When most people think of reincarnation, they think in terms of a one-line progression in which the soul perfects itself in each succeeding life. This is a gross simplification. There are endless varieties of this one theme, individual variations. The process of reincarnation is used in many ways, therefore, and in this time of rest individuals must decide on the unique way in which reincarnation will be of use.

The relationships for the next life have to be settled upon, and this involves telepathic communication with all those who will be involved. This is a time, then, of many projections. There are those who are simply loners, who reincarnate without any great feeling for earth’s historical periods. There are others who like to return when their contemporaries from some particular past historical time return again, and therefore there are group patterns that involve reincarnational cycles in which many, but not all, are involved.

On occasion, some personalities may be given an exception to the general rule and take a sabbatical (humorously) from reincarnations, a side trip so to speak, to another layer of reality, and then return. Such cases are not common, however. Such matters are also decided at this time. Those who choose to leave this system, whose reincarnational cycles are finished, have many more decisions to make.

Many such reincarnational narratives are liberally sprinkled with names and dates simply to satisfy those who insist upon them, because the emotional and psychological validity may not be accepted otherwise. This applies to any kind of reincarnational material, however it may be obtained.

The reincarnational structure is built along the same lines of existence that you know now. [...] The particular likes and dislikes of any given personality will also have much to do with the descriptions given of a particular reincarnational episode.

Earlier in this book I mentioned alternate presents on several occasions, and reincarnational lives are indeed alternate presents. There is interaction between you and your reincarnational selves constantly. [...]

You may decide upon another reincarnation. [...] Or you may enter another system of probability entirely; and this is quite apart from a reincarnational existence. [...]

[...] This cannot be done, however, until the reincarnational cycle, once chosen, is completed, so the last choice exists for those who have developed their abilities through reincarnation as far as possible within that system.

Now some individuals, some personalities, prefer a life organization bound about past, present, and future in a seemingly logical structure, and these persons usually choose reincarnation. [...]

[...] Consciously, however, Jane has never been overly enthusiastic about the idea of reincarnation to begin with. [...] Yet she was early subjected to the church’s rigid opposition to the whole idea of reincarnation because, strangely enough, even in her very youthful poetry she dealt with the forbidden subject (although not by name). Jane does believe that long ago she left behind the church’s dogmas on reincarnation. [...] (As for myself, while growing up I knew nothing of reincarnation beyond its name.) But we’ll be the first ones to agree that in certain Seth sessions, and in her very evocative poetry, Jane has encouraged her intuitive and creative selves to seriously discuss reincarnation. [...]

[...] Both of us have had our psychic expressions (really isolated episodes) involving what can be called simultaneously existing reincarnational selves, and we’ve published accounts of a few of these. [...] Our independence relative to reincarnation may represent just conscious cussedness on our parts, but we believe that each of us (meaning anyone, that is) always has the freedom to accept or reject any such choice or causality —whatever we choose to do. No, instead we think of our current challenges as contributing to the knowledge of our whole selves in most specific ways, rather than our being swayed that much by our reincarnational and/or counterpart associations. [...] I do know that regardless of local variations an acceptance of reincarnation has encircled the earth for millennia, and that in our country recent polls show a quarter of the population believing in it.

It would be impossible at this time, I’m certain, for a researcher to find any evidence that reincarnational heritages are coded for among the approximately 100,000 genes lined up on the 46 chromosomes we carry in the nucleus of each of our cells. We say that a certain gene contains the instructions for the manufacture of a certain protein the body uses in the construction or function of an eye, for instance, and that in expressing that code the gene passes on characteristics inherited from physical ancestors—but is that endowment influenced or directed in any fashion by reincarnational attributes as well? [...] But if we think of our genetic endowment as first being a system of consciousness as our reincarnational history is, we can see how the two nonphysical systems could be intermixed, as Seth put it, with one influencing the other. Conceivably, each of us could be a mixed bag of ancestral and reincarnational heritages, then—more “mongrelized” than we may care to admit. [...]

Seth rarely gives reincarnational data unless it is directly tied in with the overall development of an individual’s present life, and he refuses to give past life histories, for example, to those he thinks will not apply the lessons involved. Strangely enough, he did give such information once in a class to three college girls who clearly did not believe in reincarnation to begin with. They had just begun classes, and while they were curious about ESP, they had little patience with the theory of reincarnation—before the session, that is.

[...] In other words, the “last” reincarnation is not the end. [...] But central to Seth’s discussions of reincarnation are the following excerpts from session 233 that place reincarnation in perspective, individually and historically.

“You will reincarnate whether or not you believe that you will,” Seth began, smiling. “It is much easier if your theories fit reality, but if they do not, then you do not change the nature of reincarnation one iota.” [...]

[...] She remembered how, in early sessions, Seth had talked about a minimum of three reincarnational existences for most entities — and how “scandalized” she’d been later when she began to realize that Seth had lived many lives. Now, she finds that the idea of simultaneity of “reincarnational” lives is quite acceptable; this fits her emotional and intellectual temperament. When the sessions began, Jane was especially bothered by what she called the trite and popular ideas about reincarnation, mixed up as they were with ideas of good and evil, punishment, etc.

(“I go along wholeheartedly with Seth’s statement that reincarnation is as much a myth as a fact,” she said now, referring to an ESP class session. In that session, for May 4, 1971, Seth said in part: “So what you understand of reincarnation, and of the time terms involved, is a very simplified tale indeed…. Reincarnation, in its own way, is also a parable. [...]

In larger terms, my soul includes my reincarnational personalities, Seth Two, and probable selves. I am as aware of my probable selves, incidentally, as I am of my reincarnational existences. [...]

[...] At the end of the reincarnational cycle you understand quite thoroughly that you, the basic identity, the inner core of your being, is more than the sum of your reincarnational personalities.

[...] Again, this involves a manipulation through reincarnational patterns, and here again, great diversification. A healer begins with reincarnational selves with various difficulties….

[...] The time of choosing is somewhat more complicated if the last reincarnational cycle, in your terms, is completed.

Reincarnation, therefore, also is part of the larger framework in which any individual’s health and well-being must be considered. The reincarnational influences are most apparent in what would be considered bodily defects dating from birth, and these will be discussed later on in this book.

Reincarnational influences are not nearly as rigid as many believers in the concept think. That is, reincarnational influences usually leave many options open to an individual in any case. [...]

[...] There are, in fact, so many distorted ideas connected with the concept of reincarnation in general, that I think it far better to simply concentrate upon the idea of multiple existences. [...] In greater terms, you are working “at all levels” and at all of your own existences at once, even though it is useful sometimes to think of reincarnation as a series of lives, one after the other.

[...] There is far more evidence for reincarnation and life after death than there is, for example, for the existence of black holes. (With amusement:) Few people have seen a black hole, to make the most generous statement possible, while countless people have had private reincarnational experiences, or encounters that suggest the survival of the personality beyond death.

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...] She added that our genetic requirements are also linked to our reincarnational patterns. [...]

[...] Seth had confirmed her reincarnational insight into my dream of July 17, but hadn’t given much data. [...] Note that originally Seth didn’t mention the reincarnational connections in his interpretation of the dream. I do think Jane is still somewhat reluctant to deal with reincarnation. There could, of course, be almost endless questions about such reincarnational dream clues. [...]

(Tonight as we waited for the session to begin I showed Jane my three recent dreams that I was interested in having Seth comment upon: July 7 [Sayre], 17 [reincarnation and Debbie Janney], and 19 [Jane recovering overnight]. [...] I’ve started a small oil painting based on the “chute” portion of the dream for July 7. I’ve also done a pencil sketch of one of the heads in the photos of myself in the reincarnational dream of July 17, in case I don’t get to paint it. [...]

(“Only that in the dream involving Debbie and me and the photos: Jane said the dream was reincarnational.”)

No consciousness has the same experiences or interprets them the same, and so each individual utilizes reincarnational opportunities in his own way. [...] Others have a series of female lives and then a series of male lives, or vice versa, but the entire reincarnational framework must involve both sexual experiences.

Reincarnational goals also vary greatly. I want to stress that reincarnation is a tool used by personalities. [...]

[...] Some families are literally reincarnations of their ancestors, but this is not the general case by any means. [...]

[...] Next chapter (7): “Genetics and Reincarnation. Gifts and ‘Liabilities.’ The Vast Sweep of the Genetic and Reincarnational Scales. [...]

GENETICS AND
REINCARNATION.

GIFTS AND “LIABILITIES.”

THE VAST SWEEP
OF THE GENETIC AND
REINCARNATIONAL SCALES.

A third line supporting your selfhood as you think of it is the reincarnational one.⁹ This is somewhat like the ancestral line (long pause), and there are also reflections in the genes and chromosomes undetected by your scientists. The ancestral and reincarnational lines merge to some extent to form what you think of as your genetic patterns ahead of time, so to speak. [...]

Reincarnational experience is also transmitted, then, and can be retranslated from a biological code-imprint into emotional awareness. Again, however, as you are not your parents or your ancestors, you are not your “reincarnational selves.”

9. When Seth mentions reincarnation now, I usually think of a certain delivery of his in Volume 1. After 10:45 in the 683rd session, see the paragraph of material beginning with this phrase: “Reincarnation simply represents probabilities in a time context….” [...]

[...] When Jane read her material of this afternoon to me, I thought she likened the Sinful Self’s renewal to reincarnation, meaning that she thought this renewal might account for many of our overt ideas of reincarnation—that at least some of our ideas about reincarnation were based upon our intuitive knowledge of the return of portions of one’s self to that earlier state of innocence—a rebirth, in other words, that we might translate into the idea of physical incarnation. [...]

(But tonight she maintained that she’d never mentioned the subject of reincarnation in her paper, and that she hadn’t meant reincarnation in that sense at all. [...]

[...] (Pause.) Although Ruburt did not mention this in his paper, reincarnation does have a part to play, for child’s curiosity must somehow be fitted into a new social structure, generally speaking, from other reincarnational ones. [...]

[...] The reincarnational structure is but one facet in the whole picture of probabilities. In it you have literally as much time as you need, to develop those potentials that you must develop, before leaving the reincarnational existences. Groups of people in various cycles of reincarnational activity have met crisis after crisis, have come to your point of physical development and either gone beyond it, or destroyed their particular civilization.

In a manner of speaking, it can be said that you have reincarnational civilizations as well as reincarnating individuals. [...]

[...] However, they also continued on the reincarnational level as long as they inhabited physical reality. Some of these have mutated and have long left the reincarnational cycle, however.

[...] Now in the meantime there are a few points I would like to make that have not been given in this particular manner; connections that are important, between the nature of matter, your perception of it, and reincarnational existence. [...]

[...] The inner core of the self has no difficulty in uniting and correlating the outward experience of its many personalities, but the subject of reincarnation cannot be understood without a knowledge of the nature of matter.

Reincarnation, so-called, cannot adequately be considered then as a phenomenon apart from the nature of personality either, for it is a direct result of the inner self’s attempt to project its personality characteristics outward into a world of physical actuality.

I admit to you reincarnation does seem to have such implications. This is simply because you insist upon considering reincarnation in the light of time theories that are themselves incorrect. You must instead consider reincarnation in the light of what you know of the spacious present.

Reincarnation does not imply a recurring time system, nor does it imply an extension of time as it is normally considered. That is, reincarnation does not imply in a basic manner existence in one life after another, in your time of successive moments.

Because you are obsessed with the idea of time as past, present and future, you are forced to think of reincarnations as strung out one before the other, and indeed we speak of past lives simply because you are used to the time sequence concept. [...] To make the concept understandable to you it is convenient to speak of past and future reincarnations.

[...] You will seem to view finished reincarnational existences, even as from his present the geologist will discover only inanimate fossils embedded in rock. [...] So reincarnational lives are still occurring, but they are a part of your being. They are not you, and you are not your reincarnational past.

REINCARNATION AND COUNTERPARTS: THE “PAST” SEEN THROUGH THE MOSAICS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

[...] The next section (6) will be titled: “Reincarnation and Counterparts,” colon: “The ‘Past’ Seen Through the Mosaics of Consciousness.”

You can intuitively become aware to some extent of your own reincarnations, so that you feel a recognizable sense of familiarity. [...]

[...] I will give you more reincarnational data on your own lives; as you travel to the center of yourself however you will feel (underlined) and know your own pasts as directly as the circumstances permit.

We will have to update your reincarnational data, for there have been distortions in early material, and blocks, then, on Ruburt’s part. [...]

For that matter, one can ask the same questions about our supposed reincarnational heritage: Just how much free will does that concept leave us? Are we as fated to dance to unknown and unrealized nonphysical reincarnational events, tendencies, and goals, as we are to the physical, genetic ones—that is, do the two operate together? [...] Will the dissection of a gene, down even to its atomic components, ever yield reincarnational clues? [...]

GENETIC HERITAGE AND
REINCARNATIONAL PREDILECTIONS

He did pick up our next chapter heading (six): “Genetic Heritage and Reincarnational Predilections,” and I am trying to give him this other material at different levels. [...]