Towards a theory of transmigration

The idea of reincarnation is of a recent date. It was towards the end of the 18th century, that Lessing gave voice to it for the first time, at least to Guénon’s knowledge. Lessing was affiliated with German Masonry and other secret societies. Early French socialists Leroux and Fourier were the individuals, who really promoted the reincarnation theory. And from them it was borrowed and popularized by the spiritist movement to be sought and embraced by others like the Theosophists in their turn. Reincarnation has never been tought in India. Not even by the Buddhists. Moreover it has absolutely nothing in common with such ancient ideas as metempsychosis and transmigration. Reincarnation belongs strictly to the modern West.

The reincarnation theory was brought forth by Fourier and Leroux to explain social and individual inequalities. But such an explanation is perfectly illusory and this is why:

First, if the starting point is not the same for all, if there are men who are at a greater or a lesser distance from it and who have not passed through the same number of lives, this is an inequity for which they cannot be responsible and which, consequently, the reincarnationists must regard as an „injustice“ for which their theory cannot account. Then even allowing that there are these differences between men, there must have been a moment in their evolution (we speak from the spiritists‘ point of view) when their inequities began, and these too must have had a cause. If it is said that this cause consists in acts these men committed previously, then it must be explained how these men were able to behave differently before these inequalities were introduced among them. This is inexplicable simply because there is a contradiction involved: if the men had been perfectly equal, they would have been alike in all respects, and allowing this to be possible, they would never cease to be so – unless one contests the validity of the principle of sufficient reason, in which case there would be no place for any law or explication at all.

If these men could become inequal it is obviously because inequality was one of their component possibilities, and this prior possibility would suffice to make them unequal from the beginning, at least potentially. Believing the difficulty resolved, one has in fact only made it recede, and in the final analysis it subsists in its entirety.

But actually there is no difficulty at all, the problem being no less illusory than the would-be-solution.

One can say the same of this question as of many philosophical problems:

That it exists only because it is badly formulated. And if it is badly formulated, it is especially because moral and sentimental considerations intervene where they have no proper role.

The attitude in question here is as unintelligible as that of a man who would ask why such and such an animal species is not the equal of some other, which is obviously meaningless.

It is a purely human point of view that there are in nature differences which we perceive as inequalities, while there are others that do not have this aspect; and if this eminently relative point of view is put aside, there is no occasion to speak of injustice or injustice in this order of things.

In brief, to ask why a being is not equal of another is to ask why it is different from another, but if there were no differences the being would be that other being instead of itself. Once there is a multiplicity of beings, it is necessary that there should be differences between them. Two identical things are inconceivable because, if they are really identical, it is not a matter of two things but of a single thing, a point on which Leibnitz was quite correct.

Each being is distinguished from others from the beginning in that it carries in itself certain possibilities that are essentially inherent to its nature and not the possibilities of any other being.

The question to which reincarnationists claim to offer a responce, therefore, quite simply comes down to asking why a being is itself and not another.

If one wishes to see an injustice in this, no matter, but it is in any case a necessary truth; fundamentally, moreover, it would be the contrary of an injustice. The notion of injustice stripped of its sentimental and specifically human character is in fact that of equilibrium or harmony.

Now, in order that there be total harmony in the Universe it is necessary and sufficient that each being occupy its proper place as an element of the Universe in comformity with its own nature. And this means precisely that the differences and inequalities which one is pleased to denounce as real or apparent injustices necessarily and effectively contribute to this total harmony. And this total harmony cannot but be; to wish to have it otherwise would be to suppose that things are not what they are, for it would be an absurdity to think that something can happen with a creature that is not a consequence of its nature. Thus the partisans of justice can be doubly satisfied without being obliged to go counter the truth.

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The term „reincarnation“ must be distinguished from at least two other terms with totally different meanings, namely „metempsychosis“ and „transmigration“. These things were well known to the ancients, just as they are still among Easterners, but modern Westerners – the inventors of reincarnation – are absolutely ignorant of these.

It must be understood that when one speaks of reincarnation what is meant is that a being that has been already embodied takes a new body, that is, returns to the state through which it has already passed. Further it is acknowledged that this concerns the real and complete being and not only some more or less important elements that have been incorporated adventitiously. Outside these two conditions, reincarnation can in no way be in question.

Now the first condition marks an essential distinction of reincarnation from transmigration as this is understood in Eastern doctrines; and the second distinguishes it no less profoundly from metempsychosis in the sense in which the Orphics and the Pythagoreans understood it.

And the sense in which they understood it is the following:

There are in man psychic elements which, after death, are dissipated or scattered, and which may then enter other living beings, whether men or animals (and it is not so very important which) from the fact that after the dissolution of the body of this same man the elements which composed him may then serve to form other bodies. In the two cases it is the mortal elements of the men that are in question and not his imperishable part, which is his real being and which is in no way affected by posthumous mutations.

The dissociation following death involves not only corporeal elements, but certain elements which may be termed psychic. What is important to understand as regards this latter is that these elements (which in life may have been either conscious or only „subconscious“) include all the mental images which, resulting, from sensory experience, have become part of memory and imagination. These faculties or rather ensembles, are perishable, that is, subject to dissolution, because, being of the sensory order, they are literally dependencies of the corporeal state. Moreover, outside the temporal condition, which is one of those defining the corporeal state, memory would have no reason to subsist. (This is assuredly quite remote from the classical psychology as regards the „self“ (moi) and its unity, theories almost completely without any foundation.)

One other remark of no less importance is that there may be transmission of psychic elements from one being to another without supposing the death of the first; in fact that there is a psychic heredity as well as physiological heredity is hardly in doubt and is even a fact of common observation.

But what few take into account is, that at the least it supposes that the parents furnish a psychic seed as well as a biological seed. And, potentially, this seed may involve a very complex ensemble of elements pertaining to the domain of the „subconscious“, besides tendencies properly so called; which, as they expand, manifest themselves outwardly.

These „subconscious“ elements may, on the contrary, not become apparent except in rather exceptional circumstances. This is the double heredity, both psychic and coporeal, expressed in the Chinese formula:“You will live again in your thousands of descendents.“

Let us note in this context also the conception of what may be called an „hereditary responsibility“. This is a fact which is incontestable even physiologically. Once the human individual takes from his parents certain corporeal and psychic elements, he prolongs their life, at least partially, under this double relationship: and by this double connection he is truly something of his parents even while being himself, so that the consequences of their actions may in this way be extended even to him.

These things may at least be expressed in this way, ridding them of any specifically moral character.

Inversly, it can be said that the child, and even all descendants, are potentially included, from the beginning, in the individualities of the parents, always in the double coporeal and psychic relationship; that is to say, not in what concerns the properly spiritual and personal being, but in what concerns the human individual as such. And thus the descendants can be regarded as having in a way participated in the actions of the parents without the former actually existing in the parents‘ individuality.

We have indicated, then, the two complementary aspects of the question and will not linger further over it, althoug this perhaps will be enough for some readers to catch a glimpse of all that may be of interest in this connection regarding the doctrine of original sin.

Certain facts which the reincarnationists think they can adduce in support of their hypothesis are explained perfectly well by one or the other of the two cases we have just considered, on the one hand, by the hereditary transmission of certain psychic elements, and on the other by the assimilation to one human individuality of other psychic elements coming from the disintegration of earlier human individualities, elements which do not have the least spiritual rapport with the former. In all that there is a correspondance and analogy between the psychic und corporeal orders, and this is easily understood because both the one and the other refer exclusively to what may be called the mortal elements of the human being.

It is necessary to add that in the psychic order it can happen more or less exceptionally that a rather considerable collection of elements is transferred in fact into a new individuality.

None of this concerns or in any way effects the real being, but we may wonder why, if this is so, the ancients seem to have attached such great importance to the posthumous fate of the elements in question. We could respond by saying simply that there are men who are concerned with the treatment their bodies might receive after death, without thinking that their spirits necessarily experience any repercussions therefrom. But we will add that as a general rule these things are not entirely matters of indifference, if they were there would be no reasons for funeral rites, whereas there are on the contrary very profound reasons for them. The action of these rites is exercised precisely on the psychic elements of the deceased.

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Having explained what metempsychosis really is, we must now state the real nature of transmigration. In this case, it is definitely the real being that is involved; but it is not a question of a return to the same state of existence, a return which – if it could take place – would rather be a „migration“. It is, on the contrary, a question of the passage of the being to other states of existence, states that are defined, as we have said, by entirely different conditions than those to which the human individual is subject (though with the one reservation that as long as individual states are in question the being is always clad in a form, but a form that cannot occasion any spatial or other depiction more or less modeled on bodily form).

To say transmigration is in essence to say change of state. That is what all the traditional doctrines of the East teach, and we have many reasons to think that this was also the teaching of the „mysteries“ of antiquity.

Also in Buddhism nothing else is in question, despite the reincarnationist interpretation current today among Europeans. It is precisely the true doctrine of transmigration, understood according to the sense given it by pure metaphysics, that permits the refutation of the idea of reincarnation in an absolute and decisive manner, and it is on this ground alone that a refutation is possible. We are led thus to show that reincarnation is purely and simply an impossibility. We must also state that our demonstration, which avails against all reincarnationist theories, whatever form they many take, applies equally and for the same reason to certain ideas of a more philosophical allure, such as Nietzsche’s notion of an „eternal return“ – in a word, to everything that presumes any kind of repetition in the universe.

(„God does not repeat Himself“, said the medieval Scholastics.)

We cannot dream of giving an account here of the metaphysical theory of the multiple states of the being, with all the ramifications this would entail.

(Guénon devoted later two major studies to this fundamental cosmological theory.) But we can at least indicate the basis of this theory, which is also the principle behind the proof of what is here in question:

Universal and and total Possibility is necessarily infinite and cannot be conceived otherweise because, including all and leaving nothing outside itself, it cannot be limited by anything whatsoever. Any limitation of universal and total Possibility would necessarily be exterior to it and would properly and literally be an impossibility, that is to say pure nothingness. Now to suppose a repetition within universal Possibility, as would be the case in positing two specifically identical possibilities, is to suppose a limitation, for infinity excludes all repetition. Only within a finite set can one return twice to the same element, and even then that element would not be rigorously the same except on condition that the set in question is a closed system, a condition that is never effectively realized. So long as the Universe is really a totality, or rather the absolute Totality, there can never be a closed cycle anywhere. Two identical possibilities would be only one and the same possiblity, in order for them to be truly two it is necessary that they differ in at least one condition, and then they are not identical.

Nothing can ever return to the same point, even in a system that is only indefinite (and not infinite), as for example the corporeal world. While tracing a circle, for example, a displacement is effected and the circle is not closed except in an entirely illusory manner. This is only an analogy, but it can help one understand that a forteriori in universal existence a return to a same state is an imposibility. In total Possibility the particular possibilities which constitute the conditioned states of existence are necessarily indefinitely multiple; to deny this is also to limit Possibility. This must be admitted on pain of contradiction, and suffices to establish that no creature can pass twice through the same state.

As can be seen, this demonstration is extremely simple in itself, and if some experience difficulty understanding it, this can only be because they lack the most elementary metaphysical understanding. A more developed exposition would perhaps be necessary for such people, but we ask that they wait until we have occasion to present the theory of the multiple states completely. In any case, they may be assured that the demonstration we have just formulated is uncompromising in the essentials.

As for those who might think that by rejecting reincarnation we risk limiting universal Possibility in another way, we say simply that we reject only an impossibility, which intrinsically is nothing and augments the sum of possibilities only in an absolutely illusionary manner, being only a pure zero.

Returning to the multiple states of the being, we must make an essential observation, namely that these states can be conceived as simultaneous as well as successive, and even that in their entirety, succession can be admitted only as a symbolic representation since time is a condition proper to only one of these states; even duration, whatever its mode, can only be attributed to some of them.

When speaking of succession it is necessary to make clear that this can only be in a logical and not in a chronological sense. By this logical succession we mean that there is a causal chain between the various states; but even the causal relationship, if it is understood in its true sense (and not according to the „empirical“ sense of certain modern logicians) implies precisely simultaneity or the coexistence of its terms.

Furthermore, we should specify that even the individual human state, which is subject to the temporal condition can nevertheless present a multiplicity of simultaneous secondary states. A human being cannot have several bodies, but outside the corporeal modality, and simultaneously with its bodily existence, the being can posess other modalities in which certain possibilities that are included in it are developed. This leads us to point out an idea that is closely related to reincarnation. According to this idea, in the course of its evolution (for those who support such ideas are always evolutionists in some way or another), every being must pass successively through all forms of life, terrestrial and other.

Such a theory expresses nothing but a manifest impossibility, for the simple reason that there exists an indefinitude of living forms through which no being could ever pass, these being all those forms occupied by other beings.

Further, supposing a being had successively passed through an indefinitude of particular possibilities in a domain otherwise extended than that of the „forms of life“, it would not be any nearer its final term, which cannot be attained in this way.

Let us note furthermore that the entire corporeal world, in the full deployment of all the possibilities it contains, represents only a part of the domain of manifestation of a single state. This same state then comprises a forteriori the potentiality corresponding to all the modalities of terrestrial life, which itself is only a very restricted portion of the material world.

This renders perfectly useless – even if its impossibility were not otherwise proven – the supposition of a multiplicity of existences through which the being is progressively raised from the lowest modality, the mineral, all the way to the human, considered as the highest, passing successively through the vegetable and animal kingdoms with all the many degrees included in each of these.

There are in fact people who construct such hypotheses, rejecting only the possibility of a retrogression. In reality, the individual in his complete extension simultaneously contains the possibilities corresponding to all the degrees in question (note well that we do not say that he contains them physically). This simultaneity translates into temporal succession only in the corporeal modality, in the course of which, as embryology shows, he in fact passes through all corresponding stages, starting from the unicellar forms of the most rudimentary organisms; indeed going back even further, from the crystal all the way to the human being in his earthly form.

Let us note in passing that contrary to common opinion this embryological development is in no way proof of the „transformist“ theory, which is no less false than all the other forms of evolutionism, being in fact the most gross of them all.

What must be especially kept in mind is that the perspective of succession is essentially relative, and further that even in the restricted measure in which it is legitimately applicable it loses nearly all its interest by the simple observation that before any development the seed already potentially contains the complete being.

In every case the point of view of succession must be subordinate to that of simultaneity, as is required by the purely metaphysical and therefore extra-temporal (and also extra-spatial, as coexistence does not necessarily presume space) character of the theory of the multiple states of the being.

Nowhere in nature can we find the least analogy favoring reincarnation, whereas there are on the contrary many analogies in the opposite direction.

This point has been brought out clearly in the teachings of the „Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor“. It will be of interest, we believe, to cite several passages of these teachings, which show that this school had at least some knowledge of real transmigration as well as of certain cyclical laws:

„The adept author of Ghostland expresses an absolute truth when he says that, as an impersonal being, man lives in an indefinitude of worlds before reaching this one... When the great stage of consciousness, summit of the series of manifestations, is attained, the soul will never again enter into the womb of matter, will never again pass through material incarnation; henceforth his rebirths are in the realm of the spirit. Those who support the strangely illogical doctrine of the multitude of human births assuredly have never developed in themselves the lucid state of spiritual consciousness; for otherwise the theory of reincarnation would have been thoroughly discredited, although it is affirmed and supported by a great number of men and women well versed in „the wisdom of this world“. An exterior education is relatively valueless as a means of obtaining real knowledge...

An acorn becomes an oak, the coconut grows into a palm; but though the oak has certainly produced myriads of other acorns, it can never again become an acorn itself, neither does the palm again become a coconut. And similarly for man: once the soul has been manifested on the human plane and has thus attained consciousness of life outside of itself, it never again passes these rudimentary states...

All these so-called „awakenings of latent memories“ by which some people are convinced that they recall their previous lives, can be explained by, and only by, simple laws of affinity and of form.

Each race considered in itself is immortal. It is the same for each cycle; the first cycle never becomes the second, but the beings of the first cycle are the generators of those of the second. Thus each cycle comprises a great family constituted by the reunion of diverse groups of human souls, each condition being determined by the laws of its activity, those of its forms, and those of its affinity, a trinity of laws...

It is thus that a man may be compared to the acorn and to the oak: the embryonic, non-individualized soul, becomes a man just as the acorn becomes an oak; and as the oak gives birth to innumerable acorns, likewise man in his turn provides the means for an indefinity of souls to be born into the spiritual world. There is complete correspondance between the two, and it is for precisely this reason that the Druids so greatly honored this tree which was revered beyond all others by the mighty Hierophants.“

Unfortunately the „Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor“ admitted the possibility of reincarnation in certain exceptional cases, such as still-born infants or those dying very young, and born idiots.

In reality, once it is a question of a metaphysical impossibility, there cannot be the least exception; it suffices that a being has passed through a certain state, even if only in an embryonic form, or even in the form of a single germ, in order for it to be able to return to this state, of which it has thus realized the possibilities according to the measure its own nature admits. If the development of these possibilities seems to have been arrested at a certain point, it was because there was no need for the being concerned to go further as far as its corporeal modality is concerned.

Here the cause of error is an exclusive regard for the corporeal modality, not taking into account all the possibilities which, for this same being, may be developed in other modalities of the same state.

If one were able to take all these modalities into account, it would be seen that even in cases such as these latter reincarnation is absolutely unnecessary, which one can readily admit once one knows that it is impossible and that all that exists, whatever the appearances, contribute to the total harmony of the Universe.

There was still a third exceptional case, but one of an entirely different order: it was that of the „voluntary messianic incarnations“ which occurred approximately every six hundred years, that is, at the end of each of the cycles that the Chaldeans termed Naros, but without the same spirit ever incarnating more than once and without there being consecutively two similar incarnations in the same race. The discussion and interpretation of this theory would take us entirely outside the scope of the present study.

Let us move on to another kind of extravagance which the idea of reincarnation has occasioned. We mean the relationships which spiritists and occultists believe exist between successive existences. For them, in fact, actions accomplished in the course of one life must have consequences in following lives. This is a causality of a most particular kind. More precisely, it is the idea of moral sanction, but which instead of being applied to an extra-terrestrial „future life“, as in religious conceptions, is applied to terrestrial lives in virtue of the assertion, which is contestable to say the least, that actions accomplished on earth must have their effects exclusively on earth. One of their „Masters“ has expressly taught that „it is in the world where one has incured debts that one must pay them“.

The theosophists have given to this „ethical causality“ the name „karma“ – which is completely inappropriate, as the meaning of this word in Sanskrit is nothing other than „action“.

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To end this study we cite a passage from the Bible in which Jesus is in conversation with Nicodemus:

„Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God“... Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Do not marvel that I said to you, „You must be born anew.“ (John 3:3-7)

It requires a prodigious ignorance to belive that this is a question of reincarnation, when in fact it is a question of the „second birth“ understood in a purely spiritual sense that is even plainly contrasted with physical birth. This idea of the „second birth“, which we cannot discuss now, is one common to all traditional doctrines, among which, despite the assertions of the „neo-spiritualists“, there is not a single one that has ever taught anything remotely resembling reincarnation.

Drawn from René Guénons Book „The Spiritist Fallacy“ (Hillsdale NY, 2003, originally published in French as „L’Erreur spirite“, Paris, 1923): Chapter 6 „Reincarnation“ and chapter 7 „Reincarnation Extravagances“ p 166-191.

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„René Guénon et l’Hindouism“ de Pierre Feuga, indianiste, dans „René Guénon l’éveilleur“ Connaissance des Religions Nr.65-66

... A propos des théosophistes Guénon stigmatise la croyance en la réincarnation (en la distinguant soigneusement de la transmigration et de la métempsycose). On ne peut que lui donner raison si l’on songe que celui-ci a encore gagné du terrain depuis 1921, est devenue un véritable dogme dans quantité d’écoles spiritualistes et fait quasiment partie désormais du bagage culturel de l’Occidental moyen (avec les „chakras“ et le Tantra de supermarché), générant toute une littérature aussi poisseuse qu’indigeste.

Pourtant, quitte à froisser certains admirateurs inconditionnels de Guénon pour lesquels l’antiréincarnationnisme est devenu à son tour une sorte de „dogme“, il faut ici un peu déchanter: c’est prendre son désir pour une réalité que d’affirmer que „tous les Orientaux, sauf peut-etre quelques ignorants plus ou moins occidentalisés dont l’opinion est sans aucune valeur, sont unanimement opposés“ au réincarnationnisme. En ce cas il faudrait considérer comme „ignorants“ bien des brahmanes et bien des maitres spirituels de l’Inde, nés avant que les Occidentaux ne soient arrivés dans leur pays. Qu’on le déplore ou non, la croyqance en la réincarnation, entendue au sens le plus littéral (retour dans un corps humain, animal ou végétal), n’est pas simplement le fait de basses castes, elle est repandue dans toutes les couches de la population hindouiste (et partagée par les jains, les bouddhistes, les Sikhs).

Est-ce à dire que Guénon se serait magistralement trompé et que sa doctrine des „etats multiples de l’Etre“ comporterait une fissure? À Shiva ne plaise. Mais tout Hindou n’est pas si „naturellement métaphysicien“ que Guénon l’a voulu. S’il a l’esprit ouvert, on pourra très bien lui „démontrer“, selon le terme guénoncien ici par trop mathématique, que la réincarnation „est une absurdité metaphysique, car admettre qu’un etre peut passer plusieurs fois par le meme état revient à supposer une limitation de la Possibilité universelle, c’est-à-dire à nier l’Infini, et cette négation est, en elle-meme, contradictoire au supreme degré“. Une logique aussi éblouissante – étayée par de brillantes considérations de géometrie sacrée – ne manquera pas de frapper son intelligence mais, paradoxalement, il n’est pas sur qu’elle le convainque jusqu’au fond. Par „instinct métaphysique“ justement, et par le fait d’une imagination très développée (cette faculté dont Guénon avouait etre dépourvu), il se peut qu’il n’exclu pas la possibilité d’encore „autre chose“, ou de „quelque chose de plus“, au-delà de la logique (la „Possibilité universelle“ admettant m e m e la répétition ou „l’auto-limitation“).

Et, s’il a le respect des Écritures (les Lois de Manu pour ne citer qu’elles), comment lui faire croire que toutes les allusions à la réincarnation dont elles regorgent ne devraient etre entendues que „symboliquement“? Pourquoi ces symboles? S’étonnera-t-il, et pourquoi les anciens maitres n’auraient-ils pas dit la vérité telle quelle est – surtout une vérité dont on ne voit pas bien en quoi elle serait dangereuse -, évitant ainsi à leurs descendants de tomber dans une interprétation littéraliste, avec toutes les illusions et les grossières confusions qu’elle entraine?

(Les objections que nous pretons à notre „Hindou à l’esprit ouvert“ peuvent contredire l’appréciation très élogieuse portée sur Guénon par les pandits de Bénarès (Le verdict de ceux-ci fut net: de tous les Occidentaux qui sont occupés des doctrines hindoues, seul Guénon en a vraiment compris le sens. (Chacornac „La Vie simple de René Guénon“, 1958, p.48)). Mais ceux-ci, que fréquenta Alain Daniélou, forment une élite très particulière. Il vaudrait aujourd’hui de leur poser une semblable question. Rappelons aussi la phrase de Ramana Maharshi:“La réincarnation existe aussi longtemps que l’ignorance existe.“

C’est un thème fréquent de l’hindouisme qu’une chose peut etre vraie à un certain niveau de la conscience et cesser de l’etre à un niveau supérieur. René Allar a écrit assez justement:“Il y a réincarnation du point de vue empirique, transmigration du point de vue théologique et ni l’une ni l’autre du point de vue métaphysique.“)

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