this great body, with which we are in sympathy,
though we claim the right to dispute their theories when we regard
them as erroneous, that this hypothesis is met with more especially.
True, certain schools of lower occultism teach it also, but they form
a minority, and are of no importance.]

[Footnote 78: Harmony is established when there is vibratory
synchronism of all the states of matter of the different bodies
_i.e._, when each slate of matter in a body vibrates in unison with
the analogous states of matter of all the other bodies.]

[Footnote 79: When the "life wave" has ended its cycle on this earth,
it passes in succession over the other planets of our chain and leaves
the earth in a state of slumber. This slumber ceases with the return
of the "life wave"; it becomes death when the evolution of the chain
is accomplished. See A. P. Sinnett's _Esoteric Buddhism._]

[Footnote 80: At a certain stage on the _Path_, return to earth is no
longer obligatory.]

CHAPTER IV.

REINCARNATION AND THE RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHIC CONSENSUS OF THE AGES.

In the rapid review we are now about to make of the religion and
philosophy of the past, we shall find that, under many and divers
names and veils, the doctrine of Rebirths has been taught from the
farthest antiquity right up to the present time. There is not a nation
that has not preserved clear traces of this doctrine; not a religion
that has not taught it, either openly or in secret, or, at all events,
retained the germ of the teaching; and if we count only those peoples
of whose national religion it forms part, _i.e._, Hindus and
Buddhists, the number of believers in Reincarnation may be summed up
in round figures at 540 millions of the present population of 1400
millions throughout the world. The greatest of philosophers, both
ancient and modern, have regarded palingenesis as the basis of life,
but whereas in the past the pledge of initiation prevented its
details from being promulgated, in our days, along with the flood of
light which this cycle has brought us, the veil of secrecy has been
partially lifted, and theosophy has been privileged to set forth this
glorious teaching in its main outlines and its most important details.

INDIA.

Northern India was the cradle of the present race--the fifth--the Eden
of our humanity, our physical, moral, mental, and spiritual
mother.[81] From her womb issued the emigrant hordes that peopled
Europe after spreading ov