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Re: Theos-World RE: Reincarnation: INDIVIDUALLITY and Personality

Jan 05, 2002 02:44 PM
by Steve Stubbs


I don't think anyone questions that she had such ideas
after going to India. The question is whether she
thought the same thing in the New York period, or
whether she was persuaded to modify some of her views
after 1870. Olcott says she was. Thus far nobody
seems to have analyzed Olcott's evidence and shown why
we should discount it.

--- dalval14@earthlink.net wrote:
> January 4, 2002
> 
> 
> Dear Friends:
> 
> Re: REINCARNATION INDIVIDUALITY and Personality
> 
> 
> If those who so eagerly debate today H P B's
> statements on
> Reincarnation were aware, chronologically, of the
> many statements
> made on the subject there would be no occasion (As I
> see it) for
> confusion. The History of the diffusion of the
> Theosophical
> teachings has to be known as well as the differences
> of language
> used for a purpose. One may state that the concept
> of
> Reincarnation was not well known when H P B first
> wrote, but as
> the public became aware of it, the distinction
> between the
> immortal EGOIC
> INDIVIDUALITY, and the transitory and constantly
> eroding
> PERSONALITY had to be made clear.
> 
> After the publication of ISIS UNVEILED there
> appeared in the
> magazine THEOSOPHIST and elsewhere articles and
> answers to
> questions that made the distinction clear.
> 
> The PERSONALITY, molded on the astral centers of
> force, was in
> most cases dissipated at the end of a life. In very
> few
> (extraordinary) cases was that same "astral body"
> ever used
> again.
> 
> Normal reincarnation calls for a fresh "Astral" and
> :"Physical"
> body to be fashioned by karma, and used at each
> incarnation of
> the Ego.
> 
> This teaching as said, was made plain in articles
> and in the KEY
> TO THEOSOPHY. (1898) and, in The SECRET DOCTRINE 
> (1888).
> 
> The problem with the early expressions concerning
> reincarnation
> including those made in a cautionary manner in ISIS
> UNVEILED
> (period 1875-1877) would find them resolved in an
> August 1882
> article H P B printed in THEOSOPHIST. It is titled:
> "ISIS
> UNVEILED and the "THEOSOPHIST" on REINCARNATION." [
> H P B
> Articles Vol. I, p. 491 ]
> 
> 
> ====================	QUOTE
> ==========================
> 
> 
> H P B ISIS UNVEILED and the THEOSOPHIST on
> REINCARNATION
> 
> 
> 
> "ISIS UNVEILED" AND THE "THEOSOPHIST" ON
> REINCARNATION
> Article by H. P. Blavatsky
> IN Light (July 8) C.C.M. quotes from the THEOSOPHIST
> (June 1882)
> a sentence which appeared in the Editor's Note at
> the foot of an
> article headed "Seeming Discrepancies." Then,
> turning to the
> review of "The Perfect Way" in the same number, he
> quotes at
> length from "an authoritative teaching of the later
> period," as
> he adds rather sarcastically. Then, again, a long
> paragraph from
> Isis. The three quotations and the remarks of our
> friend run
> thus:
> "There never was, nor can there be, any radical
> discrepancy
> between the teachings in 'Isis' ('Isis Unveiled')
> and those of
> this later period, as both proceed from one and the
> same
> source--the ADEPT BROTHERS. (Editor's Note in
> Seeming
> Discrepancies.")
> Having drawn the attention of his readers to the
> above assertion
> C.C.M. proceeds to show--as he thinks--its fallacy:
> "To begin with, re-Incarnation--if other worlds
> besides this are
> taken into account--is the regular routine of
> nature. But
> re-Incarnation in the next higher objective world is
> one thing;
> re-Incarnation on this earth is another. Even that
> takes place
> over and over again till the highest condition of
> humanity, as
> known on this earth, is attained, but not
> afterwards, and here is
> the clue to the mystery.... But once let a man be as
> far
> perfected by successive re-incarnations as the
> present race will
> permit, and then his next re-incarnation will be
> among the early
> growths of the next higher world, where the earliest
> growths are
> far higher than the highest here. The ghastly
> mistake that the
> modern re-lncarnationists make is in supposing that
> there can be
> a return on this earth to lower bodily forms";--not,
> therefore,
> that man is re-incarnated as man again and again
> upon this earth,
> for that is laid down as truth in the above cited
> passages in the
> most positive and explicit form." (Review of T.P.W.
> in the
> Theosophist.)
> And now for "Isis":
> "We will now present a few fragments of this
> mysterious doctrine
> of re-Incarnation--as distinct from
> metempsychosis--which we have
> from an authority. Re-Incarnation, i.e., the
> appearance of the
> same individual--or rather, of his astral
> monad--twice on the
> same planet is not a rule in nature; it is an
> exception, like the
> teratological phenomenon of a two-headed infant. It
> is preceded
> by a violation of the laws of harmony of nature and
> happens only
> when the latter, seeking to restore its disturbed
> equilibrium,
> violently throws back into earth-life the astral
> monad, which has
> been tossed out of the circle of necessity by crime
> or accident.
> Thus in cases of abortion, of infants dying before a
> certain age,
> and of congenital and incurable idiocy, nature's
> original design
> to produce a perfect human being has been
> interrupted. Therefore,
> while the gross matter of each of these several
> entities is
> suffered to disperse itself at death through the
> vast realm of
> being, the immortal Spirit and astral monad of the
> individual--the latter having been set apart to
> animate a frame,
> and the former to shed its divine light on the
> corporeal
> organization--must try a second time to carry out
> the purpose of
> the creative intelligence. If reason has been so far
> developed as
> to become active and discriminative, there is no
> re-incarnation
> on, this earth, for the three parts of the triune
> man have been
> united together, and he is capable of running the
> race. But when
> the new being has not passed beyond the condition of
> monad, or
> when, as in the idiot, the trinity has not been
> completed, the
> immortal spark which illuminates it has to re-enter
> on the
> earthly planet, as it was frustrated in its first
> attempt. . . .
> Further, the same occult doctrine recognizes another
> possibility,
> albeit so rare and so vague that it is really
> useless to mention
> it. Even the modern Occidental Occultists deny it,
> though it is
> universally accepted in Eastern countries." . . .
> This is the occasional return of the terribly
> depraved 
=== message truncated ===


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