Reincarnation

Reincarnation (rebirth) is caused by a desire for life. It is the creative urge for self-expression that maintains the cycle of reincarnation for us on the Cosmic Planes of Manifestation.

Above the highest Aethyr, LIL, there is no time or space as we know it. Furthermore, there is no observable difference between one thing and any other thing. Above the great Ring-Pass-Not of LIL, we cannot say if countless hosts of identical beings exist, or if there is only one single Being. But immediately below this Ring-Pass-Not, we can begin to distinguish differences. Time and space make faint flickering promises of things to come. Life stirs into a state of expectation.

In the first expression of life, the monadic consciousness center sees itself as a Self and everything else as a World (that which is not a part of itself). With time, it seeks further definition of these two things. This has the effect of further separating the Self from its World. The Self is emphasized in the first Aethyr, LIL. When consciousness focuses on the World, it has already descended to the second Aethyr, ARN. The stage of defining the relationship between the two is in the third Aethyr, ZOM. Here the Self easily manipulates the World according to its True Will. In the eighth Aethyr, ZID, the Self takes on a special form known as the Holy Guardian Angel, the inner spiritual nature of man. Gradually, the Self descends into time and space until it reaches the tenth Aethyr, ZAX, known as the Great Outer Abyss.

When descending through the Abyss, the Self learns that forms are reality and that the formless is unreal because it is unsubstantial. As a result, the World of the Self polarizes into forms upon a formless background. The message of KHORONZON, the Archdemon of ZAX, is to desire the forms and to fear the formless.

The Self descends the Aethyrs learning the laws or ground rules of this universe as it goes. In TAN, for example, it gains a general sense of the ethics and morals of this world. It develops a rudimentary sense of right and wrong, and learns that all things in this universe cycle from one stage to another. In ASP, the Self forms the Reincarnating Ego as a result of its ability to define itself. While encountering others, it joins those who are karmically related to it. It joins a life-wave, a special group that makes general agreements and understandings easier. Such life-waves tend to express themselves in time and space together, and thus, incarnate together.

Eventually the Self, together with its life-wave, reaches the lowest of the Aethyrs. Here it waits for conditions to be karmically right on the physical plane for an incarnation. From this point on, the Self cycles between Earth and ASP. This periodic cycling is the reincarnation cycle. The details of each incarnation have a large degree of possible variation, depending on the individual Self. However, in general, each Self takes on a succession of lives on Earth, learning and growing as it goes. There is no "god" forcing the Self to reincarnate. Each entity does so on its own. It may undergo an incarnation in an attempt to right a past wrong (out of a sense of guilt) or it may feel like it has earned another life (out of a sense of deserving reward). It may simply do so out of a desire to express itself in flesh again. If evolved sufficiently, it may deliberately elect to incarnate so that it may help others less fortunate. Such a Self will often become a teacher, doctor, religious leader or humanitarian.

The idea that the body is like a suit of clothes that is put on at birth, and taken off at death, is naive. The human personality does not reincarnate, but dies on the astral plane in what is sometimes called the second death. When a person dies, the Self leaves the body of flesh and enters the subtle body, called the Body of Light. Someday that Self will send out another expression of itself into the lower planes and will reincarnate. According to Enochian Magick, the ego does not reincarnate. It is the individuality rather than the personality, the spirit rather than the soul, that reincarnates.

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