Reincarnation – an original Christian doctrine

2 the experience of the innermost regions of our being, of our soul. The truth of this reality has indeed been suppressed or kept a secret for centuries by external forces, but this original knowledge once again surges to the surface: The truth cannot be suppressed for too long. The scientific material about reincarnation, presently at our disposal, is very comprehensible. (Comment: I will only mention a few standard works that contain secondary information: Besant : Reincarnation; Cerminara G : Sensational evidence of karma and rebirth; Curie, Jan : Nobody dies forever, Bertelsmann 1979; Stearn : The sleeping prophet (Fundamental work about Edgar Cayce)). Very impressing is the book by the American professor and director of the Parapsychological department at the University of Virginia, Jan Stevenson "Reinkarnation - der Mensch im Wandel von Tod und Wiedergeburt" (Unknown English title, maybe “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation”) published in German. Stevenson registered nearly 600 cases that indicate repeated lives on Earth; 20 convincing and scientific cases from five countries on three different continents that “reach way beyond a mere suggestion of re-embodiment, seemed to be sufficient evidence for me.” 3 Peter Andreas , see P. 111, writes the following about Stevenson’s work: “Dr. Stevenson’s first work, “Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation” has turns into a bit of a classic in the meantime. A lot of clergy, reluctant to show too much interest in the question about reincarnation because of an apparently lacking biblical authority, show an interest in continuing the research of Stevenson’s extremely thoroughly researched cases after having studied them.” Present day psychology already applies research results gained in the field of reincarnation for therapy purposes. With the help of regression, Thorwald Dethlefsen guides his trial patients back to past lives in this fashion, thereby exposing and recognising rooted memories from deep within the soul that represent a permanent psychosomatic stress in their present existence and he finds that the resulting afflictions can be healed. 4 Stevenson and Dethlefsen should be shown as representatives of modern psychology in order to demonstrate how the existence of reincarnation is verifiable in two different ways. Questions about reincarnation were always a natural component of the thought processes of great poets and thinkers, for instance Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Grillparzer, Plato, Vergil, Kant, Schleiermacher, Fichte, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Voltaire and lots more. 5 Reincarnation is naturally also a part of the Buddhist and Hinduist religions. In order the swart even the slightest suspicion that this script renders Asiatic religious beliefs, a citation by the Swiss psychologist and psychoanalyst C.G. Jung is listed here: “Reincarnation is a predication that is part and parcel of mankind’s original statements. These original statements are based on what I call ‘archetype’. All statements about the supernatural are basically always determined by the archetype, so that it comes as no surprise that the subject of reincarnation is encountered in the most diverse of nations.” 6 The belief in the re-embodiment of the immortal part within human beings is also found with a lot of native tribes everywhere and this makes one come to the conclusion that this ancient knowledge 3 Stevenson, see P.17 4 Dethlefsen,Thorwald: Das Erlebnis der Wiedergeburt – Heilung durch Reinkarnation, 1978, Goldmann-Sachbuch Nr. 11 199 5 For passages from their works, see Schmidt K. O. see P. 4ff 6 Jung C. G. see P. 405