Articles
Personal Growth: Purpose
Believing in an Afterlife
What the Public Has to Say about Reincarnation
By Mary Lee LaBay, Ph.D.
You may commonly hear that the only two sure things are death and taxes. I think it is only death—as there are places on this earth where people don’t pay taxes...or is it that there are simply people who don’t pay taxes? Anyway, there are ways around just about everything...except death!
As past life regression is a fundamental aspect of Awareness Engineering™, I was curious about how popular the idea was in the general public. I decided to do research on the number of people who believe in reincarnation and survival after death. As I was perusing this topic on the web, I discovered a 2003 Harris Poll concerning this very subject. I’ll tell you the results in just a few moments.
First, I noticed that the sampling was focused on the western world, in that 75% of the people polled claimed to be Christians. This indicated to me that this is a poll about the beliefs of say, Americans. That is fine, and valid, and interesting—but unfortunately, it is not a global sampling. I then became curious about possible results if the same poll was taken in China, India, or Africa. This lead me to yet another line of curiosity…and some more research. Wouldn’t it would be interesting to see the same Harris Poll taken in communities where religious preferences were more evenly distributed among the available choices?
My research lead me to seek more information about how religions were being categorized, and that brought me to a definition of “pagan” that stated it is any religion that is not Christian, Jew, or Muslim. And the same Webster’s dictionary claims pagan is synonymous with heathen, which they go on to describe as nonreligious, uncultured and uncivilized.
Can we then surmise from this that the contributors for Webster’s dictionary are placing Buddhists and Hindus into the category of pagan, heathen, nonreligious, uncultured and uncivilized? With this use of semantics, is there any wonder we have prejudice in the world? Just as our art and music reflect and predict the course of a culture, it is important to be aware that the way we define and use words can strongly influence the way we view the world.
Are you curious about the results of the Harris Poll? Their survey of 2,201 people determined that: 84% believe in the survival of the soul after death including 89% of women and 78% of men, 86% of those without a college degree and 78% of those with postgraduate degrees. 27% believe in reincarnation, that they were once another person. This includes 40% of people aged 25 to 29 but only 14% of people aged 65 and over.
Most of the 84% of the public who believe in the survival of the soul after death are optimists. Almost two-thirds (63%), including 75% of Christians, expect to go to heaven. Only 1% expect to go to hell. Six percent expect to go to purgatory while 11% expect to go somewhere else and 18% don’t know.
So let’s return to our discussion about the “one sure thing”—death, and our understanding of that eventuality. When I was growing up in mid-west America, it became clear that it was a subject that just wasn’t talked about in polite company—as though there was some kind of shame in dying.
I don’t think that was what my parents wanted to teach me, but it was how I was interpreting the signals. Don’t talk about it, avoid it, it’s a sad subject, move on.
Do you find it curious that the one thing that we are guaranteed to experience—death—is the very activity that we spend the least amount of time preparing for?
Perhaps it was the “taboo” of death that ignited my quest for knowledge on this topic. I have subsequently spent a good deal of the past 20 years participating in past life regressions and life between life experiences to gather a broader perspective of this subject.
Because knowledge of death is so elusive, it gives rise to just believing in what feels right or turning that decision over to someone else. Since we know that our brains filter information through a series of cultural, ethnic, emotional, early childhood, religious, fear vs. desire pathways that may or may not give rise to the truth, how can we really find out—and will our findings be accurate?
A serious consideration of the subject may be enhanced by exploring various methods of trying to recall previous times that you have experienced the transition called death and speaking openly with others who are on the same quest.
Awareness Engineering™ uses contemporary psychological techniques, philosophy, and quantum reality concepts along with ancient disciplines in a system for increasing conscious access to reality. Past life and between lives regression are integral parts of that process. Ultimately, the only way to truly know about death and the afterlife is to have personal experience. These time-honored techniques allow safe access to that knowledge now.
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©1999-2010 Mary Lee LaBay. All rights reserved.
