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  In our modern Western society, reincarnation has been accepted by the Theosophists, Anthroposophists, and certain spiritualists. At first glance, it would appear that a belief in reincarnation is alien to, or even incompatible with, the Christian faith. However, this has not always been so; beliefs in reincarnation were part of early mystical Christianity. According to St. Jerome, a saint living in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., the subject of reincarnation was given an esoteric interpretation that was accessible to only the elite of the Church.

  The most famous Christian thinker speculating about the existence of souls returning to earth was Origen, one of the greatest Church Fathers of all times. His works, written in the third century A.D. (particularly his book entitled
On First Principles
), were condemned by the Second Council of Constantinople, convened by Emperor Justinian in 553 A.D. This verdict read: "If anyone assert the fabulous pre-existence of souls and shall submit to the monstrous doctrine that follows from it, let him be anathema!" Although this edict certainly helped establish reincarnation as heretical, religious scholars find traces of similar ideas in the writings of St. Augustine, St. Gregory, and St. Francis of Assisi.

  In the past three centuries, these negative attitudes toward reincarnation in Western culture have been clearly supported by Newtonian science. The prevalent bias of the modern industrialized world is one of excluding all forms of spirituality as erroneous and misleading. Thus we see that the world seems to be divided between those who firmly believe in reincarnation, those who are neutral or simply not interested, and those who reject it entirely.

  Keeping this perspective in mind regarding our beliefs and prejudices about reincarnation, let us again return to our original question. Is there anything modern consciousness research can contribute to the problem? The most important contribution is the realization that it is neither correct nor helpful to speak of reincarnation as a "belief," that is, as an opinion. Let me explain.

  The reincarnation doctrine is not a matter of belief but a serious effort to conceptualize very concrete and specific experiences and observations related to past lives. While the existence of the experiences is a fact that can be confirmed by any serious researcher familiar with non-ordinary states of consciousness, there are various ways to interpret the same data. This is not so different from any other scientific question. After all, the theory of gravitation is not the same as gravity itself. Similarly, while we might refuse to take seriously past life experiences because we do not like the theories of reincarnation, we would not think of applying the same thinking to gravity, that is, denying that objects are falling because we do not like the theories that explain it.

  There are observable facts about reincarnation. We know, for example, that vivid past life experiences occur spontaneously in non-ordinary states of consciousness. These require no programming or previous knowledge about the subject. In many instances, these experiences contain accurate information about periods before our own that can be objectively verified. Therapeutic work has shown that many emotional disorders have their roots in past life experiences rather than in the present life, and the symptoms resulting from those disorders disappear or are alleviated after the person is allowed to relive the past life experience that underlies it. Synchronicities associated with these experiences also suggest that past life phenomena deserve serious attention. Ian Stevenson's research involving children who claimed to remember incidents from past lives also provides us with further supportive evidence for the importance of this area.

  The belief that individual consciousness survives the death of the physical body is one way to explain these observations. But it is a mistake to confuse this with final "proof." It is important to remind ourselves that science never "proves" anything; it only "disproves" and "improves" existing

theories. The history of science itself teaches us that no single theory explains all aspects of any phenomenon, and there is always more than a single theory that claims to account for the observable facts. It should be possible, then, to honor past life experiences and come up with alternative explanations that do not include the theory that souls survive death or that there is a continuity of individual consciousness from one lifetime to another.

  Actually, we do find at least two alternative explanations in spiritual literature. In the Hindu mystical tradition, for example, the literal belief in reincarnation is considered to be an inferior interpretation of karma. This theory suggests that all boundaries and divisions in the universe are arbitrary. In the final analysis, only the creative principle of Cosmic Consciousness exists. Only it incarnates, that is, takes physical form. From this point of view, the entire universe is a divine play
(lila)
of one Supreme Being
(Brahman).
Anyone who grasps this concept will see that karmic appearances are just another level of illusion.

  Another explanation is that the entity that incarnates is the entire field of human consciousness. This field, which can be called the Oversoul, includes all human life; spread over the entire planet, and all time, it assumes individual identities in order to explore and learn about itself. After the death of an individual, the unassimilated portions of that life experience return to the Oversoul, where they become building blocks for future incarnations. Like the image of the multi-chambered Nautilus shell, the theory of Oversoul incorporates the concepts of separation and continuity in a way that transcends both.

The interest in transpersonal phenomena is not new to Western science, nor is it limited to the field of psychology. For many decades parapsychology, admittedly a highly controversial discipline among more respected fields of science, has been studying ways that we might access information without using our sensory organs. Parapsychology has explored various forms of extra-sensory perception (ESP), that is, the ability to transcend spatial boundaries, distances, and the limitations of linear time. These abilities could thus have been included in our previous discussions but I have chosen to describe them in a separate section because of the interest they have received from parapsychologists.

  The ESP phenomena characterized by transcendence of spatial boundaries include out-of-body experiences, the ability to experience remote events, and telepathy. ESP phenomena characterized by transcendence of the time barriers include precognition (knowledge about events that are yet to happen) clairvoyance (seeing past and future events) and psychometry (extrasensory access to the history of objects).

  Experiences of consciousness detaching from one's body, or out-of-body experiences (OOBE), occur in a variety of forms and degrees. They can take the form of isolated episodes throughout one's life, or they can occur in clusters or strings of events that are part of the process of transpersonal crisis or psychic opening.

  This type of experience can be triggered in a variety of ways, such as through life-threatening emergencies, near-death situations and experiences of clinical death, sessions of deep experiential therapy, psychospiritual crises, and the ingestion of certain psychoactive substances. Some of the most noteworthy experiences of this kind are described in the
Tibetan Book
of the Dead.
These ancient descriptions were not taken seriously by scientists until recently, when modern research in experimental psychiatry and thanatology confirmed their authenticity.

  We can experience consciousness leaving our bodies, detaching from it, and then looking back at the body; in more advanced forms we can leave our bodies and fly off to various remote locations.

  Many years ago, not long after my arrival in the United States, I had a supervised LSD session as part of a training program for mental health professionals. During that session I suddenly felt a strange mixture of serenity and bliss. I felt I had entered an amazing world, like that of the early Christians, where miracles were possible, acceptable, and understandable. I started thinking about the problems of time and space and the insoluble paradoxes of infinity and eternity that baffle our reasoning minds in ordinary states of consciousness. I could not understand how I could have let myself be brainwashed into accepting the simple-minded concept of one-dimensional time and three-dimensional space as being mandatory and as existing in objective reality. In the state I was in, it appeared to me rather obvious that there could be no such limits in the realm of the spirit, since time and space were nothing more than mental constructs.

  In the transpersonal realm of consciousness, any number of spaces and times could be created and experienced. In this world a single second was freely interchangeable with an eternity. In this situation, it occurred to me that I did not have to be bound by the limitations of time and space. I could travel in the space-time continuum without restrictions. I was so convinced this was true that I decided to try traveling in this way to Prague, the city of my birth, many thousand miles away. I set myself in motion and had the sensation of flying through space at a tremendous speed. But to my great disappointment, and contrary to my expectations, I was getting nowhere.

  Immediately I realized that I was still under the influence of my old concepts of space and time and was thinking in terms of directions and distances. It occurred to me that the proper approach would be to make myself believe that the place of the session was identical with the place of my destination. When I approached my task in this way, I experienced some very bizarre sensations. I found myself in a strange, rather congested place full of vacuum tubes, wires, resistors, and condensers. After a short period of confusion, I realized I was trapped in a television set located in an apartment in Prague where I had spent my childhood. I was trying, somehow, to use the speakers of the television set for hearing and the television tube for seeing. It became clear to me that I was facing the last conceptual obstacle, since the means by which I was overcoming the illusion of distance had somehow been modeled after modern electronics.

  As soon as I accepted that there are no limits for consciousness, I broke through the television screen and found myself walking around in my parents' apartment. The experience was as sober and real as any other experience of my life. I walked to the window and looked at the clock on the street corner. It showed a six-hour time difference from the place I had left back in the States. In spite of the fact that this reading correctly reflected the time difference of the two time zones, I did not find it convincing evidence. I knew the time difference intellectually and, of course, my mind could easily have fabricated this experience.

  I wanted more convincing proof that what I was experiencing was "objectively real" in the usual sense. I finally decided to set up a test. I would remove a picture from the wall and later check with my parents to see if they had noticed anything unusual in the apartment. I reached for the picture but was overcome by an unpleasant feeling that what I was about to do was a dangerous undertaking. I felt myself immersed in an uncanny atmosphere that was suggestive of evil forces and black magic. It seemed as if I was gambling with my own soul. I instantly stopped what I was doing to reflect on the consequences of my actions.

  Images of world-famous casinos filled my mind's eye. I saw roulette balls spiraling at intoxicating speeds, the mechanical movements of slot machines, dice jolting on gambling tables, scenes of gamblers playing baccarat, and the flickering lights of the keno panels. This was followed by images of eavesdropping on secret meetings of politicians, army officials, and scientists. I realized that I had not yet overcome my egocentrism and would not be able to resist the temptation to use my psychic powers for my own selfish needs. If I could, in fact, have control over time and space, I could have an unlimited supply of money by knowing ahead of time the outcomes of races and games. No secrets would exist. I could eavesdrop on summit meetings, and have access to top-secret discoveries in science and the military. This would open undreamed-of possibilities for controlling the course of history throughout the world.

  I started understanding the dangers involved in my experiment. I remembered passages from different books warning against toying with these powers before overcoming the selfish drives of one's own ego. I found that I was extremely ambivalent about carrying through with the test of my apparent powers. If I could confirm that it was possible to manipulate the physical environment from a distance of several thousand miles, my whole universe would collapse and I would find myself in a state of utter metaphysical confusion. The world I knew would no longer exist.

  In the end I could not bring myself to carry through with the intended experiment. This made it possible for me to continue toying with the idea that perhaps I had, in that session, conquered time and space. The moment I gave up the experiment, I found myself back in the States in the room where the session had begun.

  To this day there are times when I deeply regret that I wasted such a unique opportunity to test my ability to manipulate space-time. However, the memory of the metaphysical horror involved makes me doubt that I would be more courageous if given another opportunity to follow through with a similar test. Fortunately, the authenticity of out-of-body experiences can be tested in a different way. In the past two decades this fascinating area has been systematically explored by a young scientific discipline called "thanatology," which specifically focuses on experiences related to death and dying.

  Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring, Michael Sabom, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and other highly respected researchers, have repeatedly confirmed that people in near-death situations have had out-of-body-experiences (OOBEs), during which they were able to witness events happening in other rooms or even distant places. These accounts have been objectively verified by independent observers. The ultimate challenge to Newtonian science in this area of research has been the discovery that clinically blind people experiencing OOBEs describe scenes that are visually accurate, though after recovering from the disease or trauma that caused the neardeath experience they are not able to see. Our observations about neardeath experiences confirms passages from the
Tibetan Book of the Dead,
which suggest that immediately following death we assume a "bardo body" that can transcend the usual limitations of time and space and travel quite freely around the earth.