“In the economy of nature, nothing is ever lost. I cannot believe that the soul of man shall prove the one exception.” —Gene Stratton-Porter (1863–1924)
There it is…a clear statement written almost a century before my own conclusion of similar ilk. I’ve thought for decades that nothing vanishes—not matter including living beings, not energy including the nuclear engines we know as stars or suns—nothing at all. Matter become energy becomes matter; thus, nothing that exists ever disappears/vanishes/evaporates/ceases to exist. Consciousness, or spirit, or soul, or qi, or ka, or that-which-lives is real, provable, tangible by its interactions with other consciousnesses. Why should consciousness be the only thing in the cosmos that evaporates, when we know that every thing else in the cosmos continues in other forms? Thus, living spirits continue.
Reincarnation
British Traditional Wicca incorporates a core belief, that reincarnation happens. Our funerary prayer includes a simple request of our Lord of Death & Rebirth:
…when our time comes, we will enter Thy realms gladly. …when rested and refreshed among our dear ones, we shall be reborn by Thy grace and by the grace of the Great Mother. Let it be at the same time and in the same place as our beloved ones. And may we meet and know and remember, and love them again…
So mote it be.
One Witch’s Cottage 