James Webster:

Incarnation is an essential experience for the soul, for at some point it must touch that outward periphery of experience at which the great involutionary journey ends and the return path begins.

But it is not easy to determine how prolonged an association with matter is necessary to provide a unit of consciousness with the minimum essential experiences of embodiment - a whole series of lives? or one breath? or even seclusion in a womb?

It may be that all that essentially matters is that the soul should touch Earth. A long life in a physical body can produce a rich harvest; but it may suffice [that a] Spirit knows for an instant the limitation of physical incarnation...

It is an occult law that it is always possible to re-enter any condition with which one has once made contact. If the vibration of the physical realm has been duly registered, the soul can respond to that realm again and again thousands of years later, even though it exists now in utterly different conditions.

Thus, it is possible for the disembodied, as they labour for the salvation of humanity, to project into the physical realm the high vibrations which heal and redeem. The ladder can be ascended and descended at will.

Secondly, it does not follow that a person who dies in infancy is deprived of essential Earth experience; he may be able to acquire [such] by subjective association [i.e., overshadowing] with the living [mortals].

Editor's note: My sense of things suggests that James is correct; for these reasons:

(1) We know that "overshadowing" occurs; that, the discarnate gain Earth experience by this, all that they need or want;

(2) The testimonies indicate that children, having died young, grow up on the other side to reach normal and full adulthood. This maturity could not be possible if their stay, albeit brief, on the Earth counted for little;

(3) We all understand the process of accessing a memory of many years prior. This is common; and, when we do so, we reclaim feelings of an early time. How much more, and more easily, might this be done when the accessing of an early feeling relates to a defining event of one's eternal life? - a visit to our sad world, which is such a shock to the soul having known the perfection and peace of the astral realms. 

Many testimonies speak of our coming here as likened to a descending into muddy water, a virtual cesspool of negative energy, a cold and gray habitation, compared to the radiance of our true Summerland home.

I do not think that this hellish world will ever be forgotten, not for a moment; and even a moment here - a "touch" of the Earth, "duly registered" - will be indelibly marked upon one's spirit, never to be erased. This traumatic foundation - whether the duration be one second or 90 years - will be built upon, for all eternity, and becomes part of our wisdom.

While much knowledge and additional Earth experience, via overshadowing, will yet be added to this core perception of having "touched" the Earth, babies who die in the womb or children who pass over very young, will not find themselves second-rate citizens in heaven in terms of knowledge, maturity, or development.

William Stainton Moses was a leading psychic-medium of the latter 1800s. His communications with advanced spirit entities are very instructive. The following is an excerpt from his Spirit Teachings:

SM: Do children pass at once to a higher sphere?

No, the experience of the earth-life cannot be so dispensed with. The absence of contamination [by the evil influences of the Earth] ensures a rapid passage through the spheres of purification, but the absence of [worldly] experience and knowledge requires to be remedied by training and education, by spirits whose special care it is to train these tender souls, and supply them that which they have missed...

The child may have the one qualification [a sincere purity]; it cannot have the other [worldly experience] save by education, which is frequently gained by its being attached to an [Earthly] medium, and living over the Earth-life again [via attachment to the host mortal person].

Such experience is essential; and for the purpose of gaining it many spirits elect to return to Earth ... by attaching themselves to a [mortal] medium, [to] gain the special phase of experience which they need.

To one it is the cultivation of the affections that is necessary; to another the experience of suffering and sorrow; to another mental culture; to another the curbing and restraining of the impulses of the spirit, evenness of balance. All who return [via attachment] ... in being associated with us and with you they gain their progress...

SM: Return to Earth is not the only method of progression?

No, nor even the usual one! We have with us many schools of instruction; and we do not employ a second time [that is, a reincarnation on Earth] one that has proved a failure!

Editor's last word:

I think that the contrast of our difficult world to the peaceful, halcyon climes of Summerland is so stark, so painfully jolting, that even if a little baby, or an embryo, spends but a very short time here, he/she will imbibe well enough of mom and dad's stress of living on this planet that it will never forget the trauma.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we come here for this suffering? The answer, I believe, is simply this: the jarring and shattering psychological upheaval is a rude awakening; and we came here for an awakening, any way we can get it.

The shock-treatment of even a short time in our world, like jumping into ice-cold water, virtually jerks us into a higher level of consciousness, ready or not.

This "rude awakening" is our "kindergarten training," what we need as foundational coming-of-age, upon which we will build our wisdom and maturity, but in much better accommodations, during ensuing endless times to come.