Neoplatonism
The great philosophic body that formed a bridge, as it were, between
the Old World and the New was the famous School of Alexandria, founded
about the second century of our era by Ammonius Saccas and closed in
the year 429 A.D. through the intolerance of Justinian. Theosophical
in its origin, this school had received from Plato the esoteric
teaching of Egypt and the East, and the dogma of Rebirth was secretly
taught in
the ignorance of the masses to whom only the grosser aspects of the
teaching were given.
"It is a dogma recognised throughout antiquity," says Plotinus,[177]
"that the soul expiates its sins in the darkness of the infernal
regions, and that afterwards it passes into new bodies, there to
undergo new trials."
"When we have gone astray in multiplicity,[178] we are first punished
by our wandering away from the path, and afterwards by less favourable
conditions, when we take on new bodies."[179]
"The gods are ever looking down upon us in this world, no reproach we
bring against them can be justifiable, for their providence is
never-ending; they allot to each individual his appropriate destiny,
one that is in harmony with his past conduct, in conformity with his
successive existences."[180]
The following is a quotation from the same philosopher, dealing with
metempsychosis, and which, when compared with the foregoing sentences,
appears strangely absurd. We make no comment here, as this obscure
question will be dealt with a few pages farther on.
"Those who have exercised human faculties are reborn as men; those who
have lived only the life of the senses pass into animals' bodies,
especially into the bodies of wild beasts if they have given way to
excesses of anger ... those who have sought only to satisfy their lust
and gluttony, pass into the bodies of lascivious and gluttonous
animals ... those who have allowed their senses to become atrophied,
are sent to vegetate in trees ... those who have reigned tyranically
become eagles, if they have no other vice."[181]
Porphyry says:
"The souls that are not destined for the tortures of hell
(Tartarus), and those that have passed through this expiation, are
born again, and divine Justice gives them a new body, in accordance
with their merits and demerits."[182]
The following remarkable lines are from Iamblichus:
"What appears to us to be an accurate definition of justice does not
also appear to be so to the Gods. For we, looking at that which is
most brief, direct our attention to things present, and to this
momentary life, and the manner in which it subsists. But the powers
that are superior to us know the whole life of the Soul, and all its
former lives; and, in consequence of this, if they inflict a certain
punishment in obedience to the entreaties of those that invoke them,
they do not inflict it without justice, but looking at the offences
committed by souls in former lives: which men, not perceiving, think
that they unjustly fall into the calamities which they suffer."[183]
Proclus gave out the same teaching; he affirmed that he had been
incarnated in Nichomachus, the Pythagorean.
In his commentary on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, Hierocles
expresses himself thus:
"The ways of the Lord can be justified only by metempsychosis."[184]
Damascius and Hermias, as also their masters, proclaimed their belief
in Rebirth.
Here a short explanation must be given of what has been said regarding
transmigration or metempsychosis, in order that all misunderstanding
may be removed.
Neither Pythagoras nor Plotinus nor any of the great Teachers of the
past believed in metempsychosis, as it has been described; all their
disciples have affirmed if, and these affirmations, set over against a
line of teaching which seems to contradict them, because it is
incomplete and intended for the less intelligent portion of society at
that time, ought to have reminded its opponents that there might be
hidden reasons capable of explaining the paradox.
We must first remember that a veil of strictest secrecy was flung over
the noblest and most sublime spiritual teachings of the day. According
to Bossuet, the teaching of the immortality of the soul seems not to
have been deemed suitable for the Hebrew race, and, indeed, it is easy
to understand that no double-edged truth should be taught except under
conditions that would safeguard it. Ptolemy Philadelphus exiled
Hegesias,[185] whose eloquent fanaticism had caused some of his
disciples to commit suicide, at Cyrene, after a lesson on immortality.
Ptolemy ordered those schools of philosophy to be closed which
continued teaching this doctrine, for in the case of a people
insufficiently developed, the instinct which binds to physical life,
and the dread of the torture that awaits guilty souls in the
Hereafter, are preferable to doctrines of immortality deprived of the
safeguards with which they should be surrounded.
The doctrine of Rebirths called for even stricter secrecy than that of
immortality, and this secrecy was accorded it in ancient times; after
the coming of the Christ, it grew less rigorous, and the
Neoplatonists, though obliged to keep the esoteric teaching to
themselves, were permitted to throw light on certain points.
Timaeus of Locris, one of the masters of Plotinus, hinted at the
existence of a more profound doctrine in the following words:
"Just as by the threat of punishment imperfectly evolved souls are
prevented from sinning, so the transmigration of the souls of
murderers into the bodies of wild beasts, and of the souls of unchaste
persons into the bodies of swine, was taught; and the previous
punishment of these souls in the infernal regions was entrusted to
Nemesis (Karma)."
Certain modern commentators--though imperfectly instructed in the
teachings of palingenesis--have also seen that the masters of
philosophy in the past could not possibly have made a mistake which
less far-seeing minds would have avoided. Dacier[186] says:
"A sure token that Pythagoras never held the opinion attributed to him
lies in the fact that there is not the faintest trace of it in the
symbols we have left of him, or in the precepts his disciple, Lysis,
collected together and handed down as a summary of the master's
teachings."
Jules Simon also speaks as follows regarding Plotinus:[187]
"Here we have the doctrine of metempsychosis which Plotinus found all
around, among the Egyptians, the Jews, the Neoplatonists, his
predecessors, and finally in Plato himself. Does Plato take
metempsychosis seriously, as one would be tempted to believe after
reading the Republic? Did he mention it only to ridicule the
superstitions of his contemporaries, as seems evident from the
Timaeus?[188]
"However important Plato may have considered metempsychosis, it can
scarcely be imagined that Plotinus took it seriously.... Even granting
that this doctrine were literally accepted by Plotinus, the question
would still have to be asked whether the human soul really does dwell
in the body of an animal, or simply enters a human body, which, in its
passions and vices, recalls the nature of that particular animal."
The reasons mentioned by Dacier and Jules Simon form only a trifling
portion of the whole explanation, but if they are added to the
constant protests raised by the disciples of the Masters of the
Pythagorean and Platonic traditions, against those who said that their
instructors taught metempsychosis in all its crudeness, they assume
considerable importance, and show that, although the restrictions of
esoteric teaching travestied by the ignorance of the masses may have
caused it to be believed that the contrary was the case, none the less
the Initiates, from the very beginning, denied that human
transmigration into the bodies of animals ever took place.
On this question many of them have frequently said that it is the soul
which, in such cases, changes its nature, and assumes the passions of
animals into which, as is said exoterically, it transmigrates, though
it does not enter into their bodies.
"He who believes that he transmigrates, after death, into the body of
a beast or a plant," says Hierocles,[189] "is grossly mistaken; he is
ignorant of the fact that the essential form of the soul cannot
change, that it is and it remains human, and only, metaphorically
speaking, does virtue make of it a god, and vice an animal."
"A human soul," adds Hermes, "cannot go back into the body of an
animal; it is preserved from such pollution, for all time, by the will
of the gods."[190]
Mrs. Besant says as follows in a letter dealing with Theosophy and
Reincarnation (The Theosophist, April, 1906):
"Even with the wealth of detail given in the Hindu Shastras, thousands
of facts of the invisible world are omitted, because their statement
would hopelessly bewilder the public mind.
"If all the details are given, ere the main principles are grasped,
hopeless confusion is caused to the beginner.
"When an Ego, a human soul, by vicious appetite or otherwise, forms a
very strong link of attachment to any type of animal, the astral body
(Kamarupa) of such a person shows the corresponding animal
characteristics, and in the astral world, where thoughts and passions
are visible as forms, may take the animal shapes; thus, after death,
in Pretaloka, the soul would be embodied in an animal vesture,
resembling or approximating to the animal whose qualities had been
encouraged during earth-life. Either at this stage, or when the soul
is returning towards reincarnation, and is again in the astral world,
it may, in extreme cases, be linked by magnetic affinity to the astral
body of the animal it has approached in character, and will then,
through the animal's astral body, be chained as a prisoner to that
animal's physical body. Thus chained, it cannot go onwards to
Svarga, if the tie be set up while it is a Preta; nor go onwards
to human birth, if it be descending towards physical life. It is truly
undergoing penal servitude, chained to an animal; it is conscious in
the astral world, has its human faculties, but it cannot control the
brute body with which it is connected, nor express itself through
that body on the physical plane. The animal organisation does not
possess the mechanism needed by the human Ego for self-expression; it
can serve as a jailor, not as a vehicle. Further, the "animal soul" is
not ejected, but is the proper tenant and controller of its own body.
S'ri Shankaracharya hints very clearly at the difference between this
penal imprisonment and becoming a stone, a tree, or an animal. Such an
imprisonment is not "reincarnation," ... the human Ego "cannot
reincarnate as an animal," cannot "become an animal."
"In cases where the Ego is not degraded enough for absolute
imprisonment, but in which the astral body has become very animal, it
may pass on normally to human re-birth, but the animal characteristic
will be largely reproduced in the physical body--as witness the
"monsters" who in face are sometimes repulsively animal, pig-faced,
dog-faced, &c. Men, by yielding to the most bestial vices, entail on
themselves penalties more terrible than they, for the most part,
realise; for Nature's laws work on unbrokenly and bring to every man
the harvest of the seed he sows. The suffering entailed on the
conscious human entity, thus cut off from progress and from
self-expression, is very great, and is, of course, reformatory in its
action; it is somewhat similar to that endured by other Egos, who are
linked to bodies human in form, but without normal brains--those we
call idiots, lunatics, &c. Idiocy and lunacy are the results of vices
different in kind from those that bring about the animal servitude
above explained, but the Ego in these cases also is attached to a form
through which he cannot express himself."
"True reason," says Proclus,[191] "affirms that the human soul may at
times find lodgment in brutes, but that it is possible for it to live
its own life and rise above the lower nature whilst bound to it by the
similarity of its tendencies and desires. We have never meant anything
else, as has often been proved by the reasoning in our commentaries on
Phaedrus."
There is a note in the Vahan[192] on a passage from Phaedrus which
sheds all the light that can be shed on the question of
metempsychosis; in the space of a few lines everything is said that
may be publicly revealed, without trespassing on forbidden ground.
After stating that, on returning from the internal regions, the soul
passes into the "life" of a beast, and that if it were human
previously, it afterwards goes into another human body, the note
continues:
"We must not understand by this that the soul of a man becomes the
soul of a brute, but that by way of punishment it is bound to the soul
of a brute, or carried in it, just as daemons used to reside in our
souls. Hence all the energies of the rational soul are absolutely
impeded, and its intellectual eye beholds nothing but the dark and
tumultuous phantasms of a brutal life."[193]
This passage contains the explanation of what might be called the
metempsychosis of certain human souls at the present time; we once
heard a great Teacher fully reveal this mystery to a chosen group of
Hindus, but it must for some time to come remain a mystery to the
western world. All that can be said on the matter is that it has
nothing to do with the incarnation of a human soul in the body of an
animal, but rather with a certain temporary karmic bond, in the life
Hereafter, between a human soul and an animal one, a bond intended to
teach many a hard lesson to the one who has brought upon himself so
unpleasant an experience.
Metempsychosis included many other facts in human evolution, facts
that were plainly taught to the disciples in the "inner circles" of
the ancient Schools and passed out to the confused medley of public
teaching.
The astral body, for instance, of a man of an exceedingly passionate
nature, when the soul leaves the physical body, sometimes assumes
forms resembling those of the animals which represent these passions
on the physical plane, and so the disincarnate soul of an assassin has
been said to pass into the body of a wild beast.
Metempsychosis, properly so-called, that is to say, the passing of a
human soul into the body of a brute, did however exist during the
infancy of the human race, when highly developed animal souls were
becoming fit to enter the human kingdom. The bodies of these
newly-born human souls were coarse and rudimentary in their nature,
showing scarcely any difference in form and organic function from the
bodies of the higher animals of that period, for these instruments
were very similar to one another. The improvements subsequently
effected by human bodies did not then exist; the difference, or
distinction, which has now widened into a gulf, was scarcely
perceptible, and in the early incarnations of these rudimentary human
souls back-slidings and falls were so frequent that some of them, thus
enfeebled, might find it to their advantage[194] to become incarnate,
at times, in highly-developed animal bodies. But that was always an
exception, and the exception has long ago become an impossibility.
We think these explanations, along with those given in other portions
of this work, will throw as much light as is permitted publicly on the
subject of metempsychosis--a subject frequently discussed and one that
has hitherto been so obscure. Such illumination as is here given is
due to the teachings of theosophy.
More
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A Few Deductions
The Germ. From the facts established in the course of this comprehensive view of the Universe, we are enabled to draw important deductions. For instance, as the basis of every "cycle of life" is found the egg or germ, that strange microcosm whi... Ancient Greece (magna Graecia)
In Greece, the doctrine of Rebirths is met with in the Orphic tradition, continued by Pythagoras and Plato. Up to the present time, this tradition has probably found its best interpreter in Mr. G. R. S. Mead, an eminent theosophist and a scholar o... Arguments Against Reincarnation
The honest consideration of any subject necessitates the examination of "the other side of the case," as well as the affirmative side. We have given much space to the presentation and consideration of the arguments advanced by those convinced of t... Between And Beyond Incarnations
One of the first questions usually asked by students of the subject of Reincarnation is: "Where does the soul dwell between incarnations; does it incarnate immediately after death; and what is its final abode or state?" This question, or questions... Chaldaea
It is said that the Magi taught the immortality of the soul and its reincarnations, but that they considerably limited the number of these latter, in the belief that purification was effected after a restricted number of existences on the soul retur... Egypt
If we pass from India to Egypt, the land of mystery, we again find the world-wide doctrine of palingenesis hidden beneath the same veil. According to Egyptian teaching, the theory of the "fall of the angels" was accepted; the fallen angels were hu... India
Northern India was the cradle of the present race--the fifth--the Eden of our humanity, our physical, moral, mental, and spiritual mother.[81] From her womb issued the emigrant hordes that peopled Europe after spreading over Egypt, Asia Minor, and S... Islamism
It has been said that the Arabs believed in Reincarnation before Mohammed forbade it. Some, however, think that the Koran was written only after the death of the Prophet, and that the latter committed nothing to writing, but taught by word of mouth.... Manifestation Of The Higher Consciousness In The Phenomena Of Possession And Materialisation
In these strange phenomena, not only manifestations of the higher consciousness, analogous with or similar to those just cited, have been noted, but also a number of facts which prove, to some extent, the casual presence in a normal human body or in... Manifestation Of The Higher Consciousness In Various Cases Of Mental Faculties Lost To Normal Consciousness
A rather large number of people born blind have images in dreams, and can see with the higher consciousness, when placed in a state of somnambulism. This proves that the higher consciousness possesses the power of vision on its own plane, and can im... Manifestations Of The Higher Consciousness During The Different Kinds Of Sleep
Normal dream. During normal sleep there exists a special consciousness which must not be confounded either with waking consciousness or with that of the astral body. It is due to the automatic, cerebral vibration which continues during sleep, and wh... Manifestations Of The Higher Consciousness In Apparitions
A final group of phenomena to which I wish to call attention is the one which goes under the name of apparitions. A considerable number of these are to be found; we will confine ourselves, however, to referring the reader to a volume entitled Phanta... Manifestations Of The Higher Consciousness In Phenomena Of Double Consciousness
The "strata of memory" met with in many cases also prove the existence of the second vehicle of consciousness which we are trying to demonstrate. Certain dreams continue night after night, beginning again just where they stopped the previous nigh... Manifestations Of The Higher Consciousness Indicating Not Only That It Extends Farther Than Normal Consciousness
The Soul functioning in the finer body sees the physical body in a state of coma. Dr. Abercrombie relates the case of a child aged four, who was trepanned as the result of fracture of the skull, and whilst in a stale of coma. He never knew what happ... Manifestations Of The Higher Consciousness Under The Form Of Memory
The memory that is lost by the brain is preserved in its entirety by the finer vehicle. A musician, a friend of Hervey's, once heard a remarkable piece of music; he remembered it on awaking, and wrote it down, regarding it as his own inspiration.... Metempsychosis
After the disintegration of the body, the kamic[92] elements continue for some time, us a "shade"[93] or a "phantom,"[94] in the finer and invisible atmosphere;[95] then they, in turn, become disintegrated by the various forces of this environment,[... Neoplatonism
The great philosophic body that formed a bridge, as it were, between the Old World and the New was the famous School of Alexandria, founded about the second century of our era by Ammonius Saccas and closed in the year 429 A.D. through the intoleranc... New Testament
The New Testament is far more explicit than the Old, even though we find the teachings of reincarnation indicated in only a vague, indirect fashion. All the same, it must not be forgotten that the canonical Gospels have suffered numerous suppression... Objection
An apparently serious objection to the doctrine of Rebirth is constantly being made. It is unjust and useless, people say, to be punished for misdeeds that are forgotten. As this objection has reference to moral proofs, we must deal with it here. ... Objection
Reincarnation is not necessary, it has been alleged; the soul's evolution is continued after death in the invisible worlds in finer bodies; consequently it is needless to return to the denser bodies of earth. In our opinion, the trials of life, s... Objection
Reincarnation and Forgetfulness of the Past. Sceptics are ever bringing forward against reincarnation the absence of all memory of past lives, convinced that there can be no answer to this argument. They do not reflect that human ignorance is a... Old Testament
H. P. Blavatsky tells us that the Old Testament is not a homogeneous composition; that Genesis alone is of immense antiquity; that it is prior to the time when the Libra of the Zodiac was invented by the Greeks, for it has been noticed that the chap... Progress
The observer of Nature makes a third discovery. Every fresh cycle of life is characterised by an advance on the preceding cycle; every stage brings the end nearer. This represents progress, and it is seen everywhere; when it does not appear, it is b... Proofs Of The Astral Body
Certain normal and abnormal or morbid phenomena in man have proved the existence of this vehicle, which we will call the higher consciousness, for it is far greater than normal, waking consciousness, that of the brain. In the somewhat rare cases in ... Reincarnation
The process of disintegration[97] which, after disincarnation, destroys the physical, astral, and mental bodies of the man leaves the Soul--or, to be more exact, the causal body, for the soul is not the causal body any more than it is any of the oth... Reincarnation And Science
The secret of the Universe lies in observation; it is for man to develop his senses and patiently to search into the hidden things of Nature. All science proceeds thus, and the reason that savants have not unearthed the precious object for which ... Reincarnation And The Moral Law
The Goodness, justice, and Omnipotence of God are the guarantees of Providence. It is absolutely impossible that the faintest breath of injustice should ever disturb the Universe. Every time the Law appears to be violated, every time Justice se... Reincarnation And The Religious And Philosophic Consensus Of The Ages
In the rapid review we are now about to make of the religion and philosophy of the past, we shall find that, under many and divers names and veils, the doctrine of Rebirths has been taught from the farthest antiquity right up to the present time. Th... Resurrection
The human body is a species of polyp colony, a kind of coral island like those that emerge above the waves of the Pacific, by reason of the collective efforts of lower organisms. The most numerous of the compounds of the human aggregate are known ... Rome
Although Rome, above all else, was a warlike republic, and religion principally a State cult, that allowed but slight opportunity for the outer expression of spirituality, none the less did it inherit the beliefs of Egypt, Greece, and Persia; the Ba... The Argument For Reincarnation
In addition to the consideration of Justice, there are many other advantages claimed by the advocates of Reincarnation which are worthy of the careful consideration of students of the problem of the soul. We shall give to each of these principal p... The Celts
Sacerdotal India--and perhaps also Atlantis--in early times sent pioneers into the West to spread religious teachings amongst their energetic inhabitants; those who settled in Gaul and the British Isles were the Druids. "I am a serpent, a druid," th... The Cyclic Process Of Evolution
Another fact strikes the observer: the cyclic march of evolution. After action comes reaction; after activity, rest; after winter, summer; after day, night; after inspiration--the breath of life during which universal Movement works in a molecular a... The Doctrine Of Rebirth In Modern Philosophy
In antiquity, science and philosophy were scarcely anything else than parts of religion[223]; the most eminent scientists and the greatest philosophers alike were all supporters of the established form of religion, whenever they did not happen to be... The Early Christian Church
The documents to which we have access, dealing with the philosophical and religious history of Christianity in the first few centuries of our era, are so questionable, that we can place but faint reliance upon them, if we would really become acquain... The Early Races
By "Reincarnation" we mean the repeated incarnation, or embodiment in flesh, of the soul or immaterial part of man's nature. The term "Metempsychosis" is frequently employed in the same sense, the definition of the latter term being: "The passage ... The Egyptians Chaldeans Druids Etc
After considering the existence of the doctrines of Reincarnation among the primitive peoples, and its traditional existence among the vanished peoples of the past, we find ourselves irresistibly borne toward that ancient land of mystery--the home... The Evolutionary Series
If we look attentively at the totality of beings we perceive a progressive series of forms expressing a parallel series of qualities and states of consciousness. The portion of this scale we are able to compass extends from the amorphous state[42]--... The Goal Of Evolution
The Formation of Centres of Consciousness that become "Egos." Through innumerable wanderings this general progress traces a clear, unwavering line. Those capable of following evolution on the planes of finer matter at once perceive, as it were, wi... The Hindus
While Reincarnation has been believed and taught in nearly every nation, and among all races, in former or present times, still we are justified in considering India as the natural Mother of the doctrine, inasmuch as it has found an especially fav... The Jews Essenes And Early Christians
The early Jewish people had an Inner Teaching which embraced certain ideas concerning Reincarnation, although the masses of the people knew nothing of the doctrine which was reserved for the inner circles of the few. There is much dispute concerni... The Justice Of Reincarnation
There are three views entertained by men who believe in the existence of the soul--there are many shades of belief and opinion on the subject, but they may be divided into three classes. These three views, respectively, are as follows: (1) That th... The Kabala
Contact with the Babylonians, during the Captivity, brought about a rapid development in the Hebrews, who were at that time far more advanced souls than those that animated the bodies of their fathers,[156] and taught them many important details of ... The Law Of Causality (karma)
Karma is the Law of the Universe, the expression of divine Will. Its seemingly essential attributes are Justice and Love; it neither punishes nor rewards, but adjusts things, restores disturbed balance and harmony, brings back evolving souls to the ... The Law Of Karma
"Karma" is a term in general use among the Hindus, and the Western believers in Reincarnation, the meaning of which is susceptible of various shades of definition and interpretation. It is most important to all students of the subject of Reincarna... The Modern West
In the modern thought of the Western world, we find Reincarnation attracting much attention. The Western philosophies for the past hundred years have been approaching the subject with a new degree of attention and consideration, and during the pas... The Problem Of Human Heredity
If materialism were the whole truth, it ought to explain the whole of heredity; instead of that it clashes with almost all the problems of life. Physical substance offers for analysis none but physical phenomena: attraction, repulsion, heat, electri... The Problem Of The Inequality Of Conditions
If suffering in general is the child of Necessity--since it is born of multiplicity and the limitation of the Infinite, without which the Universe could not exist--it would seem that we ought to find it falling upon all beings without distinction, i... The Proofs Of Reincarnation
To many minds the "proof" of a doctrine is its reasonableness and its adaptability as an answer to existing problems. And, accordingly, to such, the many arguments advanced in favor of the doctrine, of which we have given a few in the preceding ch... The Romans And Greeks
One unfamiliar with the subject would naturally expect to find the Ancient Romans well advanced along the lines of philosophy, religion, and spiritual speculation, judging from the all-powerful influence exerted by them over the affairs of the who... The Soul And The Bodies
In a book dealing with the resurrection of bodies and the reincarnations of the Soul, a chapter must be devoted to the fundamental elements of the question. We will give the name of Soul to abstract Being, to the Unknown, that unmanifested Prin... Why Does Pain Exist?
To admit, as do certain ignorant fatalists, that the Universe was created by the stroke of some magic wand, and that each planet, kingdom, and being is condemned, so to speak, to a definite crystallisation in the state in which it has pleased God to...