The Mystery Of Reincarnation

Random musings they are, playing around my mind today for no particular reason. How many humans ever lived since "the creation" or since Homo sapiens evolved? And then: have all of whatever figure is assumed (and "assumed" is the operative word for most part) been new and different or have, at least some, been "recycled" as in reincarnated? This latter, in itself, already admits existence of the "soul" or that aspect of human (at least) life that is separate from and survives the physical body and could come again and again — in different bodies, at perhaps different families or even places...
Now, there's no pretending these random musings are not "INFLAMMABLE" thoughts, especially for the very religious amongst us. And large is the number. And some 1,000 (even 500) years ago I would engage publicly in these thoughts only at the risk of "my head not remaining on my neck" beyond the moment!
I am, therefore, not addressing myself to those who would rather not allow these thoughts to engage their minds; those for whom the world has only begun no more than 4,000 or so years ago for the simple reason that to contemplate anything beyond that, to admit scientific evidence of human life, even "modern humans", having been around for 100,000 years (not to talk of 500,000!) is to negate their religious contentions — of creation and expected terminus; its imminence and even hour!
I seek to offend no one religion, I seek merely to think and imagine. And in doing so, recognise the unfathomable essence of life. But in recognising it, not therefore sitting there idly wringing my hands but taking it that the job is not done until all questions are asked and all answers are sought; that the advancement of mankind has come only through such enquiries and desires to add to knowledge; not in being told that "the earth is flat" and leaving it at that!
Anyway, after all that preamble, how many people have ever lived on earth? Thank God (!) for the Internet. I went searching. Approximately 108 billion came the answer, according to the Population Reference Bureau. As it turns out (expectedly) it is a perennial question that many ask and seek answers to. Right now (well as at 2011) the world population is some 7 billion. And the periodic segmentation of that "Since — homo-sapiens — evolved" world population is thus:
It began with the assumed first "Two" (Adam and Eve?) – a minimalist approach, say about 50,000 B.C (Before Christ). By 8000 BC the world population was 5 million, rising to 300m by 1 A.D (After Death – of Christ). The figure was 450m by 1200; 500m by 1650; and 795m by 1750. By 1850 the world entered into the billion mark with estimated global population of 1.2 billion. There were 1.6b by 1900; 2.5b by 1950; 5.7b by 1995 and finally 6.9b by 2011.
It should be noted that the 108b figure is arrived at by assumed figures of Births Between the Benchmarks.These were 1.1b, 46b, 26.5b, 12.7b, 3b, 4b, 2.9b, 3.3b, 5.4b, and 2.1b respectively.
This is a highly speculative exercise bearing in mind that for 99 per cent of the span of human existence on earth no demographic data was available.
The Internet article I read by Carl Haub also admits that these figures have at least two constraints: One, how long ago actually did humans begin (or evolved) on earth; two, the assumption of the average size of human population at different periods.
According to the UN Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends, modern Homo Sapiens may have appeared about 50,000 B.C, but there are serious indications that we have ancestors in one form or another dating back 700,000 B.C and "Hominids (bipedal folks) walked the earth as early as several million years ago"!
Carl Haub says, "Our birth rate assumption will greatly affect the estimate of the number of people ever born. Infant mortality in the human race's earliest days is thought to have been very high — perhaps 500 infant deaths per 1,000 births, or even higher…Under these circumstances, a disproportionately large number of births would be required to maintain population growth, and that would raise our estimated number of the "ever born."
Haub, a senior visiting scholar at the Population Reference Bureau, then concluded: "So our estimate is that about 6.5 per cent of all people ever born are alive today. That's actually a fairly large percentage when you think about it."
How reading Carl Haub's article led me into wondering about "repeat comings" or reincarnation, I don't know. But I did. And this is not the place for a detailed or exhaustive engagement of this more perilous province. Howbeit, there's a Dr. Ian Stevenson who turns out to be one of the most respected authorities in this area and whose scientific studies led Dr. Harold Lief to write in the Journal of Nervous and Mental DISEASE that "Either he (Dr. Stevenson) is making a colossal mistake. Or he will be known as the Galileo of the 20th century."
Dr. Stevenson preoccupied himself with collecting and studying thousands of cases of children all over the world "who spontaneously (without hypnosis) remember a past life. His life's work spanning over 40 years is said to be "Probably the best known, if not most respected, collection of scientific data that appears to provide scientific proof that reincarnation is real." Stevenson methodically documents the child's statements of a previous life, then "he identifies the deceased person the child remembers being, and verifies the facts of the deceased person's life that match the child's memory. He even matches birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, verified by medical records."
Born in 1918, Stevenson, a medical doctor and scholar of impeccable credentials, has over 3000 cases in his files, and many people, "including sceptics and scholars, agree that these cases OFFER the best evidence yet for reincarnation."
Even with all of Stevenson's prodigious research into reincarnation it left more questions than answers. We know little of what proportion of human lives, if so, do reincarnate; what necessitates it; not to talk of what happens to the billions of others. As Stevenson himself said in his very lengthy interview in OMNI magazine way back in 1987, "With only 2000 cases to go on, I'd hardly dare speculate about the billions of human beings since the beginning of the human race who have disappeared without a trace."
So, where does all these leave us? Sadly, for us in Nigeria we don't even in 2013 have a near-accurate data of how many we are. We have figures ranging from 120 million to 200 million, depending on who is talking and for what purpose! We have had our own long history of ogbanjes or abikus. From Dr. Stevenson's account they may not all be the hocuspocus, illiterate balderdash, imagined.
More frightening, with Nigeria in its perpetual state of stagnation, if not regression, could we be having the wrong kind of mad leaders reincarnating in our midst whilst the good ones are finding saner climes for themselves?Just a thought. Happy Sunday!

-TUNDE FAGBENLE