Reincarnation

Scamarama

The March 1984 issue of Psychology Today published the winner of an interesting contest called “Scamarama.” Readers were to send in the most creative scams. This was the winner:

Wish you were born rich? Now you can be! If you are one of the growing millions who are convinced of the reality of reincarnation, here’s a once-in-a-lifetime offer!

First, leave us ten thousand dollars or more in your will. After you pass away, our professional medium will contact your spirit in the other world. Then you tell us when you’re coming back and under what name. Upon your return, we regress you, at age twenty-one through hypnosis to this lifetime and ask you for your seven-digit account number.

Once you give us the number, we give you a check—on the spot—for your original investment plus interest! The longer you’re gone, the more you will receive! You may come back to find yourself a billionaire! Show your future self how much you care—leave a generous ‘welcome back’ present. We’ll take care of the rest.

Today in the Word, May, 1996, p. 34

Resource

•      Immortality, the Other Side of Death, G. R. Habermas, J. P. Moreland, Nelson, 1992, pp. 121ff

Though just written in 1980, this poem is already considered to be a classic.

“What does reincarnation mean?” A cowpoke asked his friend. His pal replied, “It happens when yer life has reached its end.

They comb yer hair, and warsh yer neck, And clean yer fingernails, And lay you in a padded box Away from life’s travails.

“The box and you goes in a hole, That’s been dug into the ground. Reincarnation starts in when Yore planted ‘neath a mound.

Them clods melt down, just like yer box, and you who is inside. And then yore just begginin’ on Yer transformation ride.

“In a while the grass’ll grow Upon yer rendered mound. Till some day on yer moldered grave A lonely flower is found.

And say a hoss should wander by And graze upon this flower That once wuz you, but now’s become Yer vegetative bower.

“The posey that the hoss done ate Up, with his other feed, Makes bone, and fat, and muscle Essential to the steed.

But some is left that he can’t use And so it passes through, And finally lays upon the ground. This thing that once wuz you.

“Then say, by chance, I wonders by And sees this upon the ground, And I ponders and I wonders at, This object that I found.

I thinks of reincarnation, Of life, and death, and such, And come away concludin’: Slim, You ain’t changed, all that much.”

By Wallace McRae, Cowboy Poetry, Edited by Hal Cannon, Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, Inc., 1985