This is the occasional return of the terribly depraved human Spirits which have fallen to the eighth sphere--it is unnecessary to quote the passage at length. Exclusive of that rare and doubtful possibility, then "Isis"--I have quoted from volume I, pp. 351-2--allows only three cases--abortion, very early death, and idiocy--in which re-Incarnation on this earth occurs.

I am a long-suffering student of the mysteries, more apt to accuse my own stupidity than to make "seeming discrepancies" an occasion for scoffing. But after all, two and three will not make just four; black is not white, nor, in reference to plain and definite statements, is "Yes" equivalent to "No." If there is one thing which I ardently desire to be taught, it is the truth about this same question of re-Incarnation. I hope I am not, as a dutiful Theosophist, expected to reconcile the statement of "Isis" with that of this authoritative Reviewer. But there is one consolation. The accomplished authoress of "Isis" cannot have totally forgotten the teaching on this subject therein contained. She, therefore, certainly did not dictate the statements of the Reviewer. If I may conjecture that Koot Hoomi stands close behind the latter, then assuredly Koot Hoomi is not, as has been maliciously suggested, an alias for Madame Blavatsky.

       
     "C.C.M."

We hope not--for Koot Hoomi's sake. Mme. B. would become too vain and too proud, could she but dream of such an honour. But how true the remark of the French classic: La critique est ais�e, mais l'art est difficile--though we feel more inclined to hang our diminished head in sincere sorrow and exclaim: Et tu Brute!--than to quote old truisms. Only, where that (even) "seeming discrepancy" is to be found between the two passages--except by those who are entirely ignorant of the occult doctrine--will be certainly a mystery to every Eastern Occultist who reads the above and who studies at the same school as the reviewer of "The Perfect Way." Nevertheless the latter is chosen as the weapon to break our head with. It is sufficient to read No. 1 of the Fragments of Occult Truth, and ponder over the septenary constitution of man into which the triple human entity is divided by the occultists, to perceive that the "astral" monad is not the "Spiritual" monad and vice versa. That there is no discrepancy whatsoever between the two statements, may be easily shown, and we hope will be shown, by our friend the "reviewer." The most that can be said of the passage quoted from Isis is, that it is incomplete, chaotic, vague, perhaps--clumsy, as many more passages in that work, the first literary production of a foreigner, who even now can hardly boast of her knowledge of the English language. Therefore, in the face of the statement from the very correct and excellent review of "The Perfect Way"--we say again that "Reincarnation, i.e., the appearance of the same individual--or rather, of his astral monad (or the personality as claimed by the modern Reincarnationists)--twice on the same planet is not a rule in nature "and that it is an exception." Let us try once more to explain our meaning. The reviewer speaks of the "Spiritual Individuality" or the Immortal Monad as it is called, i.e. the 7th and 6th Principles in the Fragments. In Isis we refer to the personality or the Finite astral monad, a compound of imponderable elements composed of the 5th and 4th principles. The former as an emanation of the ONE absolute is indestructible; the latter as an elementary compound is finite and doomed sooner or later to destruction with the exception of the more spiritualized portions of the 5th principle (the Manas or mind) which are assimilated by the 6^th principle when it follows the 7th to its "gestation state" to be reborn or not reborn, as the case may be, in the Arupa Loka (the Formless World). The seven principles, forming, so to say, a triad and a Quaternary, or, as some have it a "Compound Trinity" subdivided into a triad and two duads may be better understood in the following groups of Principles :

And now we ask,--where is the "discrepancy" or contradiction? Whether man was good, bad, or indifferent, Group II has to become either a "shell," or to be once or several times more reincarnated under "exceptional circumstances." There is a mighty difference in our Occult doctrine between an impersonal Individuality, and an individual Personality. C.C.M. will not be reincarnated; nor will he be in his next re-birth C.C.M., but quite a new being, born of the thoughts and deeds of C.C.M.: his own creation, the child and fruit of his present life, the effect of the causes he is now producing. Shall we say then with the Spiritists that C.C.M., the man, we know, will be re-born again? No; but that his divine Monad will be clothed thousands of times yet before the end of the Grand Cycle, in various human forms, every one of them a new personality. Like a mighty tree that clothes itself every spring with a new foliage, to see it wither and die towards autumn, so the eternal Monad prevails through the series of smaller cycles, ever the same, yet ever changing and putting on, at each birth, a new garment. The bud, that failed to open one year, will re-appear in the next; the leaf that reached its maturity and died a natural death--can never be re-born on the same tree again. While writing Isis, we were not permitted to enter into details; hence--the vague generalities. We are told to do so now--and we do as we are commanded.

And thus, it seems, after all, that "two and three" will "make just four," if the "three" was only mistaken for that number. And, we have heard of cases when that, which was universally regarded and denounced as something very "black"--shockingly so--suddenly re-became "white," as soon as an additional light was permitted to shine upon it. Well, the day may yet come when even the much misunderstood occultists will appear in such a light. Vaut mieux tard que jamais!

Meanwhile we will wait and see whether C.C.M. will quote again from our present answer--in Light.

Theosophist, August, 1882