Reincarnation.
by Th. Pascal.
SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR"S LIFE.
Theophile Pascal was born on the 11th of May, 1860, at Villecroze, a village in the South of France. His childhood was spent amid the pleasant surroundings of a country life. Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, a relative of his, a Catholic priest ministering in Toulon, seeing that the youth showed considerable ability, sent for him and presided over his studies in this large maritime centre. Before many years elapsed, he entered the Naval Medical School of the town, which he left at the age of twenty-two, with first-cla.s.s honours. In his professional capacity, he took several trips on vessels belonging to the Mediterranean squadron. Four years afterwards he married, resigned active naval service, and devoted himself to building up a practice on land, becoming a h.o.m.oeopathic physician in the great seaport itself.
It was about this time that the young doctor became interested in Theosophy, owing to the kindly services of a former patient, Commander Courmes. The closest friendship and sympathetic interest in theosophic thought thus began, and continued during their common labours subsequently in Paris, Dr. Pascal entered the Theosophical Society in 1891, and during the course of the following year wrote a series of articles for the _Revue Theosophique Francaise_. These were continued year after year, and dealt with the most varied subjects: Psychic Powers; The Fall of the Angels; Kama-Manasic Elementals; Thought Forms; Christianity, Prehistoric Races, and many others.
The young doctor had previously made a deep study of human magnetism, which proved a most fertile ground for the sowing of the seed of the Ancient Wisdom.
In 1898 attacks of serious nervous depression became frequent, forcing him to cease work of every kind. Mrs. Besant persuaded him to accompany her to India, where his general health was gradually restored, and he was enabled to return to France in the following year.
He decided to leave Toulon, where he had built up a considerable practice, and to settle in Paris, hoping to provide for the needs of himself and his family--his wife and only daughter--by the exercise of his profession, and at the same time to fight the good fight for Theosophy in the capital itself.
The French Section of the Theosophical Society was founded in 1900, and Dr. Pascal was elected General Secretary. Throughout the next two years a number of thoughtful articles and publications appeared from his pen. The incessant labour and attention, however, which he bestowed on the spreading of theosophic instruction began to have its effect on a naturally delicate const.i.tution, and in July, 1902, when attending the meetings of the British Convention in London, he was prostrated by an attack of congestion of the brain. The most devoted care was lavished on him, both in London and in Paris, the result being that a rapid, though only temporary, recovery took place. Had he relaxed his efforts somewhat, the cure might have been a permanent one, but Dr. Pascal, with the penetrating vision of the mystic, saw how pressing were the needs of the age, and how few the pioneers of this new presentation of the Truth, so that, at whatever cost of personal sacrifice, he plunged once more into the midst of his arduous toil.
In 1903 a series of very fine articles on the Laws of Destiny appeared in the _Revue Theosophique_, to be followed immediately by publication in volume form. Two years afterwards appeared the present volume--REINCARNATION: A STUDY IN HUMAN EVOLUTION; a work considered the most complete of any that have so far appeared in France on this subject, and the most popular of Dr. Pascal"s publications.
In 1906 some of the nerve centres controlling the organs of speech became affected, but not sufficiently to compel him to remain absent from the International Theosophical Congress held that year in Paris under the presidency of Colonel Olcott. It was on this occasion that Dr. Pascal received from the hands of the President-Founder the Subba Rao medal, awarded to members of the society whose literary labours in the promulgation of the truths of Theosophy have proved eminently useful.
Twelve months afterwards he attended the Congress at Munich, under the presidency of Mrs. Besant, but was obliged to leave before the termination of the meetings. This may be regarded as Dr. Pascal"s last public appearance as an active theosophist, for his subsequent prolonged stay in the South of France effected no radical improvement in the state of his health.
Returning to Paris in March, 1908, and realising how impossible it was for him to fulfil the duties inc.u.mbent on a General Secretary, he decided to resign his post. His colleagues, however, insisted on his continuing as Honorary General Secretary. From this time onward his health became gradually worse, and his physical life terminated on the 18th of April, 1909, his body being cremated three days afterwards at the Cemetery of Pere Lachaise.
What was most striking about Dr. Pascal, in both public and private life, was his intense earnestness--the index of a well-grounded habit of concentration--and the calm strength of his convictions. It was impossible to be in his presence for any length of time without feeling the power that emanated from him, and recognising that here was a mighty soul struggling for expression.
Other characteristics were his extreme modesty, and his continual endeavour to accord praise and merit to those working for the cause so dear to his own heart. When questioned on many of the intricate points raised in a lecture or in conversation on some abstruse theosophical subject, he made no pretence at knowledge he did not possess; on such occasions his confession of ignorance would be charming, even touching in its _navete_.
But the qualities he seemed to feel it his special object to awaken in the minds of others--as will be acknowledged, I think, by those who knew him best--may be inferred from his continual insistence on the double duty, inc.u.mbent on students of Theosophy, of practising on all occasions the utmost tolerance, refusing not only to condemn but even to judge harshly the opinions or actions of others, and of seizing every opportunity to help another because of the recognition of the One Life throughout the world, May we who read the following pages catch somewhat of the deep earnestness and enthusiastic spirit breathing through them, and may the joy of service dissipate all meaner, motives, taking as our watchword also the only key to true growth, the very heart of altruism, that exhortation he never wearied of repeating: _Aidez! Aidez toujours!_
F. R.
AUTHOR"S PREFACE
It will soon be: 1500 years since the decision of the Council of 543 A.D.[1] condemned to oblivion sublime teachings which ought to have been carefully preserved and handed down to future generations as a beacon amid social reefs; teachings that would have uprooted that frightful egoism which threatens to annihilate the world, and instilled patience into the hearts of such as were being crushed beneath the wheel of the cosmic law, by showing them the scales of Justice inclining to the side filled with their iniquities of bygone times; teachings which would have been welcomed by the ma.s.ses, and the understanding of which would not have called for any lofty intellectual culture.
It was one of the greatest misfortunes that could have befallen the races of the West, more especially the European, that they were thus deprived for centuries of this indispensable knowledge. We look upon it as a duty, following on so many others, to offer it anew, this time in the clear, logical, illuminating form presented in theosophic teachings. The necessity thereof is all the more imperative when we consider the growth of scepticism and materialism amongst the more intellectual cla.s.ses, whilst the ma.s.s of the people have forsaken their blind faith only to succ.u.mb to religious indifference.
To every awakened soul the question comes:
Why does evil exist?
So long as the enigma remains unsolved, Suffering remains a threatening sphinx, opposing G.o.d and ready to devour mankind.
The key to the secret lies in Evolution, which can be accomplished only by means of the continual return of souls to earth.
When once man learns that suffering is the necessary result of divine manifestation; that inequalities of conditions are due to the different stages which beings have reached and the changeable action of their will; that the painful phase lasts only a moment in Eternity, and that we have it in our power to hasten its disappearance; that though slaves of the past, we are masters of the future; that, finally, the same glorious goal awaits all beings--then, despair will be at an end; hatred, envy, and rebellion will have fled away, and peace will reign over a humanity made wise by knowledge.
Were this modest work to hasten forward this time by a few years, we should feel sufficiently rewarded.
The subject will be divided into four chapters:
(1) The Soul and the bodies.
(2) Reincarnation and the moral law.
(3) Reincarnation and science.
(4) Reincarnation and the religious and philosophical concensus of the ages.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: This Council came to the following decision:--_Whosoever shall teach the pre-existence of the soul and the strange opinion of its returns to earth, let him be anathema!_]
REINCARNATION
A STUDY IN HUMAN EVOLUTION
CHAPTER I.
THE SOUL AND THE BODIES.
In a book dealing with the resurrection of bodies and the reincarnations of the Soul, a chapter must be devoted to the fundamental elements of the question.
We will give the name of _Soul_ to abstract Being, to the Unknown, that unmanifested Principle which cannot be defined, for it is above all definition.
It is the Absolute of Western philosophers, the _Parabrahm_ of the Hindus, the _Tao_ of the ancient sages of China, the causeless Cause of all that has been or ever will be manifested in concrete time and s.p.a.ce.
Some feeble idea of it may perhaps be obtained by comparing it with electricity, which, though the cause of various phenomena: heat, movement, chemical action, light, is not, _per se_, any one of these phenomena, undergoes no modification from their existence, and survives them when the apparatus through which they manifest disappears.
We shall set up no distinction between this Soul, which may be called the universal Soul, and the individual soul, which has often been defined as a ray, a particle of the total Soul, for logically one cannot imply parts to the Absolute; it is illusion, limitation on our part, which shows us souls in the Soul.
_Bodies_ are "aspects" of the Soul, results of its activity--if, indeed, the Infinite can be said to be either active or pa.s.sive; words fail when we attempt to express the Inexpressible. These bodies, or, more precisely, the varied forms a.s.sumed by force-matter[2] are aspects of the Soul, just as light or chemical action are aspects of electricity, for one cannot suppose anything outside of infinite Being, nor can anything be imagined which is not a manifestation of the abstract Whole.
Let us also define _Consciousness_.
Taken absolutely, it is Being, the Soul, G.o.d; the uncaused Cause of all the states which, in beings, we call states of consciousness.