reincarnation

Before the day begins its disturbances I have time to sit and think, to meditate on ideas long present in my mind, to allow fresh seeds to germinate and to emerge into consciousness.

Elsewhere in the day, one of my main preoccupations is with the paper I am completely rewriting on pagans and others in the roman empire. I am attracted by a reference to Gregory of Nazianzus (308), his speculation concerning the child in the womb where soul is joined to body, intellect manifests, and the power of reasoning becomes an attribute of the human psyche.

Human psyche. That’s an interesting concept. Human is physical. Psyche is metaphysical. In this life the physical body is the instrument for the metaphysical psyche. It is the means by which the psyche gains experience of the physical world. It is also the means, ultimately, by which the psyche communicates its findings to the physical world.

Which leads me to reconsider the nature of reincarnation.

Until eight o’clock this morning I was aware of each individual soul as a single discrete entity successively inhabiting a series of mortal bodies – and between these incarnations considering the experiences of the one most recently ended and, consequently, preparing for the next sojourn on earth.

I wonder, is it quite as simple as that?

When I consider the three most recent of my previous incarnations, I am uncomfortably aware that the chronology is very tight. So tight that I am bound to consider the possibility of an overlap. Which leaves me even more unsettled. A simpler explanation is that – somewhere along the line, between incarnations – I have so thoroughly absorbed experience with another individual soul that this experience is now completely melded into my own record.

That makes sense to me but it means considering a much revised understanding of the nature of reincarnation.

francis cameron, oxford, 21 april 2010

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