Something occured to me today, and frankly I'm amazed it's never crossed my mind before.
For the theory to stand, certain 'givens' must be accepted:
- The existence of an imperishable soul within each of us
- Reincarnation of the soul after death
- That the world is in a worse state, socially and spiritually, than it has ever been
Clearly, not everyone accepts these things as truth, but I don't intend to waste time debating the credibility of these beliefs. If you're unwilling
to accept the possibility of the above, you'll take very little from this thread.
With that said...
If you're a firm believer, or able to reconcile the above, then you've probably arrived at the conclusion already that some souls are older than
others. That is to say, some souls have been reincarnated countless times, since the beginning of existence, whilst some may only have experienced a
few lifetimes.
But why?
Strange, but I've never asked that question before.
Why are some souls old and some not? Well, the answer is: Because there are many times
more human beings on Earth now than have ever been before. I believe that mankind acquired a soul around 50,000 BC, as this was roughly the point at
which art, culture and religion sprung up 'over night'. This is something many archaeologists accept based upon the sudden appearance of cave art at
this time - but that's for another thread
.
Wikipedia estimates the world population at
50,000 BC to have been around 1 million.
So, I propose that there are approximately 1 million original Earth souls.
Since then, the world population has reached nearly
7 billion. Actually,
Worldometer states
6,744,926,015 (and counting). So that means around
6,743,926,015 of Earth's living souls had to have been created/birthed (by a
creator/architect/universe)
since mankind was first given souls.
3.7 billion souls are only 50 years old. As 50 years roughly represents the middle of a lifetime, that means more than half of the world are new souls
- not just NEW, but BRAND NEW!
Half of the world's souls are experiencing their very first lifetime.
The connotations of this realisation are mindblowing!
If, like me, you believe that the meaning of existence is for the soul to learn, and that we're made to (or opt to) forget our previous life upon
reincarnation, then you realise the magnitude of this notion. An old soul has a deep, spiritual memory of the experiences gained in previous lives.
Whether they're consciously aware of this or not, they are guided by this gnosis and act with wisdom, compassion and fairness.
Only around half of us have one or more previous lives from which we've learned. The rest of us are here for the first time - making all of the
mistakes that are to be expected from such inexperience. Furthermore, only around 1 million of us have been here since the beginning. 2000 years ago,
0.5% of souls were ancient. Now, only 0.015%!
For me, this goes an ENORMOUS way to explaining what I see in day to day reality. I've always felt like there are an elect few, worldwide, who
genuinely understand compassion and responsibility, and a vast majority who are spiritually infantile. Our world is breaking apart - war, deceit,
greed, murder, oppression, materialism, etc. I now know why. The world population has risen in leaps and bounds over the last few decades, resulting
in a world populated by more inexperienced, self-serving souls THAN EVER BEFORE.
NOTE: It would be interesting to consider life on other planets too. If human(oid)s exist elsewhere, it could help to otherwise explain this
conundrum. For example, our population on Earth might have increased dramatically at the same time that another planet's population was decimated.
Then, those souls might have been sent to Earth - rather than new souls being created from scratch.
but, Truth is, this may be one of those things that we will never figure out in this physical
existence. 
