Reincarnation in America: An Esoteric History by Lee Irwin (review)

At the beginning of this large, engrossing, and informative book, Lee Irwin claims he is not concerned with proving or disproving the various reincarnation theories he describes, but with investigating their effect on the communities and individuals who believe in them: "Thus, this is not a book about religious systems of belief in the afterlife as much as an exploration of how such beliefs have contributed to spiritual development in the persons and communities that embrace various reincarnation theories" (xxiv). Approximately 23 percent of Americans believe in reincarnation, and this includes 22 percent of self-professed Christians and 11 percent of atheists, agnostics, and others who deny the existence of God.

Irwin explores the explanatory power reincarnation theories have for an ever-growing number of people, primarily in the United States, and shows how reincarnation theories correspond to new and unconventional ways of thinking about transphysical modes of being along with new perspectives on space and time emerging from quantum mechanics and subsequent scientific and psychological theories. Irwin's book adds to the ever-growing number of scholarly works devoted to the academic field of Esotericism, which encompasses alternative or marginalized religious movements and philosophies.

The author describes himself as someone who practices "mediating scholarship," by which he means scholarship that studies "a wide range of 'metaphysical' contents or thought worlds that references a variety of modes of knowing. Such knowing privileges mind (or perhaps consciousness) and includes intuition, extrasensory perceptions, altered states, and nonordinary experiences that reveal the correspondent links between material and spiritual worlds …" (xxiii). For Irwin, what is most interesting about reincarnation theories is that they are not reducible to any single theoretical, religious, or philosophical position. In this they are representational of the nondogmatic religions and forms of spirituality that have arisen in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries to accommodate the changing realities of modern urban and industrial life, modern science, and modern technology.

Irwin identifies three major historical sources for belief in reincarnation in the American context: Native American and Afro-Caribbean, European esoteric, and Christian Spiritualist. These sources have been supplemented by a long and complex history of experiential narratives of past-life memories, out-of-body experiences, dreams, visionary encounters, research in parapsychology, psychic sciences, narratives of children, and near-death experiences. "Literally tens of thousands of documented accounts, some gathered under rigorous scientific conditions, have at this point created a body of literature that is utterly distinct from any religious belief system and based strictly on direct personal, participant knowing" (xv). The three parts of the book are devoted to these sources.

Part One covers pre-American theories of Reincarnation. In six chapters Irwin describes indigenous theories of reincarnation, Greek and Roman ideas of metempsychosis and rebirth, medieval Christian theories of rebirth, and Renaissance Kabbalah and Christian Esotericism. Part Two is dedicated to American speculation about reincarnation and includes chapters on Esotericism, American Transcendentalism, African and Afro-Caribbean influences, Spiritualism and Theosophy, the occult sciences, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and more. Part Three, "Post-American Reincarnation," concentrates on the experiential dimensions of contemporary reincarnation theories in chapters dealing with altered states, past-life narratives, paranormal sciences, regression therapy, and near-death experiences.

In the final chapter of this tour-de-force of scholarship—The Metaspectral Highway—Irwin speculates on the larger significance of the material he has so aptly analyzed. He contends that what we see in these theories is the active part played by the imagination rather than traditional doctrines or texts. He makes the convincing case that the role of the imagination in creating reality has been underappreciated and understudied: "If belief creates heaven and hell, then other beliefs or theories may create alternate after-worlds or processes whose discovery and actualization requires a more expansive model of human enhanced capacities" (390). In Irwin's analysis beliefs do matter; they shape an individual's world-view and activities every bit as much as economic, political, and social factors.

In a short...