Afterlife

Some people believe in reincarnation, while other's believe that the soul goes to heaven. I have always asked myself, if those theories are correct, do they apply to animals and other life forms?

I would sure hope so, i'd miss my cats if they weren't allowed in heaven.
I really don't know though, it's also worth bearing in mind, we'd probably be on a different level of conciousness (sp?), so things like that might not matter.
Who knows.

my personal belief is that animals have a soul just like us, there just at an earlier stage of thier journey through the universe which is why they are less intelligent than us. i also believe at some point we were all incarneted as some sort of animal like species. maybe as monkeys or something seeing how we have similar traits.

Originally posted by VirusClock
Some people believe in reincarnation, while other's believe that the soul goes to heaven. I have always asked myself, if those theories are correct, do they apply to animals and other life forms?

Hypnotic regression research into past lives suggests that many people have had lives as animals. I remember reading an account about a person who was regressed back to being a pampered cat (pet) in a wealthy household in ancient Egypt. So one could conclude that animals have souls. But this doesn't apply to insects or plantlife.



[edit on 20-7-2004 by Paul_Richard]

Afterlife is like religion and the belief in god...it's comforting...nobody really knows but since there is no magic in life except in the movies I would bet no afterlife..

There's this girl in another forum who claims to meet her deceased cat walking and playing around her house everytime she has an OOBE.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
So one could conclude that animals have souls. But this doesn't apply to insects or plant-life.

Why not? Actually, plants do grow, they do seek food to grow, must be something making them do it..... We are all Energy based beings, what is to say that a plant does not carry the same type of energy as us?
Maybe they are actually more advanced in many ways..... ha ha So, humans cannot be regressed back into one as we are the lowly creatures compared to plants and bugs..... ha ha
Obviously, insects do think and work together... look at the ants and bees... they have jobs and hierarches......
maybe in allot of ways more organized than humans....ha ha

Many people believe in a combination of the two. I believe that while yes, we reincarnate, we first go to a heavenly "type" place where we learn and reflect and chose our next life experience. There are many others there too, doing the dame thing. As to animals, there is good deal of this on my site....the first page sets up a lot of word translations and such and then goes deeper in the following pages.
www.geocities.com...

Resist,

If it helps any, here are a couple of near death experience (NDE) research sites that point to the existence of a soul:

Dr. Michael Sabom's NDE Research

Dr. Ken Ring's & Dr. Peter Fenwick's NDE Research

JCMinJapan,

A plant is merely following its biological code to physically develop. The same could be said about any sophisticated computer program that is geared to expand. Neither of which have anything resembling a consciousness that is likened to ours.

I would say that the same goes for insects in that they operate out of instinct and genetic programming to survive.

Besides, who in their right mind would want to incarnate as a plant or an insect anyway? *L*

TheBandit795,

Yes, deceased pets do tend to hang around their human friends.

LadyV,

I agree that there is a combination of the two -- which means that the traditional conception of reincarnation found in Hinduism is not accurate. You do not immediately go from one body to another. There is a period of rest, healing, and reflection in the Spirit before the next incarnation and no one is ever forced to come into the flesh.

A humorous aspect to this is that many on the Other Side (AKA in the Primary Reality) consider people on this side of the spectrum to truly be the ones who are "dead."

It's all a matter of perspective.

I don't know that I agree with you, paul. I have read about studies being done on plants. The hooked up electodes on a plant (forgot what kind) and a man. They showed pictures of war, hate, love, family, sex....
Well, much to everyones surprise, the plant showed more reaction to sex then the man-go figure. My point is that maybe plants do have an intelligence that we don't understand or can not see/hear. That brings back the "very interesting" question of afterlife for animals and plants. To be honest, I thought about it for animals, but never plants-really interesting topic.

[edit on 21-7-2004 by mrmonsoon]

Originally posted by mrmonsoon

To be honest, I thought about it for animals, but never plants-really interesting topic.

A number of years ago there was a well-known book called, "The Secret Life of Plants," that addressed this. Evidence from experiments suggests that plants react to all sorts of things in their environment. To say that they have a soul too, well, I have yet to believe that.

The mystical happenings at places like Findhorn notwithstanding, when was the last time you ever heard about someone seeing a "plant" (or insect for that matter) on the Other Side during an NDE or a medium channeling the spirit of a dead plant/insect?

Which is not to imply that the Preying Mantis/Insectians don't have souls.



[edit on 21-7-2004 by Paul_Richard]

How did the plant show a reaction?

Crash,

They attached wires to the plant leaves and measured the electrical resistance between the two contacts, much like you do when you have a lie detector test. Outside stimuli was found to have a direct effect on the resistance.

It wasn't like the plants got up and started a fist fight or pontificated on their particular metaphysical role in the Universe!

I just wanna give my 2 cents on the afterlife. I have experienced meduimship first hand, and it seems to me, that it is much like this life, you have a body, and spend time between lives learning other things. There is a point of reflection after you first pass over. You spend some time examining what you did and how you learned, then most reincarnate, or so I believe from my own experiences. When I was doing mediumship I did often see peoples pets. Cats would be kicking back in the grass lying around, looking rather content and dogs usually were full of energy jumping around. So my assuption is that pets do indeed also go on after, most animals probibly do. Another note I would like to add is that it seems we travel through lifetimes in groups, I have read a little about soul groups in this respect and my own experiences lead me to believe it is true. IMO, we play out several roles with the same people over and over again in a circle, and widening circles. Not sure about pets though.

I never would have thought that someone with a nic and avatar like that would come out with such an insightful overview of the afterlife.

Guess you can't judge a book by its cover!

I sure hope you reincarnationists are all wrong. I don't EVER want to
come back here and have to live life all over again ... YUK. Once is
MORE than enough. Get it done .... move on. That's what I hope.

We will know for sure when we die.

I'm pretty sure that plants have soul, there's a lot of experiments that prove that plants are sentient, everyone has heard that plants grow more if you talk to them, etc.

Also I heard of a experiment in which they proved that plants "scream" if they are hurt, burnt, etc.