The forgotten legacy of reincarnation in early christianity

I am opening this thread hoping for intelligent and constructive discussion, this is not for argument's about religion (Christianity in particular but it is open to related beliefs as well) or who is right and who is wrong but simply for an open minded discussion between those who wish to partake of this thread.

That said let's get down to business.

Now as some of you may know the early pre Constantine church was actually made up of many sect's of Christians with often different or disharmonious belief's, Gnosticism was one of the greatest of these Christian paths' that was suppressed and eventually wiped out by the organized and now state religion.

In Judaism at the time of the Roman occupation reincarnation was actually quite a common belief as well as some other groups in the same area and today still lingers in sects such as the drew's of Palastine, the west bank and Lebanon but what is often forgotten is that it was also a common belief among some but not all early Christian sect's especially the Gnostic sect's.

Forget about UFO's for a moment and take another look again at the wheel's of Ezekiel's Chariot, among the Buddhist and Hindus there is a concept of the wheel of life, the soul is bound to this wheel and comes back around until it reaches a state of perfection and is released.

The Ladder of Jacob Similarly he saw the servant's of God going up and down it from heaven to the earth, where they merely angels of where they soul's being incarnated when they came down the ladder and going up when they had died.

Here is some related information on the topic but having now opened the debate I shall beat a retreat and see how it unfolds.

www.near-death.com...
jacobisrael.com...
gnosticwarrior.com...
ezinearticles.com...
www.aish.com...
www.chabad.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

www.christians.eu...
www.tertullian.org...
www.iisis.net...
facts-are-facts.com...


A final note, I am open but do not profess a belief as to reincarnation either way though I do believe in the soul and I am a Christian by my own faith, this is still highly interesting as a subject though and even some atheists as though they may not believe in a god some do still believe in a soul and profess an open mindedness to the concept of reincarnation and so I welcome there discussion on this.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I love this topic. Yes indeed, many Christians, even Catholics, DID embrace reincarnation, until its belief was BANNED by Emperor Justinian.

Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora's -not to be confused with the Catholic saint with the same name- political and mundane interests were the ones responsible for banning reincarnation from Christianity. This is not a theory but historical fact. The banning of reincarnation was a political issue, not a doctrinal one.

I do believe in reincarnation (at least the hope that we keep intermingling with our loved ones) and one of the best stories I have ever read about it is The Egg. It is such a simple/complicated story with a great message about the way we should be treating eachother. If that is what reincarnation is about, I'm in.

a reply to: LABTECH767
That many early xtian sects believed in reincarnation is really apropo. Reincarnation is a belief that goes back farther than we can trace historically. And since xtianity is an amalgamation of religions that predate it, it's no surprise reincarnation was originally considered integral to it. Reincarnation itself necessitates the belief in a spiritual hierarchy, and would explain certain tenets of the xtian faith, while clashing with others.

originally posted by: superman2012
I do believe in reincarnation (at least the hope that we keep intermingling with our loved ones) and one of the best stories I have ever read about it is The Egg. It is such a simple/complicated story with a great message about the way we should be treating eachother. If that is what reincarnation is about, I'm in.

You mean this egg?

Love this video, even though I'm not by any means convinced of it.

Interesting supposed reincarnation cases.

a reply to: windword

Excellent addition to the thread, thank you.
For some reason I always mixed up my history and thought it had to do with Helena and her son Constantine but not it was Theodora the prostitute who slept her way to the top that had reincarnation removed from the Christian faith and threw the whole religion into a state of illogical chaos, it is interesting that there was a karmic belief system in the early church among the early Christian's up to the fifth century as well, sadly it mean's that for nearly the past 1450 years the church has been in error on the subject, the more I look into it the more I begin to believe it is correct.

a reply to: LABTECH767

If you fast forward a couple of centuries you'll find lots of stories where people transform into animals, for example:

Another version of this tale says that Dearbhfhorgaill was being handed over to the Fomoire as a tribute but was saved by Cuchulainn. Having rescued her, he rejected her love and gave her to Lugaid, in this version the son of Curoi, who was later to kill him. Hurt by this slight, Dearbhfhorgaill turned into a bird, which Cuchulainn brought down with a sling shot. He sucked her wound to heal it when she resumed her normal shape and in so doing became her blood brother

Mythology dictionary

This leads some to think of these people as having an almost shamanic belief where they could shapeshift into animals, but if you read the stories and substitute 'turned into' for 'was reincarnated as' they usually make a lot more sense.
Personally, I think that there was less of a gap between early Christian beliefs and 'pagan' beliefs than we tend to think of now, so I find your thread fascinating.

S&F

a reply to: Klassified

That is a beautiful video, made me very sad at the start but very intriguing and there may be more to the concept than we think, still that make me totally mad as therefore I am talking to myself (I tend to do that a lot).

a reply to: LABTECH767

Reincarnation is central to recent guidance shared by Spirit World representatives (i.e. Dr Peeples) discussions in 1990's at hight of New Age movement.

Paraphrasing: Each soul comes to Earth because it is a great school on learning about God within yourself and others. Repeated lives are usually needed. Most difficult fact: God was in heart of Hitler.

So great thread on very important topic central to everyone alive now and past-on.

I was going off thread here, Sorry all, I leave this now to you.

Here is the link though for the sake of thread integrity.
www.druidry.org...

a reply to: LABTECH767

Thank you for starting this thread!

I am a Theist with a profound respect for all true Prophets, from Jesus to Mohammad to Buddha and Confucious. And I've had a life-long belief in Reincarnation.

I've long heard this argument, that early Christianity suppressed the reality of reincarnation - even removed obvious references to it from the Bible - in order to preserve the power of the rabbis and later Vatican, by making people believe that this is their only one-shot lifetime.

This suppression - as well as Creation Myths that suppressed the idea of space travel, or journeying beyond the planet - are NOT for the overall well-being or encouraging the growth of the masses. These ideas ONLY serve the negative and nefarious ET populations long inter-mingled with this planet. Consider:

~ Convincing people that this is their only lifetime, and that we'd better listen and mind THEM, or we'll never get to a pleasant and peaceful place after death.

~ Allows negative types to create artificial barriers with those "horrible" other global populations, for THEM to consolidate their power and followers thru isolation-of-like-minds to be dictated to. When in reality, we all follow the same God, and all want the same things from Life: freedom and peace, with opportunities to enjoy meaningful work with decent compensation, with which we can love and raise our families, and participate in the governments who make up our laws and enforce them.

~ Psychology teaches that you cannot remove a societal "bedrock belief" without replacing it with something equal or better. Everyone has had many, many lives within religious frameworks - of many different religions - because those frameworks make sense and are aimed at the general welfare of all intelligent and decent people. But today we have a noisy, nefarious sub-population of sexual deviants pushing people to abandon this "religious bedrock" of faith and spirituality, simply because these sexual predators have been condemned in EVERY religion down thru Time. Everyone feels innately that they are being led astray by these negative deviants, but having no understanding of reincarnation, they are swayed by the deviants' many corrupt lies and manipulations.

~ Times are so confusing, and people are so fearful. But young people especially, closer to the between-lives of instruction and cosmic understanding, are deeply disturbed by all these negative populations pulling people this way and that for their own selfish concerns and power-lust. These young people know unconsciously that they have had other lives, and are Beings capable of Great Goodness. Only all they have for examples now are these nefarious sub-populations - and cartoon Superheros the negative sub-populations are engulfing.

These young people desperately want to unleash their own Superhero-within, and flex the many positive skills and knowledge from past lives locked within their subconscious. They know the world needs REAL Superheros now, and are willing to try and be that themselves. Why else are young people so drawn to movements on the other side of the world who mask their their true evil and goals, with emotional pleas for "Let's Change the World"?

I Came of Age in the 1960s, when the same pleas were heard. Only later did I realize that the most corrupt and evil in the world USE those innocent and genuine desires to realign the world for the better - to line their own pockets and consolidate their demonic power. VietNam was a waste of innocent lives - but the CIA rose to be come the Global Drug Dealer thru their new Asian connections, and there were willing Crash Test Dummy young people who embraced, used and popularized those mind-eating drugs in the U.S.

Today, marijuana is a thousand times stronger, and within a decade of steady use, we'll have multiple "lost" generations with the IQ of a gerbil sitting on dusty couches everywhere. But, hey, the CIA and the global elitists - who won't touch the stuff - will have all the wealth and power they want. Except the population they'll be manipulating with be stoner-zombies totally incapable of being their toadie-soldiers.

As they say, if you don't know History, you will be doomed to repeat it. And if you don't accept the reality of your own soul-history - reincarnation - you will never learn or advance. And just end up a toadie for every lifetime's demonic liars-and-manipulators.

"For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the Life that is now, and of that which is to come."
1 Timothy 4:8

a reply to: LABTECH767

That's a nice essay, thanks for the link. If Tertullian is to be believed, 'Celtic' parts of Britain, for want of a better word, were already 'subdued by Christ' in his own lifetime.

Reincarnation would be a useful concept in battle too, I guess. If you know you're coming back as a crow, then a raven, then a person again you can afford to be a bit more gung-ho in your tactics!

a reply to: beansidhe
It actually put's new light on the welsh Celtic story of Merlin, he was a fish and other creatures as he travelled and learned so it was actually druidic allegory probably created at a later date to try to preserve there tradition's but then lost with it's meaning which had become totally alien to those who had lost the concept of reincarnation.
Through all those year's though little children would often give there parent's a fright and an old saying is that child is an old soul, or he is a little old man etc.

S/F
Great topic, and one of my faves.
I was just reading this morning about Yazdanism (practiced by the Yazidis, a Kurdish ethno-religious group who the ISIS people rousted out of their homes into the mountains, as some of you may recall).

They continue to practice a syncretic religion that goes further back than even Judaism - to Zoroastrianism and the idea of a supreme being under whose supervision are seven 'angels' who in turn supervise the human race. They, too, believe in reincarnation, and their legacy goes all the way back to the Annunaki and Enki.

In Yazdani theologies, an absolute transcendental God (Hâk or Haq) encompasses the whole universe. He binds together the cosmos with his essence, and manifests as the heft sirr (the "Heptad", "Seven Mysteries", "Seven Angels" or "Seven Gods"), who sustain universal life and can incarnate in persons, bâbâ ("Gates" or "Avatar").[4] These seven emanations are comparable to the seven Anunnaki aspects of Anu of ancient Mesopotamian theology, and they include Melek Taus (the "Peacock Angel" or "King") who is the same as the ancient god Dumuzi son of Enki[5] and the main deity in Yazidi theology, and Shaykh Shams al-Din, "the sun of the faith", who is Mithra.[6]

en.wikipedia.org...

Yazdânism teaches the cyclic nature of the world with reincarnation of the deity and of people being a common feature, traversing incarnations of the soul of a man into human form or an animal or even a plant. There are seven cycles to the life of this universe. Six of these have already happened, while the seventh one is yet to unfold.

Sound familiar?
It's all just the same thing, century after century, age after age, millennium after millennium. When will "Christians" understand this, I wonder?
No offense to you, OP, just glad to hear that you are opening your mind to reincarnation.

I'm one of those people who believes in reincarnation and an eventual reunion with the Source, but not necessarily a 'Supreme Being' watching us. I think of the Source as cosmic, collective consciousness....

and I love reading about spirituality and reincarnation.
Interesting thread - thanks!

a reply to: LABTECH767

I think so, but it's only my take on the matter. But the stories do seem to make more sense this way.
Yes, I agree with you, the original meaning gets lost and then the whole belief system (reincarnation) becomes alien to us in time too. That's why I was glad to see you put your thread in the Conspiracies in Religion' forum, because it feels like a deliberate act.

a reply to: beansidhe

Just a little correction: people don't reincarnate as animals or anything lower. Reincarnation is always a progression upward, toward joining the Godhead. We start out as energies within cosmic dust, then separate into individuals first within solidified rocks. Why do you pick up different stones and feel different energies, some more pleasing to you than others? The rocks also have geological differences, but to the sensitive, there are differences even within the same type of rock.

Thank God for warriors who fight for just causes! And keeping-morale-up among soldiers has a long tradition of mythology, that upon death they will go to a special, better place than just heaven, like Valhalla, where they can continue to drink and revel in oft-told victories forever. Like one long party to keep their courage and morale aligned in the right direction between lifetimes.

The only times I've heard of people briefly "merging" with animals, is saying a special good-bye to a loved one thru an animal they both loved. Like a bird outside your window for a week after a loved one passes, to tell you that the one who just died is now free and happy, and to stop grieving.

A more negative merging with animals, is thru black magic. Witches use animals (usually a black cat) called a "familiar," who can go places unseen, and collect information the cat can then transfer telepathically to their witch owner. (So when you wonder about these people who seem a little too frantic and active with animal rescue organizations, just smile and understand: they might be former witches or others once into demonic animal sacrifice, now atoning for all the terrible things they did to animals in past lives!)

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

Great post! Zorastrian priests were really the Three Magi who journied to meet baby Jesus. And their three gifts were both precious and respectful - but also a test. Would the baby reach for the Gold - to show he was just a materialist born to seek wealth? Or would he show favor to myhrr, that he was born to be a healer? Or incense, that he was spiritual and godly?

The baby Jesus was said to show favor to all three, indicating a Great Leader come to heal a ravaged people. However, the weight of evil and egos can bend the goals of even the most spiritual and divine. In the end, Jesus' followers were mostly the poor, desperate to believe they were really decent and just people, born for a purpose according to a Godly plan, being shunted aside by evil leaders. Jesus couldn't, therefore, embrace wealth or his wealthiest followers - who might have had the power to protect him, and save him from the crucifixion. Since He thought it might alienate his poverty-stricken core of followers.

And I've always loved the Zorastrian idea that the Supreme God uses "angels" or "perfected, risen people" to help mankind along a more spiritual path:

"... to God the Judge of all, to the Spirits of just men made perfect."
Hebrews 12:23

a reply to: MKMoniker

Och, I don't know - I can see me coming back as a whelk!

I don't know much about the mechanics of reincarnation because - and I guess this is Labtech's excellent point- this particular belief system is pretty much alien to us now. They might well have meant shape-shifting exactly as it is written now, but it's just my sense that the stories read better when reincarnation is substituted.

I like your rock theory, I haven't heard of that before. All little children go through a phase of being attracted to rocks and stones, picking them up and keeping a favourite. I wonder if that's got anything to do with it?

a reply to: LABTECH767

I'm waiting for the day when science proves it. We're getting there. As each day passes that more and more people question mainstream religion, its roots and its motives and see more facts about this that science shows us, the closer we are to getting to the truth.

And watch, as science starts to prove that some religious beliefs are wrong and some are right, religious leaders will get on the bandwagon and state their opinions. You don't ever see the reverse of that. You don't ever see a religious leader proclaiming the truth about something, with science coming in after saying "Yes, we agree". Or not.

Makes you wonder why.

Only science can up the stakes and make sense of it all as long as religion keeps saying that everything is absolute.

Knowledge and intelligence have always been the enemies of religion, and the knowledge that science will obtain concerning reincarnation and other beliefs that xtianity have "banned", will leave religion little to no choice but to admit that they have been oppressing knowledge all along.