Reincarnation

I much enjoyed the article ‘In Search of Past Lives’ by Simon Young [FT434:30-37], but feel the need to raise an issue that always comes to my mind when we are regaled with stories of reincarnation. Many historians, the ones who are probably not much fun, have pointed out that since the arrival of agriculture in the Neolithic and its role as primary source of human food, some 8,000 to 10,000 years have passed and in that time approximately 90 per cent of our ancestors lived the life of subsistence farming. This is not reflected in the memories, hypnotically recovered or otherwise, of the reborn. Virtually no one seems to have led the short and hard-scrabble life on a small, family-held plot of land which, in reality, almost everyone did: though the author did have one life as a smallholder on an English moor, which is a start.

Mr Young mentioned a kind of celestial waiting room for the deceased as they prepare to return to this mortal coil. Is it the case that on the ethereal entrance to this room there is a noncorporeal note advising that only interesting people, not those who have led dull lives, need apply for bodily restitution? A cynical person (not me, I assure you!) might suggest that interesting lives would constitute ones which might sell documentaries, books or magazine articles (not yours, definitely not yours!).

I don’t recall an article in FT going over the history of the subject, much as you did in FT431:32-39, when Nessie got a bit of kicking. I do recall how everybody who was reincarnated used to be Alexander, Cleopatra, Columbus, or some other member of the Great and the Good. Then it became one of Alexander’s foot soldiers, Cleopatra’s maids, or some syphilis-ridden sailor on the Pinto. Now we get quite a mishmash of people, just not enough farmers. Harumph.

I must point out that at 62 I’m getting on a bit, and possibly going on a bit. I suspect that at FT Towers the same can be said about Paul & Bob so, as we watch our better days recede into the past, we may look forward to meeting and discussing this matter… beyond the veil.

Yours from the apparently once-born.

Brian McTaggart

Dundee, Scotland

With regard to reincarnation, I have two observations. One is the mathematical angle: wouldn’t there be new souls showing up alongside older souls as the population increases? (Many people remember they were Cleopatra, but not a random Australopithecine.) And isn’t it a vested interest to persuade people they only get one go around, to drive them into the shopping malls? The Protestant work ethic? Doesn’t happen East of Suez...

James Wright

Southend on Sea, Essex