REINCARNATION & THE BIBLE

Have you ever been to a place which you totally felt you recognized. In fact you were so sure that you knew this place that you were sure that you had been here before, despite the fact that you’d never been there before?

Have you ever met a person that you felt you used to know sometime ago, despite the fact that you’ve never met them before?

Have you ever had an experience where you felt that these sequence of events had happened before despite the fact that you knew that they hadn’t.

But if you had lived a previous life, if you’d been born before that would seem to explain these occurrences, if you'd existed before and had visited those places or had seen this person that would explain things, wouldn’t it. One sometimes wonders. And there are those who believe that they have met that person before, that they have been in that place before, that this has happened to them before.

Just a few weeks ago I was talking to a friend of mine at work. He was very interested in the fact that I was from India. He said he’d always wanted to visit India.

So I asked "Why?"

He said "because I'm fascinated with it and I'd like to find out more"

So I asked "Why?"

He said "because that’s where Buddhism originated."

I said, "that’s very nice, what’s so special about Buddhism."

"Well" he said that "he’d been reading about the Dalai Lama."

I said "well the Dalai Lama is in Tibet"

He said he knew that "but being as that Tibet had been occupied by China for the last 20 years and that he couldn’t very well visit Tibet, he wanted to visit Nepal and India."

I said "that’s all very good but what was this attraction to Buddhism in the first place."

He said, "well they found the Dalai Lama in Mexico or somewhere."

"What’s the Dalai Lama doing in Mexico, he’s Tibetan?"

"Well" he said "they didn’t know where he was and they found him in Mexico."

"That’s very interesting" I responded "I didn’t know he was hiding out there."

"No" he said "he wasn’t hiding out there."

"Well in that case I didn’t know that he was lost."

"Well no" said my friend, "he wasn’t lost he was dead."

"I thought you said he was in Mexico. Did he die in Mexico?"

"Well he was" said my friend, "but it wasn’t him. And he didn't die there."

"Well" said I, "if it wasn’t him in Mexico then what was he doing not being in Mexico when he was in Mexico. Especially when he was dead?"

"Well you see" said my friend "he’d died and come back to life as a young boy in Mexico."

"Oh I see. Well how do you know that this boy in Mexico is the Dalai lama. Does the boy claim to be the Dalai lama?"

"No not quite."

"Then why do they think he’s the Dalai lama."

"Well because the vice Dalai lama in chief or someone went looking for him and found him in Mexico."

"Oh, and how did this vice Dalai lama figure out that this boy who didn’t himself know that he was the Dalai lama, figure out that the boy was the Dalai lama?"

"Ah well, that’s where they claim you have to have faith, faith in the signs and stars that indicate that this boy is the Dalai lama".

"Hmm, And does this boy like being told that he’d the Dalai lama?"

"Well I’m not sure. That’s why I am fascinated with India I’d like to find out more."

Now my friend doesn’t believe in Reincarnation and probably got some of his facts wrong, but there are others at work who do believe in Reincarnation and have all the facts and details. In fact to them, reincarnation is very obvious, for there are hundreds of incidents that prove reincarnation. And doesn’t even the Bible teach reincarnation?

But before we answer that question we should understand what Reincarnation is.

And before we answer THAT question we should understand why it is important to have an answer to the whole question of reincarnation and other religions.

Just last week while talking to a very pretty lady, she asked me why I felt that it was important to worry about all these other issues. She said that as far as she was concerned, she just believed in Jesus and she didn’t really care what anybody else said. She said that that was enough for her.

Well said I. That is well and good, but you see every day or so I run into people who tell me the exact same thing,

every day or so I run into people who tell me that what they believe is good enough for them,

every day or so I run into people who tell me that they believe in Hinduism or Crystals or reincarnation or what not and that was good enough for them.

Now the problem we run into is quite simple and is this.

How do we know who is right?

How do we know that they are wrong?

How do we know that we are not wrong?

How do we know that we have not been fooled?

What makes us any better than them?

And remember, some of them are probably, kinder, wiser, older and more at peace with life than us. What makes us any better at making this judgement than them?

There is no way, unless what we believe in is defendable and backable and provable. And that is what Apologetics is all about. Turn quickly to I Pet 3:15. Be prepared to give a defense for the hope that is within you.

So now back to what Reincarnation is.

Reincarnation’s origins are in Hinduism. However it has even appeared in various places like some of the ancient Greek philosophers who called it metempsychosis (change of souls) and even some of the more heretical Jews.

Hinduism and Reincarnation and Transmigration.

For the Hindu and the Buddhist, reincarnation is actually what we’ll call the Law of Transmigration, which is in turn based on the law of Karma. Reminds me of the bumper sticker that I saw, it said, I’m sorry but my Karma has run over your Dogma.

What is Karma? I’m glad you asked. Karma is basically a like a bank balance. You build up credits or debits by doing "good" or "bad" in this life. Then if you die with more a positive cash flow you come back to life at a stage higher and better than you were before. In Hinduism you have something called a caste system. What it is is basically a grouping of people into elite or not so elite classes. If you were a very bad person in your past life, you’d come back as a woman or a lower caste. If you were a good person you’d move up the caste level. Once you got to the lowest caste, which were the "untouchables" and you still didn’t get your life together you’d go the next step lower into the animal kingdom. And you could go lower and lower until you ended up an insect.

On the other end of the spectrum you had the Brahmins or the priests. Which is where my ancestors come from. And the better you were in your past life the higher the Brahmin you’d be.

Now if you were a wonderful Brahmin you could eventually attain the level of perfection which is called "Atman". Can you say Atman? When you reached Atman or Nirvana, you would not be transmigrated anymore but instead you would get absorbed back into the godhead, being the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu. The god of life, the god of death and the god of war. You no longer exist as an individual.

Now despite the great technological advancements that India has achieved during this century and their 45 years of independence, this belief in reincarnation slash transmigration has done an awful lot to keep India as backward. Being as your Aunt May could have sinned a bit and ended up as a cow, Hindus will not eat any meat or kill any animal. After all who’d want to say that they "et" Aunt May. Or since she was an Indian, it would be Aunt Kalianasudaram Ratna-swamy-ayapa.

The second thing this does it that it is very unusual for a Hindu to start a charity organization to help the poorer people. Why? Because these beggars and destitute people are getting their just rewards for being bone heads in a past life. And if you make their life better you’d be messing up their Karma. The third thing that it causes it that in certain areas farmers won’t kill the rats that destroy their stored up grain. Why? Same reason, it may be Uncle Venketta Venketraman Mutuswamy. So a country that used to have problems with famine would be set back even more without rodent destruction.

As a side note, India has been able to fully feed itself and in fact it has been exporting grain and rice and other food to the Middle east etc for about 10 years now.

What has been adapted for the New World.

Now as time passed, Indians like me started coming west. "For the good life only." Well, when Hinduism started coming to the West and the Beatles went to India, one of the most unpalatable parts of Hinduism to the average Westerner was the concept that if you were bad you could end up as a dog. So over the few years the Western world mutated the original law of transmigration to be limited only to humans. And this is what they call Reincarnation. And that in fact is what that theologically astute idiot Shirley Maclain claims: that she used to be the Egyptian Princess Cleopatra (or was it Neferetti). What I find hard to believe is that so far about 15 people claim to be the same Egyptian Princess. How does that work? Actually for a while that did have the people who believed in reincarnation baffled, but recently I heard that they had come up with a solution to that problem. The new theory is that you can reincarnate into another person for a short period of time and then move again before dying to another time and another body. This is a very interesting concept and we shall come back to it at the end of this talk.

The definition of Monism

All this stuff leads us to a very old concept, known commonly as monism. Monism is basically this.

It is the belief that ultimately everything in the universe is one. We are all one with God, one with our fellow man, one with the animals one with the earth and most of all one with John Lennon. I am you and you are me and we are one together, koo kutcy ku kutch ku, I am the egg man. I am the walrus.

But we have to understand why Reincarnation is so appealing.

Why it is appealing.

Why is Reincarnation so appealing. Well it's quite simple let's look at the advantages of Reincarnation.

1. You can apply it to any problem and produce an explanation.

2. You get lots of second chances if you mess up.

3. You live for ever and ever and ever again and again and again.

4. It solves the age old problem of why a God would let people starve to death or why a young child would be born paralyzed. (why because they deserved it, it's their punishment from their past life).

5. Salvation is totally dependent on the individual, he decides if he goes up or down.

6. Good begets good and evil begets evil. No good goes unpunished and no evil goes unrewarded. OK OK, no good goes unrewarded and no evil goes unpunished.

7. There is no absolute good or absolute bad, everything is relative.

8. Man is basically good and eventually will work their way to Atman.

9. The soul is immortal.

10. God is not a cruel god and would never damn someone to hell.

11. With reincarnation, now all religions just become different pathways to God, be it Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, Mammenism etc. We can all be open minded. (This way they can embrace not only these new open religions but also the religion of their ancestors i.e. Christianity).

So it is obvious why the Concept of Reincarnation would be appealing.

The Case for Reincarnation:

But all this is useless unless there was any evidence that Reincarnation actually takes place. So let us study if there is any evidence for reincarnation.

The Stories to back it up:

Rena Gupta

Prof, Hammandaranath Banerjee investigated the case of a young girl who at the age of 2 began to speak about

"my husband, he is a very bad man, he killed me, I have a hole in my stomach."

This for some reason disturbed her parents to no end. They thought she was fantasizing. She was able to describe in great detail parts of her past life. She knew about the events of a previous life. She claimed that she had been murdered by her husband in a town which she named. It was a town far away. She knew in detail events of the slain woman’s domestic life that only the dead woman or her closest relatives would have known.

Said the investigation professor. "Rarely in the history of reincarnation has there been anything to equal this incredible case." In June of 1961 a 28 year old woman by the name of Gurdeep was fatally stabbed in the stomach by her husband Surjeet Singh. He was incarcerated for 10 years in the state prison for murder. The first sign that the slain woman had returned to life came 7 years later, when the young girl Rena Gupta startled her parents with the statement about her husband and her murder. She insisted that she had 4 children and gave their nicknames, she stated that her husband in her former life had hurt his leg starting a motor scooter and at one time had become enraged when she had tried on one of his sweaters. On May 27th 1968 most of the murdered woman’s children and family visited the young girl. She was then 3 years old. What happened then was incredible. When the family entered the room, her face lit up immediately and she recognized everyone and named the children and other members of her family. She then traveled with the family to their town and she identified their home, a picture of herself in her former life, identified all the things connected to herself that only that woman and those people could have known. Yet they lived hundred of miles apart and the families never knew each other. Two days after that little Rena went to visit the parents of the slain woman Gurdeep Singh. She recognized much of the inside of the house. "That’s when I knew our daughter had been reborn in this child’s body said Gurdeep’s father.

The most astonishing thing happened 3 years later in 1971 10 years after the murder. When the dead woman’s husband Surjeet Singh was released from prison where he’d been serving time for murder. When he heard about Rena he was overcome by curiosity. He went to her house posing as a man who wanted to do business with Rena’s father. The child then 6 years of age was terrified when she saw the man. "He is not who he says he is." She shrieked, clutching at her mother’s leg her eyes wide with fear. "He is my husband Surjeet, he has come to kill me again. Make him go away." The stunned Surjeet confessed who he was and went away, but not before photographs had been taken of both the man and the little girl who claimed that she was Gurdeep.

Prof. Banerjee of the Indian Institute of Parapsychology spent 6 months of intense study of both families. Validating the facts, asking them complex trick questions to detect any fraud. At the conclusion of the study Banerjee stated that he was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was a genuine case of reincarnation.

Quick summaries of David and Nirmal and Imad.

A couple more facts:

In April 1950 a boy of ten named Nirmal died of small pox in Kosi Kalan in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. In Aug 1951 a boy who was named Prakash was born to another family in the town of Chhatta, six miles away.

At the age of 4 Prakash began to tell his parents that he belonged in Kosi Kalan and not there. He claimed that his name was really Nirmal. In 1961 the father and sister of Nirmal the dead boy having heard or Prakash visited the boy. He immediately recognized them both. Later when he visited the home of Nirmal he recognized the place as well as identified other relatives. Not surprisingly Nirmal’s parents became convinced that their dead son had been reborn as Prakash.

Imad Elawar was born on Dec 21, 1958 in Kornayel 15 miles east of Beirut, Lebanon. When Imad was less than 2 years old he began to talk about his previous life. As he grew more articulate he claimed to have lived in the village of Khriby about 20 miles SE of Beirut with the Bouhamzy family. He mentioned names of people and events familiar with him. In 1963 Imad’s father and uncle traveled to Khiriby and were able to confirm the accuracy of some of the names. Imad’s remarks became more and more startling and specific. He named a woman named Jamile and expressed that he was glad that he was able to walk again, as if he’d been lame in his previous life.

His family started researching the matter and found that in the town of Khriby there had lived a man by the name of Ibrahim Bouhamz, that had a mistress named Jamile and that he’d died of spinal tuberculosis on Sept 18, 1949. The disease that killed him had caused him great difficultly in walking and had rendered him bedridden for the last 2 months of his life.

When Imad’s parents eventually brought him to Ibrahim’s parents house, Imad recognized the family and various items and locations around the house.

The Biblical text (supposedly) to back it up

Now if we have studied the historical evidence for the Bible and are assured that the Bible is the word of God thru our studies then what the Bible says would seem to be very important.

Interestingly enough most New World reincarnation believers are convinced that Bible teaches Reincarnation, particularly the teachings of Jesus.

Let's start with the OT:

A. Job 1:20-21

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and he fell to the ground and worshipped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Job says here that he will return to be born again in a womb indicating that he expects to reincarnate.

B. Matt 17:1-13

Transfiguration with Elijah and Moses. Then....

"And as they were coming down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them , saying, "Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the dead." And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?" And He answered and said, "Elijah is coming and will restore all things; but I say to you, that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist.

So Jesus himself said that Elijah had reincarnated as John the Baptist.

C. John 3:3 & 7 Talking here to Nicodemus "In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

Here Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he had to be born again and again and again before he can attain the Kingdom of God, i.e. Atman.

D. John 9:1 When they saw a man who was blind from birth, the disciples asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" This passage, it is said, confirms that Jesus and his disciples believed that it was possible for one to sin in some previous existence and to pay for that sin in another earthly life.

E. Gal 6:7 "For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap" in the next life.

F. And didn't Paul say that Jesus was a reincarnation of Melchizedek?

Now having read this far, grab your Bibles and refute my thesis. Is or is not reincarnation supported in the Bible. You will have to look up the above verses in context and see if they really imply that reincarnation is real. Then see if you can figure out what was really happening in the stories I gave you that seem to physically prove that reincarnation happens.

Hopefully you spent some time on your own here. Here are now the answers:

Biblical Refutation:

Now let’s go through the reality of what the Bible really says. You see the Bible refutes Reincarnation.

1. We won’t argue on only one or two isolated points. We have to take the whole thing in context. The Bible speaks about redemption from our sins through Christ, not reincarnation and we’ll see this as we go along.

2. Refutation of the above items.

Item A: Job says naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked I returned there. The first thing one we notice is that in reincarnation one never returns to their mother’s womb again. They are reborn in someone else's womb. The second thing we must understand is that not only can’t you take Bible verses out of their chapter context, but furthermore you can’t take Bible verses out of the whole Bible context or it’s cultural context. Biblically speaking the mother’s womb in the Bible also refers to the fact that we were formed out of the earth. Dust to dust....

See Ps 139:13-15. "For thou didst form my inward parts; Thous didnst weave me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Thy works. and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.

Here returning to the mothers womb refers not to reincarnation but returning to dust.

See also Job 38:8 and 29. "Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb?" 29: "From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens?"

In context in the book of Job this passage does not support reincarnation. Womb is earth. Dust to dust.

Item B:

At the time of the transfiguration, John had already been beheaded by Herod at his daughter’s request. Now in reincarnation one cannot go back to an old body because it is destroyed. So if John the Baptist was really Elijah, then why was Elijah still around?

Secondly if we read in 2 Kings 2:11 we notice that it seems that Elijah never died. It seems that he was taken to be with God directly.

And finally let’s see what John himself said when they asked him if he was Elijah.

John 1:21 "They asked him (John) what then are you Elijah and he said "I am not."

So if John himself claimed that He was not the reincarnation of Elijah and since John was dead by the time Elijah showed up the SECOND time, the question to be asked is then: what exactly did Jesus mean in the above passage?

Well, he meant that John the Baptist came to do functionally what Elijah had done in the old Testament. And that is "Prepare the way for the Lord."

Item C.

John 3:3 & 7 "In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

Reading the whole thing we see: John 3:3-8

If you have an NIV look at the footnote. The more accurate translation of this from the Greek is not Born Again but rather "born from Above". Which is what the real meaning is. To be born again into the family of God.

In fact verse 4 proves that Nicodemus a spiritual leader of the Jews did not believe in reincarnation either (because he asks incredulously: How can it be so?.) and Jesus agrees with him!! For Jesus is not talking about being born in the flesh, but of the Spirit. Read the entire passage.

John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whomsover shall believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jesus goes on to tell him that he Jesus would be lifted up and suffer to pay for the sins of the world. Jesus says to him in fact that if you do not believe in me you are already condemned. Not to reliving your life but to judgement. If reincarnation was true. Then what Jesus told Nicodemus in verse 16 would be garbage. If reincarnation is true you will reincarnate for infinity regardless of whether you believe in Christ or not. But Jesus says that you only get eternal life if you believe in Him. And if you don’t believe in him you shall perish. Definitely not what reincarnation teaches. There is no perishing in reincarnation. Either Jesus was wrong or he was right. You can't arbitrarily take half of what he says and leave the rest (at least not while maintaining a straight face).

Item D.

John 9.1-3 You should read the whole passage. The rest of the verse says: When they saw a man who was blind from birth, the disciples asked Jesus, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life...." This passage cannot be used to prove anything because Jesus throws the whole argument out the door with his answer. He invalidates the whole question. Thus this passage neither proves nor disproves reincarnation (except for the fact that it indicates that people can be born into suffering situations for no causes that they were in control off...certainly an anti-reincarnation concept)..

Item E.

Gal 6:7 "For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." This again is another verse that has been taken out of context. It says: Gal 6:7-8: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life."

Again that word eternal life. In reincarnation eternal life is not something one gains apart from someone else. Because all are destined to repeated reincarnations to eternity. It is only in Christ and in Christianity that eternal life is given to the select few. The alternative to eternal life this passage says is destruction. Corruption and disintegration. This is certainly not a teaching of reincarnation.

Item F.

Melchizedek was not a reincarnation of Jesus. Nowhere does Paul say that. All he says was that Jesus was a high priest like Melchizedek.

The key thing here is that the entire evidence that is used for reincarnation is little more than a short list of difficult Bible references. There is nothing in the Bible when taken in context that supports reincarnation. The Bible cannot be taken in pieces, it has to be taken as a whole. And as a whole it certainly does not support reincarnation.

Here are more proofs that the Bible does NOT support Reincarnation.

3. It is given for a man once to die and then the Judgement!! Heb 9:27-28. (Possible rebuttal: Once per life time. Correct answer: Read the whole verse):

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him. (Heb 9:27-28).

In the Greek the word used for once means: "Once and for all". Reincarnationists and Mormons rarely read the original Greek many think that what they see in the English is what was there and feel free to alter it any old way.

Further more Jesus died only once, in the same way we will die once only. Not per lifetime but once and for all. There is no real way to force reincarnation into this pasage here.

4. For me to live is Christ Phil 1:23 (from R&R pg 63)

Now we know that Jesus Christ is not on the earth in the physical form. Why? Because he will come again when every eye shall see him. Until then he is seated at the right hand of God. OK, so Jesus Christ is not physically on Earth.

Now in Phil 1:21 Paul says: For me, (comma) to live is Christ and to die is gain. (23) I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. So Paul is saying that when he dies he will go to be with Christ. Not that he will reincarnate as an ascended master. Not that he will merge with Christ because he has attained Atman. No, he will go to be with (in the presence of ) Christ. There is no reincarnation here and he is not talking about Atman, why because Christ has a body and Paul is going to see that body of Jesus and be with him in heaven. This is all supported with frequent Bible passages.

Matt 25:41 & 46

Speaks of eternal judgement, not cyclic rebirth. And if there reincarnation what is the use of it, if one can't remember one's past lives. Afterall how can you improve upon your mistakes until you know what your mistakes were. How can one grow if one has no memory? What a cruel joke to punish someone for something they have no idea that they did.

Now having proved that the Bible nowhere speaks of reincarnation but of resurrection, the question going thru your minds must be then what are the explanations of the stories and proofs of reincarnation that I gave you at the beginning? Because either the Bible is true and reincarnation is false or reincarnation is false and the Bible is true. Ok ok , or reincarnation is true and the Bible is false. So then what are the explanations?

The explanations:

1. Fraud

The most obvious explanation is that the above cases were all fraudulent cases. Well there are many fraudulent cases and we can eliminate a number of these. But the case of Rena Gupta and a few others like Nirmal etc there was nothing to gain by the fraud and the extensive research by the Universities eliminated the possibility of fraud in those cases. Further more a lot of these were instigated by 3 year old kids who would not have the ability to propagate and maintain such a fraud, even if it was master minded by an adult.

2. Cryptomnesia

This is the condition in which someone knows about a person but later forgets the source of this info. Now in time he starts to identify with the deceased person that he genuinely feels he is the other. Unfortunately this only explains a few of the cases and certainly does not explain any of the cases where the deceased person was never known before, like Nirmal or Rena.

3. Genetic Memory.

This suggests that genetically memory was passed down thru a few generations for example if a person experiences something and then has a baby, genetically encoded in that baby is that memory somewhere. Now this genetically encoded memory is passed on such that the great great grandchild would remember things that the great great grandmother experienced. But there is no proof for this and it falls apart if the person was not related to the deceased or anybody around them.

4. ESP

This theory is possible but there is more to it and we shall discuss that as part of the next possible answer.

Reincarnation and Retrocognition.

But before we do we have to clarify one thing:

Let’s talk about the difference between reincarnation and retrocognition.

In all reincarnation literature they make one basic assumption. The assumption that cognition implies presence. It is assumed that if a person knows enough details about another’s life then that person used to be the other. In other words, if I remember a past life, then it has to be my past life that I remember.

But is there any reason for this to be the case? If you were to know or be told in great detail the facts of an person who’d died many years ago that would not indicate that you and this person had any link at all. In fact if we could show evidence that it has happened that a person has retrocognition but it was impossible for him to have been reincarnated.

The case of Peter Hurkos is stated in his own autobiography. He talks about the first time he realized that he had a gift. He’d just suffered from a very severe head injury and was lying in a hospital bed when he noticed the man in the bed next to him. "All of a sudden he says that he knew an awful lot about this man despite the fact that he’d never seen him before.

Hurkos later proved to be accurate 87 % or more of the time. He helped the English police recover the royal coronation stone of Westminister Abbey because he knew great details about the thieves and in the same way he helped find the Boston Strangler etc.

There were only 2 things missing between this and the facts about reincarnation were this. 1. Most of these people that Hurkos knew about were still alive and 2. Hurkos did not identify with them.

You see reincarnationists argue that cognition indicates presence. "I could not know unless I was there." But the facts from the cases of Peter Hurkos shows that that is not at all necessarily the case. Cognition does not indicate presence. He merely knew about them.

In the same way, a young child that merely knew in great details events of someone else may be misled or not be able to comprehend why they know this without identifying with the person whom they had retrocognition.

Reincarnation can be explained as retrocogniton with identification.

But how do we explain retrocognition and thus reincarnation? And please don’t take this to be an oversimplification of the problem. This is the answer and it is pretty straight forward.

Well there is one person, one being (besides God) who knows everything that has happened in the past. This person has watched and remembered things. This person knows things that we think that nobody would know about. Somebody that is communicating information that can be reliably checked out. Somebody who can pick out case histories of anyone he wants. Yes of course we all know who that is. It is Satan himself. This demon and his minions. Jesus describes him as a liar and a thief. Yes Demon possession. He speaks to our spirit and thus to our minds. Read Acts 16:16-19. This is an instance in the Bible where a Demon possessed girl knows not only parts of the future but she also knew who Peter and Silas were even though she'd never met them before.

Mark 1:23-24. This man knew who Jesus was, even before the Disciples realized who he was. And I don’t even need to mention the man and the pigs and the Legion of demons.

All true cases of apparent reincarnation I am convinced can be explained by retrocognition due to demon possession. The cases of Rena Gupta and others are especially explainable by the fact that they take place amongst people who are surrounded by pagan religions and idol worship. I say this as an Indian who has lived there and seen it. I also say it as humbly as I can for I have many many Hindu friends whom I greatly respect. But what ever I say, I cannot soften the blow of what I believe. Rena Gupta’s experience does not prove reincarnation, but it strongly makes the case for demon possession. The demonic influences in such places are very great. It is very common to see such mysticism in places where demon worship is an everyday thing.

This also ties in to that explanation that I touched upon at the beginning. Remember where reincarnation believers beleive that multiple people can be reincarnated as one person in the past for a period of time and then move on (thus allowing there to be no conflict caused by the fact that 15 people claim to have been Cleopatra in a past life). This is identical to demon possesion where multiple demons can simultanously or sequentially posses a person and then move on. Each of the future people who are possesed by one of these "Cleopatrian demons," would now have access to her memories. This of course is not to say that the demons needed to have ever possessed someone on the past. All they would need to know is details about that person's life that a normal person would not have access to. Remember demons are in the business of fooling and deluding so that they can lead a person astray.

In the West we see this sort of demon possession in two main venues. Hypnotherapy and Channelling. Channeling is very plainly allowing yourself to be a medium for a demon to use a physical body. While Hypnotherapy while not evil in inherently, can be very dangerous for it empties your mind and allows demons to posses you while you are in a state of vulnerability.

Obviously there’s a lot more to this topic but we will have to deal with this in the future. For now it is sufficient that Reincarnation is not Biblical and if anything it is anathama to God. What we are dealing with here is the occult. No more and no less.

Jesus Christ has atoned for all sins, once and for. On the Cross, not for what we can do but because it is the free gift. Given by God through Christ. We cannot work for eternal life ourselves and Jesus is the only way to Christ. There is only one way to God and that is thru the Jesus. I am the Way the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by Me. If you believe that, you can have eternal life and break free from the terrible concepts of eternal cycling and paying for sins that you couldn't ever remember doing. True freedom comes in Christ, today.

Neil Mammen