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Reincarnation: A Study of the Human Soul

By J.A. Anderson

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The Psychological Evidence Of The Existence Of The Soul

IN the preceding chapter attention has been paid to the evidences of a soul in the psycho-physiology of the waking state, or that of normal consciousness. No refer- ence was had to the large and fertile field consisting of man's dreaming consciousness, together with the allied phenomena of trance, hypnotism, clairvoyance, and super- sensuous states generally.

It is evident that if there be a psycho-physiology of the waking state, there must also be one of sleep. As this occupies one-third of our entire existence, it cannot be safely ignored in any psychological investigation. It is hardly reasonable, in view of the wonderful utilization of every opportunity by nature, to infer that sleep is only intended for that bodily rest and recuperation to which it has been assigned by science. Furthermore, the so-called abnormal phenomena of trance, clairvoyance, thought transference, etc., representing a large" unclassified residuum" of psychic phenomena, have a most important bearing upon the question of human consciousness functioning independent of the body, and hence upon the existence of
a soul.

There are also further facts and generalizations to be drawn from the study of the nature of the relation of consciousness to the human organism in particular, and to biological evolution in general, which may, perhaps, be profitably studied in connection with and as a preface to the consideration of dreaming and other supersensuous phenomena.

Taking up, primarily, then, these general considerations, we find a soul directly pointed at by the fact of self-con- sciousness. While consciousness of some degree necessarily accompanies every step of evolutionary development, in man alone it first reaches the condition of self-conscious- ness, or consciousness of consciousness. Man analyzes and examines his own consciousness. Now, analysis re- quires two factors an analyzer and the thing analyzed.

Therefore, self-consciousness implies most conclusively that man has become at least dual in his nature ; that something has been added above and beyond the animal consciousness (which knows no "I") of the kingdom below him. One constituent of his being steps aside and critic- ally examines other constituents. Unless his conscious- ness is dual and separable, it is incapable of this. Nomolecular motion the materialistic source of thought and
consciousness can isolate itself and observe the mechanical details to which -it owes its own existence. Such a process is inconceivable. As we have seen, only a soul independent of its physical sense organs for its conscious existence can satisfy the conditions of the problems of self- consciousness and self-analysis.

Further consideration shows us, also, that self-conscious- ness does not exhaust its peculiar and proper object, which is self. If consciousness were the product of the chemico-vital processes going on within the body, it ought, as the mere expression of this, to express it fully. It would be a simple question in mathematics a case of two and two making four. Instead <f this, our ordinary con- sciousness finds itself occupying a body of which it knows next to nothing. Our ordinary consciousness take notice.

That there is an inner consciousness, or soul, and that this soul is intelligently conscious of every process going on within the body, is abundantly proven by recent experiments in hypnotism. This state, in which the ordi- nary consciousness is suspended to a greater or lesser degree and an inner permitted to function, shows that a very illiterate, ignorant person will display a familiarity with the anatomy and physiology of his or her organism,
and a recognition of diseased conditions together with a knowledge of the remedies necessary to their alleviation or cure, far exceeding that of the most learned and experienced physician. That this information and knowledge proceed from an inner source, and are not due to thought transference or suggestion on the part of the physician, is proven by unsuspected physical conditions thus described having been verified by post mortem. This strange phe- nomenon can only be accounted for by admitting to man a higher consciousness than that which functions on the ordinary or waking plane, and which consciousness can only exist as the functions of an independent Ego, or soul.

It is true that self-prescribing, etc., are only comparatively low planes of the conscious functioning of the soul, but this does not diminish their real significance. The point made clear by them is that normal, waking consciousness expresses only a portion a very small portion, in reality of the conscious powers of the soul.

The fact that the soul is superior to the body, and its conscious area actually limited by the sense organs of the latter, is thus firmly established.

If, also, we examine the relation sustained by conscious- ness to biological processes in general we shall find that the same conditions obtain. The manifestation of divine consciousness in physical form, which constitutes nature as we perceive it, is likewise limited in its expression by its material vehicle. There is a constant struggle on the part of the inner consciousness to express itself more fully and harmoniously than the " matter" with which it is as- sociated permits. This fact is the sole agent in and the cause of all evolution. Both man and nature are constantly trying to displace this movable threshold of consciousness which they have in common. This threshold, the point of unstable equilibrium in nature, is the battlefield wherein every contest between " matter and spirit" takes place. Here the outer form is slowly modified by the continuous efforts of the inner consciousness, seeking a more perfect vehicle for its expression. The fact that modification is possible in man and nature prophesies in both, also, unlimited potentialities of future development.

And, truly, a biological process is only possible by means of a higher or transcendental consciousness in nature. If we take any division the vertebrates, for example we shall find the designing idea always precedes in time its evolution in matter. The intention of nature is plainly foreshadowed in the notochord, which still persists in some of the lower vertebrates; and the prophecy of this insignifi- cant notochord finds its realization in the magnificent elab- oration of the vertebral column, with its cranial enlargement, muscular, nervous, arterial, lymphatic, digestive, and other accessory systems, which together constitute the body of the being declared to be " a little lower than the angels in heaven."

Yet science would have us believe that this wonderful result is due alone to the blind groping of natural forces under the impelling influence of unintelli-gent law! Nay, if there were no other proof of there being a higher consciousness in nature and in man, it is shown beyond all doubt by the very facts upon which materialistic science chiefly relies those of evolution. No building was ever yet constructed whose model or design was not previously present in the consciousness of its architect, and no biological process ever took place which was not previously present in the mind of a Higher Intelligence.

Evolution continuously displaces the threshold of consciousness in nature and in man. And biology, also, shows that for the whole of organic nature, including man, there are two increasingly unequal divisions that part which sense organs disclose, and that portion which is transcendental to or beyond sensuous perception. For an oyster most of the world is transcendental; that man's consciousness is very much widened in area does not by any means imply that he is in contact with the whole of nature. Step by step, the higher consciousness has evolved organs capable of relating itself to larger and larger areas of contact with external things.

The design in each instance has preceded the construction of the thing designed. If the brain, for example, were developed by blind force alone, how could it have been adapted for future needs ?

Yet all the functions of the human mind, all its god-like faculties, were foreseen and provided for in anticipation by the first swelling which, at one extremity of an otherwise indistinguishable line of nerve substance, prophesied and promised the magnificent display of will, intellect, reason, emotion and intuition subsequently enabled to manifest through the brain of a Spencer or a Shakespeare. And the un-broken sequence of design and thought lie before our eyes all our lives, yet we are asked to believe that for- tuitous chance caused force to take this direction ; that all this is but the sum of the molecular and chemical action of blindly working law ! This movable and moving threshold of consciousness, then, appears in all nature. It can only be the result of two causes.

Either an inner and a higher consciousness is shaping and transforming matter, with a definite and intelligent end in view, or it is the result of blind chance working under the despotic need of unintelli- gent force. And if we are compelled to admit an inner and a higher consciousness in any single effort of nature, the fortress is taken; for, step by step, we shall be forced to admit a higher consciousness in all ; and the question as to whether man has a higher consciousness, or soul, is answered by the biological argument in the affirmative. And again we are driven to the conclusion that, since this higher consciousness is not dependent in any way upon the matter which it shapes to further its ends as a potter might for its continued existence, then it does not, and indeed can not, die upon the death or transformation of the latter. /On the contrary, analogy points to the fact that, as a man wears out and renews his body, cell by cell, many times in the labors of a life, so his soul must wear out and renew many bodies in the course of its infinite pilgrimage. Here, once again, then, the fact of and reason for reincarnation meets us squarely as the logical result of biological necessities. Again, the evolution of sense organs and the widening of consciousness upon this plane are parallel. Nor is it probable that man will evolve any absolutely new sense organ which will relate him to new phenomena or facts of nature.

But this is <not necessary, since those he has are capable of almost infinite expansion along lines they now subtend. And that no new physiological organs are in process of evolution points plainly to the inference that future development must be in psychic or mental directions. This will certainly be the case unless we refuse to predicate any further advance as possible to the human Ego a conclusion to which the egotism of self-satisfaction is very prone.

If one wears blue glasses all nature assumes a blue hue. Materialism has looked at the universe so long through material lenses that it has become spiritually color blind.

It also confounds the condition of thinking with the cause of thought; it mistakes the physical brain, which is the battery by means of which the operator beyond transmits thought messages to this physical plane, for the creator of that which it merely transmits. It is exactly the same as if a countryman were to insist that the instrument which ticks off his message is the source of the intelligence dis- played.

Self-consciousness, then, together with its varied functions, such as reflective thought, constructive imagination, volition, even to the extent of deliberately abandoning the body by suicide-t-all show that that body is occupied and controlled by a soul almost infinitely superior to it in function and powers; and, as a necessary corollary, that the soul has acquired this undoubted superiority by an almost numberless series of reincarnations.?

A careful examination must convince any one that thought comes into the consciousness ready made; that is, that we do not consciously create it, but receive it as though transmitted to us from some source outside or beyond us. From a perception of this, poets have always claimed to be inspired by a "muse." This reception of completed thought shows plainly that the physical brain is only an organ to relate thought to the physical plane, and not to create it in any sense of the word.

The whole of
nature's so-called creative processes are simply unconscious thought -that is, unconscious to us. Could weattune our consciousness to that of the creative intelli- gences in nature, we would know what is going on in the
mind of an ant, as also in the mind of a flower or stone. And that the soul is so attuned, in a degree at least, is proven by the fact that in deep hypnotic states it knowsnature's thoughts or processes going on within its ownphysical organism, and can and does recognize and prescribe for diseased conditions therein. This is just in ac- cordance with what must be predicated of soul, which, being
independent of the body for all except one class of purely
material functions, and which, passing from body to bodyby means of reincarnation, must accumulate an amount of
conscious experiences, with knowledge and wisdom arising
therefrom, which cannot of necessity find full and complete
expression in any one body, as a small engine is insuffi- cient to afford full expression for the energy of a series of
boilers.

To turn on the full force would in both instances
be to destroy the vehicle. Proceeding, next, more directly to the examination of the
dreaming and other abnormal states of consciousness, wenote, as a basic parallel, that the projection of images during sleep is exactly equivalent to perception in the wakingstate, both placing objectively something we perceive subjectively. A tree, for example, is not seen actually where it is; nor is its size nor color nor any of its attributes
perceived externally. The perception is entirely internal ; the location and definition of the object externally is an
after operation belonging to experience and judgment.

A blind man, suddenly restored to sight, as has been
done by operation, is at first utterly unable to estimate the
distance, perspective, and other qualities of objects, except
as the result of painfully acquired experience, in which
perception plays no further part than to furnish the primary data. Therefore, there is, ipso facto, nothing in dreams which excludes their phenomena from the domain
of actual perception.

As continuously occurs in waking
life, these perceptions may be wrongly interpreted; but
they are none the less true perceptions, and have their psycho-physiology, our ignorance of which is no warrant
for its non-existence.
Waking consciousness is the result of an almost infinite number of physical stimuli reaching perception and rec- ognition by means of the sense organs. In dream, the soul responds to stimuli from inner and more spiritual planes.

The senselessness of most remembered dreams is due to a mixing of the waking and dreaming states, when objective
stimuli are partly dramatized on the subjective plane, and
vice versa. In ordinary dreams all stimuli are dramatized;
thus resembling somewhat a play where the actors are
limited to pantomime for the expression of their ideas.

And the causes of the dramatization not being perceived,
the judgment necessarily rests on false premises. The
waking state is partly objective and partly subjective;
dream is the same only between the two states the
threshold of consciousness is greatly displaced.

In the
waking condition the consciousness is engross'ed by the stronger stimuli of physical life, and the subjective threshold recedes accordingly. In dream the objective threshold recedes, and the consciousness responds to an entirely different class of stimuli, of a subjective nature. It
is not claimed that these minor stimuli are not present in the waking condition. They are; but are crowded out ofthe attention, or displaced by the stronger. They resemble a feeble chord in music so lost in louder and higher
pitched ones that we are unaware it is being sounded.
It is only as objective stimuli fade or are suppressed that we can become conscious on subjective planes. In both
sleeping and waking states it is, of course, the same consciousness, but responding to different stimuli.

If, then, the physiology of dreams carries perception
and consciousness to the dream plane, the importance of
studying this and its allied unconscious (so called) conditions cannot be overestimated. For once we show that
ordinary dream and the higher dream states, such as somnambulism and trance, are merely gradations of the same consciousness responding to new stimuli; we not only establish the fact of another consciousness than the
waking, but we also prove that this consciousness is very
greatly superior to the waking, in knowledge, functions,
and power.

In other words, we prove an inner Ego, or
soul.In demonstration of this connection, if we pass but a
single step above the ordinary dream, and admit signifi- cant dreams as possib^ and who does not ? we are in contact with a consciousness which is capable of forewarning, or prophecy powers far surpassing its waking capacities. Again, sleep-walking is but the dreamer acting out the dramatization of his own dreams, as the writer, who was in youth a somnambulist, can personally testify.
Many, if not all, the phases of natural somnambulism are
so plainly identical with those of induced somnambulism,
or the hypnotic states, that we are enabled to connect these
conditions beyond any doubt.

And in the hypnotic or induced somnambulism, whether self-induced or due to the will of another, we forge the last and strongest
link which binds the waking consciousness to one almost
infinitely higher than itself, which is yet truly its own
self, only functioning above and beyond the limitations
of its material sense organs. In studying dream, as the very lowest yet most universal of these states, we note the entrance of a most important factor, or the use by the dreaming consciousness of
entirely new concepts of time and space.

It is a well- known and admitted physiological fact that dreams which on the waking plane would require years of time for their
enactment find on the dream plane that even a moment
is sufficient for the dreaming consciousness to appreciate
them in their most minute details. Thus De Quincey had
one dream which apparently extended over some sixty
years, but which actually occupied scarcely as many moments. Uxhill, also, on three successive nights, not only saw his whole life pass in review, but appreciated its moral bearing.*

Now, the fact that the relation of the thinking Ego to time conceptions is changed in dream is one whose
importance cannot be overestimated. The exact speed
at which objective stimuli are transmitted from the
periphery to the brain centers is well known. In like manner, the time required by the consciousness to record
visual perceptions is also subject to accurate measure-ment, as has been pointed out by Helmholtz, Fechner,
and others.

Since it is the same "I" which perceives both
in the waking state and in dreams, and since perception
in the waking state can only proceed at a definite, measurable rate of speed, if we find in dream this same "I"
recording perceptions at a rate a million times greater
than that which its physical organ, or brain, is capable of
registering, it follows that it can not be using this physical organ, and is therefore not limited to the latter for its manifestations of consciousness. This alone proves that we possess a consciousness independent of the body, and,
therefore, a soul, beyond all cavil or dispute.

Of the nature of dreams are the cases of partial drowning, where the whole life of the individual passes in review,
to its most minute detail, during the brief interval in which
the higher consciousness is permitted to function through
the suppression of the lower by the physical asphyxiation
and psychic exaltation which accompany the act. In
the same category are the well-authenticated facts of the
entire suppression of pain during the burning of both
witches and martyrs.

Through the tremendous psychic
exaltation upon such occasions, the consciousness is trans- ferred to higher, or soul, planes, and the body burns with- out giving the soul any concern ; it feeling, in the supreme
arousing of its faculties, that its existence is not dependent upon its body in any degree.

The power of the center of consciousness, or soul, to use
differing vehicles for its manifestation is the key to all hypnotic and supersensuoUs states. It is their only rational explanation. For if the threshold of consciousness is dis- placed to any marked extent, or, in other words, if the center of consciousness which constitutes the human soul uses an inner vehicle, the new stimuli relate it to such unfamiliar phenomena that it often seems even to itself to be
another consciousness to belong to some other person.

This has been well shown by the experiments of Binet
and Janet, in jFrance. In these, the permitting of the in- ner Ego to function through the suppression of the limiting sense organs by hypnosis caused an ignorant peasant
woman, for example, to so widen her conscious area as to refuse to believe that she was identical with the stupid
" Janet" of her ordinary, unhypnotized experience.

This non-recognition of the functions and powers of
the soul accounts for most, if not all, the cases of "spirit
guides" and "controls" in mediums and hypnotics; for the ordinary mediumistic or trance "
control," or "guide,"
is only a case of self-hypnosis, where a dramatization of
the inner consciousness takes on the part of such guide,
adviser, or prevaricator, according as the medium or hypnotic rises to a higher or lower plane of his or her
being.
It may be objected, in this relation, that these particular
manifestations of the powers of the soul are morbid, be- cause connected with morbid conditions. But this does
not follow.

As well hold the light which passes through
a lens to be abnormal, and not really light, because the
process of polishing and shaping the lens which permits
of its being focused is unusual, or because the capacity
to focus light is not a property of the stone in its natural
condition.

All such phenomena must be carefully studied, analyzed,
and classified by science before it can impose its dictum
upon the results of investigations in regions which it proudly refuses to enter. Nor can it be expected to lead
investigation or thought. It has always been the unrelenting opposer of new ideas, as the new ideas in their turn have always been the deadliest foes of the old.

It was scientific authority, as expressed in a little body of
men, who, having mastered the externals of existing
thought, and thus filled the measure of their own capacity,
railed when Harvey asserted that the blood circulated
through the human body ; when Stevenson foretold the
speed and usefulness of steam vehicles; and so on,
trirough a long list of similar counts; and which to-day
looks on with solemn discontent as the birds float through
the air in direct violation of its conceptions of the 'laws of
physics, dynamics and gravitation. For the same force,
applied in the same manner, and attached to the sameproportion of weight, when put into a
" scientific" machine
refuses to fly.

And yet no field is so full of proofs of
the existence and functioning of a divine soul as that
found in the marvelous collection of facts, and deductions of design and intelligence therefrom, which are the
result of scientific inquiry.

But whether or not man has a soul, it is evident that
he exhibits mental and spiritual powers which can not be
connected with nor explained by his material organism.

All the conscious aspects of his being are sui generis, and
not derivable in any manner from his material aspects.
Yet under the philosophic axiom that any law must necessarily be universal in its action to exist at all, this conscious energy which he exhibits must fall under the samelaw of conservation which obtains on the material plane.

And this conservation of mental energy requires a mental vehicle, and one capable of passing from body to body upon the death of these; else the mental energy of one life is not conserved and carried over to the next, as its true conservation demands. Thus a reincarnating soul is directly pointed out and connected with the body by the
two greatest generalizations of modern science the conservation of force and the law of evolution. For either
subjective energy, intellect, emotion, will, etc., are stored
up in and transmitted under the law of force conservation
by a soul, or this law, as well as that of evolution, is violated. Intelligence can only be conserved by intelli- gence, and its evolution thus lies necessarily along its own, or subjective, lines. In other words, the cause must
be equal to the effect; and intelligence can only be the
creation of and transmitted by intelligence.

One sees at once how immense must be the waste of energy manifesting as intellect or intuition if the process of its evolution
has to be begun anew with each new babe born on earth, to be again cut short by death when perhaps at its very
highest evolutionary activity, unless that energy is carried
forward from personality to personality by means of the
repeated reincarnation of the soul. If, then, the energies
of the soul obey, as they must, the law of force conservation, reincarnation becomes an absolute necessity.

There is another point overlooked by science. For in- telligence to supervene upon unintelligent matter, under
the play of blind force, demands as great an effort of the
imagination and faith as the exploded theological theory
of creation out of nothing. In the face of this, science
has ever sought to find the source of intelligence in some
nook or by-way of matter, forgetting that matter only
shows the evidence of the presence of intelligence, not its underlying source.

The key to the confusion lies in the fact of subconscious thought, which is none the less thought because acting below the plane of self-consciousness. Thought is of every plane in the Cosmos; the
very stones have their manasic principle. Thought and
organization go on side by side unconsciously until the
plane of self-consciousness is reached, when man suddenly becomes aware of both a thinking and a conscious
principle within him.

This does not imply that either or both were absent on the planes below. Remember
that thought, as we have pointed out, comes into the
mind ready made, and is the ideation of the Higher
Ego, the rationale of which will be explained in the
chapter which deals directly with that subject. Meanwhile, it is plainly seen that the soul is conscious on
lower planes by self-prescribing, etc., and, in varying
degree, upon higher ones by clairvoyance and prophetic
vision.

When man's consciousness is limited to the coarser
stimuli transmitted by his physical senses, it can only
function on the physical plane. In this condition it is termed the lower Ego, or personality. When these senses
are suspended by sleep, trance, or death, his consciousness
functions on interior and higher planes until again aroused,
by awakening, in the one case, and by reincarnation
in the other, to the old physical stimuli.

This latter consciousness, which passes in sleep or death to purely spirit- ual planes, we term the Higher or true Ego, because it is not limited by its physical envelope, is untouched by the
changes of state we know as birth and death, and trans- mits its constantly increasing increment of wisdom and
intelligence from body to body by means of its reincarnation.

The threshold of physical consciousness is the dividing line between the Higher Ego and lower personality. It embraces a large field of more or less confused
conscious states before it merges into the pure spiritual
consciousness of the Higher Ego, upon the one side, or
into the purely sensuous consciousness of the personality,
upon the other. As the physical senses and sensitive- ness to the finer vibrations of astral matter constitute this threshold, each man has of necessity a differing conscious- ness both of Higher Ego and lower personality from all other men. Taken together, they represent the sum of the
wisdom and knowledge acquired throughout the entire
series of his rebirths, or reincarnations.

The personal
consciousness is limited by the particular body it is in- habiting. The body, again, is the result of the law of cause and effect, running through the affinities which
govern its selection, and which Theosophy terms "karma,"
or sequence, or the unvarying succession of cause and
effect upon all planes, physical, pyschic, and intellectual. If it be asked why man's personal consciousness has
not yet reached the point where he is sensible of these
finer forces, it is answered that the coarser the force the
quicker the evolution of the organ to express it.

The
finer, more spiritual forces have not yet had biological
time to evolve organs, especially as it would seem that
this evolution must largely consist in rendering more
delicate and sensitive those man now possesses. By
these, the eye and ear are not so much referred to as analogous organs for psychic and spiritual perception,
which man now possesses at least in a rudimentary condition.

But the time will come, and in fact is now here for cer- tain individuals of the race, when clairvoyance, thought transference, intuition, and many other spiritual faculties
will be as normal as is sense perception at present. They
are simply natural faculties of man's Higher Ego, or
soul, struggling into the domain of self-consciousness up- on this plane. In this soul, or Higher Ego, is the true
individuality, the real life, and consciousness. The personality is but the bundle of sense organs through which we gather experience and wisdom on the material plane,
which is our present area of activity.

The Higher Ego
represents all that we have become since we assumed control of our own destinies. The personality represents the amount of this stored
wisdom which any particular body is capable of expressing; remembering that all bodies (sense organs) limit consciousness, instead of creating it. But this limitation falls under the universal law of cause and effect, and is therefore in each life brought about by the deeds of those of
the past, as will be shown in the proper connection.