London Spiritual Magazine, 1865, the editor:

"Re-incarnation is a doctrine which cuts up by the roots all individual identity in the future existence. It desolates utterly that dearest yearning of the human heart for reunion with its loved ones in a permanent world.

"If some are to go back into fresh physical bodies, and bear new names, and new natures, if they are to become respectively Tom Styles, Ned Snooks, and a score of other people, who shall ever hope to meet again with his friends, wife, children, brothers and sisters?

"When he enters the spirit-world and enquires for them, he will have to learn that they are already gone back to Earth, and are somebody else, the sons and daughters of other people, and will have to become over and over the kindred of a dozen other families in succession!

"Surely, no such most cheerless crochet could bewitch the intellects of any people, except under the most especial bedevilment of the most sarcastic and mischievous of devils."

William Howitt, 1875, an English Spiritualist:

Quoting Emma Hardinge Britten: "...thousands in the Other World protest, through distinguished mediums, that they have no knowledge or proofs of reincarnation."

He continues:

"If Reincarnation be true, pitiable and repellent as it is, there must have been millions of spirits who, on entering the other world, have sought in vain their kindred, children and friends. Has even a whisper of such a woe ever reached us from the thousands and tens of thousands of communicating spirits? Never. We may, therefore, on this ground alone, pronounce the dogma of Reincarnation false as the hell from which it sprung."

Charles L. Tweedale, News From The Next World:

"Proof of survival after death we have in abundance, but absolutely no proof of reincarnation as a general principle.

"Such proof, if it were attainable, would be the greatest calamity that ever befell mankind, for at one stroke it would sweep away the continuity of human individuality, destroy the anticipation of meeting and recognising loved ones in the future, reduce survival to a farce and human existence to a travesty.

"If reincarnation were really true as a general principle and experience, then who would any man really be? Would he be John Smith, Julius Caesar or Nebuchadnezzar? Who would any woman be? Who would any woman's child be?

"The height of absurdity is reached when it is alleged that in this reincarnation, the sex also may be changed, and that a man may be the reincarnation of his great-great-great- ... grandmother who lived under a different nationality thousands of years ago!

"In fact there is no limit to the absurdities and inconsistencies of this most pernicious and reprehensible reincarnation theory, which strikes at the root of that survival of conscious individuality which alone can bring any satisfaction to the mind."

Elizabeth Barrett, the great poetess, in a love-letter to Robert Browning, May 17, 1846, expresses a deep lament, "dreary and ghastly," if there were no next-life wherein to claim the man she loves:

She tells Robert that she had been conversing with an acquaintance: “She told me with frankness … that she was a materialist of the strictest order, and believed in no soul and no future state. In the face of those conclusions, she said, she was calm and resigned. It is more than I could be, as I confessed.

My whole nature would cry aloud against that most pitiful result of the struggle here – a wrestling only for dust, and not for the crown. What a resistless melancholy would fall upon me if I had such thoughts! – and what a dreadful indifference. All grief, to have itself to end in! – all joy, to be based upon nothingness! – all love, to feel eternal separation under and over it! Dreary and ghastly, it would be! I should not have strength to love you, I think, if I had such a miserable creed. And for life itself, … would it be worth holding on such terms, - with our blind ideals making mocks and mows at us wherever we turned? A game to throw up, this life would be, as not worth playing to an end!

Editor's note: This lady is not called one of the very greatest writers and poetesses of history for nothing. 

Editor's last word:

Proof of reincarnation, if it were attainable, would be the greatest calamity that ever befell mankind! 

If a man were not allowed to ever again see his beloved, then, quickly, tell me, why should he continue in this world, which is another world's hell? And, more fundamentally, why would he agree to take one more step, draw one more breath, endure one more day? -- if he could not see her again.

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Special note: Many years ago I was visiting a friend, David, a competent psychic-medium. It was a social visit only with no intention of having a “reading.” As we sat in his living room, the conversation turned to this and that, and inadvertently a question arose which he answered in a professional capacity as a medium.

He began to tell me of an entity on the other side who wanted to give me information about a relative. However, as we proceeded, things were being said that were patently untrue: details of my family life which I knew full well were not accurate. I objected to this and said that something was wrong here.

David abruptly called a halt to the session, to the effect:

“I must apologize to you. We weren’t intending to have a reading today, and we sort of drifted into this problem. Normally, when I do a reading, I begin things by saying a prayer which will keep out all mischievous spirits. There are many of these evil characters on the other side who roam the planet to cause trouble for anyone who will listen to them.”

I mention this incident because, earlier, I made a statement about “there is no record of anyone, anywhere, at any time, receiving a message” about a loved one on the other side who’s reincarnated, and now you’ll never have their love again.

Allow me to modify my statement, with particular reference to those who feel compelled to believe in reincarnation: If you go looking for a particular message, if you open your mind to the dark side with its anti-humanistic impulse, you will find some low spirit over there who will tell you what you want to hear.

But, some will ask, how will I know if any message is true or not? I feel there is no better advice on this than what the apostle John gave: “Test the spirits to see whether they are of God.” How do you do that? This question is answered in a hundred Word Gems articles.