If you have found this page directly without coming from the homepage, please read the Homepage first, to put this and the other pages in context. Also from there you can go to a quick summary page of the main points in the website.
Reincarnation
By reincarnation, I do not mean coming back as an animal or other creature and probably not coming straight back with no gap in between. (Although see the interview with Jenny Cockell for a fascinating story on this, and, bearing in mind that 'time' in the spirit world is flexible, so to us what seems like years can be days or less to spirits.) I generally mean coming back after spending enough time in the spirit world to recuperate and be ready and willing to come back - maybe something between 50 and 300 years in 'earth time'.

Now, whilst it has been traditionally a part of religious beliefs in the eastern world, and an increasing number of people in the west these days also seem to be accepting the idea of reincarnation, in fact there are differing opinions from spirits, through trance mediums, automatic or inspirational writing and other mediums. Many spirits say that reincarnation does not exist, or they have not come across it, or it is rare. Others say that a some people choose to return, either to learn a special aspect of existence, or to help mankind. In a circle that I attend, recently a message was given that we may or may not come back. So this implies either that we have a choice and it is not automatic, or that some may have finished their earthly incarnation cycle.

Several spirit communicators, including Zodiac, the founder of The Greater World and Christian Spiritualism, say that we have only one life on earth but many (thousands!) of lives in other existences, on other planets or planes. But what did he and others mean by 'we'?
As individuals we are part of a greater being - the soul. The soul incarnates part of itself in order to learn by experience and progress. But each time it incarnates, it is a different part of itself, like a spoke in a wheel - one of many. Does this count as 're-incarnation'? Maybe the term is used differently by different people/spirits which accounts for the difference in opinion. So each individual is still part of the soul, and each has potential access to the soul's memory bank and therefore to the other incarnations of the soul. As mortals, we often cannot differentiate between our own memory and that received from our souls, hence the confusion. There are many people who claim, one way or another, to have had a previous life on earth. eg. through past life regression, déjà vu in places they have never been before, or actual memories of past lives. Given the amount of evidence, I find it hard to rule out this sort of reincarnation.

So what happens when someone dies and wants to be with a loved one who has passed over before them but has already reincarnated back to earth? (Or even some other place?!) Generally a person in spirit will wait for close relatives or friends to join them before reincarnating, but as only part of the soul incarnates, the part that remains in spirit is still available to greet the recently arrived, should this be the case. Some say that the spirit part of the person who has reincarnated is sort of there but rather 'vacant', literally!

Then there is the question about time in the spirit world. It is said to be nothing like our time, or not to exist at all, or that time is all warpped up and happening all at once. In which case, how does it relate to our time? Big question here...
My thinking is this: time does exist, but in a very different way in the spirit world, because how can they say they are progressing in spirit if there isn't any sort of time. There is certainly no 'pressure of time', no fixed day and night, though these can be created at will by spirits for their own pleasure. And waiting for a loved one to finsh their time on earth and join them in spirit seems but a twinkling of the eye.
I believe time is flexible in spirit, but they can merge with earth time in order to communicate and be with us in our own space-time continuum. Often a spirit will give a prediction about the future and say it will happen soon, but it may not happen for many earth years or even decades of years to come. Thus spirits have a much less fixed concept of time than we do. Just imagine how peaceful life would be if your concept of time was like this - bingo - you have 'the peace that passeth all understanding', to quote the Bible. So the idea that time is all wrapped up like layers of posters on a pole is quite apt. (I mention this subject again on the Life after death page.)

And in terms of reincarnation, I believe it is quite possible, having made progress in, say, the 20th century, to choose to come back to earth at a previous time, say the middle ages. So next time I might choose to come back as a philosopher in 1450. I might already be in the history books. Hey, that's weird, but cool!!

Note: You may wonder where I am getting this 'information' from. I am normally referring to communications from spirits, reported in various books, many of them in pdf form freely available on the web. Of course, I do not accept everything that I read - I have found much mis-information and dubious theories as well as more credible ones. Where possible I use 'triangulaion' - ie. if 3 or more separate sources say the same thing it is more likely to be true.
There are those who would say that all my ideas are speculation without foundation, and that any 3 sources could simply be copying the same wrong information from each other. I can't deny the possiblitiy - but I can say that because of my own and my family's personal experiences, I know more or less what makes sense and what doesn't. And on that you can choose to either trust me or scorn me.
Interesting articles
Ling - the spirit communicator talks about reincarnation - or rather his scepticism about it! Transcript of a message received through a trance medium in the late 20th century.

Jenny Cockell - interview by Bob Olson on Afterlife TV with a woman who finds her children from her past life grown-up and still living in Wales!

Brian Weiss - Another interview on Afterlife TV concerning reincarnation etc. Brian, a very well known psychiatrist and hypnotherapist who specialises in past life regression, suggests that we may have even been animals or beings with less mental capacity in our unprogressed distant past, perhaps in different worlds. (I have also heard/seen this suggested elsewhere - by Dr Michael Newton, for example.) Unfortunately the sound quality is not so good on this video, although it gets better as the video progresses.
(This is the same video as referenced on the Purpose of Life page.)
When we meet different friends and relatives in spirit, we project the personality and physical appearance that we had in the life with them. Because, although we are the same soul, we have both different physical features and different personalities from each life. (An aside - if time doesn't exist in the spirit world, as people keep telling us, what can progression mean? There must be some sort of time because we our on a journey of progression towards perfection, or the Source.)
In spirit we generally recognise each other not by physical features but by mind patterns and colours. The colours that we radiate (and some say the clothes that we wear) change with our mood and development, so I suppose it is only initially when newly 'dead' people want to re-unite with loved ones gone previously that spirits manifest themselves as how they were in their last life. When we get used to the spirit world, we no longer need the visual familiarity to recognise our loved ones.

Yet there are other questions: for example, how 'long' does it take after death before we remember all that we knew before we were born? And if we had many lives, which interests would we pursue in the afterlife? We may well have had the same interests over different lifespans, for example a musician or painter, scientist or teacher. Well, I suppose we can have all of these interests at the same time, even on earth, so why not in spirit? What a great opportunity to have all that non-existent time to continue all our favourite hobbies without having to work to earn a living!! Yay :)
Incidentally, there is an argument to be made that in Jesus' time they believed in reincarnation.
Matthew 16, 13-14:
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

Similarly, John the Baptist was asked: "Are you Elijah?" and "Are you the Prophet?" (usually thought to mean Jeremiah)

Moreover, belief in reincarnation may have been covered up by the early church.

And here: Reincarnation and the Bible