THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15970, 13 January 1914, Page 6

THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

Miss C. Dalzieli delivered an address on Sunday evening in the Thcosophica.l Hall, Dowling street, on "The Waters of Letho." It was often asked why, said the speaker, if the teaching of reincarnation were true, we did not remember our past lives. Each life wo were given a new physical brain, a new body of emotion, and a new mental body, Constructed to express the feelings and faculties made in former lives. The new physical brain was not impressed with the multitude of experiences through which the man had passed in former lives, but the essence of these experience© was woven into tho verv texture of the soul and found expression through the brain consciousness as powers and faculties and as conscience. Few men were as yet strong enough to face tho knowledge of their past lives; somo would be lost in dreaming of past success or good fortune, while others would be once more overwhelmed by the rush of some strong emotion. When we carhe back into incarnation we dra-nk of the waters of forgetfulnoss and the past was mercifully shut out from our view. But although man's powers became thus limited they yet became more definite, and it is in order to develop *i consciousness definite, clear, and precise, that man came forth from his heavenly home and submitted to the limitations of these lower pianos, patiently bearing the cross of matter. At last, having exhausted all experiences on the lower pianos, like tho Prodigal Son of the parable, he came to himself, and, remembering whence he came, sot out to return to the home of his Father. Gladly, then, he paid the debts incurred in past lives, rendering aid to those still below him in the scale of evolution, just as he had been helped by those who had passed on before him.