192

Why Reincarnation is Opposed by Some--The Answers
to the Objections--The Proof of the Existence of
the Soul--Is Reincarnation Un-Christian and
Derived from Pagan and Heathen Sources?

CHAPTER XII. THE LAW OF KARMA 222

What Karma Means--Does Karma Punish or is it but
the Workings of a Natural Law?--The Various Kinds
of Karma--The Advanced Mystical Doctrine--The End
is Absolute Good--There is No Devil but Fear and
Unfaith.

CHAPTER I.

THE EARLY RACES.

By "Reincarnation" we mean the repeated incarnation, or embodiment in
flesh, of the soul or immaterial part of man's nature. The term
"Metempsychosis" is frequently employed in the same sense, the
definition of the latter term being: "The passage of the soul, as an
immortal essence, at the death of the body, into another living body."
The term "Transmigration of Souls" is sometimes employed, the term being
used in the sense of "passing from one body into another." But the term
"Transmigration" is often used in connection with the belief of certain
undeveloped races who held that the soul of men sometimes passed into
the bodies of the lower animals, as a punishment for their sins
committed during the human life. But this belief is held in disrepute
by the adherents of Reincarnation or Metempsychosis, and has no
connection with their philosophy or beliefs, the ideas having sprung
from an entirely different source, and having nothing in common.

There are many forms of belief--many degrees of doctrine--regarding
Reincarnation, as we shall see as we proceed, but there is a fundamental
and basic principle underlying all of the various shades of opinion, and
divisions of the schools. This fundamental belief may be expressed as
the doctrine that there is in man an immaterial Something (called the
soul, spirit, inner self, or many other names) which does not perish at
the death or disintegration of the body, but which persists as an
entity, and after a shorter or longer interval of rest reincarnates, or
is re-born, into a new body--that of an unborn infant--from whence it
proceeds to live a new life in the body, more or less unconscious of its
past existences, but containing within itself the "essence" or results
of its past lives, which experiences go to make up its new "character,"
or "personality." It is usually held that the rebirth is governed by the
law of attraction, under one name or another, and which law operates in
ac