Reincarnation: Dead and Buried

By John Prytz

If reincarnation is bestowed upon you as a reward or punishment for whatever you did (fill in the blank)

in a previous life, the lesson is lost if you have no memory of that past existence(s) or of whatever it was

that you did (fill in the blank). Now here I discount the claims of some people that they have lived prior

lives and have memories of same. No matter what the merits of reincarnation are (and there are none

IMHO), it is impossible to recall past lives. The egg and the sperm from which you were conceived had

no past memory of your alleged past lives since they came from individuals not so related to your past

existences. So, you started out from the get-go with no memory. A newly conceived embryo (blastula)

has no memories. Any and all memories you now have started from that day of conception onwards -

full stop*. On top of that, there's been no absolute hard and fast historical evidence to support any such

claims - otherwise reincarnation would be scientific fact, not pseudoscience supposition. It's rather

suspicious that all too often a previous life or lives includes, against all probability, well known historical

figures, like Napoleon, Elvis or JC (Julius Caesar - presumably, if you believe in the Biblical account, that

other JC is alive and kicking in an somewhere elsewhere). The probability, based on sheer numbers, of a

previous life or lives, actually favors said life (or lives) being that of a cockroach, or ant, or microbe by

odds of billions to one in favor.

Anyway, the reincarnation mechanism isn't ever explained other than by resorting to supernatural

powers - there's no known physics or chemistry or biology that could explain reincarnation.

And exactly what is reincarnated? It's certainly not anything physical like body shape, sex, or eye color,

and it can't be anything to do with memory, since nearly all of us have no personal you-were-there recall

of what happened in say 1812 (AD or BC for that matter). Do you have the identical personality,

emotions, I.Q., etc. as your previous lives did? It's all too nebulous!

Another thing, if Julius Caesar, Napoleon, or Elvis, or even your not as well known great, great, great

Aunt Gertrude were floating around in their afterlives, and you are now 'they' reincarnated, you'd think

they would have a vested interest in you and might therefore appear to you, keeping you on the straight

and narrow to ensure that when you get reincarnated in turn, your whatever goes to a good family who

are about to conceive a child instead of a puppy dog about to drop a litter off!

Of course if your previous lives still exist in an afterlife, then what part of them can actually be in you?

Of course maybe there's no afterlife and somehow Julius Caesars' essence goes directly into someone

else hence someone else, etc. hence Napoleon, hence more people of unknown race, creed, sex and

nationality, until we come to Elvis, and you (assuming you were born post Elvis's demise)!

What if someone is totally obsessed with a particular historical time, event, and/or character, might this

be a sign that they, in a previous life, lived in that time period, or participated in that event, or was that

character - even if they have no direct memory of same? Methinks not. For example, there are way

more individuals, with a lot of time on their hands and with a less than healthy obsession over the RMS

Titanic disaster, than there were individuals on the actual ship - obviously not all could be reincarnates

of the actual crew and passengers. In fact, there's more than one individual claiming to be the

reincarnation of her captain - a mathematical impossibility.

Then too, some people are equally ultra-fanatical over fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes, James

Bond or Harry Potter. Clearly you can not be the reincarnation of a fictional being! And how many

thousands of Star Trek fanatics are out there whose life seems to revolve around that universe? If it's

impossible to be a reincarnate of a fictional character from the past, then its impossibility squared to be

a reincarnate of some literary character depicted as existing in your future.

The upshot is that you can be a person totally immersed in, highly knowledgeable of, or even obsessed

to the point of delusion, with something historical, without there being any actual causality connection

between the then and the now that one could interpret as reincarnation. Some people just live in

fantasy worlds of their own making.

Then there's the interesting "On the Beach" scenario. The novel (plus film plus made-for-TV remake film)

deals with nuclear war. Unfortunately, fallout radiation spreads across and around the entire globe.

Everyone is doomed - the plot deals with the waning days of the last few survivors in Australia as the

radioactive 'cloud' heads their way. The question is, if all of Earth's billions of people (and other higher

animals) all die off, what happens to all those essences in search of something to be reincarnated into?

Oops!

To pile on the absurdities, why confine your reincarnation(s) to Planet Earth? Perhaps you'll be

reincarnated as an ET (extraterrestrial) - perhaps you were an ET in a previous life!

No, reincarnation doesn't make any sense, IMHO.

*When I mentioned this observation to a friend, she immediately suggested that the memory of a past

life or lives was due to the implantation of your soul. It's your soul (assuming there is such a thing) that

has the memory.

Actually I was under the impression that it was one soul per person, but maybe not. One soul might be

passed down from one person to that person's reincarnation to that person's reincarnation for however

long the process goes on for. Maybe it's like in Doctor Who - you only get so many regenerations (or in

this case reincarnations).

Anyway, I was also under the impression that the soul is intangible or nebulous - it has no actual

substance. The soul isn't a thing that can be examined in the laboratory and under a microscope. If it has

no actual matter/energy substance to it, it can't store any memories.

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