Ghosts And Reincarnation: Making sense of the life/death cycle

"Life is a journey.
Death is a return to earth.
The universe is like an inn.
The passing years are like dust.

Regard this phantom world
As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp - a phantom - and a dream."
The Buddha

A while ago I wrote an article titled Near Death Experiences-What Happens After We Die? In it I described the “for and against” if you like of what happens after we die. I described both sides of the argument and each one made perfect sense. I tried not to disclose my opinion on the subject in order to allow the reader to make his or her mind up.

I have often been asked what do I believe and I have always replied with certainty that, “of course there is life after death” and I would describe what I knew to be the answer; that we all may have lived several lives and may return to the Earth Plane again and again after we pass. I have argued with “non believers” and stood my ground on what I supposed was true and would not hear anything different other than my own view, that is until I began researching for “Near Death Experiences” (NDE) and the way opened up for another way of thinking. After talking with Dr John Happs president of "Western Australian Skeptics" I realised that his estimation made a lot of sense and I began to wonder, “What if he is right? What if there is nothing after you die?” That is a depressing suggestion to say the least, but it is incomprehensible to me that the essence of a person can just cease to exist.

Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) had the ability to leave his body and travel into the after life. He has astonished people from all over the globe with tales of his experiences. He had the ability to experience regular NDEs and developed the ability of being able to diagnose and treat sick individuals from a distance by astral travelling.

Christian beliefs are that once the body is no longer alive the soul faces judgement and is directed either into Heaven or to suffer forever in Hell.

Buddhists accept as true that whatever happens to the soul after the body dies is related to how the individual lived his or her life. Karma comes into play in regards to determining what life the spirit will be reborn into. They believe in the concept of reincarnation.

According to The Government Of Tibet In Exile His Holiness the Dalai Lama was born in 1935 and was acknowledged when he was around two years old to be the reincarnation of 13th Dalai Lama, his forerunner.

Reincarnation is the acquisition of a new body when the old one dies and therefore beginning a new life without any conscious recollection of the previous one. It has been quoted that the Buddha compared this process to the lighting of a new candle with the flame of the old one thus keeping the flame lit independent of the original source. This course of action is known as "transmigration.” The idea is to learn through each life and eventually achieve the wisdom of “Nirvana”, the state of freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth.

The basic assumption is the life is suffering and you will never achieve complete peace on earth based on material pleasure. The only road to complete peace is to follow Buddha and detach one’s self from all worldly attachments. Over time the ego will dwindle and eventually over time Nirvana will be reached.

There are spirits who have been through many lifetimes and have come to true understanding and do not physically reincarnate on the earth plane in order to help others are called "Bodhisattva". They exist in a Bodhisattva realm and are comparable to Christian Saints and people pray to them for assistance.

Buddhists believe that what we call soul or spirit, the “mindstream" lives on from one life to the next until Nirvana is reached. The cycle of rebirth is called “Samsara” and this is where Bodhisattva remains out of compassion for other’s quest for enlightenment.

So regardless of your convictions a lot of us are comfortable with the idea that we are all inherent spirits and we are much more than our physical bodies.
There are endless reports of ghost sightings and many theories in regards to this.

According to Wikipedia encyclopaedia, “A ghost is the apparition of a deceased person, frequently similar in appearance to that person, and usually encountered in places she or he frequented, the place of his or her death, or in association with the person's former belongings.”

It is often said that ghosts are spirits of people who have some kind of unfinished business on earth and refuse to leave our realm until the situation is resolved, which makes me wonder; wouldn’t the majority of us have unfinished business to take care of upon our demise? It is my view that unless you are in a situation where you had an inkling of the time of your death, such as terminal illness when you would have time to “prepare” for our final exit and tie up all loose ends you would have things that you still need to do even though your life may be over. There are numerous tales of ghosts residing in buildings here on Earth and refusing to cross over.

The McPike Mansion for example has been named as one of the most haunted houses in small town America. Built on Alby Street in the town of Alton in 1869 for Henry Guest McPike a wealthy and prominent citizen the mansion has been featured in numerous books and television shows because of supernatural activity and bizarre encounters.

The McPike family sold the home around 1936 to Paul Laichinger who resided there and put many of the rooms out for rent so many tenants came and went until 1945 when Mr Laichinger died. It is at this time that mysterious encounters began to be recorded. Apparently many of the documented occurrences may have been the ghost of Mr. Laichinger and his many tenants.

Unexplained phenomena includes the sound of children laughing and apparitions moving about the house; one of which has been named Sarah who was believed to have been a servant who resided in the mansion. She has been reported as a gentle wandering spirit who would leave living residents and visitors with a feeling of being hugged or touched. There have been reports of Paul Laichinger’s image peering through windows and has been seen doing chores around the place as he did when he was living and it is rumoured that the ghost of a lady who once drowned in one of the bathtubs in 1869 is quite active.

In 1999 Dr Rene Horath and a group of fellow researchers arrived at McPike to film paranormal activity in a basement using infrared equipment as there are no windows therefore no sunlight in the room. A thick mist which, according to Dr Horath felt like feathers brushing against her engulfed what was once the wine cellar. Renee claimed her body felt electric. The theory that the mist may have been caused by humidity was dismissed as there was no condensation on the camera lenses and could not be felt on the skin. The mist appeared to have a will of its own moving around and changing direction and eventually vanished as quickly as it materialized.

I wonder if we will ever have a plausible explanation that will answer the one question we all have in common, what happens after we die?

It makes a great deal of sense and rings true for me that when our body dies it is not the end and I have had the feeling on many occasions that I have been here before this life and I recalled that sentiment very strongly when I was a child although back then I had no real interest in spirituality or a particularly religious upbringing.

I like the notion that the Earth life is a journey. A journey of lessons in suffering and love and when this journey is over we will move on to another plane where we may reminisce about out past earthly experiences and decide from there what lessons we may need to repeat or how we will settle our own Karmic debt.

Is it as simple as that I wonder? I hope so.


Here is the link to a video called Ghosts On Tape; it includes The McPike Mansion mist incident. Fascinating stuff!
Ghosts On Tape

For those who are really curios about the Paranormal this is the link to Ghost Photographs where you will find a list of ghost pictures deemed fake and otherwise.

You can visit The McPike Mansion site for more information.

Near Death Experiences - What Happens After We Die?

Is Steve Irwin really guiding Bindi from the “other side”?
Paul McCartney believes Linda’s spirit lives on!

What happens after we die? This is life's greatest mystery. Is there a life after death or is it something we have created in order to cope with the inevitable?

There are those who have died and experienced a Near Death Experience (NDE), have returned and are now certain that we are so much more than our physical bodies. A NDE is usually described as a lifting away from the body and being able to view one's self from above accompanied by a euphoric calmness as the spirit travels down a tunnel with a bright light in the center and the certainty that there is another dimension once the light is reached.

On the “Near Death Experience Research Foundation” website there is an account of an NDE recorded by Anita M. a cancer patient from Hong Kong who claims such an event took place as she “died” in hospital and doctors were frantically trying to bring her back. Drifting in and out of consciousness she could feel her spirit leaving her body. As she crossed over she felt this other dimension was actually the real world and felt free and powerful connected to something much greater, "I thought that I knew a lot more than when I was in my body", she says, "I was surrounded by loving beings, people who I seemed to know but I could not recognize from this lifetime and I was aware that they were around me all the time even when I was in the physical body and I didn't even realize then that they were looking after me all the time in the three dimensional world."

She claims her awareness was so heightened she could hear conversations between her family and the medical staff 40 feet away, which she later verified, "It's not that I could see through walls, it's just that when I wanted to know something I could see it straight away, the understanding, the visual came to me immediately. There was no such thing as time lag or separation, everything was simultaneously happening at once and it depended on what I wanted to focus. Unreal as it sounds when I was there; I felt that was the real world, not the physical. There was understanding and clarity. If only I had known this when I was in my body. I was aware that I had a choice whether to go back and return to my body. Knowing that this was real I also knew that if I was to go back to my sick body that I would be healed immediately, my body would express what spirit now knows."

Anita described her state as one of pure joy and that she was loved no matter what. She did not have to do anything to earn this love and this is something that stayed with her when she returned, "All I had to do was be myself. If everybody realized that you don't have to do anything, just the fact that you exist is enough, that knowing would alter your vibrations and this can subsequently change your life."

The Rev. Gino Concetti chief theological commentator for the Vatican newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" said the Catholic Church is opposed to the raising of spirits but claims communication is possible between those who live on earth and those who live in a "state of eternal repose", and suggested dead loved ones could be responsible for impulses and manifestations such as in dreams. John Hooper published the reverend's comments in the “London Observer Service” in January 1997.

Gwen Carden wrote of these three accounts in “The National Enquirer” on December 22, 1998:
Her dead grandfather urged a college student to lock all the windows in a dream. She did so and discovered the next day that a room nearby had been broken into the previous night.

The mother of 9 month old baby awoke one night to see her dead mother standing by her bed looking worried as she led her to the child's bedroom. The young mum checked on her baby and discovered she had been choking on a piece of plastic.

A woman had a vision of her father who told her, "It is beautiful over here, I'm alright so don't you worry!" He laughed as he added," Now I don't have to pay for all the furniture your Mum and sister bought." A few minutes later she received a phone call informing her that her father had just died of a heart attack and received a letter not long after saying that her Mum and sister had purchased a house full of furniture on the night their Dad died.

Does life indeed continue to a world beyond? The closest proof we have are only the recollections of NDEs such as Anita M’s but there have been scientists investigating such phenomenon. As it was reported on BBC News in the UK, they say they have found evidence to suggest that consciousness can continue after the brain has ceased to function.

Neurological experts have challenged these findings. Dr Sam Parnia of Southampton General Hospital in the U.K. says the consciousness is independent of the brain and no one can fully understand how the brain generates thoughts. Under examination the brain contains cells like any other who produce chemicals but there is no evidence of their capability to create the phenomenon of thought that we have. He says that the brain is needed to manifest the mind similar to a how a television set can transmit what are essentially waves in the air.

There is skepticism from sources such as The Skeptic Society and Dr Chris Freeman a consultant psychiatrist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital in the U.K. Dr Freeman claims that these experiences possibly occurred during the recovery or just before cardiac arrest and there is very little evidence that they happened when the brain was shut down.

Dr John Happs president of "Western Australian Skeptics" claims the following,”NDEs are quite commonplace and I have actually experienced them myself on at least two occasions. NDEs are very real and occur when the brain is starved of oxygen. The phenomenon has been well and truly explained in medical terms. The brain starts to shut down when oxygen is limited and peripheral vision slowly fails. That explains why people report a tunnel effect with a bright light in the center. That is exactly what I experienced when, as a competitor in judo tournaments, I was strangled into unconsciousness. There have been many reported NDEs, as you might expect although few individuals would be aware of what is happening to them from a physiological perspective so they imagine they are traveling down a tunnel towards a bright light. Add a few singing angels and an imaginative link between earth and heaven and you have a great story."

John Perkins from “Atheist Society”, Melbourne, Australia says, "I believe the phenomenon exists, but not that it represents any evidence for, or experience of, an afterlife. Humans have minds, not souls. In death, the mind stops working. To believe otherwise is just superstition or willful self deception. If souls existed after death, there would be 100 billion of them hanging out somewhere, for ever. Would you really want to go there?"

The one thing that seems apparent is that there is “something” controlling the universe such as nature itself and it is a difficult concept to understand that a person's essence can just die. Birth and coincidences may well be real miracles, although there is scientific and rational explanation for both. For most, it is part of the purpose of life to continue to question the meaning of our existence and to strive for the realization that we are lovable just because we exist. It is certainly something worth pondering and who knows? Perhaps if we practice a little more kindness each day our “vibrations” may lift enough for us to perceive some answers. Or at least we would be working towards making this world right here a better place.

Suggested reading:

A Soul's Journey Peter Richelieu

Life After Life Dr Raymond Moody, Jr., M.D.

Reaching For The Other Side Dawn Hill

Edge of Reality Dawn Hill

Lifting The Veil Dawn Hill

My Very Own NDE: A Skeptical Look Martin Bridgstock life member of Australian Skeptics published on page 16 summer 2003 edition of The Skeptic quarterly journal volume 23

Spook Science Tackles The Afterlife Mary Roach