There has always been a minority of Christians who have stated their belief in reincarnation. Today the issues has opened up considerably, mainly thanks to an open yet also scientifically precise outlook towards the subject. The deep understanding of reincarnation came only very gradually to me, in three distinct stages. The first stage was learning its Biblical compatibility, and realizing it made profound sense. The second stage came when I discovered such classics as “The Cathars and Reincarnation” and “Far Memory”. But only years later did the third stage come: I started to have my own experiences.
I learned from Steiner how reincarnation is perfectly compatible with Christianity. The New Testament and Jesus himself refer to it, in all the references to John the Baptist coming “in the spirit and power of Elijah”. And though John the Baptist explicitly denies being Elijah, if we attend carefully to the exact words the Bible uses, this all points to a deepening of understanding we need, if we want to grasp the mystery: that the spirit is the same, but the outworkings, circumstances, gifts, purpose, character, and name can be quite different from life to life. What matters in the end is to have a full experience of being human. Reincarnation is essentially from human life to human life. It does not include, as do some traditional but generally mistaken Indian beliefs, the likelihood of coming back in animal form.
From my first encounter with the subject with Steiner, Reincarnation made profound sense. It got rid of the picture of a wilful, capricious, essentially unjust and tyrannical deity who could give abilities, riches, health, success, happiness, long life to one individual and stupidity, poverty, illness, failure, misery, early death to another. If we take reincarnation into account, it can and will level out. And over many lifetimes, we have the chance to grow spiritually, to start afresh when we “fail”, and to learn from our “failures”. For there is the spiritual law of Karma, or in Jesus’ words “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”. What we do has consequences, and if not in the current life, then in some future life. And when all this is grasped, one may then start to intuit the eternal spirit that keeps on reincarnating – distinct patterns and telltale signs can be recognized, and can be shared with “those with ears to hear”.
To the trained eye, karmic patterns can readily be seen. I started to see these, in what I read, years before I started to see them around others, then around my own life, and later again around Rudolf Steiner. But just a word of caution: reincarnation is not quite as straightforward as Steiner may appear to show. The subtle occasional complications may well be part of the reason that teachings of reincarnation disappeared from Christianity, though there is every indication that reincarnation was known about generally, and understood, right from the beginning, at least by “those with ears to hear”. To open up that indication needs another article!
Why Reincarnation disappeared from Christianity
Steiner also helped me to understand the positive reasons why Reincarnation should disappear from Christianity as normally understood. This is really important and little-appreciated. It isn’t that the Church got it wrong, it is more the case that it was not “time” for such teachings in general. And even though we can track its likely moment of disappearance to at least one thoroughly suspect individual, namely Theodora the wife of Justinian, and her unquiet spirit behind the Fifth Ecumenical Council, she was also just the instrument of a change that was inevitable, at that point in human development. It was time for humankind to descend more deeply into material realities, to master the material world.
Today we have the benefits of this – things like tractors, hearing aids, electricity, computers and so on. And just as we are waking up to the shadow sides of materialistic Science, Technology, and Finance, we are also starting to reach out once again to the spiritual realities that have never actually deserted us. But now, instead of joining together in “worship”, in faith, people are having direct experiences of Spirit, individually and undeniably to themselves, when they happen. And even though such experiences are not provable by conventional Scientific Method, they may be life-transforming to the individuals concerned.
Googling “reincarnation and christianity books” produces a whole slew of books. Reincarnation has always been part of Buddhist teachings, but with the ultimate goal of release from the “wheel of rebirth”. Steiner, on the other hand, strongly emphasises something new: a grace-filled purpose of earth lives, and thus of reincarnating, that opened up through the deeds of Christ. It was this sense of grace-filled purpose that for a while could legitimately draw the curtains over direct memories of reincarnation.
Now it is time to reawaken.
Here is a list of books I found seminal in my own journey into understanding Reincarnation Within Christianity. My own conversion was easy, in principle – I had no Church upbringing necessitating overturning Dogma Due For Release! But I do understand that for many Christians, it is hard to imagine that such a large area of belief could have remained so mistaken for so long – even though I’ve suggested positive reasons why. Therefore I only ask that, with Saint Paul, and indeed with Jesus himself, you “Examine all things and hold fast to what is true” and “bear Witness to Truth”, honouring the “Spirit of Truth” which is another name for the Holy Spirit, and having compassion on those who still are surrounded by the old beliefs.
Annotated Book List
The Cathars and Reincarnation, by Dr Arthur Guirdham. Doubly trained in medicine and psychiatry, Guirdham was well-equipped to be rigorously sceptical – which he was by nature anyway. Therefore we have to take seriously his accounts of all the people who came to him with intractable bodily and psychological problems, that healed when they “awoke to memories of past lifetimes” in which lay the causes of the current illnesses, and were able to accept these experiences as true. The healings remained permanent, with no adverse side-effects. Powerful testimony, also a powerful introduction to the Cathars who were Johannine Christians in medieval France, who were good people who practiced healing and believed in reincarnation. They were eventually brutally massacred in the so-called Cathar crusade – but not before the prophecy had come to them, that in 700 years they would be back.
Far Memory, by Joan Grant. Joan had always been a sensitive, different, and open to spiritual experiences. She gradually remembered several past lives which she had published as “novels” because at that time they would not have been acceptable for publication as true memories. But in this very readable autobiography she explains all.
Reincarnation, the Phoenix Fire Mystery: “An East-West dialogue on death and rebirth from the worlds of religion, science, psychology, philosophy, art and literature, and from great thinkers of the past and present” by Joseph Head and Sylvia Cranston. A classic source of Christian testimonies to reincarnation throughout the ages.
The Case for Reincarnation, by Canon Leslie D. Weatherhead. This pamphlet is a tremendous concise defence that is set out to directly answer Christians. It may be a bit difficult to obtain but is well worth the effort.
Reborn in the West, by Vicki Mackenzie, is a collection of individual accounts of past-life recall arising in quite a number of people born in the West after China took over Tibet and crushed their ancient spiritual teaching and practice. While China’s actions may seem cruel, even unforgiveable, still if one works from the perception that “all things work together for those who love God”, then we see that here we in the West have been given a gift … that may need to be heeded … that may contain Witness to Truth that is in line with Jeshua, coming from “My Father’s House” that “hath many (Buddhist) mansions”.
Beyond the Ashes: cases of reincarnation from the Holocaust by Rabbi Yonassan Gershom. Not the only such a book: see also eg And the Wolves Howled, by Barbro Karlen: an extraordinary account of past-life memory, and present-life karmic links, with Anne Frank.
They Walked with Jesus is a collection of accounts from Dolores Cannon’s work as a regressionist, of people who discovered they were contacting a past life in which they had met Jesus in one form or another. Dr Brian Weiss, author of Many Lives, Many Masters, also tells a quite extraordinary story of healing that happened when someone took an experience of past-life memory as true, that also touched the path of Jesus.
Time for Truth, and The Messengers, are both accounts of the life of American businessman Nick Bunick. For years he struggled against the increasing evidence that he needed to pay attention to spiritual prompts linking him in a past life to Saint Paul. One can say that his Damascus moment in his life as Nick Bunick was when he finally relented, gave up opposition, and accepted that he had to come to terms with a past life as Saint Paul. He offers “corrections” from his Far Memory to what the Bible says; obviously he’s given thought to it all and tried to reason through the differences. One simply cannot dismiss him totally.
There are many more biographical accounts of past-life memories opening up and blessing and/or healing the recipients. One I find particularly attractive is Soul Survivor by Bruce and Andrea Leininger – a child with particularly strong reasons to recall his recent past life, who is born to born-again Christian parents, who spend a lot of time wrestling with what they had previously understood to be an un-biblical concept. In the end, love wins.
