Post on 03-Aug-2020
transcript
REINCARNATION
By Charles Fillmore
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over and overThe teaching that man in his spiritual ego lives
again in many personalities, is as old as religion itself, because it
is found in every religion under the sun. It has been taught in India,
China, Egypt, Palestine— in fact, every nation ancient and modern has
its great teachers who accepted and expounded in some degree this uni-
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versally understood reality of man’s personal life.
Like all metaphysical subjects reincarnation has had its ebb and
flow In human philosophies and religions. The very pronounced revival
of interest in the subject here in America during the last half cen
tury may be credited largely to Theosophy, introduced In this country
by Mme. Blavatsky, the eminent Russian mystic and adept. She had re
ceived her illumination from the metaphysical adepts of Thibet.
Christianity has regarded all religious teaching that is not ac
ceptable to its modern interpreters as paganism. Reincarnation has
been stamped "heathenism’1, "superstition", and "devil worship".
But a careful study of the Hebrew Scriptures and the gospel of
Jesus Christ reveals that reincarnation was widely accepted as a part
of human experience, instead of the doctrine that we all go to either
heaven or hell at death.
Modern science, with its startling revelations of olie tremendous
forces existing in the omnipresent spaces supposed to be void, has
mightily strengthened this doctrine that the ethers are alive and
potent with possibilities of homes for beings very like those that
dwell on the earth. Thus science is proving what religion has taught,
that the kingdom of the heavens, so often referred to by Jesus, is
identical with what its savants have named the cosmic ether.
Science tells us that the ether penetrates all matter and all
space; that it is composed of energy and life far beyond anything we
have imagined; that it is the source of all things that appear in the/I t
-f' ■earth. As Jesus said, "Seek first kingdom of ftwd, and his right-
/s ' -eousness/ and all these things shall he added unto you."
Science says that if we could release the potential forces in
the electrons that compose the ether we could produce all that we need
to live magnificently. Jesus understood the ether— symbolized hy his
increase of the loaves and fishes.
Questions invariably asked in the discussion of reincarnation
are, Where are those who have passed out of the body? and Where are my
dead friends? and What does the soul do between incarnations?
These questions may he answered in three ways, all of which are
essential to carry conviction to the questioning mind.
First, the mind automatically gravitates to an environment for
which its dominant thoughts have prepared it. The evil-minded would
find evil companions and discordant surroundings, while the good would
rest in the peace and harmony -which such thoughts prepare for those
who harbor them.
Thoughts grow things in body and affairs, and we are bound or
loosed according to our thinking. A modern poet contrasts a good
thought and an evil thought thus:
"I harbored a thought, an evil thought,
And it grew, and it grew, and it grew,
'Till at last I was bound like a leashed hound
To do as my foe bade me do.
I harbored a thought, a Christlike thought,
And it grew, and it grew, and it grew,
'Till at last I was free, peace abided with me,
Love hallowed the world through and through."
7/e are aware only of that which our minds conceive or are con
scious of. All the joys and glories of that state called heaven
might be all about a savage and he would merely grunt and say, "Heap
big show." So the soul that has not developed the capacity to enjoy
those finer radiations of light, love and harmony peculiar to divine
structures, would be ignorant of their very presence though he might
be immersed in their splendor. Thus we are convinced that the glories
of heaven described by Dante and Milton will not be found by the ordinary
citizen of this world, who has been educated to appreciate mundane
things, and not heavenly.
It is true that our thoughts and acts do instantly and continu
ously mould the invisible ether into the conditions which our minds
conceive. As Shakespeare truly says, "The poet’s pen gives to airy
nothing a locality, habitation and a name."
The mind is always busy with its creative faculties, spinning
a web that anchors it to material things or spiritual things. With
every thought we project a current of energy that ultimates in a thing.
So what we treasure and give our most cherished affection to eventu
ally takes form in the mental or physical realms.
Jesus covered this point of soul or heart attachment when he
said, "Lav not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where mothfp
and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay('
up for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where thy treasure
is, there will thy heart be also."
A very wealthy and aristocratic woman once related a dream she
had of going to heaven and being shown the future homes of ttai those
who yet lived in the earth. Among others her guide called her at
tention to the future home of her gardner, which was magnificent.
She asked to he shown her own future home, which was, much to her
disappointment and dismay, a mere hovel. She protested indignantly,
UI live in a magnificent estate on the earth, while my gardner occu
pies a little cottage, yet here you are providing a mansion for him
and a hovel for me?" The guide replied, "Madam, we are doing the best
we can with the material you are sending up."
Second, }/e have the evidences of the continuity of existence of
the soul of man In the phenomenal or psychic realms. This evidence
is presented from many sources. All persons have souls in varying
degrees of unfoldment, and their souls are functioning according to
the desires most active in the man. The desire for the pleasures of
feeling and sensation in the flesh forms a subconscious entity known
in metaphysics as the animal soul.
This entity seeks the company and environment in the body that satis
fies its animal proclivities. The coarse life emanations of the body
of sense corrode and corrupt the organism and finally destroy it.
The sense soul continues to live in its desires but without the
means of satisfying them. This is the condition of the rich man de
picted in the parable by Jesus, in the sixteenth chapter of Luke.
A rich man was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared/-
sumptuously every day, while Lazarus, a beggar, lay daily at his
gate, full of sores, and desiring only to be fed with the crumbs
that fell from the rich man's table. They both died; Lazarus was
taken to Abraham’s bosom and the rich man to hades (hell). The
rich man being in torment asked Abraham to send Lazarus "that he may
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reraeraher that thou in thy lifetime receivedst the good things, and
Lazarus evil things: but now here he is comforted, and thou art in
anguish."
The word "hell” is not translated in our Bible with clearness
sufficient to represent the various meanings of the word in the original
languages. There are three words from which "hell" is derived: Sheol,
"the unseen state"; "hades”, the unseen world"; and Gehenna. H h ©
valley of Hinnon." These are used in their various relations, nearly
all of them allegorical.
In a sermon Archdeacon Farrar, the eminent British divine,
said, "There would be the proper teaching about hell if we calmly
and deliberately erased from our English Bibles the three words,
’damnation1, ’hell’, and ’everlasting’. I say--uhhesitatingly I
say, claiming the fullest right to speak with the authority of knowl
edge— that not one of those words ought to stand any longer In our
English Bible, for in our present acceptation of them they are simply
mistranslations.
In several of the Psalms, David writes of being in Sheol,
and that the Lord had delivered him. For example in Psalms 86:13,
"For great is thy lovingkindness toward me; And thou hast delivered
my soul from the lowest Sheol." In many places In the Bible Sheol
is translated "hell''.
This hades or unseen world is all about us and we contact
some of Its phases with every thought and emotion, modern science
has named it the cosmic ether. It was known to the ancients as tartarus,
sheol, gehenna, and many other names. It has been rediscovered in our
day "by the Spiritualists and is called the spirit world. We are in
formed by spiritualism that all persons who die go to the land of
spirits, which has, according to some of its mediians and teachers,
seven planes, the lowest lying next the earth. It is believed by
most spiritualists that the soul progresses in the spirit world for
ever. However, some of the leading spiritual cults, Allan Kardak,
for example, in Prance, teaches that the soul returns to earth and is
reincarnated.
We should be on our guard in accepting revelations from this
psychic realm, knowing,as we do, that death does not add to the knowledge
of any one. Those who have left their bodies have the same minds they
had when in the body. They think like thoughts, and have like desires
and attachments. Are they, then, safe sources of information about
God and the destiny of men? Their revelations through mediums are not
of a character*to convince us of superior wisdom.
The fact is that those who pass out of their bodies in death
have merely changed environment from the coarse matter of the earth
to the moonshine of the earthly ether. They have not gone to heaven
nor hell, so far as locality Is concerned, but are living in the
ether or invisible omnipresence. Those who were vitally interested
in life and its ambitions are striving to fulfill their desires, and
those who have grown weary with the struggle, and desire a rest, are
finding it in the sleep of the soul. Paul wrote to the Corinthians
that their failure to discern the spiritual body had caused many of
them to becorae weak and sickly and "not a few sleep."
It is possible for those in the body to communicate with those
We are told that King Saul, inout of the body, but not advisable.
his extremity, went to a medium, a woman who had a "familiar spirit,"
and called up Samuel, who had passed from the body. When Samuel ap-
peared he complained because he had been disturbed in his rest. "Why
hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?" "’And Saul answered, I am sore
distressed, for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed
from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams."
X-^And Samuel said, "Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing Je
hovah is departed from thee, and is become thine adversarv? Because
. . he will deliver thee into / 4 'fthou obeyedst not the voice of Jehovah .
the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow shalt thou and thy sons
he with me.'1
Samuel is considered one of the most righteous men that ever
lived and if any man was worthy of a place in heaven, it was Samuel.
But this Scripture plainly states that he was resting in the "unseen
world" (hades). He prophesied that Saul and his sons would he with him
the next day. The:/ were slain hy the Philistines and their souls, al
though they were far helow the righteousness of Samuel, v/ent to the
same world, hut evidently they were not in the same class with Samuel.
How account for the great diversity of character in the person
alities that form the human race? It has been estimated that since
the dawn of history--6000 years--the bones of those that have lived
and died would encrust the earth eighteen feet high. Kan has lived
500 million years. "The very hairs of your head are numbered."
In the ether are schools for children and adults, sanitariums
for the mentally unbalanced, houses of rest for the weary, churches
for the religious.
The germ-cells compose the primal nervous system of the body,
and these cells are made up of electrical units, radiant with life.
The secondary cells form the cells that build the body of flesh. The
muscles are the end organs of metor nerves.
A germ-cell is teeming with life-entities. One scientist com
pares it to an ocean liner filled with people of every kind, eager to
go somewhere and do something.
The Lord said to Daniel, "But go thou thy way till the end b
for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot, at the end of the days.
In Psalms 139:13, we read:
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l?For thou didst form my inward parts:
Thou didst cover me in my mother’s womb.
I will give thanks -onto thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully
made:
Wonderful are thy works;
And that my soul knoweth right well.
My frame was not hidden from thee
When I was made in secret
And curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth.
Thine eyes did see my unformed substance.
And in thy book they were all written.1*
!lAbraham prayed unto God, and God healed Abimelech, and his
wife and his maid-servants." "I am Jehovah that healeth thee.”/ S ■
Jesus came healing all manner of sickness and all manner of di
seases . "He sent them iorth to preach che kingdom of God and to^
heal the sick.1'
"And these signs shall follow them that believe, In my name .
shall they cast out demons: they shall take up serpents, and if they
/ ^ / / 7(fdrink any deadly thing it shall in no wise hunt them; they shall lay
hands on the sick and they shall recover.1'
"And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working
with then, and confirming the word by the signs that followed.”
In the story of Peter and John and the lame man, we read:
”By what power, or In what name have ye done this?”
"In the name of Jesus Christ doth this man stand before you whole."
nThey marveled when they beheld the boldness of Peter and John,
perceiving that they were unlearned and Ignorant men."
"But go--thou thy way till the end be: for thou s ha It re strand
s h a l t -sta n d In th y end 'Bf "Iflim-agygT ?'
HiFor lie shall he great In the sight of the Lord, and he shall I , K
drink no wine, nor strong drink; and he shall he filled with the Holy / '
Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Is
rael shall he turn unto the Lord their God. And he shall go before
his face in the Spirit and power of Elijah.”
"For all the prophets and the law prophesied u n t i l irnwn And *piif ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah, that is to come. He
MWho do men say that the Son of Man is? And they said. Some
say John the Baptist; some Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the
prophets. He saith -unto them. But who say ye that I am? And Simon>7 ^
// KS/
Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living / “2 / i/ J7
God. And Jesus answered and said unto him. Blessed art thou, Simon
Bar Jonah; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my
Father T/ho is in heaven.”
“Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? And he ~~T7
answered and said, Elijah indeed cometh, and shall restore all things;'
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but I say unto you, that Elijah is come alread:/, and they know him
not. but did unto him whatsoever they would. Even so shall the Son of
man also suffer of them. Then understood the disciples that he spake
unto them of John the Baptist."