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Carryl Alston
Mrs. Pratt
UWRT 1102-014
April 27, 2015
Reincarnation: Religion, Science, and Pop Culture
The year is 2120, by this time all of us will mostly likely be dead. We will be survived by
family and friends who loved us. Our pictures will be somewhere in their futuristic houses. One
day your future great great grandchild brings a new friend home from school, it just so happens
that there is a photo album that was left on the table. It shows the start of this family from 2015.
The kids start looking at it and when they get to the pictures of you, theres no sound. The new
friend looks just like you, the 18 year old you. How did this happen? They even act the same as
you did. Is this you in another form, reincarnated? Is reincarnation even possible?
My question is how do religion, science, and pop culture relate to the idea of
reincarnation?
Personally I have never experienced reincarnation first hand. I have watched some
documentaries on it and they were very interesting to me. I learned that there were two main
sides to the idea of reincarnation, science and religion. If reincarnation is real, how would one
explain it? I know that many people explain reincarnation using religion while some use science.
There is another idea at play here, how doe pop culture relate to the idea of reincarnation? In this
essay I plan to show how each of these topics deal with reincarnation.

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Millions of people are affected by the idea of reincarnation. They believe that it is really
going to happen to them, or has happened to someone close to them already. People who believe
in different forms of life after death live their lives a little differently. Life may not be as stressful
for them because they dont believe that this is the end for them. I think that will change
the way everyone lives, knowing that they could possibly have do over in life.
In my opinion there are many sides to explaining reincarnation, science, religion and pop
culture. Many religions believe in reincarnation as another form of life after death. These
religions range the ones of the early humans to some of the biggest religions in the world today.
Early humans believed that people came from the earth and were sent back there when they died.
Their ancestors could be found in the winds or the trees. Hindus believe that when you die your
souls is reborn into another physical body in this world. This is the general idea behind
reincarnation. They also believe in the endless cycle of life, meaning that at we lived once before
our life now and the lives before that. We will also continue on in a different life once this one
has ended. This is known as the Wheel of Samsara. Everyone know matter what your class
rank may be go through this wheel. The wheel is fueled by the Law of Karma, also known as the
law of cause and effect. They define karma as deeds and actions that you participate in. In their
holy books, the Vedas, it is said that karma is applied principally to sacrifice and doing sacred
actions. It is believed that each person is responsible for their own reincarnation, they need to
live their lives in a way that God would approve. (Johnson and McGee). If they didnt live their
life right God can intervene, using grace, and change the path that their rebirth is heading on.
Hinduism believes that reincarnation works like a wheel. We may not know it, but we
have lived another live before, and we will continue to live other lives. This all depends on

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karma and the possible grace you may receive. I would say that the idea or belief of reincarnation
is a big part of their lives. (Johnson and McGee)
Reincarnation to some Buddhist is completely different. For starters, they believe that
reincarnation only last for up to 49 days, no more than that. It is viewed as part of the path to
enlightenment, that once it is complete you have now found harmony. (Johnson and McGee)
Once you are reincarnated it is believed that you are now becoming your true self. Once the 49
days have passed then you move on into the afterlife where you will rest forever. There isnt a
cycle involved with it, just a nice relaxed ending. (Burley) Another example of reincarnation in
Buddhism is their religious leader the Dalai Lama. There have been many different physical
Dalai Lamas throughout history but it is believed that he being reincarnated into a different being
each time he passes away. Lhasa officials are charged with a three year journey to find a young
boy who will be the next Dalai Lama. The boy must go through a series of test that basically
show that he will be the next Dalai Lama. The spirit of him passes on from child to child as the
sitting one gets older. (Tsering).
While doing by research I was surprised to find out that Judaism believes in
reincarnation. They do not believe in it directly thought like other religions. There isnt a place
where reincarnation was particularly confirmed or denied. The one example that they have is the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Cranston and Williams)
Christianity though does not believe in reincarnation. They believe that the afterlife
consist of heaven and hell. The idea of reincarnation contradicts with the teachings of
Christianity. (Cranston and Williams)

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The religious aspect of reincarnation seems to think it is pretty real. There isnt an
explanation on how it actually happens other than that it is something we go through after death.
Personally if I was to believe in reincarnation it would be because of the research that
sciences has provided.
Most of the scientific research done on reincarnation come from the cases of children.
Young children start to remember things that may have happened to them from years in the past.
They recall events that they couldnt possibly remember. Psychologist Dr. Ian Stevenson, the
chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia, and his successor Dr.
Jim Tucker spent their time trying to gather enough practical evidence and proof to prove that
reincarnation is real. They didnt want it to be seen as something that was taboo or could only
exist in the religious world. They went around listening to these stories, mainly told by children,
about things that have happened to them. If the storys that were told matched up with facts that
they could find, they would then do more research. This research included looking at the childs
history and family lineage. The doctors would also talk to the children in a clinical setting.
Sometimes they would administer lie detector test. They worked hard to make sure that the
evidence they were collecting didnt have any holes in them. They wanted to make sure that
everything the child was telling them was true. (Sawyer). Another study found that 60% of the
children who claim to be reincarnated are male. 70% of the deceased died from a violent or an
unnatural death; 70% of those were males. While talking to a group of kids they found that 90%
of these kids were the same gender now as the claim to be in the past. Also the kids tend to tell
stories and recall memories of their past life between the ages of two and six. (Lyon). This is just
the beginning of what the scientific explanation for reincarnation has to offer.

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There is so much science behind the idea of reincarnation that it could take thousands of
pages to explain it all. I wanted to look at another side of reincarnation that may not be as heavy
as the science and religions that typically accompany it. Pop culture is a way of life that we all
live today. If reincarnation is part of a way of life how does it relate in term of pop culture?
While I was picking a topic to write about my mind started to wonder like it usually does. I
found myself on twitter, procrastinating, when I saw some pictures of celebrities that looked like
people from the past. I was surprised that the resemblance between the two people were so
similar. What does the general public think of this? Everyone doesnt have the information about
reincarnation that science and religion provide. So what is the public idea of reincarnation, and
how is it shown throughout the media?
Most people use the internet everyday of their lives. We are always looking up or posting
something online. You can often come across sites that have some pictures of celebrities that
resemble others from the past. There is no way to know if these photos really do show the
celebrity reincarnated. They could just be distance relatives that just happen to look like each.
When these pictures are viewed they may spark sum interest in the subject. This may further
their research into reincarnation but that is highly unlikely. Most go on with their lives,
reincarnation only stays on their mind while they are visiting the website. (Oddee).
Though the reincarnated celebrities is interesting and a part of pop culture, it is not the
only part of it. The definition of pop culture is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes,
images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture. We view this as
people who are famous but that can also include people that have been in the news for any
amount of time.

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While continuing my research I saw some stories of real people who believe that they are
reincarnated; but they are reincarnated forms of past famous people. The roles have flipped. The
normal people are now saying that they are famous.
The first case I came to know was a couple that believed they were Jesus Christ and Mary
Magdalene. The husbands names is Alan John Miller, he talks about how he still remembers the
crucifixion. The couple are very religious as you can tell and they run a seminar from their home
called The Divine Truth. Many people attend these meetings. There are also many other people
who claim to be Jesus Christ. The next case is about a woman named Babro Karlen who believes
that she was Anne Frank. She said that she felt this way ever since she was a little kid and also
had recurring nightmares of the holocaust. Later on in her life she decided to write a book called
And the Wolves Howled. She has had a lot of people especially in the Jewish community were
upset with this. They signed a petition to have the book taken off the market but it wasnt. She
went on to write many more books; they all used the same writing style that Anne Frank had.
(Sawyer). There are many other people like Chris Vicens who thinks he is Marylyn Monroe and
Salvador Dali who thinks that he is his dead older brother. Dali realized this when he was 5 and
his parents took him to see his brothers grave. He then told his parents that he was his brother,
who was also named Salvador. He used this throughout his art all his life. (Oddee).
These stories show that in pop culture reincarnations arent taken as serious as it is with
the religious aspect of reincarnation.
The idea of reincarnation still effect half of the worlds population in different ways every
day. The explanation is always changing and new cases come to light. The only version of it that
remotely stays the same is the religious aspect. Reincarnation viewed through the eyes of
religion, isnt something the mess around with; it is a part of their life cycle. Science has tons of

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research that has been done on the subject and evidence proving that it is possible. Finally pop
culture uses it as a form of entertainment by seeing you favorite stars look like someone from the
past, or having normal everyday people say they deceased stars in another body. With all of these
facts and testimonies it is pretty easy to assume that this is real. So maybe in the year 2120, your
great great grandchilds friend really is you, your soul and spirt in another body.

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Works Cited
Burley, Mike. "Reincarnation and Ethics." Journal of the American Acadamy of Relgion (2013):
15.
Cranston, Sylvia and Carey Williams. Reincarnation: New Horizon in Scince, Religion, and
Society . New York: Julian Press, 1984.
Johnson, Christopher Jay and Marsh G McGee. How Different Religions View Death and
Afterlife . Philiadelphia : The Charles Press, 1991.
Lyon, Sean. "The Science of Reincarnation ." 2013.
http://uvamagazine.org/articles/the_science_of_reincarnation.
Oddee. http://www.oddee.com/item_98654.aspx. n.d.
Sawyer, Robert J. "Supernatural Investigate: Reincarnation." David Brady Productions, n.d.
YouTube.com.
Tsering, Diki. "EVIDENCE FOR REINCARNATION OF 13TH DALAI LAMA AS THE
14TH." 2000. http://www.reincarnationexperiment.org/home/dalailamaplid.html. Excerpt
.