Reincarnation / by Annie Besant.

  • Annie Besant
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

    17/96 page 13
    postulating the unity of Life, and tracing that One Life in the gradual upward evolution through min- eral, plant, and animal, to man, it denies that the individualitj gained in man can be submerged again in the lower collective existence, for in man indivi- dual Reincarnation has replaced, as the method of evolution, the collective indwelling of the life in lower forms.-' The theory of Reincarnation, then, in the Esoteric Philosophy, asserts the existence of a living and in- dividualized Principle, which dwells in and informs the body of a man, and which, on the death of the bod3% passes into another body, after a longer or shorter inten-al. Thus successive bodily lives are linked together like pearls strung upon a thread, the thread being the living Principle, the pearls upon it the separate human lives. WlIAT IT IS THAT ReINC.\RNATKS. Having grasped the idea that Reincarnation is the indwelling of a living something in a .succession of human bodies, we naturally make the enquirj': What is this living something, this persistent reincarnating Principle ? As our understanding of the whole teach- ing hinges on our thorough understanding of the answer to this cpie-stion, it will not be wasted time to dwell a little on the circumstances which led up to and surrounded the first incarnation of this living Principle in the human form. To make this incar- nation thoroughly intelligible, we must trace the steps of the evolution of man. Those who have read the first of these Manuals, • See Seven Principles of by Amiic Besaiit, pp. 66-70.
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