Cycles of Death
Ancestors, Ghosts and Reincarnation

I believe in reincarnation. This is one of the things that I believe firmly on some level, mostly because I’ve had experiences, when I was younger, of ‘remembering’, in a vague way, being alive before. I believe that people who have affinities for certain time periods may very well have been alive then…

I believe that reincarnation is a natural process of life and the cycle of things. I don’t believe that there is a moral or karmic component to it necessarily. I don’t believe that bad people get born into shitty lives, and good people get comfortable lives. I believe that it happens because it is natural for it to happen. I believe that the soul goes through a process of growth and maturity, much the way any living thing does: through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, old age and death. I believe that eventually the soul may lose all semblance of its individual Self and remerge completely with the Transcendent Divine. Until then, we are here to learn and to experience what it is to be alive. We are the Universe experiencing itself… and through us, perhaps the Divine evolves as well. Perhaps not. I hold no firm belief in this regard, except that I feel the ultimate purpose to exist is to experience existence.

I also believe that there are stages to death, just as there are to life. This is a vague belief of mine – I haven’t put it into a solid format, and believe that it may very well be different for different people… but here is a general outline.<>BR
  • When people first die, they hold on to their memories and their attachments to the life they are leaving behind. Some may choice to hang around in spirit form, to become an ancestor spirit which can guide and, in some sense, protect their families.

  • People who can not accept that they are dead, or who do not want to move on, may, perhaps, become ghosts or poltergeists. I do not, however, believe that most ghosts fall into this category – though I would say poltergeists probably do. I believe that ghosts may be an impression – spiritual or psychical – left by the person. It is not the person’s essence… but merely a fragment or piece of them. We leave impressions of ourselves on places and people all the time. I see this as no supernatural thing. Of course, that it not to say that that impression does not take on a life of it’s own, in a sense.

  • When people are ready to move on, they move through the stages of letting go of their lives. They move beyond the phase where their presence is readily felt by those still living. Perhaps they go through a period of reflecting on their lives.

  • When they have completely let go of their attachments in this world, they exist as their pure essence. I do not believe that the afterlife exist in the sense of the Summerland, per se, and I certainly don’t believe in heaven and hell. I believe that, in spirit, we do not exist or experience existence in any way near the same way we do while we are alive. No thought, no emotions – just pure being.

  • When the time is right for that soul to be reborn – and I feel that that time is perhaps determined by their wyrd, which means there are many factors involved – it is reborn. I do not believe that we choose what will happen in this life… I don’t believe we choose life’s lessons to learn.

  • Some souls may be spiritually advanced, and beyond the need or desire to be reincarnated. Perhaps they can exist as spirit guides, or in another plane of existence. I believe that we may work our way back up the ladder, so to speak, to remerge with the Mu. However, I don’t believe that this is our purpose – but again, a natural part of the cycle. (Which means I don’t believe we have to forsake our existence and ‘remember what we truly are’ – but I will do a whole page of purpose and existentialism.)
This is a very rough framework – but I hope the general idea gets through.

I mentioned about my belief regarding ghosts already, about how they are fragments of a person left behind and not the essence of a person. I felt this was important to include because I was asked recently how I could believe in ghosts and reincarnation at the same time, considering the number of ghosts purported to be around. I admit that at one time in my life I was greatly distressed by the abundance of ghosts. I feared, more than death or reincarnation, being ‘trapped’ in a ghostly existence. However, with the studies on Psi Residue and with beliefs of the pieces of the soul such as Egyptian and Nordic – who have different parts of the soul, some of which move on and some of which stay behind – it made sense that the ghostly aspects would be a different part of the soul. That which is more attached to the physical, while the other pieces could move on.



"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old;
seek what they sought."
~Basho