PDF version - Geae

Returning to the origin of our race, we will see the idea of successive lives spread over the earth by the
Gaul’s. It vibrates in the accents of the bards, it rings in the grand voices of the forests, saying, ‘I have stirred
in a hundred worlds, I have moved in a hundred circles.’ It is the national tradition, and it inspired in our
fathers disdain of death and heroism in combats. Arbois of Jubainville, Professor of the College of France,
said, ‘In combats against the Romans, the Druids remained immobile as statues, receiving their wounds
without fleeing or defending themselves. They knew themselves immortal, and counted on finding in another
world a new and always young body.’ The Druids were not only brave men, but they were profoundly learned.
Their cult was that of nature, celebrated under somber shades of great trees or temples built on cliffs. In the
Triads they proclaimed the evolution of the soul climbing from the abyss, and slowly mounting the long spiral
of existences, to attain, after many deaths and rebirths, the circle of felicity. The Triads are the most marvelous
monuments which have been left to us concerning the antiquity and the wisdom of the Druids. They open up a
perspective without limit to the astonished student.
We recommend to our readers The Triads (19, 21, and 36) published by Ed. Williams from original
Gaelic and translated by Edward Darydd. The Gaul’s taught reincarnation on earth, as well as on other spheres,
as is demonstrated by A. de Jubainville in his course of Celtic literature. Find Mac Cumall, the celebrated Irish
hero, is described as being killed at the battle of D’Athbrea in 273 A.D., and being reborn in 603, and later
being king of Ireland. The author relates that the belief in reincarnation went back to ancient times of Ireland.
Long before our era, Eochaid Airem, supreme king of Ireland, espoused Etain, daughter of Etar. Etain had
several centuries before being born in Celtic lands as Ailill, wife of Mider, and she was deified after her death.
The Celtic doctrine, after being lost for centuries, reappears in modern France, and has been
reconstructed and sustained by a Pleiades of brilliant writers: Charles Bonnet, Dupont de Nemours, Ballanche,
Jean Reynaud, Henri Martin, Pierre Laroux, Victor Hugo, Flammarion, etc.
‘To be born, to die, to be reborn, and progress without cessation is the law,” as Allan Kardec has said.
Thanks to him, and to the spiritual school of which he was the founder, the faith in successive lives of the soul
spreads over the Occident, where it counts millions of partisans. The testimony of spirits has given it a definite
sanction. With the exception of some undeveloped souls for whom the past is still enveloped in shadows, all
the messages receive in our century affirm the plurality of existences and the indefinite progress of being.
Earthly life, they say in substance, is but a preparation for life eternal. Limited to one existence in its
ephemeral duration, the soul could not respond to so vast an object. Incarnations are the stations on the way of
ascension - the mysterious ladder which, from obscure regions, by all forms and worlds, conducts us to the
Kingdom of Light.
Our existences unroll across the centuries. They pass, succeed one another, and begin anew: and with
each one we leave a little of the evil which was in us. Slowly we advance and penetrate further in the sacred
way, until we have acquired the merits which open an access for us to the superior circles from which shine
eternally, beauty, wisdom, truth, and love.
The attentive study of the history of people does not show us merely the universal character of this
doctrine. It permits us also to follow the glorious chain of causes and effects in the social order.
We see above all, that these effects are reborn of themselves, and return to their own principle; that
they enclose individuals and nations in the network of a marvelous law. From this point of view the lessons of
the past are compelling. The testimony of the centuries is painted in a majestic character which strikes the
most indifferent mind, and demonstrates the irresistible force of right. All the evil accomplished, the blood
spilled, the tears shed, fall sooner or later fatally upon their authors, individually or collectively. The same
culpable acts, the same errors, lead to the same unfortunate consequences. While men persist in living hostile
toward one another, to oppress, to fight, works of blood and mourning follow, and humanity suffers to the very
depths of its being. There are expiations collective, as there are reparations individual. Through time an
immense justice is exercised. It brings into bloom the elements of decadence and destruction, and the germ of
death that the nations sow in their own breasts each time they violate higher laws. If we glance over the history
of the world we will see that the youth of humanity, like that of the individual, has its periods of trouble and of
sorrowful experiences. Across its pages unwinds a cortège of obligatory miseries. Profound depression
alternates with high ecstasies - triumphs with defeat. Precarious civilization marked the first ages. The greatest
empires crumpled one after another in the maelstrom of passions. Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, the empires of
Persia, are all fallen. Rome and Byzantine, eaten by corruption, went down under the force of barbarians.
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