< A Theory of Spiritual Evolution (continued from page 1-130) >
When this double evolution has reached a certain point, it is possible for the third principle to come into the union, that it, the immortal spirit (soul), which makes of man the Triad.
As these emanations were given off, so at the proper time they are drawn back again into the vortex of evolution, and the elementary, dying in the astral light, goes to make the j human being—the foetus—the grosser portions furnishing the germ of its body, and its finer ones its astral body, the peri-sprit of Kardec, or the spirit. Then, after the body of the foetus is prepared to receive it, at the fourth hour (read the Nuetemeron of El. Levi) comes in the influx of the Divine breath.
You will doubtless observe the analogy between this giving off of astral emanations, their concentration into elementaries, and return to physical nature, and the evaporation of watery vapor, its condensation into clouds, and return to the earth as rain or snow. Modern scientific research demon strates this ebb and flow of influences and matter to be going on throughout the whole cosmos, and, therefore, unless we were to admit the absurd theory of special creation and miracle, we must see that this philosophy of the evolution of species by flux and reflux from matter to spirit and back again is the only true one, . . the whole trouble of Kardec and other reincarnationists, lies in their misunderstanding the hermetic philosophy upon this point. While it is true that there is a reincarnation in one sense, in the other it is untrue. Nay, more, it is absurd and unphilosophical, doing violence to the law of evolution, which is constantly carrying matter and spirit upward towards perfection. When the elementary dies out of one state of existence he is born into a higher one, and when man dies out of the world of gross matter he is born into one more ethereal; so on from sphere to sphere, man never losing his trinity, for at each birth a new and more perfect astral body is evolved out of elementaries of a correspondingly higher order, while his previous astral body takes the place of the antecedent, external earthly body. Man’s soul (or Divine spirit, for you must not confound the Divine with the astral spirit) constantly entering into new astral bodies, there is an actual reincarnation; but that when it has once passed through any sphere into a higher one, it should re-enter the lower sphere and pass through other bodies similar to the one it has just quitted, is as unphilosophical as to fancy that the human foetus could go back into the elementary condition, or the child after birth re-enter its mother's womb.
The eastern Kabbalah embraces the Pythagorean philosophy; the western, or Rosicrucian, did not. But the metempsychosis of Pythagoras was an exoteric expression to cover the esoteric meaning, and his commentators, who had not the key, have misunderstood him as grossly as they have misunderstood everything else written by those of the Neo-Platonics, who, like Porphyry, Iamblicus, and Plotinus, have been adopting and elaborating his precepts.
The spirits upon whose communications the reincarnationist school base their theory, have simply given back the opinions which they found in the heads or brains of their mediums and the circle about them. Reincarnationist spirits never insist upon their doctrines to any but reincarnationist mediums, and the troops of soldiers seen about Prince Wittgenstein are simply pretty pictures made in the astral light, for the delectation of those who are ready to gobble them.
The magician, when he evokes human spirits, furnishes them with such a condition in his own pure atmosphere—a spiritual atmosphere, untainted with gross matter—that they can approach and manifest themselves. The sorcerer, as well as the impure medium, are but necromaneers. They are surrounded by such a fetid atmosphere, that only elementary and gross human spirits of their own class—whose very grossness keeps them closely attracted to the earth—can either approach them or be evoked to help them in their wicked designs. Both magician and sorcerer can produce phenomena by the power of their own will and their own spirit, unaided by any other either elementary or human; but the impure medium, who is but the football tossed from one influence to another, can do nothing but passively obey. Pure and sincere-minded people, who accept mediumship for the sake of instruction from superior spirits, keep the elementary at bay by virtue of their own purity, and the pure atmosphere of the spirits surrounding them. And still they cannot call them at will, until they have become adepts of the divine science, and learned to combine the Ineffable Name.
Cabalism
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P.S. I am delighted to see LZeus's article in Spiritual Scientist...
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Mrs. Denton's Reply to Berkley
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Editor's notes