Notions of reincarnation have also led to a depth of kindness and tolerance of others in many instances, Paul. Not to mention recovery from neuroses of variosu sorts that have been resolved by the "discovery" of prior incarnations.

As for immortality, there's no greed involved at all. Existence is not a zero-sum game.

There are lots of different opinions about what occurs and how in the passage from live to death. THe argument of reincarnation may or may not include the mechanisms known as "karma". Some cultures believe in reincarnation without any inheritance from prior lives.

The big question is two-fold. One is what subjective changes it may bring about in an individual to find mental impressions correlating to past existences, and whether or not that resolves emotional or somatic issues for him. her.

The other is whether there are any cases, or even many cases, of discovered past identities leading to evidence that could not have been discovered otherwise. There are many anecdotal recitations that appear to fill this definition, but life is messy and not rigorous in its logic the way good laboratory experiments are supposed to be.

But I am certainly not trying to persuade anyone to change their beliefs. I just thoguht a collection of reference and viewpoints might be of interest.

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