Then a little dose of Rational Spirituality may be just what you need. It differs from other religious or spiritual approaches in that:

• It does not rely on faith or belief in the 'revealed wisdom' of any guru or prophet. Instead it relies on assembling and analysing all the latest evidence for a spiritual worldview from three main areas of research: near-death and out-of-body experiences; children who remember their past lives; and past-life and 'between-lives' regression.

• From these it constructs a coherent framework of understanding about who we are and our place in the universe. This can be expressed in Ten Propositions.

• Central to it is the idea of reincarnation, although based around a theme of experience and growth rather than laws of karmic action and reaction.

• It does not attempt to provide a definitive moral code. It merely encourages people to take personal responsibility for applying its framework to their own lives.

• It adopts a primarily rational approach in order to ground the framework in good, solid evidence and analysis. But it still appreciates the power and majesty of transformative spiritual experiences, and supports the ultimate spiritual message of universal, unconditional love.

• It includes full analysis of sceptical and materialist views on the various research and evidence, rather than glossing over or selectively ignoring them.

• It is not set in stone, but responsive to change. Where new evidence or mistakes in previous analysis come to light, the framework is amended or updated (see What's Changed).

• It deliberately does not rely on areas of research that, while they may contain some important evidence, are easily debunked by sceptics. These include telepathy, precognition, telekinesis, mediumship, ghost hunting and so on.

• It does not avoid the 'big questions', even though some aspects of its framework will only ever represent approximations of far more complex truths that our human brains simply could not understand. It takes the view that educated guesses based on logic and evidence are far better than avoidance, obfuscation or wild stabs in the dark.

The simplest source of information for a Rational Spiritual worldview is Ian Lawton's The Little Book of the Soul. This is backed up by the more detailed The Book of the Soul and The Wisdom of the Soul, along with various Discussion Papers and Further Reading. For children there is also a superb little book called Seven for a Secret by James Wright. You may also be interested in the inspirational feedback we have received about how Rational Spirituality has affected and helped people.