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Reincarnation: A Study of the Human Soul

By J.A. Anderson

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Reincarnation Philosophic And Logical Evidence

THE preceding chapters having, it is believed, established the fact that man has a center of consciousness, or soul, quite independent of the body for its exist- ence, or conscious functions except as the sense organs of the latter relate it to the material plane of the Cosmos, those remaining will be devoted to a study of the nature of the relations sustained by this soul to the body.

Standing first and foremost among these is the fact of its reincarnation, or its successive occupation of many bodies during its evolution through matter. Reincarnation is quite distinct from metempsychosis, when this is understood to mean the return of the soul to earth through human or animal bodies indifferently; for it emphatically denies that, having once attained the human state, the soul can ever retrograde into an animal condition. A human soul has developed, as we have seen in the study of its evolution, certain qualities and potencies which are as incapable of functioning in an animal body
as the tissues of a giant oak are incapable of being mechanically recompressed within the limits of the original acorn out of which it grew.

A correct conception of Reincarnation recognizes that the body, as such, has no part in the soul's return to earth; that the connection of the body with the soul is, primarily, to furnish sense organs to relate the latter to a plane so far beneath its own spiritual nature as to be reached only by this means; and, secondarily, in the matter of which the body, or bundle of sense organs, is constructed reside certain " qualities" the nature of which it is essential to the intellectual progress of the soul that it learn. For it is only by experiencing its " opposite" that true knowledge of any "quality" in nature, whether physical, mental or spiritual, can be obtained. Matter upon the fourth plane of any world is said to be " kamic," or full of " rajas" or desire. Hence, anger, passion, malice, envy, ambition, and a host of similar " qualities" of matter, are brought directly to the cognizance of the soul by means of its incarnating in a body full of them. Out of the ex- perience of these, so undergone, it acquires a knowledge of the true nature of their opposites ; and evolves a wisdom it could never gather but for this association with a body. This will be more fully explained in the chapter upon the Reincarnating Ego.

To Western minds, Reincarnation is both unfamiliar and distasteful. The unfamiliarity is due, perhaps, to the materialistic tendencies of its great thinkers, especially in the domain of science. Most scientists have been, and are, unwilling to admit the existence of a soul in man, to say nothing of its reincarnating.

That the idea should be distasteful to the unphilosophic mind, especially if trained to base all concepts, whether human or divine, upon personality and separateness, is not surprising. The superstructure of modern civilization is erected upon a foundation of individualism, and this in its lowest and most material sense. To succeed in life is its one object, and by success is understood the acquirement of wealth or fame. The view which involves a suecession of lives in its perspective is necessarily lost sight of with horizons rigidly defined by matter. " When we are dead it is for a long time," a remark by a French cynic, fairly presents the conception of life from the modern materialistic and utilitarian standpoint. That he who does not make the most of it is missing opportunities which will never again offer, is generally accepted. From this it necessarily follows that strong personalities should
evolve as the soul returns, life after life, with its longing for riches, fame, or power strengthened and confirmed by successive partial realizations.

Therefore, when Western people are told that death ends the career of Mr. Smith, who has amassed millions, or of Mr. Brown, who has be- come a great general, and that all that really survives in any life are certain higher, spiritual thoughts and aspirations which have become foreign to the very motive of our Western civilization, they are naturally repulsed.
The Christian heaven, with its guarantee of the eternal persistence of the entire Mr. Smith, minus his body but plus a pair of wings, seems much more desirable.

But that Reincarnation should be unsatisfactory to the philosophic mind is unaccountable. For materialistic philosophy deliberately parts with life at the death of the body; and in view of the utter blank beyond the grave the terrible, awful conception of ceasing to be it would seem reasonable that it should seize eagerly upon any ten- able hypothesis which promises an extension of being.

Yet, of all classes, materialists are the most eager to prove that when the curtain falls at death the play is over, except to new audiences. The proofs of the Reincarnation of the soul follow, logically, as a corollary to the evidence of its existence as an entity independent of the body; for a soul shown to possess powers superior to its tenement must have brought such faculties and powers with it, and will necessarily take them when it departs. The only remaining evidence required, then, is to connect the source of this superiority with Reincarnation in successive bodies, such as, or similar to, those we now possess. This evidence may be conveniently studied under its logical, or philosophical and scientific aspects.

Taking up, primarily then, the logical and philosophic portion of our enquiry, it may be said that there are three hypotheses concerning the origin and destiny of the soul, under which almost every possible form of belief may be classified. The first, and that which is held by a very large majority of the human race, is Reincarnation, or the repeated descent of the soul into material bodies. The second is the one-birth theory, which supposes the crea- tion of a new soul at each birth, and having its chief rep- resentative in modern not ancient Christianity. It also includes most of the believers in Spiritualism. The third looks upon the soul as the product of the molecular and chemical activities going on within the body, and holds that tlje cessation of these activities necessitates its destruction. This is the theory of modern materialism.

Now, if we apply the crucial test of an hypothesis that of accounting for all the phenomena included within its own proper territory we shall be at once in a position to judge of the truth or falsity of each of these three con- cerning the soul.
First, then, as to the object of life. Except we deny any aim at all in Nature's processes which have led up to man, it is evident that in man the one paramount object is to gain knowledge and wisdom through experience.

Even one short life forces us to this conclusion. Materialism does not deny this, but claims that this increment of wisdom is transmitted to the race, and that the individual has no future share in it. If experience and wisdom resulting therefrom be the object, then one life is simply absurd. Did all attain old age, the case would be bad enough, but when we consider the vast number who die with no experience whatever, the inadequacy of one life to accomplish this purpose becomes apparent to the dullest intellect. As has been well shown by a recent writer :* "The usual belief is that we are here but once, and once for all de- termine our future. And yet it is abundantly clear that one life, even if prolonged, is no more adequate to gain knowledge, acquire experience, solidify principle, and form character, than would one day in infancy be adequate to fit for the duties of mature manhood. Any man can make this even clearer by estimating, on the one hand, the probable future which Nature contemplates for humanity, and, on the other, his present preparation for it. That future includes evi- dently two things an elevation of the individual to god-like excellence, and his gradual apprehension of the Universe of Truth.

His present preparation, therefore, consists of a very imperfect knowledge of a very small department of one form of existence, and that mainly gained through the partial use of misleading senses ; of a suspicion, rather than a belief, that the sphere of super-sensuous truth may ex- ceed the sensuous as the universe does this earth ; of a partially developed set of moral and spiritual faculties, none acute and none unhampered, but all dwarfed by non-use, poisoned by prejudice, and perverted by ignorance ; the whole nature, moreover, being limited in its interests and affected in its endeavor by the ever-present needs of a physical body which, much more than the soul, is felt to be the real 'I.' Is such a being, narrow, biased, carnal, sickly, fitted to enter at death on a limitless career of spiritual acquisition ?
 

Now, there are only three ways in which this obvious unfitness may be overcome, a transforming power in death, a post-mortem and wholly spiritual discipline, a series of Reincarnations. There is nothing in the mere separation of soul from body to confer wisdom, ennoble character, or cancel dispositions acquired through fleshliness. If any such power resided in death, all souls, upon being disembodied, would be precisely alike, a palpable absurdity. Nor could a post-mortem discipline meet the requirement, and this for the fol- lowing reasons : (a) the soul's knowledge of human life would always remain insignificant ; (b) of the various faculties only to be developed during incarnation, some would still be dormant at death, and therefore never evolve ; (c) the unsatisfying nature of material life would not have been fully demonstrated ; (d) there would have been no deliberate conquest of the flesh by the spirit ; (e) the meaning of Universal Brotherhood would have been very imperfectly seen ; (f) desire for a career on earth under different conditions would persistently check the disciplinary process ; (g) exact justice could hardly be se- cured ; (h) the discipline itself would be insufficiently varied and co- pious ; (i) there would be no advance in the successive races on earth. "There remains, then, the last alternative, a series of Reincarnations, or, in other words, that the enduring principle of the man, en- dowed during each interval between two earth-lives with the results achieved in the former of them, shall return for further experience and effort."

The author then proceeds to show how all of the objections are met and fully satisfied through Reincarnation ; thus : "Only through Reincarnation can knowledge of human life be made exhaustive, or opportunity afforded for the development of all those faculties which can only be developed during incarnation. Only through reincarnations is the unsatisfying nature of material life fully demonstrated ; the subordination of the lower to the higher nature made possible ; the meaning of Universal Brotherhood become apparent ; the desire for other forms of earthly experience be extinguished by undergoing them ; exact justice meted to every man ; variety and copiousness to the discipline we all require, be secured ; and a continuous advance in the successive races of men ensured."

Justice, especially, is most completely set aside by any other theory. According to Christian dogmas, a child who dies at birth is surely " saved." It has had none of the experience and temptations of its fellow-mortals, yet its future happiness is eternally assured because of the acci-. dental cutting short of its earthly career. A Christian who really believes this ought to pray for death for his children, and return devout thanks when the grave closes over their little forms. For what are the pleasures of one brief life compared with the eternal happiness which, according to their belief, awaits the child just beyond the grave, and which it runs the hazard of losing if its exist- ence is prolonged sufficiently for it to encounter the many temptations which must await it in the event of its surviving? Nor is the Spiritist happier in his efforts to explain away the inconsistencies of one life. He claims that experience may be acquired by proxy in a spiritual realm.

This postulates the absurdity of attaining material knowledge under spiritual environments. But were this possi- ( ble, it still banishes both method and reason from the scheme of evolution, for there is either no necessity for the spirit to incarnate at all, or else the coming to earth for a few moments, as in the case of babes who die at birth, cannot fulfill the requirements. And this without speaking of the injustice of compelling one soul to undergo the
pains of mortal experience in order that it may teach another to whom accident or disease denied opportunity. 

Either this world is one of chance, "where Chaos umpire sits, and by decision adds but to the confusion," or else all one-birth theories must be set aside, as not accounting for even a small portion of the observed facts. The same fatal defects apply to the materalistic theory of the non-existence of a soul independently of the body.

For admitting that experience and wisdom might be transmitted to the race as its heritage, yet the race itself must eventually perish, and with it all the fruits of the suf- ferings of its units. Materialism merely removes the diffi- culty one step, and leaves life none the less a farce be- cause this now assumes colossal proportions. It is quite as unjust for the race to die, even after millions of years, as it is for the individual to do so after one life. Both re- sults argue the non-existence of any design in nature, and relegate the whole problem of human life to either pure chance, or else the barbarous whim of some Jehovah, who creates and destroys men and worlds as the humor suits him. No sane man can deny the evidence of intelligent design in nature. His imperfect physical senses make this plain, and the most powerful microscope or telescope only adds to the evidence already at hand. The more deeply one searches the more abundant the proofs be- come. This is admittedly the law of the physical plane.

Having reached the mental or spiritual plane, does nature now suddenly fly in the face of her former methods and hand the guiding reins over to blind fate or blinder chance ? Materialism is particularly unhappy, also, in applying its negative hypothesis to its own grandest and most sweeping generalizations. It proudly announces that ex nihilo nihil fit, and then assumes an intelligent, reasoning soul as starting into existence "out of nothing," and departing into the same unreasonable and impossible limbo when certain processes pertaining to the bodily form cease to be active. The indestructibility of matter, the correlation of force, the conservation of energy, tKe law of evolution all are in hopeless irreconcilability with the materialistic theory, as they also are to the one-birth hypothesis.

Matter, force, and intelligence are, as has been pointed out, but three aspects of the One Reality, the CAUSELESS CAUSE, and their separation under any condition is absolutely unthinkable. If matter is indestructible, then 1 the material base of the soul is indestructible; if force is always conserved, then this includes psychic or soul force; if energy is eternal in its action, then intel- lectual energy cannot be excluded; if evolution be a fact in nature, then it includes the larger fact that its processes are necessarily infinite in duration.

But materialism fancies it sees a loophole for avoiding these conclusions in the fact that matter, force, and energy reappear as things apparently differing from their former modes of manifestation. Granted ; but these apparent differences are only the masks which the one actor as- sumes upon taking differing parts. It is the same actor, whose real identity is always one throughout the entire performance. It is not claimed by Theosophy that the
soul functions in the same manner when using the sense organs of the body as it does when this limitation is no longer interposed. But it is always the soul, and nothing else, although its phenomena are necessarily modified by the form of matter with which it is temporarily associated.

Heat and light are none the less one because differing conditions cause them to display differing modes of motion; and no mode of motion, which links the material aspect of nature to the spiritual, has ever been traced to a transmutation into any form of intelligence. The two are opposite facets of the ONE, and can never interchange on the plane of manifestation. It is for this reason that the soul must persist as intelligence; its force can only be conserved by that which is essentially itself in properties. Scientists claim that atoms of matter can never escape from the laws of affinity; that atoms of iron, for instance, will ever be attracted to iron atoms, and that no power can destroy that particular property which constitutes the atom iron, instead of, for example, gold, although it may be so buried among other atoms as to be entirely indis- tinguishable by our coarse physical senses. So intelli- gence must follow the same law, by all the evidence of analogy.

The soul represents, in its " I am I" manifestation, an ultimate division if we may be allowed the term of intelligence, and must retain its " I am I" qualities under whatever associations it may find itself; just as truly, as reasonably, and as certainly as that the ultimate material atom whose properties constitute it iron can never be destroyed nor changed into something which is not iron. If the one is law on the material plane, the other is equally
law on the psychic. The physical atom represents the unit of matter; the " I am I" represents the unit of consciousness. From both, the idea of magnitude or ex- tension in space is excluded. Certainly, the "I am I" can not be conceived as limited by the size or any other physical qualities of any body with which it is associated. It is, as we have said, the unit of Consciousness the true basis of all manifestations of intelligence in nature, as the atom is the unit of matter, and the physical basis of all material forms.

So with materialistic concepts of evolution. As we have pointed out, there is just as great a defect in logic, and as fatal a disagreement between the hypothesis and the fact that design pervades every department of nature, in annihilating a race, as there is in predicating the annihilation of the individual soul. If uncounted millions of individuals are to be sacrificed to perfect a glorious race only for this, too, to be ultimately annihilated, then the
evil and unreason of creation are only magnified, not removed.

But once admit the fact of reincarnation, and observe how the apparent chaos of injustice changes into the most beautiful harmony. Apparently discordant and irreconcil- able phenomena are marshaled into orderly array ; confusion and injustice disappear, and life assumes a deeper
and more significant meaning. The terrible inequalities of birth, utterly inexplicable by the single-birth, and still more so by the materialistic hypothesis, are shown to be the. result of causes set in operation by the soul itself in former incarnations, and not the careless or stupid incapacity of some personal god playing at creation, and making a sad mess of it. The wretch born of drunken and vicious parents, amid such surroundings as make vir- tue practically a miracle, foredoomed to a life of want and woe, has created such attractions in former lives as render it impossible for him to be born under any other conditions. No cruel fate nor blind chaince has been the slightest factor in bringing about the result. Just as surely as the magnet turns to the north, so surely will the helpless soul be drawn to those parents having the greatest sum of similar attractions.

The acid poured freely into a vessel containing a solution of a hundred alkaline bases will with unerring certainty combine with that, and with that only, for which it has the greatest affinity. How much more surely, then, will the soul seek out its strongest affinities at the moment of reincarnation
than the so-called unconscious atoms on a plane so far beneath it ! There is no other theory which will account for the infinite variations of character which appear from the very moment of birth.

To say nothing of our material en- vironments, to omit all notice of the manifest injustice which SENDS equally' helpless souls to rich or poor, to
civilized or cannibalistic, to black or white parents, or any of the other infinite variations of merely physical circumstances, we do not start fair in the race from a moral and intellectual standpoint. One child is born with genius, another an idiot both of parents of about the same mental capacity, it may be. What cause brought about this great and unjust difference, if neither lived before?

One infant comes into the world handicapped by a sullen temper and vicious disposition ; another, with the most lovable traits. If it is claimed, as materialism erroneously asserts, that each inherits its peculiarities from its parents, even then how can reason accept the black injustice which sends one soul to the pure parents, and the other to the impure ones, if neither had had any previous voice in the matter ? We must accept reincarnation if we would ever hope to solve the awful inequalities which attend upon birth.

No man could find it in his heart to condemn his child to be born a poor, innocent victim of such fiendish caprices, such an unavoidable life of temptation, suffering, degradation and death, followed by an eternal hell, as birth to vicious, barbarous, or even ignorant parents almost surely presupposes; yet Christians believe this horrible thing of a Jehovah whom they claim to be of infinite compassion and mercy! It is the logical outcome, however, of a philosophy whose most learned divines calmly discuss with approval such topics as: "The Loving Kindness of God as Evidenced in the Eternal Punishment of Sinners!"* and " The Greatness of God as shown in the SLOW Christianizing of the Earth !"f Again, as we have seen, the fact that no two individuals of the entire human race were ever born with the same character, or ever acquired the same, is one of the strongest logical proofs of the truth of reincarnation.
Each babe comes into the world with the stamp of its former desires, appetites and experiences indelibly impressed upon it in the form of this individual character.

Materialism claims ante-natal influence within the womb as the cause of this infinite divergence in human character; but the proof that this is not so is too abundant. Were there none other, the cases of twin births would suffice; for here the ante-natal influence must be absolutely the same, yet from the hour of birth twin infants often show the most marked differences in disposition and character. It is true that most twins, for obvious reasons chief among which is the affinity which drew both to the same parents at the same time display marked similarity in mental and physical characteristics; but a working hypothesis must be one which explains all the phenomena, and these occasional divergences completely nullify antenatal influence as a factor.

The almost infinite differences in human character have a most profound bearing upon any philosophy of life, and can only be explained by admitting the fact of re- incarnation; for the character as displayed by babes from the moment of birth, and which throughout life separates each man from all other men, is the sum of the experiences the Ego, or soul, has already undergone and assimilated, and which experiences remain as indelible impressions upon and modifications of the soul's conscious area, and constitute the differences which distinguish it from other
souls. Had all souls similar experiences character would be inconceivable, for all would be alike.

Much of the desires and passions which constitute the larger portion of the soul's activities at any given time are necessarily suspended by the change called death, and therefore remain dormant, or latent, until it is compelled by its karmic affinities to again seek incarnation, when they become active with the opportunity afforded by a new body. Just as a man's passions are held in abeyance by sleep, to regain all their former activity upon awakening, so all his desires and appetites which are so gross and earthly as to lie below the planes of Devachan,* re- main inoperative, but by no means destroyed, until he again awakens to earth life in his new dwelling. It is for this reason that " character" is so important an element in reincarnation. It is simply the old affinities man has himself created acting upon all planes ; determining the kind of body in which he shall find his new habitation ; the
family, the nation, the race, the social station, the intel- lectual trend, the predisposition to disease or long life, and every other conceivable limitation in the environment or circumstances of the new life. All these limitations are effects resulting from causes set in operation in former lives, which causes have, under the law of Karma, or Cause and Effect, delivered his soul, a helpless, unconscious captive, to do with whatsoever this Supreme Law
shall determine.

For during the subjective, or devachanic, interim between earth lives the human will is in complete abeyance. It becomes a potency during earth
life because man has acquired self-consciousness upon this plane has, under that which Eastern philosophy terms the Great Heresy, separated Ego from Non-Ego, and in consequence of this delusion too often opposed his will to that of nature. Not so, in devachan. Here only the spiritual will is consciously functioning and all the unex- pended material or sensuous causes generated in past earth lives, and especially in the last of these, exert their full affinities entirely below the present conscious plane of the Ego, and it only awakens from its devachanic exist- ence to find itself in a body, which, under the karmic law of Cause ancl^Effect, is thus, unconsciously to it, predetermined.

During one incarnation the thousands of thoughts, emotions, and mental states included in our every-day life, and constituting that thread or consciousness which materialism insists is all there is at the base of our " I am I," constantly crystallize into habits, desires, and instinctive
tendencies to assume certain mental attitudes to the exclusion of others; all of which enters into the composition of our personal character. This latter, in its larger degree, is again crystallizing into our true or individual character, or that of our reincarnating Ego, or soul. The memory of the myriad states of consciousness by which this permanent character is acquired is left behind at each death of the body; but the result, the sum total, is carried over at reincarnation to the new account. The statue preserves no record of the ten thousand strokes of the chisel by which it was chipped into shape, yet the result is none the less^ beautiful because of this. 

Reincarnation, then, affords the key, and the only key, to the mysteries of the inequalities of birth ; for the great divergence of character and mental capacity, ranging from genius to idiocy, at birth, accounts for the presence of evil in the world, explains "original sin," makes immortality reasonable by extending the existence of the soul to an infinite past as well as to an eternal future. The last point mentioned existence in both directions avoids the
absurdity of postulating a semp- or half-eternal being an existence with but one end, which a soul created at birth and having immortality from that point presupposes. Aline must have two ends, whether it be physical or spiritual.

Reincarnation, also, is in perfect accord with the sci- entific conceptions of the persistence of force and the conservation of energy; and shows how a cause, once set in motion, must have its effect; that energies generated in one life cannot be cut short by death, but must find expression in a future one ; that the affinity which guides a soul into the most fitting body to express its characteristics is but an exemplification of the law of energy or
force taking the direction of the least resistance. No effort is lost; soul force, like all other forms offeree, is ever conserved. The soul which has longed and struggled for a desired result, finding its efforts cut short by death when, perhaps, on the very point of realization, does not lose the fruit of its toil and self-denial. The energy so generated will accompany, guide, and control the next birth so as to continue its expression in one unbroken line. No effort, whether for good or evil, can be without its results. It is a cause, and in the eternal harmony of nature must have its corresponding effect.