n, from
time to time, from certain advanced souls which have passed on to higher
planes of existence, and who are now called the Masters, Adepts,
Teachers, Race Guides, etc., etc. But whatever may be the explanation,
it remains a truth that man seems to have worked out for himself, in all
times and in all places, first, an idea of a "ghost" which persists
after the body dies; and second, that this "ghost" has lived before in
other bodies, and will return again to take on a new body. There are
various ideas regarding "heavens" and "hells," but underlying them all
there persists this idea of re-birth in some of its phases.

Soldi, the archaeologist, has published an interesting series of works,
dealing with the beliefs of primitive peoples, who have passed from the
scene of human action. He shows by the fragments of carving and
sculpture which have survived them that there was an universal idea
among them of the "ghost" which lived after the body died; and a
corresponding idea that some day this "ghost" would return to the scene
of its former activities. This belief sometimes took the form of a
return into the former body, which idea led to the preservation of the
body by processes of mummifying, etc., but as a rule this belief
developed into the more advanced one of a re-birth in a new body.

The earlier travelers in Africa have reported that here and there they
found evidences and traces of what was to them "a strange belief" in the
future return of the soul to a new body on earth. The early explorers of
America found similar traditions and beliefs among the Red Indians,
survivals of which exist even unto this day. It is related of a number
of savage tribes, in different parts of the world, that they place the
bodies of their dead children by the roadside, in order that their souls
may be given a good chance to find new bodies by reason of the
approaching of many traveling pregnant women who pass along the road. A
number of these primitive people hold to the idea of a complex soul,
composed of several parts, in which they resemble the Egyptians,
Hindus, Chinese, and in fact all mystical and occult philosophies. The
Figi Islanders are said to believe in a black soul and a white soul, the
former of which remains with the buried body and disintegrates with it,
while the white soul leaves the body and wanders as a "ghost," and
afterward, tiring of the wandering, returns to life in a new body. The
natives of Greenland are s