Reincarnation: A Critical Examination. - Review - book reviews

By Paul Edwards. Prometheus Books, 1996. ISBN 1-57392-005-3. 313 pp. Hardcover, $31.95

Few of us enjoy having the frailties of our most comforting beliefs revealed, and when the assumptions under scrutiny concern "big ticket" items such as the possibility of an afterlife or the supernatural underpinnings of our moral precepts, a questioning attitude is almost guaranteed to make the bearer about as popular as the proverbial skunk at the garden party. Paul Edwards has risked this fate once again, this time by critically examining certain doctrines, once confined largely to Hindu and Buddhist believers, that have recently gained popularity among the eclectic disciples of New Age spirituality. Interestingly, they have also attracted more than a few Christian adherents who cheerfully overlook the fact that the doctrine of reincarnation contradicts other core tenets of their faith.

Heretofore largely ignored by Western philosophers of any stature, the traditionally associated (but logically independent) doctrines of reincarnation and Karma are thoroughly examined in Paul Edwards' enjoyable and encyclopedic treatise. Edwards proceeds with his usual precision to expose the hidden assumptions, the empirical flaws, and the often unpalatable implications of these teachings that, on the surface, can seem quite appealing. It is always a pleasure to watch an incisive thinker cut right to the heart of an issue and then proceed to lay out its logical consequents in clear and concise prose. It is a double treat if that exposition is accomplished with wit and flair, as is the case here. One all too rarely gets the bonus of chuckling through a detailed and cogent analysis by an eminent philosopher. Take for instance this example of the twinkle in the scholar's eye that appears on page 18: "It seems ludicrous that something as important as creation of a soul that is going to exist forever should be tied to such accidents as the failure of a birth-control appliance."

The belief that some essence of ourselves survives bodily death is perhaps the most comforting of all spiritual leanings. It has provided reassurance for human beings probably since our ancestors first evolved brains of sufficient complexity to anticipate the future and contemplate their own mortality. The solace provided by any sort of expectation of an afterlife would probably have been sufficient to assure its undiminished popularity all by itself, but, as Edwards points out, the version of immortality preached by most reincarnationists offers yet another enticement. Belief in reincarnation feeds not only the hope for life beyond the grave, but in conjunction with its frequent fellow traveler, the "law" of Karma, it also provides apparent support for another widespread human longing, the desire to believe that we inhabit a just universe.

The warm glow this solution provides for believers diverts their attention from the many inherent conceptual and practical difficulties that Edwards lays bare in this book. For instance, a major difficulty for reincarnationists is what he calls the "modus operandi" problem. For magical thinkers, just imagining something can bring it about. But for the rest of us, there is the inconvenient need for a plausible chain of causal mechanisms before we can grant the likelihood of any given phenomenon. With the many advances in scientific understanding since the formulative days of the reincarnation story, it has become increasingly difficult even to conceive of a reasonable mechanism whereby a bodily attribute (such as a birthmark or deformity, which are afforded much attention in reincarnationist circles) or a mental property such as knowledge, a personality trait, or an inclination, could be packaged up at the end of one person's lifetime, held in abeyance in non-physical form between incarnations (the "interregnum problem") and finally implanted in a fetus in its mother's womb in preparation for another revolution of the eternal carousel. It likewise strains credulity to accept the requirement that detailed tallies of every good and bad deed committed by every person who ever lived could be kept somewhere and weighed, let alone harnessed to transgenerational retributive mechanisms as diverse as earthquakes, bacteria, raging bulls, lightning bolts, or a large, ill-tempered bar patron named Bob.

The Canadian psychologist Melvin Lerner and his colleagues have studied various psychological needs that make the idea of transcendental fairness enforcers such as Karma perennially attractive. Lerner describes a number of payoffs for believing in what he calls the "just world hypothesis," i.e., the soothing notion that, in life, people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Many of us rebel emotionally at the realization - easily prompted by a quick glance at the daily headlines - that the plums and brickbats of life seem to be somewhat randomly apportioned, morally speaking. Apparently, it is too threatening for a large portion of the populace to admit that, no matter how long and hard one has tried to do the right thing, the driver of that approaching bus could still be just about to doze off. It is this motivation to salvage belief in a hidden hand that metes out deserved rewards and punishments on a cosmic scale that explains the unsavory but widely observed tendency to derogate apparently innocent victims. For example, "She must have dressed or behaved provocatively or she wouldn't have been raped, would she?"