Theosophical University Press Online Edition
It is one of the tragedies of spiritual and psychological history that the General Doctrine of Reimbodiment, whether as a whole or in one or more of its many forms or phases, virtually passed out of the consciousness of European man after the disappearance of the last faint gleams of ancient wisdom, which disappearance took place in the sixth century of the Christian Era, at the time when the sole surviving School of the Ancient Wisdom in the Mediterranean countries was closed by imperial rescript of the Emperor Justinian, very likely due to the petition of the few remaining survivors of the Neo-Platonic stream of thought. (287)
One may well pause to reflect how different might have been religious history in European countries had the Doctrine of Reimbodiment become part of the theological system of Christendom. Its influence over both human hearts and minds is so strong, and its power in consequence to mold human destiny so great, that one may well believe that a great deal of the religious history of the West might have been far broader and more sympathetic to the intuitions of the human spirit had its influence been present.
There were, it is true, rare individuals during mediaeval and late mediaeval times who held the doctrine more or less secretly, and who, it is quite possible, disseminated its soothing and refining influence as far as they could do so. One is reminded in this connexion of some of the bodies of mystical Christians who later became the victims of an intolerant and often bloody persecution, such as the so-called Albigenses, the Cathari, and the Bogomils. Be that as it may, with the renaissance of freedom in human thought and investigation, the doctrine, under one or another of its various forms, in time became familiar to scholars, largely due to a more accurate acquaintance with the philosophic and religious literatures of Greece and Rome which the downfall of Constantinople, and its capture by the Turks in 1453, and the consequent diffusion in Europe of the many ancient literary works of the Byzantine libraries, brought about.
But the doctrine, though attractive to many intuitive minds, was generally looked upon as outlandish and strange, and, because of its association with ancient philosophical systems and religions, for many centuries in Europe was regarded as typically 'pagan' or 'heathenish.' Its recent wide acceptance by men and women of all classes is without any doubt whatsoever due to the propaganda undertaken by the Theosophical Society, and the conscientious literary labors of individual Theosophists; so that today 'Reincarnation,' as it is now commonly called, with its twin-doctrine of Karman, is not only almost popular, but is receiving the sympathetic consideration of the most thoughtful minds of modern times, and doubtless those who believe in it may be reckoned by the millions. One finds traces of more or less vague beliefs in it on every hand, whether in the literature of romance, or on the stage, or in the cinema. It is, in fact, becoming part and parcel of the philosophic and religious stock of thought and reflexion of most of the Occident and, far from being considered a heathenish doctrine today, is becoming accepted as not only the most reasonable but likewise the most attractive explanation of the differences and varieties in human life.
One may perhaps aver, without wandering far from the truth, that among literate and thoughtful circles in the Occident Reincarnation is now tacitly accepted; and what is much more interesting, the fact of its tacit acceptance seems to have opened the door to philosophical and religious speculation and investigation into collateral branches of the teaching of the Ancient Wisdom. Many eminent men in their open statements or in their writings show unmistakable traces of having been affected by the influence which the doctrine of Reincarnation has had upon their minds, consciously or unconsciously, and whether they are bold enough openly to acknowledge the fact or not. (288)
From the foregoing it is doubtless clear that one may say truthfully that it is only in European countries and during the last fifteen hundred years, and among the nations descended from the European racial stock or stocks, that the Doctrine of Reimbodiment, either in its whole or in one or more of its parts, was lost sight of and forgotten. Students of European history from the time of the downfall of the Roman Imperium to the middle of the nineteenth century may easily discover the reasons bringing about this loss, and how it occurred. The Christian religion today does not teach it, and for centuries past has not taught it, although it is true that in our own times a few Christian divines do believe in it, and in a few sporadic cases are even beginning to teach it again in a more or less modified form. Possibly this doctrine was originally lost sight of and vanished from the books which came to contain the foundations of Christian theology, including those which imbody the teaching of the later Church-Fathers, because of the fact that the doctrine of Reimbodiment, or that of Palingenesis, or that of Metempsychosis, or that of Metensomatosis, had at an early period of the Christian Era come into conflict or opposition with the already rapidly spreading religious views as to the human soul's being created by God Almighty at some indefinite moment at or before physical birth. The consequence of this was that the doctrine of repetitive reimbodiments of the human soul came to be considered as in opposition to and contradictory of the then prevailing religious opinion as to the soul's origin, and was mocked at and rejected because it was wholly misunderstood -- sincerely or wilfully, as the case may have been. A witty Frenchman once said that the best and easiest way by which something that you don't like may be killed, is by directing ridicule and derision against it. These are truly powerful weapons in polemical argument; yet, to people who really think for themselves, ridicule and derision are not in any wise convincing arguments, because it is easily seen that they often merely cover a lack of ability to answer an argument successfully otherwise.
Among the earliest Christians, however, a form of metempsychosal reincarnation was actually taught, as well as a more or less clearly stated doctrine of the soul's pre-existence from eternity. The greatest of the Christian spokesmen of this early theological school, whose literary works in translation or in original, still remain to us, was the great Origen of Alexandria. Most of the references to early Christian metempsychosal belief in Origen's writings are to be found in his work On First Principles. (289) It is unfortunate for the student of early Christian beliefs, many of which are no longer accepted, that we do not possess a full text of Origen's original Greek work, and that our knowledge of what that great Church-Father wrote is mainly derived from a translation into Latin of Origen's On First Principles, made in later times by Tyrannius Rufinus, of Aquileia, who was born about 345 of the Christian era and died 410, and who was, therefore, a contemporary of the 'orthodox' Father Jerome.
Rufinus took great liberties indeed with Origen's original Greek text, and even modern Christian scholars recognise this; so much so, that it is impossible to exculpate him from the charge of mutilation of Origen's text, and even possibly of interpolative forgery in the sense of including in his Latin translation, and ascribing them to Origen, certain ideas which very probably came from Rufinus' own mind.
This literary dishonesty of Rufinus, however, he was not alone in possessing, even in regard to Origen's work, because Rufinus himself tells us in his Prolog to On First Principles, that he merely acted as others did in times before himself. His words are interesting, and therefore they are quoted here:
And therefore, that I might not find you too grievous an exactor, I gave way, even contrary to my resolution; on the condition and arrangement, however, that in my translation I should follow as far as possible the rule observed by my predecessors, and especially by that distinguished man whom I have mentioned above, who, after translating into Latin more than seventy of those treatises of Origen which are styled Homilies, and a considerable number also of his writings on the apostles, in which a good many "stumbling-blocks" are found in the original Greek, so smoothed and corrected them in his translation, that a Latin reader would meet with nothing which could appear discordant with our belief. His example, therefore, we follow, to the best of our ability; if not with equal power of eloquence, yet at least with the same strictness of rule, taking care not to reproduce those expressions occurring in the works of Origen which are inconsistent with and opposed to each other. (290)
One is inclined to think that Rufinus was somewhat of a humorist in excusing his mutilations of Origen's text as being of matters "inconsistent with and opposed to each other." Why Rufinus and those others he speaks of should have set themselves up as judges of Origen's Christianity, the reader may himself easily understand. There is little doubt therefore that had we the full and original Greek text of Origen's On First Principles, and remembering how even what remained of Origen's teachings became the cause of a widespread polemical agitation in the Christian Church, and having in mind Origen's final condemnation at the Home Synod under Mennas, we should probably find that the great Alexandrian Church-Father was far more explicit and open in his teachings as found in the original Greek of the particular kind of metempsychosal Reincarnation which he favored, than appears in the mutilated texts that have reached us. But even these mutilated and interpolated texts are amply sufficient to uncover to the percipient eye how far the great Alexandrian Greek theologian went in his approval and public teaching of some form of metempsychosal Reincarnation.
So thoroughly, in times preceding the sixth century of the Christian Era, had Origen's ideas penetrated into the fabric of Christian theological thought -- indeed of the entire Christian community apparently -- that it is small wonder that the growing religious materialism of the times took alarm at the differences in doctrine which Origen's teachings then showed as compared with the established dogmata of Christian faith.
Nevertheless although this double condemnation of the Origenistic doctrines succeeded in finally killing the spirit of the great Alexandrian's teachings, it succeeded in doing so only after a great deal of polemical quarreling and the airing of very bitter divergences and differences of theological opinion. As a matter of fact, a certain amount of the Origenistic thought survived until late ages in the Christian Church, as was evidenced by the views prevalent in eastern, central, and western, European countries as late as the fourteenth century.
One might add in passing, that at the time when the doctrines of Origen were formally condemned at Constantinople, and the great man's memory denigrated completely, the so-called Areopagitican teachings of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite were rapidly making their way into orthodox favor. These teachings were mystical in type and of indubitably pagan origin, being largely based on Neo-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean theology, but less directly so than were Origen's views.
Now, one may ask, which were those early Christian sects that taught Reimbodiment, in some form or other? There were, first, the Manichaeans pre-eminently, although it is questionable whether the Manichaean teachings may properly be called Christian in any sense. Although modern Christian theologians and historians, at least some of them, may choose to call them a Christian sect, one can hardly state that actually they were such, albeit they had indeed adopted some few of the Christian notions -- possibly from motives of personal safety or possibly the more successfully to guard their true beliefs. Fundamentally the Manichaeans were not Christians, though their doctrines were wide-spread and very popular at that time in the history of the early Christians.
Again, there were the many Gnostic sects, some of which differed very widely indeed, and often very favorably, from Christian theology and life. Furthermore, there were some sects, such as the Prae-existants (so called because they believed in the existence of the human soul before birth, and in a form of reincarnation), who were distinctly Christian, accepting Christian theology in most of its points. This sect likewise had, in the earliest centuries of the Christian Era, no insignificant influence on the thought of the time. They evidently were more or less followers of the same system that the great Origen did his best to unfold in his writings and teachings.
It may be of real interest to the reader to have before his eye examples of Origen's teaching and of his manner of treating the form of metempsychosal Reincarnation and of Pre-existence, which he himself taught; therefore the following citations are taken from amongst a number of others, all of which are characteristic. The first is from a fragment of the original Greek text which is extant:
. . . so the one nature of every soul being in the hands of God, and, so to speak, there being but one lump of reasonable beings, certain causes of more ancient date led to some beings being created [made] vessels unto honour, and others vessels unto dishonour. (291)
The phrase in the above extract "certain causes of more ancient date," when one bears in mind moreover many other similar passages in Origen's work which unequivocally state the existence of a being before physical birth, is a clear and distinct reference to the pre-existent life or lives of the soul-entities who later, following inherent karmic causes, as the Theosophist says, became, some, "vessels unto honour," and others, "vessels [human beings] unto dishonour."
Again, and from the original Greek as found a little farther on in the text:
. . . as, on the other hand, it is possible that he who, owing to causes more ancient than the present life, was here a vessel of dishonour, may after reformation become . . . etc. (292)
Still more clearly does Origen speak in a later chapter as follows:
. . . those who maintain that everything in the world is under the administration of divine providence (as is also our own belief), can, as it appears to me, give no other answer, so as to show that no shadow of injustice rests upon the divine government, than by holding that there were certain causes of prior existence, in consequence of which the souls, before their birth in the body, contracted a certain amount of guilt in their sensitive nature, or in their movements, on account of which they have been judged worthy by Divine Providence of being placed in this condition. (293)
And a little farther on in the text, he continues:
But as regards the suggestions which are made to the soul, i. e. to the faculty of human thought, by different spirits, and which arouse men to good actions or the contrary, even in such a case we must suppose that there sometimes existed certain causes anterior to bodily birth. (294)
These last two citations from Origen are taken from Rufinus' Latin translation; and the immortal gods only know how guilty Rufinus may have been herein of mutilating or changing or softening the text of his great Alexandrian predecessor.
Again quoting from Rufinus' translation of Origen's On First Principles, in speaking of the pre-existence of souls, Origen, as Rufinus renders him, wrote as follows:
. . . rational creatures had also a similar beginning. And if they had a beginning such as the end for which they hope, they existed undoubtedly from the very beginning in those [ages] which are not seen, and are eternal. And if this is so, then there has been a descent from a higher to a lower condition, on the part not only of those souls who have deserved the change by the variety of their movements, but also on that of those who, in order to serve the whole world, were brought down from those higher and invisible spheres to these lower and visible ones . . . . (295)
The attentive reader who has followed the line of thought set forth in the preceding pages, obviously will see in this last quotation from Origen much of the substance of the very same archaic doctrine which has been set forth in these pages, although the phraseology used by Origen (or by Rufinus), because of its intentional vagueness and circumlocutory tricks, obscures the essential and underlying ideas.
Furthermore, and in connexion with Origen's doctrine of the pre-existence of the hierarchies of different souls, it is interesting to note that the great Alexandrian likewise taught the pre-existence and consequent reimbodiment of worlds, which of course is still another remnant of one of the main doctrines of the archaic Wisdom-Religion of the human race. Also in On First Principles (from Rufinus' Latin translation) we find Origen saying on this very point:
But we can give a logical answer in accordance with the standard of religion, when we say that not then for the first time did God begin to work when He made this visible world; but as, after its destruction, there will be another world, so also we believe that others existed before the present came into being. And both of these positions will be confirmed by the authority of holy Scripture. (296)
It is plain enough from the above quotation that not only did he teach a pre-existence and repetitive existences of the world, but its reimbodiment in due course of time. That he did not only teach the mere pre-existence of souls or rational creatures, before their imbodiments on earth, but also an actual reincarnation or reimbodiment on earth of these soul-entities, is made very clear by what we find in Rufinus' Latin translation of On First Principles:
Every one, accordingly, of those who descend to the earth is, according to his deserts, or agreeably to the position which he occupied there, ordained to be born in this world, in a different country, or among a different nation, or in a different mode of life, or surrounded by infirmities of a different kind, or to be descended from religious parents, or parents who are not religious; so that it may sometimes happen that an Israelite descends among the Scythians, and a poor Egyptian is brought down to Judaea. (297)
Here there is obviously a distinct statement of the teaching of Reincarnation, as even understood in modern days, and it is quite futile and foolish to argue, should such an argument ever be attempted, that Origen's teaching embraces a bare and sheer pre-existence in the spiritual realms without any repetitive incarnations on Earth in human bodies. His last words run directly in line with the Doctrine of Reincarnation.
It is a matter of positive interest to point out here that Origen, precisely like most of the better class of the philosophers of ancient times, and equally so of his own period -- for he himself had obviously been initiated in the Eleusinian Mysteries -- does not teach that particular and popular misunderstanding of metempsychosal reincarnation which in our own days is called 'transmigration' of the souls of human beings into the bodies of beasts; his words run directly in opposition to this mistaken notion, and it is quite possible that the casual, inattentive, and superficial reader of Origen's words may, from his expressions of emphatic rejection of this wrong idea of transmigration, misunderstand him to mean a rejection of the doctrine of that particular form of metempsychosal reincarnation which elsewhere he so strongly affirms. His opinion on this matter also is clearly set forth in his On First Principles:
We think that those views are by no means to be admitted, which some are wont unnecessarily to advance and maintain, viz. that souls descend to such a pitch of abasement that they forget their rational nature and dignity, and sink into the condition of irrational animals, either large or small; . . . . All of which assertions we not only do not receive, but, as being contrary to our belief, we refute and reject. (298)
In writing against Celsus, (299) the Pagan philosopher, Origen again argues strongly against the misunderstood transmigration-theory:
. . . a view which goes far beyond the mythical doctrine of transmigration, according to which the soul falls down from the summit of heaven, and enters into the body of brute beasts, both tame and savage! (300)
Here it is abundantly clear that Origen, in common with all Theosophists through the ages, rejects the mistaken teaching, which popular fancy in all lands has derived from the true doctrine of Reimbodiment, that rational human souls ever can or ever do enter into the bodies of brute beasts. As has been set forth clearly enough, it is hoped, in the present work, this mistaken conception of the real teaching, and of the facts of reimbodiment, arose from a confusing of the doctrines that refer to the transmigrations of the human life-atoms with the migrating adventures, beautiful and sublime as they are, of the human Monad in its peregrinations through the spheres.
Also the mistake was partly based on a misapprehension of a secondary teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy concerning the dread destiny that not infrequently befalls the kama-rupa of men who were while in earth-life exceedingly gross and material in propensities. It may as well now be said openly that such earth-bound and heavily material kama-rupic phantoms, from which the human Monad has fled, are at times drawn by psycho-magnetic attraction and gross thirst for material existence into the bodies of those beasts or even plants with which they have affinity. It is sufficient here to point out the fact for what it may be worth to the intelligent and thoughtful student, and leave the matter there.
Again, Origen repeats his condemnation of transmigration as popularly misunderstood in the following words:
Nay, if we should cure those who have fallen into the folly of believing in the transmigration of souls through the teaching of physicians, who will have it that the rational nature descends sometimes into all kinds of irrational animals, and sometimes into that state of being which is incapable of using the imagination . . . etc. (301)
And again:
Our teaching on the subject of the resurrection is not, as Celsus imagines, derived from anything that we have heard on the doctrine of metempsychosis; but we know that the soul, which is immaterial and invisible in its nature, exists in no material place, without having a body suited to the nature of that place. Accordingly, it at one time puts off one body which was necessary before, but which is no longer adequate in its changed state, and it exchanges it for a second; and at another time it assumes another in addition to the former, which is needed as a better covering, suited to the purer ethereal regions of heaven. (302)
Here Origen voices again, in his vaguely Christian phraseology other teachings of the archaic Wisdom-Religion of the ancients, i. e., the peregrination of the Monadic Entity through the spheres, a teaching which will be discussed at greater length in subsequent pages.
Again in the same work, he speaks very cautiously, but yet from his standpoint quite correctly, during the course of an argument on whether it be right or wrong to eat flesh-food, as follows:
We do not believe that souls pass from one body to another, and that they may descend so low as to enter the bodies of the brutes. If we abstain at times from eating the flesh of animals, it is evidently, therefore . . . etc. (303)
This last extract on the surface and to the superficial reader may seem contrary to previous citations taken from Origen's work, and therefore opposed to Reincarnation, or any form of Reincarnational Metempsychosis; but such a conclusion is diametrically opposite to his meaning. One can only point to this accurate understanding of the General Doctrine of Reimbodiment as being another proof that Origen had been initiated and knew at least the outline of the Mystery-Teaching on the subject; for he means in this extract exactly what the Ancient Wisdom meant as the initiate philosophers taught it: that Reincarnation is not the transference of the rational entity or Reincarnating Ego, directly from one physical body to another physical body, with no intermediate stages of purgation or purification, and no intermediate principles between physical body and Reincarnating Ego. The Theosophist would deny such a distorted teaching as earnestly and as emphatically as does Origen the former Eleusinian initiate and later Christian doctrinaire.
And finally the following and distinctly Origenistic doctrine is found in Jerome's Letter to Avitus:
Nor is there any doubt that, after certain intervals of time, matter will again exist, and bodies be formed and a diversity be established in the world, on account of the varying wills of rational creatures, who, after [enjoying] their own subsistence down to the end of all things, have gradually fallen away to a lower condition.
In this extract is discerned a clear statement of the re-forming of worlds and their repeopling with beings, strictly in accordance with Origen's teaching as evidenced by the citations imbodied in the text above.
Another early Greek Church-Father, and, with Origen, one of the most eminent, living in the second and third centuries, was the renowned Clement of Alexandria, often spoken of under the Latin form of his name, Clemens Alexandrinus. Both he and Origen have been highly respected and frequently consulted by theologians in all ages since their day, and this despite the fact of the official condemnation of the so-called 'Origenistic heresies' which were twice formally condemned at Constantinople in the sixth century of the Christian Era. In Clement's 'Exhortation to the Heathen,' he says,
. . . man, who is an entity composite of body and soul, a universe in miniature. (304)
Here we find a duly canonized saint of the Christian Church uttering a typically Theosophical teaching, which teaching in the Esoteric Philosophy is so frequently expressed in the phrase, "Man is a microcosm of the Macrocosm" -- in other words, the individual human being contains in himself not only everything that the Universal Whole contains, thus being a "universe in miniature," but is by that fact an integral portion of that Universal Whole, and hence is an inseparable portion of the Cosmic Continuum, whether this Cosmic Continuum be taken in its divine, its spiritual, its intellectual, its psychical, its astral, or its physical sense. Obviously, therefore, man being such a microcosm or miniature 'reflexion' of the Universe, he is, philosophically speaking, a center of the Universe, as indeed everything else is, because every other being, entity, or thing, in its turn is a microcosm, patterned or modeled after the Universal Whole, but varying from others because of the intrinsic and evolved monadic Individuality of each such unit. If man is a center of the Universe, as indeed he is; if every entity everywhere is such a center, as indeed it is; and if any and therefore every such center is an inseparable part of the All, as indeed it is: then man in common with all these others, must have in him, as just said, everything that the Boundless All has, but in miniature, on the microcosmic scale. The acorn has in it, at least potentially, all the future oak, every part of the future oak in fact, but not yet developed or 'manifest.'
Clement, after making this typically Theosophical statement, shortly thereafter continues as follows:
Whether, then, the Phrygians are shown to be the most ancient people by the goats of the fable; or, on the other hand, the Arcadians by the poets, who describe them as older than the moon; or, finally, the Egyptians by those who dream that this land first gave birth to gods and men: yet none of these at least existed before the world. But before the foundation of the world were we, who, because destined to be in Him,
pre-existed in the eye of God before, -- we the rational creatures of the Word [Logos] of God, on whose account we date from the beginning; for "in the beginning was the Word" [Logos]. Well, inasmuch as the Word was from the first, He was and is the divine source of all things; . . . . (305)
These Prae-existants lasted, as a sect, at least until the third and fourth centuries, and there is no reason for believing that they did not last longer; but it is also certain that their influence dwindled steadily with the years, and with the greater dissemination or diffusion among the Mediterranean nations of the purely exoteric theological doctrines of the Christian exponents and exegetes -- to the great loss of spirituality in orthodox Christian theology. There were doubtless other early Christian bodies who held similar beliefs. These sects existed, in all probability, before most if not all of the books of the Christian New Testament were composed or written. Certainly there are passages in the New Testament, which, read as they stand, are more than merely 'dark sayings'; they are inexplicable by any orthodox Christian theory, and make sheer nonsense unless the idea in the mind of the writers of these different passages was based upon some form of early Christian metempsychosal Reincarnation which was more or less widely acceptable and accepted, and hence could be imbodied in the New Testament writings, as in fact they were, with the assurance that they would be understood.
The interview of Nicodemus with Jesus, and the questions of the former, and the replies thereto, are an interesting if not conclusive case in point, and show the general belief of the time, whether we accept the actual existence of Nicodemus or not. The point is proved by the fact that whether Nicodemus did or did not exist, the belief in some form of metempsychosal reincarnation was so widely diffused in Palestine, as well as in other Mediterranean lands, that it was taken for granted by the writer of these passages that all would understand the allusions, and the questions therefore came very naturally from Nicodemus' mouth. The allusion to Nicodemus is found in The Gospel according to John:
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, be cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (306)
The reader's attention is called to the fact that in this most interesting and curious passage, which in actual fact refers to at least three different aspects of the Wisdom-Teaching, Nicodemus is called a Pharisee, and as has been shown in the preceding chapter of the present work, as evidenced by the citations therein made from the Jewish Pharisee Flavius Josephus, the Pharisees at the beginning of the Christian Era accepted and taught some form of the general doctrine of Reimbodiment. Consequently, Nicodemus, a Pharisee himself, if one trust to the curious phrasing of this reference to him in the Christian New Testament, must have been probing by his questions for information of some particular kind that his mind was after; or, which seems much more likely, if such a conversation ever took place between the great Syrian Avatara Jesus, and the well-known Pharisee, who here is called "a ruler of the Jews," the exchange of ideas has been either imperfectly reported or distorted by the writer of this Gospel.
Modern critical scholarship has shown clearly enough that not a single one of the Christian Gospels was written at the time when Jesus lived, and consequently this Gospel is not from the hand of the Apostle John, as in fact is evidenced by its common Greek ascription 'according to' John.
There is another interesting passage in the same Gospel as follows:
And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? (307)
It is very evident from this passage that even the disciples of Jesus himself had some perfectly clear doctrine of metempsychosal reincarnation in their minds, and of compensatory retribution for 'sin' in a former life, because this fact is precisely shown in the question which they asked of Jesus. If we are to take the statement in this Christian Gospel as a faithful report of an actual conversation, we are driven to suppose that Jesus' disciples themselves were Pharisees, or were under the influence of the teaching of that Jewish sect -- which amounts to the same thing. It is to be noted that the answer of Jesus does not deny any previous earth-life, of the blind man, but simply runs to the effect that this blind man did not sin nor did his parents, and the writer of the Gospel makes Jesus reply in the rest of his answer quite in accordance with later Christian theological ideas, thus showing in this one instance that this Gospel was probably written several centuries after the alleged date of the birth of Jesus. The reader will note, however, that the point of importance in this matter is the proof here given of the common diffusion and popular acceptance in Palestine of one or another form of the Doctrine of Reimbodiment; and this is all that matters for the purpose of the present exposition.
It is a virtual certainty, judging from the evidence which has descended to us in more or less mutilated form from early Christian times, that from a period even before the second century, or Origen's period, the particular form which the general doctrine of Reimbodiment took among the Christians was distinctly esoteric and more or less secret. This is not a supposition based merely upon the intrinsic evidence to be found in early Christian Patristic literature -- a supposition more or less depending upon the mental bias of interpretation of the modern scholar -- but is actually vouched for by at least one of the most 'orthodox' of the early Church-Fathers themselves, the Latin Father Jerome. He makes a specific statement in his Letter to Marcella, that this doctrine was, as far as the early Christian sects of Egypt and of the Oriental parts of Hither Asia were concerned, a secret one, held privily, and not communicated to all and sundry; and from the general significance and tenor of his comment, we can only presume that it was propagated more or less 'at low breath' and 'with mouth to ear.'
Jerome's words themselves are so interesting that no apology is needed for repeating them here:
This impious and filthy doctrine spread itself in former times in Egypt and in the eastern parts; and, at the present time, is secretly, as it were in the holes of vipers, spreading among many, polluting the purity of those parts; and, like an hereditary disease, insinuates itself into the few in order that it may reach the majority. (308)
Jerome also records the fact that more than one Christian sect taught some form of reincarnational Metempsychosis. Writing to Demetrias, (309) a noble Roman lady, he again states that some form of Metempsychosis or of Reincarnation was then believed in and taught among some bodies of Christians but as an esoteric and traditional doctrine, and that it was communicated to a selected few only. He obviously did not believe in the doctrine himself, and as obviously threw much mud at those who did, yet his statements stand as a record of fact nevertheless. (310)
There were a number of the greatest of the later Church-Fathers, all quite orthodox, who rivaled each other in finding terms of vituperation and scorn of what they did not at all understand, contemning and condemning the beliefs of fellow-Christians of an earlier and purer age, and even of their own respective times -- as late, indeed, as the year 540! Lactantius, for instance, another very eminent Church-Father, who lived and wrote in the fourth century of the Christian Era, fairly bubbles over with contempt for the ancient doctrine of Reimbodiment.
There thus can be no doubt in any scholarly mind capable of weighing and sifting evidence adequately that the teaching of Reimbodiment, under one or another of its forms, prevailed until a late day even among certain Christian sects, and, apparently, to as late a time as the sixth century of the Christian Era. It is also perfectly clear that the teaching, which was commonly diffused and popular in the days of Philo and Josephus and Jesus, gradually disappeared from, or rather fell out of, popular recognition, and among the certain Christian sects above referred to became more and more secret and less spoken of openly as time went on.
Was this reticence which was thus shown in later centuries of the Christian Era in regard to the doctrine of Reimbodiment dictated by motives of worldly wisdom, motives arising out of the fear of persecution and reprisals by their fellow-Christians: or was it dictated by the very different motives which governed the public teaching and dissemination of some form of Reimbodiment among the peoples who lived in times preceding the Christian Era? Perhaps a little of both. The reason for the secrecy that prevailed in pre-Christian times was this: In order fully to understand the general Doctrine of metempsychosal Palingenesis, or, more generally, of Reimbodiment, long and arduous study and much thought are required. The principles of this Doctrine are very simple in themselves and a child can understand them, but if one wishes to have an accurate and extensive knowledge of them, one must study and reflect deeply; and it was an ancient custom, prevalent everywhere, that no sane and wise man gives out all of the teachings of any science or art or philosophical system all at once, and especially not to those who have not previously prepared themselves by training and study properly and rightfully to receive them.
This was the spirit imbodying itself in the method governing and controlling all ancient initiatory rites used in the ancient Mystery-Schools, and to a certain extent this is so even among ourselves today, in our own most exoteric and pragmatic century. Who teaches a young child secrets involving physical or moral danger? For instance, we do not permit him to learn how to combine chemicals into explosives; and thus we avoid the otherwise imminent risk of his blowing himself and his home into the skyey blue! Let the student first learn the elements of the study to which he sets himself; let him prepare himself first, both in mind and heart. First must his moral nature to some extent be developed in order to insure not only his own safety, but that of his fellow-men. Then may he receive the greater secrets of the Arcana, but even then only in proportion to the degree that he is prepared to do so.
The matter of the existence and extremely wide and popular diffusion of at least one form of metempsychosal Reincarnation, and possibly of several forms, among the Jews and the earliest Christians, as well as among the other peoples inhabiting the countries lying around the Mediterranean Sea, has been given somewhat extensive treatment in the foregoing paragraphs, both by way of citation and of comment, because, with the exception of scholars acquainted with the different literatures of the beliefs and the religious movements just named, the vast mass of European and American readers have no idea whatsoever that reincarnation, or more accurately reimbodiment, prevailed so widely and was so popular as the literary evidence shows us to have been the fact; and it seemed therefore not only useful but proper to display the case as has been done.
The average Christian today, for instance, if told that both the Jews and the members of the earliest Christian communities accepted reincarnation after their own manner, would probably answer the statement either with a smile of incredulity, or, if gifted with a more inquisitive and pragmatical mind would ask on what grounds the statement is made. It has thus been shown that not only the Jews accepted some form of metempsychosal reincarnation, which is a statement not too strong when it is remembered that the Pharisees composed almost the entire body of thinking Hebrews, and that therefore the belief was coextensive with the Jewish multitude -- and that they fully accepted it Josephus and Philo abundantly show -- but also that the earliest Christians in their two classes of teachers and followers likewise had some form of belief in reimbodiment, and that this belief must have descended to them from the days of Jesus himself; for it has been shown that even Jesus' disciples were fully acquainted with the doctrine and were so persuaded of its truth that they were puzzled as to whether the man born blind was so born of the karmic consequences of some sin in a previous life, or whether, perhaps, his parents in some manner were at fault -- quite a modern form of question, as every Theosophist knows!
Casting our gaze now over a later time in European history, we find that during the Middle Ages there existed certain bodies which held and taught a secret doctrine of reimbodiment of some kind, although the details of their beliefs are no longer discoverable; and these unfortunate bodies of 'heretics' were rigorously sought out and persecuted and punished for their beliefs by the long arm of the authorities of the time, both ecclesiastic and civil. Such were the Cathari, mentioned before -- a word meaning the 'clean ones' because they believed in leading a clean life. These were also called the Albigenses, the Tisserands, the Albigeois, and by other names in Western lands. Such again were the Bogomils in Bulgaria and Russia -- this word being an old Slavonic term probably meaning 'the elect of God.' Their 'crime' seems to have been that they loved more than the things of this world what they thought to be the things of God. Both these latter bodies of men, it is possible, kept alive some form of the general doctrine of reimbodiment that was much earlier taught in the formerly widespread and popular Manichaean system of beliefs.
Later still, in Europe, came the unfortunate Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), a Neo-Platonist born out of time. Van Helmont of Holland (1578-1644), the scientist and mystical philosopher, it is quite possible also believed in some form of reincarnation; and later still, Swedenborg (1688-1772), the famous Swedish thinker and mystic, seems to have adopted the doctrine of soul-reimbodiment in a form modeled after his own ideas.
In modern Germany, we find Goethe, Lessing, and Herder also teaching Reincarnation, but as they understood it. So did Charles Bonnet, the Swiss-French biologist and philosopher, after his manner; while Schopenhauer and Hume, though not teaching it, considered it to be a doctrine meriting the profoundest philosophical respect and worthy of serious study.
The celebrated writer and critic G. E. Lessing, held the perfectly logical and necessary view that the progress of the human species, as also that of all other animate entities, was based on some form of metempsychosal reimbodiment, and his procedure in argument was, shortly, as follows: (311)
The spiritual soul is an uncompounded entity, intrinsically capable of infinite conceptions on account of its derivation in ultimate from an infinite source, the Kosmic Divine. But as it is in its manifestations only an entity of finite powers, it is not capable of containing infinite conceptions while in its finite states, but does obtain infinite conceptions by growth through an infinite succession of time, obtaining such experiences gradually. But obtaining them gradually, there must of necessity be order and degree by which these infinite conceptions are acquired. Such order and measure of learning are found in the percipient organs, commonly called the senses, inner especially but also outer, the real roots of which are in the naturally percipient soul; the physical senses are at present five only; but there is no sensible reason for supposing that the soul commenced with five senses only, or that it never will have more than five.
As it is certain that Nature never makes a leap in her growth, skipping intermediate steps, the soul therefore must have passed through all inferior stages to its present one, learning in all through an appropriate organ or appropriate organs; and because it is also certain that Nature comprises and contains many substances and powers which our present five senses cannot respond to and report back to the central consciousness on account of the imperfections of those five senses, we must recognise that there will be future stages of growth and development in which the soul will develop forth as many new senses as there are substances and powers of Nature.
In his little but noteworthy essay, discovered after his death, which he calls Dass mehr als funf Sinne fir den Menschen sein konnen ('That there can be more than five Senses for Man'), he says:
This my system is unquestionably the most ancient of all systems of philosophy; for in reality it is no other than the system of the pre-existence and metempsychosis of the soul which occupied the minds of Pythagoras and Plato, and likewise before them of Egyptians, Chaldaeans, and Persians -- in brief, of all the Sages of the East; and this fact alone ought to work strongly in its favor, for the first and most ancient belief is, in matters of theory, always the most probable, because common sense hit upon it immediately. (312)
Philosophers, poets, scientists, religionists, sociologists, what not: the greatest minds, the most brilliant intellects, the noblest spiritual teachers, and the greatest seers that the world has ever known, all taught some form of the doctrine of Reimbodiment, without one exception that the present writer can recall; and in many cases they have given to us the reasons for their belief in the form of religious and philosophical systems of thought.
Even today, as hereinbefore stated, the doctrine of Reincarnation is written about in romance and used as a theme for plays cast upon the screen in the cinematographic theaters. No one today any longer mocks at so noble and inspiring a belief. Why? Because modern men are beginning again to understand, however imperfectly and in however vague an outline, what Reincarnation or rather the general doctrine of Reimbodiment, really means.
The American industrialist, Henry Ford, is a reincarnationist of the modern type, and openly voices the fact, not merely because of the peace of heart but also because of the peace of mind that this doctrine gives to him. The following is an extract from an interesting interview on the subject that Mr. Ford gave some years ago to a well-known American journalist, Mr. George Sylvester Viereck. Mr. Ford said:
I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty-six. . . .
Religion offered nothing to the point -- at least, I was unable to discover it. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilize the experience we collect in one life in the next.
When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. There was time enough to plan and to create.
The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. I was settled. I felt that order and progress were present in the mystery of life. I no longer looked elsewhere for a solution to the riddle of life.
If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men's minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.
We all retain, however faintly, memories of past lives. We frequently feel that we have witnessed a scene or lived through a moment in some previous existence. But that is not essential; it is the essence, the gist, the results of experience, that are valuable and remain with us. (313)
On the other hand, there are also found today strange misunderstandings or even distortions of the famous old and once universally diffused teaching. The eminent research-engineer and famed scientist, Matthew Luckiesh, wrote a few years ago:
Reincarnation of the soul has been dreamed of and desired by many peoples.
. . . .After all these years we are still uncertain of the destiny of that intangible part of us -- the soul or mind-entity. Can we suppress a smile when we admit that knowledge has proved reincarnation and practically eternal life for dead matter, but has revealed as yet no such proof for our so-called souls? We lie down at night and our minds rest in unconsciousness. The atoms in the textiles which cover us are as vibrant with life as those in our bodies. The electrons in the atoms continue revolving in their orbits and the molecules composed of atoms continue vibrating. These movements of these small elemental bodies go on whether we waken or die, and they go on doing this forever, barring some cataclysmic phenomenon which only exists in theory as yet. The irony of it! Knowledge has first proved the eternal life of matter.
May one not also add, "Can we suppress a smile" when we hear so clear-minded a logician talking of the fact that "dead matter" is "eternally alive"? It is clear that the entire conception, or more accurately misconception, which swayed the mind of this oft intuitive thinker when he wrote is a curiously contradictory hypothesis, which it is likely he did not take the pains to examine or analyse as regards its component elements of thought. First, he believes that "matter is dead"; second, in the same sentence and in the same phrase he says that matter has "eternal life."
To continue the citation:
A so-called living thing dies; but its myriad atoms are as alive as ever. The particular organization of atoms represented by that dead body is mustered out. . . .
We can imagine many interesting migrations of matter during the course of which many reincarnations (314) take place. . . .
For example, an atom of oxygen which we now breathe may have come to our Earth from afar in a meteor. Perhaps it was formed billions of years ago . . . in a stellar crucible -- a far-off nebula. . . . The oxygen-atom was a part of a meteor [later] which traveled erratically for aeons. This piece of 'drift-wood' of space eventually entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned. . . . The oxygen-atom came to the Earth in the ash-dust.
This may have been millions of years ago. The electrons rotated in the orbits of this atom all this time. The atoms became a part of a molecule of mineral salt. Eventually it passed . . . into a plant. . . . The atom may have become a part of a bacterium and eventually of an animal higher in the scale. . . . Now it is a part of a molecule of water. Again it has a devious journey and many reincarnations. . . . This is the merest glimpse of its eternal life -- unchanged although reincarnated countless times.
He speaks of these atoms as being forever physically alive, which obviously means for 'eternity.' Now this is a very large and sweeping statement to make, for it is almost a physical certainty, even according to the teachings of modern chemical physics, that the atoms themselves have a definite life-term, and therefore have both a beginning and an ending; but the Esoteric Philosophy even here asserts that such a beginning with its varying life-term and final ending is but one unit or link in an endless chain of such atomic reimbodiments; for the cosmical comprehensive view of the Esoteric Philosophy states in no uncertain manner that not only atoms are reimbodied, but likewise celestial bodies, and solar systems, and galaxies, and so forth as far as one cares to carry the mind in its soarings both in space and in theory.
He next says that the atom of oxygen had its electrons rotating within it for billions of years, and that these electronic rotations in their respective orbits have been pursuing their respective orbital paths 'unchanged' for all that period of time. Now an atom billions of years old is a very ancient atom indeed. How can any atom live "unchanged" for that length of time? We know of nothing whatsoever in Nature which endures "unchanged" through eternity: which does not have its beginning, which does not reach maturity, and which does not finally decay and die -- only to come back, to reimbody itself. When this evolutionary period concerns the human soul, it is briefly and descriptively stated under the term Reincarnation; when it is one of the migrations of the life-atoms, or even of the chemical atoms, that is concerned or takes place, we call it the reimbodiment or the transmigration of those life-atoms.
Yes, every individualized entity has its own life-period; for its life-center must come into physical manifested existence, therein to reach its growth of power and of faculty -- whatever these may be; then comes the full expansion of its forces or energies -- its full strength; and then decay and decrepitude set in, followed by its 'death.' But does it remain 'dead' forever, for eternity? How can that be? What men call 'death' is merely a changing of state or condition, a passing over or migrating of forces, or rather of the cohering Force, a transmigration to other states or conditions. As surely as it was here before, so surely will magnetic or rather psycho-magnetic attraction draw it back to a new imbodiment: that is, that particular individuality, that Monadic essence, which ensouled the life-atom and gave to it life and coherence and individuality, will manifest itself anew, and continue doing so repetitively and uninterruptedly from the beginning of the Cosmic Manvantara to its end.
Casting then our eye over the annals of history and its many scribbled pages, and attempting to read the often puzzling palimpsests of the past which have come down to us, we see that the nearer we come to our own times of modern history, the more clearly do we discern that the General Doctrine of Reimbodiment became more and more distorted and ever more greatly changed; while, on the other hand, the farther back in time we trace its history, the more accurately was the teaching taught and the more widely was it disseminated over the globe. In those older times, men really understood this noble doctrine; they spent years of their life in the study of it in its various reaches and popular formulations, and therefore knew, at least to some extent, what it really did mean, and in consequence realized how vast a field of esoteric knowledge dealing with Nature's secret mysteries it was actually the key to. They also knew that a life-time's study of it would not exhaust its immense content, and they knew likewise how great were the wisdom and consolation that flowed forth into their minds and hearts from earnest and unremittingly continuous study of it. It was the most effective explanation, because the most satisfying, that they could give to their less learned and less intuitive fellow-men of the riddles and many and often heart-rending inequalities in human life. With them it was a doctrine of boundless hope, for they saw that its import and significance dealt not only with the karmic past but reached into the illimitable fields of the future.
Before closing the present chapter, and as an example of the manner in which the teaching of Reimbodiment was given and understood in ancient times, the following brief summary of the part it played in ancient Orphic thought may be interesting and instructive. (315)
Spirit and body are united by a bond unequally strong as between the two; the spirit is divine in essence, immortal, and yearns for its native freedom; while the body holds it temporarily enchained. Death dissolves this bond, but only temporarily, because the wheel of rebirth revolves constantly, bringing the spirit-soul back into incarnation in due course of time. Thus does the spirit-soul continue its cosmic journey between periods of spiritual and free existence and fresh incarnations around the long circle of Necessity. To these imprisoned entities does Orpheus teach the message of liberation, calling them back to the Divine by a strong holy living and by self-purification: the purer the life, the higher the next incarnation, until the spirit-soul has completed the spiral ascent of destiny, thereafter to live in full freedom as a divine entity in the bosom of the Divine itself, but fully self-conscious now: for from that Divine it originally issued forth.
Thus far goes this exposition of the heart of the archaic Orphic system. It might have been added in this sketch that the spirit-soul which has thus finished its kosmic career for that certain Kosmic Period and that particular cosmic Universe, is then become a fully self-conscious participant in the Great Kosmic Work of the still larger and Enclosing Universe: a fully developed and full-blown god, or divinity, in that Kosmic system of evolution; and it remains thus until a new period of manifestation of the Kosmic Life begins, opening a new Kosmic Drama of Life, or what modern Theosophy calls the Kosmic Manvantara. Then and there it is from within as well as from without impulsed again to issue forth, as it has done uncounted times before -- but as a beginner now at the bottom of this new manvantaric evolutionary scale or Ladder of Kosmic Life -- and to undertake a new journey to highths still more sublime and in still more universal fields than previously.
Such is, indeed, likewise our own Monadic destiny, such the ultimate of each period of evolutionary striving, towards ever brighter and nobler and more universal states and stages in the Boundless Universe. As regards its particular destiny on this our earth -- one of the stopping-places on its evolutionary pathway -- it learns through incarnation after incarnation, through infleshing after infleshing, of the human Monad: until, from its first issuing-forth from the bosom of the Divine as an un-self-conscious god-spark, it reaches, not unity but union with the Divine from which it had originated; thereafter to be a fully self-conscious god, taking part, a godlike part, in the Great Kosmic Labor of the Universe.
FOOTNOTES:
287. This was when the seven philosophers whose school was thus closed at Athens fled for protection and for the free practice of their philosophic beliefs to the court of the Persian King Khosru Nushirwan I. These seven Greek philosophers were later allowed, by the treaty which Khosru forced upon the Emperor Justinian, to return and live in peace in the Roman Empire without being amenable or subject to the then prevailing laws of the Roman Empire particularly directed against 'Pagans' so called and their religion or religions. (return to text)
288. One might cite half a hundred names of more or less prominent writers whose literary works show clear evidences of these things; but it is neither possible nor needful to enter into a discussion of the matter in the present work.
It is, however, pleasant to point to instances of forward-seeing and intuitive minds who show clearly in their literary productions to how great an extent Occidental philosophy is freeing itself, and doing so rapidly, from the old theological shackles and limited views, whether in science, philosophy, or religion, which were so familiar even to the last generation.
One such intuitive mind, liberal and genial in its philosophic outlook, is Professor John Elof Boodin, who in many respects, as in his breadth of vision and in his devotion to the essential value of ancient thought -- in his case that of Plato especially -- shows that he is more of a Theosophist than possibly he himself would care to acknowledge. One may regret that his truly philosophic and intuitive mind has not given to the Archaic Wisdom, today called Theosophy, now one of the world-movements in religion and philosophy, the same attention that he has bestowed on the passing phases of modern science, to which he seems in his most interesting book, Three Interpretations of the Universe (Macmillan Co., 1934), to give more value than these phases of rapidly changing scientific opinion merit.
There are many passages in this book which are both intuitive and admirably said, and which so closely approximate to some of the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, if not identical therewith, that one can only regret that this Professor of Philosophy has not followed this line of thought more extensively. The following extracts from his work just mentioned (quoted by the kind permission of the author, J. E. Boodin) are found on pages 497, 499, and 500, and are cited here as illustrations of what has just been said:
". . . Living things run their cycles in the cosmic process. They have their descent as well as ascent. For the most part their span is brief, though the simplest units of life, as of matter, seem to have a very long existence. Death, it has been said, is the price nature exacts for complexity. But even the simplest organisms have their season in the cosmic climate. The evolutionary ascent takes place through the stream of life from generation to generation. But the stream of life is not something apart from its environment. It includes its field. The stream of life of which we are a part runs its cycle within the earth cycle, devolution following evolution. The earth cycle itself runs its course within the solar cycle of which the earth and the other planets are a part. And the solar cycle runs its course within still more comprehensive cycles within which galaxies of stars rise from nebulae. But all the cycles run their course within the field of cosmic control."
". . . There is more to the synthesis of water than the proportion of two parts of Hydrogen to one of Oxygen. There is the stimulus which overcomes their inertia, and there is the cosmic field in which the synthesis takes place and which by virtue of its structure dictates the formula. The structure of water is not implied in either Hydrogen gas or Oxygen gas or in the addition of their characteristics. . . ."
"The whole process of evolution is a process of spiritualization."
". . . The reason that we find beauty and intelligence in nature in even its simplest stages is that even here -- in the atom, in the inorganic compounds -- we are not dealing with inert, passive matter (which is a fiction of philosophers) but with spiritualized matter. In the understanding and appreciation of the lowliest matter, 'spirit with Spirit may meet,' even though the range is limited. We must postulate pure spirit as the energizing medium throughout nature and not only in the life of the highest beings. The whole hierarchy of beings from the electron to man, and whatever may be above man, lives and moves in the medium of Spirit. Just as our whole body has a unique quality because it is dominated by the field of mind, so nature throughout has a unique quality, because it is dominated by divinity; and in our moments of artistic innocence we intuit and appreciate nature as thus spiritualized. That is the reason no man can be a great scientist unless he is a poet."
289. The title of the Latin translation of Origen's work is De principiis, Englished as On First Principles. (return to text)
290. On First Principles, page xii. The translations from Origen in the extracts which follow are Crombie's, Professor of Biblical Criticism, St. Andrews. (return to text)
291. On First Principles, Bk. III, ch. i, sec. 21. (return to text)
292. Ibid. (return to text)
293. Op. cit., Bk. III, ch. iii, sec. 5. (return to text)
294. Ibid. (return to text)
295. Op. cit., Bk. III, ch. v, sec. 4. (return to text)
296. Op. cit., Bk. III, ch. v, sec. 3. (return to text)
297. Op. cit., Bk. IV, ch. i, sec. 23. (return to text)
298. Op. cit., Bk. I, ch. viii, sec. 4. (return to text)
299. Celsus had written forcibly and ably against the new Christian faith, basing his objections on the ground of a lack of an adequate philosophy therein, and also on the fact that, as he then truly stated, there was very little in it of worth which was new, and that all of its best had been anticipated in the various Pagan beliefs. (return to text)
300. Origen: Contra Celsum (Against Celsus), Bk. I, ch. xx (Crombie's trans.). (return to text)
301. Op. cit., Bk. III, ch. lxxv. (return to text)
302. Op. cit., Bk. VII, ch. xxxii. (return to text)
303. Op. cit., Bk. VIII, ch. xxx. (return to text)
304. Chapter i. (return to text)
305. Op. cit., ch. i. (The translation is that of the Rev. Wm. Wilson.) (return to text)
306. Ch. iii, vv. 1-7. (return to text)
307. Ch. ix, vv. 1-2. (return to text)
308. The Latin text as found in the Letter in question is here given, from which the above translation is made:
"Haec impia et scelerata doctrina olim in Aegypto et Orientis partibus versabatur; et nunc abscondite, quasi in foveis viperarum, apud pleros versatur, illarumque partium polluit puritatem; et quasi haereditario malo serpit in paucis ut perveniat ad plurimos." (return to text)
309. Letter to Demetrias. (return to text)
310. The reader will carefully note the fact that Jerome lived and wrote in the second half of the fourth century -- thus several hundred years after the alleged date of the birth of Jesus -- and that, consequently, he wrote under the influence of the growing exotericism and dogmatic theology which in his day was becoming steadily more crystallized in the form which it later assumed. His outlook upon the doctrine of Reimbodiment is therefore easily understood, and accounts for the typically Patristic and dogmatic way in which he writes of it, as evidenced in the extract given above. But it likewise proves, as elsewhere stated in this and in the preceding chapter, that even so late as in Jerome's time, the fourth century, some form of metempsychosal reimbodiment was still held by certain Christian sects, although more or less secretly, doubtless because of fear of orthodox persecution and reprisals. It soon thereafter died out. (return to text)
311. His view is particularized here because in certain respects it approaches closely to an outline of what the Theosophical teaching is with regard to Reincarnation. Lessing wrote more openly than others who privately held the same view. (return to text)
312. Lessing otherwise writes on Reincarnation as follows, in his The Education of the Human Race, translated by F. W. Robertson:
"94. . . . But why should not every individual man have existed more than once upon this World?
"95. Is this hypothesis so laughable merely because it is the oldest? Because the human understanding, before the sophistries of the Schools had dissipated and debilitated it lighted upon it at once?
"96. Why may not even I have already performed those steps of my perfecting which bring to man only temporal punishments and rewards?
"97. And once more, why not another time all those steps, to perform which the views of Eternal Rewards so powerfully assist us?
"98. Why should I not come back as often as I am capable of acquiring fresh knowledge, fresh expertness? Do I bring away so much from once, that there is nothing to repay the trouble of coming back?
"99. Is this a reason against? Or, because I forget that I have been here already? Happy is it for me that I do forget. The recollection of my former condition would permit me to make only a bad use of the present. And that which even I must forget now, is that necessarily forgotten for ever?
"100. Or is it a reason against the hypothesis that so much time would have been lost to me? Lost? -- And how much then should I miss? -- Is not a whole Eternity mine?" (return to text)
313. The San Francisco Examiner, August 26, 1928. (return to text)
314. Here once again recurs a constantly appearing misuse of this word which actually is a highly technical term when used with strict logic and in strict symmetrical framework of thought. What Mr. Luckiesh intended to say was 'many reimbodiments take place.' The Theosophist who strives always to be accurate in the use of his terms, unless by force of circumstance driven to employ words which for purposes of easy understanding are more comprehensible to his readers, would feel constrained to point out with some emphasis that Reincarnation means 're-infleshing' or 're-infleshment,' and therefore can be used only when describing the reimbodiment of the ego in corporeal vehicles or bodies of flesh. Hence he uses the more general term Reimbodiment to signify the entering by the migrating Monad into 'bodies' of different kinds, whether they be of flesh -- in which case the exactly proper term is Reincarnation -- or of light, or of ether, or of some other form of substance.
The point here made, it is possible, may seem somewhat trivial to the superficial reader, but in fact it is not so. It is far from being either trivial or unimportant when the Theosophist desires to convey to his readers or to his audience the different kinds and types of bodies or vehicles or integuments assumed by the reimbodying Monad in the course of its marvelous peregrinating adventures through the spheres.
It is evident also that the observations contained in the preceding paragraph of this footnote, where mention is specifically made of the reimbodying Monad, are applicable with equal force to any other migrating entity, whether Monad or the migrating atom of which Mr. Luckiesh speaks in the text above. When such an atom enters into the composition of a 'molecule of mineral salt' it is a case of reimbodiment; exactly so when it reimbodies itself in the chemical stuff of a plant, or of a bacterium; but its reimbodiment becomes reincarnation, in a sense, when it forms part of the chemical structure of the flesh of an animal. Nevertheless, and speaking with an accuracy even more strict and searching, it is far best to speak of all the peregrinations of a migrating atom or electron as being reimbodiments, and to reserve the term 'reincarnation' for those particular vehicles of flesh which the Monad assumes in its repetitive incarnations in such bodies of flesh. The student will easily see the need for such accuracy. (return to text)
315. Orpheus was one of the greatest, and most revered for ages, of the archaic Greek philosophers; and he is supposed by modern scholars to have belonged to what they call the 'mythic age' of Greece. One wonders, by the way, if these scholars really know just what they do intend to say by this phrase, 'mythic age'! At any rate, Orpheus, according to one line of legendary lore, founded or was the main founder of the once renowned Eleusinian Mysteries. (return to text)