Everything Under the Moon

Since Wiccans believe in reincarnation, why is Samhain a time where the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnes? I mean, that would mean that ghostly freely roam our plane, but if all spirits reincarnated, where are those spirits coming from?

Not every spirit reincarnates immediately after death. Some people don't realize they're dead right away. Others choose to wait in the spirit realm for loved ones to join them. My dad waited for my mom.

Snow

chricia wrote:Since Wiccans believe in reincarnation, why is Samhain a time where the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnes? I mean, that would mean that ghostly freely roam our plane, but if all spirits reincarnated, where are those spirits coming from?

(Personal thoughts only)

From a different perspective of a witch with a belief in incarnation (rather then reincarnation). Imagine a vast lake; this is the single universal soul (the objective) that is drawn up in clay vessels; incarnates to produce a multiplicity of spirits and expressions (the subjective) which eventually all return to the waters from which they sprang. One soul, many spirits - you, me, everybody, everything which isn't the whole, which many pagans would call "the Great Goddess".

A duality and an alignment; the one and the many.

Eventually they return ... because these spirits may linger, in the world, in the individual spirit, in the soul ... because they are all intrinsically connected. This is why the dead can be contacted, spirits "summoned" (not as strange as people initially think), "past lives recalled" - we are all connected.

Samhain is a celebration of death as Beltane is a celebration of life (weird to think of it like that but it is), the pagan sabbats are part of the cycle of life but bridge the gap between the material and the spiritual, just outside of what we consider linear time (time being a meaningless concept in the spiritual realm where the passage of things is marked by spiritual acts which echo). This being the case; the 'veils' are thinner, the spiritual planes closer to the material ones, or perhaps we simply are more receptive to them.

In Eastern religions, reincarnation isn't an end goal or just an explanation. You have to break the cycle of reincarnation. As people said before not everyone reincarntes right away nor does everyone want to. Wiccans also believe in afterlives such as summerland.

Lady_Lilith wrote:In Eastern religions, reincarnation isn't an end goal or just an explanation. You have to break the cycle of reincarnation. As people said before not everyone reincarntes right away nor does everyone want to. Wiccans also believe in afterlives such as summerland.

(More blue sky thinking)

Interesting isn't it, we incarnate to experience, learn and evolve yet the "goal" is to break the cycle of reincarnation? Or is it more simply the eventual destination? To reunite.

The belief of incarnation (as opposed to reincarnation) is one of aligned paradox, toward the idea of the universal "soul" existing but being in the constant process of coming into existence, an individual breaking a cycle would be them returning to the source; pouring the goblet of water (spirit) back into the sea (soul).

The summerlands, to me, has always come across as a state of being then an actual place, like near death experience, it would suggest that even a universal soul retains coherency or at least interconnectivity between it spirits - a tunnel of light when friends and family gather? The spiritual path from the object to the subject, where all is universal. Or where we recognise those spiritual facets in the whole.

It could be that "in death" we simply become aware (beyond consciousnesses blinkers) of a connection that was always there - the silver thread connecting the individual to everything.

As a druid might say "all spiritual journeys originate and return to the same source". It is our very individuality itself which creates the "hard lines" of structure, the particular palette and style which creates an illusion of seperateness.

Maybe it isn't so much a visitation with 'spirits' as it is a form communication with those on a different plane or level. While gifted shamans and witches, oracles and mediums can reach an altered state to do this, during the Samhain season cosmic interference can be reduced to the point that with a little focus anyone can get through for a while. I have always thought that those who have gone ahead are not so much in a different place so much as on a different channel, a different frequency that is a little broader than usual so that we can access it more easily. Further, I believe that this is evident on all planes and that those gone from us are aware that this is the best time to visit. In that, separation is not so much physical as it is vibratory and our stunted human senses need any edge they can get. Perhaps those beyond get excited and look forward to this part of the yearly cycle just as we do.