The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul

Bearing in mind, therefore, that owing to many causes a nation may descend to barbarism or disappear entirely, we shall find everywhere the fragments and decay of the old belief no less than the dawn of the new. A noble creed, or a philosophical concept of a highly advanced race, may exist as a transformed and degrading superstition with a race, or a fragment of a people, undergoing degeneracy.

Every religion known to man has gone through just this transformation. The tendency is innate and inevitable and no civilization or religion has ever yet been able long to resist it. If we bear this in mind we shall be less surprised at anthropogeneses, cosmogeneses or psychologies found sometimes among otherwise rude or savage peoples, and be better able to understand the incongruities and lack of symmetry in their evolution. It would be easy to cite instances and draw comparisons at this point.

Bearing in mind, then, these general considerations underlying all interpretation, and nowhere more applicable than to our present subject, the following illustrations of belief in the separable soul, gleaned largely from Spencer’s “Descriptive Sociology,” may be of interest. It is drawn largely from the lower civilizations, as all are more or less familiar with the mythologies of the Greeks, Babylonians, Phœnicians, etc., all of which are accessible. The material available is embarrassing on account of its magnitude alone.

Oscar Peschel, in his “Races of Man,” says that “perhaps the Brazilian Botocudos, of all the inhabitants of the world, are most nearly in the primitive state, and yet,” he adds, “possibly we may be altogether mistaken in this regard, as their languages are very imperfectly known.”

Humboldt rescued the Caribs from such an impeachment and declares that their language “combines wealth, grace, strength, and gentleness. It has expressions for abstract ideas, for Futurity, Eternity, and Existence, and enough numerical terms to express all possible combinations of our numerals.” It might be noted in passing that it was these same Brazilian natives that the Portuguese settlers sought to decimate by spreading smallpox and scarlet fever amongst them, as the English colonists in Tasmania shot the natives when they had no better food for their dogs.

Hariot says that “many of the Indian natives of North and South America believe that the soul, after its separation from the body, enters into a wide path crowded with spirits which are journeying toward a region of eternal repose. They have to cross an impetuous river on a trembling wicker bridge which is very dangerous.”

Some Greenlanders believe that the soul can go astray out of the body for a considerable time. Some believe that they can leave their souls at home when going on a journey, and others believe in the migration of souls.

Belief in the soul and a future state is universal among the Indians of North America. All are familiar with the tradition of the “Happy Hunting Ground.” With them the future life is patterned after the present.

Schoolcraft says that the Chippewas believe that there are duplicate souls, one of which remains with the body, while the other is free to depart on excursions during sleep. After death the soul departs to the Indian Elysium and a fire is kept burning on the newly-made grave for four days, the time required for the soul to reach its destination.

The Dakotas stand in great fear of the spirits of the dead, who they think have power to injure them, and they recite prayers and give offerings to appease them.

The Mandans, according to Schoolcraft, have anticipated Prof. Lloyd’s Etidorhpa, even to the beautiful maiden. They believe that they were the first people created on the earth, and that they first lived inside the globe. They raised many vines, one of which having grown up through a hole in the earth, one of the young men climbed up until he crawled out on the bank of the river where the Mandan village stands. (Jack and the bean stalk.) The young man returned to the nether world and piloted several of his companions to the outer world, and among them two very beautiful virgins. Among those who tried to get up was a very large and fat woman, who was ordered by the chiefs to remain behind. Her curiosity prompted her secretly to make the trial. The vine broke under her weight and she was badly hurt by the fall, but did not die, and was ever after in disgrace for having cut off all communication with the upper world. Those who had already ascended built the Mandan village, and when these die they expect to return to the nether world from which they came. They also believe the earth a great tortoise, and have a tradition of a universal deluge.

The Indians of Guiana believe in the immortality of the soul, as do also the Arawaks. The Brazilians are said by Spix and Martins to have had no religious belief whatever before mingling with the civilized races. The Guaranis believed in a soul which remained in the grave with the body.

The Patagonians believe in a country of the dead which they call Alhue Mapu and they kill the horses of the deceased in order that their owner may ride in Alhue Mapu.

From the beliefs of the Negritto and Malayo-Polynesian races, I glean the following: The Fuegians believe in a superior being, and in good and evil spirits, in dreams, omens, signs, etc. Fitzroy says he could not satisfy himself that they had any idea of the immortality of the soul.

The Veddahs believe in the guardianship of the spirits of the dead, who visit them in dreams and minister to them in sickness, and they have ceremonies of invocation.

Eyra says some at least of the Australians believe in the existence and separability of the soul.

The Tasmanians believed in a future life as a tradition of a primitive religion, and Bonwick says they conversed with the spirits of the dead.

The New Caledonians believe that white men are the spirits of the dead, and that they bring sickness. They believe that the soul on leaving the body goes to the Bush, and every fifth month they have a “spirit night” or “grand concert of spirits.” The gods of the New Caledonians are their ancestors, whose relics they keep and idolize.

The Fijians believe in a separable soul, and dying is by them described by the same terms as sunset.

Belief in a future state among them is said by Siemann to be universal. In Fiji heaven the inhabitants plant, live in families, fight, and so repeat the incidents of life on earth. They believe that the spirit of men, while still alive, may leave the body and trouble other people when asleep.

The Sandwich Islanders believe that the spirit of the departed hovers about his former home, appears to his relatives in dreams, and they worship an image which they believe to be in some way connected with the departed. They regard the spirit of one of their ancient kings as a tutelar deity, and the king and the priest were believed to be descended from the gods.

The Tahitians believe in a separable soul which, on leaving the body, is seized by other spirits and conducted to the state of night, where it is by degrees eaten by the gods. A few escape this fate, while others, after being three times eaten, become immortal.

The Tongons believe that the human soul is the more ethereal part of the body and that it exists in Bolotoo in the form and likeness of the body the moment after death.

The Samoans believe that the spirits of the dead have power to return and to cause disease and death in other members of the family, hence all are anxious to part with the dying on good terms.

The New Zealanders believe that during sleep the mind leaves the body, and that dreams are the objects seen during its wanderings. They believe in two separate abodes for departed spirits, the sky, and the sea, and that the abodes of souls are to be approached only down the face of a steep precipice – Cape Maria Van Dieman.

The Dyaks have great difficulty in distinguishing sleep from death. They believe that the soul during sleep goes on an expedition of its own, and sees, hears, and talks. They believe in spirits, omens, and in all that occurs in dreams as real and literally true.

The Sumatrans believe in spirits and superior beings, and are said to have a vague idea of the immortality of the soul, and the Malays believe in spirits, good and bad, and seem to have a vague idea of a separable soul.

The Mexicans believed in a separable soul, and distinguished three different abodes for it after death.

Landa says the people of Yucatan have always believed more firmly in the immortality of the soul than other people, though they were less advanced in civilization. They believed that after death there would be a better life, which the soul would enjoy after its separation from the body. They worshiped their dead kings as gods. The mythology of the people of Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua is extensive and complicated and their National Book, the Popol Vuh, possesses intense interest for the student. There can be no doubt that these people believed in a separable soul, as did also the Chibchas.

It was the belief of the ancient Peruvians that the soul leaves the body during sleep, and that the soul itself cannot sleep, but that dreams are what the soul sees in the world while the body sleeps. Waitz says they believed in the transmigration of human souls into the bodies of animals.

In the case of the Arabians the primitive belief, which was Sabianism, has been altered far less by Mohammedan invasion than most persons suppose. Burton says Mohammed and his followers conquered only the more civilized Bedouins, and Baker says that the Arabs are unchanged, and that the theological opinions which they now hold are the same as those which prevailed in remote ages, and of this belief the soul and its immortality formed a part.

In general the Hill Tribes of India share in the universal belief in the soul, in spirits, gods, and devils, though of many of these tribes little is really known in modern times.

Nearly all our North American Indians (I can find no exceptions) bury objects with their dead, such as food implements, jewelry, etc., and kill the horses of the deceased that he may ride in the Happy Hunting Ground.

With the Carib’s death his wife and captives were killed, and food utensils, etc., were buried with him.

A curious custom prevailed with some Brazilian tribes. After burying food, utensils, arms, etc., with the body, a month after death the body was disinterred, put in a pan over a fire, the volatile substances driven off, the black residue reduced to powder and mixed with water and drunk by the company.

The Patagonians bury all the possessions of the deceased with the body.

With the Hottentots, widows lose one joint of a finger as an offering to the deceased husband every time they re-marry.

With the Kaffirs, the hut and utensils of the deceased are burnt. The East Africans offer prayer to the dead.

The Congo people bury ornaments, utensils, arms, etc., and embalm the body after one or two years. The body of the chief must be carried in a straight line from the hut to place of burial, and if trees or huts impede the passage, they are cut down.

The Coast Negroes bury property with the body and have a ceremony like an Irish wake, as do also the Abyssinians.

With the Ashantis, gold dust and utensils are buried and human sacrifices occur.

The wives of the Fijians are strangled that they may attend their lords in the new country.

The people of Malagasy bury in vaults 10×12, and 7 feet high, and put in a large quantity of property.

With the ancient Mexicans, wives, slaves, concubines, and chaplains were slaughtered to attend the deceased.

The Arabs fasten the camels to the grave of their master.

The Todas cremate the dead and slaughter the whole herd of buffalo belonging to him, in order to secure them to him in the after life.

I have by no means given a complete category of the primitive and barbarous peoples who believe in a separate soul, and who believe in a future state much like the present and in conformity with that belief bury arms, ornaments, and utensils with the dead or place them on the grave, and who slaughter horses, camels, wives, slaves, etc., in order that the deceased may retain his possessions. How far these customs extend in case of the death of woman I do not know, but as with most of these people the women are regarded as chattels of the males, the case is doubtless very different.

Now as to the origin of these beliefs and customs, their causes naturally fall into two categories, the physical and the metaphysical. Modern biological science regards the whole question from the physical side almost exclusively, and facts and experiences that belong largely or exclusively to the metaphysical realm are warped out of their natural order to fit the theory of interpretation.

Every savage observes not only that he casts a shadow, but that shadows attend all inanimate objects that stand so as to intercept the light, and as shadows move as do objects that gives rise to the idea of animation. Hence we have genii, dryads, naiads, ghosts, angels, demons, etc. To fortify this belief we have echoes, which give voice to animate and inanimate objects. Movement and voice are the universal accompaniment of animation.

The part played by the breath, and its sudden cessation at death, are believed to contribute to the belief in invisible existences.

The beating of the heart, and its cessation at death, adds another link to the chain of phenomena, going to show that something leaves the body at death. This may be the origin of the sacrifice of the hearts of captives to the gods, or to a deceased warrior or chief as with the ancient Mexicans, with the belief that the heart is the seat of the soul, and the soul of the captive or victim shall attend the departed chief in the other world.

But the most important place should doubtless be assigned to dreams as giving rise to belief in the world of spirits. Dreams are universal amongst men, and animals like the dog also dream.

Most if not all primitive people are also aware that fasting promotes dreaming, and while many of them practice long fasting, partly, no doubt, to increase fortitude and bodily endurance, in very many cases it is known to be practiced for the purpose of promoting dreams. Beyond this voluntary fasting there is the enforced fast due to famine or the scarcity of food.

It will be noticed in many of the cases cited how much stress is laid on the phenomena of dreams and how literally they are interpreted.

Among civilized races and those wise in philosophy dreams play a very important part, and are classified as monitorial, prophetic, etc., etc. The habit in modern times of regarding dreams as altogether fantastic and unreal, is unscientific. In the mingling of the real and the apparently unreal, in the dream state, while the experience itself is always real to the dreamer, lies undoubtedly the source of many beliefs that influence the lives of men.

Dreaming must be regarded as one of the states of consciousness, and hence, of whatsoever stuff dreams are made, they represent an actual experience of the individual. No greater mistake can be made than the belief that no experience is real save that which brings us in contact with gross matter through the agency of the five senses. The world of ideas and the creations of the imagination are in fact no more evanescent than matter itself. Here impermanency differs only in time. All in time pass away.

I hold that dreams, in general, show more clearly the nature of the soul, and the experiences of the waking state show the office of the bodily organism, and that each on its own plane is as valid as the other.

In other words, “the soul is such stuff as dreams are made of.” It does not hold true, nor need it, that the experiences in dreams shall be true and valid on the physical plane, though this is often the case, or that the experiences of the physical plane shall be literally repeated in dreams, which, nevertheless, frequently happens.

It is an undeniable fact that the experiences of the conscious ego in man compass the subjective no less than the objective planes of being. That the subjective avenues should be closed when the ego is functioning on the physical plane through the bodily organs by aid of the senses, is quite as remarkable as that the physical avenues should be closed when in dreams, or trance, or syncope, or under anaesthetics, the ego functions on the subjective planes.

I hold, therefore, that here, more than anywhere else, is the source of not only belief in the existence of the soul, but of the relatively uniform conceptions everywhere attained. The common experience of man on the one plane is as easily accounted for as on the other, and individual experience differs no more widely in the one case than in the other. So also is the persistence of the human type, or the genus, involved in the one case no less than in the other.

All the agencies recognized in modern evolution tend to elevation only through differentiation, and even the “eternal cell” of Weismann fails in explaining permanency of form through any physical transmission. When atavism and degeneracy are admitted as factors, as they certainly must be, the perpetuity of the human species fails from physical causes alone.

I hold the idea of a separable soul to be innate in the human consciousness, as a necessary deduction from the experience of the continuity of self-consciousness which compasses both the objective and subjective states. This deduction from experience occurs whenever the evolving ego has advanced sufficiently above the animal plane to reason on its own experience, and for this reason the belief in the separable soul is universal.

It is no more strange that the experience of the individual should be modified by traditions and the beliefs of others regarding, for example, the dream state, than that the experience of the individual should in like manner be modified or shaped by traditions and the ceremonies and usages of others on the physical plane. The bond of unity and that of diversity have one common root in humanity. What we need for larger knowledge is, I think, a recognition of the breadth and sweep of human experience. To stop either ignoring or quibbling over one-half of all our actual experience.

The inner world of thought and being is really the habitat of the soul, while the physical body, like the diving-bell, enables us to explore and gain experience on another plane which otherwise must remain to us forever unknown.

The limitations of space and time are unknown to us in dreams. These are the limitations of the fleshly casket. The consciousness of freedom, the absence of pain and sorrow even under great trial, are often experienced in the dream state. The range and character of experience in the subjective state is modified, and held in check by that of the physical plane, and the correspondence of an emotion to an idea, or of an act to a thought, ought to give us the key to the two sets of experiences and reveal the underlying basis of equilibrium.

A universal fact and a common experience argue a universal nature. Like conditions everywhere come from like causes. These are neither accidental nor incidental, nor are they left to the caprice of savages, nor to that of the more advanced civilizations.

It is not at all strange that a common experience should result in a universal belief. The range of experience and varying vicissitudes of life on the outer physical plane differ as widely as do those of the dream plane, and the conscious identity of the individual is equally preserved on both planes.

I hold that here lies the origin of belief in the existence of a soul in man, separable from the body, and the confines of matter, space, and time, in an actual experience of every individual. The beating of the heart, the phenomena of respiration, the cessation of these at death, and the shadows cast by man and inanimate bodies serve as connecting links between the experiences of the individual on the subjective and objective planes of being.

The dream state and the experiences thence derived are subjects for psychological science to investigate. The experiences allotted by du Maurier to “Peter Ibbetson” are not altogether fantastic and unwarranted, as the records of somnambulism and hypnotism abundantly prove. When we remember that nothing deserving the name of Psychology or Psychic Science exists in the western world to-day, we need not wonder why men eminent for investigations in other departments prove themselves novices and dogmatists here.

The folklore, the traditions, and the mythology of dreams would form a very interesting subject for discussion. It is true that the literature of the subject is fantastic, mixed with fable and often altogether unreliable; but these difficulties offer no more formidable bar to scientific investigation than many another problem already classified and formulated for systematic study.

I know a lady of very superior ability, the mother of a prominent jurist, who all her life has had distinct premonitions of many calamities and coming events, and there are those who dream true in every community. Fantasies, nightmare, dreams from indigestion and delirium, form a separate class where the dreamer is entangled in the meshes of the bodily functions.

Here fasting, either voluntary or enforced, comes in, and drugs known to the remotest times are found to promote and to determine the character of dreams. There are furthermore processes of mental gymnastics whereby the thinker withdraws himself from the bodily avenues of sense and functions at will on the subjective plane of being.

“When then,” said Socrates, in the Phædo, “does the soul light on the truth? for when it attempts to consider anything in conjunction with the body, it is plain that it is led astray by it.”

“And surely,” he continues, “the soul reasons best when none of these things disturb it, neither hearing, nor sight, nor pain, nor pleasure of any kind, but it retires as much as possible within itself, taking leave of the body, and as far as it can, not communicating or being in contact with it, it aims at the discovery of that which is.”

I hold that the most valuable triumphs of science in the future lie in the realm of psychology, and that by no means the least important contribution in this direction will come from the study of Folklore, of which belief in the separable soul, and the phenomena and universality of the dream state must form a very important part.

One final consideration is suggested not without some degree of hesitation and diffidence. If there be a soul in man destined to continued existence, and if in any case perfection is the goal of evolution as formulated by Herbert Spencer for a future residue of the human race, then this soul in its essential elements is without beginning in time.

Pre-existence and evolution necessitate repeated re-embodiment on the physical plane, and the continuity of self-consciousness in man I hold to be the proof of life without beginning or end.

Viewed in this light, dreams and all subjective experiences in man must mingle reminiscences of the soul with the experiences of the present life, and the theory of innate ideas assumes a purely scientific form. We hence arrive at the intuition of the soul to account for universal belief. The experience of Socrates and the Fiji Islander agree as to the subjective plane as perfectly as in regard to the beating of the heart. They differ only in degree of evolution.

CHAPTER XIV

FROM CONFUSION TO CONSTRUCTION

A concise and detailed review of the past, in the long journey of man toward civilization and independent self-knowledge, has not been herein attempted. Only hints, here and there, and the barest outline have been undertaken.

If, however, the intelligent student will follow these clews, he will find a mass of material and abundant evidence to corroborate the general thesis.

Every great religion has had its Avatar, its Redeemer, its Christos.

Each of these religions has adapted from its predecessors and transformed the old, in whole or in part, to suit the conditions and apparent needs of the time.

Each of these revivals of religion has been instituted on account of the abominations of a dominant priesthood and the poverty and degradation of the masses. What was at first claimed and instituted as a Divine Revelation for the elevation and happiness of the whole people, has openly and shamelessly degenerated into enslavement of the masses and the creation of a despotic and arrogant class who enslaved both body and soul in the name of Religion.