Afterlife

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."

"The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife – a depressing thought, particularly for those who have bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife, but no one will know where it's being held."

"Only children chatter of an afterlife. We are nothing but transient dissipative structures. In your cherishing the bone dust of the dead you are seeking to deny the basic truth of existence: that when we die, we are gone."

"Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death."

"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

"How do we know there is an afterlife? Because the Bible says so. How do we know that the Bible is correct? Because God wrote it. How do we know that God wrote it? Because it says so in the Bible. Yes, we have to admit this is circular reasoning, and those outside the circle are unlikely to accept it."

"All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter."

"Verily, there is a future world, in which the righteous receive their reward. I tell thee this, lest thou say later I deceived thee."

"There’s no objective evidence for an afterlife, and anecdotal reports of heaven cannot be distinguished from wishful thinking, self-delusion, and the effects of oxygen loss on the brain."

"When Cassie Fowler awoke, she was less shocked to discover that an afterlife existed than to find that she, of all people, had been admitted to it. Her entire adulthood, it seemed, year after year of spiting the Almighty and saluting the Enlightenment, had come to nothing. She’d been saved, raptured, immortalized. Shit. The situation spoke badly of her and worse of eternity. What heaven worthy of the name would accept so ardent an unbeliever as she?"

"Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit, Luridaque evictos effugit umbra rogos."

"Say: "If the Hereafter with God, be for you specially, and not for anyone else, then seek ye for death, if ye are sincere." But they will never seek for death, on account of the (sins) which their hands have sent on before them. and God is well-acquainted with the wrong-doers."

"They swear by their strongest oath, 'God will not raise up the deads!' — Surely, It is an irreversible promise from Him! — yet most men do not know. To adjudicate them about all things they disputed about, then those who disbelieved may realize that they are liars."

"And be not like her who unravels her yarn, disintegrating it into pieces, after she has spun It strongly. You make your oaths to be means of deceit between you because a people is more numerous than another people. Allah only tries you by this. And He will certainly make clear to you on the day of Resurrection that wherein you differed."

"But those will prosper who purify themselves and remember the Name of their Lord, then pray. But (behold) you prefer the life of this world; while the Hereafter is better and more enduring. And this (passage) is in the Books of the earliest, the Books of Abraham and Moses."

"The nurse started to explain herself. Mom cut her off, saying, “Except I don’t believe in any of that.” “You don’t believe in what?” “The afterlife. Heaven and such.” The nurse had to breathe before saying, “But in times like this, darling? When everything is so awful, how can you not believe in the hereafter?” “Well, let me tell you something,” Mom said. Then she leaned forward her chair, her voice moving. “Long ago, when my husband was dying for no good reason, I realized that if a fancy god was in charge, then he was doing a pretty miserable job of running his corner of the universe.”"

"In the afterlife You could be headed for the serious strife Now you make the scene all day But tomorrow there'll be Hell to pay"

"The unique aspect of biblical faith is that immediate, mundane history is beheld, affirmed, and lived as the true story of the redemption of time and Creation. Biblical ethics constitute a sacramental participation in history as it happens. ... In this saga, time is transcended within the events of a single day—today—so that all that is past, from the first day, is consummated and is anticipated; so that today is esteemed in its real dignity, as if it were the first day, as if it were the last day, as if it were the only day, as if today and eternity were one.In this story, there is no other place actually known to human beings, except this world as it is—the place where life is at once being lived; there are no other places for which to search or yearn or hope—no utopia, no paradise, no otherworldly afterlife."

"Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that you look for the end?"

"Concern with this world is darkness in the heart, but concern with the Hereafter is light in the heart."

"In general, despite centuries of seances, table rapping, mediums, magicians, and all kinds of mumbo jumbo, no one has ever come up with a convincing proof of an afterlife. Apart from personal vanity, it is clearly fear of death that causes the persistent belief in a future life, despite all indications to the contrary."

"If this life is all there is, there is no basis for any meaning, hope, purpose, or significance to life. Everything in your life would simply be a random change of fate at best, or an accident at worst. Your life, and your death, would not matter at all. The logical end of such a life is despair. Moreover, we can forget about being decent or ethical, with no basis for human dignity, rights, or liberty."

"Taken as a whole, the Cross Correspondences and the Willet scripts are among the most convincing evidence that at present exists for life after death. For anyone who is prepared to devote weeks to studying them, they prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Myers, Gurney, and Sidgwick went on communicating after death."

"As you intend to live hereafter, it is in your power to live here."

"I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse."

"Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect."

"I cannot be content with less than heaven; Living, and comprehensive of all life. Thee, universal heaven, celestial all; Thee, sacred seat of intellective time; Field of the soul's best wisdom: home of truth, Star-throned."

"If our Creator has so bountifully provided for our existence here, which is but momentary, and for our temporal wants, which will soon be forgotten, how much more must He have done for our enjoyment in the everlasting world?"

"“The point is: what happens in heaven?” “Unknowable wonderfulness?” “Nonsense. The answer is nothing. Nothing can happen because if something happens, in fact if something can happen, then it doesn’t represent eternity. Our lives are about development, mutation and the possibility of change; that is almost a definition of what life is: change.” “Have you always thought that?” “If you disable change, if you effectively stop time, if you prevent the possibility of the alteration of an individual’s circumstances—and that must incluust have death.” “There are those de at least the possibility that they alter for the worse—then you don’t have life after death; you jwho believe that after death the soul is recreated into another being.” “That is conservative and a little stupid, certainly, but not actually idiotic.” “And there are those who believe that, upon death, the soul is allowed to create its own universe.” “Monomaniacal and laughable as well as provably wrong.” “There there are those who believe that the soul—” “Well, there are all sorts of different beliefs. However, the ones that interest me are those concerning the idea of heaven. That’s the idiocy it annoys me that others cannot see.”"

"I’m sure I’ll go to heaven. I’ve been dull enough."

"Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul. "The kingdom of God is within you.""

"There was no pain when I awoke, No pain at all. Rest, like a goad, Spurred my eyes open — and light broke Upon them like a million swords: And she was there. There are no words.Heaven is for a moment's span. And ever."

"HEAVEN, n. A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own."

"A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage."

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour."

"The vision of Christ that thou dost see Is my vision's greatest enemy. Thine has a great hook nose like thine; Mine has a snub nose like to mine. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind; Mine speaks in parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates; Thy heaven doors are my hell gates."

"(Devachan is) the “land of gods” literally; a condition, a state of mental bliss. Philosophically a mental condition analogous to, but far more vivid and real than, the most vivid dream. It is the state after death of most mortals."

"Let heaven exist, though my own place may be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification."

"Ah well. Heaven is a state of mind. I knew that now."

"No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven's glories shine, And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear."

"Heaven does not make holiness, but holiness makes heaven; because if you do not give yourself in sympathy to goodness, goodness cannot give itself in influence to you."

"God’s in His heaven—"

"All places are distant from heaven alike."

"In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell."

"When we come to a comparison of heaven and earth, then we may indeed not only forget all about the present life, but even despise and scorn it."

"All the way to Heaven is heaven because He said,"'I am the Way.""

"It's Christmas in Heaven The snow falls from the sky But it's nice and warm, and everyone Looks smart and wears a tie"

"When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers,"

"Howling is the noise of hell, singing the voice of heaven; sadness the damp of hell, rejoicing the serenity of heaven. And he that hath not this joy here, lacks one of the best pieces of his evidence for the joys of heaven; and hath neglected or refused that earnest, by which God uses to bind his bargain, that true joy in this world shall flow into the joy of heaven, as a river flows into the sea; this joy shall not be put out in death, and a new joy kindled in me in heaven; but as my soul, as soon as it is out of my body, is in heaven, and does not stay for the possession of heaven, nor for the fruition of the sight of God, till it be ascended through air, and lire, and moon, and sun, and planets and firmament, to that place which we conceive to be heaven, but without the thousandth part of a minute's stop, as soon as it issues, is in a glorious light, which is heaven, (for all the way to heaven is heaven; and as those angels, which came from heaven hither, bring heaven with them, and are in heaven here, so that soul that goes to heaven, meets heaven here ; and as those angels do not divest heaven by coming, so these souls invest heaven, in their going.) As my soul shall not go towards heaven, but go by heaven to heaven, to the heaven of heavens, so the true joy of a good soul in this world is the very joy of heaven"

"While the wish of many individuals is to arrive at heaven, we daily behold them on the way to hell."

"There’s heaven on earth. It just happens to be in the ocean."

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."

"Buffy: I was happy. Wherever I was... I was happy... at peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time... didn't mean anything. Nothing had form. But I was still me, you know? And I was warm. And I was loved. And I was finished. Complete. I - I don't understand theology or dimensions, any of it really... but I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out, by my friends. Everything here is hard and bright and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch. This is Hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that. Knowing what I've lost. They can never know. Never."

"Grace respects the gifts of nature, adds to their power and value by purifying, elevating and bringing them to completion. The world of spirits and glorified bodies will be no less glowingly varied, contrasted, individual in its members than this earth and its inhabitants. There you will see every man as God created him, with his own special qualities fixed in their perfection: to the great surprise, no doubt, of those simple, harmless folk who smile superiorly and fear that heaven would bore them."

"Heaven is the day of which grace is the dawn; the rich, ripe fruit of which grace is the lovely flower; the inner shrine of that most glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer court."

"Well, now, like I told that other fellow, I ain't going to set foot in heaven without rip."

"Nothing is further than Earth from Heaven: nothing is nearer than Heaven to Earth."

"He who seldom thinks of heaven is not likely to get thither; as the only way to hit the mark is to keep the eye fixed upon it."

"Phil When I die I'll go to heaven, cause I've spent my time in hell. Grenada, '83 ."

"Going back to more ancient times, the four pillars were broken; the nine provinces were in tatters. Heaven did not completely cover [the earth]; Earth did not hold up [Heaven] all the way around [its circumference]. Fires blazed out of control and could not be extinguished; water flooded in great expanses and would not recede. Ferocious animals ate blameless people; predatory birds snatched the elderly and the weak. Thereupon, Nüwa smelted together five-colored stones in order to patch up the azure sky, cut off the legs of the great turtle to set them up as the four pillars, killed the black dragon to provide relief for Ji Province, and piled up reeds and cinders to stop the surging waters. The azure sky was patched; the four pillars were set up; the surging waters were drained; the province of Ji was tranquil; crafty vermin died off; blameless people [preserved their] lives."

"For look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth;"

"The redeemed shall walk there."

"Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there."

"Anas said, Allah be well-pleased with him: The Messenger of Allah said, upon him blessings and peace: “The servant in Paradise shall be married with seventy wives.” Someone said, “Messenger of Allah, can he bear it?” He said: “He will be given strength for a hundred.” From Zayd ibn Arqam, Allah be well-pleased with him, when an incredulous Jew or Christian asked the Prophet, upon him blessings and peace, “Are you claiming that a man will eat and drink in Paradise??” He replied: “Yes, by the One in Whose hand is my soul, and each of them will be given the strength of a hundred men in his eating, drinking, coitus, and pleasure.”"

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."

"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in one place after another food shortages and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and from heaven great signs."

"No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life."

"And war broke out in heaven: Mi′cha·el and his angels battled with the dragon, and the dragon and its angels battled 8 but it did not prevail, neither was a place found for them any longer in heaven. 9 So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven say:"

"From the acorn, quickly sprouting, Mighty Tursas, tall and hardy, Grows the oak-tree, tall and stately, Pressed compactly all the grasses, From the ground enriched by ashes, That the maidens had been raking, Newly raked by water-maidens; When a fire within them kindles, Spread the oak-tree's many branches, And the flames shot up to heaven, Rounds itself a broad corona, Till the windrows burned to ashes, Raises it above the storm-clouds; Only ashes now remaining Far it stretches out its branches, Of the grasses raked together. Stops the white-clouds in their courses, In the ashes of the windrows, With its branches hides the sunlight, Tender leaves the giant places, With its many leaves, the moonbeams, In the leaves he plants an acorn, And the starlight dies in heaven."

"Blessed is the pilgrim, who in every place, and at all times of this his banishment in the body, calling upon the holy name of Jesus, calleth to mind his native heavenly land, where his blessed Master, the King of saints and angels, waiteth to receive him. Blessed is the pilgrim who seeketh not an abiding place unto himself in this world; but longeth to be dissolved, and be with Christ in heaven."

"Who goes to Deva Chan? The personal Ego of course, but beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego [soul] —the combination of the sixth and seventh principles—which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the Deva-Chan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe. The fact of his being reborn at all, shows the preponderance of good over evil in his old personality. And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnation, he brings along with him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this Deva-Chan. Bad is a relative term for us... and the Law of Retribution is the only law that never errs. Hence all those who have not slipped down into the mire of unredeemable sin and bestiality—go to the Deva Chan. They will have to pay for their sins, voluntary and involuntary, later on. Meanwhile, they are rewarded; receive the effects of the causes produced by them. Of course it is a state, one, so to say, of intense selfishness, during which an Ego reaps the reward of his unselfishness on earth. He is completely engrossed in the bliss of all his personal earthly affections, preferences and thoughts, and gathers in the fruit of his meritorious actions. No pain, no grief nor even the shadow of a sorrow comes to darken the bright horizon of his unalloyed happiness: for, it is a state of perpetual "Maya.""

"Most emphatically the Deva-Chan is not solely the heritage of adepts, and most decidedly there is a heaven—if you must use this astro-geographical Christian term—for an immense number of those who have gone before."... For years, decades, centuries and milleniums, often times multiplied by something more. It all depends upon the duration of Karma. Fill with oil Den's little cup and a city Reservoir of water, and lighting both see which bums the longer, the Ego is the wick and Karma the oil: the difference in the quantity of the latter (in the cup and the reservoir) suggesting to you the great difference in the duration of various Karmas. Every effect must be proportionate to the cause. And, as man's terms of incarnate existence bear but a small proportion to his periods of inter-natal existence in the manvantaric cycle, so the good thoughts, words, and deeds of any one of these lives on a globe are causative of effects, the working out of which requires far more time than the evolution of the causes occupied."

"If heaven ain't a lot like Detroit, I don't want to go. If heaven ain't a lot like Detroit, I'd just a soon stay home. If they ain't got no 8 Mile like they do in "The D", just send me to hell or Salt Lake City. It would be about the same to me."

"Only by looking up, can we see heaven."

"The generous who is always just, and the just who is always generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven."

"Instead of consigning some men to heaven and some to hell, as moderm theology does, it would be more true to say that every man must pass through both the states which are typified by those names. Every man must pass through the astral plane on his way to the heaven world. Every man at the end of his astral life will attain that heaven world, unless he be a person so entirely elementary, so entirely degraded as never yet to have had any unselfish thought or feeling. If that be so, there can indeed be no heaven world for him, because all these selfish desires and feelings belong exclusively to the astral plane, and they will find their result on that plane."

"Our religious friends argue much about heaven and hell and are terribly afraid of the latter indeed it would sometimes almost seem as though they were afraid of the former as well, from the manner in which they exert themselves to avoid going there. In the future no questions or disputes about these conditions will be possible, because man will see for himself that there is no hell, though he will also see very clearly that those who live an evil life are by that fact storing up for themselves very undesirable results and a very unpleasant time in the astral life. The glories of the heaven world will also be open to his sight, and he will realize that man needs only a development of faculty in order to place him at once, here and now, in the midst of all the bliss that that wondrous life can give."

"Aim at heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither."

"Sinead was pretty sure heaven was part of the whole God-lie."

"If you want to know what it means to be happy, look at a flower, a bird, a child; they are perfect images of the kingdom. For they live from moment to moment in the eternal now with no past and no future. So they are spared the guilt and anxiety that so torment human beings and they are full of the sheer joy of living, taking delight not so much in persons or things as in life itself. As long as your happiness is caused or sustained by something or someone outside of you, you are still in the land of the dead. The day you are happy for no reason whatsoever, the day you find yourself taking delight in everything and in nothing, you will know that you have found the land of unending joy called the kingdom."

"It were a journey like the path to heaven, To help you find them."

"The hasty multitude Admiring enter'd, and the work some praise, And some the architect: his hand was known In heaven by many a tower'd structure high, Where scepter'd angels held their residence, And sat as princes."

"A heaven on earth."

"The starry cope Of heaven."

"Though in heav'n the trees Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines Yield nectar."

"Heaven open'd wide Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound On golden hinges moving."

"Had Jesus completed his mission as the Messiah on earth, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth would have been established in his day. The Kingdom of Heaven in heaven would also have been realized at that time, once people of perfect character living in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth had passed into the spirit world as divine spirits. However, because Jesus died on the cross, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth was not realized. The earth never saw the appearance of people who had reached the level of a divine spirit. No one has ever become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven in the spirit world, which was created as the home of divine spirits. Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven in heaven remains empty and incomplete."

"Through death Christian's soul goes to—1st. Perfect purity 2dly. Fullness of joy. 3dly. Everlasting freedom. 4thly. Perfect rest. 5thly. Health and fruition. 6thly. Complete security. 7thly. Substantial and eternal good."

"且吾所以知天之愛民之厚者有矣，曰以磨為日月星辰，以昭道之；制為四時春秋冬夏，以紀綱之；雷降雪霜雨露，以長遂五穀麻絲，使民得而財利之；列為山川谿谷，播賦百事，以臨司民之善否；為王公侯伯，使之賞賢而罰暴；賊金木鳥獸，從事乎五穀麻絲，以為民衣食之財。自古及今，未嘗不有此也。"

"The number of levels in Heaven is the number of verses in the Qur'an. Thus, when a reciter of the Qur'an enters into Heaven, it will be said to him: 'Go up one level for every verse that you can recite.' Thus, no one will be in a higher level than the one who has memorized the entire Qur'an."

"The people of the Qur’an (those who recite and those who memorize the Qur’an) will be in the highest level (in Heaven) from amongst all of the people with the exception of the Prophets and Messengers. Thus, do not seek to degrade the people of the Qur’an, nor take away their rights, for surely they have been given a high rank by Allah."

"The Prophet said, "Nobody who dies and finds good from Allah (in the hereafter) would wish to come back to this world even if he were given the whole world and whatever is in it, except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come back to the world and get killed again (in Allah's cause). The Prophet said, "A single endeavor (of fighting) in Allah's cause in the afternoon or in the forenoon is better than all the world and whatever is in it. A place in Paradise as small as the bow or lash of one of you is better than all the world and whatever is in it. And if a houri from Paradise appeared to the people of the earth, she would fill the space between Heaven and the Earth with light and pleasant scent and her head cover is better than the world and whatever is in it.""

"It is a nice place, actually, one of those infinitely rare situations where one is rewarded commensurately to one’s efforts. Surely that is Heaven by any man’s definition?"

"Have you been wondering just where we are? After all, theologians have debated for centuries over the exact location of Heaven. Some have said that Heaven can be found beyond the stars. Some say it exists in the heart of Man, and others claim that it does not exist at all, that God is dead, or at least unemployed."

"Stan: What purpose does school have? The Bible says the only goal in this life is to praise God and get into heaven."

"The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the firmament showeth his handywork."

"Each time we sleep with a Houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [i.e. Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetizing vaginas."

"And in the earth are signs for those who are sure, And in yourselves do you not see? And in the heavens is your sustenance and that which you are promised. So by the Lord of the heavens and the earth! it is surely the truth, just as you speak."

"Who would want to be trapped in a house with an indomitable telepathic despot and have to guard your thoughts –or be voluntarily mindless- and endure that existence forever and ever?"

"Judas: All your followers are blind Too much Heaven on their minds It was beautiful but now it's sour Yes, it's all, all gone sour."

"To everything (turn, turn, turn) There is a season (turn, turn, turn) And a time for every purpose under heaven."

"Heaven's face doth glow."

"Sure he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom."

"Were it not good your grace could fly to heaven? The treasury of everlasting joy."

"And, father cardinal, I have heard you say That we shall see and know our friends in heaven: If that be true, I shall see my boy again; For since the birth of Cain, the first male child, To him that did but yesterday suspire, There was not such a gracious creature born."

"There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out."

"Well, God's above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved."

"All places that the eye of heaven visits, Are to a wise man ports and happy havens."

"For the selfsame heaven That frowns on me looks sadly upon him."

"But now what about the person who was so avid to judge, to vent his resentment, his powerless indignation, upon someone else without really knowing anything about what he was judging; what if in eternity he discovers, and is compelled to admit, that the person he judged was not only to be excused but that he was a most noble, unselfish, and magnanimous person! It has been said that some day in eternity we (hoping, alas, that we ourselves will not be excluded) shall with amazement miss this one and that one whom we had definitely expected to find there; but will we not with amazement also see that one and that one whom we would have summarily excluded and see that he was far better than we ourselves, not as if he had become that later, but precisely in that which made the judger decide to exclude him. Yet the person who loves believes all things. With the blessed joy of amazement, he will someday see that he was right; and if he made a mistake by believing too much of the good-to believe the good is itself a blessing. Lovingly to believe the good is certainly no defect-but then one does not make a mistake by it either. Mistrustingly to believe nothing at all (which is entirely different from knowledge about the equilibrium of opposite possibilities) and lovingly to believe all things are not a cognition, nor a cognitive conclusion, but a choice that occurs when knowledge has placed the opposite possibilities in equilibrium; and in this choice, which, to be sure, is in the form of a judgment of others, the one judging will be disclosed."

"Heaven, as conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seaside."

"But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!"

"Heaven's not a place that you go when you die, it's that moment in life when you actually feel alive"

"All in heaven take joy in sharing their delights and blessings with others."

"It was mentioned by Daraj Ibn Abi Hatim, that Abu al-Haytham 'Adullah Ibn Wahb narrated from Abu Sa'id al-Khudhri, who heard the Prophet Muhammad PBUH saying, 'The smallest reward for the people of Heaven is an abode where there are eighty thousand servants and seventy-two houri, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and ruby, as wide as the distance from al-Jabiyyah to San'a."

"Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die."

"Yet stay, heaven gates are not so highly arch'd As princes' palaces; they that enter there, Must go upon their knees."

"The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained."

"Thomas Daggett: Some people lose their faith because Heaven shows them too little. But how many people lose their faith because Heaven showed them too much?"

"If Christians have the monopoly of salvation, over whom will they rule? And how will this promise be fulfilled, that to faithful servants is given the authority over five or ten cities (Luke 19:17-19)? It is no fun to be king over empty towns. So they will be populated by those who have not been faithful servants. We Christians will be in the heavenly Jerusalem, but there will also be nations walking in its light (Revelation 21:24). The leaves of the tree of life will serve for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2), which means that there will be in the life beyond people who need a cure for their souls."

"Abu Umama narrated: "The Messenger of God said, 'Everyone that God admits into paradise will be married to 72 wives; two of them are houris and seventy of his inheritance of the [female] dwellers of hell. All of them will have libidinous sex organs and he will have an ever-erect penis.' ""

"Certainly heaven is something we all need, however, we should not imagine it anthropomorphically. [...] I believe that we certainly cannot rule out the possibility of an existence outside of space and time, mass, energies and charges. In heaven there can be anything but that."

"Love lent me wings; my path was like a stair; A lamp unto my feet, that sun was given; And death was safety and great joy to find; But dying now, I shall not climb to Heaven."

"Nunc ille vivit in sinu Abraham."

"Spend in pure converse our eternal day; Think each in each, immediately wise; Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say What this tumultuous body now denies; And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes."

"God keeps a niche In Heaven, to hold our idols; and albeit He brake them to our faces, and denied That our close kisses should impair their white,— I know we shall behold them raised, complete, The dust swept from their beauty, glorified, New Memnons singing in the great God-light."

"To appreciate heaven well 'Tis good for a man to have some fifteen minutes of hell."

"The road to heaven lies as near by water as by land."

"Heaven means to be one with God."

"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar."

"And so upon this wise I prayed,— Great Spirit, give to me A heaven not so large as yours But large enough for me."

"Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven, Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest."

"Since heaven's eternal year is thine."

"'Twas whispered in Heaven, 'twas muttered in hell And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell. On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest, And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed."

"Where billows never break, nor tempests roar."

"While resignation gently slopes the way; And, all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past."

"They had finished her own crown in glory, and she couldn't stay away from the coronation."

"Eye hath not seen it, my gentle boy! Ear hath not heard its deep songs of joy; Dreams cannot picture a world so fair— Sorrow and death may not enter there; Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom, For beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb, It is there, it is there, my child!"

"All this, and Heaven too!"

"Just are the ways of heaven; from Heaven proceed The woes of man; Heaven doom'd the Greeks to bleed."

"Nil mortalibus arduum est; Cœlum ipsum petimus stultitia."

"There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest."

"In my father's house are many mansions."

"Sperre dich, so viel du willst! Des Himmels Wege sind des Himmels Wege."

"Booth led boldly with his big bass drum (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) The Saints smiled gravely, and they said "He's come." (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)"

"The heaven of poetry and romance still lies around us and within us."

"When Christ ascended Triumphantly from star to star He left the gates of Heaven ajar."

"We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps."

"Cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante, In terras; et, quod missum est ex ætheris oreis, Id rursum cæli relatum templa receptant."

"Heaven to me's a fair blue stretch of sky, Earth's jest a dusty road."

"Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."

"There is a world above, Where parting is unknown; A whole eternity of love, Form'd for the good alone; And faith beholds the dying here Translated to that happier sphere."

"A Persian's Heaven is eas'ly made, 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade."

"The way to heaven out of all places is of like length and distance."

"There's nae sorrow there, John, There's neither cauld nor care, John, The day is aye fair, In the land o' the leal."

"A sea before The Throne is spread;—its pure still glass Pictures all earth-scenes as they pass. We, on its shore, Share, in the bosom of our rest, God's knowledge, and are blest."

"Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire. And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire."

"A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tente of wickedness."

"Heaven is not always angry when he strikes, But most chastises those whom most he likes."

"The blessed Damozel lean'd out From the gold bar of Heaven: Her eyes knew more of rest and shade Of waters still'd at even; She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven."

"It was the rampart of God's house That she was standing on; By God built over the sheer depth, The which is Space begun; So high, that looking downward thence, She scarce could see the sun."

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via."

"Straight is the way to Acheron, Whether the spirit's race is run From Athens or from Meröe: Weep not, far from home to die; The wind doth blow in every sky That wafts us to that doleful sea."

"Who seeks for Heaven alone to save his soul May keep the path, but will not reach the goal; While he who walks in love may wander far, Yet God will bring him where the blessed are."

"So all we know of what they do above Is that they happy are, and that they love."

"For all we know Of what the blessed do above Is, that they sing, and that they love."

"I have been there, and still would go; 'Tis like a little heaven below."

"There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain."

"One eye on death, and one full fix'd on heaven."

"When the Great Dao (Tao, perfect order) prevails, the world is like a Commonwealth State shared by all, not a dictatorship."

"Virtuous, worthy, wise and capable people are chosen as leaders."

"Honesty and trust are promoted, and good neighborliness cultivated."

"All people respect and love their own parents and children, as well as the parents and children of others."

"The aged are cared for until death; adults are employed in jobs that make full use of their abilities; and children are nourished, educated, and fostered;...orphans... the disabled and the diseased are all well taken care of...."

"They hate not to make use of their abilities... they do not necessarily work for their own self-interest."

"Thus intrigues and conspiracies do not arise, and thievery and robbery do not occur; therefore doors need never be locked."

"This is the ideal world – a perfect world of equality, fraternity, harmony, welfare, and justice."

"Yes, it is a truth that for a good man,— honored, beloved, useful,— with all around him that God ever gives to His children here;— nay, with all that God could give him of earth, it would be " gain " to die. Heaven is a better, a happier, a more desirable world than this is or can be."

"One should go to sleep as homesick passengers do, saying " Perhaps in the morning we shall see the shore.""

"Beyond the smiling and the weeping, I shall be soon; Beyond the waking and the sleeping, Beyond the sowing and the reaping, I shall be soon! Love, rest, and home — Sweet hope! Lord, tarry not, but come!"

"We are born for a higher destiny than earth; there is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever."

"Man has in his power, now developed, nothing more than a mere hint or initial sign of what is to be the real stature of his personality in the process of his everlasting development. We exist here only in the small, that God may have us in a state of flexibility, and bend or fashion us, at the best advantage, to the model of His own great life and character."

"It doth not yet appear what we shall be. We lie here in our nest, unfledged and weak, guessing dimly at our future, and scarce believing what even now appears. But the power is in us, and that power is finally to be revealed. And what a revelation will that be!"

"In our Father's house it will not be the pearl gate or the streets of gold that will make us happy. But oh, how tran- scendently glad shall we be when we see our Lord. Perhaps in that "upper room," also, He may show us His hands and His side, and we may cry out with happy Thomas, "My Lord and my God!""

"In heaven, knowledge shall be commensurate with the enlarged powers of the glorified soul."

"No more fatigue, no more distress, Nor sin nor death shall reach the place; No groans shall mingle with the songs That warble from immortal tongues."

"What tranquillity will there be in heaven! Who can express the fullness and blessedness of this peace! What a calm is this! How sweet and holy and joyous! What a haven of rest to enter, after having passed through the storms and tempests of this world, in which pride and selfishness and envy and malice and scorn and contempt and contention and vice are as waves of a restless ocean, always rolling, and often dashed about in violence and fury! What a Canaan of rest to come to, after going through this waste and howling wilderness, full of snares and pitfalls and poisonous serpents, where no rest could be found."

"Every Christian that goes before us from this world is a ransomed spirit waiting to welcome us in heaven."

"No wearisome days, no sorrowful nights; no hunger or thirst; no anxiety or fears; no envies, no jealousies, no breaches of friendship, no sad separations, no distrusts or forebodings, no self-reproaches, no enmities, no bitter regrets, no tears, no heartaches; "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.""

"What we sow here, we reap there! Can it be supposed that the soul will enjoy a reward or endure a retribution for deeds of which it has no recollection? Is the thing possible? Will it enjoy the bliss of heaven, praising Christ forever as its great Saviour, without any remembrance of the sins and sufferings from which He redeemed and saved it? The idea is absurd."

"Death must obliterate all memories and affections and ideas and laws, or the awakening in the next world will be amid the welcomes, and loves and raptures of those who left us with tearful farewells, and with dying promises that they would wait to welcomes us when we should arrive. And so they do. Not sorrowfully, not anxiously, but lovingly, they wait to bid us welcome."

"Blessed loves! how happy they have made us on the earth; what will they be when they have deepened through ages, with no alloy of envy or suspicion or selfishness or sorrow?"

"They are kings and priests unto God. They wear crowns that flash in the everlasting light. They wear robes that are spotlessly white. They wave victorious palms. They sing anthems of such exceeding sweetness as no earthly choirs ever approach. They stand before the throne. They fly on ministries of love. They muse on the top of Mount Zion. They meditate on the banks of the river of life. They are rapturous with ecstasies of love. God wipes away all tears from their eyes."

"As we look up into these glorious culminations, how grand life becomes! To be forever with the Lord, and forever changing into His likeness, and, still more, forever deepening in the companionship of His thought and bliss, "from glory to glory," — could we desire more?"

""A little while," and the load Shall drop at the pilgrim's feet, Where the steep and thorny road Doth merge in the golden street."

"Perhaps heaven may not be so far away as we fancy; and if our eyes were not holden, we should see angels ascending and descending, and blessed spirits thronging all about us."

"With Christ, and like Christ, and not love our friends! Impossible! when He loves them so tenderly. Going into the fuller presence of Him whose very name is "Love" can never make our hearts less loving."

"Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try. No hell below us Above us only sky"

"And then, the quiet of the green, inland valleys of our Father's land, where no tempest comes any more, nor the loud winds are ever heard, nor the salt sea is ever seen; but perpetual calm and blessedness; all mystery gone, and all rebellion hushed and silenced, and all unrest at an end forever! "No more sea;" but, instead of that wild and yeasty chaos of turbulent waters, there shall be the river that makes glad the city of God, the river of water of life, that proceeds "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.""

"And looking back upon "the sea that brought us thither," we shall behold its waters flashing in the light of that everlasting morning, and hear them breaking into music upon the eternal shore. And then, brethren, when all the weary night-watchers on the stormy ocean of life are gathered together around Him who watched with them from His throne on the bordering mountains of eternity, where the day shines forever — then He will seat them at His table in His kingdom, and none will need to ask, "Who art Thou?" or, "Where am I?" " for all shall know it is the Lord," and the full, perfect, unchangeable vision of His blessed face will be heaven."

"The joys of heaven are not the joys of passive contemplation, of dreamy remembrance, of perfect repose; but they are described thus: "They rest not day nor night." "His servants serve Him, and see His face.""

"Will not this be the description of our future being — "reaching forth unto those things which are before?" I believe that we shall thus live through all the eternities that are before us, growing wiser, nobler, stronger, greater; plunging deeper into God, and being more and more filled with more and more of Him. So we shall move forever as in ascending spirals that rise ever higher, and draw ever closer to the throne we compass and to Him that dwells alone; ever perfect, yet ever growing, for we have an inexhaustible Saviour to absorb into our hearts, and we have hearts that never reach the ultimate bound and term of their indefinite possibility of receiving."

"Heaven is endless longing, accompanied with an endless fruition — a longing which is blessedness, a longing which is life."

"When this passing world is done, When has sunk yon, glowing sun, When we stand with Christ in glory, Looking o'er life's f1nished story, Then, Lord, shall I fully know — Not till then — how much I owe."

"Then re-united to the friends with whom vve took sweet counsel upon earth, we shall recount our toil, only to heighten our ecstasy; and call to mind the toil and the din of war, oniy that, with a more bounding throb and a richer song, we may fee! and celebrate the wonders of redemption."

"There is not such a great difference between grace and glory after all. Grace is the bud, and glory is the blossom. Grace is glory begun; and glory is grace perfected. It won't come hard to people that are serving God down here to do it when they go up yonder. They will change places, but they won't change employments."

"Selfishness, eager for a heaven of enjoyment, is quite a different thing in the soul from love and purity and truth, yearning together for what is their natural element."

"God would never have let us long for our friends with such a strong and holy love, if they were not waiting for us."

"After the fever of life — after wearinesses, sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and failing, struggling and succeeding — after all the changes and chances of this troubled and unhealthy state, at length comes death — at length the white throne of God — at length the beatific vision."

"Oh, heaven without my Saviour Would be no heaven to me; Dim were the walls of jasper — Rayless the crystal sea. He gilds earth's darkest valleys With light and joy and peace; What then must be the radiance When night and death shall cease?"

"I change my place, but not my company. While here I have sometimes walked with God, and now I go to rest with Him,"

"I shall know the loved who have gone before, And joyfully sweet will the meeting be, When over the river, the peaceful river, The angel of death shall carry me."

"Rejoice, oh! grieving heart, The hours fly past; With each some sorrow dies, With each some shadow flies, Until at last The red dawn in the east Bids weary night depart, And pain is past."

"All your followers are blind Too much heaven on their minds It was beautiful, but now it's sour."

"The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately dash their brains out: by this means they secured these infants went to Heaven."

"Christ and His cross are not separable in this life, howbeit Christ and His cross part at heaven's door, for there is no house-room for crosses in heaven. One tear, one sigh, one sad heart, one fear, one loss, one thought of trouble cannot find lodging there."

"Oil, when shall the night be gone, the shadows flee away, and the morning of that long, long day, without cloud or night, dawn."

"When the day of toil is done, When the race of life is run, Father, grant Thy wearied one Rest for evermore! When the heart by sorrow tried Feels at length its throbs subside, Bring us, where all tears are dried, Joy for evermore!"

"O rest of rests! O peace serene, eternal! Thou ever livest, and Thou changest never! And in the secret of Thy presence dwelleth Fullness of joy, forever and forever."

"We should carry up our affections to the mansions prepared for us above, where eternity is the measure, felicity the state, angels the company, the Lamb the light, and God the inheritance and portion of His people forever."

"A New Heaven and A New Earth. The inspiration for the title of this book came from a Bible prophecy that seems more applicable now than at any other time in human history. It occurs in both the Old and the New Testament and speaks of the collapse of the existing world order and the arising of “a new heaven and a new earth.”(1) We need to understand here that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness. This is the esoteric meaning of the word, and this is also its meaning in the teachings of Jesus. Earth, on the other hand, is the outer manifestation in form, which is always a reflection of the inner. Collective human consciousness and life on our planet are intrinsically connected. “A new heaven” is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and “a new earth” is its reflection in the physical realm. Since human life and human consciousness are intrinsically one with the life of the planet, as the old consciousness dissolves, there are bound to be synchronistic geographic and climatic natural upheavals in many parts of the planet, some of which we are already witnessing now. (1) Revelation 21:1 and Isaiah 65:17 (New Revised Standard Version)"

"The New Earth Is No Utopia... All utopian visions have this in common: the mental projection of a future time when all will be well, we will be saved, there will be peace and harmony and the end of our problems. There have been many such utopian visions. Some ended in disappointment, others in disaster. At the core of all utopian visions lies one of the main structural dysfunctions of the old consciousness: looking to the future for salvation. The only existence the future actually has is as a thought form in your mind, so when you look to the future for salvation, you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation. You are trapped in form, and that is ego."

"“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth,”(1) writes the biblical prophet. The foundation for a new earth is a new heaven – the awakened consciousness. The earth – external reality – is only its outer reflection. The arising of a new heaven and by implication a new earth are not future events that are going to make us free. Nothing is going to make us free because only the present moment can make us free. That realization is the awakening. Awakening as a future event has no meaning because awakening is the realization of Presence. So the new heaven , the awakened consciousness, is not a future state to be achieved. A new heaven and a new earth are arising within you at this moment, and if they are not arising at this moment, they are no more than a thought in your head and therefore not arising at all. What did Jesus tell his disciples? “Heaven is right here in the midst of you.” (2) (1.) Revelation 21:1 (New Revised Standard Version). (2.) Luke 17:21 (New Revised Standard Version)."

"O, land of rest, how near thou art! O, judgment-seat of Jesus, how thin are the clouds that veil thee! Through the rifts of cloudland shine rays from this righteous crown. It is "laid up" for him whose hope can never be satisfied with less than the presence of the King."

"An everlasting tranquillity is, in my imagination, the highest possible felicity, because I know of no felicity on earth higher than that which a peaceful mind and contented heart afford."

"The seventh, the highest, subdivision of Kâmaloka, is occupied almost entirely by intellectual men and women who were either pronouncedly materialistic while on earth, or who are so wedded to the ways in which knowledge is gained by the lower mind in the physical body that they continue its pursuit in the old ways, though with enlarged faculties. One recalls Charles Lamb’s dislike of the idea that in heaven knowledge would have to be gained “by some awkward process of intuition” instead of through his beloved books. Many a student lives for long years, sometimes for centuries – according to H.P.Blavatsky – literally in the astral library, conning eagerly all books that deal with his favourite subject, and perfectly contented with his lot. p. 104"

"On the mental plane, in both its great divisions, exist numberless Intelligences, whose lowest bodies are formed of the luminous matter and elemental essence of that plane – Shining ones who guide the processes of natural order, overlooking the hosts of lower entities before spoken of, and yielding submission in their several hierarchies to their great overlords of the seven Elements. (These are the Arûpa and Rûpa Devas of the Hindus and the Buddhists, the “Lords of the heavenly and the earthly” of the Zoroastrians, the Archangels and Angels of the Christians and Mahomedans). p. 115"

"The word Devachan is the theosophical name for heaven, and, literally translated, means the shining land, or the Land of the Gods. (Devasthan, the place of the Gods, is the Sanskrit equivalent. It is the Svarga of the Hindus; the Sukhâvati of the Buddhists; the Heaven of the Zoroastrians and Christians, and of the less materialised among the Mohammedans). It is a specially guarded part of the mental plane, whence all sorrow and all evil are excluded by the action of the great spiritual Intelligences who superintend human evolution; and it is inhabited by human beings who have cast off their physical and astral bodies, and who pass into it when their stay in Kâmaloka is completed. p. 138"

"The Narakas are the realms of suffering that equate to the Christian hell or, more accurately, to purgatory. If a person is born into one of these realms as a result of bad karma, this is not a permanent punishment - he or she may well be reborn into one of the higher worlds in the next life. Watched over by Yama, judge of the world, the Narakas are not only physical places but also states of consciousness – and symbols of the suffering that can take place during life, as well as after death."

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'entrate."

"Infinite torture can only be a punishment for infinite evil, and I don't believe that infinite evil can be said to exist even in the case of Hitler. Besides, if most human governments are civilized enough to try to eliminate torture and outlaw cruel and unusual punishments, can we expect anything less of an all-merciful God? I feel that if there were an afterlife, punishment for evil would be reasonable and of a fixed term. And I feel that the longest and worst punishment should be reserved for those who slandered God by inventing Hell."

"For the average good citizen, death is a continuance of the living process in his consciousness and a carrying forward of the interests and tendencies of the life. His consciousness and his sense of awareness are the same and unaltered. He does not sense much difference, is well taken care of, and oft is unaware that he has passed through the episode of death. For the wicked and cruelly selfish, for the criminal and for those few who live for the material side only, there eventuates that condition which we call "earth-bound". The links they have forged with earth and the earthward bias of all their desires, force them to remain close to the earth and their last setting in the earth environment. They seek desperately and by every possible means to re-contact it and to re-enter."

"Another fear which induces mankind to regard death as a calamity, is one which theological religion has inculcated ... the fear of hell, the imposition of penalties, usually out of all proportion to the errors of a life-time, and the terrors imposed by an angry God. To these man is told he will have to submit, and from them there is no escape, except through the vicarious atonement. There is, as you well know, no angry God, no hell, and no vicarious atonement ... the only hell is the earth itself, where we learn to work out our own salvation, actuated by the principle of love and light, and incited thereto by the example of the Christ, and the inner urge of our own souls. This teaching anent hell is a remainder of the sadistic turn which was given to the thinking of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages, and to the erroneous teaching to be found in the Old Testament anent Jehovah, the tribal God of the Jews ... As these erroneous ideas die out, the concept of hell will fade from man's recollection, and its place will be taken by an understanding of the law which makes each man work out his own salvation upon the physical plane, which leads him to right the wrongs which he may have perpetrated in his lives on Earth, and which enables him eventually to "clean his own slate"."

"Hell is more bearable than nothingness."

"Hell is the wrath of God — His hate of sin."

"Now BURN ! You will BURN ! You will BURN ! burn in Hell yeah you'll burn, burn in Hell ! you'll burn, burn in Hell yeah you'll burn, burn in Hell ....... for your sins..................!!"

"Henry Valentine: I-I never thought I could get bored with beautiful dames, but-- look, I wouldn't expect an angel to understand this see? But-but being a big guy with a chick, it didn't mean anything if it's all set up in advance. And I mean, everything is great here, see? Really great. It's just the way I always imagined it except that-that, just between you and me fats, I don't think I belong here. I don't think I fit in. Pip: Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea that you were in heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!!"

"The vision of Christ that thou dost see Is my vision's greatest enemy. Thine has a great hook nose like thine; Mine has a snub nose like to mine. Thine is the Friend of all Mankind; Mine speaks in parables to the blind. Thine loves the same world that mine hates; Thy heaven doors are my hell gates."

"Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the former in a personal devil and in hell. "The Aryan nations had no devil," says Max Muller. "Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a very respectable personage; and Loki (the Scandinavian), though a mischievous person, was not a fiend. The German Goddess, Hell, too, like Proserpine, had once seen better days. Thus, when the Germans were indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Seth, Satan or Diabolus, they treated him in the most good-humored way." The same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a different place from our region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an intermediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian Hel or Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment; for when Frigga, the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white god, who died and found himself in the dark abodes of the shadows (Hades) sent Hermod, a son of Thor, in quest of her beloved child, the messenger found him in the inexorable region — alas! but still comfortably seated on a rock, and reading a book. The Norse kingdom of the dead is moreover situated in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions; it is a cold and cheerless abode, and neither the gelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur present the least similitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the miserable "damned" sinners with which the Church so generously peoples it."

"The only designation of something approaching hell in the Bible is Gehenna or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem, where was situated Tophet, a place where a fire was perpetually kept for sanitary purposes. The prophet Jeremiah informs us that the Israelites used to sacrifice their children to Moloch-Hercules on that spot; and later we find Christians quietly replacing this divinity by their god of mercy, whose wrath will not be appeased, unless the Church sacrifices to him her unbaptized children and sinning sons on the altar of "eternal damnation"!"

"Let heaven exist, though my own place may be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification."

"The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in; I feel sometimes a hell dwells within myself."

"Ben Graham told a story 40 years ago that illustrates why investment professionals behave as they do: An oil prospector, moving to his heavenly reward, was met by St. Peter with bad news. "You're qualified for residence," said St. Peter, "but, as you can see, the compound reserved for oil men is packed. There's no way to squeeze you in." After thinking a moment, the prospector asked if he might say just four words to the present occupants. That seemed harmless to St. Peter, so the prospector cupped his hands and yelled, "Oil discovered in hell." Immediately the gate to the compound opened and all of the oil men marched out to head for the nether regions. Impressed, St. Peter invited the prospector to move in and make himself comfortable. The prospector paused. "No," he said, "I think I'll go along with the rest of the boys. There might be some truth to that rumor after all.""

"But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, And there hath been thy bane."

"Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell The tortures of that inward hell!"

"When the final taps is sounded and we lay aside life's cares, And we do the last and glories parade, on Heaven's shining stairs, And the angels bid us welcome and the harps begin to play, We can draw a million canteen checks and spend them in a day, It is then we'll hear St. Peter tell us loudly with a yell, "Take a front seat you soldier men, you've done your hitch in Hell.""

"It is reported that Mark Twain, on being asked what he thought of heaven and hell, replied, I'm not going to tell you ---- for I have friends in both places. I could go him one better, for I have had experiences in both places; or rather, experiences in both such levels of consciousness."

"I was wrong in one respect only. I told the lady Lys that there was no sin. But there is. Hell itself is a sin. You will not be forgiven for it."

"Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people … that there's an invisible man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things He does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, He has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where He will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever, 'til the end of time. … But He loves you."

"Quien ha infierene nula es retencio."

"Just as seeing Heaven's light gave him an awareness of God's presence in all things in the mortal plane, so it has made him aware of God's absence in all things in Hell."

"Were it for nothing else, yet for this at least, we should deserve hell, because we fear hell more than Christ ... Did we but love Christ as we should love Him, we should have known that to offend Him we love were more painful than hell."

"He who deceived the first man ... persuades some to suspect there is no hell, that he may thrust them into hell. As God on the other hand threatens hell, and made hell ready, that by coming to know of it you might so live as not to fall into hell."

"There are many men, who form good hopes not by abstaining from their sins, but by thinking that hell is not so terrible as it is said to be, but milder than what is threatened, and temporary, not eternal; and about this they philosophize much."

"What can be more grievous than hell? Yet nothing is more profitable than the fear of it; for the fear of hell will bring us the crown of the kingdom. Where fear is, there is no envy; where fear is, the love of money does not disturb; where fear is, wrath is quenched, evil concupiscence is repressed, and every unreasonable passion is exterminated."

"Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: “I made some mistakes, but I wasn’t a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to do.” However, there’s no need to anticipate my particular hell and keep going over and over the fact that I can make no further progress in what I understand to be my “Spiritual Quest.” It’s enough that I keep trying. Even those who didn’t do all they could have done have already been forgiven; they had their punishment while they were alive by being unhappy when they could have been living in peace and harmony. We are all redeemed and free to follow the path that has no beginning and will have no end."

"Hell is that state where one has ceased to hope."

"While the wish of many individuals is to arrive at heaven, we daily behold them on the way to hell."

"What is hell? Hell is oneself, Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections."

"There are special tortures destined for particular souls. These are the torments of the senses. Each soul undergoes terrible and indescribable sufferings, related to the manner in which it has sinned. There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. I would have died at the very sight of these tortures if the omnipotence of God had not supported me. Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin."

"[S]he asked if I believed in hell. At first I said no. Then I said, "Honestly, I think it's possible. Though I don't think you get sent there. I don't think God would have to send people there. I think they would go there by themselves."She asked, "Why do you think that?"I said, "Look at how people act. They walk right into horrible things all the time. They actually go out of their way.""

"The function of the lawyer is to preserve a sceptical relativism in a society hell-bent for absolutes. The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell there will be nothing but law and due process will be meticulously observed."

"I was suddenly arrested by what seemed to be an awful voice proclaiming the words, "Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!" It reached my very soul — my whole man shook — it brought me like Saul to the ground. The great depravity and sinfulness of my heart were set before me, and the gulf of everlasting destruction to which I was verging. I was made to bitterly cry out, "If there is no God — doubtless there is a hell." I found myself in the midst of it."

"You see, Mr. Simpson—a man, well, he'll walk right into Hell with both eyes open. But even the Devil can't fool a dog!"

"The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, isn't it? Believe or die! Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options."

"Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell."

"I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony."

"In the estimation of good orthodox Christians I am a criminal, because I am trying to take from loving mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and lovers the consolations naturally arising from a belief in an eternity of grief and pain. I want to tear, break, and scatter to the winds the God that priests erected in the fields of innocent pleasure — a God made of sticks called creeds, and of old clothes called myths. I shall endeavor to take from the coffin its horror, from the cradle its curse, and put out the fires of revenge kindled by an infinite fiend. Is it necessary that Heaven should borrow its light from the glare of Hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice, immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases, and pollutes even the vilest soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in the universe, no good being can be perfectly happy."

"The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss."

"The idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and revenge. This idea testifies that our remote ancestors were the lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves, only from mouths filled with cruel fangs, only from hearts of fear and hatred, only from the conscience of hunger and lust, only from the lowest and most debased could come this most cruel, heartless and bestial of all dogmas."

"It makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery can not go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred and revenge. Nothing could add to the horror of Hell, except the presence of its creator, God. While I have life, as long as I draw breath, I shall deny with all my strength, and hate with every drop of my blood, this infinite lie.Nothing gives me greater joy than to know that this belief in eternal pain is growing weaker every day—that thousands of ministers are ashamed of it. It gives me joy to know that Christians are becoming merciful, so merciful that the fires of Hell are burning low—flickering, choked with ashes, destined in a few years to die out forever."

"The stresses the ideal of the , who out of boundless compassion dedicates oneself to helping others. A Zen master, when asked where he would go after he died, replied, "To hell, for that's where help is needed most.""

"Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! One thing at least is certain: This life flies. One thing is certain and the rest is lies; the flower that once has blown forever dies."

"The notions of hell and purgatory, of paradise and resurrections are all caricatured, distorted echoes of the primeval one Truth, taught humanity in the infancy of its races by every First Messenger—the Planetary Spirit mentioned on the reverse of page the third—and whose remembrance lingered in the memory of man, as Elu of the Chaldees, Osiris the Egyptian, Vishnu, the first Buddahs and so on. The lower world of effects is the sphere of such distorted thoughts; of the most sensual conceptions, and pictures; of anthropomorphic deities, the out-creations of their creators, the sensual human minds of people who have never out-grown their brutehood on earth. p. 48"

"Most people leave Earth not realizing that they will have to return again. If they could remember at least something of the past, and learn to think about the future, they would save themselves from many errors. It is not a fear of hell but a desire for perfection that will lead people to the betterment of life."

"You show signs of levity, and that is the one thing not permitted here. This place is for serious persons only. If you are not serious now, by hell you'll get serious pretty quick!"

"This petty place cannot be Hell, Roadstrum? Ah, but it is my friend. That, you see, is the hell of it."

"Instead of consigning some men to heaven and some to hell, as modem theology does, it would be more true to say that every man must pass through both the states which are typified by those names. Every man must pass through the astral plane on his way to the heaven world. Every man at the end of his astral life will attain that heaven world, unless he be a person so entirely elementary, so entirely degraded as never yet to have had any unselfish thought or feeling. If that be so, there can indeed be no heaven world for him, because all these selfish desires and feelings belong exclusively to the astral plane, and they will find their result on that plane."

"Our religious friends argue much about heaven and hell and are terribly afraid of the latter indeed it would sometimes almost seem as though they were afraid of the former as well, from the manner in which they exert themselves to avoid going there. In the future no questions or disputes about these conditions will be possible, because man will see for himself that there is no hell, though he will also see very clearly that those who live an evil life are by that fact storing up for themselves very undesirable results and a very unpleasant time in the astral life. The glories of the heaven world will also be open to his sight, and he will realize that man needs only a development of faculty in order to place him at once, here and now, in the midst of all the bliss that that wondrous life can give."

"Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try. No hell below us Above us only sky."

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.'"

"Wer anders lehret, denn ich hierinn gelehret hab, oder mich darinn verdammt, der verdamt Gott, und muß ein Kind der Höllen bleiben."

"Why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I'm going to Hell?"

"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible Serv'd only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, hope never comes That comes to all; but torture without end."

"Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor, one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where if I be still the same"

"Long is the way And hard, that out of hell leads up to light."

"So frowned the mighty combatants that Hell Grew darker at their frown."

"On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder."

"The Hell within him; for within him Hell He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell One step, no more than from himself, can fly By change of place."

"Myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep, Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide; To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven."

"All hell broke loose."

"The gates that now Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame Far into Chaos, since the fiend pass'd through."

"He [Jesus] would never have said, "Until thou payest the uttermost farthing," (Matthew 5:26) unless it had been possible for us to be freed from our sins through having atoned for them by paying the penalty; neither would He have said, "he shall be beaten with many stripes," or "he shall be beaten with few stripes," (Luke 12:47-48) unless it were that the penalties, being meted out according to the sins, should finally come to an end."

"It is not God who decides whether a person's spirit enters heaven or hell upon his death; it is decided by the spirit himself. Humans are created so that once they reach perfection they will fully breathe the love of God. Those who committed sinful deeds while on earth become crippled spirits who are incapable of fully breathing in the love of God. They find it agonizing to stand before God, the center of true love. Of their own will, they choose to dwell in hell, far removed from the love of God."

"Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: A woman was punished because she had kept a cat tied until it died, and (as a punishment of this offence) she was thrown into Hell. She had not provided it with food or drink, and had not freed her so that she could eat the insects of the earth."

"Nobody, I think has actually said, “The Kingdom of hell is within you”—perhaps because it is so obviously true that it does not need saying."

"Richard Dawkins: What did they tell you about it? I mean, what happens in Hell? Jill Mytton: It's strange, isn't it? After all this time, it still has the power to affect me when you ask me that question. Hell is a fearful place. It is complete rejection by God. It is complete judgment. There is real fire. There is real torment, real torture. And it goes on forever, so there is no respite from it."

"Of all the tyrannies that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. Every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in, but this attempts a stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity."

"Stan: We're goin' to church. We've sinned and so we have to confess again. Butters: Uh us too. Uh we saw a picture of a naked lady. We could see her whole beaver. Clyde: Yeah. If we died right now, we'd have unclean souls and we'd burn in hell. Butters: I mean, poor Timmy's gonna go to hell! He can't confess his sins, 'cause all he can say is his name!"

"Hell Director: Hello, newcomers, and welcome. Can everybody hear me? Hello? Can everyb--? Okay. Uh, I'm the hell director. Uh, it looks like we have about 8,615 of you newbies today, and for those of you who are a little confused, uh, you are dead, and this is hell, so, abandon all hope and uh yada yada yada. Uh, we are now going to start the orientation process, which will last about-- Man 4: Hey, wait a minute, I shouldn't be here. I was a totally strict and devout Protestant! I thought we went to heaven! Hell Director: Yes, well I'm afraid you were wrong. Soldier: I was a practicing Jehovah's Witness. Hell Director: Uh, you picked the wrong religion as well. Man 5: Well, who was right? Who gets into heaven? Hell Director: I'm afraid it was the Mormons. Yes, the Mormons were the correct answer. Crowd: Awww. Hell Director: So now I'd like to quickly introduce your new ruler and master for eternity, Satan."

"More to the point, what was the lesson that the first Christians drew from the crucifixion? Today such a barbarity might galvanize people into opposing brutal regimes, or demanding that such torture never again be inflicted on a living creature. But those weren’t the lessons the early Christians drew at all. No, the execution of Jesus is The Good News, a necessary step in the most wonderful episode in history. In allowing the crucifixion to take place, God did the world an incalculable favor. Though infinitely powerful, compassionate, and wise, he could think of no other way to reprieve humanity from punishment for its sins (in particular, for the sin of being descended from a couple who had disobeyed him) than to allow an innocent man (his son no less) to be impaled through the limbs and slowly suffocate in agony. By acknowledging that this sadistic murder was a gift of divine mercy, people could earn eternal life. And if they failed to see the logic in all this, their flesh would be seared by fire for all eternity. According to this way of thinking, death by torture is not an unthinkable horror; it has a bright side. It is a route to salvation, a part of the divine plan. Like Jesus, the early Christian saints found a place next to God by being tortured to death in ingenious ways. For more than a millennium, Christian martyrologies described these torments with pornographic relish."

"The early Christians also extolled torture as just deserts for the sinful. Most people have heard of the seven deadly sins, standardized by Pope Gregory I in 590 CE. Fewer people know about the punishment in hell that was reserved for those who commit them: "Pride: Broken on the wheel. Envy: Put in freezing water. Gluttony: Force-fed rats, toads, and snakes. Lust: Smothered in fire and brimstone. Anger: Dismembered alive. Greed: Put in cauldrons of boiling oil. Sloth: Thrown in snake pits." The duration of these sentences, of course, was infinite. By sanctifying cruelty, early Christianity set a precedent for more than a millennium of systematic torture in Christian Europe. If you understand the expressions to burn at the stake, to hold his feet to the fire, to break a butterfly on the wheel, to be racked with pain, to be drawn and quartered, to disembowel, to flay, to press, the thumbscrew, the garrote, a slow burn, and the iron maiden (a hollow hinged statue lined with nails, later taken as the name of a heavy-metal rock band), you are familiar with a fraction of the ways that heretics were brutalized during the Middle Ages and early modern period."

"To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, Who never mentions hell to ears polite."

"Someone says that "after passing into the Subtle World, man does not find the hell which he so dreaded before leaving the Earth." It would be necessary to add the adjective "average" before the word "man." Verily, hell does exist. In the Subtle World, not only do criminals suffer terribly, but also those who have permitted in themselves spiritual deterioration, or who are full of any kind of lust. This is taught in the scriptures of all peoples."

"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell."

"You will find that in the Gospels Christ said: 'Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?' That was said to people who did not like His preaching. … Then Christ says: 'The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth'; and He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. … Then you all, of course, remember about the sheep and the goats; how at the second coming to divide the sheep and the goats He is going to say to the goats: 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.' He continues: 'And these shall go away into everlasting fire.' Then He says again: 'If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.' He repeats that again and again also. I must say that I think all this doctrine, that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty."

"I do my own penance for my own sins. What do you say, huh? Ah, it's all bullshit except the pain, right? The pain of hell, the burn from a lighted match increased a million times. Infinite, and you don't fuck around with the infinite. There's no way you do that. The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand, the kind you can feel in your heart. Your soul, the spiritual side, and you know the worst of the two is the spiritual."

"Worry about your own fortunes, gentlemen. The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for betrayers, and mutineers.""You know nothing of Hell."

"Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons and the suit of night."

"I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire."

"You, mistress, That have the office opposite to Saint Peter, And keeps the gate of hell!"

"Now the devil that told me I did well Says that this deed is chronicled in hell."

"Hell is empty, And all the devils are here."

"Azrael: Human, have you ever been to Hell? I think not. I'd rather not exist than go back to that."

"There are countless circles of hell; Believers never penetrate the ninth circle."

"Even to the wicked He stretches forth in His compassion. His divine cloud hovers over all that is His; it drips dew even on that fire of punishment so that, of His mercy, it enables even the embittered to taste of the drops of its refreshment."

"He is going to manifest some wonderful outcome, a matter of immense and ineffable compassion on the part of the glorious Creator, with respect to the ordering of this difficult matter of Gehenna’s torment: out of it the wealth of His love and power and wisdom will become known all the more—and so will the insistent might of the waves of His goodness."

"Repeating pain, why? It's all the same, same. I hate this place, stuck in this paradigm. Don't believe in paradise, this must be what Hell is like."

"Seth: I know why you lost your faith. How could true holiness exist if your wife can be taken away from you and your children? Now, I always said God can kiss my fuckin' ass. Well, I changed my lifetime tune about thirty minutes ago' cause I know, without a doubt, what's out there trying to get in here is pure evil straight from hell. And if there is a hell, and those monsters are from it, there's got to be a heaven. Now which are you, a faithless preacher or a mean, mother fuckin' servant of God?"

"“Pretty damn soon, the Rebs’ll pack it in here, too, I expect,” Carlton said. “Every blasphemy that passes your lips means a hotter dose of hellfire in the world to come,” McSweeney answered.” I’ve seen enough hellfire right here on earth,” Carlton said. “The kind of the preachers go on about don’t worry me as much as it used to.”"

"[J]ust send me to hell or Salt Lake City; it would be about the same to me."

"Facilis descensus Averno; Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis; Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, Hoc opus, hic labor est."

"Quisque suos patimur manis. Each of us bears his own Hell."

"In the throat Of Hell, before the very vestibule Of opening Orcus, sit Remorse and Grief, And pale Disease, and sad Old Age and Fear, And Hunger that persuades to crime, and Want: Forms terrible to see. Suffering and Death Inhabit here, and Death's own brother Sleep; And the mind's evil lusts and deadly War, Lie at the threshold, and the iron beds Of the Eumenides; and Discord wild Her viper-locks with bloody fillets bound."

"Do you know what Hell really is, Thomas? It's not lakes of burning oil or chains of ice. It's being removed from God's sight, of having His word taken from you. It's hard to believe, Thomas, so hard. I know that better than anyone."

"MARIA: Hell? Is he talking about hell? Good. For a moment I was afraid he was making sense."

"Abu Umama narrated: "The Messenger of God said, 'Everyone that God admits into paradise will be married to 72 wives; two of them are houris and seventy of his inheritance of the [female] dwellers of hell. All of them will have libidinous sex organs and he will have an ever-erect penis.' ""

"Curiosis fabricavit inferos."

"Undique ad inferos tantundem viæ est."

"There is in hell a place stone-built throughout, Called Malebolge, of an iron hue, Like to the wall that circles it about."

"We spirits have just such natures We had for all the world, when human creatures; And, therefore, I, that was an actress here, Play all my tricks in hell, a goblin there."

"The way of sinners is made plain with stones, but at the end thereof is the pit of hell."

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding sheet of Edward's race; Give ample room and verge enough The characters of Hell to trace."

"Hell is no other but a soundlesse pit, Where no one beame of comfort peeps in it."

"Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming."

"And, bid him go to hell, to hell he goes."

"Et metus ille foras præceps Acheruntis agundus, Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo, Omnia suffuscans mortis nigrore, neque ullam Esse voluptatem liquidam puramque relinquit."

"Look where he goes! but see he comes again Because I stay! Techelles, let us march And weary death with bearing souls to hell."

"In inferno nulla est redemptio. There is no redemption from hell."

"He knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell."

"Belief in eternal hell fire was an essential item of Christian belief until pretty recent times. In this country, as you know, it ceased to be an essential item because of a decision of the Privy Council, and from that decision the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York dissented; but in this country our religion is settled by Act of Parliament, and therefore the Privy Council was able to override Their Graces and hell was no longer necessary to a Christian. Consequently I shall not insist that a Christian must believe in hell."

"St. Austin might have returned another answer to him that asked him, "What God employed himself about before the world was made?" "He was making hell.""

"Self-love and the love of the world constitute hell."

"Nay, then, what flames are these that leap and swell As 'twere to show, where earth's foundations crack, The secrets of the sepulchres of hell On Dante's track?"

"In the deepest pits of 'Ell, Where the worst defaulters dwell (Charcoal devils used as fuel as you require 'em), There's some lovely coloured rays, Pyrotechnical displays, But you can't expect the burning to admire 'em!"

"That's the greatest torture souls feel in hell, In hell, that they must live, and cannot die."

"An immortality of pain and tears; an infinity of wretchedness and despair; the blackness of darkness across which conscience will forever shoot her clear and ghastly flashes, — like lightning streaming over a desert when midnight and tempest are there; weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; long, long eternity, and things that will make eternity seem longer, — making each moment seem eternity, — oh, miserable condition of the damned!"

"What will you do in a world where the Holy Spirit never strives; where every soul is fully left to its own depravity; and where there is no leisure for repentance, if there were even the desire, but where there is too much present pain to admit repentance; where they gnaw their tongues with pain, and blaspheme the God of heaven?"

"Many might go to heaven with half the labor they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way."

"The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

"The Lamb is, indeed, the emblem of love; but what so terrible as the wrath of the Lamb? The depth of the mercy despised is the measure of the punishment of him that despiseth. No more fearful words than those of the Saviour. The threatenings of the law were temporal, those of the gospel are eternal. It is Christ who reveals the never-dying worm, the unquenchable fire, and He who contrasts with the eternal joys of the redeemed the everlasting woes of the lost. His loving arms would enfold the whole human race, but not while impenitent or unbelieving; the benefits of His redemption are conditional."

"The longer men sin, the more easily they can; for every act of transgression weakens conscience, stupefies intellect, hardens hearts, adds force to bad habits, and takes force from good example. And, surely, there is nothing in such associations; as wicked affinities will insure to the sinner in the future state, to incline him to repentance."

"Thus we may infer that the only characteristic difference between modern Christianity and the old heathen faiths is the belief of the former in a personal devil and in hell. p. 10, Book II"

"The same may be said of hell. Hades was quite a different place from our region of eternal damnation, and might be termed rather an intermediate state of purification. Neither does the Scandinavian Hel or Hela, imply either a state or a place of punishment; for when Frigga, the grief-stricken mother of Bal-dur, the white god, who died and found himself in the dark abodes of the shadows (Hades) sent Hermod, a son of Thor, in quest of her beloved child, the messenger found him in the inexorable region — alas! but still comfortably seated on a rock, and reading a book."

"The Norse kingdom of the dead is moreover situated in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions; it is a cold and cheerless abode, and neither the gelid halls of Hela, nor the occupation of Baldur present the least similitude to the blazing hell of eternal fire and the miserable "damned" sinners with which the Church so generously peoples it. p. 11, Book II"

"Whence then did the divine learn so well the conditions of hell, to actually divide its torments into two kinds, the pcena damni and paenae sensus, the former being the privation of the beatific vision; the latter the eternal pains in a lake of fire and brimstone / If they answer us that it is in the Apocalypse (xx. io), we are prepared to demonstrate whence the theologist John himself derived the idea, “ And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented for ever and ever,” he says. Laying aside the esoteric interpretation that the “ devil ” or tempting demon meant our own earthly body, which after death will surely dissolve in the fiery or ethereal elements,* the word “eternal” by which our theologians interpret the words “ for ever and ever” does not exist in the Hebrew language, either as a word or meaning. p. 11, Book II"

"In the Old Testament the word forever only signifies a long time, Archbishop Tillotson has completely perverted its sense with respect to the idea of hell-torments. According to his doctrine, when Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be suffering “eternal fire,” we must understand it only in the sense of that fire not being extinguished till both cities were entirely consumed. But, as to hell-fire the words must be understood in the strictest sense of infinite duration. Such is the decree of the learned divine. For the duration of the punishment of the wicked must be proportionate to the eternal happiness of the righteous. p. 12, Book II"

"Origen understood it well, having been a pupil of Ammonius Saccas ; therefore we see him bravely denying the perpetuity of helltorments. He maintains that not only men, but even devils (by which term he meant disembodied human sinners), after a certain duration of punishment shall be pardoned and finally restored to heaven, In consequence of this and other such heresies Origen was, as a matter of course, exiled. p. 13, Book II"

"Many have been the learned and truly-inspired speculations as to the locality of hell. The most popular were those which placed it in the centre of the earth. p. 13, Book II"

"The eloquent Tertullian, who hopes to see all the “philosophers” in the gehenna fire of Hell. “What shall be the magnitude of that scene ! ... How shall I laugh! How shall I rejoice! How shall I triumph when I see so many illustrious kings who were said to have mounted into heaven, groaning with Jupiter, their god, in the lowest darkness of hell! Then shall the soldiers who have persecuted the name of Christ burn in more cruel fire than any they had kindled for the saints!” These murderous expressions illustrate the spirit of Christianity till this day. But do they illustrate the teachings of Christ? p. 250, Book II"

"Buddha teaches the doctrine of a new birth as plainly as Jesus does. Desiring to break with the ancient Mysteries, to which it was impossible to admit the ignorant masses, the Hindu reformer, though generally silent upon more than one secret dogma, clearly states his thought in several passages. Thus, he says : “Some people are born again ; evil-doers go to Hell; righteous people go to Heaven; those who are free from all worldly desires enter Nirvana” (Precepts of the Dhammapada, v., 126) p. 566, Book II"

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them."

"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

"When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of his glory: And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me in; naked, and ye clothed Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.” Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, “Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, and fed Thee? Or thirsty, and gave Thee drink? When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in? Or naked, and clothed Thee? Or when saw we Thee sick, or in prison, and came unto Thee?” And the King shall answer and say unto them, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye clothed Me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not.” Then shall they also answer Him, saying, “Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?” Then shall He answer them, saying, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.” And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

"He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

"Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire."

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between. the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation."

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fireis not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

"And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."

"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, [even] the lake of fire. And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire."

"But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part [shall be] in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."

"As Moses entered hell, the fire withdrew a distance of five hundred parasangs, and the Angel of Hell, Nasargiel, asked him, "Who art thou?" and he answered, "I am Moses, the son of Amram." Nasargiel: "This is not thy place, thou belongest in Paradise." Moses: "I came hither to see the manifestation of the power of God.""

"Moses saw men undergoing torture by the Angels of Destruction: some of the sinners were suspended by their eyelids, some by their ears, some by their hands, and some by their tongues, and they cried bitterly. And women were suspended by their hair and by their breasts, and in other ways, all on chains of fire. Nasargiel explained: "These hang by their eyes, because they looked lustfully upon the wives of their neighbors, and with a covetous eye upon the possessions of their fellow-men. These hang by their ears because they listened to empty and vain speech, and turned their ear away from hearing the Torah. These hang by their tongues, because they talked slander, and accustomed their tongue to foolish babbling. These hang by their feet, because they walked with them in order to spy upon their fellow-men, but they walked not to the synagogue, to offer prayer unto their Creator. These hang by their hands, because with them they robbed their neighbors of their possessions, and committed murder. These women hang by their hair and their breasts, because they uncovered them in the presence of young men, so that they conceived desire unto them, and fell into sin.""

"Moses saw the place called Alukah, where sinners were suspended by their feet, their heads downward, and their bodies covered with black worms, each five hundred parasangs long. They lamented, and cried: "Woe unto us for the punishment of hell. Give us death, that we may die!" Nasargiel explained: "These are the sinners that swore falsely, profaned the Sabbath and the holy days, despised the sages, called their neighbors by unseemly nicknames, wronged the orphan and the widow, and bore false witness. Therefore bath God delivered them to these worms.""

"Moses went thence to another place, and there he saw sinners prone on their faces, with two thousand scorpions lashing, stinging, and tormenting them, while the tortured victims cried bitterly. Each of the scorpions had seventy thousand heads, each head seventy thousand mouths, each mouth seventy thousand stings, and each sting seventy thousand pouches of poison and venom, which the sinners are forced to drink down, although the anguish is so racking that their eyes melt in their sockets. Nasargiel explained: "These are the sinners who caused the Israelites to lose their money, who exalted themselves above the community, who put their neighbors to shame in public, who delivered their fellow-Israelites into the hands of the Gentiles, who denied the Torah of Moses, and who maintained that God is not the Creator of the world.""

"Then Moses saw the place called Tit ba-Yawen, in which the sinners stand in mud up to their navels, while the Angels of Destruction lash them with fiery chains, and break their teeth with fiery stones, from morning until evening, and during the night they make their teeth grow again, to the length of a parasang, only to break them anew the next morning. Nasargiel explained: "These are the sinners who ate carrion and forbidden flesh, who lent their money at usury, who wrote the Name of God on amulets for Gentiles, who used false weights, who stole money from their fellow-Israelites, who ate on the Day of Atonement, who ate forbidden fat, and animals and reptiles that are an abomination, and who drank blood.""

"Then Nasargiel said to Moses: "Come and see how the sinners are burnt in hell," and Moses answered, "I cannot go there," but Nasargiel replied, "Let the light of the Shekinah precede thee, and the fire of hell will have no power over thee." Moses yielded, and he saw how the sinners were burnt, one half of their bodies being immersed in fire and the other half in snow, while worms bred in their own flesh crawled over them, and the Angels of Destruction beat them incessantly. Nasargiel explained: "These are the sinners who committed incest, murder, and idolatry, who cursed their parents and their teachers, and who, like Nimrod and others, called themselves gods." In this place, which is called Abaddon, he saw the sinners taking snow by stealth and putting it in their armpits, to relieve the pain inflicted by the scorching fire, and he was convinced that the saying was true, "The wicked mend not their ways even at the gate of hell.""

"They said: We cannot prefer thee to what has come to us of clear arguments and to Him Who made us, so decide as thou wilt decide. Thou canst only decide about this world's life. Surely we believe in our Lord that He may forgive us our faults and the magic to which thou didst compel us. And Allah is Best and ever Abiding. Whoso comes guilty to his Lord, for him is surely hell. He will neither die therein, nor live. And whoso comes to Him a believer, having done good deeds, for them are high ranks, Gardens of perpetuity, wherein flow rivers, to abide therein. And such is the reward of him who purifies himself."

"One of them said: "I used to have a friend who said: 'Are you among those who believe that when we die and turn into dust and bones, later we will be inquired?' " He said: "Can anyone find him?" So when he looked, he saw him in the midst of Hell. He said: "By God, you nearly misguided me! And had it not been for my Lord's blessing, I would have been with you. Are we then not going to die, except for our first death, and we will not be punished?" Such is the greatest triumph."

"So give admonition! (because) admonition is useful, he who is thoughtful will consider while the unrighteous one will neglect it, one who will be burnt in the great Fire, then therein he will neither live nor die."

"So when the great Calamity comes; The day when man remembers everything that he has done, And hell is made manifest to him who beholds. Then as for him who is inordinate, And prioritizes the life of this world, Hell is surely the abode. And as for him who fears to stand before his Lord and restrains himself from low desires, The Paradise is surely the abode."

"As for one who transgressed, and prioritized the worldly life, then Hell will be the abode."

"Whoever desires this world's life and its finery, We repay them their deeds therein, and they are not made to suffer loss in it. These are they for whom there is nothing but Fire in the Hereafter. And what they work therein is fruitless and their deeds are vain. Is he then (like these), who has with him clear proof from his Lord, and a witness from Him recites it, and before it, the Book of Moses, a guide and a mercy? These believe in it. And whoever of the parties disbelieves in it, the Fire is his promised place. So be not in doubt about It. Surely it is the truth from thy Lord, but most men believe not."

"Besides Him they worship on nothing but idols and they call on nothing but rebellious Satan, whom Allah has cursed. And he said: "Certainly I will take of Thy servants an appointed portion; And certainly I will lead them astray and excite in them vain desires and bid them so that they will slit the ears of the cattle, and bid them" so that they will alter Allah's creation. And whoever takes Satan for a guardian, ignores Allah, he indeed suffers a great loss. He promises them and excites vain desires in them. And Satan promises them only to deceive. for these, their refuge is Hell, and they will find no escape from it."

"And when Abraham said: My Lord, make this a secure town and provide its people with fruits, such of them as believe in God and the Last Day. He said: And whoever disbelieves, I shall grant him enjoyment for a short while, then I shall drive him to the chastisement of the Fire. And it is an evil destination."

"Whoso disbelieves in Allah after his belief -- not he who is compelled while his heart is content with faith, but he who opens (his) breast for disbelief -- on them is the wrath of Allah, and for them is a grievous chastisement. That is because they love this world's life more than the Hereafter, and because Allah guides not the disbelieving people. These are they whose hearts and ears and eyes Allah has sealed and these are the heedless ones. No doubt that in the Hereafter they are the losers."

"It may be that your Lord will have mercy on you. And if you return (to mischief), We will return (to punishment). And We have made hell a prison for the disbelievers. Surely this Qur'an guides to that which is most upright, and gives good news to the believers who do good that theirs is a great reward, And that those who believe not in the Hereafter, We have prepared for them a painful chastisement. And man prays for evil as he ought to pray for good; and man is ever hasty. And We made the night and the day two signs, then We have made the sign of the night to pass away and We have made the sign of the day manifest, so that you may seek grace from your Lord, and that you may know the numbering of years and the reckoning. And We have explained everything with distinctness. And We have made every man's actions to cling to his neck, and We shall bring forth to him on the day of Resurrection a book which he will find wide open. Read thy book. Thine own soul is sufficient as a reckoner against thee this day."

"And for those who disbelieve in their Lord is the chastisement of hell, and evil is the resort. When they are cast therein, they will hear a loud moaning of it as it heaves, Almost bursting for fury. Whenever a group is cast into it, its keepers ask them: Did not a warner come to you? They say: Yea, indeed a warner came to us, but we denied and said Allah has revealed nothing you are only in great error. And they say: Had we but listened or pondered, we should not have been among the inmates of the burning Fire. Thus they will confess their sins so far (from good) are the inmates of the burning Fire."

"And if thou couldst see when they are made to stand before the Fire, and say: Would that we were sent back! We would not reject the messages of our Lord but would be of the believers. Nay, that which they concealed before will become manifest to them. And if they were sent back, they would certainly go back to that which they are forbidden, and surely they are liars. And they say: There is nothing but our life of this world and we shall not be raised again. And if thou couldst see when they are made to stand before their Lord! He will say: Is not this the truth? They will say: Yea, by our Lord! He will say: Taste then the chastisement because you disbelieved. They are losers indeed who reject the meeting with Allah, until when the hour comes upon them suddenly, they will say: O our grief for out neglecting it! And they bear their burdens on their backs. Now surely evil is that which they bear! And this world's life is naught but a play and an idle sport. And certainly the abode of the Hereafter is better for those who keep their duty. Do you not then understand?"

"Verily, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the succession of night and day, are signs to those possessed of minds; who remember God standing and sitting or lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth. ‘ O Lord ! thou hast not created this in vain. We celebrate Thy praise ; then keep us from the torment of the fire ! Lord ! verily, whomsoever Thou hast made to enter the fire, Thou hast disgraced him ; and the unjust shall have none to help them. Lord! verily, we heard a crier calling to the faith, “ Believe in your Lord,” and we did believe. Lord ! forgive us our sins and cover our offences, and let us die with the righteous. Lord ! and bring us what Thou hast promised us by Thy apostles, and disgrace us not upon the resurrection day; for, verily, Thou dost not break Thy promises !’ And the Lord shall answer them, ‘ I waste not the works of a worker amongst you, be it male or female, — one of you is from the other. ‘ Those who fled, and were turned out of their houses, and were harmed in my way, and who fought and were killed, I will cover their offences, and I will make them enter into gardens beneath which rivers flow.’ A reward from God; for God, with Him are the best of rewards."

"And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation."

"In the middle of one of the biggest, longest, noisiest, dirtiest thoroughfares in the world lives the reincarnation of a drowned princess, or rather, two hundred reincarnations of a drowned princess."

"My whole belief system is that our paths are drawn for us. I believe in reincarnation. I believe we're here to learn and grow. We choose how we come into this life based on what it is we have to learn. Some people have harder lessons than others."

"This fundamental belief may be expressed as the doctrine that there is in man an immaterial Something (called the soul, spirit, inner self, or many other names) which does not perish at the death or disintegration of the body, but which persists as an entity, and after a shorter or longer interval of rest reincarnates, or is re-born, into a new body—that of an unborn infant—from whence it proceeds to live a new life in the body, more or less unconscious of its past existences, but containing within itself the "essence" or results of its past lives, which experiences go to make up its new[Pg 9] "character," or "personality." It is usually held that the rebirth is governed by the law of attraction, under one name or another, and which law operates in accordance with strict justice, in the direction of attracting the reincarnating soul to a body, and conditions, in accordance with the tendencies of the past life, the parents also attracting to them a soul bound to them by some ties in the past, the law being universal, uniform, and equitable to all concerned in the matter. This is a general statement of the doctrine as it is generally held by the most intelligent of its adherents."

"The doctrine of Reincarnation—Metempsychosis—Rebirth—has always been held as truth by a large portion of the human race. Following the invariable law of cyclic changes—the swing of the pendulum of thought—at times it has apparently died out in parts of the world, only to be again succeeded by a new birth and interest among the descendants of the same people. It is a light impossible to extinguish, and although its flickering flame may seem to die out for a moment, the shifting of the mental winds again allows it to rekindle from the hidden spark, and lo! again it bursts into new life and vigor.... the teaching of Reincarnation never has passed away altogether from the race—in some parts of the world the lamp has been kept burning brightly—nay, more, at no time in human history has there been a period in which the majority of the race has not accepted the doctrine of Rebirth... In this Twentieth Century nearly if not quite two-thirds of the race hold firmly to the teaching, and the multitudes of Hindus and other Eastern peoples cling to it tenaciously... Reincarnation is not a "forgotten truth," or "discarded doctrine," but one fully alive and vigorous, and one which is destined to play a very important part in the history of Western thought during the Twentieth Century."

"Following Pythagoras, Plato, the great Grecian philosopher, taught the old-new doctrine of Rebirth. He taught that the souls of the dead must return to earth, where, in new lives, they must wear out the old earth deeds, receiving benefits for the worthy ones, and penalties for the unworthy ones, the soul profiting by these repeated experiences, and rising step by step toward the divine. Plato taught that the reincarnated soul has flashes of remembrance of its former lives, and also instincts and intuitions gained by former experiences. He classed innate ideas among these inherited experiences of former lives. It has been well said that "everything can be found in Plato," and therefore one who seeks for the ancient Grecian ideas concerning Reincarnation, and the problems of the soul, may find that which he seeks in the writings of the old sage and philosopher. Plato was the past master of the inner teachings concerning the soul, and all who have followed him have drawn freely from his great store of wisdom."

"All souls incarnate and re-incarnate under the Law of Rebirth. Hence each life is not only a recapitulation of life experience, but an assuming of ancient obligations, a recovery of old relations, an opportunity for the paying of old indebtedness, a chance to make restitution and progress, an awakening of deep-seated qualities, the recognition of old friends and enemies, the solution of revolting injustices, and the explanation of that which conditions the man, and makes him what he is. Such is the law which is crying now for universal recognition."

"The new psychology must inevitably be built upon the premise that this one life is not man's sole opportunity in which to achieve integration and eventual perfection. The great Law of Rebirth must be accepted, and it will then be found to be, in itself, a major releasing agent in any moment of crisis, or any psychological problem case. The recognition of a further opportunity, and a lengthened sense of time, are both quieting and helpful to many types of mind."

"Practically all the teaching given anent rebirth or reincarnation, has emphasised the material phenomenal side, though there has always been a more or less casual reference to the spiritual and mental gains acquired in the school of life upon this planet, from incarnation to incarnation. The true nature of the unfolding awareness, and the growth of the inner consciousness of the true man, have been little noted; the gain of each life in added grasp of the mechanism of contact, and the result of increased sensitivity to the environment, are seldom if ever stressed."

"The entire subject of rebirth is but little understood at present. Its modern interpretation, and the emphasis which has been laid so strongly on small and unimportant details, have distorted and diverted the wide sweep of the subject and ignored the true import of the process; the broad general lines of the incarnation process, have been largely overlooked... in the puerile reconstruction of the past lives of theosophically inclined people (none of them based on any truth), the real truth and the real beauty of the theme have been lost to sight."

"The theory of reincarnation, so familiar to all my readers, is becoming increasingly popular in the Occident; it has always been accepted (though with many foolish additions and interpretations) in the Orient. This teaching has been as much distorted as have the teachings of the Christ or the Buddha or Shri Krishna by their narrow-minded and mentally limited theologians. The basic facts of a spiritual origin, of a descent into matter, of an ascent through the medium of constant incarnations in form until those forms are perfect expressions of the indwelling spiritual consciousness, and of a series of initiations at the close of the cycle of incarnation, are being more readily accepted and acknowledged than ever before."

"There is, of course, no doubt that the great historical religions of the East included the teaching of Reincarnation as a fundamental tenet. In India, as in Egypt, Reincarnation was at the root of ethics. Among the Jews it was held commonly by the Pharisees, and the popular belief comes out in various phrases in the New Testament, as when John the Baptist is regarded as a reincarnation of Elijah or as when the disciples ask whether the man born blind is suffering for the sin of his parents or for some former sin of his own. ...The philosophic Gnostics and Neo-Platonists held it as an integral part of their doctrine. If we glance to the Western Hemisphere we meet Reincarnation as a firmly rooted belief among many of the tribes of North and South America. The Mayas, with their deeply interesting connection in language and symbolism with ancient Egypt, held the traditional doctrine..."

"The reader of Schopenhauer will be familiar with the aspect taken by Reincarnation in his philosophy. Penetrated as was the great German with Eastern thought from his study of the Upanishads, it would have been passing strange had this corner-stone of Hindu philosophy found no place in his system. Nor is Schopenhauer the only philosopher from the Intellectual and mystical German people who has accepted Reincarnation as a necessary factor in Nature... It is interesting to note that the mere idea of Reincarnation is no longer regarded in the West— at least by educated people—as absurd... Regarding it myself as, to me, a proven fact, I am concerned rather to put it forward on these pages as a probable hypothesis, throwing more light than does any other theory on the obscure problems of man's constitution, of his character, his evolution, and his destiny. Reincarnation and Karma are said by a Master [of Wisdom] to be the two doctrines of which the West stands most in. need; so it cannot be ill done for a believer in the Masters to set forth an outline, for the ordinary reader, of this central teaching of the Esoteric Philosophy."

"The theory of Reincarnation, then, in the Esoteric Philosophy, asserts the existence of a living and individualised Principle, which dwells in and informs the body of a man, and Which, on the death of the body, passes into another body, after a longer or shorter interval. Thus successive bodily lives are linked together like pearls strung upon a thread, the thread being the living Principle, the pearls upon it the separate human lives... In the light of reincarnation life... becomes the school of the eternal Man within us, who seeks therein his development, the Man that was and is and shall be, for whom the hour will never strike."

"Another precept of Jesus... is: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect". (S. Matt., v, 48. ) The ordinary Christian knows that he cannot possibly obey this command; full of ordinary human frailties and weaknesses, how can he become perfect as God is perfect ? Seeing the impossibility of the achievement set before him, he quietly puts it aside, and thinks no more about it. But seen as the crowning effort of (reincarnation|many lives) of steady improvement, as the triumph of the God within us over the lower nature, it comes within calculable distance... p. 55"

"The loss of belief in reincarnation, and of a sane view as to the continuity of life, whether it were spent in this or in the next two worlds, brought with it various incongruities and indefensible assertions, among them the blasphemous and terrible idea of the eternal torture of the human soul for sins committed during the brief span of one life spent on earth. p. 307"

"We will now present a few fragments of this mysterious doctrine of reincarnation — as distinct from metempsychosis — which we have from an authority. Reincarnation, the appearance of the same individual, or rather of his astral monad, twice on the same planet, is not a rule in nature; it is an exception, like the teratological phenomenon of a twoheaded infant. It is preceded by a violation of the laws of harmony of nature, and happens only when the latter, seeking to restore its disturbed equilibrium, violently throws back into earth-life the astral monad which had been tossed out of the circle of necessity by crime or accident. p. 351"

"At his death, the Arhat is never reincarnated; he invariably attains Nirvana— a word, by the bye, falsely interpreted by the Christian scholars and skeptical commentators. Nirvana is the world of cause in which all deceptive effects or delusions of our senses disappear. p. 346"

"If reason has been so far developed as to become active and discriminative, there is no reincarnation on this earth, for the three parts of the triune man have been united together, and he is capable of running the race. But when the new being has not passed beyond the condition of monad, or when, as in the idiot, the trinity has not been completed, the immortal spark which illuminates it, has to reenter on the earthly plane as it was frustrated in its first attempt. Otherwise, the mortal or astral, and the immortal or divine, souls, could not progress in unison and pass onward to the sphere above. p. 352"

"As in the case of the reincarnation of the lamas of Tibet, an adept of the highest order may live indefinitely. p. 563"

"The great philosopher Plato wrote an allegory in the last book of his Republic about souls making themselves ready to come back to earth again. Each one, he said, had a choice as to when and where to be born, but that choice must always be in accord with the soul's capacities and needs. So it is really a matter of being drawn naturally to the environment best suited to the soul, as provided by parents, family, and nation. It would, however, be a mistake to think that one who held reincarnation to be true would therefore judge men by their environments - a pleasant environment meaning that they were "good souls," and an unpleasant one meaning that they were "bad souls." The greatest of men often take upon themselves the most difficult and apparently unrewarding tasks for reasons which they themselves must understand much more clearly than can those around them. So it might be for souls who are resting between births: some souls might be drawn to a very difficult family situation and take up such a burden, knowingly. If there is a soul in man, assuredly it does not think in terms of physical wealth or personal ambition, nor care about what the short-sighted part of man's nature calls success or failure."

"Some people have felt that they could not consider seriously the possibility of reincarnation because they do not remember their past lives... If men are reborn, it would, as a matter of fact, be impossible to expect an entirely new body to retain and give expression to the details recorded by a different physical brain... The idea suggested by reincarnation is that the soul, not the brain, continues to live. And what is a "soul"? If the word has any meaning at all, it must stand for those unique qualities of character which distinguish us, far more than any physical differences, from our fellow human beings. And our most important qualities do not depend upon the memory of the brain. Our most important qualities are our attitudes of mind, formed through experience provided by brain, yet retained as moral instincts rather than as specific memories."

"Those who hold the idea of reincarnation in their minds see that it brings them calm, and that the idea is sensible. Death is neither to be feared nor envied. The "dead" are neither greater nor less than those of us who are now alive. The dead will live again and we shall die again always the same real persons which we make ourselves, yet always expressing different parts of our natures in different states and conditions of consciousness. It is moreover possible to think that we may be reunited with those we have loved, when there is a strong enough reason for this occurring; and that we may be born in the sort of environment which will help us to find each other again in another life."

"The principal point of their [Druids] doctrine is that the soul does not die and that after death it passes from one body into another."

"With regard to their actual course of studies, the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed."

"In The Masters and the Path, C. W. Leadbeater has an interesting discussion of the three 'fetters' which the first degree initiate must 'cast off' before he is prepared for the Baptism initiation. The first of these fetters is the delusion of the separate self. This has to be replaced by the realization of oneness in the true Self. The second fetter is the glamour of doubt or uncertainty, especially in relation to the truth of reincarnation and karma, or the law of cause and effect. The third fetter is described as superstition, or the belief that the rites and dogma of any one religion are necessary for salvation, or that we have to deal with the so-called 'wrath of an angry God'."

"If he came back, Carville said: I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But I now want to comeback as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."

"We travel with the same clan over and over again, from one life to the next, until some ultimate purpose is fulfilled and we no longer need to return. When we Illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically."

"No; I don't see any mechanism that would make it possible. However, I'm always paraphrasing J.B.S. Haldane, "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can imagine.""

"Death has no power the immortal soul to slay, That, when its present body turns to clay, Seeks a fresh home, and with unlessened might Inspires another frame with life and light."

"Poem on Pythagoras Death, so called, is but older matter dressed In some new form. And in a varied vest, From tenement to tenement though tossed, The soul is still the same, the figure only lost."

"Reincarnation is an intrinsic part of many Native American and Inuit traditions."

"Indian discussion of reincarnation enters the historical record from about the 6th century BCE, with the development of the Advaita Vedanta tradition in the early Upanishads (around the middle of the first millennium BCE), Gautama Buddha (623–543 BCE)[28] as well as Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism."

"Heinz Duthel, in Kathoey Ladyboy, p. 216"

"The systematic attempt to attain first-hand knowledge of past lives has been developed in various ways in different places. The early Buddhist texts discuss techniques for recalling previous births, predicated on the development of high levels of meditative concentration."

"In the Vedic tradition, the belief in first reincarnation and then a 'karmic' connection between the successive incarnations is clearly a later import. It is absent from the Rg-Veda, and its introduction from outside is explicitly mentioned in Chandogya Upanishad 5:5:7. ... The old Upanishads are concerned with defeating Avidya (metaphysical ignorance, confusing the Self with its objects of experience), not with ending the cycle of rebirth, as Buddhism is."

"The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew... it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal."

"I'd rather believe in reincarnation than hell. The idea of an afterlife is much so more tolerable when returning is an option."

"The second half of the first millennium BCE was the period that created many of the ideological and institutional elements that characterize later Indian religions. The renouncer tradition played a central role during this formative period of Indian religious history."

"....Some of the fundamental values and beliefs that we generally associate with Indian religions in general and Hinduism in particular were in part the creation of the renouncer tradition. These include the two pillars of Indian theologies: samsara – the belief that life in this world is one of suffering and subject to repeated deaths and births (rebirth); moksha/nirvana – the goal of human existence, and therefore, of the religious quest is the search of liberation from that life of suffering."

"A third alternative is that the origin of transmigration theory lies outside of Vedic or Sramana traditions in the tribal religions of the Ganges valley, or even in Dravidian traditions of South India."

"I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilise the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realised that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more. The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men’s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us."

"I believe we are reincarnated. You, I, we reincarnate over and over. We live many lives, and store up much experience. Some are older souls than others and so they know more. It seems to be an intuitive "gift." It is really hard-won experience."

"I realised that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more. The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men’s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us."

"So the Buddhist teachings of rebirth does have some scientific evidence to support it. It is logically consistent and it goes a long way in answering questions what the theistic and the materialistic theories fail to . It is also very comforting. What can be worse than a theory of life that gives you no second chance, no opportunity to amend the mistakes you have made in this life and no time to further develop the skills and abilities you have nurtured in this life. But according to the Buddha, if you fail to attain Nirvana in this life, you will have the opportunity to try again next time. If you have made mistakes in this life, you will be able to correct yourself in the next life. You will truly be able to learn from your mistakes. Things you were unable to do or achieve in this life may well become possible in the next life. What a wonderful teaching!"

"Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn."

"Birth must be followed by death and death must be followed by birth."

"The pain was maddening. You should pray to God when you're dying, if you can pray when you're in agony. In my dream I didn't pray to God, I thought of Roger and how dearly I loved him. The pain of those wicked flames was not half so bad as the pain I felt when I knew he was dead. I felt suddenly glad to be dying. I didn't know when you were burnt to death you'd bleed. I thought the blood would all dry up in the terrible heat. But I was bleeding heavily. The blood was dripping and hissing in the flames. I wished I had enough blood to put the flames out. The worst part was my eyes. I hate the thought of going blind. It's bad enough when I'm awake but in dreams you can't shake the thoughts away. They remain. In this dream I was going blind. I tried to close my eyelids but I couldn't. They must have been burnt off, and now those flames were going to pluck my eyes out with their evil fingers, I didn't want to go blind. The flames weren't so cruel after all. They began to feel cold. Icy cold. It occurred to me that I wasn't burning to death but freezing to death."

"It was also believed that snakes swallowed themselves, and this resulted in their being considered emblematic of the Supreme Creator who periodically reabsorbed His Universe back to Himself."

"He saw all these forms and faces in a thousand relationships... become newly born. Each one was mortal, a passionate, painful example of all that is transitory. Yet none of them died, they only changed, were always reborn, continually had a new face: only time stood between one face and another."

"Members of the Christian faith sometimes object to the doctrine of reincarnation on the grounds that to accept it would be a violation of Christian doctrine. While it is true that a Council of Constantinople in the sixth century A. D. pronounced belief in the pre-existence of the soul to be heretical, an examination of the Scriptures strongly suggests that the doctrine of rebirth was generally accepted in those days and that Our Lord himself believed it. Whether this be the case or not, the student of the Christian doctrine may well ask whether a decision made by a group of men in the sixth century should be regarded as binding today."

"This objection to reincarnation by Christians, on grounds of doctrinal fidelity, is sufficiently important to merit a somewhat detailed examination. From this it is found that reincarnation has neither been proclaimed nor condemned by any general council of the Church or by any creed accepted by a general council. The Council of Constantinople held in 543 A.D., which proclaimed heretical Origen’s teaching of the preexistence of the soul and affirmed the doctrine of special creation, was not a general council, and so not universally authoritative. It was a local and not an ecumenical council or synod. Furthermore, it did not condemn reincarnation but only pre-existence, which has nothing to do with rebirth."

"Origen taught that all souls were created at the beginning of creation as angelic spirits. In this condition they sinned and for their apostasy were transferred into material bodies. It was this view of preexistence which was proclaimed heretical. In any case, heresy thus condemned so long ago need not be regarded today as of major importance. Truth matters a great deal more and a condemned heresy may turn out to be a truth, as happened, for example, when a local church of Rome condemned Galileo’s heliocentric doctrine and forced him to recant. Galileo was right and the church in question was wrong. It is therefore quite legitimate for both clergy and laity of the Christian faith to preach and believe in both preexistence and reincarnation."

"Reference has already been made to the command given by Christ to his followers: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). If man is granted but one life in which to accomplish this perfection, such attainment would be an impossibility for almost every human being; and Our Lord would have presented to mankind an ideal which is impossible of fulfillment. Since his wisdom was perfect, it is extremely unlikely that he would have taken this course. If, however, each man is granted almost unlimited time and every needed opportunity throughout successive lives in which to reach the goal which is set for him, then Our Lord’s words are less an injunction than a description of the destiny of every man. Indeed, in the original Greek and in the Revised Version, the behest becomes a simple statement of fact: “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”"

"I am certain that I have been here as I am now a thousand times before, and I hope to return a thousand times."

"There is nothing against a permanently surviving spirit-individuality being in some way given off at death, as a definite wireless message is given off by a sending apparatus working in a particular ways. But it must be remembered that the wireless message only becomes a message again when it comes in contact with a new, material structure - the receiver. So with our possible spirit-emanation. It would never think or feel unless again "embodied" in some way. Our personalities are so based on body that it is really impossible to think of survival which would be in any true sense personal without a body of sorts. I can think of something being given off which could bear the same relation to men and women as a wireless message to the transmitting apparatus for mind."

"In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahmanical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand, the means of constructing a plausible vindication of the ways of the Cosmos to man....yet this plea of justification is not less plausible than others; and none but very hasty thinkers will reject it on the ground of inherent absurdity. Like the doctrine of evolution itself, that of transmigration has its roots in the world of reality; and it may claim such support as the great argument from analogy is capable of supplying."

"That swarm of ants that I observed, each one following the one ahead, have every one been Indra in the world of the gods by virtue of their own past action. And now, by virtue of their deeds done in the past, they have gradually fallen to the state of ants."

"We may subvert their doctrine as to transmigration from body to body by this fact, that souls remember nothing whatever of the events which took place in their previous states of existence. For if they were sent forth with this object, that they should have experience of every kind of action, they must of necessity retain a remembrance of those things which have been previously accomplished, that they might fill up those in which they were still deficient, and not by always hovering, without intermission, round the same pursuits, spend their labour wretchedly in vain... As it happens that, when one awakes, perhaps after a long time, he relates what he saw in a dream, so also would he undoubtedly remember those things which he did before he came into this particular body. For if that which is seen only for a very brief space of time, or has been conceived of simply in a phantasm, and by the soul alone, through means of a dream, is remembered... much more would she remember those things in connection with which she stayed during so long a time, even throughout the whole period of a bypast life."

"Jains believe in reincarnation. Their souls, which are believed to be a unique substance in the universe, take different living forms in the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. This cycle has been going on forever, the universe has no beginning or end, it has always been and always will be. The ultimate goal is to get rid of one's karma on their soul so that they may end this cycle. Once this goal is reached their soul has attained all knowledge and it rests in the heavens forever (Nirvana)."

"The essential metaphysical ideas of Jainism are nine cardinal principles. The universe is divided into that which is alive and conscious (jiva) and matter which is not (ajiva). Jivas (souls) are either caught by karma (action) in the world of reincarnation (samsara) or liberated (mukta) and perfected (siddha)."

"If it can be shown that an incorporeal and reasonable being has life in itself independently of the body and that it is worse off in the body than out of it; then beyond a doubt bodies are only of secondary importance and arise from time to time to meet the varying conditions of reasonable creatures. Those who require bodies are clothed with them, and contrariwise, when fallen souls have lifted themselves up to better things, their bodies are once more annihilated. They are thus ever vanishing and ever reappearing."

"I am no Hindu, but I hold the doctrine of the Hindus concerning a future state (rebirth) to be incomparably more rational, more pious, and more likely to deter men from vice than the horrid opinions inculcated by Christians on punishments without end."

"How man has come to be the complex being that he is and why, are questions that neither Science nor Religion makes conclusive answer to. This immortal thinker having such vast powers and possibilities, all his because of his intimate connection with every secret part of Nature from which he has been built up, stands at the top of an immense and silent evolution. He asks why Nature exists, what the drama of life has for its aim, how that aim may be attained. But Science and Religion both fail to give a reasonable reply. Science does not pretend to be able to give the solution, saying that the examination of things as they are is enough of a task; religion offers an explanation both illogical and unmeaning and acceptable but to the bigot, as it requires us to consider the whole of Nature as a mystery and to seek for the meaning and purpose of life with all its sorrow in the pleasure of a God who cannot be found out. The educated and enquiring mind knows that dogmatic religion can only give an answer invented by man while it pretends to be from God."

"What then is the universe for, and for what final purpose is man the immortal thinker here in evolution? It is all for the experience and emancipation of the soul, for the purpose of raising the entire mass of manifested matter up to the stature, nature, and dignity of conscious god-hood. The great aim is to reach self-consciousness; not through a race or a tribe or some favored nation, but by and through the perfecting, after transformation, of the whole mass of matter as well as what we now call soul. Nothing is or is to be left out."

"The aim for present man is his initiation into complete knowledge, and for the other kingdoms below him that they may be raised up gradually from stage to stage to be in time initiated also. This is evolution carried to its highest power; it is a magnificent prospect; it makes of man a god, and gives to every part of nature the possibility of being one day the same; there is strength and nobility in it, for by this no man is dwarfed and belittled, for no one is so originally sinful that he cannot rise above all sin. Treated from the materialistic position of Science, evolution takes in but half of life; while the religious conception of it is a mixture of nonsense and fear. Present religions keep the element of fear, and at the same time imagine that an Almighty being can think of no other earth but this and has to govern this one very imperfectly. But the old theosophical view makes the universe a vast, complete, and perfect whole."

"This is the most ancient of doctrines and is believed in now by more human minds than the number of those who do not hold it. The millions in the East almost all accept it; it was taught by the Greeks; a large number of the Chinese now believe it as their forefathers did before them; the Jews thought it was true, and it has not disappeared from their religion; and Jesus, who is called the founder of Christianity, also believed and taught it. In the early Christian church it was known and taught, and the very best of the fathers of the church believed and promulgated it."

"In the case of the musician Bach we have proof that heredity counts for nothing if the Ego is not advanced, for his genius was not borne down his family line; it gradually faded out, finally leaving the family stream entirely. So, too, the coming of idiots or vicious children to parents who are good, pure, or highly intellectual is explained in the same way. They are cases where heredity is set at nought by a wholly bad or deficient Ego."

"The lost chord of Christianity is the doctrine of Reincarnation. It was beyond doubt taught in the early days of the cult, for it was well known to the Jews who produced the men who founded Christianity. The greatest of all the Fathers of the Church--Origen--no doubt believed in the doctrine. He taught pre-existence and the wandering of the soul. This could hardly have been believed without also giving currency to reincarnation, as the soul could scarcely wander in any place save the earth. She was in exile from Paradise, and for sins committed had to revolve and wander. Wander where? would be the next question. Certainly away from Paradise, and the short span of human life would not meet the requirements of the case. But a series of reincarnations will meet all the problems of life as well as the necessities of the doctrines of exile, of wanderings for purification, of being known to God and being judged by him before birth, and of other dogmas given out among the Jews and of course well known to Jesus and whoever of the seventy-odd disciples were not in the deepest ignorance"

"It has been often thought that the opposition to reincarnation has been solely based on prejudice, when not due to a dogma which can only stand when the mind is bound down and prevented from using its own powers. It is a doctrine the most noble of all, and with its companion one of Karma, next to be considered, it alone gives the basis for ethics. There is no doubt in my mind that the founder of Christianity took it for granted and that its present absence from that religion is the reason for the contradiction between the professed ethics of Christian nations and their actual practises which are so contrary to the morals given out by Jesus."

"It should be ever borne in mind that Patanjali had no need to assert or enforce the doctrine of reincarnation. That is assumed all through the Aphorisms. That it could be doubted, or need any restatement, never occurred to him, and by us it is alluded to, not because we have the smallest doubt of its truth, but only because we see about us those who never heard of such a doctrine, who, educated under the frightful dogmas of Christian priestcraft, imagine that upon quitting this life they will enjoy heaven or be damned eternally, and who not once pause to ask where was their soul before it came into the present body."

"For esoteric students the concept of rebirth is not an abstract belief based on theory and thus open to debate. For them it is a well-established concept which has been part of the Ancient Wisdom teaching for thousands of years, and has subsequently been verified over and over again in daily life. The principle is primarily based on the duality of man."

"Fortunately for man, we do have a loving Father, on whose wisdom and justice we can depend. The shortcoming lies with man himself who can neither understand nor interpret that with which he is surrounded. He can only distinguish one small facet of the Truth and of a most involved system, and therefore bases his judgement on totally inadequate evidence. But where then has man failed in his reasoning? The answer and crux of the whole problem lies in the misleading and erroneous assumption that the evolution and redemption of the human soul must be completed in a single spell of life on Earth."

"A master who had been cruel to his slaves might become a slave in his turn, and undergo the torments he had inflicted on others. He who has wielded authority may, in a new existence, be obliged to obey those who formerly bent to his will. Such an existence may be imposed upon him as an expiation if he have abused his power. But a good spirit may also choose an influential existence among the people of some lower race, in order to hasten their advancement; in that case, such a reincarnation is a mission."

"Thus far Mrs. Kingsford's idea that the human Ego is being reincarnated in several successive human bodies is the true one... After circling, so to say, along the arc of the cycle, circling along and within it (the daily and yearly rotation of the Earth is as good an illustration as any) when the Spirit-man reaches our planet, which is one of the lowest, having lost at every station some of the etherial and acquired an increase of material nature, both spirit and matter have become pretty much equilibrized in him. But... in the process of involution and evolution downward, matter is ever striving to stifle spirit, when arrived to the lowest point of his pilgrimage, the once pure Planetary Spirit will be found dwindled to — what Science agrees to call a primitive or Primordial man... At that point the great Law begins its work of selection. Matter found entirely divorced from spirit is thrown over into the still lower worlds... matter ground over in the workshop of nature proceeds soulless back to its Mother Fount; while the Egos purified of their dross are enabled to resume their progress... the laggard Egos perish by the millions. It is the solemn moment of the survival of the fittest the annihilation of those unfit."

"Man No. 1 makes his appearance at the apex of the circle of the spheres on sphere No. 1 after the completion of the seven rounds or periods of the two kingdoms (known to you) and thus he is said to be created on the eighth day (see Bible Chapter II; note verses 5 and 6 and think what is meant there by 'mist,' and verse 7 wherein Law the Universal great fashioner is termed 'God' by Christians and Jews, and understood as Evolution by Cabalists). During this first round 'animal man' runs, as you say, his cycle in a spiral. On the descending arc—whence he starts after the completion of the seventh round of animal life on his own individual seven rounds—he has to enter every sphere not as a lower animal as you understand it but as a lower man. Since during the cycle which preceded his round as a man he performed it as the highest type of animal. Your Lord God, says Bible, chapter I, verse 25 and 26—after having made all said: "Let us make man in our image," etc., and creates man an androgyne ape! (extinct on our planet) the highest intelligence in the animal kingdom and whose descendants you find in the anthropoids of to-day. p. 74"

"The present mankind is at its fourth round (mankind as a genus or a kind not a race nota bene) of the post-pralayan cycle of evolution; and as its various races, so the individual entities in them are unconsciously to themselves performing their local earthly seven-fold cycles—hence the vast difference in the degree of their intelligence, energy and so on. Now every individuality will be followed on the ascending arc by the law of retribution — Karma and Death accordingly. The perfect man or the entity which reached full perfection (each of his seven principles being matured), will not be re-born here."

"Who goes to Deva Chan? The personal Ego of course, but beatified, purified, holy. Every Ego [soul] —the combination of the sixth and seventh principles—which, after the period of unconscious gestation is reborn into the Deva-Chan, is of necessity as innocent and pure as a new-born babe. The fact of his being reborn at all, shows the preponderance of good over evil in his old personality. And while the Karma (of evil) steps aside for the time being to follow him in his future earth-reincarnation, he brings along with him but the Karma of his good deeds, words, and thoughts into this Deva-Chan."

"From remote times people have been accustomed to fear so-called death. They were always intimidated by hell, and at the same time were not told about the meaning of perfectment. We entrust Our co-workers to repeat as much as they can to people about the great Eternity and the continuity of life (reincarnation)... 44."

"One may think that he will be forever attached to one place; another may tell himself that he must always cling to one vocation; a third may convince himself that he cannot endure a change of location; a fourth may imagine that he will perish from his very first illness. Thus each one invents his own fetters, not realizing that in his former lives he has already experienced the many ways of existence. Such a conventional life on Earth, in complete ignorance of the past, does not allow one the opportunity to think about the future. Most people leave Earth not realizing that they will have to return again. If they could remember at least something of the past, and learn to think about the future, they would save themselves from many errors. It is not a fear of hell but a desire for perfection that will lead people to the betterment of life. We know the past, yet live in the future; We do not fear Infinity, and welcome each advance. The future stands as a great reality, separated from us only by a thin, closed door, and even now is being created by our every breath. When one’s consciousness is directed into the future, can one harbor rancor? There is no time for immersion in the past. People should know about the immutable law; it is not for human consciousness to interfere with the Law of Karma. Thus let us learn to fly... 75"

"The Teacher did not speak about reincarnation to the people because in His country this truth would not have been understood. Even among the disciples very few could fully comprehend the Law of Reincarnation. Some sects knew about reincarnation, but the idea provoked strong arguments and the majority doubted, just as it doubts today. The Teacher preferred to discuss those subjects that caused arguments with each person individually, for only in this way could he transmit the Truth according to the listener’s level of consciousness. 163"

"People cannot understand why some great incarnations are followed by seemingly insignificant ones, but who can tell what valuable object must be found during the difficult journey? Often, in the course of general self-perfectment, a small, precious stone is required that seems insignificant, but is of great value. Various incarnations indicate that an important task must be performed for the sake of general evolution. (233)"

"There is an ancient proverb, Karma is an executioner who guards his victim.” In other words, karma will not allow criminals to be destroyed and thus escape their punishment. Indeed, sometimes terrible and obvious evildoers continue to exist, although, humanly speaking, it would seem only just for them to have been destroyed. But is it possible to apply human measures where the Law of Absolute Justice operates? Sometimes the evildoers are punished by prolonged illness or, though in good physical health, become subject to the terrors of psychic unrest. One should not think that crime may be excused because of mental imbalance. We should search more deeply and look for causes rooted in the past. Such a study will clarify the concept of karma. The wise do not fear this law. Generally, humanity can be divided into two groups, those who fear the consequences of karma and those who accept them calmly. Avoid those who fear, for they almost certainly sense the approach of karmic retribution. They may not yet know anything about its effects, but in the depths of the Chalice the long-forgotten viper is rising to the surface. Mark well the way in which people differ according to their attitude toward the doctrine of reincarnation. Some are able to accept the full justice of this Law, but to others it seems monstrous. Perhaps those who are fearful have vague memories of their previous deeds, and have good reason for their present fears. Thus one can note the division of humanity. (378)"

"The Thinker taught His disciples not to fear the Law of Karma. He said, “The hunter enters the forest with much hope. How else can he set out? Without hope his hunt will not be successful.” (378)"

"One may rightly ask why certain cogent ideas are so slowly assimilated by the human consciousness. For instance, it is astonishing that, despite much proof, the concept of reincarnation is such a difficult doctrine for most people. After all, one should understand that the realization and acceptance of this law by all people would signal an end to chaos, and transform the entire earthly life. Compare those who have accepted this doctrine with those who oppose it, and you will understand who is of Light and who is of Darkness! (388)"

"Indeed, scientists of limited mind can observe heredity only within the context of the family; in other words, within the most narrow limitations. They occasionally do observe those inherited traits that may appear even after several generations. But they cannot make the more sensitive observations, because they do not believe in reincarnation or in the Supermundane World. It is impossible to properly observe man within these narrow, ignorant limitations, but one may hope that science will free itself and will achieve true insights. (929)"

"Yoruba also believe in reincarnation. The spirits of persons who have lived and died may come back in the new baby, usually to someone in the same family... that with every incarnations the spirit chooses and acquires a new destiny."

"The whole of Asia believes in reincarnation, in being reborn in another life. When you enquire what it is that is going to be born in the next life."

"Every one of us has a long line of... physical lives behind him... Each of such lives is a day at school. The ego puts upon himself his garment of flesh and goes forth into the school of the physical world to learn certain lessons. He learns them, or does not learn them, or partially learns them, as the case may be, during his school day of earth-life; then he lays aside the vesture of the flesh and returns home to his own level for rest and refreshment. In the morning of each new life he takes up again his lesson at the point where he left it the night before. Some lessons he may be able to learn in one day, while others may take him many days. If he is an apt pupil and learns quickly what is needed, if he obtains an intelligent grasp of the rules of the school, and takes the trouble to adapt his conduct to them, his school-life is comparatively short, and when it is over he goes forth fully equipped into the real life of the higher worlds for which all this is only a preparation... Duller boys who do not learn so quickly... do not understand the rules... and through that ignorance are constantly breaking them... All of these have a longer school-life, and by their own actions they delay their entry upon the real life of the higher worlds."

"This is a school in which no pupil ever fails; every one must go on to the end. He has no choice as to that; but the length of time which he will take in qualifying himself for the higher examinations is left entirely to his own discretion. The wise pupil, seeing that school-life is not a thing in itself, but only a preparation... endeavours to comprehend as fully as possible the rules of his school, and shapes his life in accordance with them as closely as he can, so that no time may be lost in the learning of whatever lessons are necessary... Theosophy explains to us the laws under which this school-life must be lived, and in that way gives a great advantage to its students. The first great law is that of evolution. Every man has to become a perfect man, to unfold to the fullest degree the divine possibilities which lie latent within him, for that unfoldment is the object of the entire scheme so far as he is concerned."

"Theosophy explains to us the laws under which this school-life must be lived, and in that way gives a great advantage to its students. The first great law is that of evolution... The second great law under which this evolution is taking place is the law of cause and effect. There can be no effect without its cause, and every cause must produce its effect. They are in fact not two but one, for the effect is really part of the cause, and he who sets one in motion sets the other also. There is in Nature no such idea as that of reward or punishment, but only of cause and effect. Anyone can see this in connection with mechanics or chemistry..."

"According to which the man who sends out a good thought or does a good action receives good in return, while the man who sends out an evil thought or does an evil action, receives evil in return with equal accuracy—once more, not in the least a reward or punishment administered by some external will, but simply as the definite and mechanical result of his own activity. The action of this law affords the explanation of a number of the problems of ordinary life. It accounts for the different destinies imposed upon people, and also for the differences in the people themselves. If one man is clever in a certain direction and another is stupid, it is because in a previous life the clever man has devoted much effort to practise in that particular direction, while the stupid man is trying it for the first time."

"Another most valuable result of his Theosophical study is the absence of fear. Many people are constantly anxious or worried about something or other; they are fearing lest this or that should happen to them, lest this or that combination may fail, and so all the while they are in a condition of unrest; and most serious of all for many is the fear of death... He realizes the great truth of reincarnation. He knows that he has often before laid aside physical bodies, and so he sees that death is no more than sleep—that just as sleep comes in between our days of work and gives us rest and refreshment, so between these days of labour here on earth, which we call lives, there comes a long night..."

"The Existence of Perfected Men is one of the most important of the many new facts which Theosophy puts before us. It follows logically from the other great Theosophical teachings of karma and evolution by reincarnation. As we look round us we see men obviously at all stages of their evolution—many far below ourselves in development, and others who in one way or another are distinctly in advance of us."

"A man came to Him one day, as people in trouble were wont to do, and told him that he had great difficulty with his meditation, which he could scarcely succeed in doing at all. Then the Buddha told him that there was a very simple reason for it—that in a previous life he had foolishly been in the habit of annoying certain holy men and disturbing their meditations. Yet that man may have been more advanced... than some of his companions whose meditations were well done."

"Many concepts like reincarnation, meditation, yoga and others have found worldwide acceptance. It would not be surprising to find Hinduism the dominant religion of the twenty-first century. It would be a religion that doctrinally is less clear-cut"

"Dasavatar (ten descendents) is collective name for the ten avatars (incarnations on earth) of the god Vishnu. In each case Vishnu takes form to restore the cosmic equilibrium when it has been thrown out of balance by the action of a particular demon."

"I did not begin when I was born, nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing, through incalculable myriads of millenniums… All my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me... Oh, incalculable times again shall I be born."

"One day, as Ryan and Cyndi paged through one of the Hollywood books, Ryan stopped at a black-and-white still taken from a 1930s movie, Night After Night. Two men in the center of the picture were confronting one another. Four other men surrounded them. Cyndi didn’t recognize any of the faces, but Ryan pointed to one of the men in the middle. “Hey Mama,” he said. “That’s George. We did a picture together.” His finger then shot over to a man on the right, wearing an overcoat and a scowl. “That guy’s me. I found me!” Ryan’s claims, while rare, are not unique among the more than 2,500 case files sitting inside the offices of Jim B. Tucker (Res ’89), an associate psychiatry professor at the UVA Medical Center’s Division of Perceptual Studies."

"Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation … The other eight are unimportant."

"Only that Teaching which contains all hope, which makes life beautiful, which manifests action, can promote true evolution. Certainly life is not a market, where one can make a fine bargain for entrance into the Heavenly Kingdom. Certainly life is not a grave, where one trembles before the justice of an Unknown Judge! In keeping with their opinion, scholars have proposed the ingenious consolation: “Man begins to die from the moment of his birth” — a scanty and funereal comfort. But We say that man is eternally being born, and particularly at the moment of so-called death. The servitors of distorted religions encourage their wards in the purchase of places in the cemetery, where through their advance arrangements they will lie more advantageously and honorably than others more indigent and hence undeserving of lengthy prayers. The incense for these poor ones will be adulterated and the prayers abominably sung. Ask people, finally, what authentic Teaching has enjoined this monstrous practice? Verily, we have had enough of graves, cemeteries, and intimidations! 334."

"One may know how loftily the Teachers have regarded the transition to future manifestations, and least of all have They been concerned about a cemetery site. The attitude toward death is a very important indicator of the character of the Teaching, for in it is contained the understanding of reincarnation. I urge you to consider reincarnation strictly scientifically. If you can propound any other structure of the universe, We shall reserve for you a chair as professor of theology and promise you a first-class funeral; for indeed in the eyes of the enlightened you will have already decided to die. Read attentively the writings of the Teachers published by you, and you will be amazed at how unanimously in all ages They speak about the change of life. The Path of Light will appear when you venture to look scientifically and without prejudices."

"Even reincarnation is still regarded as a curiosity or a superstition. All the indications regarding the laws of nature have yet to lead to significant conclusions. I am repeating this not for you but for the timid ignoramuses who attempt to cover crime in a cloak of irresponsibility. How they dread death! In fact, they are even afraid to cross to the other side of the river. Their ignorance needs to be disturbed once in a while. 458."

"Frequently you hear absurd tales of how there occur simultaneous incarnations of one and the same person—a conclusion both ignorant and harmful. Deniers of incarnation make use of such fictions to dispute the possibility of reincarnation. Besides, they forget the reason—which somewhat lessens the guilt—namely imaginative invention. Certain people remember the details of a definite epoch; when they dream of being a well-known person, their remembrance of the dream molds the imagining of an incarnation. The resulting error is in the person, but not in the epoch. A child imagines himself a field marshal, and such a representation already sinks into his Chalice.Many remember their past lives, but through obscuration of consciousness they call forth their own past imaginings. One needs to be careful also not to censure too greatly the mistakes of others. 491."

"Morya, Aum, Agni Yoga (1936)"

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine."

"You have evolved from worm to man, but much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes.""

"One of their sages said that he, being one and the same person, was born a man, and afterwards assumed the form of a woman, and flew about with the birds, and grew as a bush, and obtained the life of an aquatic creature — and he who said these things of himself did not, so far as I can judge, go far from the truth: for such doctrines as this of saying that one soul passed through so many changes are really fitting for the chatter of frogs or jackdaws, or the stupidity of fishes, or the insensibility of trees."

"Each soul enters the world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defects of its past lives. Its place in this world is determined by past virtues and shortcomings."

"Through the travail of the ages, Midst the pomp and toil of war, Have I fought and strove and perished countless times upon this star. In the form of many people In all panoplies of time Have I seen the luring vision Of the Victory Maid, sublime. I have sinned and I have suffered, Played the hero and the knave; Fought for belly, shame, or country, And for each have found a grave... I cannot name my battles For the visions are not clear, Yet, I see the twisted faces And I feel the rending spear. I have fought with gun and cutlass On the red and slippery deck, With all Hell aflame within me And a rope around my neck... So as through a glass, and darkly, The age long strife I see Where I fought in many guises, Many names, but always me... And I see not in my blindness What the objects were I wrought, But as God rules o'er our bickerings, It was through His will I fought. So forever in the future, Shall I battle as of yore, Dying to be born a fighter, But to die again, once more."

"The Pythagorean doctrine prevails among the Gauls' teaching that the souls of men are immortal, and that after a fixed number of years they will enter into another body."

"Sikhs believe in reincarnation. This means when you die, your soul moves on to another body. This cycle of dying and being born again happens over and over again. It goes on until with God’s help you become close enough to God to break out of the cycle."

"Believing in reincarnation makes a difference to what Sikhs believe about death. They say it is like going to sleep. You go to sleep when you are tired, and wake up ready for another day. In the same way, you die, and are born again to a new life. Of course, friends and relations are sad that the person they love is not with them, but Sikhism teaches them to remember that the person has gone on to another life."

"Late planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator Carl Sagan, who was well known for being a “hard” and rigid scientist, was actually a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). Not many scientists even entertain the possibility that what we call “paranormal” may in fact be real and in some way provable using the scientific method. Sagan was quite famous, yet his interest in the paranormal was and is not really known amongst the general population. He once wrote that “there are three claims in the (parapsychology) field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study with the third being that young children sometimes report details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation.” He wrote this in 1996. It’s now more than two decades later and the number of examples and evidence accumulated suggesting that reincarnation, or at least some form it, is real is quite eye-opening."

"Serious scientific study of reincarnation has spanned the last several decades. There are many interesting cases of children remembering details they could not have obtained from anywhere else. For example, a report published in 2016 in the journal Explore titled “The Case of James Leininger: An American Case of the Reincarnation Type” published by Jim B. Tucker, MD from the University of Virginia, explains, Numerous cases of young children who report memories of previous lives have been studied over the last 50 years. Though such cases are more easily found in cultures that have a general belief in reincarnation, they occur in the West as well."

"Soul is older than body. Souls are continually born over again into this life. The idea of Reincarnation was spread widely in Greece and Italy by Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Virgil and Ovid. It was known to the Neo-Platonists, Plotinus and Proclus. Plotinus says: "The soul leaving the body becomes that power which it has most developed. Let us fly then from here below and rise to the intellectual world, that we may not fall into a purely sensible life by allowing ourselves to follow sensible images....""

"The company of disembodied souls is distributed in various orders. The law of some of them is to enter mortal bodies, and after certain prescribed periods be again set free. Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Christ, preached amongst the Hebrews the Platonic idea of the pre-existence and rebirth of human souls."

"The strength of the doctrine of reincarnation lies in itself, in its appeal to our intellectual and logical faculties, in its own persuasiveness, in the manner in which it answers problems, in the hope that it gives, in the light that it sheds upon collateral questions of human life, and indirectly upon the problems of the physical world surrounding us. It is through and by reincarnation as a natural fact, that we learn the beauty of the inner life and thereby grow, developing a larger comprehension, not only of ourselves, but of the loveliness inherent in the harmony of the universal laws."

"The theory of metempsychosis plays almost as great a part in Greek as in Indian religious thought. Both Pythagoras and Empedocles claimed to possess the power of recollecting their past births. Metempsychosis is refered to in many places in Pindar, and, with the complementary doctrine of Karma, it is the key-stone of the philosophy of Plato. The soul is for ever travelling in a “cycle of necessity”. The evil it does in one semicircle of its pilgrimage is expiated in the other. “Each soul”, we are told in the Phaedrus, “returning to the election of a second life, shall receive one agreeable to his desire”. But most striking of all is the famous apologue of Er the Pamphylian, with which Plato appropriately ends the Republic […] “In like manner, some of the animals passed into men, and into one another, the unjust passing into the wild, and the just into the tame.”’"

"I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life."

"The human soul continues to live after death precisely in the same manner as before. The souls of animals also, to a certain degree, seem to have been considered as having an existence independent of the body, and continuing after its death. Here and there traces have also been found of a belief in the migration of souls, both between dead and living men, and between men and animals."

"A fully developed psychology will not exist until reincarnation is accepted as a fact."

"Although the law of Reincarnation was a cornerstone of every ancient religion of the East, and of course the religion of the Jews was no exception, already in the days of Jesus this law was badly distorted by the priesthood and maintained its purity only among individual sects."

"In the New Testament we have plenty of proof regarding this knowledge of the Jews; Christ Himself confirms it. For instance, in the Gospel of St. Matthew (17:10-13), "And his disciples asked him, saying, why then say the scribes that Elias must come first? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist."...St. John (9:1-3): "As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." Indeed, how could a person blind from birth be responsible for his sins without the law of Reincarnation! There are other very clear hints, but you should find them for yourself."

"You write, "No wonder Christ did not find it possible to reveal this truth (the law of Reincarnation) directly and openly to the undeveloped human minds." But I think it would be more correct to say that although the law of Reincarnation was a cornerstone of every ancient religion of the East... already in the days of Jesus this law was badly distorted by the priesthood and maintained its purity only among individual sects. In the New Testament we have plenty of proof regarding this knowledge..."

"Others pay attention to the law of Reincarnation...a cornerstone of all the most ancient religions. From these sources Christianity later borrowed all its symbols and ceremonies. ...We should not forget that the law of Reincarnation was rejected only in the sixth century by the Council of Constantinople. And we are supposed to accept as revelation and dogma the authority of the Fathers of the Church who, with great seriousness, discussed such problems as "How many spirits may be placed on the end of a needle?" or such similar pearls as "Has woman a soul?"

"It is impossible to stop all progress, and it is impossible to share the mentality of the ancient priesthood, the creators of Christian dogmas, who, at their synods for instance, discussed very seriously how many spirits could be placed on the end of a needle, or whether or not woman possessed a soul, and similar gems of profound spiritual revelation... Let us not forget that the law of Reincarnation was rejected by these wise men only in the sixth century, at the Council of Constantinople. No, it is time to look through all the Teachings, discard the later distorted accumulations, and return to the pure original sources. It would be advisable for the fathers of the church to recollect the Covenant of Christ, and of his favorite disciple, "love one another." Then everything would take its right place."

"Thus, we should find that the law of Reincarnation was rejected by the Council of Constantinople in the sixth century A.D., in spite of the fact that the Gospel itself contains words of Christ that have obvious reference to the law of Reincarnation. If people would take the trouble to study seriously the fundamental Teaching of Christ, and if possible in the original language of the Gospels instead of being satisfied with the school textbooks, they would discover a new meaning in the words, and the true, great Image of Christ would be revealed to their spiritual sight."

"Just think! Only in the sixth century A.D. was the dogma of Reincarnation rejected by the Second Council of Constantinople! Thus the contrivances of greedy and petty minds were stratified and become dogma for the following generations which did not yet dare to think independently... And there are so many affirmations in the Gospel about Reincarnation, actually in the words of Christ himself. The Fathers of the Church committed great sin by eliminating this law of the Highest Justice from the consciousness of the flocks entrusted to them. But we are no less sinful in our passive indulgence, and non-resistance to evil."

"Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form. The child weaned from mother’s milk Now drinks wine and honey mixed. God’s joys move from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed And roses, up from ground."

"I died as a mineral and became a plant,I died as a plant and rose to animal, I died as an animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?"

"At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images 'projected' at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation. I pick these claims not because I think they're likely to be valid (I don't), but as examples of contentions that might be true. The last three have at least some, although still dubious, experimental support. Of course, I could be wrong."

"Galileo's head was on the block... The crime was looking up for truth... And then you had to bring up reincarnation... How long 'til my soul gets it right... Can any human being ever reach that kind of light... I call on the resting soul of Galileo... King of night vision, king of insight... I'm not making a joke, you know me...I take everything so seriously... If we wait for the time 'til all souls get it right... Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihilation... Can any human being ever reach the highest light... Except for Galileo — God rest his soul... Except for the resting soul of Galileo... King of night vision, king of insight."

"Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge.. It has nothing to do with individual. The ego or its separation is an illusion. The goal of man is to preserve his Karma and to develop it further – when man dies his karma lives and creates for itself another carrier."

"Reincarnation is one of the most extraordinary and potentially significant religious concepts. I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence."

"I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil."

"Yoga says instinct is a trace of an old experience that has been repeated many times and the impressions have sunk down to the bottom of the mental lake. Although they go down, they aren’t completely erased. Don’t think you ever forget anything. All experiences are stored in the chittam [mind]; and, when the proper atmosphere is created, they come to the surface again. When we do something several times it forms a habit. Continue with that habit for a long time, and it becomes your character. Continue with that character and eventually, perhaps in another life, it comes up as instinct."

"There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive."

"John the Baptist was according to the Jews a second Elijah; Jesus was believed by many to be the re-appearance of some other prophet. (See Matt, xvi, 14, also xvii, 12.) Solomon says in his Book of Wisdom: "I was a child of good nature and a good soul came to me, or rather because I was good I came into an undefiled body.""

"The idea of reincarnation forms an important principle in the religion of Hinduism adhered to by the great majority of the inhabitants of India...Its doctrines and practices do not differ much today than what they were thousands of years ago. The persuasions of Muslim and Christian conquerors and missionaries have had little impact on the continuing belief of all Indians in the basic ideas of Hinduism."

"Opinions differ whether human souls can be reincarnated on the earth or not. In 1936 a very interesting case was thoroughly investigated and reported by the government authorities in India. A girl (Shanti Devi from Deli) could accurately describe her previous life (at Muttra, five hundred miles from Deli) which ended about a year before her 'second birth'. She gave the name of her husband and child and described her home and life history. The investigating commission brought her to her former relatives, who verified all her statements. Among the people of India reincarnations are regarded as commonplace; the astonishing thing for them in this case was the great number of facts the girl remembered. This and similar cases can be regarded as additional evidence for the theory of the indestructibility of memory."

"Unending Love I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times... In life after life, in age after age, forever. My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs, That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms, In life after life, in age after age, forever. Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain, It's ancient tale of being apart or together. As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge, Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time. You become an image of what is remembered forever. You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount. At the heart of time, love of one for another. We have played along side millions of lovers, Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting, the distressful tears of farewell, Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever. Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you The love of all man's days both past and forever: Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life. The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours - And the songs of every poet past and forever."

"To Indians the idea of the transmigration of the soul from animal to man, and man to animal, does not seem strange, and so from our scriptures pity for all sentient creatures has not been banished as a sentimental exaggeration. When I am in close touch with Nature in the country, the Indian in me asserts itself and I cannot remain coldly indifferent to the abounding joy of life throbbing within the soft down-covered breast of a single tiny bird."

"Consider for example the past-life memories of people under hypnosis. Whether these are actual memories of previous lives or not has yet to be proved, but the fact remains, the human inconscious has a natural propensity for generating at least apparent memories of previous incarnations. In general, the orthodox psychiatric community ignores this fact. Why?"

"It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round."

"Two Voices: Or, if through lower lives I came-- Tho' all experience past became, Consolidate in mind and frame-- I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not."

"As far back as I can remember I have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of existence."

"I (my ghost) was taken to the place where the sun sets (the west).... While at that place, I thought I would come back to earth again, and the old man with whom I was staying said to me, “My son, did you not speak about wanting to go to the earth again?” I had, as a matter of fact, only thought of it, yet he knew what I wanted. Then he said to me, “You can go, but you must ask the chief first.” Then I went and told the chief of the village of my desire, and he said to me, “You may go and obtain your revenge upon the people who killed your relatives and you.” Then I was brought down to earth.... There I lived until I died of old age.... As I was lying [in my grave], someone said to me, “Come, let us go away.” So then we went toward the setting of the sun. There we came to a village where we met all the dead. … thence I came to this earth again for the third time, and here I am. I am growing through the same that I knew before."

"The case of Thunder Cloud exemplifies another recurrent theme: that those who die in battle are especially privileged or likely to be reborn with their memory of previous life intact."

"As we live through thousands of dreams in out present life, so is our present life only one of many thousands of such lives which we enter from the other more real life... and then return after death. Our life is but one of the dreams of that more real life, and so it is endlessly, until the very last one, the very real life of God."

"Some one happened to mention to me that a certain Madame Blavatsky had just arrived in London, bringing with her a new religion... I set off to call upon her... I asked her to explain her new religion... I explained to her my difficulties, which she proceeded to solve by expounding the doctrines of reincarnation and Karma. They jumped instantly to my reason. I there and then found the Just God, of whom I had been in search. From that day to this I have never had reason to swerve from those beliefs. The older I grow, the more experience I gather, the more I read, the more confirmed do I become in the belief that such provide the only rational explanation of this life, the only natural hope in the world to come. I have offered those beliefs to very many people whom I discovered to be on the same quest as I had been. I have never once had them rejected by any serious truth-seeker, and I have seen them passed on and on by these people to others, forming enormous ramifications which became lost to view in the passage of time and their own magnitude."

"Blavatsky began by exploding the theory that men are born equal. If this one life were all, then this great error ought, in common justice, to be absolute truth, and every man should possess common rights in the community, and one man ought to be as good as another. If every soul born to-day is a fresh creation, who will in the course of time pass away from this life for ever, then why is it that one is only fitted to obey, whilst another is eminently fitted to rule? One is born with a tendency to vice and crime, another to virtue and honesty. One is born a genius, another is born to idiocy. How, she asked, could a firm social foundation ever be built up on this utter disregard of nature? How treat, as having right to equal power, the wise and the ignorant, the criminal and the saint? Yet, if man be born but once it would be very unjust to build on any other foundation. Re-incarnation implies the evolution of the soul, and it makes the equality of man a delusion. In evolution time plays the greatest part, and through evolution humanity is climbing. "Souls while eternal in their essence are of different ages in their individuality.""

"Many of us must know people who though quite old in years are children in mind. Men and women who having arrived at three score years and ten are still utterly childish and inconsequent. They are young souls who have had the experiences of very few earth lives. Again, we all know children who seem born abnormally old. Infant prodigies, musicians, calculators, painters who have brought over their genius from a former life."

"Burn him not up, nor quite consume him, Agni: let not his body or his skin be scattered. O Jatavedas, when thou hast matured him, then send him on his way unto the Fathers... let thy fierce flame, thy glowing splendour, burn him With thine auspicious forms, o Jatavedas, bear this man to the region of the pious... Again, O Agni, to the Fathers send him who, offered in thee, goes with our oblations. Wearing new life let him increase his offspring: let him rejoin a body, Jatavedas then."

"The latest scientific men are coming back to the ancient sages, and as far as they have done so, there is perfect agreement. They admit that each man and each animal is born with a fund of experience, and that all these actions in the mind are the result of past experience. "But what," they ask, "is the use of saying that that experience belongs to the soul? Why not say it belongs to the body, and the body alone? Why not say it is hereditary transmission?" This is the last question. *Why not say that all the experience with which I am born is the resultant effect of all the past experience of my ancestors? The sum total of the experience from the little protoplasm up to the highest human being is in me, but it has come from body to body in the course of hereditary transmission. Where will the difficulty be? This question is very nice, and we admit some part of this hereditary transmission. How far? As far as furnishing the material. We, by our past actions, conform ourselves to a certain birth in a certain body, and the only suitable material for that body comes from the parents who have made themselves fit to have that soul as their offspring."

"Doctrine of reincarnation is neither absurd nor useless. It is not more surprising to be born twice than once."

"Reincarnation teaches that the soul enters this life, not as a fresh creation, but after a long course of previous existences on this earth and elsewhere, in which it acquired its present inhering peculiarities, and that it is on the way to future transformations which the soul is now shaping."

"It claims that infancy brings to earth, not a blank scroll for the beginning of an earthly record, nor a mere cohesion of atomic forces into a brief personality, soon to dissolve again into the elements, but that it is inscribed with ancestral histories, some like the present scene, most of them unlike it and stretching back into the remotest past. These inscriptions are generally undecipherable, save as revealed in their moulding influence upon the new career; but like the invisible photographic images made by the sun of all it sees, when they are properly developed in the laboratory of consciousness they will be distinctly displayed. The current phase of life will also be stored away in the secret vaults of memory, for its unconscious effects upon the ensuing lives."

"All the qualities we now possess, in body, mind and soul, result from our use of ancient opportunities. We are indeed 'the heir of all the ages,' and are alone responsible for our inheritances. For these conditions accrue from distant causes engendered by our older selves, and the future flows by the divine law of cause and effect from the gathered momentum of our past impetuses. There is no favoritism in the universe, but all have the same everlasting facilities for growth."

"Those who are now elevated in worldly station may be sunk in humble surroundings in the future. Only the inner traits of the soul are permanent companions. The wealthy sluggard may be the beggar of the next life; and the industrious worker of the present is sowing the seeds of future greatness. Suffering bravely endured now will produce a treasure of patience and fortitude in another life; hardships will give rise to strength; self-denial must develop the will; tastes cultivated in this existence will somehow bear fruit in coming ones; and acquired energies will assert themselves whenever they can by the Law of Parsimony upon which the principles of physics are based. Vice versa, the unconscious habits, the uncontrollable impulses, the peculiar tendencies, the favorite pursuits, and the soul-stirring friendships of the present descend from far-reaching previous activities."

"Jane's attitude toward reincarnation (like mine) was strongly ambivalent. the idea of physical life being expressed in many historical situations made emotional and intuitive sense to her. Intellectually, however, she was highly suspicious of the standard notion of reincarnation, particularly as any kind of pat answer to present problems. Thus, when class started to experience the theory of reincarnation in emotionally-charged drama form, Jane would often find herself in a most uncomfortable one-foot-on-the-dock, one-foot-in-the-boat position, at once intellectually scandalized and intuitively involved. Even on those occasions when the inner events would "click," or when Seth gave past-life information that made complete sense to people, Jane worried about it for days afterwards. What was the meaning of such memories? Where did they come from? Were we creating the events through suggestion, combined with a need for emotional outlet? Or did we actually remember people who lived -- in our terms -- long before any of us were born? these questions demanded the class maintain a balance, from which Jane never let things stray too far."

"I know I am deathless... We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers, There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them."

"In Hebrew literature the idea of reincarnation seems to appear for the first time in the writings of Anan ben David (eighth century) who used the term gulgul to refer to the transmigration of souls. Within Judaism, belief in reincarnation is closely associate with esoteric tradition known as Kabbalah. The earliest documented Kabbalistic writing is called the Book of Formation (Sepher Yetzirah)...Within this tradition of Judaism, the primary text that describes the complex laws of reincarnation is The Gate of Reincarnations (Sha’ar Ha’Gilgulim), based on the writings of the master Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-72) and compiled by his disciple, Rabbi Chaim Vital. The Book of Splendor (Sepher ha Zohar) gives a rationale for reincarnation that is virtually identical to that of early Christian theologian Origen."

"The New Testament declared that John was imbued with Elijah’s “spirit and power”, which could easily be interpreted as his being a reincarnation of Elijah. But theologians have interpreted these passages in various ways."

"It is possible that in his many travels, Pythagoras may have learned this [Pythagoras theorem] and other branches of knowledge, especially pertaining to meditation, from Indian sources. He is also known for his belief in reincarnation, according to which the soul is immortal and is reborn in both human and animal bodies. Legend has it that he claimed to be able to recall up to twenty of his own and other past lives."

"According to a Harrris Poll taken in 1998, 23 percent of American public professed belief in reincarnation, including 23 percent of Christians and 32 percent of non-Christians. Similar surveys recently taken in the United Kingdom indicate that 30 to 35 percent of the British population believe in reincarnation."

"Belief in reincarnation is present in all schools of Buddhism, initially stemming from Buddha’s experience of enlightenment. He concluded that three things are necessary for the emergence of a human psyche and the formation of a human embryo; the parents sexual intercourse; ovulation in the mother; the presence of a being in the intermediate state who has the karma to be reborn to those parents at the time. While such beings are influenced by their karma, or actions in their past lives, they also choose the parents to whom they shall be born. So reincarnation is not a matter of predetermination where the future is totally determined by past events."

"Intimations of Immortality The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar."

"Leaves of Grass: As to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before."

"By perceiving the Samskaras one acquires the knowledge of past lives."

"The whole process is expressed in Eastern philosophy by the doctrine of the Reincarnation of the individual soul. This doctrine is now accepted by a majority in the West as being possible and all Hindus and Buddhists have believed in reincarnation for thousands of years. (I. Reincarnation)"

"The scientific explanation of this theory is now exposed and augments the writings of the Hindus. We know that from very ancient times it was believed by the philosophers, sages and prophets of different countries. The ancient civilization of Egypt was built upon a crude form of the doctrine of Reincarnation. Herodotus says:"The Egyptians propounded the theory that the human soul is imperishable, and that where the body of any one dies it enters into some other creature that may be ready to receive it. (I. Reincarnation)"

"Does heredity explain such cases? No. These illustrations are sufficient to disprove the theory of "cumulative heredity". "Cumulative" means gradualness. The believers in this theory say that a genius is the result of cumulative heredity, that is, it presents itself by degrees from less genius to greater and still greater and so on. In the whole history of the genealogy of geniuses, like Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Goethe, Raphael, there never was in their families almost Plato, almost Shakespeare, or almost Goethe. Neither is it possible to trace the extraordinary powers of any of these back to any member of their ancestral line. Therefore we can say that no other theory than that of Reincarnation can explain satisfactorily the causes which produce geniuses and prodigies in this world. (II. Heredity & Reincarnation)"

"Those who accept the truth of Reincarnation do not blame their parents for their poor talents, or for not possessing extraordinary powers, but they remain content with their own lot, knowing that they have made themselves as they are today by their own thoughts and deeds in their previous incarnations. They understand the meaning of the saying, "What thou sowest, thou must reap," and always endeavor to mould their future by better thoughts and better deeds. They explain all the inequalities and diversities of life and character by the law of "Karma," which governs the process of Reincarnation as well as the gradual evolution of the germs of life from lower to higher stages of existence. (II. Heredity & Reincarnation)"

"There are many stages in the higher nature, as well as in the lower. Each of these stages binds the individual soul so long as it stays there. As it rises on a higher plane the lower stages disappear and cease to bind. But the moment that any individual... reaches the ultimate point of perfection, he realizes his true nature which is immortal and divine. Then his true individuality manifests. For lack of true knowledge, he identified himself with each stage successively and thought that his individuality was one with the powers which were manifested in each stage... But now he realizes that his real individuality always remained unaffected. He sees that his true individuality shines always in the same manner... (III. Evolution and Reincarnation)"

"The subtle body of an individual changes from animal nature through moral and spiritual into divine. As this gradual growth cannot be expected in one life we shall have to admit the truth of Reincarnation, which teaches gradual evolution of the germ of life or the individual soul through many lives and various forms. Otherwise the theory of Evolution will remain imperfect, incomplete and purposeless. (III. Evolution and Reincarnation)"

"The doctrine of Reincarnation differs from the accepted theory of Evolution in admitting a gradual but continuous evolution of the subtle body through many gross forms. The gross body may appear or disappear, but the subtle body continues to exist even after the dissolution of the gross body and re-manifests itself in some other form. (III. Evolution and Reincarnation)"

"The theory of Reincarnation when properly understood will appear as a supplement to the theory of Evolution. Without this most important supplement the Evolution theory will never be complete and perfect. Evolution explains the process of life, while Reincarnation explains the purpose of life. Therefore, both must go hand in hand to make the explanation satisfactory in every respect. (III. Evolution and Reincarnation)"

"Evolution of the body depends upon the evolution of the germ of life or the individual soul. When these two are combined the explanation becomes perfect. (III. Evolution and Reincarnation)"

"The theory of Reincarnation is a logical necessity for the completion of the theory of Evolution. If we admit a continuous evolution of a unit of the germ of life through many gross manifestations then we unconsciously accept the teachings of the doctrine of Reincarnation. In passing through different forms and manifestations the unit of life does not lose its identity or individuality. As an atom does not lose its identity or individuality (if you allow me to suppose an atom has a kind of individuality) although it passes from the mineral, through the vegetable, into the animal, so the germ of life always preserves its identity or individuality although it passes through the different stages of evolution. (III. Evolution and Reincarnation)"

"If any person has no desire to come back to this world or to any other and does not want to enjoy any particular object of pleasure, and if he is perfectly free from selfishness that person will not have to come back. The theory of Reincarnation is logical and satisfactory. While the theory of Resurrection is neither based on scientific truths nor can it logically explain the cause of life and death, Reincarnation solves all the problems of life and explains scientifically all the questions and doubts that arise in the human mind. (IV. Which is Scientific—Resurrection or Reincarnation?)"

"Reincarnation is not easily understood by a thoughtless child deluded by the delusion of wealth, name or fame. Everything ends with death, he thinks, and thus falls again and again under the sway of death. (IV. Which is Scientific—Resurrection or Reincarnation?)"

"The theory of Transmigration according to the Hindus, rejects this idea of the going back of human souls to animal forms... however... in India there are many uneducated people among the Hindus who believe that human souls do migrate into animal bodies after death to gain experience and reap the results of their wicked deeds, being bound by the law of Karma... The educated and thoughtful minds of India, however, accept the more rational and scientific theory of Reincarnation. (IV. Which is Scientific—Resurrection or Reincarnation?)"

"Although there are passages in the scriptural writings of the Hindus which apparently refer to the retrogression of the human soul into animal nature, still such passages do not necessarily mean that the souls will be obliged to take animal bodies. They may live like animals even when they have human bodies, as we may find among us many people like cats and dogs and snakes in human form and they are often more vicious than natural cats, dogs or snakes. They are reaping their own Karma and manifesting their animal nature, though physically they look like human beings. This kind of retrogression is possible for one who after reaching the human plane goes backward on account of wicked thoughts and deeds on the animal plane. (V. Theory of Transmigration)"

"For instance, if I do not know that fire burns, I may put my finger into it and get burned. The result of this mistake is the burning of the finger and this has taught me once for all that fire burns; I shall never again put my finger into fire. So every mistake is a great teacher in the long run. (V. Theory of Transmigration)"

"No one is born so high and perfect as not to commit any mistake or any sin. Every mistake like this opens our eyes to the laws of the universe by bringing to us such results as we do not desire. As one life is not enough to gain experience in all the stages of evolution, we must have to admit the doctrine of the Reincarnation of the soul for the fulfillment of the ultimate purpose of earthly life. (V. Theory of Transmigration)"

"A heavy task lies before us, and beginning on the physical plane we shall climb slowly upwards, but a bird’s eye view of the great sweep of evolution and of its purpose may help us, ere we begin our detailed study in the world that surrounds us."

"Narrowing down our view to the chain of which our globe is one, we see life-waves sweep round informing the kingdoms of nature, the three elemental, the mineral, vegetable, animal, human. Narrowing down our view still further to our own globe and its surroundings, we watch human evolution, and see man developing self-consciousness by a series of many life-periods; then centering on a single man we trace his growth and see that each life-period has a threefold division that each is linked to all life-periods behind it reaping their results, and to all life-periods before it sowing their harvests, by a law that cannot be broken; that thus man may climb upwards with each life-period adding to his experience, each life-period lifting him higher in purity, in devotion, in intellect, in power of usefulness, until at last he stands where They stand who are now the Teachers, fit, to pay to his younger brothers the debt he owes to Them. p. 39"

"If it be admitted that the soul of the savage is destined to live and evolve, and that he is not doomed for eternity to his present infant state, but that his evolution will take place after death and in other worlds, then the principle of soul-evolution is conceded, and the question of the place of evolution alone remains."

"Were all souls on earth at the same stage of evolution, much might be said for the contention that further worlds are needed for the evolution of souls beyond the infant stage. But we have around us souls that are far advanced, and that were born with noble mental and moral qualities. p. 108"

"Human evolution is the evolution of the Thinker... At first, as little conscious as a baby’s earthly body, he almost slept through life after life, till the experiences playing on him from without awakened some of his latent forces into activity; but gradually he assumed more and more part in the direction of his life, until, with manhood reached, he took his life into his own hands, and an ever-increasing control over his future destiny. p. 131"

"We are now in a position to study one of the pivotal doctrines of the Ancient Wisdom, the doctrine of reincarnation. Our view of it will be clearer and more in congruity with natural order, if we look at it as universal in principle, and then consider the special case of the reincarnation of the human soul."

"In studying it, this special case is generally wrenched from its place in natural order, and is considered as a dislocated fragment, greatly to its detriment. For all evolution consists of an evolving life, passing from form to form as it evolves, and storing up in itself the experiences gained through the forms; the reincarnation of the human soul is not the introduction of a new principle into evolution, but the adaptation of the universal principle to meet the conditions rendered necessary by the individualisation of the continuously evolving life. p. 180"

"A life of extreme hardship, of ceaseless struggle with nature, will develop very different powers from those evolved amid the luxuriant plenty of a tropical island; both sets of powers are needed, for the soul is to conquer every region of nature, but striking differences may thus be evolved even in souls of the same age, and one may appear to be more advanced than the other, according as the observer estimates most highly the more “practical” or the more “contemplative” powers of the soul, the active outward-going energies, or the quiet inward-turned musing faculties. The perfected soul possesses all, but the soul in the making must develop them successively, and thus arises another cause of the immense variety found among human beings. For again, it must be remembered that human evolution is individual. p. 202"

"We find differences separating individual men greater, than the ever separated, closely allied animals, and hence also the evolution of qualities cannot be studied in men in the mass, but only in the continuing individual. The lack of power to make such a study leaves science unable to explain why some men tower above their fellows, intellectual and moral giants, unable to trace the intellectual evolution of a Shankarâchârya or a Pythagoras, the moral evolution of a Buddha or of a Christ."

"With reincarnation man is a dignified, immortal being, evolving towards a divinely glorious end; without it, he is a tossing straw on the stream of chance circumstances , irresponsible for his character, for his actions, for his destiny. With it, he may look forward with fearless hope, however low in the scale of evolution he may be today, for he is on the ladder to divinity, and the climbing to its summit is only a question of time; without it, he has no reasonable ground of assurance as to progress in the future, nor indeed any reasonable ground of assurance in a future at all. Why should a creature without a past look forward to a future? He may be a mere bubble on the ocean of time. Flung into the world from non-entity, with qualities of good or evil, attached to him without reason or desert, why should he strive to make the best of them? Will not his future, if he have one, be as isolated, as uncaused, as unrelated as his present? In dropping reincarnation from its beliefs, the modern world has deprived God of His justice and has bereft man of his security; he may be “lucky” or “unlucky” but the strength and dignity conferred by reliance on a changeless law are rent away from him, and he is left tossing helplessly on an un-navigable ocean of life. p. 242"

"Basing all his doctrines upon the presence of the Supreme Mind, Plato taught that the nous, spirit, or rational soul of man, being “generated by the Divine Father,” possessed a nature kindred, or even homogeneous, with the Divinity, and was capable of beholding the eternal realities. This faculty of contemplating reality in a direct and immediate manner belongs to God alone. The aspiration for this knowledge constitutes what is really meant by philosophy—the love of wisdom. The love of truth is inherently the love of good; and so predominating over every desire of the soul, purifying it and assimilating it to the divine, thus governing every act of the individual, it raises man to a participation and communion with Divinity, and restores him to the likeness of God.“ This flight,” says Plato in the Theeetetus, “ consists in becoming like God, and this assimilation is the becoming just and holy with wisdom.” Vol. I, Before the Veil, xv"

"The doctrine of Metempsychosis has been abundantly ridiculed by men of science and rejected by theologians, yet if it had been properly understood in its application to the indestructibility of matter and the immortality of spirit, it would have been perceived that it is a sublime conception. Should we not first regard the subject from the stand-point of the ancients before venturing to disparage its teachers? The solution of the great problem of eternity belongs neither to religious superstition nor to gross materialism. The harmony and mathematical equiformity of the double evolution — spiritual and physical — are elucidated only in the universal numerals of Pythagoras, who built his system entirely upon the so-called "metrical speech" of the Hindu Vedas. Vol. I, Ch. I, p.8"

"If the Pythagorean metempsychosis should be thoroughly explained and compared with the modern theory of evolution, it would be found to supply every "missing link" in the chain of the latter. But who of our scientists would consent to lose his precious time over the vagaries of the ancients. Notwithstanding proofs to the contrary, they not only deny that the nations of the archaic periods, but even the ancient philosophers had any positive knowledge of the Heliocentric system. The "Venerable Bedes," the Augustines and Lactantii appear to have smothered, with their dogmatic ignorance, all faith in the more ancient theologists of the pre-Christian centuries. But now philology and a closer acquaintance with Sanskrit literature have partially enabled us to vindicate them from these unmerited imputations. In the Vedas, for instance, we find positive proof that so long ago as 2000 B.C., the Hindu sages and scholars must have been acquainted with the rotundity of our globe and the Heliocentric system. Hence, Pythagoras and Plato knew well this astronomical truth; for Pythagoras obtained his knowledge in India, or from men who had been there, and Plato faithfully echoed his teachings. Vol. 1, Ch. I, p.8,"

"There was not a philosopher of any notoriety who did not hold to this doctrine of metempsychosis, as taught by the Brahmans, Buddhists, and later by the Pythagoreans, in its esoteric sense, whether he expressed it more or less intelligibly. Origen and Clemens Alexandrinus, Synesius and Chalcidius, all believed in it; and the Gnostics, who are unhesitatingly proclaimed by history as a body of the most refined, learned, and enlightened men, were all believers in metempsychosis. Socrates entertained opinions identical with those of Pythagoras; and both, as the penalty of their divine philosophy, were put to a violent death..."

"The rabble has been the same in all ages. Materialism has been, and will ever be blind to spiritual truths. These philosophers held, with the Hindus, that God had infused into matter a portion of his own Divine Spirit, which animates and moves every particle. Aristotle, notwithstanding that for political reasons of his own he maintained a prudent silence as to certain esoteric matters, expressed very clearly his opinion on the subject. It was his belief that human souls are emanations of God, that are finally re-absorbed into Divinity. Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, taught that there are “two eternal qualities throughout nature: the one active; or male, the other passive, or female: that the former is pure, subtile ether, or Divine Spirit; the other entirely inert in itself till united with the active principle. Vol. 1, Ch. I, p. 14"

"Early in the present century a Florentine scientist, a skeptic and a correspondent of the French Institute, having been permitted to penetrate in disguise to the hallowed precincts of a Buddhist temple, where the most solemn of all ceremonies was taking place, relates the following as having been seen by himself. An altar is ready in the temple to receive the resuscitated Buddha, found by the initiated priesthood, and recognized by certain secret signs to have reincarnated himself in a new-born infant. The baby, but a few days old, is brought into the presence of the people and reverentially placed upon the altar. Suddenly rising into a sitting posture, the child begins to utter in a loud, manly voice...: "I am Buddha, I am his spirit; and I, Buddha, your Dalai-Lama, have left my old, decrepit body, at the temple of . . . and selected the body of this young babe as my next earthly dwelling." Our scientist, being finally permitted by the priests to take, with due reverence, the baby in his arms, and carry it away to such a distance from them as to satisfy him that no ventriloquial deception is being practiced, the infant looks at the grave academician with eyes that "make his flesh creep," as he expresses it, and repeats the words he had previously uttered. Vol. I, Ch. 12"

"A detailed account of this adventure, attested with the signature of this eye-witness, was forwarded to Paris, but the members of the Institute, instead of accepting the testimony of a scientific observer of acknowledged credibility, concluded that the Florentine was either suffering under an attack of sunstroke, or had been deceived by a clever trick of acoustics... there is a verse in the Lotus* which says that "A Buddha is as difficult to be found as the flowers of Udumbara and Palaca," if we are to believe several eye-witnesses, such a phenomenon does happen. Of course its occurrence is rare, for it happens but on the death of every great Dalai-Lama; and these venerable old gentlemen live proverbially long lives. Vol. I, Ch. 12"

"Thus, like the revolutions of a wheel, there is a regular succession of death and birth, the moral cause of which is the cleaving to existing objects, while the instrumental cause is karma (the power which controls the universe, prompting it to activity), merit and demerit. “It is, therefore, the great desire of all beings who would be released from the sorrows of successive births to seek the destruction of the moral cause, the cleaving to existing objects, or evil desire.” p. 346, Part II, Religion"

"ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians -- may their souls be happy in Heaven!"

"Ye Furies, and dreadful Styx, ye sufferings of the damned, and Chaos for ever eager to destroy the fair harmony of words, and thou, Pluto, condemned to an eternity of ungrateful existence, Hell and Elysium, of which no Thessalian witch shall partake, Prosperine, for ever cut off from thy health-giving mother, and horrid Hecate, Cerberus, cursed with incessant hunger, ye Destinies, and Charon, endlessly murmuring at the task I impose of bringing back the dead again to the land of the living, hear me! -if I call on you with a voice sufficiently impious and abominable, if I have never sung this chant unsated with human gore, if I have frequently laid on your altars the fruit of the pregnant mother, bathing its contents with the reeking brain if I have placed on a dish before you the head and entrails of an infant on the point to be born- I ask not of you a ghost, already a tenant of the Tartarian abodes, and long familiarized to the shades below, but one who has recently quitted the light of day, and who yet hovers over the mouth of hell: let him hear these incantations, and immediately after descent to his destined place! Let him articulate suitable omens to the son of his general, having so late been himself a soldier of the great Pompey! Do this, as you love the very sound and rumour of a civil war!"

"But though the Shawnees consider the sun the type, if not the essence, of the Great Spirit, many also believe in an evil genius, who makes all sorts of bad things, to counterbalance those made by the Good Spirit. For instance, when the latter made a sheep, a rose, wholesome herbs, etc., the bad spirit matched them with a wolf, a thorn, poisonous plants, and the like. They also appear to think there is a kind of purgatory in which the spirits of the wicked may be cleansed before entering into their elysium."

"Souls of poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?"

"[From De Joinville]: Now, I hold that, in most matrimonial instances, it is as well to provide for repentance ; and wealth has its advantages and its alleviations in affairs of the heart, as in all other affairs. It was by means of a golden bough that Æneas passed the evil spirits of Tartarus, and gained Elysium in safety."

"I thank Providence who has guided my destinies, that I now live; nay, that I live happier than a king of Persia. You know, fathers and fellow-citizens, that I am wholly occupied with this academical garden; that it is my Rhodus, or rather my Elysium. There I possess all the spoils of the east and the west which I wished for; and which, in my belief, are far more precious than the silken garments of the Babylonians, and the porcelain vases of the Chinese. There I receive and convey instruction. There I admire the wisdom of the Creator, which manifests itself in so many various modes, and demonstrate it to others."

"Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul And lap it in Elysium."

"Soon as thy son (believe the truths you hear) Shall in Elysium's blissful plains appear... In Hymen's silken chains the hero led, Must share the honours of Medea's bed."

"Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are."

"How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown, Within whose circuit is Elysium, And all that poets feign of bliss and joy."

"I'll be as patient as a gentle stream And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love; And there I'll rest, as, after much turmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium."

"Some, ’tis whisper’d, down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel."

"Devenere locos laetos et amoena vireta Fortunatonun nemorum, sedesque beatas."

"Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, Quique pii vates, et Phoebo digna locuti, Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes, Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo."

"The virtuous are then conveyed to Swarga or Elysium, whilst the wicked are driven to the different regions of Naraka or Tartarus."

"Among us on the earth there is His memory; but in the Kingdom of heaven His very Presence. That Presence is the joy of those who have already attained to beatitude; the memory is the comfort of us who are still wayfarers, journeying towards the Fatherland."

"This is the beatitude that the blessed might have, and yet they have it not, except in so far as they are dead to themselves and absorbed in God. They have it not in so far as they remain in themselves and can say: `I am blessed.' Words are wholly inadequate to express my meaning, and I reproach myself for using them. I would that everyone could understand me, and I am sure that if I could breathe on creatures, the fire of love burning within me would inflame them all with divine desire. O thing most marvelous!"

"In God is my being, my me, my strength, my beatitude, my good, and my delight. I say mine at present because it is not possible to speak otherwise, but I do not mean by it any such thing as me or mine, or delight or good, or strength or stability, or beatitude; nor could I possibly turn my eyes to behold such things in heaven or in the earth; and if, notwithstanding, I sometimes use words which may have the likeness of humility and of spirituality, in my interior I do not understand them, I do not feel them. In truth, it astonishes me that I speak at all, or use words so far removed from the truth and from that which I feel. I see clearly that man in this world deceives himself by admiring and esteeming things which are not, and neither sees nor esteems the things which are"

"Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and Patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations."

"Pope Leo XIII, Prayer to Saint Michael (1888)"

"Endowed with a spiritual soul, with intellect and with free will, the human person is from his very conception ordered to God and destined for eternal beatitude."

"Beauty is a reflection of divine beatitude; and since God is Truth, the reflection of His beatitude will be that blend of happiness and truth found in all beauty."

"The eternal fears no future, hopes for no future, but love possesses everything without ceasing, and there is no shadow of variation. As soon as he returns to himself, he understands this no more. He understands what bitter experiences have only all too unforgettably inculcated, the self-accusation, if the past has the kind of claim upon his soul that no repentance can entirely redeem, no trusting in God can entirely wipe out, but only God himself in the inexpressible silence of beatitude. The more of the past a person’s soul can still keep when he is left to himself, the more profound he is."

"My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that not enough to fill a man's whole life?"

"If we could sleep twenty-four hours a day, we would soon return to the primordial slime, the beatitude of that perfect torpor before Genesis-the dream of every consciousness sick of itself."

"Emil Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born (1973)"

"Suffering makes us capable of the full force of the Master of Delight; it makes us capable also to bear the utter play of the Master of Power. Pain is the key that opens the gates of strength; it is the high-road that leads to the city of beatitude."

"The former generations acted under the belief that a shining social prosperity was the beatitude of man, and sacrificed uniformly the citizen to the State. The modern mind believed that the nation existed for the individual, for the guardianship and education of every man. This idea, roughly written in revolutions and national movements, in the mind of the philosopher had far more precision; the individual is the world."

"If, in traditional philosophical thought, it is wisdom – a wisdom built upon knowledge, careful thought, judgment, and so one – that ought to lead to beatitude, then we must recognize that this beatitude has nothing to do with the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. But the banishment of knowledge – any form of knowledge, whether philosophical or scientific, intelligible or sensory – in the process of Christian salvation is not gratuitous but rather is motivated by the very nature of the expected salvation. In order to vanquish the Forgetting that renders the absolute Life Immemorial, the Forgetting in which thought holds Life, we would precisely not ask that of thought. The salvation that consists of rediscovering this absolute Life escapes all orders of knowledge, expertise, and science. It does spring from consciousness as understood by classical or modern thought, as in “consciousness of something.” It is not some “becoming conscious of” that can liberate a person. It is not the consciousness’s progress through various kinds of knowledge that will secure salvation."

"In her later poems, Hadewijch uses striking language and metaphysical themes that were to be further developed by the German mystic Meister Eckhart. She speaks of nakedness and void, of the shedding of the will, of all images and forms in order to attain “pure and naked Nothingness,” so that union with God is no longer experienced as the highest stage of beatitude but as a plunge into boundless unknowing, into the “wild desert” of the Divine Essence. To reach the divine summit, nothing must remain to encumber the spirit: “The circle of things must shrink and be annihilated so that the circle of nakedness can grow and extend in order to embrace the All.” Hadewijch’s language expresses the superabundance of spiritual experience, reflecting her participation in the trinitarian mysteries. She celebrates the divine names: Presence in the Son, Overflow in the Holy Spirit, Totality in the Father. Union with the three persons of the Holy Trinity in active and contemplative life leads to ultimate Unity, to the repose and silence of the soul in the depths of God. There exists an abyss between this experience of spiritual plenitude and her efforts to say something about it Words are utterly insufficient here, yet they must be used to communicate something of the “blessedness of being lost in the fruition of Love” to those who are capable of receiving such a message."

"Dante is eminently the poet of beatitude. He has not only no rival, but none second to him. But if we were asked to name the poet who most nearly deserved this inaccessible proxime accessit, I should name Shelley. Indeed, my claim for Shelley might be represented by the proposition that Shelley and Milton are, each, the half of Dante."

"Greece had to lose, her pure consciousness had to make our agony only more acute.We needed God loving us in our weakness and not in the glory of beatitude."

"It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude.... The more we give and confess to owe and render to God, we do it with the greater Christianity."

"Anchorites used to ill-treat themselves in the way they did, so that the common people would not begrudge them the beatitude they would enjoy in heaven."

"“The essence of happiness consists in an act of the intellect.” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica) … What is implicit in this sentence? This is implicit: the fulfillment of existence takes place in the manner in which we become aware of reality; the whole energy of our being is ultimately directed toward attainment of insight. The perfectly happy person, the one whose thirst has been finally quenched, who has attained beatitude—this person is the one who sees. The happiness, the quenching, the perfection, consists in this seeing."

"The indrawing attraction drags us out of ourselves, And calls us to be melted away and naughted in the Unity. And in this indrawing attraction we feel that God wills that we should be His, And for this we must abnegate ourselves and let our beatitude be accomplished in Him. But when He attracts us by flowing out towards us, He gives us over to ourselves and makes us free, And sets us in Time."

"When such a spiritual personality passes away, we do not pray for their Satgati (divine beatitude) or Atma Shanti (Supreme Peace). On the contrary, we pray to them for our peace and happiness, for they have attained all that and more even when they are in the physical bodies. Mankind will be ever greatful to Babaji for making their lives more beautiful and worth living. May Babaji's blessing continue to shower on one and all alike!"

"If man’s beatitude consists in the adhering of the human mind to God, perfect beatitude must require a perfect adhering to God. But the human mind cannot adhere perfectly to God through the medium of any creature, whether by way of knowledge or by way of love. All created forms fall infinitely short of representing the divine essence. Objects pertaining to a higher order of being cannot be known through a form belonging to a lower order. For example, a spiritual substance cannot be known through a body, and a heavenly body cannot be known through one of the elements. Much less can the essence of God be known through any created form. Yet, just as we gain a negative insight into higher bodies from a study of lower bodies, thus learning, for instance, that they are neither heavy nor light, and just as we conceive a negative idea about ange’ls from a consideration of bodies, judging that they are immaterial or incorporeal, so by examining creatures we come to know, not what God is, but rather what He is not. Likewise, any goodness possessed by a creature is a definite minimum in comparison with the divine goodness, which is infinite goodness. Hence the various degrees of goodness emanating from God and discerned in things, which are benefits bestowed by God, fail to raise the mind to a perfect love of God. Therefore true and perfect beatitude cannot consist in the adherence of the mind to God through some alien medium."

"I have no sympathy for fascism, I regret the Papal States, the temporal power of the Church, the era of Pope Pius IX."

"We know from Blessed Anna Maria Taigi that Napoleon did not go to Hell, but will remain in Purgatory until the end of time. A very heavy punishment, but not eternal damnation. And Sister Elena Aiello, whom I hold in very high esteem, informs us that even Mussolini will remain in Purgatory until the end of the world. As you can see, it is not only Farinacci who needs our prayers."

"The Narakas are the realms of suffering that equate to the Christian hell or, more accurately, to purgatory. If a person is born into one of these realms as a result of bad karma, this is not a permanent punishment - he or she may well be reborn into one of the higher worlds in the next life. Watched over by Yama, judge of the world, the Narakas are not only physical places but also states of consciousness – and symbols of the suffering that can take place during life, as well as after death."

"Once a refugee, forever a refugee. Roads back to the lost (or rather no longer existing) home paradise have been all but cut, and all exits from the purgatory of the camp lead to hell... The prospectless succession of empty days inside the perimeter of the camp may be tough to endure, but God forbid that the appointed or voluntary plenipotentiaries of humanity, whose job it is to keep the refugees inside the camp but away from perdition, pull the plug. And yet they do, time and again, whenever the powers-that-be decide that the exiles are no longer refugees, since ostensibly 'it is safe to return' to that homeland that has long ceased to be their homeland and has nothing that could be offered or that is desired."

"Look at those detractors. Look at those dogs. They ridicule us for baptizing infants, praying for the dead, and asking the prayers of the saints. They lose no time in cutting Christ off from all kinds of people to both sexes, young and old, living and dead. They put infants outside the sphere of grace because they are too young to receive it, and those who are full grown because they find difficulty in preserving chastity. They deprive the dead of the help of the living, and rob the living of the prayers of the saints because they have died. God forbid! The Lord will not forsake his people who are as the sands of the sea, nor will he who redeemed all be content with a few, and those heretics...."

"In the early Vedic tradition, the death god Yama kept two dogs, Syama the Black and Sabala the Spotted, to bring and hold souls in the Purgatory-like afterlife called Naraka. Even the Norse god Odin kept a pair of wolves, Geri and Freki."

"Happy the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!"

"Time is the only true purgatory."

"When God sees the Soul pure as it was in its origins, He tugs at it with a glance, draws it, and binds it to Himself with a fiery love that by itself could annihilate the immortal soul. In so acting, God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God; and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued. These rays purify and then annihilate. The soul becomes like gold that becomes purer as it is fired, all dross being cast out. Having come to the point of twenty-four carats, gold cannot be purified any further; and this is what happens to the soul in the fire of God’s love."

"Although fine studies have explored how medieval devotional traditions such as pilgrimage, Purgatory, and the Eucharist continued to ripple through the consciousness of early modern writers and to influence their works, the same attention has not been paid to the literally thousands of saintly men and women who constituted the late medieval canon (the virgin Mary is the signal exception here, one to which I return below. Ironically, the one major study of the impact of hagiography on early modern Protestant literature, Julia Lupton's Afterlives of the Saints, is premised on the idea that the saints themselves had largely disappeared, leaving behind only an empty genre, the legend, which the early modern period would then refill with new, secular contents. Lupton makes a compelling case for the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century preoccupation with hagiography, but her thesis implies that early modern men and women had more or less forgotten about the individual saints themselves."

"“That’s part of the prophecy of the Rapture, right? The dead will rise and crash our parties?” He laughs. “Do you really think that’s a priority, for the reanimated corpses?” “Absolutely,” I say. “No French onion dip in purgatory.”"

"The biblical evidence for the existence of purgatory is, shall we say, ‘creative’, again employing the common theological trick of vague, hand-waving analogy."

"The section of the purgatory entry called ‘Proofs’ is interesting because it purports to use a form of logic. Here’s how the argument goes. If the dead went straight to heaven, there’d be no point in our praying for their souls. And we do pray for their souls, don’t we? Therefore it must follow that they don’t go straight to heaven. Therefore there must be purgatory. QED. Are professors of theology really paid to do this kind of thing?"

"(About Wu Daozi) He excelled in every subject: men, gods, devils, Buddhas, birds, beasts, buildings, landscapes—all seemed to come naturally to his exuberant art. He painted with equal skill on silk, paper, and freshly-plastered walls; he made three hundred frescoes for Buddhist edifices, and one of these, containing more than a thousand figures, became as famous in China as “The Last Judgment” or “The Last Supper” in Europe. Ninety-three of his paintings were in the Imperial Gallery in the twelfth century, four hundred years after his death; but none remains anywhere today. His Buddhas, we are told, “fathomed the mysteries of life and death”; his picture of purgatory frightened some of the butchers and fishmongers of China into abandoning their scandalously un-Buddhistic trades; his representation of Ming Huang’s dream convinced the Emperor that Wu had had an identical vision."

"As in Mediterranean Christianity, these saints became so popular that they almost crowded out the head of the pantheon in worship and art. The veneration of relics, the use of holy water, candles, incense, the rosary, clerical vestments, a liturgical dead language, monks and nuns, monastic tonsure and celibacy, confession, fast days, the canonization of saints, purgatory and masses for the dead flourished in Buddhism as in medieval Christianity, and seem to have appeared in Buddhism first."

"'Tis a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less."

"England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of horses."

"“He knows nothing about how this will all end, except that it will surely end. He tries to imagine himself into a future, somewhere past this point, but he cannot. There is nothing to do but to keep on existing, in this exact time and place. This is what hell must be like. Waiting without knowing. Not hell, but purgatory. Worse than hell."

"If Hell is other people, thought Shadow, then Purgatory is airports."

"Their beloved priest must now wander for all eternity chained to this earthly purgatory—a warning to all that God forgives only that which is confessed to Him through true repentance and atonement. I walked down the church steps, keeping my secret stitched to my tongue. After the ceremony I would have no one to answer for my yearnings but myself, even if after my death I would have to lag behind that priest until the end of days, a pair of branded souls dragging the heavy burdens of their sins, like cows roaming the foggiest dawns, the first guiding the second with its dangling rosary of a tail."

"I've come to the end of von Hügel's voluminous work on Catherine of Genoa. For such outlay in erudition, it's basically an unrewarding book (for me!), but full of interesting side-lights...Curious, for instance, that Catherine, always universally cited as the recognised authority, the most important and competent witness to the nature of Purgatory, should actually never have had a vision of it - neither as shewing nor as visiting in spirit, as other mystics did..Her statements are pure conclusions, analogies, based on her own spiritual experiences of suffering and bliss: "So that's what it must be like in Purgatory!""

"Allusions to "hidden counsels" and "mysterious reasons" are almost always the mark of doctrinal incoherence."

"But though the Shawnees consider the sun the type, if not the essence, of the Great Spirit, many also believe in an evil genius, who makes all sorts of bad things, to counterbalance those made by the Good Spirit. For instance, when the latter made a sheep, a rose, wholesome herbs, etc., the bad spirit matched them with a wolf, a thorn, poisonous plants, and the like. They also appear to think there is a kind of purgatory in which the spirits of the wicked may be cleansed before entering into their elysium."

"The practice of devotion to the dead is also consoling to humanity and eminently worthy of a religion which seconds all the purest feelings of the human heart."

"A sentinel angel sitting high in glory Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory: "Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!""

"This only will I speak, and that in a word: they which brought in transubstantiations, masses, calling upon saints, sole life, purgatory, images, vows, trifles, follies, babbles, into the church of God, have delivered new things, and which the scriptures never heard of. Whatsoever they cry or crack, they bring not a jot out of the word of God... These they honour instead of the scriptures, and force them to the people instead of the word of God: upon these men suppose their salvation and the sum of religion to be grounded."

"In the early twentieth century, attention was drawn to Catherine’s remarkable mystical, mental, and at times almost pathological, experiences through the classic study by Baron Friedrich von Hügel, The Mystical Element in Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends (1908). The last ten years of Catherine’s life were marked by violent interior emotions, mentioned in her works. It has been said that in many ways Catherine of Genoa is a “theologian of purgatory,” a purgatory that she herself experienced in a marriage she did not desire, in her care for plague victims, and also in her nervous illness. She also experienced purgatory spiritually as the soul’s realization of its own imperfections, in her search for salvation and purification. Influenced by Plato and Dionysius, the focus of her mysticism was, in spite of her eucharistic devotion, not so much Christ, but above all the infinite God. Her mysticism is primarily theocentric, not Christocentric. She speaks of the absorption into the totality of God as if immersed into an ocean: “I am so…submerged in His immense love, that I seem as though immersed in the sea, and nowhere able to touch, see or feel aught but water.” At the height of her mystical experiences, she could exclaim: “My being is God, not by simple participation but by a true transformation of my being.”"

"There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, Ambassador ."

"He never sees More—a star in another firmament, who acknowledges him with a grim nod—without wanting to ask him, what’s wrong with you? Or what’s wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you’ve learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world: and the next world too. Show me where it says, in the Bible, “Purgatory.” Show me where it says “relics, monks, nuns.” Show me where it says “Pope.”"

"The love of liberty and the sense of human dignity are the basic elements of the Anarchist creed. We need no messiah and no sterile conception of a god menacing us with hell and purgatory. Love, as the basis of life will bind us together. But we must create in each person a sense of responsibility in order that each one of us can have the right to enjoy all his rights. This is an unique movement for us all, because circumstances to-day in Spain have never before existed during any other revolution. Neither the French nor the Russian revolution. To-day, a sense of sacrifice impels us to renounce our aspirations and individual interests for the well-being of all. It is this sense of responsibility which shows us the path of duty and assists us in performing it. In this way, we will avoid the fatal mistake of dictatorship. In Spain, we should have enough intelligence, enough sense of individual and collective responsibility to do for ourselves that which would be imposed upon us by a dictatorship. Very soon we will give to the world the example of a free land, that stood up without arms opposed, as a single man, to fascism, to the mentality of capitalism. It will be an example, worthy of being followed by the rest of the world. We are proud of our responsibility. The greatest joy of our lives is a determination to sacrifice all-to give all-that this dream will be realised-the union of the proletariat to obtain our fundamental aims: BREAD AND FREEDOM FOR ALL!"

"At that moment I railed against a God who could condemn such an innocent soul to Purgatory. What had Sedenko done that was not the result of his upbringing or his religion, which encouraged him to kill in the name of Christ? It came to me that perhaps God had become senile, that He had lost His memory and no longer remembered the purpose of placing Man on Earth. He had become petulant, He had become whimsical. He retained His power over us, but could no longer be appealed to. And where was His Son, who had been sent to redeem us? Was God’s Plan not so much mysterious as impossible for us to accept: because it was a malevolent one?"

"Whatever fortune or misfortune awaits in the subsequent reincarnations, a purgatory by definition does not last forever. We will be forced to either go backward to the Amish way of life devoid of technology or move forward to a transhumanist world embracing technology."

"(About Catherine of Genoa) Dear friends, in their experience of union with God, Saints attain such a profound knowledge of the divine mysteries in which love and knowledge interpenetrate, that they are of help to theologians themselves in their commitment to study, to intelligentia fidei, to an intelligentia of the mysteries of faith, to attain a really deeper knowledge of the mysteries of faith, for example, of what purgatory is. With her life St Catherine teaches us that the more we love God and enter into intimacy with him in prayer the more he makes himself known to us, setting our hearts on fire with his love. In writing about purgatory, the Saint reminds us of a fundamental truth of faith that becomes for us an invitation to pray for the deceased so that they may attain the beatific vision of God in the Communion of Saints (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 1032). Moreover, the humble, faithful, and generous service in Pammatone Hospital that the Saint rendered throughout her life is a shining example of charity for all and encouragement, especially for women who, with their precious work enriched by their sensitivity and attention to the poorest and neediest, make a fundamental contribution to society and to the Church."

"In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows:"

"Deprived for some time of the outward and, so to speak, "commercial" aspects, it is a time of special grace. Indeed, sins need God's forgiveness above all, but then also a purification, to be carried out here below, or, after death, in purgatory. Sacramental absolution in confession removes guilt and restores friendship with God, but there remains the duty of purification of the negative imprint left by the evil done and of reparation. This is the indulgence, through which we draw from the treasure of the Church, that is, from the merits acquired from Christ, Our Lady and the Saints. The indulgence can only be obtained once a day and can also be applied to our deceased loved ones by helping them in their purification process."

"[Italian socioreligiologist Massimo] Introvigne maintains that the vampire inhabits countries devoid of the liberating notion of Purgatory. …Perhaps dealing with the myth of the vampire today is a practical and even ascetic exercise."

"There's no such thing as security in this life, sweetheart; and the sooner you accept that fact, the better off you'll be. The person who strives for security will never be free. The person who believes that she's found security will never reach paradise. What she mistakes for security is purgatory. You know what purgatory is, Gwendolyn? It's the waiting room, it's the lobby. Not only does she have the wrong libretto, she's stuck in the lobby where she can't see the show."

"The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages... His merits are obvious. He is indifferent to worldly success, so devoid of fear that he remains calm and urbane and humorous to the last moment, caring more for what he believes to be the truth than for anything else whatever. He has, however, some very grave defects. He is dishonest and sophistical in argument, and in his private thinking he uses intellect to prove conclusions that are to him agreeable, rather than in a disinterested search for knowledge. There is something smug and unctuous about him, which reminds one of a bad type of cleric. His courage in the face of death would have been more remarkable if he had not believed that he was going to enjoy eternal bliss in the company of the gods. Unlike some of his predecessors, he was not scientific in his thinking, but was determined to prove the universe agreeable to his ethical standards. This is treachery to truth, and the worst of philosophic sins. As a man, we may believe him admitted to the communion of saints; but as a philosopher he needs a long residence in a scientific purgatory."

"for me will be five hundred years of catching trains and two thousand years of remembering names."

"The Sanskrit term Naraka is often mistranslated into English as the Hindu equivalent of the Christian "hell" or Catholic "purgatory." However, this misunderstanding is likely a result of there being no exact word in English equal to Naraka. Naraka is not a place of eternal damnation, as is hell of Western Christian theology. It is also not a place of forced purification where soul must remain until some final Judgment Day, as the Catholic purgatory. Instead Naraka is a place of purification where the spirits of the deceased come to be cleaned through suffering over a span of time (the length of which depends on how much negative karma the spirit accumulated during life). Damnation by a god is not what sends a person to Naraka, but rather their own negative and immoral actions during life."

"I was sitting with a friend one time, and I blanked out for about a minute. I had no control over my muscles, and it scared the shit out of me because I experienced what I guess could have been hell or, you know, purgatory or whatever. It was freezing cold, and I was spinning like I was drunk and trying desperately to take a breath. There was chest pain like I was gonna explode. If you gotta feel pain here, you gotta feel it somewhere else. I believe that there’s a wonderful place to go to after this life, and I don’t believe there’s eternal damnation for anyone. I’m not into religion, but I have a good grasp on my spirituality. I just believe that I’m not the greatest power on this earth. I didn’t create myself, because I would have done a hell of a better job."

"History will be erased in the universal purgatory."

"There are three gates to Gehinam (purgatory) — one of them is in Jerusalem."

"Animam purgatam evolare, est eam visione dei potiri, quod nulla potest intercapedine impediri. Quisquis ergo dicit, non citius posse animam volare, quam in fundo cistae denarius possit tinnire, errat."

"God is the beautiful propaganda made in the fires of Man. And it's OK to love God because you appreciate the artistry of his creation, but you don't have to believe in a character because you're impressed by the author. Death and Man, God's coauthors, are the most prolific writers on the planet. Their output is prodigious. Man's Unconscious and Inevitable Death have co-penned Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha, to name a few. And that's just the characters. They created heaven, hell, paradise, limbo, and purgatory. And that's just the settings. And what more? Everything, maybe. This successful partnership has created everything in the world but the world itself, everything that exists except for what was originally here when we found it. You get it? Do you understand the Process?"

"An eternal purgatory, then, rather than a heaven of glory; an eternal ascent. If there is an end to all suffering, however pure and spiritualized we may suppose it to be, if there is an end to all desire, what is it that makes the blessed in paradise go on living? If in paradise they do not suffer for want of God, how shall they love Him? And if there, in the heaven of glory, while they behold God little by little and closer and closer, yet without ever wholly attaining Him, there does not always remain something more for them to know and desire, if there does not always remain a substratum of doubt, how shall they not fall asleep?"

"It seems strange indeed that so practical and pressing a truth as that of purgatory should be dismissed, while so remote and impractical a doctrine as the absolute everlastingness of hell should be insisted on."

"About [[Saint Thomas Christians) They had only three sacraments, baptism, eucharist, and the orders; and would not admit transubstantiation in the manner the Roman Catholics do. They knew nothing of purgatory; and the saints they said were not admitted to the presence of GOD, but were kept in a third place till the day of judgment. Their priests were permitted to marry, at least once in their life. Their rite was the Chaldaean or Syrian.… The uncontrolled power of Papal Rome had not then reached the Syrian churches in Travencore: they preserved their independence, and remained for ages unmolested, until the maritime discovery of India by de Gama: after which, priests and inquisitors from Goa disturbed their peace, burnt their unadulterated versions of the sacred scriptures, and compelled many of their churches to acknowledge the pope’s supremacy."

"How can one attain fiery initiation without actual struggle? How can one pass through life without a real battle? Only a low understanding can have a conception of higher attainment without tension. To pass through life and attain means to pass along the edge of the abyss, means to pass through sorrow and tension. Just as the Cosmic Laboratory transmutes these energies of the heart, so do human souls pass through purgatory on Earth. Without this fiery attachment to Cosmic Fire the heart cannot know initiation into the Higher World. On the path to the Fiery World one must remember about the purgatory of life."

"The Divine Comedy really does paint God as a little bit, "Two choir boys short of a molestation racket," if all that Old Testament business didn't already tip you off. "Hey!" says God, "I've made it so it feels really really good to stick certain body parts together and jiggle them around, and hard-wired your brain to want to do it pretty much twenty-four/seven between the ages of thirteen and seventy. But if you actually do it without a special permission slip from the church, then I'm going to light you on fire! And that's just in purgatory. If you also didn't spend every Sunday reminding me what a level-headed and, if I may say so, strikingly handsome fellow I am, then I'm also going to staple your cock shut and feed you to a wolf.""

"...the rituals surrounding souling, in which supplicants moved from door to door asking for food in return for a prayer for the dead, bear a resemblance to modern Halloween customs, especially since soulers went from house to house with hallowed-out turnip lanterns, whose candle connoted a soul in purgatory...souling customs offer a clue to the survival of Hallowmass in England after the Protestant Reformation."

"I presume that we may take the Catholic doctrine on the subject, stated very roughly, to be this—that while the hopelessly wicked man drops into hell, and the great saint is caught up immediately into heaven, as was the Blessed Virgin at her Assumption, the ordinarily good man still retains many faults and imperfections which unfit him to pass directly into the presence of God, and consequently needs a shorter or longer stay in an intermediate condition called purgatory, during which his various failings are eliminated by a comparatively short though painful process. It is only after being thus made perfect through suffering that he is ready to pass on into the joy of the heaven world. It will at once be seen by Theosophical students that this theory, in the form in which I have here stated it, corresponds very closely with the facts of the case."

"On the other hand, the highly developed soul, who during earth life has gained complete control over his lower nature, and entirely dominated passion and desire, does in consequence sweep through the astral life with such rapidity that when he regains his consciousness he finds opening out before it the indescribable glory and bliss of the heaven world. But the ordinary man has by no means succeeded in entirely dominating all earthly desires and passions before his death. Thus he finds himself upon the astral plane with a fairly vigorous desire body, which he has made for himself during physical life, in which he now has to live until the process of its disintegration is in turn completed. It disintegrates only as · the desire which is its life dies out of it, and this often involves Suffering which is not inaptly symbolized by the fires of purgatory."

"Happily, however, it is purgatory, and not hell, not the senseless, useless eternity of torment for the mere gratification of the cruel malignity of an irresponsible despot in which orthodox theology asks us to believe, but simply the necessary, the only effective and therefore the most merciful process for the elimination of the evil desire. Terrible though the suffering may be, the desire gradually wears itself out, and only then can the man pass on into the higher life"

"There is a real truth behind the doctrine of purgatory, and that when the abuse of pretended indulgence was swept away during that extraordinary outbreak of morbific matter from the ecclesiastical system which it is the fashion to call " the reformation," a great deal that was beautiful, true and useful was cast aside as well."

"Widow, I have been a meer Stranger for these Parts that you live in, nor did I ever know the Husband of you, and Father of them, but I truly know by certain spiritual Intelligence, that he is in Purgatory."

"It was my greatest triumph... and I never looked back. You think I was afraid fleeing Brennenburg? Quite the contrary. I knew it was my purgatory - hellfire made to wash away my sins. There's no denying the things I've done. But I have paid my tribute. I gave them that awful man... I did the right thing."

"Therefore the story of Christ is the story of a journey, almost in the manner of a military march; certainly in the manner of the quest of a hero moving to his achievement or his doom. It is a story that begins in the paradise of Galilee, a pastoral and peaceful land having really some hint of Eden, and gradually climbs the rising country into the mountains that are nearer to the storm-clouds and the stars, as to a Mountain of Purgatory. He may be met as if straying in strange places, or stopped on the way for discussion or dispute; but his face is set towards the mountain city. That is the meaning of that great culmination when he crested the ridge and stood at the turning of the road and suddenly cried aloud, lamenting over Jerusalem. Some light touch of that lament is in every patriotic poem; or if it is absent, the patriotism stinks with vulgarity. That is the meaning the stirring and startling incident at the gates of the Temple, when the tables were hurled like lumber down the steps, and the rich merchants driven forth with bodily blows; the incident that must be at least as much of a puzzle to the pacifists as any paradox about non resistance can be to any of the militarists."

"Get this: what if all we know as reality was, in fact, virtual reality? Reality itself is a ravaged dystopia run by technocrat Artificial Intelligence where humankind vegetates in billions of gloop-filled tanks - mere battery packs for the machine world - being fed this late '90s VR (known as The Matrix - you with us here?) through an ugly great cable stuck in the back of our heads. And what if there was a group of quasi-spiritual rebels infiltrating The Matrix with the sole purpose of crashing the ruddy great mainframe and rescuing humans from their unknown purgatory? And, hey, what if Keanu Reeves was their Messiah?"

"He's waiting in purgatory for the day of his rebirth... which happens to be this Thursday!"

"Purgatory is over, you go to hell."

"Over clouds my mind will fly, forever now I can't think why. My body tries to leave my soul. Or is it me, I just don't know. Mem'ries rising from the past, the future's shadow overcast. Something's clutching at my head, through the darkness I'll be led."

"The devil and the maiden Prepare for going wild The new messiah calling The purgatory child Before my flesh is fading The virgin has a turn The third of days we're climbing, the point of no return"

"Trapped in Purgatory A lifeless object, alive Awaiting reprisal Death will be their acquisition"