What is the doctrine of reincarnation?

What is your opinion of the doctrine of Reincarnation?

I believe in incarnation. Man, spiritually, being the offspring of God is, as I have said, something infinite in nature. In his prior existence, he shuffles off the spirit body he received from God and takes on the carnal—he becomes incarnated. But putting off the mortal, he never returns to the material state. Why—that would be a new creation!

How is it that such a doctrine is taught by Spirits?

You must not take everything as correct merely because it comes from a spirit. You must judge of that which is communicated. If it commends itself to reason, accept it—if not, reject it.

I have been reading a communication given by a spirit through a writing medium in which she says she committed suicide and that for this sin she was doomed to abide in dismal darkness and left to her own thoughts for fifty years—that there was no possibility of her rescue from such a condition until the expiry of the fifty years—the period she had stolen from her earth life. Is this the law of the spirit world?

If the light broke in upon her at the expiry of fifty years of darkness, she may have come to such a conclusion. But who may tell the length of the earth life? No one—and so much the better for man, for were it otherwise, how many would weary under the burden of a lengthened life! and a spirit out of the body is no wiser than one still in mortal form. Many lives are shortened by diseases, accidents and violence over which mankind may have but little control. But he who takes away his own life, thereby robbing God and robbing his fellowmen of his precious time is the worst of all criminals and deserves the greatest punishment. I know of some wretched spirits, not suicides, who cannot tell the time they have been wandering in these dark regions and I do not suppose these will endure a heavier retribution than the suicide.

—Hafed, Prince of Persia

Hafed, Prince of Persia—His Experiences in Earth Life and Spirit Life