effect upon his beliefs, thereafter. He relates that upon an occasion
when he visited a strange house in London he was shown into a room to
wait. He says: "On looking around, to my astonishment everything
appeared perfectly familiar to me. I seemed to recognize every object.
I said to myself, 'What is this? I have never been here before, and yet
I have seen all this, and if so, then there must be a very peculiar
knot in that shutter.'" He proceeded to examine the shutter, and much
to his amazement the knot was there.
We have recently heard of a similar case, told by an old lady who
formerly lived in the far West of the United States. She states that
upon one occasion a party was wandering on the desert in her part of
the country, and found themselves out of water. As that part of the
desert was unfamiliar even to the guides, the prospect for water looked
very poor indeed. After a fruitless search of several hours, one of the
party, a perfect stranger to that part of the country, suddenly pressed
his hand to his head, and acted in a dazed manner, crying out "I know
that a water-hole is over to the right--this way," and away he started
with the party after him. After a half-hour's journey they reached an
old hidden water-hole that was unknown even to the oldest man in the
party. The stranger said that he did not understand the matter, but
that he had somehow experienced a sensation of _having been there
before_, and knowing just where the water-hole was located. An old
Indian who was questioned about the matter, afterward, stated that the
place had been well known to his people who formerly travelled much on
that part of the desert; and that they had legends relating to the
"hidden water-hole," running back for many generations. In this case,
it was remarked that the water-hole was situated in such a peculiar and
unusual manner, as to render it almost undiscoverable even to people
familiar with the characteristics of that part of the country. The old
lady who related the story, had it direct from the lips of one of the
party, who regarded it as "something queer," but who had never even
heard of Metempsychosis.
A correspondent of an English magazine writes as follows: "A gentleman
of high intellectual attainments, now deceased, once told me that he
had dreamed of being in a strange city, so vividly that he remembered
the streets, houses and public buildings as distinctly as those of any
place he ever visited. A few weeks later he was induced to visit a
panorama in Leicester Square, when he was startled by seeing the city
of which he had dreamed. The likeness was perfect, except that one
additional church appeared in the picture. He was so struck by the
circumstance that he spoke to the exhibitor, assuming for the purpose
the air of a traveller acquainted with the place, when he was informed
that the church was a recent erection." The fact of the addition of the
church, seems to place the incident within the rule of awakened
memories of scenes known in a past life, for clairvoyance, astral
travel, etc., would show the scene as it was at the time of the dream,
not as it had been years before.
Charles Dickens mentions a remarkable impression in his work "Pictures
from Italy." "In the foreground was a group of silent peasant girls,
leaning over the parapet of the little bridge, looking now up at the
sky, now down into the water; in the distance a deep dell; the shadow
of an approaching night on everything. If I had been murdered there in
some former life I could not have seemed to remember the place more
thoroughly, or with more emphatic chilling of the blood; and the real
remembrance of it acquired in that minute is so strengthened by the
imaginary recollection that I hardly think I could forget it."
We have recently met two people in America who had very vivid memories
of incidents in their past life. One of these, a lady, has a perfect
horror of large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, or the Ocean,
although she was born and has lived the greater part of her life
inland, far removed from any great body of water, She has a distinct
recollection of falling from a large canoe-shape vessel, of peculiar
lines, and drowning. She was quite overcome upon her first visit to the
Field Museum in Chicago, where there were exhibited a number of models
of queer vessels used by primitive people. She pointed out one similar
in shape, and lines, to the one she remembers as having fallen from in
some past life.
The second case mentioned is that of a married couple who met each
other in a country foreign to both, on their travels. They fell in love
with each other, and both have felt that their marriage was a reunion
rather than a new attachment. The husband one day shortly after their
marriage told his wife in a rather shamed-faced way that he had
occasional flashes of memory of having held in his arms, in the dim
past, a woman whose face he could not recall, but who wore a strange
necklace, he describing the details of the latter. The wife said
nothing, but after her husband had left for his office, she went to the
attic and unpacked an old trunk containing some odds and ends, relics,
heirlooms, etc., and drew from it an old necklace of peculiar pattern
that her grandfather had brought back from India, where he had lived in
his younger days, and which had been in the family ever since. She laid
the necklace on the table, so that her husband would see it upon his
return. The moment his eyes fell upon it, he turned white as death, and
gasped "My God! _that's the necklace!_"
A writer in a Western journal gives the following story of a Southern
woman. "When I was in Heidelberg, Germany, attending a convention of
Mystics, in company with some friends I paid my first visit to the
ruined Heidelberg Castle. As I approached it I was impressed with the
existence of a peculiar room in an inaccessible portion of the
building. A paper and pencil were provided me, and I drew a diagram of
the room even to its peculiar floor. My diagram and description were
perfect, when we afterwards visited the room. In some way, not yet
clear to me, I have been connected with that apartment. Still another
impression came to me with regard to a book, which I was made to feel
was in the old library of the Heidelberg University. I not only knew
what the book was, but even felt that a certain name of an old German
professor would be found written in it. Communicating this feeling to
one of the Mystics at the convention, a search was made for the volume,
but it was not found. Still the impression clung to me, and another
effort was made to find the book; this time we were rewarded for our
pains. Sure enough, there on the margin of one of the leaves was the
very name I had been given in such a strange manner. Other things at
the same time went to convince me that I was in possession of the soul
of a person who had known Heidelberg two or three centuries ago."
A contributor to an old magazine relates, among other instances, the
following regarding a friend who remembers having died in India during
the youth of some former life. He states: "He sees the bronzed
attendants gathered about his cradle in their white dresses: they are
fanning him. And as they gaze he passes into unconsciousness. Much of
his description concerned points of which he knew nothing from any
other source, but all was true to the life, and enabled me to fix on
India as the scene which he recalled."
While comparatively few among the Western races are able to remember
more than fragments of their past lives, in India it is quite common
for a man well developed spiritually to clearly remember the incidents
and details of former incarnations, and the evidence of the awakening
of such power causes little more than passing interest among his
people. There is, as we shall see later, a movement toward conscious
Metempsychosis, and many of the race are just moving on to that plane.
In India the highly developed individuals grow into a clear
recollection of their past lives when they reach the age of puberty,
and when their brains are developed sufficiently to grasp the knowledge
locked up in the depths of the soul. In the meantime the individual's
memory of the past is locked away in the recesses of his mind, just as
are many facts and incidents of his present life so locked away, to be
remembered only when some one mentions the subject, or some
circumstance serves to supply the associative link to the apparently
forgotten matter.
Regarding the faculty of memory in our present lives, we would quote
the following from the pen of Prof. William Knight, printed in the
Fortnightly Review. He says: "Memory of the details of the past is
absolutely impossible. The power of the conservative faculty, though
relatively great, is extremely limited. We forget the larger portion of
experience soon after we have passed through it, and we should be able
to recall the particulars of our past years, filling all the missing
links of consciousness since we entered on the present life, before we
were in a position to remember our ante-natal experience. Birth must
necessarily be preceded by crossing the river of oblivion, while the
capacity for fresh acquisition survives, and the garnered wealth of old
experience determines the amount and character of the new."
Another startling evidence of the proof of Metempsychosis is afforded
us in the cases of "infant prodigies," etc., which defy any other
explanation. Take the cases of the manifestation of musical talent in
certain children at an early age, for instance. Take the case of Mozart
who at the age of four was able to not only perform difficult pieces on
the piano, but actually composed original works of merit. Not only did
he manifest the highest faculty of sound and note, but also an
instinctive ability to compose and arrange music, which ability was
superior to that of many men who had devoted years of their life to
study and practice. The laws of harmony--the science of commingling
tones, was to him not the work of years, but a faculty born in him.
There are many similar cases of record.
Heredity does not explain these instances of genius, for in many of the
recorded cases, none of the ancestors manifested any talent or ability.
From whom did Shakespeare inherit his genius? From whom did Plato
derive his wonderful thought? From what ancestor did Abraham Lincoln
inherit his character--coming from a line of plain, poor, hard-working
people, and possessing all of the physical attributes and
characteristics of his ancestry, he, nevertheless, manifested a mind
which placed him among the foremost of his race. Does not
Metempsychosis give us the only possible key? Is it not reasonable to
suppose that the abilities displayed by the infant genius, and the
talent of the men who spring from obscure origin, have their root in
the experiences of a previous life?
Then take the cases of children at school. Children of even the same
family manifest different degrees of receptivity to certain studies.
Some "take to" one thing, and some to another. Some find arithmetic so
easy that they almost absorb it intuitively, while grammar is a hard
task for them; while their brothers and sisters find the exact reverse
to be true. How many have found that when they would take up some new
study, it is almost like recalling something already learned. Do you
student, who are now reading these lines take your own case. Does not
all this Teaching seem to you like the repetition of some lesson
learned long ago? Is it not like remembering something already learned,
rather than the learning of some new truth? Were you not attracted to
these studies, in the first place, by a feeling that you had known it
all before, somewhere, somehow? Does not your mind leap ahead of the
lesson, and see what is coming next, long before you have turned the
pages? These inward evidences of the fact of pre-existence are so
strong that they outweigh the most skillful appeal to the intellect.
This intuitive knowledge of the truth of Metempsychosis explains why
the belief in it is sweeping over the Western world at such a rapid
rate. The mere mention of the idea, to many people who have never
before heard of it, is sufficient to cause them to recognize its truth.
And though they may not understand the laws of its operation, yet deep
down in their consciousness they find a something that convinces them
of its truth. In spite of the objections that are urged against the
teaching, it is making steady headway and progress.
The progress of the belief in Metempsychosis however has been greatly
retarded by the many theories and dogmas attached to it by some of the
teachers. Not to speak of the degrading ideas of re-birth into the
bodies of animals, etc., which have polluted the spring of Truth, there
are to be found many other features of teaching and theory which repel
people, and cause them to try to kill out of the minds the glimmer of
Truth that they find there. The human soul instinctively revolts
against the teaching that it is bound to the wheel or re-birth,
_willy-nilly_, compulsorily, without choice--compelled to live in body
after body until great cycles are past. The soul, perhaps already sick
of earth-life, and longing to pass on to higher planes of existence,
fights against such teaching. And it does well to so fight, for the
truth is nearer to its hearts desire. There is no soul longing that
does not carry with it the prophecy of its own fulfillment, and so it
is in this case. It is true that the soul of one filled with earthly
desires, and craving for material things, will by the very force of
those desires be drawn back to earthly re-birth in a body best suited
for the gratification of the longings, desires and cravings that it
finds within itself. But it is likewise true that the earth-sick soul
is not compiled to return unless its own desires bring it back. Desire
is the key note of Metempsychosis, although up to a certain stage it
may operate unconsciously. The sum of the desires of a soul regulate
its re-birth. Those who have become sickened of all that earth has for
them at this stage of its evolution, may, and do, rest in states of
existence far removed from earth scenes, until the race progresses far
enough to afford the resting soul the opportunities and environments
that it so earnestly craves.
And more than this, when Man reaches a certain stage, the process of
Metempsychosis no longer remains unconscious, but he enters into a
conscious knowing, willing passage from one life to another. And when
that stage is reached a full memory of the past lives is unfolded, and
life to such a soul becomes as the life of a day, succeeded by a night,
and then the awakening into another day with full knowledge and
recollection of the events of the day before. We are in merely the
babyhood of the race now, and the fuller life of the conscious soul
lies before us. Yea, even now it is being entered into by the few of
the race that have progressed sufficiently far on the Path. And you,
student, who feel within you that craving for conscious re-birth and
future spiritual evolution, and the distaste for, and horror of, a
further blind, unconscious re-plunge into the earth-life--know you,
that this longing on your part is but an indication of what lies before
you. It is the strange, subtle, awakening of the nature within you,
which betokens the higher state. Just as the young person feels within
his or her body strange emotions, longings and stirrings, which betoken
the passage from the child state into that of manhood or womanhood, so
do these spiritual longings, desires and cravings betoken the passage
from unconscious re-birth into conscious knowing Metempsychosis, when
you have passed from the scene of your present labors.
In our next lesson we shall consider the history of the race as its
souls passed on from the savage tribes to the man of to-day. It is the
history of the race--the history of the individual--your own history,
student--the record of that through which you have passed to become
that which you now are. And as you have climbed step after step up the
arduous path, so will you, hereafter climb still higher paths, but no
longer in unconsciousness, but with your spiritual eyes wide open to
the Rays of Truth pouring forth from the great Central Sun--the
Absolute.
Concluding this lesson, we would quote two selections from the American
poet, Whitman, whose strange genius was undoubtedly the result of vague
memories springing from a previous life, and which burst into
utterances often not more than half understood by the mind that gave
them birth. Whitman says:
"Facing West from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
A, a child, very old, over waves, toward the house of
maternity, the land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle
almost circled:
For starting Westward from Hindustan, from the
vales of Kashmere,
From Asia, from the north, from God, the sage, and
the hero,
From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and
spice islands,
Long having wandered since, round the earth having
wandered,
Now I face home again, very pleased and joyous.
(But where is what I started for so long ago?
And why is it yet unfound?)"
* * * * *
"I know I am deathless.
I know that this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a
carpenter's compass;
And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten
thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness
can wait."
* * * * *
"As to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of
many deaths.
No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before."
* * * * *
"Births have brought us richness and variety, and
other births have brought us richness and variety."
* * * * *
And this quotation from the American poet N.P. Willis:
"But what a mystery this erring mind?
It wakes within a frame of various powers
A stranger in a new and wondrous world.
It brings an instinct from some other sphere,
For its fine senses are familiar all,
And with the unconscious habit of a dream
It calls and they obey. The priceless sight
Springs to its curious organ, and the ear
Learns strangely to detect the articulate air
In its unseen divisions, and the tongue
Gets its miraculous lesson with the rest,
And in the midst of an obedient throng
Of well trained ministers, the mind goes forth
To search the secrets of its new found home."
THE TENTH LESSON
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION.
One of the things that repel many persons who have had their attention
directed to the subject of Metempsychosis for the first time, is the
idea that they have evolved _as a soul_ from individual lowly forms,
for instance that they have at one time been an individual plant, and
then an individual animal form, and then an individual higher animal
form, and so on until now they are the particular individual human form
contemplating the subject. This idea, which has been taught by many
teachers, is repellent to the average mind, for obvious reasons, and
naturally so, for it has no foundation in truth.
While this lesson is principally concerned with the subject of the
Spiritual Evolution of the human soul, since it became a human soul,
still it may be as well to mention the previous phase of evolution,
briefly, in order to prevent misconception, and to dispel previously
acquired error.
The atom, although it possesses life and a certain degree of mind, and
acts as an individual temporarily, has no permanent individuality that
reincarnates. When the atom is evolved it becomes a centre of energy in
the great atomic principle, and when it is finally dissolved it
resolves itself back into its original state, and its life as an
individual atom ceases, although the experience it has gained becomes
the property of the entire principle. It is as if a body of water were
to be resolved into millions of tiny dew-drops for a time, and each
dew-drop was then to acquire certain outside material in solution. In
that case, each dew-drop when it again returned to the body of water,
would carry with it its foreign material, which would become the
property of the whole. And subsequently formed dew-drops would carry in
their substance a particle of the foreign matter brought back home by
the previous generation of dewdrops, and would thus be a little
different from their predecessors. And this process, continuing for
many generations of dew-drops, would ultimately cause the greatest
changes in the composition of the successive generations.
This, in short, is the story of the change and improving forms of life.
From the atoms into the elements; from the lower elements into those
forming protoplasm; from the protoplasm to the lower forms of animal
life; from these lower forms on to higher forms--this is the story. But
it is all a counterpart of the dew-drop and the body of water, _until
the human soul is evolved_.
The plants and the lower forms of animal life are not permanent
individual souls, but each family is a _group-soul_ corresponding to
the body of water from which the dew-drop arose. From these family
group-souls gradually break off minor groups, representing species, and
so on into sub-species. At last when the forms reach the plane of man,
the group-soul breaks itself up into _permanent individual souls_, and
true Metempsychosis begins. That is, _each individual human soul
becomes a permanent individual entity_, destined to evolve and perfect
itself along the lines of spiritual evolution.
And from this point begins our story of Spiritual Evolution.
The story of Man, the Individual, begins amidst humble surroundings.
Primitive man, but little above the level of the lower animals in point
of intelligence, has nevertheless that distinguishing mark of
Individuality--"Self-Consciousness," which is the demarkation between
Beast and Man. And even the lowest of the lowest races had at least a
"trace" of this Self-Consciousness, which made of them individuals, and
caused the fragment of the race-soul to separate itself from the
general principle animating the race, and to fasten its "I" conscious
upon itself, rather than upon the underlying race-soul, along
instinctive lines. Do you know just what this Self-Consciousness is,
and how it differs from the Physical Consciousness of the lower
animals? Perhaps we had better pause a moment to consider it at this
place.
The lower animals are of course conscious of the bodies, and their
wants, feelings, emotions, desires, etc., and their actions are in
response to the animating impulses coming from this plane of
consciousness. But it stops there. They "know," but they do not "know
that they know"; that is, they have not yet arrived at a state in which
they can think of themselves as "I," and to reason upon their thoughts
and mental operations. It is like the consciousness of a very young
child, which feels and knows its sensations and wants, but is unable to
think of itself as "I," and to turn the mental gaze inward. In another
book of these series we have used the illustration of the horse which
has been left standing out in the cold sleet and rain, and which
undoubtedly feels and knows the unpleasant sensations arising
therefrom, and longs to get away from the unpleasant environment. But,
still, he is unable to analyze his mental states and wonder whether his
master will come out to him soon, or think how cruel it is to keep him
out of his warm comfortable stable; or wonder whether he will be taken
out in the cold rain again tomorrow; or feel envious of other horses
who are indoors; or wonder why he is kept out cold nights, etc., etc.
In short, the horse is unable to think as would a reasoning man under
just the same circumstances. He is aware of the discomfort, just as
would be the man; and he would run away home, if he were able, just as
would the man. But he is not able to pity himself, nor to think about
his personality, as would a man--he is not able to wonder whether life
is worth the living, etc., as would a man. He "knows" but is not able
to reflect upon the "knowing."
In the above illustration, the principal point is that the horse does
not "know himself" as an entity, while even the most primitive man is
able to so recognize himself as an "I." If the horse were able to think
in words, he would think "feel," "cold," "hurt," etc., but he would be
unable to think "_I_ feel; _I_ am cold; _I_ am hurt," etc. The thought
"I" would be missing.