Reincarnation / by Annie Besant.

  • Annie Besant
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reincarnation / by Annie Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/96 page 7
    the last dozen years, since its clear enunciation as an essential part of the Esoteric Teaching, it has been constantly debated, and is as constantly gaining ground, among the more thoughtful students of the mysteries of life and of evolution. There is, of course, no doubt tliat the great histori- pl religions of the East included the teaching of Re- incaination as a fundamental tenet. In India, as in Egypt, Reincarnation was at the root of ethics. Among the Jews it was held commonly by the Pliari- sees, and the po]iular belief comes out in various phrases in the Nc7v Tcsiamcni, as when John the Baptist is regarded as a reincarnation of Elijali, or as wlien the disciples ask whether the man born blind is sunenng for the sin of his parents or for .some former sin of his own. The Zohar, again, speaks of .souls as being subjected to transmigration. “All souls are subject to revolution (metempsycho.sis, a'Iccn b'p-il- ^^o,ah), but men do not know the ways of the Holy One; ble.ssed be it! tlicy are ignorant of the wav they have been judged in all time, and before they came into this world and when they have quitted it.”f Afalkuth evidentlj' has the same idea as that conveyed by Josephus, when it says: “If she (the soul) be pure, then shall she obtain favour and rejoice in the latter day; but if she hath been de- filed then shall she wander for a time in pain and despair. J So akso, we find the doctrine taught by eminent Fathers of the Church, and Ruffinus§ states re\Hve and\Tve^gajii’”'^'*' *’ ^ virtuous “shall have power to o/JfrgMen ^^'carnat.on .■ a Study
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