole of Nicée-Constantinople, which is concluded by: " we await the resurrection of dead and the life of the world with venir".

The belief in the reincarnation is opposed, indeed, with the dogma of the " resurrection of the morts" at the end of times and with the incarnation of the divine Verb as a Jesus-Christ to save the visible and invisible world by only one and single incarnation. In the Apocalypse, the hearts of the saints groan under the furnace bridge of God waiting until their body their is returned. Because for Christianity, as well the heart as the body are single, and constitute the person with whole share. There is a major unity of the living beings, which makes that the heart and the body are indissociable - argument which one also finds at Aristote.

It is the singularity of the incarnation (a heart in a body) which excludes the reincarnation in Christianity. There is finally the true divorce between the reincarnation and the Christian faith " dogmatique" : whereas in the reincarnation, the body is only a " véhicule" or a " vêtement" whose heart changes with each new incarnation, in Christianity the flesh is called it also with ressusciter .

During his pontificate, the pope Jean-Paul II reiterated the hostility of the Church to the doctrines of the reincarnation.

In the Bible

Certain " groups; spiritualistes" refer to passages of the Evangiles which, according to them, would indicate a belief of original Christianity in the reincarnation. However, an alternative interpretation " not réincarnationniste" can often be given of the aforesaid passages.

They quote, for example, this passage where the priests and the Lévi your request from Jean-Baptiste “Es you Élie?”. There exists indeed current of the Jewish tradition which thinks that the last judgment will be preceded by a return to earth by the Élie prophet. Jean-Baptiste answers: “I am not to it” (Jean 1:21), but the simple existence of the question is regarded by certain as a sign of the belief in the reincarnation.

Confusion here is between reincarnation and Assomption. In addition to the Virgin Mary, several mythical characters, histories or, knew the assumption, therefore, did not know death: Adam, Enoch, Brace, Élie. Thus, nothing in the Bible makes it possible to say that the Elie prophet actually died. The text evokes a " enlèvement" with the sky on a tank of fire (2 Kings 2:11). The priests and the Levites spoke (perhaps) about a return of Elie but as an alive entity and not having never known death.

In addition, 2Rois 2:15 and Luc 1:17 make it possible to specify this question: it is possible that Jean-Baptiste is accompanied by " the spirit and the puissance" of Élie, without that meaning in so far as it is the reincarnation (cf higher concept of spiritual production ).

On the same subject, in the Péricope of the Transfiguration, one can read:

“And the disciples asked him this question: " What thus says the scribes, which Élie must come initially? "
He answered: " Yes, Élie must come and all to give in order;
however, I say it to you, Élie already came, and they did not recognize it, but treated it with their own way. In the same way the Son of man will have him also to suffer from eux".
Then the disciples understood that its words aimed Jean the Baptist. ”
(Matthieu 17:12,13)

Some still concluded there from it that Jean-Baptiste was the reincarnation of Élie. But the ancient Jewish literature refuses the idea of reincarnation. It is thus necessary more probably to include/understand than Jean-Baptiste is another Élie: what Élie was for its time, Jean-Baptiste is for his (and this all the more, as we saw higher, that the spirit of Élie could inspire Jean-Baptiste).

There is also this ambiguous question which the disciples put, in the Gospel of Jean (9: 2) with Jesus-Christ, in connection with a blind man of birth: " Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, so that it was born thus blind? " What could be interpreted like suggesting the existence of another life (and thus of sins) before this one. In fact, it is here probably about a rhetoric question. Indeed, in the biblical tradition, it is habit to believe that a disease can be a curse coming from a sin made by oneself or a member of his family.

Conversely, in the Epistle with the Hebrews, allotted to Saint Paul, he is written: “As it is reserved to the men to die only once, after which the judgment comes, of the same Christ, who offered itself to carry the faults of several, will appear without sinning one second time at those which await it for their safety. ” (Hebrew 9:27 - 28) It is about a clear denial of the concept of reincarnation. However, holding them of the thesis " réincarnationniste" make the point that the Greek word hapax , translated by " only one fois" , can also mean " entièrement". In addition, it question the attribution of the Epistle to the Hebrews at Paul, asserting that this one, in its Épître with Gallates (2: 7-8), its Second epistle with the Corinthians (10: 13-16) and especially in its Epistle with the Romans (15: 20) had been always defended to want évangéliser the Jews.

With final, it thus appears that the dogma of the Christian Churches is well that of the resurrection of the flesh. However, there remains possible for hétérodoxes groups, of Christian inspiration or not, to see in certain passages of the Bible, and in particular of New Testament, more or less metaphorical allusions to the reincarnation, the price of a freedom of interpretation of the texts.

The gnostic ones

In Christian mobility, it is undoubtedly at the gnostic that the topic of the reincarnation is most explicitly present.

The " term; gnostiques" indicate a whole of " sectes" (heard here like minority groups) of the first centuries after Jesus Christ, Christian inspiration but also largely syncretic, incorporating in their doctrines of the Eastern myths as well as elements coming from Greek philosophy, and in particular from the pythagoricism. They are found the Jordan with the Asia Mineure, and in particular in Egypt.

The gnostisques doctrines were varied, but they had in general as a common point to consider that the incarnation in the matter was a trap tended by a malfaisant spirit, and that only an initiatory knowledge (the gnosis, of the Greek " gnôsis" , knowledge) can make it possible the heart to be released from this trap and to find its purity. In this context, the reincarnation has a negative significance: whereas the most evolved/moved hearts, being released thanks to the gnosis, can join the divine one, the others are rejected downwards, tormented in Enfer, before being subjected to the lapse of memory of their life preceding and returned in a new body.

Among some of the gnostic Masters most influential, one can quote Simon the Magician or Valentine. The Church declared the groups gnostic heretics, and severely fought them - successfully, since they had to hide, then ended up disappearing. If one adds to that the fact that their teaching was primarily oral, it results from it that what we know today of gnostic comes in fact primarily from the refutations from their contradictors from the Churches " officielles".

In the Middle Ages, the bogomiles and the cathares were influenced by the gnosticism - and also considered heretics and fought by the Church.

Spiritual production

Without accepting the reincarnation, the Christians of the East are attached to the concept of spiritual production . According to this belief, somebody can, at one moment of his life, to integrate in him spiritual qualities of another person (generally a saint), that the latter alive or died.

In Islam

The reincarnation does not appear either in the Islam as such, which prefers to him, like the others religions monotheists, the doctrines of the Résurrection.

Certain verses of the Coran are sometimes interpreted like energy in the direction of the reincarnation. For example with verse 28 of the second sourate, " Vache" (Al-Baqara), it is known as: How can you disavow Allah whereas it gave you the life, whereas you were deprived by it, then It made you die, then It revived to you and finally you will turn over to Him . It is however more probably about a simple reference to resurrection.

It is in the lesson esoteric of Islam, like the Soufisme, which one finds of the references to the reincarnation. For example, in the Way of the Perfection , the large Master soufi Iranian Bahram Elahi explains why the man is 50.000 years old to reach the illumination and, lasting this time, it must follow the cycle of the lives, died and (Re) the births.

In addition, one finds an influence of the Gnosticisme (see above) among Shiite Moslems , particularly in the faith Druze. The Druzes believe, says one (their doctrines are theoretically secret), with the métempsycose.

In the hindouism

The reincarnation is one of the central beliefs of the Hindouisme. According to any probability, it is even of this religion that the idea comes from reincarnation - in any case as organized doctrines.

For the Hindus, at the time of death, the spirit is separated from the body. Whereas the initiate can find the door of the release, the uninitiated person will be taken of an irresistible desire for finding a body, which it will do. Through this process of reincarnation, the being saw experiments which enable him to learn and to evolve/move spiritually. Finally, at the end of its evolution, it ceases reappearing.

According to the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, “ the incarnated heart rejects the old body and in revêt the new ones, like a man exchanges a clothing used against nine ”. The heart thus transmigrates of life in life: “ Because certain death for that which was born, and unquestionable the birth for which died ”.

The reincarnation is also present in the Jaïnisme, another great traditional religion of India.

The mechanism of the reincarnation in the hindouism

For the Hindus, the body is only one material envelope temporary. When occurs the moment to leave the life, the heart or the âtman, leaves the body and can finally reach the release or Mokshâ. However, if its Karma N accumulated the fruit of too many negative acts (ill deeds), âtman incarnates in new body on planet like ground (or lower which composes the hell), in order to undergo there the weight of its ill deeds. If its karman is positive, it will live like a god or deva , on one of celestial planets (higher than the ground, or paradise). Once exhausted its karman , the heart will turn over on ground in another body within a Caste. This cycle is called Samsâra . To break this perpetual cycle, the Hindu must live so that his karman is neither negative, nor positive, according to this verse of the Bhagavad-Gîtâ (II.10): “Neither the alive ones, neither deaths and nor the divinities, the wise one cries or forgives. ” Yoga teaches the means to him of arriving to this result, the Hindu having the leisure to choose the method which is appropriate to him best according to the schools of Indian Philosophie. Today, the Hindu believer, since he lives in one time materialist or kaliyuga , prefers to choose the way of the bhakti-yoga or the devotion…

In Buddhism, contradictory concepts

The reincarnation is one of the most known characteristics of the topics of the Bouddhisme. The term is however doubtful since Buddhism does not recognize the existence of a " âme" who could réincarner in various bodies; more precisely it is with the concept hindouist of Atman, it Oneself, than Buddhism opposes the idea of Anatta, it not-oneself, the impersonnality of which it makes a characteristic of any thing: there is no self which réincarne but “each thing is without oneself”.

The thought of the greatest number - that they are Westerners or Eastern - consists in believing that the personality, it me and its aggregates are réincarnent. Thus, it is possible to say or believe that one was in a life passed, a Pharaon or a prostitute, etc Ainsi one explains certain impressions of " already vu" , certain tests of the life or… the love at first sight!

But Buddhism proposes, in the place of a heart and a body, the distinction of five aggregates of attachment, Skandha. Agrégat describes the individual like a whole of different phenomena; attachment insists on the fact that these components are taken for a being, one me, and result in sticking to this idea of personality, where it has only transitory Phénomène S there, impersonal and unsatisfactory: they are the Three characteristics of any conditioned phenomenon.

Although the expression “reincarnation” can appear in some translations, the term more employed is that of “rebirth”. There is well, indeed, a continuity - death does not mean only conditioning ceases. The Samsâra form thus a life cycle which is connected the ones after the others. The suffering thus remains life in life; but according to Buddhaghosa, each life lasts, actually, one moment.

If there is thus continuity, the latter is interpreted differently by the various Buddhist schools. If there is no heart, where is continuity? This question of interpretation appears clearly in the study which is made conditioned Coproduction. This teaching proposes to detail the various phenomena which are dependant from/to each other and which makes that the suffering remains life in life. The Karma is responsible for this perpetuation.

According to certain schools, the rebirth is immediate: at the time of the death corresponds the conscience to die and succeeds a conscience then to reappear. For Buddhism Tibetan, death implies intermediate stages, the bardo.

For Chinese Buddhism, as described in the novel esoteric and picaresque " the Voyage in Occident " (Peregrinations towards the West) of Wu Cheng' in, the ici-bas as beyond the constitutes two forms of illusion, unreality, and even if this vision of reality remains unreal, it also, it is the only base of experiment which we have.
This question of two realities is exemplary various philosophical approaches in Buddhism; if all its branches distinguish a purely conventional reality and an ultimate reality, Paramartha, the analysis which is varied by it singularly.

Serge-Christophe Kolm in his book Happiness-freedom (PUF, 1982) distinguishes the popular level of belief in which the reincarnation is held for a reality of the physical world, whereas higher levels of Buddhism, the major Buddhism (in so far as there are one and single major Buddhism common to all the Buddhists " cultivés"), to this concept only one direction of parabola gives, a way picturesque and simplified to define a too complex concept to be delivered with faithful inapt to include/understand it. The reincarnation should not thus be any more regarded an objective reality but as a spiritual transcendence.

As for that which does not believe in the reincarnation, the Kālāma sutta teaches four consolations to him, of which here the second: “ Supposons that there is no beyond and that there is no fruit, result, of the actions made, good or bad. However, in this world, here and now, free of hatred, free of spite, healthy and except, and happy, I maintenances ”.

Some is the interpretation of the “ renaissance ”, Buddhism teaches it only with a one aim, and teaching has direction only in the objective to put a term at the suffering. Gautama Bouddha did not teach only the dissatisfaction, but Four noble truths, presenting the origin of the dissatisfaction, its suspension and the way there driving.

The rebirth as an human being is presented then in the form of a beautiful opportunity of leaving the cycle of the existences, where the low existences do not allow it and where the gods are not conscious of the suffering.

These last remarks should not mask the divergence from point of view between schools bouddhistes : if to put a term at the suffering is consensual opinion, which way needs one privilégier ? The current of the Bouddhisme hīnayāna privileges the personal awakening, the being becoming thus a Arhat and free the Samsara to reach the Nirvana, whereas the schools Mahayana support the altruistic awakening of Bodhisattva, this last remaining voluntarily in Samsara to help the others to wake up. The disciple thus gives up of itself the state of Buddha, because it knows that while penetrating in the Nirvana it leaves the world of the men to enjoy the right remuneration which is worth to him its asceticism and its acts.

At the time contemporary

Origins

It is towards the end of the 19th century that the reincarnation makes a great return in Occident, under the double influence of an renewed interest for the Occultisme and of the more systematic study of the religions from India (hindouism and Buddhism) by the anthropologists and philosophical Western.

Several " groups; ésotériques" place the reincarnation (or in any case a Western version of the reincarnation) in the middle of their lesson. Among those, one can quote the Théosophie, founded by Helena Blavatsky in 1875, or the spiritistic movement founded by Allan Kardec, which published the book of the Spirits in 1857.

Today, the continuation of this tradition finds in the movement known as New Age.

General considerations

The Western design of the reincarnation is an evolution of the ancient and Eastern idea. But, whereas the Hindouisme, the Buddhism and the Jaïnisme consider the reincarnation as a catastrophe - the goal of the life being to release itself from the cycle from the existences in both cases - much of Westerners believe that the reincarnation is desirable. Indeed, if we learn at the time of each incarnation, our characters can only become more elaborate and complex. The reincarnation can be attached thus to the concepts of human evolution and progress, concepts which raised such an amount of hope at the beginning of the twentieth century. The reincarnation can even constitute a spiritual explanation to the Evolution of the Species such as we know it. It is enough to notice that since first forms of life to the Man, the individual intelligence (which is a component of the Spirit animating each living being) did nothing but progress|June 11th, 2007 .

The laws of the destiny and the Karma control the process of the reincarnation. " Karma" is a Sanskrit term which means " action-réaction" and has its equivalent in the Greek term of Némésis, " the goddess with the eyes bandés" represent the side as well impersonal as universal of a principle which governs all the fields of existence, and not only that of the reincarnation. This law of need directs all created and this is why it is strictly speaking, pitiless. For certain people, the reincarnation aims at explaining the reason of the inequalities between the human beings, it why certain tests met, and also justifies the existence of death. Death is not any more the suspension of life, but the prelude to an time-assessment (in a " lieu" that some call in the East the kamaloka) which results in choosing the context of new a one more or less long duration birth.

As regards a " justification" misery, it should well be specified that if, for example, somebody has suddenly died at the time of a natural disaster, it is well " because " of its last actions that this person was there at this moment, without one having to necessarily qualify this of good or evil. It is then objected sometimes that certain people suffer " from their naissance". And it is inter alia an argument which comes to support the belief in the réincarnation : such birth is, it also, the effect of acts passed, achieved in a former existence.

Consequently, to be interested in the reincarnation, it is also to try to penetrate the mysteries of the after-life and the possible successive lives, including lives passed on this Earth, even on inhabited another planets.

Radical increase in the life expectancy and artificial reincarnation

It was suggested that a form of artificial reincarnation (without real death) could be created. It is one of the ideas aiming at moderating that which says that a largely increased life expectancy (or even the Immortalité) would be synonymous with trouble. This idea fits in the current transhumanist.

The memories of an living being could be completely or partly unobtrusive. It could then again discover what it forgot voluntarily, perhaps even since the stage of the birth. It could then live a news " vie".

Scientists are interested already in treatments allowing to forget specific experiments (events traumatisants), and current research on the Amnésie reveals the mechanisms of the lapse of memory gradually.

In the more futuristic context of the transfer of the spirit on computer, the obliteration of selected memories would be probably a simple formality. All that raises of course, for the moment, of the field of the science fiction and pure gamble.

Ian Stevenson

A reflection “ scientifique ” on the reincarnation was animated in the USA until 2002 (year of its 82 years) by the Canadian Ian Stevenson which one said that he was either a large mystifier, or Galileo of the XXe century. The official conclusions of Ian Stevenson are extremely careful. Stevenson listed 2.600 cases, but published 64 of them in an extremely complete way, in six large volumes which were published by the Presses of the University of Charlottesville, in English. In all the cases, the allegations of the children claiming to remember their former incarnations were checked. And in the last book which it published, it added 6 observations collected in Western medium there, because the 64 primitive observations were only collected in civilizations which accept the idea of the reincarnation.

Culture

the reincarnation is a sketch of the humorist Roland Magdane.

References

Punarbhava

Random links: