English
Who has not experienced the conscious- ness of having felt the thing before — having thought it some time in the dim past? Who has not witnessed new scenes that appear old, very old? Who has not met persons for the first time,, whose presence awak- METEMPSYCHOSIS 213 ened memories of a past lying far back in the misty ages of long ago? Who has not been seized at times with the consciousness of a mighty "oldness" of soul? Who has not heard music, often entirely new composi- tions, which somehow awakens memories of similar strains, scenes, places, faces, voices, lands, associations and events, sounding dimly on the strings of memory as the breezes of the harmony floats over them? Who has not gazed at some old painting, or piece of stat- uary, with the sense of having seen it all before? Who has not lived through events, which brought with them a certainty of being merely a repetition of some shadowy occurrences away back in lives lived long ago? Who has not felt the influence of the moun- tain, the sea, the desert, coming to them when they are far from such scenes — coming so vividly as to cause the actual scene of the present to fade into compara- tive unreality. Who has not had these experiences — who we ask? Writers, poets, and others who carry messages to the world, have testified to these things — and nearly every man or woman who hears the message recog- nizes it as something having correspondence in his or her own life. Sir Walter Scott tells us in his diary: "I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth mark- ing down, that yesterday, at dinner time, I was strangely haunted by what I would call the sense of preexistence, viz., a confused idea that nothing that passed was said for the first time; that the same topics had been discussed and the same persons had 214 GNANI YOGA stated the same opinions on them. The sensation was so strong as to resemble what is called the mirage in the desert and a calenture on board ship." The same writer, in one of his novels, "Guy Mannering," makes one of his characters say : "Why is it that some scenes awaken thoughts which belong as it were, to dreams of early and shadowy recollections, such as old Brah- min moonshine would have ascribed to a state of pre- vious existence. How often do we find ourselves in society which we have never before met, and yet feel impressed with a mysterious and ill-defined conscious- ness that neither the scene nor the speakers nor the subject are entirely new; nay, feel as if we could an- ticipate that part of the conversation which has not yet taken place." Bulwer speaks of "that strange kind of inner and spiritual memory which so often recalls to us places and persons we have never seen before, and which Platonists would resolve to be the unquenched con- sciousness of a former life.'' And again, he says: "How strange is it that at times a feeling comes over us as we gaze upon certain places, which associates the scene either with some dim remembered and dreamlike images of the Past, or with a prophetic and fearful omen of the Future. Every one has known a similar strange and indistinct feeling at certain times and places, and with a similar inability to trace the cause." Poe has written these words on the sub- ject : "We walk about, amid the destinies of our world existence, accompanied by dim but ever present mem- METEMPSYCHOSIS 215 ones of a Destiny more vast — very distant in the by- gone time and infinitely awful. We live out a youth peculiarly haunted by such dreams, yet never mistak- ing them for dreams. As memories we know them. During our youth the distinctness is too clear to de- ceive us even for a moment. But the doubt of man- hood dispels these feelings as illusions." Home relates an interesting incident in his life, which had a marked effect upon his beliefs, thereafter. He relates that upon an occasion when he visited a strange house in London he was shown into a room to wait. He says : "On looking around, to my aston- ishment everything appeared perfectly familiar to me. I seemed to recognize every object. I said to my- self, What is this? I have never been here before, and yet I have seen all this, and if so, then there must be a very peculiar knot in that shutter.' " He pro- ceeded to examine the shutter, and much to his amaze- ment the knot was there. We have recently heard of a similar case, told by an old lady who formerly lived in the far West of the United States. She states that upon one occasion a party was wandering on the desert in her part of the country, and found themselves out of water. As that part of the desert was unfamiliar even to the guides, the prospect for water looked very poor in- deed. After a fruitless search of several hours, one of the party, a perfect stranger to that part of the country, suddenly pressed his hand to his head, and acted in a dazed manner, crying out "I know that a 216 GNANI YOGA water-hole is over to the right — this way," and away he started with the party after him. After a half- hour's journey they reached an old hidden water-hole that was unknown even to the oldest man in the party. The stranger said that he did not understand the mat- ter, but that he had somehow experienced a sensation of having been there before, and knowing just where the water-hole was located. An old Indian who was questioned about the matter, afterward, stated that the place had been well known to his people who former- ly travelled much on that part of the desert; and that they had legends relating to the "hidden water- hole," running back for many generations. In this case, it was remarked that the water-hole was situated in such a peculiar and unusual manner, as to render it almost undiscoverable even to people familiar with the characteristics of that part of the country. The old lady who related the story, had it direct from the lips of one of the party, who regarded it as "some- thing queer," but who had never even heard of Me- tempsychosis. A correspondent of an English magazine writes as follows : "A gentleman of high intellectual attain- ments, now deceased, once told me that he had dreamed of being in a strange city, so vividly that he remembered the streets, houses and public buildings as distinctly as those of any place he ever visited. A few weeks later he was induced to visit a panorama in Leicester Square, when he was startled by seeing the city of which he had dreamed. The likeness was METEMPSYCHOSIS 217 perfect, except that one additional church appeared in the picture. He was so struck by the circumstance that he spoke to the exhibitor, assuming for the pur- pose the air of a traveller acquainted with the place, when he was informed that the church was a recent erection." The fact of the addition of the church, seems to place the incident within the rule of awak- ened memories of scenes known in a past life, for clairvoyance, astral travel, etc., would show the scene as it was at the time of the dream, not as it had been years before. Charles Dickens mentions a remarkable impression in his work "Pictures from Italy." "In the fore- ground was a group of silent peasant girls, leaning over the parapet of the little bridge, looking now up at the sky, now down into the water; in the distance a deep dell; the shadow of an approaching night on everything. If I had been murdered there in some former life I could not have seemed to remember the place more thoroughly, or with more emphatic chill- ing of the blood; and the real remembrance of it ac- quired in that minute is so strengthened by the imagi- nary recollection that I hardly think I could forget it." We have recently met two people in America who had very vivid memories of incidents in their past life. One of these, a lady, has a perfect horror of large bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes, or the Ocean, although she was born and has lived the great- er part of her life inland, far removed from any great body of water. She has a distinct recollection of .218 GNANI YOGA falling from a large canoe-shape vessel, of peculiar lines, and drowning. She was quite overcome upon her first visit to the Field Museum in Chicago, where there were exhibited a number of models of queer vessels used by primitive people. She pointed out one similar in shape, and lines, to the one she remembers as having fallen from in some past life. The second case mentioned is that of a married couple who met each other in a country foreign to both, on their travels. They fell in love with each other, and both have felt that their marriage was a reunion rather than a new attachment. The husband one day shortly after their marriage told his wife in a rather shamed-faced way that he had occasional flashes of memory of having held in his arms, in the dim past, a woman whose face he could not recall, but who wore a strange necklace, he describing the de- tails of the latter. The wife said nothing, but after her husband had left for his office, she went to the attic and unpacked an old trunk containing some odds and ends, relics, heirlooms, etc., and drew from it an old necklace of peculiar pattern that her grandfather had brought back from India, where he had lived in his younger days, and which had been in the family ever since. She laid the necklace on the table, so that her husband would see it upon his return. The mo- ment his eyes fell upon it, he turned white as death, and gasped "My God! that's the necklace!" A writer in a Western journal gives the following story of a Southern woman. "When I was in Heidel- METEMPSYCHOSIS 219 berg, Germany, attending a convention of Mystics, in company with some friends I paid my first visit to the ruined Heidelberg Castle.