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The Ninth Lesson: Metempsychosis.857
something already learned, rather than the learning of some new truth?
Were you not attracted to these studies, in the first place, by a feeling that
you had known it all before, somewhere, somehow? Does not your mind
leap ahead of the lesson, and see what is coming next, long before you have
turned the pages? These inward evidences of the fact of pre-existence are
so strong that they outweigh the most skillful appeal to the intellect.
This intuitive knowledge of the truth of Metempsychosis explains why the
belief in it is sweeping over the Western world at such a rapid rate. The
mere mention of the idea, to many people who have never before heard of
it, is sufficient to cause them to recognize its truth. And though they may not
understand the laws of its operation, yet deep down in their consciousness
they find a something that convinces them of its truth. In spite of the
objections that are urged against the teaching, it is making steady headway
and progress.
The progress of the belief in Metempsychosis however has been greatly
retarded by the many theories and dogmas attached to it by some of the
teachers. Not to speak of the degrading ideas of re-birth into the bodies
of animals, etc., which have polluted the spring of Truth, there are to be
found many other features of teaching and theory which repel people, and
cause them to try to kill out of the minds the glimmer of Truth that they
find there. The human soul instinctively revolts against the teaching that it
is bound to the wheel or re-birth, willy-nilly, compulsorily, without choice—
compelled to live in body after body until great cycles are past. The soul,
perhaps already sick of earth-life, and longing to pass on to higher planes
of existence, fights against such teaching. And it does well to so fight, for the
truth is nearer to its hearts desire. There is no soul longing that does not
carry with it the prophecy of its own fulfillment, and so it is in this case. It is
true that the soul of one filled with earthly desires, and craving for material
things, will by the very force of those desires be drawn back to earthly rebirth
in a body best suited for the gratification of the longings, desires and
cravings that it finds within itself. But it is likewise true that the earth-sick soul