Shadows of the Flesh: Visualizing past lives

Apart from whatever religion you might be, you can't deny that there are still great mysteries about the human being that science can't discover, one of the reasons for this is that these mysteries are not a tangible/ physical thing to experiment with.

The soul is our essence, but where does it come from, and where does it go after our physical body is gone?

According to my religion: The Catholic Church teaches that God breathes a unique, immortal soul into every human being at the moment of conception. The soul does not exist before this moment (pre-existence is rejected), nor is it a physical product of biology.

The Breath of God

The foundational imagery of the soul's origin comes from the very beginning of scripture, where God infuses life directly into humanity.

Genesis 2:7 "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."

The Catholic Church teaches that at the moment of death, the soul separates from the physical body. It immediately undergoes Particular Judgment, where its eternal destiny is decided based on its faith and actions during life.

Hebrews 9:27 "And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment..."

The soul goes to its reward or punishment immediately after death:

1. Heaven

2. Purgatory

3. Hell

I believe it but I am a simple mortal, so I also believe that through history MEN probably changed religion, meanings and words for their benefit. So it is not wrong to believe that a concept like reincarnation or past life is attached to religion ( like these ones ).

Every time I take photos of places, monuments, or things that were made and belonged to a past era, I always feel attached to them, not only because I love past eras in terms of aesthetics, culture, society, lifestyles, etc., but also because I somehow feel connected to them. I have found online articles that discuss signs that your soul has reincarnated or that you lived a past life. Bear in mind that there are 2 theories: whether your soul might have reincarnated in the same body, thus you are repeating your life again and again until you learn what you are supposed to learn, or your soul reincarnates in different bodies and different eras.

-Signs your body has reincarnated : ( for more go here )

1. Recurring dreams.
2. Out of place memories.
3. You have a strong intuition.
4. Deja Vu.
5. You are an empath.
6. Precognition.
7. Retrocognition.
8. You feel older than your age reflects ( or maybe younger, hence you died at a young age).
9. You have a great affinity for certain cultures/time periods/environments.
10. Unexplained fears or phobias.
11. You feel as though this earth is not your home.

 here.

Reincarnation:

It was also known as “metempsychosis” and “transmigration”. Reincarnation and the concept of past lives has existed for thousands of years, spanning back to the ancient Celtic, Greek, Asian and Indian traditions.

It was likely that indigenous tribes and oral cultures around the globe held beliefs about rebirth much earlier, the transition from abstract spiritual concepts into structured, written philosophy happened in a few specific texts, these are the earliest written records:

1. The Earliest Records: Ancient India (c. 800–600 BCE)

The oldest explicit, fully conceptualized written descriptions of reincarnation—known in Sanskrit as Punarjanman (rebirth) or Samsara (the continuous cycle of life, death, and rebirth)—are found in the Early Upanishads, which are ancient philosophical Vedic texts.

2. The Earliest Western Records: Ancient Greece (c. 500s BCE)

In the West, the concept was called metempsychosis (the transmigration of the soul). It popped up roughly a century or two after the Upanishads.

Wiccans:

Wiccans and many modern witches believe in a unique synthesis of the two concepts: the soul moves on to a beautiful resting place, stays there for a while to reflect and regenerate, and is eventually reincarnated into a new life.