The End Times is the End of Term

 Demographers estimate that 109 billion people have lived on the Earth over the last 192,000 years, that being the date at which humans are seen as becoming properly human in the sense we now understand that designation. If you add to that figure the number of people alive today you get a total of 117 billion humans which means that 7% of people who ever lived are living now. It is thought that around 9 billion lived before the Agricultural Revolution in about 10,000 BC and that at that time there were around 5 million humans in the world, but since the Industrial Revolution the number has climbed dramatically with the global population hitting 1 billion around 1800 and then shooting up to where we are now. If you consider that up until relatively recently almost half the population died in childhood our present situation seems even more remarkable.

Obviously, the figures before recent times are highly speculative. But they are not based on nothing and the numbers and general trends they indicate are probably accurate enough. My question is does this mean anything from the spiritual point of view, from the evolution of souls point of view, or is it just a result of technological advances, medicine, agriculture etc? It certainly is a result of that but is that all there is to it?

I don't think so. In my book Earth is a School I said that this world is a training ground for the soul. Part of the mechanism for this training is reincarnation which, in the way I envisage it, involves an infant soul returning to a particular environment in order to develop its inchoate capacities, mental, moral, creative and so on. It is also required to make a choice in a world in which that choice can go either way for the reality of God is not a given here as it would be in the spiritual worlds. Here there is just enough material data to support either the acceptance or rejection of God so the inbuilt orientation of the soul, whether it is aligned to God or to self, is brought into play. Predominantly aligned, I mean, for both tendencies are always present in the soul as a result of free will.

The need for this choice has alway been present but what is happening now is that everything is being brought to a head. This is why there is such a large population and is yet another indication we are in that period known as the End Times. Extending the school analogy, this is the time of graduation. No doubt some souls have already graduated (though I personally think that only a few have) but now is the final exam for many with the choices becoming more marked. We live during a period when religion has lost its power so the choice we make is necessarily more of an individual one. It even has to go against the flow which makes it more personal and a truer test of our inner self. Those that pass will progress to higher spiritual worlds while those that don't make the grade will have to continue on lower levels of being with, no doubt, fresh opportunities further down the line but they will have missed an important cut-off point.

The End Times - Reincarnation and Judgment

Can anyone doubt that these are the End Times as spoken of in the Christian tradition? Almost everywhere materialism and atheism have triumphed, and where spirituality does exist it is often a weak, impoverished thing that takes more of its ideology from contemporary political thought than religious teaching. Most people in the West reject Christianity and, of those that do embrace it, many see it in the light of the secular humanism that has developed since the 18th century. Christianity, it is thought, must be revised to reflect that rather than that being seen as wholly secondary to the Christian vision. I believe that traditional Christianity does need to be looked at afresh from the perspective of a developing consciousness which sees humanity as growing into godhood, but this should be done by deepening it not by making it spiritually shallow which is what is actually happening. The heart of Christianity is neglected, and teachings that only really apply to those who have renounced the sins of the world are opened up to all regardless of repentance. That, at least, is becoming the popular conception of the real meaning of the Christian message. God loves everybody equally, disrespective of what they are. Perhaps he does but he loves truth too, and if you love him, you keep his commandments. Only then can his love be expressed without the other side to it which is his anger, considering anger as a metaphysical aspect of justice. For justice and mercy must always go together.

I've gone slightly off the point I wish to address in this post. What I have just written is not without relevance to my subject but I am jumping ahead of myself. I want here to try to reconcile a belief in reincarnation with the idea of judgment. That's because both form part of my beliefs about the spiritual world and, at first sight, they seem contradictory. Reincarnation is normally assumed to mean you have a more or less endless number of lifetimes to get it right. You live a life and learn or don't learn and in your next life you carry on from where you have left off in a new incarnation, the circumstances of which will be a result of the previous one or the previous ones. The consequences of mistakes will be experienced in a future life and you evolve, you develop, gradually growing into higher consciousness. That's the theory which is appealing to many because it has a certain logic to it.

However, I don't think things are that simple. Today's world is radically different to previous eras for many reasons ranging from a hugely expanded population to great material comfort and technological sophistication to access to all the wisdom of the past for anyone who cares to look for it to the decay of all forms of religion. It is a time of crisis and I believe many people are being born now to experience a world in which a definitive choice has to be made between good and evil, truth and lies, with the latter often being presented as the former which makes it a real test of one's inner compass and true orientation. And also of courage. For it does take a certain amount of courage to hold onto one's faith in the true God when so many false alternatives are being presented, usually with the assumption that they are more intelligent, more compassionate or just that to hold them is the sign of a good person. We will find as time goes on that to stand by real Christian values will be seen as the mark of an ignorant or even bad person. That is because these values put God above Man. Modern ideology cannot countenance that. God, if he exists, must adapt himself to human requirements, and his purpose for us must involve the increase of happiness and concomitant decrease of suffering in this world.

Might it be that the population of the world is currently at an all-time high because so many souls are being assembled for a comprehensive test of their spiritual quality and dedication? Circumstances are being make hard in order to sort out the spiritual sheep from the goats. Now is an important time of decision when humanity will be divided into those who make the spiritual grade and those who don't, with the failures (which may be a hard word but is accurate) being sent elsewhere to learn the lessons they refused here. Where that elsewhere will be and what its nature will consist of, I cannot say but I would guess that it will be a descent into a lower level of consciousness which will require a concerted effort to escape from. There will be increased separation from the source with less of the consoling worldly pleasures one can find here.

This is how I reconcile reincarnation and judgment. During the course of a world age souls incarnate at various times and in various places with the aim of developing spiritual consciousness which requires for its proper growth the full sense of duality and awareness of individuality. Only by becoming a fully aware self can the God-created individualised spark of spirit grow into godhood and become a co-creator in the fullness of life which is God's wish for us. If we stayed in the heavenly realms without incarnation we would remain spiritual babes. Independence is acquired through incarnation. 

But a world age comes to an end and that is what ours is now doing. It's the end of term, the time when all spiritual students must take their exam to see if they can pass on to the next stage. Call it graduation. Those who succeed, on whatever level because some are primary school students while others are at higher stages, ready for full graduation into theosis, ascend to higher levels appropriate to their consciousness. Those that do not pass this spiritual exam descend. The choice is ours and it is never too late to make the decision that will be determining. There are temptations galore at the moment, precisely to test the heart. They range from simple materialism and atheism to numerous false forms of spirituality, united in their focus on the human self and its spiritual potential. But it is up to us to see through all of these and open our hearts and minds up to the true reality of God. Then we must act on the measure of that reality without distorting it by egotism, emotionalism or pride. In this, I believe, we are most guided by dedication to the person of Christ. The truth of his being will direct us to the truth of our own being. Using him as a kind of universal standard time by which we set our own spiritual clocks will serve us well when the moment comes for the judgment of our soul.

Nature and Nurture

There is constant argument between those who think that human beings are largely the product of nature (their genetic inheritance) and those who see nurture (their upbringing and formation) as more important with sometimes the balance falling on one side and sometimes the other. It's a strange debate. Both elements are a factor in what a person is with the deciding element practically always being nature. I would say that's fairly obvious.

However I would like to introduce a third factor into the mix. There is our genetic inheritance, of course, and there is our cultural formation, also of course, but there is something else too which is rarely considered. That is the soul.

I believe in reincarnation and I think that a soul evolves spiritually (and in other ways but spiritually is the most important) through a series of lifetimes in this world. Now, I don't know whether all human beings go through this process or only some but even those that might not do so have a pre-existence in the spiritual world. They are not newly created at conception or whenever it might be. Their spiritual creation precedes their material one.

But let me take the reincarnation scenario first. In this scenario, God creates individual souls on a spiritual level whose consciousness when created will perhaps be similar to that of a new born baby. No real sense of self, no capacity yet for thought. They are enveloped in a kind of passive blissful oneness. They come to this world to develop, first in ways with which we are familiar, bodily, emotionally, mentally and so on, and then in a spiritual sense as they grow out of their ego into a wider sense of union with life but this time experienced consciously. They start off ignorant children and end up saints. That is the aim anyway, with this world, essentially a world of duality with the awareness of God removed so that the soul may grow as an individual, the theatre of operations for their education.

This means that each human being has a spiritual past. We are not just the result of the genetic mix of our two parents and the experiences we have undergone in the physical world. We are also a reflection of our soul, the part of us that is the distilled essence of our previous experience in a number of earthly lives plus our spiritual experience and our actual quality or individual character originally bestowed by God.

The soul itself remains aloft in the higher worlds while it sends down a part of itself into this world, clothed in mental, emotional and physical forms. We are not normally aware of it in its full nature but we could not be aware at all were it not animating our minds with its presence. This soul has a quality. It is not just consciousness but a kind of consciousness with its own nature. It is the soul that drives this man to become a painter or that woman to become a writer, and it is the soul that largely determines the level of achievement of which each person will be capable. The story is more complicated than that because nature and nurture, conventionally understood, also have their part to play, and there is the important matter of karma or spiritual destiny to consider. Not all of the soul may be allowed to come through so that the individual may learn needed lessons. But we can still reasonably assume that those who are great artists or scientists or called to sainthood or excel in any particular field achieve what they do because of the evolution of their souls, their above average development.

Even if reincarnation is not accepted we must consider the fact of the pre-mortal existence of the soul and understand that the quality of any individual soul will have a bearing on its expression in this world. I do think it is a mistake of Christianity that it has neglected this aspect of spiritual reality. It is the soul that animates the physical form created by (or by means of) the parents. It expresses itself through that form and, though limited by the nature of that form, is a strong determining factor in what sort of person we are.

There is then this third aspect to a human being. There is the product of the parental genetic admixture. There is the conditioning of personal experience. And then there is the soul, the spiritual factor behind each individual. In many ways this is the most important.

The soul is like a light that shines through the two lenses of nature and nurture. If a human being had no spiritual pre-existence, it could not be born in this world.


N.B. I don't think the idea of reincarnation negates the element of choice that is a critical factor for all souls, the choice to turn to or away from God. That choice is one of the major reasons for a soul to be born in this world. It may be, though, that a definitive choice is put off until the individual has developed self to the point at which a truly free and intelligent decision can be made - one way or the other. But this is probably the subject for another post.

Some Objections to Reincarnation

Reincarnation, it hardly needs saying, is not part of orthodox Christian belief but this does not trouble me because I don't see it as conflicting with the essential message of Christ. Many Christians, though, do have objections to it, perfectly valid ones from their point of view, and I will consider some of those here.

1. It does away with the need to acquire salvation in this life now. 

If reincarnation is true do we all get chance after chance until we get it right? Is that reasonable? Doesn't it provide an excuse to sin? Why bother making spiritual efforts if everything will come good in the end anyway? 

My response to this is that perhaps we do get many chances to ‘get it right’. After all, if we are enjoined to forgive those who slight us 70 x 7 times then would we not expect God to extend the same consideration to us when we fail or fall short? It would be strange if he told us to do one thing and did another himself. Having said that, it should be understood that the way we fail or fall short will determine the circumstances of our life next time round. All belief systems which include reincarnation also have reaping what you sow at their heart. So there's no excuse to sin and wrongdoing will always bring about consequences. 

However I would add the important proviso that it is unlikely that the granting of new chances lasts forever. There may come a time when we have used up our opportunities, and if a soul wholly rejects God rather than simply fails to accept him then that rejection could be taken as decisive. So while hell, or a state analogous to it, probably does exist, it is not necessarily permanent except in the case of some who voluntarily choose spiritual extinction rather than God. And even they are given what they want.

Therefore while not discounting the real possibility of damnation for some souls who persistently defy and deny God, it seems improbable that most non-believers are bad enough to go to hell eternally. Think of people you know who don't believe in God, perhaps among them friends and family. Would you give them another chance? Then why not God? He presumably wants to bring as many of his children back to him as possible and would always incline more to mercy than justice, though the demands of justice will still have to be met. 

But there is another point. Reincarnation is not chiefly to do with the process of salvation or damnation but with that of spiritual development. Thus it concerns the theosis side of the equation. So it may be that there are two things going on when we come to this world. One, the requirement to turn away from self and towards God, and two, the learning of lessons that will eventually convert us into saints. After all, most of those who might technically be saved are still a very long way from sainthood and, while not disputing the role of purgatory in the afterlife, it seems clear that experience in the material world is also necessary for the long and slow process of transforming a standard model human being into a saint. Only here are certain temptations, tests and growth scenarios possible. Only here can certain challenges be met, and it is through overcoming these challenges that latent virtues can develop.


2. Christians also object to reincarnation on the grounds that it conflicts with the idea of the resurrection of the body. 


But does it? What exactly is the body anyway? When we reincarnate we clearly do not have the same body we had before but the one we do have is the product of the earlier one. It is refined or degraded to the degree that earlier body was refined or degraded. We carry our past with us in the present and that is true for the body too which may be built on hereditary principles but also has the imprint of the soul within the limits imposed by the restrictions of karma or our destiny for that life. My belief is that eventually the atoms of our physical body will be transmuted into light and that the resurrected and ascended spiritual body is not a flesh and blood thing but a body of light. Again, the reincarnation process gradually burns away the dross in the body that prevents its transmutation, and the body we eventually acquire or build is the product of many lives of purification and refinement.


3. Another objection is that reincarnation implies an unnatural separation between body and soul, making them two wholly different things.


But they clearly are two different things. The human soul can exist without a body, certainly without a physical body though it probably always has a form of some kind. A physical body enables it to experience life in the physical world and, though I do believe it is certainly part of what we are, it is not this body that matters but 'bodyliness'. The body of the elect is not physical though there is probably something in it which corresponds to transmuted matter. Reincarnation certainly implies the pre-existence of the soul before it acquires a body but it not saying that spirit is good and matter bad as some of the Gnostics did. It merely points to the fact that we are primarily spiritual beings.


4. Why can we not remember our previous lives? 


This one is easy to answer but first I would say that if we actually could remember past lives we would hardly be able to learn anything new in this one. Memory is often a burden and prevents us living in the present moment, and that's just the memories of a single life. Imagine if we had a whole series to recollect. But, more to the point, we cannot remember our previous lives because we, as who we are now, do not have any previous lives. This is our first and only life. For it is the soul that comes and goes, not the person we are now. 

To appreciate this requires an understanding of what you might call esoteric anatomy which posits a higher self or soul that exists on its own spiritual plane and sends down a portion of itself to experience life in this world. So the mind, emotional nature and sense of personal identity are as new as the physical body though based on what has gone before. It's a crude analogy but imagine the soul on a higher plane as a sun sending down a shaft of light (its consciousness) through mental, emotional and physical levels, and clothing itself with a 'body' of each one in order to function on that level. These are all new and it is with these that we normally identify and think of as ourselves. The directing soul is, as it were, hidden except in rare moments even though it is the animating principle of the whole thing and, to an extent, defines its quality. I have mentioned before the Masters' words that "the greater part of you remains with us". The being you are in this world is only a part of the totality of what you really are though how much a part depends from individual to individual.

I have looked at a few Christian objections to reincarnation here but it may be that Christianity misunderstands the reasons for our being in this world when it focuses on salvation rather than theosis. For the governing idea behind the theory of reincarnation is that individual units of consciousness, souls, need to experience life in this world over many occasions in order to evolve their consciousness. Newly made by God as sparks from the central fire of his own being, they are intended to grow to godlike status themselves by becoming fully aware of the spiritual reality of their own being as given by God. Reincarnation with its opportunities for experience and expression is the process that brings this about. That's the theory anyway. Whether it applies to everyone in this world or is only one of various methods of spiritual growth is another matter.

More Thoughts on Reincarnation

I was recently asked a question about reincarnation and felt that I didn't explain myself very well at the time, partly because it is something I've taken for granted for so many years that I've not thought about it properly for a while.

So I welcome the chance to go into the subject a bit more here. I will start by saying that I see it as a tool of spiritual development, the means whereby an individual consciousness develops. So I don't believe that a human can regress to an animal body or, for that matter, that an animal spirit can be born in a human body. But who knows? It may be that in certain exceptional circumstances such things can happen. Even if very unlikely I would not rule it out completely. I remember once seeing a black panther in a zoo in Delhi and, when I looked into its eyes, I had the very strong impression that a human spirit was there, quite a malevolent one that had been involved in black magic and was now paying some kind of price. One part of me thought this was just superstitious nonsense but another could not shake off the feeling that there really was a human soul locked inside this animal.

As far as I see the matter, someone who believes there is a spiritual reality to human beings can choose between three options. Either each person is a newly created soul or we have a pre-incarnate existence or reincarnation. The first is the standard Christian belief but it doesn't make much sense to me. Certainly I never had any doubt that I personally had existed before my birth in this world. As a child I had dim memories of higher worlds (Wordsworth's clouds of glories) and, though they inevitably faded, they left an indelible mark on my consciousness. But then as I grew older certain historical periods and cultures seemed very familiar to me. That proves nothing, I know, but was personally convincing. And then when I encountered the Masters they confirmed that I had asked to come back to this world and also stated that Michael Lord (their medium) and I had been together before and (interestingly since it implies at least some knowledge of the future) would be again. All anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but ultimately each person must respond to this doctrine on an intuitive level.

Reincarnation does have the virtue of logic. The theory behind it states that each human soul, through experiencing life in the physical world, develops from a not much more advanced than animal state to a fully spiritually conscious being. It seems that certain lessons can only be learnt here, in a body, with a mind not overwhelmed by spiritual light and in a state of separation from God. In short, in a dualistic environment where we, as the subject, and the world, as object, are experienced as completely different, just as they are now. A full difference has not always been the case, even in this physical world, but now it has surely come to that point. The human being and the world are further apart than they have ever been. It is more or less complete separation which strongly implies that now is the time for the prodigal son to start his journey back home.

That's the theory. We gradually experience a full separation through many lives in order to eventually go back to union, but this time in full consciousness and with the sense of individuality fully developed. That's the path humanity as a whole seems to be on and what is true for the group would surely be true for the units within that group as well. But what is it that goes through this process and reincarnates from one life to another? I don't think that I, as William Wildblood, keep coming and going. After all, much that is WW comes from the genetic inheritance from his parents this time around. But the soul behind him, that is a different matter. It is this soul that is the true self and according to my understanding, gleaned from the Masters, not all of it does descend to the world. Possibly only as much as is necessary for the carrying out of its mission. The greater self remains on its own plane. So what we are here and what we are conscious of now is probably just the tip of an iceberg, experienced through the form given it by its genetic and cultural background, and there may even be some astrological influence thrown in, all of which combine to give us the framework that is most apt for what we have to learn and what we can contribute.

So my understanding of reincarnation is that is the method whereby an Adam becomes a Christ. That is why we encounter people at various stages of this process, though not many, it has to be said, near the end of it. The question is, does it apply to everybody in this world? At one stage I would have thought it did, but I have come to accept that there are people whose spiritual perception I respect and from whom I have learnt, Bruce Charlton for one, who do not feel drawn to this belief. And, of course, it is absent in Christianity even if some people claim hints of it are present there. It could be said that reincarnation was not intended for Christianity because to focus on it can lead to a kind of spiritual stagnation. If you think you have only one life in which to save your soul you are more likely to want to get on with it. Matters become more pressing. However most Christians do not believe in the pre-existence of the soul either, thinking it comes into being with each new life, and I consider that to be a basic metaphysical misunderstanding so perhaps the absence of reincarnation in Christianity is not such a telling point. Perhaps Judaism and the religions that derived from it were intended to emphasise certain aspects of spiritual truth which required them to be completely differentiated from other religions, most of which do believe in reincarnation.

It could be that God has more than one way of educating his children. I believe that reincarnation is his main method. Others don't and think that, if it takes place at all, it is restricted to certain individuals who may come back because of unfinished business or a particular task they have been given. What it boils down to is how much spiritual progress can take place only in this world with its peculiar environment. Are there properties of this world which are essential for the development of mind, character and indeed body, and, if there are, is one life sufficient to make use of them? I don't think it is but if we can accept that learning takes place before we come here and after we leave then I think it is only relatively insignificant detail that separates those who believe in reincarnation from those who don't. After all, reincarnation has nothing to do with spirituality per se. That remains a matter of loving God and seeking to walk the path of goodness and truth as best exemplified by the life of Christ.

Reincarnation addendum

I was talking in the previous post about the need to experience life in a physical body, and thinking about what could be learned in the physical world that might not be available elsewhere in the spiritual universe. Walking down the street earlier today it occurred to me that one thing that is available here that might not be elsewhere in a purer or truer plane of existence is the ability to deceive.

Let me explain. It is a truism of this world that appearance is not reality. All that glitters is not gold. Here fair can disguise foul. A beautiful person can be morally corrupt and a noble soul might be housed in a broken body. Moreover any one of us can hide behind our outer form. Our intentions, emotions and inner state of being can all be disguised from those around us. I don't think this is the case in the higher worlds or when we do not have a physical body. There and then a pure soul has a beautiful appearance and a degraded one looks the part too. We cannot hide our true being, whether it is revealed by means of the aura, the lights that we show, or just in how we look. If we lie that cannot be hidden. When we love that is shown in our face and vice versa. There is no concealing.

But here, of course, that is not the case. So perhaps one of the reasons life in a physical world is necessary is so that we learn discrimination and discernment. We learn not to be deceived by appearance and so develop the ability to see more deeply, something not necessary elsewhere and so not developed. We can become more attuned to reality by having reality hidden from us. This obliges us to search and to look beyond and, in doing that, we sharpen our spiritual eyesight.

In the heavenly worlds the outside reflects the inside as a true representation of that. In this world the outside is one thing and the inside can be quite another. We have to learn proper judgment and the ability to see with our minds what is not obvious to our eyes.

Reincarnation

This is a subject that divides many serious and sincere spiritual thinkers. Some, probably influenced by Eastern religions in which it is fundamental, regard it as an integral part of the process that turns a man into a god.  A number of the ancient Greeks, Pythagoras for example, also believed in it. Others, however, see it as a mistaken doctrine. This would particularly be the case for most Christians and, as far as I know, all Muslims, both of whom took many of their founding beliefs from Judaism. Some of the early Christian Fathers, Origen for one, were believers in reincarnation but it was eventually decisively rejected by the church in favour of the idea that we have one life and one life only in which to earn our salvation. Here I would like to set out why I do believe in reincarnation, but also to add some caveats and provisos.

Let me start with a couple of relevant questions. What is man and what is his intended end? I see the human being, rather like its Maker, as triune. In other words we are constituted of spirit, soul and body. Spirit is the uncreated part of us that is the spark of the divine fire within us. It is our life, our being, the point at which we and God are one. The soul is our individual self. God is the spirit. God created the soul. But I don't think of the soul as the self we are aware of on an everyday basis. That is the soul as manifested in a body, our outer material form, the thing through which we experience the external world. By no means all the soul is consciously available to us 'down here'. It is a spiritual being and heavily restricted by operating through an earthbound mind and body. This gives rise to the ego, the sense of a separate self which is not so much an illusion (as some say) as an inevitable result of the constraints of being in a material world. Of course, we have to overcome that, or full identification with it, but the point is that it is a real thing; at least it is so in terms of this world.

So, spirit, soul and body. That is what we are, simplified certainly but fundamentally this is how we are made up. And our intended end is to become consciously one with God. This requires the union of the soul, the individual self, with spirit, the universal self or God. Consciously one. Spirit on its own level is one with God but not consciously so, not in an individual sense. You might well ask why God wants to create individuals. He is God, surely all-sufficient in himself? No doubt that is so but that is leaving out two very important things. One, God is creative. His nature is self-expression and abundance, becoming more. He becomes more through other beings, some of which are us. And two, God is love. What does love want to do? To give of itself and to have a relationship with the loved one. Again, that is us. That is why God creates us as individuals with free will. What kind of relationship can you have with slaves and automata?

Thus far I have said nothing with which a non-believer in reincarnation would necessarily disagree. The question now is what is the process by which a newly created soul becomes a god? I think it requires experience in the material world which is the place where separation is possible. Through the sense of being separate we can develop our individual self which we must do before we can consciously transcend it in union with God. This all has to be done as a free and conscious act. I don't doubt for a moment that learning can take place in non-material spheres of existence but this world is the best environment for an undeveloped soul to grow into self-awareness, and eventually grow out of self-awareness, because it is the place in which the soul is alone. It's where the soul can suffer and where it can learn from that and move on to a new and higher level of understanding and self-mastery. And it takes a lot more than one life for a soul to progress from a more or less unconscious oneness with nature (its environment), which is the condition of primitive man, to a fully conscious union with God which means all of life. In the process the same soul develops the faculties of will, intelligence and love, all dependent on self-consciousness and none really known to primitive man, to a high degree.

That's the theory. From a personal perspective I believe in reincarnation for several reasons. Intellectually it makes sense for the reasons given above. But it also rings true to me as I feel a strong connection with certain times and places though I recognise that is far from conclusive evidence of anything. Then the idea that human beings, so individual and so different with widely varying talents and destinies, came into being with physical birth never seemed right but I realise that a doctrine of pre-mortal existence could account for that. However the Masters who spoke to me, and in whom I have complete confidence, made certain comments that strongly implied reincarnation. Some of them I can't remember now because unfortunately I lost the habit of taking notes. But I do remember being told (and I still have the notes for this) that I had asked to come back to this world. I was also informed that Michael (their medium) and I had been together in the past, and, further, that I had a previous connection with India. The Masters also referred on one occasion to my 'karmic weakness' (karma being the consequences of one life manifesting in another) and a tendency to mental sluggishness being 'partly due to karma'. There were other references that I can't recall now and, although things were never spelled out in plain black and white, the idea that Michael and I had been here before, and more than once, was referred to on several occasions. Now this might mean that I have had previous lives here but not everyone has. It might, but I don't think it does for the reason given above; that this world is the best arena for learning particular lessons and that it takes a very long time to turn a primitive man into a saint.

I know reincarnation is rejected by Christianity but it could have been one of the many more things that Jesus wanted to say to his disciples which they could not currently bear (John 16:12). It's also possible that, as a belief in only one life might give one a much greater impetus to seek salvation in that life, it was not taught in the religion destined for the West. After all, belief in reincarnation has no particular relevance in the context of treading the spiritual path so its omission is not important in that respect. So I don't think the fact of Christianity's rejection of reincarnation is that significant. There are hints of it in the Bible and, though these are often explained away, I would say that as long as scripture (by which I chiefly mean the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels) doesn't deny it outright I think a Christian can have an open mind. I don't say that he has to but he can do if he so wishes.

This is the basis of my belief in reincarnation. At the same time I would add that, while reincarnation may have explanatory power for the inequality of men, why some suffer and some are rich and others not and so on, it is not something to pay too much attention to in this world. Undue interest in searching out details of past lives will only distract you from the here and now, the lessons you have to learn today. All you need to know about your past is in you now in the present time, in your character, your tendencies, your weaknesses and your strengths. It doesn't matter if you were a notable person in the 16th century. Now you are who you are today and that is all you should focus on if you are to learn what you are supposed to.

Why don't we remember previous lives? If reincarnation is true how is it that no one (to all intents and purposes) can remember their past incarnations in this world? I don't see this as a problem. The doctrine is not saying that I, William Wildblood, existed in a previous life in such and such a place at such and such a time. It is saying that the soul that took birth as WW in this life took birth on a former occasion but then it manifested through a different mind as well as a different body. The brain on each occasion was entirely a new thing though the form the mind that used that brain took would have been decided by causes originating in the past and determined by karma (see above) and the needs of that particular lifetime. So WW is a new person in this life though he is not just made from his parents' genetic material. His karma, his purpose and the quality of his soul all play a part in making him what he is. The Masters told me, and I believe because it is what I have always felt, that the greater part of you remains with us. That is the soul of which only a fraction manifests itself through the earthbound personality. May I reassure those who think this means that when a loved one dies you will never meet them again in the form you knew that this is not the case. They will be more truly themselves just as you will be. The real individual will stand forth, almost as though a limited being acquires an extra dimension.

If and when reincarnation becomes more established as a concept in the West it should not be viewed in quite the same way it was and is in the East. For a start, the idea that human beings can be reborn in animal form should not be a part of it. It is possible, I suppose, that extreme karma might cause a man to be born as an animal. However at this stage of human evolution (as in unfolding of the spiritual seed within) that would be extremely rare. The point of reincarnation is education not punishment and, though painful conditions might sometimes be necessary, they only come about in order to teach a soul what it needs to learn. Then there is the idea of the soul or higher self as the reincarnating agent which is not properly present in Hinduism or Buddhism. There is no real individual in Buddhism, of course, and the jiva in Hinduism appears mostly to be just an individual unit of consciousness with none of the sense of a higher self or greater part of you that I would give it. So I would hope that Western ideas of reincarnation would view souls as real spiritual beings with a real life on their own spiritual plane who come to this Earth to learn needed lessons before returning to what is their real home. Of course, that home is not their final destination but it is still their current real home, the place they originated in as souls and where they belong for now. The experience of reincarnating in this world is designed to take them deeper into the heart of God, and to transcend their limited individuality in divine oneness, but that is for the future. Now they have a home and it is in the spiritual realm not the physical plane of this Earth. So what I am saying is that reincarnation is better viewed from the standpoint of the higher self or soul than that of the man as he is on this Earth. It is the soul that takes incarnation rather than the man who has been incarnated that is the important element in all this.

For any spiritual believer there are three possibilities of our whereabouts before we were born into this world. Firstly, we were nowhere and it's an entirely new person. This is what materialists would say and it's also what most orthodox Western religions teach. For me it's the least plausible of the options. It really doesn't take into account the vast differences between human beings and their lives in this world, never mind the intuition that some people have that they are not beginners at the game of life. Then there is the idea of pre-mortal existence. We may not have been in this world before but we have not come from nowhere. Our creation was in a spiritual realm and we have lived and learnt in higher worlds before coming to this one. This makes much more sense than a fresh creation but, for me, it doesn't provide as satisfying an answer as reincarnation. I certainly agree that there is a pre-mortal or pre-physical existence which is that of the soul on its own level or other non-material levels but I think earthly experience is required on many occasions before one has extracted all the possibilities this world has to offer and learnt all it has to teach. But that's just my belief. No doubt we shall only find out for certain when all mysteries are revealed in the fullness of time. Until then the important thing is to love and serve and seek to know our Creator to the best of our ability.