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Title: Reincarnation and the Law of Karma

A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect

Author: William Walker Atkinson

Release Date: August 19, 2008 [eBook #26364]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REINCARNATION AND THE LAW OF KARMA***

 

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REINCARNATION AND THE LAW OF KARMA A STUDY OF THE OLD-NEW WORLD-DOCTRINE OF
REBIRTH, AND SPIRITUAL
CAUSE AND EFFECT BY
WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON

 

 

 

PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY
YOGI PUBLICATION SOCIETY
MASONIC TEMPLE, CHICAGO, ILL.
LONDON AGENTS
L.N. FOWLER & CO., 7 Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus. E.C. (Reincarnation and the Law of Karma)

Copyright, 1908, by
YOGI PUBLICATION SOCIETY
All Rights Reserved

Notice.—This book is protected by Copyright and simultaneous publication in Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and other countries. All foreign rights reserved.

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS     PAGE

CHAPTER I. The Early Races

7   What is Reincarnation?—Transmigration of Souls—The Something That Persists After Death—The Soul Not a Fresh Creation, but a Traveler on a Long Journey.    

CHAPTER II. The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Druids, etc

20   The Egyptian Idea of the Soul—Forty Centuries of Occult History—The Inner Teachings of Egypt—The Ancient Chinese Teachings and Doctrine—The Ancient Druids and Their Teachings.    

CHAPTER III. the Romans and Greeks

35   The Reasons of Rome's Backwardness in Spiritual Knowledge—Why the Greeks were Advanced—Pythagoras; Orpheus; Plato—The Various Grecian Teachings Regarding the Soul and Its Future Life—Plato's Wonderful Teachings and Philosophy.    

CHAPTER IV. The Jews, Essenes, and Early Christians

49   The Inner Teachings of the Jewish Priests—The Jewish Rabbins and Their Secret Doctrines—The Kaballah, the Zahar, Nichema; Ronach; and Nephesh—A Mysterious Brotherhood—The Christian Inner Doctrine—The Mysteries of Jesus.    

CHAPTER V. The Hindus

64   India the Mother of Reincarnation, Past and Present—The Aryan Teachings—The History of the Belief Among the Hindus—Fundamental Hindu Philosophy.    

CHAPTER VI. The Modern West

95   Reincarnation in the Modern Western World—The Revival of Interest and Its Cause—Theosophical Society—Madame Blavatsky—The Western School of Yogi Philosophy: Its Fundamental Teachings—The Spiritists, and Their Doctrine—The Teachings of the "Elect Few" in Their Secret Societies—Is Earth a Hell?—Christian Reincarnationists and Their Beliefs.    

CHAPTER VII. Between and Beyond Incarnations

117   How Long Between Incarnations?—Necessity for Mental and Spiritual Digestion and Assimilation—The Advanced Teachings—Earth-bound Souls—Advanced Souls and Their Rest Period—Where Does the Soul Dwell Between Incarnations?—What Happens at Death—The Great Astral World and Its Planes and Sub-planes—Where the Soul Goes After Death and What It Does There—Rebirth and Its Laws—What is the Final State of the Soul?—The Message of the Illumined.    

CHAPTER VIII. The Justice of Reincarnation

134   The Contrasting Theories of the Soul and Its Future Life—Doctrine of Reincarnation the Only Philosophical Theory that Reconciles Facts with Theory—The Law of Karma Automatic and Enforces Itself—Every One Their Own Judge and the Executor of Their Own Destiny—The Opinions of the World's Great Thinkers.    

CHAPTER IX. The Argument for Reincarnation

151   Natural Laws Universal—If the Soul is Immortal, it Must Have Always Been So—A Mortal Thing Cannot be Made Immortal Any More Than Nothing Can be Made Something—Future Life Implies Past Life—Varient Experiences Necessary for the Soul's Education—Advancement Necessary to Enjoyment of the Soul's Higher States of Being—The True Teaching.    

CHAPTER X. The Proofs of Reincarnation

169   Actual Proofs of Personal Conscious Experience Demanded by Science—Such Proofs Possible and Have Occurred to Many of the Race—The Remembrance of the Details of Past Existence Common to the Race—Interesting Cases Given on Good Authority—Messages from the Past.    

CHAPTER XI. arguments Against Reincarnation

192   Why Reincarnation is Opposed by Some—The Answers to the Objections—The Proof of the Existence of the Soul—Is Reincarnation Un-Christian and Derived from Pagan and Heathen Sources?    

CHAPTER XII. the Law of Karma

222   What Karma Means—Does Karma Punish or is it but the Workings of a Natural Law?—The Various Kinds of Karma—The Advanced Mystical Doctrine—The End is Absolute Good—There is No Devil but Fear and Unfaith.  

CHAPTER I.
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 of the soul, as an immortal essence, at the death of the body, into another living body." The term "Transmigration of Souls" is sometimes employed, the term being used in the sense of "passing from one body into another." But the term "Transmigration" is often used in connection with the belief of certain undeveloped races who held that the soul of men sometimes passed into the bodies of the lower animals, as a punishment for their sins committed during the human life. But this belief is held in disrepute by the adherents of Reincarnation or Metempsychosis, and has no connection with their philosophy or beliefs, the ideas having sprung from an entirely different source, and having nothing in common.

There are many forms of belief—many degrees of doctrine—regarding Reincarnation, as we shall see as we proceed, but there is a fundamental and basic principle underlying all of the various shades of opinion, and divisions of the schools. This fundamental belief may be expressed as the doctrine that there is in man an immaterial Something (called the soul, spirit, inner self, or many other names) which does not perish at the death or disintegration of the body, but which persists as an entity, and after a shorter or longer interval of rest reincarnates, or is re-born, into a new body—that of an unborn infant—from whence it proceeds to live a new life in the body, more or less unconscious of its past existences, but containing within itself the "essence" or results of its past lives, which experiences go to make up its new "character," or "personality." It is usually held that the rebirth is governed by the law of attraction, under one name or another, and which law operates in accordance with strict justice, in the direction of attracting the reincarnating soul to a body, and conditions, in accordance with the tendencies of the past life, the parents also attracting to them a soul bound to them by some ties in the past, the law being universal, uniform, and equitable to all concerned in the matter. This is a general statement of the doctrine as it is generally held by the most intelligent of its adherents.

E. D. Walker, a well-known English writer on the subject, gives the following beautiful idea of the general teachings: "Reincarnation teaches that the soul enters this life, not as a fresh creation, but after a long course of previous existences on this earth and elsewhere, in which it acquired its present inhering peculiarities, and that it is on the way to future transformations which the soul is now shaping. It claims that infancy brings to earth, not a blank scroll for the beginning of an earthly record, nor a mere cohesion of atomic forces into a brief personality, soon to dissolve again into the elements, but that it is inscribed with ancestral histories, some like the present scene, most of them unlike it and stretching back into the remotest past. These inscriptions are generally undecipherable, save as revealed in their moulding influence upon the new career; but like the invisible photographic images made by the sun of all it sees, when they are properly developed in the laboratory of consciousness they will be distinctly displayed. The current phase of life will also be stored away in the secret vaults of memory, for its unconscious effects upon the ensuing lives. All the qualities we now possess, in body, mind and soul, result from our use of ancient opportunities. We are indeed 'the heir of all the ages,' and are alone responsible for our inheritances. For these conditions accrue from distant causes engendered by our older selves, and the future flows by the divine law of cause and effect from the gathered momentum of our past impetuses. There is no favoritism in the universe, but all have the same everlasting facilities for growth. Those who are now elevated in worldly station may be sunk in humble surroundings in the future. Only the inner traits of the soul are permanent companions. The wealthy sluggard may be the beggar of the next life; and the industrious worker of the present is sowing the seeds of future greatness. Suffering bravely endured now will produce a treasure of patience and fortitude in another life; hardships will give rise to strength; self-denial must develop the will; tastes cultivated in this existence will somehow bear fruit in coming ones; and acquired energies will assert themselves whenever they can by the Law of Parsimony upon which the principles of physics are based. Vice versa, the unconscious habits, the uncontrollable impulses, the peculiar tendencies, the favorite pursuits, and the soul-stirring friendships of the present descend from far-reaching previous activities."

The doctrine of Reincarnation—Metempsychosis—Rebirth—has always been held as truth by a large portion of the human race. Following the invariable law of cyclic changes—the swing of the pendulum of thought—at times it has apparently died out in parts of the world, only to be again succeeded by a new birth and interest among the descendants of the same people. It is a light impossible to extinguish, and although its flickering flame may seem to die out for a moment, the shifting of the mental winds again allows it to rekindle from the hidden spark, and lo! again it bursts into new life and vigor. The reawakened interest in the subject in the Western world, of which all keen observers have taken note, is but another instance of the operation of the Cyclic Law. It begins to look as if the occultists are right when they predict that before the dawn of another century the Western world will once more have embraced the doctrines of Rebirth—the old, discarded truth, once so dear to the race, will again be settled in popular favor, and again move toward the position of "orthodox" teaching, perhaps to be again crystallized by reason of its "orthodoxy" and again to lose favor and fade away, as the pendulum swings backward to the other extreme of thought.

But the teaching of Reincarnation never has passed away altogether from the race—in some parts of the world the lamp has been kept burning brightly—nay, more, at no time in human history has there been a period in which the majority of the race has not accepted the doctrine of Rebirth, in some of its various forms. It was so one thousand years ago—two thousand—five thousand—and it is so to-day. In this Twentieth Century nearly if not quite two-thirds of the race hold firmly to the teaching, and the multitudes of Hindus and other Eastern peoples cling to it

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