Humans, like all other living things, are born, live for a while in this world, the only one we have, and then die and rot away. For much of recorded history, humans have imagined various  kinds of existence before birth, and various kinds of existence after death. The simple fact that these imaginings have no detectable counterpart in our real world would seem the final say on the topic, but it is a characteristic of most of the world's religions that some kind of existence outside the boundaries of physical life is taught as an actuality.  Our knowledge of what life actually is, and how incredibly fragile it is, rules out all of these imaginary possibilities, but relatively few people seem able to deal with the blunt harshness of reality.  So there is money to be made in offering "attractive" scenarios, the relative attractiveness being strongly culture-dependent.  Needless to say, pseudoscience has come through splendidly, and there are a huge number of bizarre aspects to the various scams that have been concocted.

The ideas of invisible components of living things trace back to ancient ideas attempting to describe by scenario the difference between the states of life and death. There are nearly as many versions of these invisible components as there are different cultures on earth.

These are the most common versions of the life/death scenario. Cultures such as the ancient Egyptians expanded on these ideas to an incredible degree, partially by combining several originally completely different religions into a single one. One simplification of the Egyptian ideas that has come down to the present day is the Body Double, or Astral Body, an immaterial thing that is otherwise identical to the physical body, and has the same situation, profession and needs as the real body, after the real body dies.
A classic pseudoscientific spinoff from this scenario is the claim that "psychics" can do "astral projection," that is,  send their astral body out to view distant locations and events, as popularized particularly in late 19th Century Theosophy.  This eventually evolved into the pseudoscience of remote viewing. Often in human history, two or more nations that were originally culturally independent have been politically unified, and their once-separate religions merged. In the case of ancient Egypt, so many different religions were merged that at least nine different immaterial, invisible entities were thought to exist within every individual!

Once the unverifiable concept of a soul had been introduced, an obvious question arose in some cultures. If the soul was immortal, where was it before the individual was born? Was it conceived and born with the individual, or did it get attached to the individual somewhere between conception and birth? And if attached, where did it come from? This led to a scenario in which a soul, when an individual dies, jumps immediately to another individual being born at that same moment! This is the idea of Reincarnation, or Metempsychosis. The latter doctrine is usually attributed to the ancient Greeks, but the former, general concept is mostly found in religions of the Far East. Pseudoscientists of all stripes absolutely love this concept. You can take (expensive) courses to learn to remember your (many) past lives! Scientology has particularly exploited this theme.

"Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveler returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?" (Shakespeare, HAMLET, Act 3, Scene 1)

“Since there is no way to tell the difference between a baby with a soul that will go to heaven or hell, a baby with a soul that has been around before in other bodies, and a baby with no soul at all, it follows that the idea of a soul adds nothing to our concept of a human being.  Applying Occam's razor, both the idea of reincarnation and the idea of an immortal soul that will go to heaven or hell are equally unnecessary.” [Robert Todd Carroll]

“It seems to me that we are in the position of a company of players who have by chance found their way into a great theater. Outside, the city streets are dark and lifeless, but in the theater the lights are on, the air is warm, and the walls are wonderfully decorated. However, no scripts are found, so the players begin to improvise— a little psychological drama, a little poetry, whatever comes to mind. Some even set themselves to explain the stage machinery. The players do not forget that they are just amusing themselves, and that they will have to return to the darkness outside the theater, but while on the stage they do their best to give a good performance. I suppose that this is a rather melancholy view of human life, but melancholy is one of the distinctive creations of our species, and not without its own consolations.”  [Steven Weinberg, 2001]

And, of course, as another classic example of the total misunderstanding of modern physics being used to support a pseudoscience with no actual basis other than religion, check this out.  Certified by Max Planck??

To be safe in your mental journey to the dangerous distant past, you need the paid guidance of a certified holy man!

SKEPDIC on Reincarnation


From Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR
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Near Death?