Reincarnation

Reincarnation is the doctrine that one and the same life–principle can become embodied at least twice, possibly much more. Full-blooded beliefs in reincarnation exist famously in various Eastern religions. In the West, too, the belief is encountered in orthodox Christianity, though in an economical form, since there is to be only one reincarnating that, with the exemplary exception of Christ’s, will be delayed until the day of the mass resurrectionof bodies and final judgment. In Africa, the belief in reincarnation exists in an even more qualified form, frequently amounting to nothing more than a genetical metaphor. Indeed, among some African peoples such as the Lugbara (Middleton 1960), not even this form of it is encountered. There is a good reason for all this, but the one should not lose sight of the irony of the situation. African ontologies of personhood are usually propitious for conceptions of reincarnation. The making of a human person is often explicitly conceived as a...