Reincarnation

"Reincarnation" by E. D. Walker is a philosophical and religious study written in the late 19th century. It argues that the soul undergoes repeated earthly lives, using Western philosophy, science, theology, and literature to rehabilitate reincarnation for modern readers. The work aims to counter materialism, resolve the problems of injustice, suffering, and “original sin,” and distinguish true reincarnation from crude notions of animal transmigration. The opening of the book presents a preface and introduction positioning reincarnation as a “forgotten truth” once common across Egypt, Greece, Rome, Judaism, early Christianity, and still dominant in the East. The first chapter defines the doctrine: the ego is an enduring thread that carries character from life to life under the moral law of cause and effect, with forgetfulness as a merciful veil, and denies regression into animal bodies. The next chapter lays out seven Western-style evidences—immortality implies preexistence, nature’s analogies (evolution and embryology), scientific economy and causation, the soul’s persistent identity and unconscious memory, theological clarity on sin and punishment, explanations for déjà vu and related experiences, and a just solution to life’s inequalities. The third chapter answers objections about missing memories, fairness, heredity, and congeniality by appealing to deeper forms of memory, divine justice through causation, the soul’s selective affinity for its birth, recognition by character rather than form, and the ancient “pilgrimage” view of life.

Reincarnation, by E. D. Walker. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #77318.