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The Ninth Lesson: Metempsychosis.845
That is, while the Involuntary Process was accomplished by Principles as
Principles, the Upward Movement was begun by a tendency toward
“splitting up,” and the creation of “individual forms,” and the effort to perfect
them and build upon them higher and still higher succeeding forms, until
a stage was reached in which the Temple of the Spirit was worthy of being
occupied by Man, the self-conscious expression of the Spirit. For the
coming of Man was the first step of a higher form of Evolution—the Spiritual
Evolution. Up to this time there had been simply an Evolution of Bodies, but
now there came the Evolution of Souls.
And this Evolution of Souls becomes possible only by the process of
Metempsychosis (pronounced me-temp-si-ko-sis) which is more commonly
known as Reincarnation, or Re-embodiment.
It becomes necessary at this point to call your attention to the general
subject of Metempsychosis, for the reason that the public mind is most
confused regarding this important subject. It has the most vague ideas
regarding the true teachings, and has somehow acquired the impression
that the teachings are that human souls are re-born into the bodies of
dogs, and other animals. The wildest ideas on this subject are held by some
people. And, not only is this so, but even a number of those who hold to
the doctrine of Reincarnation, in some of its forms, hold that their individual
souls were once the individual souls of animals, from which state they have
evolved to the present condition. This last is a perversion of the highest Yogi
Teachings, and we trust to make same plain in these lessons. But, first we
must take a look at the general subject of Metempsychosis, that we may see
the important part it has played in the field of human thought and belief.
While to many the idea of Metempsychosis may seem new and unfamiliar,
still it is one of the oldest conceptions of the race, and in ages past was the
accepted belief of the whole of the civilized race of man of the period. And
even today, it is accepted as Truth by the majority of the race
The almost universal acceptance of the idea by the East with its teeming life,
counterbalances its comparative non-reception by the Western people of