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Title: Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul

Author: Anna Bishop Scofield

Release Date: May 8, 2006 [eBook #18355]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSIGHTS AND HERESIES PERTAINING TO THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

INSIGHTS AND HERESIES PERTAINING TO THE EVOLUTION OF THE SOUL

by

AMMYEETIS (Persian)

Second Edition 1916

Christopher Publishing House Boston Copyright 1913 by the Christopher Press Copyright 1916 by the Christopher Publishing House

DEDICATION.

To those heroic minds who can truly say: "My soul is my own," and bravely maintain it through everything—in spite of Church or State—I do offer with earnest congratulations and my loving greetings, these fragmentary thoughts of

AMMYEETIS.

Our revered Emerson loaned his Plato to a neighbor. Meeting him some time afterward he said to him: "How did you like Plato?" "Very much," the farmer answered, "very much indeed. I see he has a great many of my idees." And so, my readers—if there be such—there may be herein set forth some of your own familiar thoughts which you may not have found opportunity to express in such guise as appears in this small book.

CONTENTS.

  No New Thing
  Evolution
  Slowness of Evolution
  The Work of Nature
  A New Science
  World Making
  Imperfections Revealed
  World Origin
  Spirit Individualized through Matter
  World Signs
  World Growth
  Death a Benefactor
  World Progress
  The Origin of Evil
  Vibration
  Life
  Churches Money Makers
  Life in Nature
  Heaven
  Nature Spirits
  Experience
  Spiritualism
  Phenomena
  Mediumship
  The Migrations of our Race
  The Discipline of Life
  Homogeneity of the Race
  Of God
  Of Jesus
  The Gods
  Knowledge of Occult Law
  Evanescence of Mere Beliefs
  The Fount of Inspiration for All
  Man versus Death
  Fear of Death
  Test of Character
  Character Forming
  Man the Final Earth Product
  Superstitions
  Self-Justice
  Symbolism
  Love
  Ideals of Love
  The Needs of Woman
  Man versus Woman
  Natural Cruelty of the Undeveloped
  The Worst Sin
  Reincarnation
  Processes of Reincarnation
  Education of Children
  Egotism
  Responsiveness
  Hell
  The Commonplace
  Petroleum
  Law
  Communism
  Happiness
  Pain
  Foes in the Household
  The Inner Life
  Root of Evils
  Rest in Change
  Miserliness
  Special Providence
  Human Destiny
  Ethical Law
  Human Life
  Animal Likeness
  Natural Superstition
  Adaptiveness of Man
  Devil Worship
  Fanaticism
  Truth
  Christs
  Hero Worship
  Reason
  Sympathy
  New Religions
  The Growth Processes of the Human Soul
  Necessity for Phenomena
  Will
  Change of Atoms
  Our Limitations
  Final Race Experience
  Religious Performances
  Of Teachers
  Wise Use of Money
  Genius
  Thoughts Are Things
  Unfoldment
  Inventions
  Divine Healing
  Surplus
  Analysis of the Lord's Prayer
  Absurd Beliefs
  The Resurrection
  The Creator
  Retributive Justice
  The Soul
  Woman

Insights and Heresies

Pertaining to

The Evolution of The Soul

NO NEW THING.

There is no new revelation to be given to man; there is no need of it. Those who have labored most strenuously to evolve from their inner consciousness a new, a better religion, have found themselves bogged in the mire of their egotism which has landed them in a police court, or they have been confronted by exactly the same problems as those from which they have sought to escape. Few, indeed, have survived the test of time. There is an ancient promise that stands yet for man's use: "To him that hath (improved) shall more be given, and from him that hath not (improved) shall be taken away that which he already has." This was never meant to apply to material things—it could not—it was spoken in reference to the gift of understanding, and of using the occult, the psychic law. Many psychics have lost their spiritual gifts through failing to understand that endless progress is the law that forces souls along the way of life. No stopping by the way to gather shells upon the shore, no aimless looking back; but work with stout heart and resolute will. It all means work, overmastering habits of thought and action, lifting the soul from the grooves of heredity, and in all ways making aspiration attract the inspiration that sustains the soul.

EVOLUTION.

All subjects pertaining to our knowledge of the soul are too subtle to be weighed and proved by external intellect alone. Our lives are ruled by such a hotch-potch of inherited beliefs and tendencies, that it is almost impossible for us to use any discrimination concerning them; or to arraign ourselves before the tribunal of our own better judgment in such manner as to enable us to separate the false and effete ethical and religious influences, from the wise and true, which alone are abiding and permanent.

Thus we grope and stumble along through our earthly lives, burdened with ideas which were set in motion far back in a crude age, and which were so well adapted to their time that they still vibrate to the tendencies of our own day. This applies to every department of human experience, and were it not that we are, as a huge family, better than our cherished beliefs, higher in the scale of development than these would seem to indicate, we should still be under the dominion of the so-called "Dark Ages." The most important and the dearest phase of human experience must come, of course, through its religious beliefs, and as they are narrow and superstitious, on the one hand, or grand with faith and understanding of law, on the other, do we judge of the status of the individual, the community, and the race; and the advances made upon this line mark the progress of what we term civilization on this planet.

There is no time so trying, so full of agony to the soul, as is that hour when it first begins to doubt the absolute, unquestionable truth of the creeds it has hitherto blindly accepted, and in which it has fully believed. Creeds are the swaddling clothes of the soul, and must