Reincarnated into a human from being an animal?

[Clairsentient_Wolf]

Anybody else think that in a past life they were an animal?

Before the animal, I think I was another person but way back in the 1900s or 1800s...I can almost imagine myself, with my eyes closed, watching the Salem Witch Trials. I see more than 3 girls (as movies depict) being burned alive. The fuel they used was made from oil and gunpowder - highly reactive to any kind of spark that will make a fire.

The spark was lit with a flint or some other kind of tool used back then to provide warmth from a fire. There was straw and hay surrounding these people - there wasn't just women, several men were thought to be either married to witches knowingly or they were warlockes. I feel myself standing in the back of the crowd, watching, wishing I could help.

Then I turn around and walk away almost with smile on my face; I guess knowing they never caught me.

As far as the animal reincarnation, I feel myself running through the forest. Diving under bushes, trees, shrubs. I am chasing something possibly dinner. Whatever it is, it's big. Like a deer or an elk. Something large even as big as a moose.

I hear others trampling around me, some ahead and some behind. But I feel like just another part of the group. I am not the leader, I am not at the bottom of the pyramid. I can feel hot breath flowing out of me and large teeth/fangs. I am hungry but I know that if we (my group/pack) fail to catch the meal then we will be ok for the time being.

I have never had pups (I'm assuming I was a wolf and this is why I feel such a connection with them) and never true love connections within the pack. I was a lone wolf inside of a pack of wolves. I feel my nose pick up on scents and my ears on sound that humans would never recognize. I feel myself getting angry and lashing out, possibly biting and drawing blood from other females in the pack. I am the least likely to hurt any of the wolves but I am also defending myself well.

What do you guys think and do you recall memories from your past lives?

[Seraphin]

Well in Esoteric Eastern tradition and Kabbalistic point of view, this can happen. Usually incarnation into lower life forms according to Eastern Traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism is a punishment or a drastic rectification. To Hindus, this is called "Punarjanma". Hindus and Kabbalists also detail the circumstances that can lead to reincarnation in animal, vegetative and even mineral form.

There is, however, an important difference between souls that reincarnate into human bodies and those that reincarnate into other beings and species. When a human soul incarnates into animal in its next life, it does so merely as an observer. That is to say that this specie is like any other specie of its kind, except that a reincarnated soul is trapped inside. The agonizing pain, trouble and sorrow the soul experiences while trapped inside the animal or a plant, forced to live and observe the life of this specie while helpless to control its own behavior, serves to redevelop and rehabilitate it. For the most part, rehabilitation occurs when the soul needs to overcome the challenges to which it succumbed in its previous life.

Additionally, while this soul can't really reprogram or redevelop itself as it cant control the action of the specie, it can sometimes be rehabilitated through the words and actions of others, like for example, someone recites a blessing over it. If no one helped the soul to be rehabilitated, the souls continue to be reincarnated, in decreasing order, as insects, as plants, and even eventually as inanimate objects like rocks and minerals, as long as the need exists and hasn't fulfilled its mission yet.

[Vesca]

I always wondered about the details of the eastern tradition idea of reincarnation, thanks Seraphin for filling in some of those informational gaps!

[Red Ember]

Well in Esoteric Eastern tradition and Kabbalistic point of view, this can happen. Usually incarnation into lower life forms according to Eastern Traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism is a punishment or a drastic rectification. To Hindus, this is called Punarjanma. Hindus and Kabbalists also detail the circumstances that can lead to reincarnation in animal, vegetative and even mineral form.

Lower life forms? This is a view point I have never been able to go along with. I know animals are very different from us but I can never see myself as above and somehow better then them. For this reason I have always found the Eastern view of reincarnation and lower rebirth difficult to accept.

I do however believe in reincarnation, but I have no idea how it works.

[Seraphin]

Early shamans looked at animals as their equals and didn't differentiate between animals and humans kingdom. Some pagans even looked at animals as higher beings by worshiping them which made animal cults and totemistic practices part of paleolithic man's magickal and spiritual landscape.

According to Hinduism, human form has a higher status because only them can generate further karma. Yes, humans and animals all engage in emotional and instinctive responses such as aversion ("dvesa"), attraction ("raga"), duality ("dvanda") and delusion ("moha"). We get mad and angry, we think and do ways in order to survive, and are driven to procreate. This all emanates from the lower animal mind (gross mind).

But there exists in humans something that is very different and much higher. Humans do possess the reason and will. Only humans have the ability to forge a relationship with the Divinity, transcendent dimension of existence. This is where humans enter the unique realm of making free will moral decisions. Only humans have the ability to choose higher soul pleasures and can attain "moksha", the spirtual awakening that liberates them from the cycle of death and rebirth which is called "samsara".

Personally, I don't look at animals as equal to humans as it requires equal or identical treatment (which I don't believe since some animals are created for human consumption, some are created to be helpers of humanity, and some are created to self-sacrifice) but I'm giving them equal consideration. Animals surely deserve to live their lives free from suffering and exploitation. All animals have the ability to suffer in the same way and to the same degree that we do. They feel pain, pleasure, fear, sadness, anger, and motherly love.

I also believe in reincarnation but not as the inevitable, circular thing that many people do. Not every soul chooses to reincarnate. It is just one of the option in my belief. Yoruba tradition believe in "Atunwa", reincarnation within the family (familial or lineal rebirth). There's no guarantee however that my dead mother will "come back" in the birth of my child. Sometimes, it takes years to reincarnate.

[YanaKhan]

The picture you describe, the one where you watched the girls burn, couldn't have happened in Salem. The alleged witches there were hanged. Witches were usually burned in Europe and to be precise in Northern and Western Europe, except in England. So what you describe may be your previous life, but it wasn't in Salem.
Just sayin'

[ness]

Seraphin, you are pretty spot on when it comes to reincarnation in Hindu religion. For that matter, not all humans are considered equal because we all could be at various places in our soul evolution. This does not come as an idea so we can discriminate but it is for us to understand where each of are and where others might be. This is why people who are said to be higher up in their soul evolution often focus more on helping others get there too.