In Western culture, there are three main concepts of what happens to a person after the death of the physical body - the concept of Heaven and Hell in the religions of faith, materialistic concept and the concept of rebirth (reincarnation, life after death).

In Western religions faith spread the concept of Heaven and Hell, according to which a Supreme being (usually male and lush vegetation on the face) judges and punishes the human soul. Moreover, in some cultures it is punishing them for some things, in others - for the totally other. In the end, most souls go to Hell forever consigned to an incredible meal. Only few are the righteous who observe strict rules that are very different in different cultures, have a chance to receive a gift of eternal bliss. For those who believe in this concept, the most important thing to guess the religion - for "impossible to hope for Paradise one religion, not risking to go to hell all other". (Oh, and if you did not guess, I highly recommend you Sheol, Jewish hell, where once a week, on Saturdays arranged sanitary day, during which eternal torment are cancelled. Shabbat - he's in hell, there remains a Sabbath

In Western science has spread materialistic concept that consciousness is a product of the brain and disappears completely after the brain dies. On the other hand, numerous studies conducted mainly in English and American clinics showed that many people at the time of clinical death, the flow of emotions is not interrupted even in the complete absence of electrical activity of the brain.

During these studies, scientists were interested not in the nature of experiences (i.e. see whether people clear light, watching whether his body from the side or heard voices), and the fact of any kind of experiences at the time of clinical death, and the presence or absence of electrical activity of the brain at this moment. When was accumulated quite an impressive statistics, the researchers came to the conclusion that having experiences no matter does brain electrical activity in the state of clinical death or stops completely. As you know, if consciousness is a product of the brain, the person may not something to worry at the moment when the electrical activity of the brain is missing is the same as watching TV when the power cord.
In our culture reason rather than trust their own feelings, it is believed generally accepted claims (dogma - in the religion or the axioms in science), so some people firmly believe in the concept of Heaven and Hell just because it tells them their religion; others believe that consciousness is a product of the brain because of this they have said many times in school and University; and still others believe in the concept of reincarnation, for the simple reason that you have read about it in some books "secret knowledge" buy on every corner.

But this approach is not credible because to believe in anything. Another thing - if you know, for knowledge is much more durable faith. And, if you have experience with memories of previous lives is similar to what you have returned from a fascinating trip to distant countries and trying to tell people your provincial town about their experiences, but suddenly surprised to find that not only do they never visited this wonderful country, but generally do not believe that they exist. Moreover, they still persist in their ignorance, trying to convince You that you invented it for the simple reason that your stories are very different from their everyday reality. But to You it's funny - you were really there, so you don't have to believe or not to believe in it. You know. Just know.

This page contains statements about rebirth (reincarnation, life after death) people, more than famous in the Western science, philosophy, literature and other fields, starting from the ancient times and to our vremenima, falling in one being, then another, moving, thus, in the cycle prescribed in need. Pythagoras - 570-490 BC

Once I was a little boy and girl, Bush, bird and emerging from the sea dumb fish. Empedocles - 490-430 BC

I have no doubt the existence of what is called new life, and that living rise from the dead. Socrates - 469-399 BC

The soul of man is immortal. All her hopes and aspirations transferred to another world. The true sage wish death as the beginning of a new life. Plato - 427-347 BC

There is strong evidence that the person knows many things before the birth that when ordinary children understand the numerous facts so fast - it shows that they see these facts is not the first time, but remember, and raise them up at the memory. Mark Cicero Cicero - 106-43 BC
In early Christianity the concept of heaven and hell have not yet been developed, and the attitude to the idea of rebirth was more than quiet. Many fathers of the Christian Church: St. Clement of Alexandria, Justinian Martyr, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, St. Jerome did not think that the idea of rebirth any thing contrary to the idea of Christianity. Most clearly the idea of reincarnation expressed in the writings of one of the fathers of the Church, Origen.
Some soul is prone to evil, the fall in the human body, but then, having lived metered man dates are moved in the bodies of animals and then go down to the vegetable existence. Following the opposite way, they rise and regain the Kingdom of heaven. Origen - 185-254

Himself Blessed Augustine, an outstanding Christian theologian and philosopher, was thinking about the possibility of rebirth in his "Confession"that shows that at that time in a Christian environment rebirth was not regarded as something unnatural.
I had a period of life that preceded the infancy? Whether it was that time that I spent in the womb, or some other?... And that was before this life, o Lord my delight, I was anywhere or in any body? St. Augustine - 354-430

But in 553 rebirth as the idea was banned by the highest decree of Emperor Justinian.

Justinian was a good politician and a skilled diplomat, which allowed him to make a brilliant career - from the son of a poor Macedonian peasant to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. At the same time he was "man is cunning and indecisive... is full of irony and pretense, deceit, stealth and hypocritical". Thanks to his energy and attention to detail he spent a great deal of work and was able to combine the many disparate laws of the Empire in a single "the Code of Justinian", and greatly expanded the boundaries of the Empire. But Justinian went further - he decided to bring order not only in the mundane, but in spiritual matters.

At that time Christianity was composed of individual flows, many of whom took the idea of rebirth. Justinian considered this situation is harmful, naturally, not by religious and political motives - he believed that if the citizens of the Empire will think that they have several lives, they will not be so diligent in public Affairs. Justinian was able to achieve his goals - first, he was sent to the Patriarch of Constantinople Mine Epistle, in which Origen was presented as the wicked heretic. Then, in 543 year, in Constantinople by order of the Emperor Justinian was built a Cathedral on which the approval was issued edict, where were listed and condemned error allegedly made by Origen. (I must say that in all the cathedrals that were conducted during the reign of Justinian, the final decision was taken not meeting of bishops and the Emperor himself alone).

After the Council, Pope Vigili expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Justinian intervene in the Affairs of the Church and rejected the Imperial edict, but later, after threats from the Emperor, he was forced to issue a decree in which anathematized the teachings of Origen. However, this decree has caused so strong dissatisfaction with the authoritative bishops of Gaul, Northern Africa and some other provinces, 550, Pope was forced to cancel it.
In 553 Justinian gathered the fifth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople. Hardly Cathedral can be called a "universal"because it was attended mainly by representatives of the Eastern Church - the most Western bishops refused to take part in this dubious event. The Pope himself, despite the fact that there were at that time in Constantinople, in protest did not participate in the final verdict, for which he was exiled by the Emperor on one of the Islands of the sea of Marmara.

The result of this Cathedral was the decree which more than determined the attitude of the Church to degeneration.
If believeth unthinkable in the existence of the soul before birth and the most ridiculous rebirth after death, that's supposed to anathematize the Emperor Justinian - 483-565

After "prohibition" rebirth highest decree, any mention of it was tantamount to signing itself the death sentence, the author of such statements medieval Church was burned along with his books. But there were people who were not afraid to speak about their beliefs even under threat of a fire. One of them, the author of the words "Burn - does not mean to refute", the great Italian philosopher and theologian Giordano Bruno in his closing speech said:
The soul is not part of a single body and can exist in one body to another. Giordano Bruno - 1548-1600

Then it was burned.
The Inquisition began to go into the past, which allowed more freely Express their beliefs. Following are the statements of the great scientists, writers, philosophers about rebirth. In some cases it's just a feeling, wrapped in words, in other unshakable belief that otherwise cannot be.
Death, like birth is only the transformation of the same animal from the lower to the higher Setting... such a lovely small animal, it would be foolish to man was not subject to him... So I'm inclined to think that the soul that will never become human, like the souls of other types contained in their ancestors back to Adam, therefore, existed from the beginning of things, always in the form of other phone Gottfried Leibniz - 1646-1716

The concept of reincarnation is neither absurd or futile. To be born twice, not once, there is nothing strange. Voltaire - 1694-1778

I believe that in one form or another, I always been this world. Benjamin Franklin - 1706-1790

The doctrine of reincarnation is the only theory of immortality, which can take philosophy. David Hume - 1711-1776

I am not a Hindu, but I think that the philosophical doctrine of Hinduism on the re-birth is much more reasonable, fair and more able to motivate the person to the good, the frightening than the tenets of Christian doctrine of endless punishment. William Jones - 1746-1794

At the thought of death I am absolutely calm. Because firmly convinced that our spirit is a being whose nature remains indestructible, and which will operate continuously and forever. I'm sure that was here thousands of times, and I hope I will return thousands of times. Johann Goethe - 1749-1832

In my head - offices and wards full of books and pictures of old times which I wrote for endless ages before my mortal life. William Blake - 1757-1827

Ask me Asian to give a definition of Europe, I have to answer this: "This part of the world, staying in power incredible delusion that man is created from nothing, and his current birth is the first entry in life". Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860

Acquired quality, slow in the us, emerging from one life to another, are invisible links connecting each of our beings, which remembers only our soul. Honore de Balzac - 1799-1850

When I go to my grave, I can say, as many others: "I have finished their work", but I can't say "I finished my life". The next morning my work will begin again. The grave - not a dead end; it is a transition. It closes at dusk. And opens again at dawn. Victor Hugo - 1802-1885

The soul dwells in the human body as a temporary shelter, then she leaves him and goes to the new, so it is immortality. Ralph Emerson - 1803-1882

Death is one of the steps in our continuous development. Once this step was our birth, with the difference that the birth - death of one form of life and death is reborn in another form of existence. Death - happiness for a dying person, because dying, cease to be mortal. Theodore Parker - 1810-1860

I think I always was. I clearly see yourself in different times of history, engaged in different craft, a man with a different fate. Gustav Flaubert - 1821-1880

I'm sure that was here thousands of times before, like this time , and I hope to be back here again a thousand times. Thomas Huxley - 1825-1895

As we live a thousand dreams in our present life, and our life itself is just one of the thousands of lives that we come from another more real world, coming back again and again after death. Our life is just one dream into another life and she endless as long as there is the real life of God. Leo Tolstoy - 1828-1910

When a question is, where were we before you were born, the answer is : in the system of slow development on the path of reincarnation with long intervals of rest between them. The question, why do we not remember these beings, we can say that such memories endlessly would complicate our current life. Arthur Conan Doyle - 1859-1930

I accepted the theory of reincarnation, when I was 26 years old. The genius of this experience. Some think that it is a gift or talent, but this is actually the product of a long experience in the previous life incarnations. Henry Ford - 1863-1947

I can quite clearly imagine that I lived in past centuries. Probably many of put before me questions remained unsolved. That is why I am born anew, in order, once to answer all questions. Carl Jung - 1875-1961

Reincarnation is the most plausible explanation of reality, by which Indian thinkers have overcome obstacles that have puzzled philosophers of Europe. Albert Schweitzer - 1875-1965

My appearance did not begin with the birth or conception. I grew and developed countless myriads of millennia. All my previous incarnation with their voices and images are reflected in me today. And how many more new incarnations, I have to survive. Jack London - 1876-1916

Everything in science, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. I believe in the immortal soul. Science has proved that nothing disappears into oblivion. It means life and soul can not fall into oblivion, and, therefore, is immortal. Wernher von Braun - 1912-1977

Friends are the souls of those whom we knew before in our lives. That is why we are attracted to each other. Even if I know them only one day, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to wait until we eat together notorious pounds of salt to know them better. I firmly believe that we were together in our previous lives. George Harrison 1943-2001

In the East the idea of rebirth naturally intertwined in culture, religion and science, so more than 90% of people consider this idea for granted. In the West it is accepted to believe in other things, but nevertheless, the situation is gradually changing - according to recent polls, more than half of the U.S. population and democratic European countries acknowledge the fact of rebirth and do not consider the idea of rebirth something strange.

Some people seek to learn about their previous lives, but such knowledge is more than useless if it is not inside the person. For example, when Buddha was asked: "who I was in my past life?", he often said, "If you want to know what you did in your past life, look at your life today, if you want to know what will be with you in future lives - look at our actions in this life". And this is more than logical - all subject to the causal law or the law of Karma.

The idea of rebirth is well suited for people who can take full responsibility for your life, not shifting it into the hands of God or fate. After all, if you understand that your past actions was the cause of what you have now, and that at the moment his every word, thought and action you define your future, you can take responsibility for their lives and a lot of things change.

Not so important, whether the person believes in rebirth or denies it is much more important than the changes that can happen in his life following the adoption of rebirth. For example, as it once happened in the life of Henry Ford: "Religion could not offer anything that would make sense. The work could not give me complete satisfaction. It is useless to work if the experience gained in one life, we cannot use the following. When I discovered the rebirth... time has ceased to be limited. I ceased to be a slave to the clock hands... I'd really like to pass on to other people that tranquillity which can give us an idea of rebirth."

P.S. If everything around us disappears, and just moves to another state, then why man should be the exception?