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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Reincarnation On Trial
Silver Birch's comments on reincarnation
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Silver Birch, an afterlife-entity on the other side for 3000 years, offers his wisdom via channeled writings.
He makes certain comments that seem to validate reincarnation - but then mitigates the force his assertion by saying that it does not occur "in the facile form that is so often propounded."
We must look closely at his statements. He was asked why there is so much confusion, even in the next realms, about the reality of reincarnation:
Because some know and some don't. It is a question of experience. It takes a long time, as you count it, for this fact to be appreciated. People can be in our world for what you call ages and still be unaware of the truth. You must realize that the spirit world is graded...You will find that the higher the ascent in the spiritual scale, the more recognition is there that there is reincarnation, because it happens, but not in the facile form that is so often propounded.
In spiritual relationships, you have, in the supreme case, affinities [Twin-souls], or in the lesser instances, kinship... Group souls, when referring to their human aspects, are composed of individuals who have a spiritual kinship. Automatically they are drawn to one another because they are 'facets of the same diamond.' It can be, and it does happen, that, for the purposes of work to be done, fragments of the diamond incarnate into your world to have the kind of experiences which will help the larger self.
I shall not live again on earth, but a new soul, one who will join our group, will shortly enter into the pattern
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Michael Tymn writes:
The group-soul concept had earlier been advanced by the discarnate Frederic Myers through the mediumship of Geraldine Cummins. "When I was on earth, I belonged to a group-soul, but its branches and the spirit - which might be compared to the roots - were in the invisible," Myers, one of the pioneers of psychical research before his death in 1901, communicated. "Now, if you would understand psychic evolution, this group-soul must be studied and understood. For instance, it explains many of the difficulties that people will assure you can be removed only by the doctrine of reincarnation...
Myers added that the Buddhist's idea of rebirth, of man's continual return to earth, is but a half-truth. "And often half a truth is more inaccurate than an entire misstatement. I [Frederic Myers] shall not live again on Earth, but a new soul, one who will join our group, will shortly enter into the pattern or karma I have woven for him on Earth."
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James Webster comments on Silver Birch's assessment:
There is a problem with Silver Birch in that he was not always consistent, particularly, it could be said on the reincarnation and past-lives issues. This idea of a diamond-like group soul with fragments, breaking off to incarnate or reincarnate to help the greater (whichever that is supposed to be... the self or the group) has often been popular with reincarnationists as a kind of alternative explanation. The theory of a "choice" to reincarnate or not is also very popular. Looking deeper, one soon comes upon problems with any of these theories suggested, but never backed up and agreed or proven. Other teachers/guides have said that the self is whole and cannot be fragmented .... we are not like puppets on strings being manipulated ... we have self-responsibility ... to be attracted to others by the link of love and of like mind, as a kind of group in the true spiritual understanding, working together, is absolutely FINE, no problem at all with that. It happens here on the earthplane too with such attractions.
semantics?
Michael Tymn also asserted that it appears we are engaged in a battle of semantics. Silver Birch and others speak of some sort of group-soul reincarnation - but, whatever is meant by reincarnation in this context, it does not refer to John Doe, the individual, coming back to this earth to live another mortal life. As Frederic Myers stated, "I shall not live again on the earth," despite his ties to a group-soul; and Silver Birch says that his definition of reincarnation does not include the popular view.
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Silver Birch:
"It can be sometimes, in what is called [hypnotic] regression, that a contact is made with a previous physical existence. But it is not always the case that this occurs. The mind's potential is so vast that none in your world has fathomed all its recesses. It is creative, it has subconscious desires, it can lend itself to temporary spirit possession. All these factors have to be taken into account. There can be what you call 'astral projection' and impingement of a series of events which are recorded in the hypnotic trance. This does not mean that the subject is necessarily expressing a past reincarnation."
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little pieces of a big soul
This lady looks so much like my Grandma Becker, I can't believe it.
I recently watched, for the first time, the old movie, Grapes Of Wrath. How utterly disturbing! Look at what the police did, here, in America, to those migrant farm workers.
And how eloquent, in simple words, is Tom Joad's farewell to his mother:
Maybe it's like Casey says. A fella ain't got a soul of his own, but only a piece of a big soul, the one big soul out there that belongs to everybody. And then it don't matter. Then I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere… Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beating up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad, and I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready…And when our people eat the stuff they raise, and the houses they build, I'll be there too.
Steinbeck was interested in this "group soul" debate. I think he was attempting to verbalize a sense of "we're all connected."
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Editor's last word:
I agree with Michael Tymn that much of the confusion here relates to semantics.
Whatever is meant by "reincarnation," as employed by Birch and Myers, it does not refer to the average John Doe coming back to this world.
It's important, I think, to inject here the testimony of James Webster's "Abu, the Egyptian," also an august personage on the other side, in his case, for 3500 years. Abu testifies that there is no such thing as reincarnation for the typical citizen of Summerland; however, he does comment that, in rare cases, certain ones with special missions of service - and he intimated that Dr. Albert Schweitzer was one of these avatars - do in fact return to the Earth as mortals - but, again, this is not something that the typical person will do.
What is all this talk about "facets of diamonds" and furthering the interests of the "group soul"? My sense, in line with Steinbeck's view, is that we are far more connected than we presently know; at the quantum level, we already understand this to be reality, but in our current mundane "separate" lives such high-mindedness easily escapes attention.
If "reincarnation" has any meaning here, I see it as a term meant to emphasize just how bonded we are - each to everyone - in the Family of God; that, what happens to one, in a larger cosmic sense, affects all.
But, let's be clear. "Reincarnation," employed in this expanded, metaphorical way, has nothing to do with John and Mary coming back to the Earth to live their mortal lives over again.
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