Memories and Reincarnation – Selections from Theosophy’s Sacred Teachings in “The Key to Theosophy,” Part 1 of 2

Madame Blavatsky wrote several important books on Theosophy, including “Isis Unveiled,” “The Secret Doctrine,” “The Key to Theosophy,” and “The Voice of the Silence.”

ON RE-INCARNATION OR REBIRTH. WHAT IS MEMORY ACCORDING TO THEOSOPHICAL TEACHING? “Please add to it that there is a great difference between the three accepted forms of memory. Besides memory in general you have remembrance, recollection, and reminiscence […]” “Occultism and Theosophy, however, regard reminiscence in an entirely different light […] — we call reminiscence the memory of the soul. And it is this memory which gives the assurance to almost every human being, whether he understands it or not, of his having lived before and having to live again. […]” “Furthermore, remember that memory is one thing and mind or thought is another; one is a recording machine, a register which very easily gets out of order; the other (thoughts) are eternal and imperishable.” […]

ON RE-INCARNATION OR REBIRTH. WHY DO WE NOT REMEMBER OUR PAST LIVES? “Re-incarnation means that this Ego will be furnished with a new body, a new brain, and a new memory. Therefore, it would be as absurd to expect this memory to remember that which it has never recorded […]. To get convinced of the fact of re-incarnation and past lives, one must put oneself in rapport with one’s real permanent Ego, not one’s evanescent memory.”