Quotes:Pre‐existence

H. P. Blavatsky

Pre‐existence. The term used to denote that we have lived before. The same as reincarnation in the past. The idea is derided by some, rejected by others, called absurd and inconsistent by the third yet it is the oldest and the most universally accepted belief from an immemorial antiquity. And if this belief was universally accepted by the most subtle philosophical minds of the pre‐Christian world, surely it is not amiss that some of our modern intellectual men should also believe in it, or at least give the doctrine the benefit of the doubt. Even the Bible hints at it more than once, St. John the Baptist being regarded as the reincarnation of Elijah, and the Disciples asking whether the blind man was born blind because of his sins, which is equal to saying that he had lived and sinned before being born blind. As Mr. Bonwick well says: it was “the work of spiritual progression and soul discipline. The pampered sensualist returned a beggar; the proud oppressor, a slave ; the selfish woman of fashion, a seamstress. A turn of the wheel gave a chance for the development of neglected or abused intelligence and feeling, hence the popularity of reincarnation in all climes and times. . . . thus the expurgation of evil was . . . gradually but certainly accomplished.” Verily “an evil act follows a man, passing through one hundred thousand transmigrations” (Panchatantra). “All souls have a subtle vehicle, image of the body, which carries the passive soul from one material dwelling to another” says Kapila; while Basnage explains of the Jews: “By this second death is not considered hell, but that which happens when a soul has a second time animated a body”. Herodotus tells his readers, that the Egyptians “are the earliest who have spoken of this doctrine, according to which the soul of man is immortal, and after the destruction of the body, enters into a newly born being. When, say they, it has passed through all the animals of the earth and sea, and all the birds, it will re‐enter the body of a new born man.” This is Pre‐existence. Deveria showed that the funeral books of the Egyptians say plainly “that resurrection was, in reality, but a renovation, leading to a new infancy, and a new youth. (See “Reincarnation”.)

Source: H. P. Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary, art. Pre‐existence