I’ve shared my belief in Multiple Mortal Probations before, but there’s a phenomenon tied to this teaching that desperately needs addressing: the overwhelming tendency for people to claim they were historical or scriptural celebrities in their past lives. I call this phenomenon “Pretentious Probationary Claims”, and unfortunately there is quite the history of it within Mormonism. Joseph Morris claimed to be the reincarnated Moses; George Williams claimed to be the reincarnated Cainan and Melchizedek; and James Brighouse went all out when he claimed to be the reincarnation of Adam, Enoch, Moses, David, Ezekiel, George Washington, and Joseph Smith. Perhaps one of the most well-known instances in recent decades is James Harmston, who claimed to be a reincarnated Joseph Smith Jr; Christopher Nemelka, who claims to be a reincarnated Hyrum Smith; and Chad Daybell, who claims to be James the Less and Moroni.
Let’s put aside, for a moment, the fact that many of these reincarnation claims are for characters whose historical existence is up for debate. Let’s also ignore that Moses 1:33 says there are “worlds without number”, which could mean an infinite number of souls.
Just focusing on Earth, it’s estimated that around 109-117 billion people have ever lived, and 8.2 billion of those are alive today. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say there have been 100 billion people in total that have lived and died on Earth. If everyone had an equal amount of reincarnations, we each would have 12-13 past lives. That would put the likelihood of you being any specific person in history roughly 1 in 8,200,000,000. Assuming this, here are some odds to put this in perspective:
- Being born with extra fingers or toes is a 1 in 1,000 chance, or in other words is 8,200,000 times more likely than being any specific person in the past
- Getting a hole-in-one in golf has a 1 in 12,500 chance, or in other words, it is 656,000 times more likely than being any specific person in the past
- Being struck by lightning in your lifetime is a 1 in 15,300 chance, or in other words it is 536,601 times more likely than being any specific person in the pas
- Earth being struck by an asteroid impact in your lifetime has a 1 in 1,500,000 chance, or in other words it is 5,467 times more likely than being any specific person in the past
- Being attacked by a shark is a 1 in 11,500,000 chance, or in other words it is 713 times more likely than being any specific person in the past
- Winning the Powerball is a 1 in 292,200,000 chance, or in other words it is 28 times more likely than being any specific person in the past
The idea that you, out of all the billions who have ever lived, happened to be Moses, Cleopatra, or some other notable figure is beyond improbable—it’s a statistical joke. The odds are, quite simply, absurd. It gets even more ridiculous when multiple people living at the same time claim to be reincarnations of the same person, as was the case with Joseph Morris and George Williams both claiming to be Moses. Statistically, and logically, anyone who makes such a claim is almost certainly wrong.
Those who claim to be reincarnated figures from history – or even fictional scriptural characters – are egotistically inflating their importance and leveraging these claims to gain power over and unquestioning obedience from others. It’s a manipulation tactic that can prey on the hopes or naivety of others. We have seen this pattern with all of the individuals mentioned earlier, and the consequences have been disastrous more than once. Those who make such outlandish claims should be disregarded as spiritual leaders, and we must remain vigilant to ensure their teachings do not lead to violence.
If reincarnation is true doctrine, then most of our past lives weren’t glorious. We were likely exclusively ordinary people— hunter/gatherers, rural farmers, craftspeople, or laborers who had little education and lived humble lives. We would have interacted with only a handful of people, and lived and died without making history books.
Whether it’s a true doctrine or not, focusing on who we were in past lives is an unproductive distraction, because we can’t know for certain if it is true or not. The one life we know for sure we have is the one we’re living right now, and our focus should be on the growth and potential of the present. Chasing an imagined past full of grandeur diverts us from what matters and can make us arrogant and deluded.
True spiritual enlightenment is rooted in humility, not self-aggrandizement.