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PRACTICAL RULES FOR SOUL-CULTURE
have another state. So the further state is something that comes out of or is the result of the present state. As the feature is to the present so is the present to the past. The present is only the feature of the past. What is true with regard to the future state, is true with regard to the past and present states. The acts of the past have determined our present state, and if this is true, the acts of the present state inust determine the future state. This brings us to the doctrines of rebirth, transmigration of souls, metempsychosis, reincarnation, etc., as they are variously known. First take incarnation, which means literally becoming flesh, and really speaking that which is matter is always inatter, and that which is spirit is always spirit or soul. The spirit does not become flesh. If reincarnation means to be come flesh there can be no reincarnation, but if it means simply the life in flesh for a short time, then there is reincarnation. Reincarnation means also to be born in some state again and again. Metempsychosis means in the Greek only change; that the animal itself, body and soul, everything together, is changed into the human being, and the human being, body and soul, is changed into some other being, and so on. That is the idea of meteupsychosis. Transmigration of souls is, especially in the idea of the Christians, the idea of the human soul,going into the animal body, as if this were a necessity. But that is not the real idea, the real idea is simply going from one place to another or from one body to
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