Each soul has its own path of restoration, so it hard to talk about specifics, but here are some guidelines based on all the research I have seen on ghosts, reincarnation and life after life.
- The shortest times have been examined by Ian Stevenson and his team. These are people how suffered a violent death and were reborn into a new body within a number of weeks.
- The ghost research shows that there are many who are still wandering around aimlessly after hundreds of years.
- From the life after life stories of children who die at a young age, we find that they first grow into adulthood in the spiritual world before being prepared for their next incarnation.
The amount of time that one spends between lives depends on two things - 1) your willingness to move on with your learning, and not linger 2) the amount of time that your guardian has determined that your time between lives should be. There is a good book on the intricacies of this process called Life After Life.
In the first chapter of my third book, I outline some general guidelines for the time required for reincarnation:
And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.
And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died.
And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.
And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.
And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.
And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.Genesis 5:5,8,11,14,17,20,23,27,31,9:29 (KJV)
There are ten such statements in Genesis that start with “and all the days of”. The numbers are similar, with eight of them falling between 895 and 969 years and averaging 930 years. There are two outliers at 777 and 365 for Lamech and Enoch respectively that we will get back to later, but let’s look first at the closely grouped numbers. To begin with, notice that the old versions of the bible do not say “died at the age of 912” like some of the newer translations, but rather say “all of the days were 912 years”.
We know from the human genome project that our DNA has not changed significantly in the past 120,000 years[i], so it would be safe to assume that these numbers are not ages, but rather the total number of years that the person lived in the material world. If we estimate an average lifespan of 40 years, then each of these biblical figures spanned about 23 lifetimes. Of course, we also know that lifetimes can vary greatly, so if some of these lifetimes ended in childhood, the total number of lifetimes could be greater, so I assume not significantly greater than 30.
Buddhism teaches a repeating cycle of birth, life and death as a process by which one releases karma with the goal of becoming selfless. Once this level of enlightenment is achieved, the process of rebirth is no longer required and one reaches nirvana. This is consistent with early Christian teaching. Origen of Alexandria taught of an unperceivably slow reconciliation with God. Maybe the numbers in the Old Testament help us to understand how slow of a process this is.
After stealing the firstborn right away from his brother Esau, Genesis 28:12 says that Jacob lays his head down on a rock and climbs the ladder to heaven. The man who wakes up from this trip to heaven has a completely different character, which can be seen how he acts when he is not allowed to marry Rachel. Surely the old Jacob would have just stolen her away, like he did with Esau’s inheritance. The more likely scenario is that the hunter, Esau, tracked Jacob down and killed him for his betrayal. Recent archaeological discoveries place Abram in the 23rd/22nd century BC and Jacob in the 18th/17th century BC[ii], so Jacob’s death and reincarnation would explain the missing 400 years between Abram and Jacob (Israel). It also explains how it is possible for Esau’s family to become so large within Jacob’s lifetime, since many generations had actually passed.
With these two numbers, 930 and 400 we can get an idea of individual journeys. Genesis says that Adam’s total years were exactly the 930 average. If we assume these 930 years were spread across 30 incarnations with 400 years between each one, then Adam’s journey would have lasted 12,530 years in total. I find it curious that Adam is the eighth to be mentioned in Genesis indicating that even though he was the firstborn, his total journey may have lasted longer than those born after him. Lamech and Enoch seemed to be outliers and there are two logical explanations that I can think of: 1) perhaps they did not start from the same place that the others did, requiring a shorter journey, or 2) their journey continues in a different place not referenced in the old testament.
Nevertheless, each person’s journey is unique, as some learn faster than others, and this example puts reincarnation into a larger perspective. We will examine the time spent (400 year’s) between lives in this book, looking at different experiences from various sources.
References
[i] Analyst, NHGRI Shannon BielloScientific Program. “The X and Y of Human Origins.” National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), NIH, 3 July 2014, The X and Y of human origins.
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