Religious Interpretations of the Heredity of Soul

An ethnographer in New Guinea wrote a striking story of the heredity of soul. He first lived with the Gebusi in the 1970s, when they were still a stone-age tribe of hunter-gatherers, and over the years, he grew close to quiet a few of them. When he returned to their tribe in the 1990s, he was saddened to find that most of his friends had died. After a few weeks there, though, he became acquainted with their sons, who were so like their fathers in appearance and manner that they were almost the same person. While people in the U.S. might inherit their parents' bodies and personalities, our environment still shapes us in radically different ways. The Gebusi, however, had been living in an unchanged environment for countless generations. It was like they were reliving the same lives again and again.

I wonder if this is where the Hindu notion of reincarnation really comes from. The soul was not spirit, but rather an immortal expression of personality, born from blood and culture. Eventually, religion would formalize this notion and use it to reinforce class and caste, but initially, reincarnation was simply an observation of the human condition, of the heredity of soul. They saw heredity not just as genetics, though, but also as habit. The way a parent conducted himself would be passed on to his children in the form of karma. If he was slovenly, then his children would learn to be slovenly themselves. If he was angry, then his children would grow to be angry, too.

In the West, a common misconception about karma is that it's a type of cosmic scorecard, tallying our 'good deeds' the way Christian angles might. In fact, karma is not about good deeds. It's about habit. Good karma is essentially good habits, such as seeing the best in your neighbors or going on a morning job. Bad karma is bad habits, such as venting your wrath on bystanders when you really feel angry about something else. Our habits are passed on to our children through modeled behavior. Those habits which make our lives miserable will make our children's lives miserable, too, because by the time they're adults, they will have fallen into the same cycle.

We aren't a dead species, though. We can still change. Over the course of generations, children can extract ourselves from the karma of their parents. I see this in myself and in many of my friends. Each of us has something about our parents which we detest, and we make it a life goal to unwork that habit from our own behavior. Other bad karma will linger, though. We will not become perfect in a single generation. Instead, it will be our own children's task to unravel the bad karma that's left behind. This is the evolution of family. It's no longer about genes and bodies. It's about culture.

This same perspective can be applied to Christianity, and heaven and hell cease to be spiritual realms but instead become the poles of Earth's potential. Lead a good productive life and you'll make the world a more heavenly place. Lead a squanderous life and you'll make the world a more hellish place. In either case, what you make of the world you pass onto your children, to your genetic soul. In the U.S., previous generations worked hard, built railroads, developed industry and agriculture, and by the time they passed the country on to their children, they had made America an easier place for people to live. They made it a vision of their heaven.

Of course, it has now come to light that this vision has problems, and our generation is left with the task of re-envisioning heaven and finding a way to make it work sustainably and humanely. Its easy for us today to grumble about how selfish or foolish prior generations were, but it's worth asking if perhaps what they did, they did in good faith. They wanted to make a better world. They wrote the first draft of heaven. Our job is to revise.

Some of you may know that I'm a religious voyeur. I enjoy waking up early on Sunday morning and going to religious services that I don't believe in. In the U.S., I've noticed a trend. Most the people in attendance are not white. They come from poorer backgrounds, but by their clothes and their haircuts, it's obvious that they're pulling themselves up. Religion is a vehicle by which they can assume the values of the dominant culture, structure their lives by these rules, and slowly gain wealth and status within it, which they can pass onto their children. Don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat on your spouse. These rules create stability and trust. They suppress the id so that a person can thrive in a society ruled by the super-ego.