Reincarnation in the Western World of Today

In spite of the frequent staunch ostracism that the idea of rebirth has encountered throughout the centuries, it has never been extirpated and today – although the traditional religious systems are in crisis throughout the entire Western civilisation – the belief in reincarnation is growing steadily both in Europe and the USA, as the statistics of the last twenty years show.
From various polls it appears that 25% of Americans believe in reincarnation, which means that one American in four believes in past lives. The European average is only slightly lower (24%) but it greatly varies from country to country, going from 15% in Norway to 33% in Great Britain. This means that in the UK one person out of three believes they have already lived in another body, in another time and – consequently – will probably come back again in the future.
Religious beliefs do not seem to interfere with the acceptance of the concept of reincarnation either, since polls have shown that – although Catholicism has been the faith to most strongly oppose reincarnation in modern times – countries where Catholicism traditionally predominates also show high percentages of belief in rebirth, even among regular mass-goers: Portugal 32%; France 28%; Italy 27%; Spain 25%. (For more details see: www.spiritual-wholeness.org/faqs/reinceur/reineuro.htm ).
These data are highly encouraging in our present climate of gloom and insecurity, where we are all called to revise deep-seated behaviours and re-examine ways of life we had always considered ethically correct and never thought of putting under scrutiny before because today the future of the entire planet and the survival of our species is at stake.
Fully embracing the concept of reincarnation and living according to it will generate at least two important benefits which we are certainly in great need of: a serious environmental conscience and tolerance.
If we believe that when we die it’s all over or – alternatively – that we fly away to heaven leaving the earth far behind us forever, there is not much incentive to protect the environment for future generations that we shall never meet. The temptation to say: “It will be their problem, who cares?” is strong. However if we believe that we shall come back here and that we shall be part of those future generations, then the problem suddenly becomes ours too and it’s better to look into it sooner rather than later (especially because it is already quite late anyway).
Wars and discrimination are always based on greed and resentment but they are masked, in one way or another, by the justification of diversity. Hate feeds on envy for what others are or have. Reincarnation teaches that we have all lived many, many lives, incarnating in many different conditions: different sex, different colour of skin, different cultures, different religions, different sexual orientation, different locations, different social status ... Once we are fully aware of this, it becomes impossible to attack someone else for being “different from us” because we know that we have experienced all the possible permutations ourselves. Reincarnation teaches tolerance, it teaches us to accept and respect what is different from us because we are likely to have already been – or are going to be – in that way too.
Regrettably however, the great interest and faith in rebirth revealed by the results of surveys isn’t reflected in the interest and attention demonstrated by official channels and the non-specialised press, with the unfortunate result that too many people still feel intimidated to openly show an interest in this subject and fear to be ridiculed or considered superstitious.
The thought that some sort of political ostracism is at work now as it was in the 4th century is quite tempting. Certainly reincarnation has important philosophical consequences: embracing belief in rebirth and informing their lives on it, people certainly free themselves from many fears, and this process makes them more responsible and more independent, leaving much less possibility for them to be manipulated. Are the political powers and the hierarchised religious systems frightened of losing control as they were nearly 2000 years ago? We are not in the time of Constantine anymore and since then humans have grown up enough to be able to take responsibility for themselves. A quick search on Google gives 5,200,000 hits for ‘Reincarnation’ and 59,100,000 hits for “Past Lives”. These data speak for themselves and don’t need any further comment. As Greywind said in his Voice within the Wind: “Take courage, make the leap” … if you haven’t already done so ...
© Renata Bartoli 2009