Preëxistence

The doctrine of preëxistence, metempsychosis or transmigration, is found, to name only a few of its best known exemplars, in the Hindu Upanishads, the Buddhist Scriptures, the Pythagoreans, Orphics and Plato in Ancient Greece, in Bruno, Leibniz, and in present-day philosophy notably in Dr J. M. E. Taggart.

But still, after the passing of one hundred seasons, the memory of her “Good-night” brings a double thrill incomprehensible of pleasure and pain — pain and pleasure, doubtless, not of me, not of my own existence, but of preëxistences and dead suns.

The preëxistence of these things is expressed in various forms. In the Apocalyptic Literature, the preëxistence of the Messiah is expressed in the form of such statements as that “before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars and the heaven were made, his name (that is, the name of the Messiah) was named before the Lord of the Spirits” and that “he hath been chosen and hidden before Him, before the creation of the world.”