Reincarnation: A Critical Examination

I have a disdain for the notion of reincarnation, and to my mind, others who are similarly skeptical, such as Paul Edwards, the author of this book, never propound the best arguments against it.If we were ordained to live many times over, the friendships and loving relationships that we experience in any given lifetime would be rendered worthless by an eschatological process that usually erases our memories clean of them and sends us back into the world to acquire new ones.Moreover, if our parents, siblings and descendants in one lifetime might be related to us in a different manner in another lifetime, the whole process of rebirth becomes somewhat incestuous, notwithstanding the transposition of bodies and the absence of memories. If there is a Supreme Being, he's surely restored more divine order to universal chaos than would actually exist if we really were to live again.So I actually picked up Edwards's book as a member of the anti-reincarnation choir waiting to be preached to, but this book was only somewhat satisfying in that regard. He spends a lot of time inveighing against the methodology used by New Age gurus and parapsychologists, exposing the frauds and charlatans among them. This includes a re-examination of the famous "Bridey Murphy" case.Otherwise, it seems to be a book meant primarily for philosophy students and teachers. Many of its arguments allude to terms and concepts that leave this political science major scratching my head.Others will sound more familiar such as the "absence of justice" argument (those of us who don't remember our past incarnations won't remember why we are being rewarded or punished in our present ones) and the "population" argument (the amount of people who have ever lived is many times greater than those alive now - so in what sort of halfway house are unreincarnated souls waiting to be reborn in? And if we have all lived before, why is it that new souls are no longer being created?).If it is intended as a scholarly work, it's a somewhat slipshod one. There are a number of occasions where the author is developing a line of thought and then breaks it off, promising to pick it up again in a later chapter.Edwards's argument is largely an atheistic one against any sort of post-death survival whatsoever, relying largely upon what he sees as the inseparability of the mind and the body. However, he does concede the theoretical possibility of an apocalyptic resurrection and reconstruction of original body parts and a reconstitution of each original mind within. The mind/body issue is apparently an age-old philosophical dispute, and Edwards comes down squarely on the side that the mind cannot exist separate and apart from the body that it directs.But however persuasive his argument against ANY sort of survival might be from an empirical point of view, it seems to largely ignore stories of Near-Death-Experiences (NDE's) in which an unconscious patient was later able to give accurate descriptions of what was going on around him.Maybe these stories would also lose their credibility upon being subjected to the same rigorous academic scrutiny that Edwards and others subject Ian Wilson's cases of spontaneous memories of past lives, but that has never been done to my satisfaction, in this book or in any other skeptical work.Edwards has a sardonic wit that I can especially appreciate, and he often interrupts his empirical analysis to skewer a number of targets, including religious fundamentalism. His disparagement of the divine in general may yet prove to be correct, but it is an undercurrent that runs through this work and sometimes detracts from it. At one point, he borrows from Christian philosopher, C.S. Lewis, to inveigh against theocracy as "the worst of all governments".Both Edwards and Lewis seem oblivious to the truism that atheism can be as much of a religion as theism, and the destruction wrought during the 20th century by atheistic governments in Germany and Soviet Russia suggest that it can be just as deadly.Regardless of the state of evidence concerning survival in general and reincarnation in particular or of the existence of a divine being, a little less trenchant agnosticism and awe towards the Unknown might suit Edwards better as a human being and as an academic.

The late philosopher Paul Edwards examines the concept of and evidence for reincarnation in this interesting book. He finds the former incoherent and latter lacking. Whether or not one agrees with that conclusion, it's definitely a book to read on this subject for a skeptical view. To my knowledge it is the only book-length critique of reincarnation. Highly recommended.

I do not have much to offer in my one star review concerning Paul Edwards’ arrogance because everything said in other one star reviews covers it all. I read the book with high hopes but my conclusion is the same as before. When it comes to death, no one knows what happens. Is it that we just die and that is it? Do we become another life as promised with reincarnation? Or do we go to heaven or hell? Whatever one believes is based only on faith...not fact. And of course that is okay. But Mr Edwards sees reincarnation as fantasy and tries to prove it. He does not. How is the belief in reincarnation any more of a fantasy than the belief in heaven and hell?

Paul Edwards (1923-2004) was an Austrian-American philosopher, who was the editor-in-chief of MacMillan's eight-volume  The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 Volumes in 4) , and lectured at New York University, Brooklyn College and the New School for Social Research. He has written/edited other books such as  Immortality , Heidegger's Confusions , etc.He wrote in the Introduction to this 1996 book, "The belief in reincarnation and Karma has been steadily gaining support in recent decades. This is no doubt... one aspect of the tide of irrationalism that has been flooding the Western World, especially the United States. There is an urgent need for a comprehensive and systematic evaluation of reincarnation and Karma and the present volume is designed to fill this gap. I have attempted to state, fairly and fully, all the main arguments offered in support of reincarnation and Karma. I have tried to show that this evidence is worthless... I try to show that the law of Karma is no law at all, offering only post hoc explanations. Reincarnation is not an empty theory... but many facts are clearly inconsistent with it... [such as] population increases... [or that] Neither of the two criteria for personal identity---bodily continuity and memory---are satisfied in alleged cases of reincarnation..." (Pg. 7-8)He asks the questions: "How... are good and bad deeds registered? Is there some cosmic repository like a huge central social security office in which the relevant information is recorded and translated into some kind of 'balance'? Next, how and where is it decided what will happen to a person in his next incarnation... How and where, for example, is it decided that in the next life he will become a human being rather than a roach, a man rather than a woman, an American rather than an Indian... Finally, there is still the problem of how such decisions are translated into reality. As an illustration I will use a natural disaster, the famous Lisbon earthquake of 1755... just how did this nonintelligent principle [Karma] set up the geological forces so as to achieve the desired results with complete precision?" (Pg. 39-40) He adds, "It is farfetched... to suppose that all the people who perished in Lisbon or all the Jews murdered by the Nazis deserved exactly the same treatment." (Pg. 41)He admits, "The case for reincarnation seems to be strongest when we come to child prodigies. For here it must be admitted that so far genetics and psychology have told us very little that is specific." (Pg. 50) He also respects Ian Stevenson [author of books such as  Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation ], saying, "I have the highest regard for his honesty. All of his case reports contain items that can be made the basis of criticism. Stevenson could easily have suppressed this information. The fact that he did not speaks well for his integrity." (Pg. 102)Edwards' book will be loved by those critical of reincarnation, and (often) despised by supporters of the theory; but it is "must reading" for anyone seriously studying the matter---whether one agrees with his positions, or not.

輪廻転生論者の主張と、それに対する反対意見の紹介および著者の考えが述べられている。良く調査されていると思う。しかし反対意見としての考察は甘いのではないか。「（輪廻転生は）信じるに足りない」「そうは思えない」という意見が限界で、完全に否定しきれていないように感じた。興味深いのはヒトラーに対するエリザベス・キューブラー＝ロスの意見の紹介の仕方だ。彼女の見解としてはヒトラーは犯した過ちをやり直しするために再度生まれ変わるのだという。それに対し著者はヒトラーは生まれ変わってもやはり怪物だろうから、転生せずにあの世にとどまってもらいたいと述べる。つまり輪廻転生を一部では認めながらも、特定の人物にだけ輪廻転生が適用されるべきではないという批判をしている。輪廻転生を批判しながらそれ自体を完全に批判しきれていないのがどうにも。。。彼の考える輪廻転生では善人も悪人も生まれながらに決まっていることになってしまう。実際に論じられる輪廻転生説とはそういうものではなく、理解が浅いとしか言いようがない。輪廻転生説を「死んだ魂がまた生まれてくる」という程度に表面上の理解していないので、反論もまた浅いものになってしまっている。『あるわけない！』と結論ありきで読みたい人には面白いかもしれないが、『あるのか、ないのか』と真面目に考えたい人には物足りないだろう。退行催眠による前世療法を行う精神科医のJ.L.ホイットンの著書に関しては半ページほどで、その内容は問題を抱える患者に対する誹謗中傷ともとれる野次でしかない。チャネリングや霊的世界には舌鋒鋭い割に、心理分析の中で科学的に検証された研究についてはまともに取り上げないというのは片手落ちではないか。アメリカで1996年に出版された本書であるが、1988年出版のブライアン・ワイス『前世療法』(Many Lives, Many Masters)については全く触れられておらず非常に残念。著者の考えとして、輪廻転生が実在するかどうかは実は興味がないように思える。あくまでも輪廻転生"思想"を批判するものでしかない。確かに来世を信じることでややもすると今生に対する真剣さを失ってしまうというのは、一つの欠点ではある。しかしながらその事と、魂の転生が実在するかどうかはまた別の話である。本書においてはその区別をつけないまま、輪廻転生それ自体の検証については殆どなされず、輪廻転生"論者"に対する批判に終始するのみである。

(As posted at amazon.com)I recently posted my review for the author’s another book “Immortality (1997)” (first published in 1992). Almost the same review can be applied to this book, too. But I would like to make a little different point against the author’s reasoning. These are as follows:(1) In chap. 16 the author critically examined the reincarnation cases of Stevenson’s and he seemed to conclude that no one authentic case was established, because “they all have big holes.” His is one of the well-known patterns of arguments between skeptics and defenders over not-normal human experiences.Long before the Stevenson’s study, a similar official record about a Japanese boy (in ca 1810) exists in Japan, which was quoted by Lafcadio Hearn in his book “Gleanings in Buddha-Fields” in 1898 (Cosimo Classics, 2004, chap. X: The Rebirth of Katsugoro). This case study about Japanese farmer’s boy, Katsugoro (9 years old when he started talking about his previous 6 year-life memory to his 15-year-old sister), was of course not conducted by a researcher of reincarnation but by Katsugoro’s grandmother of 72 years old. The local official institution entered into the inquiry only after a rumor spread over the local. Please see the book if interested in the detail.(2) The author referred to Dr. Eugene Brody, “who published several of Stevenson’s articles in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases and who appears not to see any significant flaws in Stevenson’s investigative procedures, nevertheless refuses to accept reincarnation because it cannot be reconciled with the body of scientific knowledge.” “The problem lies less in the quality of the data Stevenson adduces,” Brody writes (in 1979), than “in the body of knowledge and theory which must be abandoned or radically modified in order to accept reincarnation.”(3) Such a worry is not specific to the subject of “Reincarnation” alone. All the study results of the traditional Psychical Research since 1882 have been simply IGNORED all together by Scientific Community, which can be compared to an Organized Religion.(4) Journalist and historian Brian Inglis’ (1916-1993) extensive review of the history of psychical research “Science and Parascience: A history of the paranormal, 1914-1939” was published in 1984. He criticized the systematic neglect of psychical research by scientific community in chap. 10 of the book. There is a physicist’s excuse of this act of neglect, saying “Unexplained cases are simply unexplained. They can never constitute evidence for any hypothesis” (as quoted in Martin Gardner’s Science: Good, Bad and Bogus and Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic).(5) However, the act of ignoring scientific facts surrounding paranormal phenomena, including Reincarnation, may be similar to the act of ignoring “systematic errors” in scientific experiments, and, in my opinion, the systematic neglect has been conducted intentionally without realizing, or with realizing the threat of, their possible impacts on successful science. Just as Eugene Brody says above (2), the problem lies in the body of knowledge and theory which must be abandoned or radically modified in order to accept psychical research or reincarnation. And the theories to be abandoned are, in my opinion, (a) the Big Bang theory for the origin of our material world (because of the materialization phenomenon in psychical research instead of pair productions of particle & antiparticle) and (b) the Darwinian theory of Evolution for the origin of human species (because of the living human-form materialization phenomenon in psychical research instead of yet-to-be-explained accidental origin of life on earth & Darwinian evolution all the way up to human species with ego-directed consciousness).(6) The author referred in chap. 17: The Dependence of Consciousness on the Brain, to Stevenson’s writing: “What we know of brains cannot explain consciousness. It would be more fitting to acknowledge the primacy of consciousness itself. We all experience it, and all our knowledge occurs in it.”(7) I would like to close this review (or rather counter opinion to the author Paul Edwards), quoting certain psychical knowledge, which tell us “Consciousness and matter and energy are one, but consciousness INITIATES the transformation of energy into matter” [i.e., not the other way around], and this is what Stevenson mentioned in (6) above. [Ref: Jane Roberts (1997). Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1 (New Ed.), pp. 120-121. San Rafael, CA: Amber-Allen Publishing. Originally published in 1988, c1986; Prentice-Hall.]