Many faiths have taught the Doctrine of Reincarnation, and in fact it is probably true to say that until Zoroaster broke with his contemporaries in the sixth century B.C., there were few, if any major religions that did not accept some form of the belief. And in fact, many of the ideas which disgraced medieval Christianity, such as Perpetual Damnation, Original Sin, and the Medieval Devil as a Great Angel who rebelled against God, can all be traced to Zoroaster or some of the various Gnostic concepts that largely derived from his teachings.
However, although belief in Reincarnation was widespread in Antiquity, the exact form of the Doctrine varied widely. In some cases, there was no clear distinction made between the afterlife and a new life on earth. In others, the soul was held to come to earth again and again, with or without a period spent in an afterlife, and without any real hope of ending the cycle. Yet others saw karma as affecting all things, so that men might be reincarnated as animals, insects or plants as a punishment for some minor misdemeanour, whilst those who were weary of mortal strife were encouraged to pay of their past debts by penances and good deeds and pursue perfection as a means of passing beyond the mortal stage into some form of heaven.
Again, some faiths saw each soul as being given a limited number of earthly incarnations to prove itself. If it did well in any it would pass to Heaven, whilst those who did not were sent back to try again. After the spread of Zoroastrianism, some even suggested that after a limited number of lives, those who still failed to live well would face Eternal Damnation without any further opportunity of redemption, clearly the grossest possible corruption of the Doctrine of Reincarnation short of actual abandonment.
There is no time in this brief article to discuss these ideas in detail, but it is important to note that whilst the Doctrine of Reincarnation is the Key to the Ancient Wisdom, properly understood it is a Doctrine based on knowledge of the Divine Plan and the Twin Laws of Divine Justice and Divine Love. Souls may go backward as a result of bad deeds, and they may even fall into hell for a space, but this is no Divine Punishment. It happens as a natural result of their own actions and enables them to learn from their mistakes. No soul can be lost eternally, because within each there lies a Spark of the Divine Fire, which can never be lost or destroyed.
As taught by the Orthodox Catholic Church, the Doctrine of Reincarnation is both logical and just. It is founded in the teachings of Christ Himself and finds support in many other parts of the Old and New Testaments. In its broadest scope the Doctrine of Reincarnation includes the whole journey of the Divine Spark from God back to God. This Journey begins when it leaves God and passing rapidly down through all the various spirit Planes, finally enters gross matter in some part of the Physical Universe. We know little about life on other planets, but on earth, the Divine Spark develops through countless lives spent in the vegetable and animal Kingdoms as well as the lives we spend as human beings. But apart from saying that it is most uncommon for a human soul ever to fall back into the animal kingdom after once having become human, we will for now concern ourselves only with its human incarnations.
It is impossible to say how many of these it may have to endure, because the number will vary widely, depending largely on the amount of effort it makes at various key points in its development. When it first enters the human state, the primitive human spirit is often quite unable to care for itself. In its first life it may not even be carried to term – it may be aborted – or it may be a cretin – a human so sub-normal that it can hardly move, let alone speak properly. In such circumstances it learns mainly through its sub-conscious contact with those humans who care for it and after what is usually only a short time on earth it returns to the Astral and Spirit Planes, where it remains often for many centuries. Then it returns to earth once more.
It is still a primitive soul, but it is much less so than in its first incarnation and so can learn more. For a number of further incarnations it then cycles between life on Earth, life on the Astral Plane and life on the Spirit Plane, only to return to Earth again. Sometimes it may do wrong, and incur bad karma which holds it back – at other times it may do well and travel swiftly towards its goal. It may fall into Hell and have to struggle out again, and it may reach towards Paradise, only to have some hidden fault dash the cup of perfection from its lips just as it is about to drink and achieve its goal.
Eventually, however, after many lives, totalling hundreds of years spent on earth and thousands more spent on the Astral and Spirit Planes the human soul is ready to pass to higher realms. Then and then only is it able to be re-united with its "Overself" - that vast accumulation of knowledge and experience it has been gathering throughout all its many incarnations and which its Angel Guide has kept safe until that moment. Then, thus augmented it is at last able to advance into those Higher spiritual realms where it is no longer needful for it to return to earth in a physical body.
It is those Higher Planes of Existence that we on earth call Heaven – or more properly the Lowest part of Heaven, the Realms of the Saints, for note that even here the spirit has only just begun its journey back to God. Beyond the Planes of the Saints there lie Nine further Planes of Angels, through each of which the spirit must advance in succession, until at length, aeons of ages hence, the Divine Spark within it is able to bring it back to God from whence it came.
Stripped of much that helps to round out our understanding of the details of human existence, this is a brief summary of the doctrine of Reincarnation. For those who would seek further there is much more that could be told, for the Truth is All-Encompassing. And whether it is to be found in the Lost Wisdom of Melchizedek or in the visions of later mystics, the Truth will always be sought by the Orthodox Catholic Church of the New Age.