Reincarnation

This is also called transmigration, though some draw a distinction now,  calling
it transmigration if you can end up in non human bodies and/or vice versa, and
saving "reincarnation" for human to human rebirth only. This is not in accord with
the ancient Greek writings, which also speculated about this. Transmigration is
the original term and reincarnation is more recent.

(the entire schedule of chakra to color to sound to "deities" etc. is a modern product
of the west also, and not part of the original concepts. The few remaining "mesopagans"
who retain their pagan religions, often object to New Age horking their traditions,
repackaging them and modifying them and using them for glorified tourist trade.)

The notion exists among some that the early church taught reincarnation, then the
mean old Nicene Council crew changed everything under Constantine's dictate. This
is totally false, as anyone who takes the trouble to find the canons of that council
at ccel.org or anywhere else can see.

Origen is the closest to being someone who was Orthodox (by the skin of his teeth
and anathematized later) who taught anything resembling this, and it did not
involve transmigration, but that souls pre existed incarnation the one time, and
that what their situations of birth or accidents in life were had something to do with
sins or lack thereof before incarnating. In fact, he figured a lot of very strange
things such as the heavenly bodies were once ethereal but fell into materiality when
they stopped contemplating God. This didn't fly well with a lot of people.
St. Epiphanius and some others raised a hue and cry about some of his nonsense.

Reincarnation or transmigration of souls was an idea in a lot of pagan scenes, but
it was viewed by Christians as a non starter. Since sin was paid for on the Cross,
you didn't need any reincarnation and if you apostasized it was unlikely you would
return under any conditions. As one writer put it in the 20th century about this,
reincarnation was just irrelevant.

It DID turn up in kabalistic lore, but it and the entire kabbalah was denounced as
incompatible with Judaism by a lot of rabbis over the centuries to the present time.


Hebrews 9:27 says "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement."

context: verses prior about Christ's high priesthood, and that He did not have to offer
Himself often but the one time, then verses 27, 28

"AND AS it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement:
SO [likewise] Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that
look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

So the CERTAINTY of there being only one life for each of us, is used as a model
of the one time only sacrifice of Jesus by Jesus, and His second coming.

Now, you can argue that Elijah and Enoch never died, but those are exceptions. You
can argue that everyone resurrected by Jesus or an Apostle, and the boy resurrected
by Elijah, and the man resurrected by his corpse landing against Elisha's bones, all
eventually died, so they lived and died twice. But these are exceptions. the rule is,
one life, one death, and then the general resurrection (in stages).

And those exceptions were proofs of God's ability to raise the dead, and they did
not come to life with a body other than their own, did not get to be an embryo then
a fetus then get born, age and die, but the whole thing was IN THEIR OWN BODIES.
both lives, both deaths.  

John the Baptist is described by Jesus as being Elijah, Matt. 11:13-14, but WAIT A
MINUTE: ELIJAH NEVER DIED. So he couldn't be reincarnated. This would be
about some kind of spiritual influence on John the Baptist. Some minor prophet was
considered by some rabbis as Jeremiah returned because of the similarity but again
this was like a redo not a return.

Reincarnation has another biblical problem: traducianism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traducianism simply put, even as the germ cell is half a
cell, the germ cell kind of cell soul is half a soul, and the two physical half cell sperm
and egg and their half souls join to make a soul.

Some who think patriliny is built in think the soul is transmitted by the father, but that
assumes the antiquity of later developments in naming that aren't even uniform world
wide today.

Traducianism is the presupposed universally accepted by the audience argument for
the superiority of the Melchizedec priesthood to that of Aaron, Hebrews 7:10. Levi
paid tithes in Abraham to Melchizedec because still in Abraham's loins.

The soul however is more fluid and more malleable for good or ill than the body.

The nephesh is a concept that can be the incorporeal immortal part, or the entire body
soul spirit spectrum. Notice that Genesis says that Adam BECAME A LIVING SOUL
after receiving the breath of life, and in describing the deaths during the Flood animals
are referred to as having the breath of life in them. So they also are souls, just a different
kind of soul.

The image and likeness of God is not a matter of being able to have a relationship with
God. Rev. 5:13 shows every manner of creature in the sea and land praising God. If you
can worship God, and are not doing so under duress like a conquered demon, then you
have a relationship with God. Jesus said not even a sparrow falls to the ground without
The Father, so it looks like their salvation is more assured than ours!

It is the mix of character traits, abilities, brain that is the big deal and our role as
managers over nature under God, that is the issue, and we are the only true bipedal
animals, pivot capable, land run or brachiate through trees, swim, front paws free to
handle tools and opposed thumbs much better dexterity than the apes. This fits us for
this superintendant role, like a mix of gardener and forest ranger, and implies it.

Some few early church writers saw the image of God as having something to do with
the physical body as well as the soul, but the pagan conceit of the infinite superiority of
the immaterial and the infinite inferiority of the material infected many Christian thinkers.

The Roman Catholic Church apparently dumped traducianism officially, for separate
creation of each soul at conception. The Eastern Orthodox no longer treat traducianism
as normative, after centuries of RC influence when impoverished priesthood students
had to go to RC schools and Russia brought Jesuits in to educate people. BUT WE HAVE
NEVER REJECTED IT, THOUGH THE SEPARATE CREATION OF SOULS IDEA
IS AROUND.

the gnostic heretics of course were a grab bag of every conceivable mix of pagan philosophy,
mystery religions, and Egyptian holdover theological concepts. Their genealogies of levels
of emanation are a steal from the genealogies of "gods" in Mesopotamia, Hesiod, and Egypt.
THAT is where you find reincarnation among those claiming Christ as some element in
their religion in those days. Not in the early Church itself or at any stage.

So let's look at exceptions.

Could occasionally as an exception, a reincarnation occur? maybe. But it would essentially
be possession of the embryo. In India and elsewhere occasionally children would have a
stark exact memory of a recent previous life. The mention I read said they didn't live long.

The most likely explanation for recovered memories deja vu etc., aside from reading stuff
and suggestibility, is that the embryo or infant or child or even adult at some point is exposed
to a passing spirit who accidentally or on purpose for deception reasons implants some of its
memories (if a dead person) or knowledge of a location or person in the past, into the
person's subconscious. Also if there was a strong psychic impression of events on a place a
sensitive might pick it up and feel like they used to live there. Or WANT to have lived
there and fantasize.

Myself I had some peculiar things that might point that way. But the hospital I was born in
and went back to once for a checkup I think, was in San Francisco where there was a Russian
Orthodox expatriate community and likely some visitors including monastics visiting a sick
parishioner. I was also rather loosely attached to my body and used to bilocate as a child till
something happened later that scared me into staying in my body. So likely I was out floating
around and noticed these different looking and sounding people and picked up something of
them. So the oddities were, that I called my father "abba" and my biological so called mother
"emmay," which is Hebrew for father and mother. speculation on racial memory ensued
because of Jewish ancestry on my father's father's side. But more likely I got it from the
Russian Orthodox who were probably there, because to this day, monastics even if not priests
are called "father," and the Hebrew term used is abba, the origin of abbot in Europe for a
boss of monastics. and "mother" "imma" may be used for a nun. (Orthodoxy has the strongest
Hebrew roots of all the categories of Christianity.)  And backing up this scenario, is the
fact that I always felt a strange affinity for Russia and its wild lands. never been there. and yet....
I felt more at home in the Russian derived church than the Greek. odd. not reincarnation,
just a kind of early influence.

I once saw a list of bible verses that supposedly support reincarnation. I checked them all.
Almost all were IRRELEVANT, or talked about a spiritual influence or comparability, and
one on the list was the very Hebrews 9:27 that repudiates it! talk about idiotic selection!

There are verses that talk about a future life etc., they are about the resurrection of the dead.
This is going to happen to all of us. We will all come back to life in the same bodies, but
rendered somehow immortal and indestructible. Where and in what condition we spend
eternity after that in those bodies is what the Judgement and salvation are about. People who
can't comprehend that things could ever be different than they are, probably either assume
it is about reincarnation, or make it into that because it would otherwise seem too ridiculous
to them.