The age old question of reincarnation and too many people for too few souls to go around was caricatured by George Carlin when he asked the question, "is someone printing souls?"

I think that our souls start as our bodies do and the essence (I can't think of a better word at this stage) of our souls is carried in our DNA. The souls grows with the growing foetus and matures as our bodies do.

This would explain why when we are born, we do not have knowledge of past lives or experiences but rather instincts.

I also believe that this helps to explain instinctive behavoir as being learned experience passed down (nothing new) and explains the role of experience on evolution in adapting to environmental stimuli.

The phrases 'The sins of the father etc.', and 'we learn from our mistakes' have taken a deeper meaning with me as well. The sins of the father passed onto the children are learned experiences but we are then given the opportunity to make the same mistakes or to correct them by our consciousness (the upper reaches of our souls) and our gift or reasoning and choice. This could be the reason that some actions like alcoholism and smoking run in families (in addition to learned behaviour influences). The choice is then given to the individual to make a choice to do or not to do and passing on that experience or choice to their offspring influencing and giving an option to this behaviour pattern.

These are rough thoughts and observations and probably not startling or new but they give me some measure of peace of mind in have some quantifiable answer to questions.

Regards
Kevin Sharkey