Saad Fribgane

Alright so there is this belief system called animism, and they believe that pretty much everything in the universe has a soul and a spirit. Do you think that humans have spirits?
Yes I do believe that humans have spirits, a human with no spirit is a ship with no captain

And so that basically our bodies are there to hold our souls.
C'est bien ça chère amie.

What options do you think could happen to our souls once we die?
I think our death is only that of the physical existence, our souls don’t need the bodies we live in so once our BODY dies we are free to take on any shape or form we want, like a crab changes shells. Ss that off topic?

Nothing is off topic, you can talk about anything. In that case, do you believe once you die your soul could be reincarnated into another life form? Or perhaps that before you were the human you are now your spirit could have been in someone/something else?
I believe so, but I would have to say that reincarnation to me is like making the same mistake twice, or maybe if you look at it as a class you have to pass. Basically our physical manifestation is a test, so if you learned the lesson "life" you would want to take on something perhaps bigger. But to answer your question yes, I believe I was once in an other body, be it human animal or astral, yes. I think so, it would only make sense.

Right. Because otherwise what would happen to your soul? Where would it go?
To the fiery pit of HEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLL. No seriously, I think the soul goes depending on what it has accumulated or "learned" in the past life. Not much of a Buddhist but the nature of things would be unprecedented if we had no past lives. Do you get what I mean, sometimes I could be confusing.

No, I get it. Without a past, there is no future type of thing. Well karma basically believes that everything you do now will kind of determine what happens to you in a future life, so... it's kind of like that in a way.
Yes, but even deeper. Basically what I’m saying is, its obvious for us "TO GO, or TO COME FROM,” its that road that makes us who we are. Our actions are only a mere turning point for where we came from and to where we are going. With each action defines where we could or can’t go, but we are always on the go.

Ahhh ok. We are a constant force. And perhaps our deaths are only just the "turning points" as you say, and the rest of it is a constant journey. Sweet, I got it!
You know, it’s funny to me because we talk about death like its the end but take another look at it and you will see, keeping in mind the following: death is A- inevitable B- unknown, but if you switch it around and see that life itself is unknown and inevitable, it’s not as scary any more. Well I say that life is like a mini death, it’s like a pit stop for the soul and when the soul is charged up, you can go on dying like you use to. Am I crazy?

Wow. That’s such an awesome way to look at it. Maybe you're crazy, but it the best way possible. I think that's really interesting. If this is life, think of what dying would be like!
Its like life, how else could it be? You know what I mean since the only thing you can compare death to is life.

Do you think once we die we'll have recollection of our lives now?
Absolutely. Just look at what the kids are doing these days, there are more and more records of kids talking about there past life now more than before. I’m sure you’ve done it at least once, I know I use to do this all the time as a kid, I use to tell my parents “do you guys remember when I was older?”

Really? I can't remember ever doing that. You’ve done that? Maybe if I asked my parents.
I’ve done it, my little brother’s done it, my cousins do it all the time.

Do you remember something specific you've said?
Kids are becoming more and more telepathic and can recall things from past lives in such clear details that most of the time we just find it cute and funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoSrzpLoODo&feature=related
He [a kid] was able to find the house he use to live in, the name of the people who lived there and all.

Wow. Sweet, I'm going to watch that. That’s pretty incredible. Okay, well kind of going into a different direction a bit, if you were to have been any animal in a past life, let's say, what do you think that would have been.
I thought you knew that, we spoke about this over coffee. Take a guess.

Well, I know what it is but it's for the sake of the interview.
I think I might have been an elephant in a past life, there’s just something about elephants when I look at one, time kind of freezes and I start to look through the eyes of the elephant. It's easy to me. Seems natural.

That’s the exact description of how one would feel about their totem animal, an inexplicable attraction, obsession, fascination with a certain animal. They are basically your guide.
Yeah, to me it’s all that compressed into a glance.

Wonderful. I’m guessing if you go to a zoo you tend to linger by the elephants.
I didn’t even know they had other animals in the zoo till I was like 12. I always use to say “let's go see the elephants.”

Wow. That’s really something. Have you ever touched an elephant?
I fed it. Just the trunk. I wanna hug it. Maybe i should be a vet.

Anyways, I think that’s it really for questions. Do you have anything to add?
Yeah I would just like to say that all this elephant talk is making me hungry, and I would also like to add that if you ever come in contact with an elephant "and you don’t die" please restrain from feeding them peanuts. Like seriously, who came up with that?

Ahah they don't like peanuts?
I’m just wondering why peanuts, they have access to so much shit, like actual fruits and veggies, and obviously leafs.

Well exactly! A peanut is like a treat, I guess.

Kevin Sanscartier

Do you think that as humans we have a soul?
Yeah, obviously I think we have a soul. There’s something that pushes us farther than our mind and our body and for me it’s my soul.

What do you think would happen to your soul once you die?
There are philosophers that have actually said that there’s no hell and there can only be a heaven because God had given us free will then why would he say if you do that you go to hell? That’s why you can only go to heaven.

And you think that our soul will go to heaven when we die?
Yeah, I do.

Do you believe in the possibility of reincarnation?
Oh, I also believe in reincarnation. I don’t really believe in a specific religion though, I believe that you build your own religion… kind of? And reincarnation exists because you need to learn, you need to experience things and you can’t learn that in one lifetime.

If you were to be an animal in a past life, what do you think that would have been?
A lion.

Really? A lion?
Yeah why wouldn’t I?

No I’m asking you because that’s what my answer is! I thought you were just saying it because you heard me say it.
No no.

Okay… so a lion. Cool. This is really weird.
Why? Did you answer the same as I did?

No but like, lions are my all-time favourite animal. If I was any animal I would be a lion.
Okay, Haha.

It’s just really weird that you would say lion.
I love lions. I’d probably be like in the back of the pack like getting the last food, but I’d still be a lion.

Why do you think you would have been a lion?
I have such a huge ego and pride and you can’t just let it go to waste. The only animal that’s like that is a lion.

Did you always like lions?
Well I used to like tigers, just as a kid. I think it was a kid thing to do. Lions they run fast… I run fast.

Okay, so do you believe in karma?
I don’t believe in karma but I mean, things do catch up to you, which is kind of like karma, but I don’t think I’d call it karma because if you rob a bank and expect not to be caught it’s kind of ridiculous. Bad things lead to bad things.
Yeah caus Karma says like, if you do bad things in this life when you’re reincarnated you’ll be like a bug..
Oh yes, but I don’t believe in reincarnation with animals I believe you always reincarnate into a human until you’ve finished your initial goal.

There’s like a theory that every human spirit or soul or whatever started off as an animal and like it took thousands and thousands of years for the spirit to reincarnate until finally it became a human and that you can’t go backwards.
I know, I love that, that you can’t go back into an animal. I don’t know if I believe in that, I don’t know why. I do believe in reincarnation, but I haven’t studied it, so I couldn’t really tell you in details.

Okay, so what do you think about the fact that we’re actually both left handed, our birthdays are a day apart and you answered the animal questions with “lion?”
It’s freaky.

It’s weird!
Why is this on the interview?

Because it’s kind of similar, I might as well ask you.
Why, you think we’re twins?

I don’t know.
Oh, you actually think that we knew each other back in the past or something?

I don’t know, but it’s weird that we have these kinds of things in common, I don’t know.
Yeah, okay, it’s weird. It’s really weird. I don’t know what else to say. Why? What do you think?

I don’t know, there must be like… a reason?
There’s a significance.

Yeah, there must be some sort of significance to it, otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense.
You like New Age?

New Age?
New Age is like this, this is what we’re talking about. You’ve never taken a course in new age?

No.
I’ve taken, you should take one. It talks about like karma, and reincarnation and dharma and all these things.

Really?
I think you’d like it. […] If you get what I mean like, why would you just be able to be granted to leave. You have to know yourself and know why you’re here till you get to the point of being able to leave.

Until you finally accomplish everything and then you get to go like a spirit kingdom or whatever.
Yeah. And then I still don’t know what you do after that.

You just chill.
Yeah, I don’t know. What do you believe in?

I’m not sure, when I was a kid I always kind of liked the idea of reincarnation. I feel like I was an animal, like I really do feel that.
We are animals.

Well yeah, but I mean like, not a human.
“I ate grass”

Yeah! Haha. Or like, antelopes.
Chase them down. They’re smart too. They’re super smart [lions].

And they run super fast.
Yeah but they can’t run for long. They’re too hairy and they can’t sweat from their fur. So they have to take a lot of breaks.

And anyways, the male lions don’t do shit. The female lions do everything.
What, you thought you were a female?

No! A male.
Yeah, for sure. They’re so lazy.

Yeah, totally.
Is that it? Yeah?

Yeah.

Shannon Donaldson

Do you believe as a person we have a soul?
Of course, for sure, for sure.

Some people think that we’re just the electricity in our brains, or whatever...
No, I feel like our body is just what carries our soul.

Okay, do you think that once we die our soul could be possibly reincarnated into other life forms?
Yes, probably not humans or animals or anything on planet earth, I don’t really think. Somewhere else.

That’s pretty cool. You think we could be reincarnated to like-
-another universe or another dimension. I don’t think that the soul just evaporates once the body dies, I think it definitely goes somewhere.

Yeah, that it doesn’t just float away.
Yeah, just stop… being.

Do you think it goes to like, some spirit kingdom?
Sort of… something like that. Another world where all the other spirits go.

If you were let’s say to be reincarnated into an animal, for example, what animal do you think that would be?
I think I would be an ostrich.

What makes you say that?
I don’t know, I always felt like it kind of represented my character.

In what ways?
Just the way it is, when it’s scared it kind of puts it’s head in the ground and like, I don’t know, runs around like crazy.

It’s tall.
It’s tall, has a long neck.

Karma believes that pretty much everything you do in this life is going to determine what you reincarnate into in a future life. Like if you do bad things you’re going to be reincarnated into a maggot or something.
I don’t really believe that. I think Karma is something on earth, like if you do bad things on earth bad things will happen to you on earth but what you turn into is basically what your personality is.

If let’s say you take Karma into consideration and how as a person you are now, what do you think you would be?
Hmm… it’s hard to say because I do think I’m a good person who does bad things sometimes, but everyone does. I don’t think I would be a bug. I think I’d be something nice.

Something decent.
Not like a lion or anything.

*cough* *cough*
*cough*

Do you have anything to say? Like any ideas that you’ve thought of about what happens when you die?
Well I watched this video on YouTube along the lines of string theory and they said there’s several parallel universes so I think depending on how you act on earth you get separated into different ones, and different worlds.

Oh! Interesting. So there’s like good parallel universes and bad ones.
Yeah! You get divided, and that’s how you get divided, while you’re on earth.

Huh. Cool.
But uh, when you are reincarnated I don’t believe that you’re any one form of like you know, human, animal, bug whatever. I think you’re just like a floating energy.

A spirit.
Yeah. Just kind of like… I don’t know what texture we would be like.

There’s this theory that when your soul leaves your body you’ll get sick and die eventually. And lets say your soul leaves your body before it’s accomplished goals in life that you’ve wanted to achieve, like for example let’s say you really wanted to have children that if your soul leaves your body before you had the chance that your spirit would go an steal the spirit of a child, therefore killing the child.
I don’t think that way. I think like, let’s say you died and let’s say someone close to you was murdered and you were thriving to catch that person and you never did your soul would kind of... haunt them... never really take another [spirit].

But it would stay?
It would stay until something happens to make it leave. And that’s why I kind of believe in ghosts.

Yeah. Because there must be something that kind of happens to our consciousness. I don’t really feel it would kind of like just shut off forever.
Yeah and go where?

It’s like obviously we have a consciousness otherwise what are we?
Yeah, it’s in our body.

It’s like our brain is holding it or something.
Yeah.

Cool. Do you have anything else to say?
Uhhh… that’s what I think.

Alright. Coolio.

Dalal Batah

Do you believe in reincarnation, the possibility that our souls once we die transfer themselves into another form of life?

I somewhat believe that it does, yes.

What other possibilities do you think could happen once we die?
Well, definitely your soul ends up somewhere else. It’s always been a mystery. People have a tendency to look to the sky after someone has passed on, but I believe that our soul may travel and end up reincarnating into someone else on this planet, somewhere in the world. It may help to revive someone who possibly is ill or terminally ill.

So like, if someone here dies their soul could go into someone that’s sick and it could help them?
I think it could happen. When it’s not your time to go, it’s not your time to go. So perhaps when you’re hanging on for dear life and it’s just not your time someone else’s soul just may take over your body and give you that second chance to stay on and complete your mission in this life.

It’s interesting you say that because there’s a belief system called Animism and they believe that almost everything in the universe has a soul and a spirit and they say that once your spirit leaves your body that you’ll become ill and die without your spirit. So I guess if another spirit would come into your body it could help you out.
And revive you.

Yeah, and they say that if a spirit leaves it’s body and the person dies and it feels like it hasn’t fulfilled it’s goal in life, like let’s say this spirit really wanted to have children and it was never able to do so in it’s life, it will steal the spirit of a child and bring it with it to the spirit kingdom. Which I think is pretty scary but…
Well, in my experience, and I got to think about it more was when I had a miscarriage after my first child and conceived another child not to long after that and I met someone who said to me that the baby that died, basically, his soul was carried around my neck until the next child came along and took over his body. So it’s kind of interesting because I don’t know that if the son I have now is actually carrying the soul of the child that I lost.

That’s kind of freaky. Alright, so moving on a little bit. If you we’re to be any animal in a past life what do you think that would have been?
Well, since I was very young if any one ever asked me any questions about animals the first animal that always came to my mind was a horse. So I would have to assume or imagine that that would be the animal. Because it’s the first animal that comes to mind all the time, and also being a horse in the Chinese zodiac, I don’t know if it has any connection, but perhaps it does.

When you have an animal that you instantly think of it’s your Spirit Animal and this animal is like a guide throughout your whole life. They’re there to pass you a message or tell you something or just be your guide throughout your life and to help you out… And you could just have a natural attraction towards this animal and not even know why so maybe that’s exactly it, you know, it’s like you don’t even know why it just happens.
Yeah, and I’ve always regretted… well not really a regret, but it’s something that I used to enjoy, horse back riding. We had more chances at the time in my younger days but, I always wondered if it’s something I should have maybe tried to perfect myself at or really get into the equestrian world. I could have been very comfortable there.

Hindus base their lives on Karma, which is the idea that if you do bad things during this life you’ll be reincarnated into a lesser life form in a future life. If you do good things you’ll be reincarnated into something else. This being said, if you were to be reincarnated into an animal a future life, what do you think that would be?
Depends how bad I was haha. If I was really a bad person, which I don’t think I am, I don’t know… So you want to know which kind of animal I would be if I was a bad person?

No, no. Just being the person you are now, what kind of animal do you think you might be?
Oh, being the person I am now! Uhm…

Or even any life form, it doesn’t even have to be an animal.
Well, I would probably either be some type of flower if it was possible to come back as a plant form. I would say probably an orchid, or a tulip. And as an animal, well I would imagine it would take on the form of a horse because that’s all that comes to mind. But I could also be, probably… nope, I can’t think of any other animal haha. Definitely not a bird.

No?
No. I don’t have a good singing voice hahaha.

It’s funny, caus a lot of people say a bird because they’re like, “oh, I can fly, I can be free and fly over everything…”
No, I’m afraid of heights. I would definitely not be a bird.

Haha. Okay, that’s it!
That’s all?!

Yup! Do you have any final words?
I think the whole subject is very interesting and it’s something that’s.. I think that we’re all connected somehow with other shapes and forms and other souls on this earth.

Ok. Thanks!
You’re welcome.

Sean Cryer

So, what do you think about reincarnation?
Uhm, I think that what we are is the electricity in our brain and that when we die and the electricity stops, we’re gone.

And that’s it? That your soul just kind of stops?
Or whatever that shit in your brain is just kind of stops and then you’re done.

Okay. Interesting. There are religions that believe that certain objects have spirits, like rocks or trees and that animals have spirits and that we have animal guides that come and are part of your life. Is there any animal that you’ve always felt attracted to?
An animal I like..?

Is there an animal you were obsessed with when you were a kid?
I liked mountain lions... when I was kid. Just in general though..? I don’t know if one comes to mind that I’m actually really fond of. It’s funny, I’m sure id be able to think about it and come up with an answer but on the spot I don’t know.

There’s nothing that comes to your mind at first?
Eagles are cool.

What is it about eagles you like?
Just that they own the sky. You know, they can see really far and fly really high, they have huge wings. They’re pretty, I don’t know.

Yeah, cool. And mountain lions? What about mountain lions is it that you like?
I just thought they were cool, I was a kid. I never had a real like, reason to like them

You don’t have to have a reason, sometimes it’s just like a…
They’re nice.

Yeah.
They’re cool looking.

Yeah, I like lions. They’re my favourite animal. Uhm, so are you familiar with karma at all?
Like, what goes around comes around?

Yeah. Well, in Hinduism they base their whole lives on it. Everything you do in your current life will affect you in a future life when you reincarnate and if you do bad things you will reincarnate into a lesser life form.
What do I think about that? Well, I don’t know, I think all these sort of beliefs make sense how they can be comforting to someone who’s afraid of dying and just, not being around anymore. But none of these ideas have really seemed to make enough sense for me to believe them, you know? As much as I’d love to be comforted by the fact that I’m not going to disappear it’s the only thing that’s ever felt really true to me. I came upon the realization that I was going to die when I was a kid. I was thinking about like, Egyptians, and mummies and I was like “why are they in those coffins?” for so long, and then I was like “oh shit, they’re dead.” Then I realized like, “I’m going to die.” And I sort of freaked out and I asked my dad in the car, I still remember, I was like “what’s going to happen when I die?” And my dad was like “I don’t know.” And I just thought, there’s going to be nothing. That’s what I thought, there’s going to be absolutely nothing. I’m not going to even know, it's going to be like an endless abyss of nothing.

Do you feel sad knowing that?
Yeah, it scares the shit out of me.

Do you feel that, because nothing is waiting for you when you die that you have to make the best out of things now?
Well, I really enjoy life, that’s all I can say, is that I don’t want to go. I’m one of those people that would be fine living for ever. Some people are like “oh fuck that, man. I can’t, I wouldn’t be able to” and I’m like “no man.” Like, if vampires exist, come and fuckin bite me because I’m down. I’ll go eat people for a living, as long as I can be around for as long as there is to be, you know?

Yeah. Would you want to get older or just stay the same age?
I don’t care, along as I’m here. And I can still think.

Okay, I think that’s good. I don’t know what else to ask you. Do you have anything to say?
Well, it's funny because I don’t think I’ll be around, I mean, I know when I die that’s it, but on the same token I wont sign a donor card because I don’t want anything taken out of my body when I’m dead. I need my things.

Even though you’re dead and you consciousness is inexistent?
Yeah I feel like I’ll still be there, which I guess I’m ego centric, I think like I’ll live forever. I tell myself that, so I don’t have to worry about it. Also I read this comic a while ago where there was a guy who was just like “I’m going to live forever” and then he does. So then I was like-

“I wish that was me”
That guy knows where it’s at. I want to like, follow his footsteps, you know.

K, well I guess thaat’s it!
Cool.

Greg Lozoff

Ok, so basically I’m going to ask you some questions about reincarnation.
Ok.

So, there’s this religion called animism and they believe that pretty much everything in the universe has a soul and a spirit. What do you think happens to your spirit once you die.
Uhmm.. your spirit… that’s a good question. I have to think about it for a sec.

Okay.
This is assuming that I believe people have spirits?

Yeah and that you have a soul. If you think you don’t have a soul, what…
I guess what I’ve been trained to believe is that your soul goes to heaven and lives there in some sort of magic fairy land with all the other good souls. And if you have a negative soul, then it goes to hell. But I don’t know if I really believe that, I don’t know if I really believe in any of it.

Do you think that there’s any possibility that when you die your soul could be reincarnated into another creature? Or considering that animism for example, believes that rocks and tress and stuff have spirits too, what do you think?
I think I’d like to believe that, I don’t know if I actually deep down do but I think that if you think that way it makes you a better person because then you try to be good in this life so that you come back.

Which is Karma basically.
So yeah. Lets see if I can elaborate...

But that makes sense, because Karma believes that everything you do in your life now you need to do it well so that you’re not reincarnated into a lesser life form.
Yeah, I mean.. That’s.. I don’t know if it’s actually fact that people come back as other things but I like to think that way. It’s kind of nice.

So, continuing on that a bit, if you were to be any animal lets say in your past life, what do you think that would have been?
I love this question. Uhmm, in my past life?

Yeah.
To make me come out as a stupid human? I was probably a terrible animal! Is the next question what animal I want to be? I’ll answer that one! Haha. In my past life, I was probably… I would say a dog.

Why do you say a dog?
I don’t know, but like a wild dog. Not like a dog that’s domesticated. Like a dog that lives in the wild.

Like a wolf type dog?
Yeah! I like that! Like a wolf, exactly!

Were you ever obsessed with wolves at any point in your life?
Yes. Currently. I actually just bought a national geographic magazine because I had a five hour wait at the airport and I read it cover to cover and it was about wolves. It was really interesting. There’s like a battle going on between like, I can’t remember where, somewhere in the states… they basically killed off the entire wolf population at one point because they were killing all their livestock, like farmers and stuff, but now there’s sort of like a.. what’s the word.. like all of a sudden there’s a lot of wolves that are back.

Haha. The wolves are back.
The wolves are back. They’ve been uh, having sex with each other haha. What’s with me today? Procreating?

Reproducing?
Fornecating. They’ve been creating more wolves and now there’s lots of wolves and the locals are pissed and they’ve been killing them off again and they’ve just made wolf hunting legal again. Cause it was illegal for a time since they were sort of endangered in that area but now there’s like a yearly quota of wolves that you’re aloud to hunt.

Wow.
But yeah, I love wolves.

Okay. When you were a kid and stuff was there any animal you were like obsessed with?
Uhm… dogs. Wolves. I like penguins. Actually as a kid I was like obsessed with animals. They used to take us to the library and let us read whatever books we wanted, I went straight to this shelf with just books of pictures of animals, and I would just look at those. I loved animals. I still do. I go to the biodome, just on my own, and just walk around. When I’m in New York and my girlfriend has school I go to the Bronx Zoo, just by myself.

What animal do you linger at?
Oh my god. I spend hours watching the gorillas, cause they’re so fascinating. They’re like humans! I literally spend over an hour just watching gorillas. But I only go to the zoo alone because when I go with other people they tend to want to hurry along and I like to just linger and watch animals for hours and hours and hours. The polar bears are also cool, the penguins.

Those are always cool. So, according to paganism and other similar belief systems, an animal that you’re kind of obsessed with or that you tend to be really attracted to is you “totem spirit animal” and this animal is supposed to be your spirit guide and pass a message on to you. Also, when an animal crosses your path during the day, it’s there to pass you a message to tell you something. Have you seen any animals today?
Today, I think you’re the only animal I’ve seen so far. But I usually don’t (I’m super superstitious), like if a black cat crosses a street I usually pull over and wait till another car passes first.
Really?!
Yeah. My dad taught me that. He’s been doing that ever since I was a kid, so I sort of picked up on that.

Okay, so you think you may have been a wild dog but if you were to be reincarnated into an animal in a future life, what would that be?
That’s the question I wanted. I want to say a bird, because then you could like fly, and just soar over the world and be really free. But birds aren’t really that smart. So then I was thinking that maybe I’d like to be a dolphin, because you know they look happy, they’re always smiling… but then you get cut up and eaten by people in dolphin soup. So, I think I’ll stick with a bird. A well respected bird.

Like an eagle or something?
Yeah, not like a pigeon, like a bald eagle. Or a hawk.

Well that’s pretty much it I guess.
Yeah? Are you sure there’s nothing else I could answer? I’d be happy to answer anything even if it’s not related.

Hmm let me think… Oh well I’ll tell you something interesting, and you could tell me what you think about it.
Okay.

When I asked you what animal you could have been in a past life, it’s because there’s this theory that for an animal to reincarnate into a human it takes a really long process of over thousands of years. This is because their spirit isn’t as developed as a human spirit and sometimes they join with other animals to be able to slowly evolve and become a human.
Okay.

And when an animal is on the brink of turning into a human, they’re called “super animals” and they’re these animals that are really intelligent like circus animals or animals in movies. And when they finally become human, they turn into a kind of animalistic human, maybe like a criminal or really like, an animalistic type person.
Really?

Yeah. So I thought that was cool, what do you think about that?
So then… how do animals become good people?

Well their spirit continues to evolve as they reincarnate and as humans we are a certain evolution of our spirits and we will continue to evolve into better humans.
Yeah, you think so?

I think it’s a cool concept.
Do you think (I’m interviewing you now), do you think like, we’ll eventually lose stuff that’s like not important to being a human?

What do you mean?
Like, earlobes? Or nipples on men?

Oh. Maybe. Well that’s evolution.
Exactly. Like, what do we need that for? And do you think like, we’ll grow extra fingers eventually?

That’s possible, if your evolution continues. Maybe not soon but like in thousands of years because it took this long for us to be how we are now.
It’s true, that makes sense. Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, animals evolving into criminals.

But spirit wise.
Yeah spirit, obviously.

Have you ever met a really smart animal? Or a really animalistic human?
Well, I met apes and they’re really fuckin smart. Apes can read papers and stuff. But it’s true, even when I was watching the apes I would be standing right at the ape enclosure… gorillas, sorry, not apes. They don’t like that. And I would be like looking at him, and we would make eye contact and it was like looking at a human. And then he would all of a sudden just run at the glass and smash on it. And he would look really pissed off that me.

That’s terrifying.
Maybe, maybe it’s true.

He was on the brink of becoming a human.
Maybe, maybe his spirit will pass off into a criminal. So no animals can become good people? Or do they all start off as bad people?

Well, there not necessarily bad, but they’re not as developed as a human spirit that’s been around for a long time.
Ok fair enough, I’ll believe you.

So, any last words?
Uhm… what’s your project on?

Animals and reincarnation, basically. I’m going to draw you as an animal.
Sweeeet. Yeah I think I sort of do believe in reincarnation, that if people lead good lives they’ll come back as something good and if they don’t lead good lives then they’ll come back as like, a maggot.

That’s kind of like a Karma view of things. It’s kind of like heaven and hell but on earth.
Kind of.

Ok. Thank you!
Is that cool? Okay.

Questionnaire

Want to tell me what you think about reincarnation?  Because I want to know!

Copy & paste the following questionnaire as a comment and I'll post up your answers!




Name (put a fake name if you wish to stay anonymous):

Age:

Do you believe you have a soul? (If not, what is your consciousness?)

Animism is a belief system where those who practice it believe that everything (or almost everything) in the universe has a soul and spirit, including rocks, trees, animals and certain innimate objects.  Could this be true?

What do you believe could happen to your soul once it leaves your body?

Are you aware of the idea of reincarnation?

Do you believe once you’ve died your soul can be reincarnated into another life form?

One idea of reincarnation is that your spirit cannot regress back into the form of an animal once it has entered the human kingdom.  This means that the spirit of a certain animal has evolved over time and entered your body.  What do you believe this animal could be?

Hindus base their lives on Karma, the idea that if you do bad things during your life you will be reincarnated into a lesser form in your next life. That being said, if you were to be reincarnated as an animal in a future life, what would it be?
When you were a child, was there any animal in particular that you were obsessed with?

(If yes) How do you feel about that animal today? Do you think it’s relevant? (if no, is there any animal now that you feel you are close to?)

According to pagan (worship of animals) this is your totem animal, an animal meant to guide you during your life. Do you feel a connection to this animal? People can sometimes have up to four spirit animals. Are there any other animals you particularly like or that you’ve had an attraction to?

Anything else to add?

Have any question ideas?  Feel free to add your own!



Thank you!

About

Title: What Animal
Medium/technique: Graphite pencil on paper



Reincarnation is a fascinating theory that has been around for centuries. In a world mainly dominated by science and facts, humans see no purpose in believing in the mystical. Religion has been a large part of society for thousands of years, but in recent times, it has lost some of its influence. Although this is not necessarily negative, for religion has brought along several harmful aspects to the world, the idea of mysticism and magic has faded along with it. We hardly stop to think about our soul, spirit and how it came to be a part of us.

What I've tried to accomplish through this piece is to find out how people feel about their souls, the possibility of reincarnation and a human's relationship with animals. The idea that our spirits may have once inhabitied the body of an animal has always appealed to me and through this piece I hope to not necessarily make people believe in reincarnation, but make them more aware of their own spirits and souls and how they’ve come to be human.