Some subjects are beyond the power of scientific investigation to prove or disprove. Reincarnation fits into this category. Although individuals may believe in reincarnation and prove the validity of this concept to themselves, nothing they may say or do can convince another of it.

Surprisingly, we accept many ideas each day that are not proven scientifically. From long experience we have learned that some beliefs represent most logical conclusions and, therefore, we take them as fact. For example, consider the concept that cigarette smoking is harmful to health. This belief is so universally endorsed today that it is difficult to recall that persons who held this opinion thirty years ago were condemned as meddlesome quacks.

To this day, however, there is no direct scientific proof, as the tobacco lobby is quick to remind us, that cigarettes are the main cause of certain diseases. The evidence comes from statistical studies. Scientists have, for instance, tried repeatedly to cause cancer in laboratory animals by keeping them in an environment of cigarette smoke, but so far to no avail. Does this mean that cigarettes are not injurious? Not at all. It means only that science has not yet been able to devise an experiment that will prove what is obvious to all objective observers of the entire body of information on this subject.

This volume attempts to show by logic and by reason that reincarnation presents the most satisfactory explanation of our existence here and hereafter. Once the true facts of this hypothesis are understood, all other considerations about what happens to us after we die are left far behind.

Guidelines For Ethical Decisions

Each day in our lives we make many ethical decisions, for which there often are no scientific guidelines. Frequently, the orthodox Church can provide little to help us. Thus we choose a course and take the consequences. If we make the right choice, we prosper; if not, we suffer. This we accept as "life." We learn early that we live in a world of cause and effect. Everything we do in life causes certain reactions, and there is no way to escape them. If we are wise, we learn to control and modify our actions so that we create the most beneficial future reactions possible.

As life proceeds, we realize that the picture of life painted for us by the orthodox Church and the scientific community does not, in many important ways, coincide with our own experiences. Inhabitants of large cities have a phrase that typifies a somewhat parallel experience. They refer to certain individuals as being "streetwise." By analogy, persons who are willing to think for themselves and learn from life's experiences are "lifewise."

The lifewise soon conclude that, while the minions of orthodox religion are by and large honest and dedicated, only rarely do they address the real facts of life, and in the long run they seem to be the blind leading the blind. In addition, advice from the scientific community may be voluminous in its disputed content, but it is meager in factual accord and only occasionally of value.

What is a person to do? Exactly what the majority does. Listen to all sides. Then evaluate what we have heard in relation to our own life experiences and make a decision we feel will have the most productive and creative reaction. A simple concept, but effective if used carefully. If one Church spoke obvious and complete Truth, no other would need to exist. Were the evidence scientists boast of indisputable, the constant contention that erupts in the academic world and in the laboratories would disappear.

The Need To Think For Oneself

In general, Americans are far wiser than they are given credit for being. Abraham Lincoln said it well in two of his most famous quotations: "God must have loved the common people, He made so many of them" and "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." Those of us who become lifewise - and if we don't, we won't survive long on this planet - soon comprehend that most persons who present themselves to us as benefactors usually have ulterior motives, either consciously or unconsciously. In the last analysis, either we think for ourselves or we become a slave, willing or unwilling, to someone else.

It is this attitude - to be open-minded - we ask you to apply in reading this book. We do not imply that this volume offers the key to all Truth. That is not so. This work attempts only to present the most viable concept of human life in the now and in the hereafter available from the most authoritative writings of the past and present. The logical evidence presented is overwhelming in its attempt to establish the validity of human reincarnation. We eagerly await your verdict.

In the true sense, this work is a compilation of the best that has been written on reincarnation in Western literature. Much other information on the subject may be found in texts designed for the Eastern faiths, but the approach to religious belief in the Eastern faiths is different from that of the West, and the inclusion of that information here might create more confusion than illumination.

The text has been compiled from many sources and minds. Many of the most important parts come from the pen of Dr. Gerard Encause, from his book, Reincarnation, published in France at the end of the nineteenth century. The dissertations on the logic of reincarnation are derived mainly from a 1909volume printed in England, titled Reincarnation and Christianity. The author is unknown; the title page lists the author only as "A Clergyman of the Church of England." Credit must be given also to Dr. R. Swinburne Clymer and Dr. Paschal Beverly Randolph for the frequent and invaluable extracts from their works.

This publication makes no attempt toward literary accomplishment. Its intent is to inform and instruct. For that reason, repetition is necessary, and many ideas are restated from various viewpoints. Footnotes cited in some chapters are to be found at the end of that chapter (end of paragraph for computer files). In this volume, the words "man," "he," and "human being" refer to both men and women unless the subject pertains to the masculine only.
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