Regarding your question about reincarnation: we Bahá’ís do
not believe that one individual soul keeps returning to this earthly life in
different bodies. This is a very ancient belief, and based on a great
truth—namely that the soul does go on developing and unfolding and returning
towards its Creator. But the concept of its returning to this physical world is
erroneous, and an outgrowth of man-made doctrines which have grown up about the
fundamental concept of the progress of the soul. It would be like putting the
child over and over again back into the world of the womb. It is unnecessary;
but from state to state spiritually, after death, the soul does go on and go
higher, so to speak.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 26 December 1948, written on behalf
of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; compilation: ‘Reincarnation and
the Nature and Progress of the Soul’, prepared by the Research Department of
the Universal House of Justice)
