The Sunday Sun

14 August 1938

Remarkable “Sunday Sun” Articles Begin Next Week

The SUNDAY SUN will begin publication next Sunday of an outstanding series of articles on a subject new to most readers of Sunday newspapers and one that will arouse tremendous interest and controversy. Under the general title of “You Have Lived Before” Gervée Baronte, a profound student of the Occult, will write a series of authoritative articles on Re-incarnation.

By special arrangement she will reconstruct the previous lives of readers.

Gervée Baronte studied Re-incarnation and how to reconstruct previous lives by symbolism in Benares with an Indian teacher—a holy man. She attended his classes by invitation. It would have been impossible to attend in any other way for his pupils were selected by himself.

This bare-foot teacher who ate but a little rice is one of the world’s great occultists (there are but seven). For years she attended these classes and for years she practised independently.

Now she is going to give “Sunday Sun” readers the benefit of her life study.

Life Study of the Occult

Gervée Baronte has lived in almost every country in the world . . . not only lived them but worked in them. And since work all these countries has been with connected literature she has had unique opportunities for studying the habits, domestic and commercial life and civilisation of the peoples whom she has been brought into contact.

She has devoted every available moment to the study of occult science. Her studies have not been confined to books but have been pursued with all the great teachers of the East.

She has studied occult science in India and Tibet black magic in Malaya and clairvoyance in China. She was sent to Tibet for a special mission in connection with occult studies.

At the age of 17 after the publication of her first book of verse in this country she was in Calcutta writing for Rabindranath Tagore’s Magazine (since under other management) “The Modern Review.” She has contributed to all the English newspapers in the East and Far East.

She has written a number of books many of which have been published America and have been translated into French. In this country she is said to be an authority on the Dravidian culture of South India and on caste.

“You Have Lived Before” begins next week’s “Sunday Sun.”

Make sure of your copy for there will be a demand for the North’s favourite Sunday paper by placing an order with your newsagent NOW.

21 August 1938

You Have Lived Before

Not far from Benares there is a dilapidated garden where the age-old banyan trees reach down their branches and clutch the earth, making a columned temple for the sacred monkeys of India.

In the evening, when the garden comes awake after the heat of the day, white mists ooze from the ground, bats whirl about, and flying foxes flit in and out of the shadows like torn black patches tossed by the wind.

Sometimes you can hear the rip of creepers under the tawny paws of some tiger on the prowl in the nearby jungle.

In the weather-beaten house enclosed by the walls of this garden, and from which the shutters hang by one hinge, lives a sadhu (holy man) who has found a great truth. In the evenings he comes out into the garden, followed by his students. They sit themselves down on a wooden platform and discuss this truth which has taken the sting out of death, and has answered the puzzling question “Do we survive?”

Nothing Was Destroyed

This Hindu teacher knew that the belief in immortality was older than his own Hinduism. He knew it was older than the Rig-Veda, the oldest of his sacred books, the oldest book in the world. He knew that in the remote past everything was divine and through all flowed the stream of ever-changing life.

He knew that gradually an ecclesiastical system had developed out of this early belief in continuity, and many religions had been founded on it. He knew that once the greater part of the civilised world believed in Reincarnation, and found in it the complete answer to man’s destiny and heritage.

But he was not satisfied with the knowledge he possessed or with the teachings of his sacred books. It was not enough to believe in immortality. It was necessary to prove it. At once he dissociated it from religion, for he had studied the order of Nature’s creation. Everywhere he had seen creation proclaiming the word change.

Nothing was destroyed, but all passed from one existence to another. Not an atom but was dancing in lively march from its present condition to a future form. Everything was running a ceaseless race through mineral, vegetable and animal existence yet never losing its individuality however diverse its apparent alterations.

Creatures seemed frequently to become other creatures. The tadpole became the frog, the caterpillar became the butterfly. One thing always contained another. The wood contained the fire, for rubbing two pieces of wood together produced fire. The milk contained the butter.

The sadhu then studied the growth of the human body before birth and he realised that here also one form constantly changed to another. The evolution of the human body proved that the physical part of man was the product of a long series of changes in which each change was both the effect of past influences and the cause of succeeding issues.

Proving Truth of Survival

As this was true of man’s physical body it must be true that the immaterial part of man required a development equally vast. Furthermore, the idea that the soul was created for introduction into this world contradicted all the principles of science. All Nature proceeded on the strictest economic methods. Nothing was either lost or added. Things continued to change. That was all.

The sadhu examined heredity, but he found that it counted only insofar as physical characteristics were concerned.

Hundreds of times his students had asked him: “Without faith can we really believe in anything we haven’t seen?” And hundreds of times he had answered: “You haven’t seen Napoleon or Cleopatra, but you wouldn’t dream of doubting that they had existed.”

Even as he answered their question he knew that his reply was feeble, for reason allowed them to believe. But reason could not allow them to believe what no historical evidence could prove, and he longed to prove the truth of survival in such a way that his students could investigate the evidence he produced.

Studied the Old Records

Survival should prove to science that it rested on a stronger foundation than faith, that it was not an illusion or a theory. It should prove itself in the dimension in which we live, for no one could refute death in some abstract realm.

He investigated the ancient Indian records. Some of them mentioned people who had remembered their previous lives, but they had been written many years ago and the fog of legend surrounded them. He talked with people who said they remembered their past lives. He investigated every scrap of evidence, for nothing was too trivial to be examined.

After years of research a child was brought to him by her father. The child insisted that once she had lived in another part of India, hundreds of miles from the village where she was born. She said she would find the spot where she had previously lived if she could be taken to the place she named.

Her father believed that she was mad, but he had brought her to the sadhu, having heard of the investigations which were being made. The sadhu took the child to the place she had named. Fearing that there might be some trick, her father was not allowed to accompany her.

Story of Child Convinced

When the child arrived in the strange town she was bewildered at first, but she soon remembered certain roads and landmarks and finally led the sadhu to an old house on the extreme edge of the town.

The family in occupation consisted of an old Hindu woman and her aged husband. The child told them that she was their daughter who had “died” when she was five or six. The old couple laughed and denied all relationship until the child told them the name of their daughter and various incidents concerning her last illness.

She also mentioned her two brothers and described a birthmark which one of them had on his back. As she continued to mention certain things the couple became convinced that she was their daughter, for, as the old woman explained, no one but a member of the family knew of the facts the child had mentioned.

After this case the sadhu investigated several other cases in India and certain ones in Burma. Later he investigated a case in Egypt which was proved by documentary evidence. Papers, hundreds of years, old, were found hidden in a wall where only one having previous knowledge of their concealment could have found them.

Not long ago English newspapers printed a story about an Indian child of nine, a Hindu, who insisted that she had lived before as the wife of a Mohammedan.

Tale Proved To Be True

The case was investigated. The child was taken to the place where she insisted that she had lived. A Mohammedan was found who bore the name she said her husband had been called. When questioned, the Mohammedan admitted that his wife had died ten years previously at the age of twenty.

Without any hesitation the child mentioned the wife’s name. This child of nine had no apparent means of knowing that the Mohammedan existed. No member of her family and none of her neighbours had ever heard of him.

It has been said that Indian children would be inclined to make such statements as they are taught to believe in Re-incarnation. But this cannot alter the fact that the statements of this child and those of the child the sadhu investigated were proved to be true.

*  *  *

A friend of mine met an American woman during a world cruise who told him that she meant to perfect her voice—she was a singer—in a future incarnation. He asked her if she had studied in the past and she said she remembered her singing master when she lived in Florence in the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent. She even described her previous home and certain idiosyncrasies of a musician who had been her brother in a former life.

The man to whom she told the story had no mean of proving her statements, but it would be wrong to put her story down to imagination. Conscious memory does not sustain itself through the various planes of existence. It is the self-memory—memory in the essential-self—which bridges the chasm between various incarnations; and, because the average person cannot travel this tenuous structure, it does not prove that no one can travel it.

The average person is not a famous singer, but he would not say that no one could sing because he could not.

Any materialist who laughs at the idea of survival believes in force, ether, gravity and any number of scientific abstractions which cannot be seen, heard or touched. He accepts them as truth because reiteration has given them a place in his daily life.

Re-incarnation has been proved just as the force of gravity has been proved, but because science has not yet put a tag on it the majority are unwilling to believe it.

*  *  *

Once memory was called instinct, but we know better now. The scientists who have studied the law of heredity have given us the proof of continuous memory—without meaning to.

Experiments with Mice

MacBride’s experiments with mice have proved the continuity of memory. In his “Introduction to the Study of Heredity” he mentions the memory of the mice. They were fed once a day and a bell was rung when the food was put into their cages. It required 300 lessons to teach the first lot of mice the meaning of the bell. The descendants of the first lot learned their lesson when the bell had been rung 100 times. In the third generation the result was accomplished with thirty lessons and in the fourth generation five lessons sufficed. Had the mice not carried over their memory they would have needed the 300 lessons required by the first generation. If it had been a question of instinct the first generation would have known as much about it as the last.

While the mice remembered, they were not conscious of why they remembered. They were showing the result of lessons learned in the past without being conscious of having learned them.

The Dark Side of Life

Man, the highest form of the continuing ego, acts—like the mice—according to his previous lessons. In few cases does he remember his previous lessons, but the result of them is always apparent through his lives.

*  *  *

His exhaustive investigations into like cases of continued memory compelled the sadhu to resurrect and to study a certain ancient system which taught that the previous life could be reconstructed from the birth date and name of an individual.

According to the system the previous life was reconstructed by the position of the moon in the astrological chart of the present life. We all know that the moon governs the tides, and the weather, but the ancient Hindus knew that it governed life and death.

Eastern doctors still look for the decrease in fevers according to the phases of the moon.

In the ancient system the moon represented expansion and contraction—life and death. The ancients spoke of the dark side of life, meaning the pre-natal condition and the seed in the ground. This dark side was governed by the moon.

Symbols and Numbers

Having found the position of the moon in the chart the rest of the calculation, according to the ancient system, was done by symbolism, not by astrology.

There were twenty-eight principal symbols concerned with the twenty-eight stations of the moon; but there were hundreds of symbols used in a complete reconstruction.

Numbers were also used, but not as they were used in modern numerology (which is a very imperfect conception of Chaldean numerology).

Numbers to the ancient Hindus were the essence of things. They described all knowledge by them as the Romans described all knowledge by letters, using the word as the Northern people used the word runes.

Agreed with Statement

There were symbols denoting everything from latitude to the previous occupation of an individual.

*  *  *

The sadhu used the ancient system to reconstruct the previous lives of the people he had investigated. An incarnascope (symbol chart) was made from the birth date and name of the child who had conducted him to the town of her former birth. The latitude symbol was studied to see if she had previously lived in India. Then the symbol which indicated the duration of her former life was studied. Both symbols agreed with the child’s statements.

I Was One of the Students

Incarnascopes were made of the previous lives of the other people the sadhu had investigated. In all cases the ancient system agreed with the investigations. Translations and drawings were made to simplify the system, and, in a way. to bring it up to date. As time went on Hermetic symbols were added and certain symbols which the sadhu had constructed while closely adhering to the system.

It is now possible to make an incarnascope almost as easily as an astrological chart is made.

*  *  *

Students may join the sadhu’s classes only by invitation. Few students have been enrolled, as he prefers small classes.

I was one of the students—the only woman in a class of men who was privileged to sit in the garden and discuss with the sadhu the truth of re-birth.

During the hours of study the students learn the meaning of the symbols and how to set them up and interpret them. They also study history, for they must know how to describe the period in which some individual previously lived.

Old Beliefs of India

In the garden in the evening the sadhu discusses their work with them. If a student cannot interpret a symbol he is helped. If another is weak in history he hears some former period made so interesting that he is determined to master the subject which a few hours before seemed to defeat him.

They usually sit and talk until the sun winks himself out behind a cloud and night comes to conceal the garden.

We of the West are inclined to think of India as a weird old land upthrown from some abyss of strange beliefs and useless practices; but many of her ancient beliefs need only interpretation to show us the way to a better understanding of life and its problems.

28 August 1938

Probing Evidence of Previous Lives

If we would prove Re-incarnation we must collect evidence. If our evidence is anything worthy of the name it cannot afford to rest on superstition or on something we wish to believe.

I have met any number of women who knew they were Cleopatra in a former life because they wished to believe they had been that glamorous queen “who caught the world’s great hands.”

If I had accused any one of them of murdering her brother in her previous life she would have relinquished all relationship with the Eastern siren!

A certain group I knew in China consisted of Cleopatra, Marc Antony, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Napoleon, Josephine, Queen Elizabeth and others equally famous. These illustrious ones had deteriorated, for not one of them could have won recognition in a Chinese village.

Memories of the Past

It may encourage an ugly woman to believe that she was Helen of Troy and a man in the depths of poverty may like to think himself as Solomon, when in all his glory he ruled over Israel; but all this will do little to prove that Re-incarnation is a fact.

There are several reasons why genuine evidence is difficult to obtain. One is that a person who has had some experience which might prove Re-incarnation hesitates to mention it. He believes that others might not understand and the fear of being thought different forces him to be silent.

Another reason is that people dislike believing anything which interferes with their tradition.

*  *  *

It is not often possible, especially in the West, to encounter such proof as I mentioned last Sunday, which was substantiated by the sadhu; but it is possible to further investigations by probing the depths of our subjective minds; for in the subjective mind is stored the memory of our past experiences.

The Debt That We Owe

What we call conscience is but the memory of the past warning us against repeating former mistakes.

Many of us have wondered why we are different from the other members of our family—why the inclinations of our relatives are nothing like our own. Why do some of us constantly wish to escape from the shelter of the parental roof yet go on accepting the responsibilities of our families? Those who condemn the doctrine of Re-incarnation and consider it fantastic may say that filial duty prompts us to remain with our families when we know our place is outside in the world. But a little thought discloses the fact that filial duty is a back number in the present age. Much of the old talk about a child’s duty to its parents ceases to hold the attention of thinking people.

What is it then that holds us to an exacting parent when we long to escape? It is the evidence of debt we owe—contracted in a previous life—to the father or mother who is detaining, us. A woman who allows marriage to pass her by while she devotes herself to an invalid mother is not always held by an altruistic motive. She may be paying a former debt.

*  *  *

The re-incarnating ego is drawn to the family where it can learn the lessons necessary for its development.

We can never ascend unless we first descend. There are no gradations on the level. The soul must be furnished with a body suitable for the working out of its former karma. (Karma is a Sanskrit word meaning action, but in Re-incarnation it is used to denote cause and effect.)

The soul of a navvy or prize-fighter would need a muscular body, rather than the highly-strung nerves of an artist. I do not mean to imply that the navvy would always be a navvy, or the artist always an artist, but while it is evident that a soul is on a certain line of development, it must gravitate to a suitable body.

Many unhappy marriages are but the linking together of people who owe each other debts from a previous life. The word affinity is loosely used, but everything in the world, even the atom, has its affinity. The progressing soul is no exception to this rule.

The unfortunate person who is born with criminal tendencies, or acquires criminal habits is a proof of Re-incarnation, for no Divine force ever created a criminal.

An animal learns not to repeat some wrong action, because he is punished for it. In the human state the punishment comes through a more prolonged suffering. Because we have acquired intelligence we are judged, not by our actions, but by the motives behind them. There is an affinity between the great sinner and the great saint. They are both extremes of force. The great sinner may become the great saint with a few incarnation between, but the spineless hypocrite has a long road to travel.

*  *  *

Other evidence of a past life may sometimes be seen in visions or in dreams. I knew a woman who saw her previous life on all sorts of inopportune occasions until she reached the age of sixteen. The vision would occur when, as a child, she was playing with other children; as a girl when attending classes at a convent; even when attending prayers with the nuns it sometimes intruded.

Evidence of Our Dreams

In the vision she was always waiting for a boat which she boarded only to fall from it into the sea. When her former life was reconstructed it was found that she had been drowned at the age of sixteen.

Many people have seen houses or certain rooms which they have later visited or recognised.

Still other evidence is furnished by people who recognise each other when meeting apparently for the first time. In certain cases people who recognise each other have been known to describe the country and the circumstances in which they had previously met.

Dreams may furnish evidence of past existences. The Indian adepts investigate dreams by clairvoyant projection. They can contact the place and time which the dreamer describes by putting their conscious mind into abeyance and allowing the subjective mind to operate alone. (This is all there is to clairvoyance at any time. Anyone possessing the necessary concentration and will power can become clairvoyant.)

*  *  *

When the Eastern adepts investigate the dream-state they work with what is called periodicity—the law of repetition. Only recurring dreams interest them, or dreams in which the same images are seen.

Recurrence in dreams depends upon the strength of the first impression. We remember anything which has made an impression upon our minds, while we forget things of lesser importance. This fact exists in both the conscious and the subjective mind.

When the conscious mind is in abeyance, as it is during sleep, the subjective mind shows us certain images of our former lives.

Dream That Is Important

If you look at a strong light and then close your eyes you still see the light. Your closed eyes still see it repeating and repeating, but each repetition is a little dimmer than the one before it.

Impressions on the subjective mind operate in the same way. This is why facts of your previous existence seem clearer to you in the dream state than those of some remote incarnation.

No vivid dream in which you see yourself performing great deeds is important. Psychology can deal with such a dream, not Re-incarnation. The person who sees himself as a king or a hero, or the centre of some group, is dramatizing himself.

These are the dreams of a person who cannot sufficiently express his desires in the conscious state, so he dreams what he would like to do and the sort of person he would like to be.

It is the dream where you do not appear which is apt to be important, and to furnish evidence of your previous life. Watch the images of such dreams and see if they continue to occur. Keep an account of the various parts of your dreams and see which images recur most frequently. These recurring images may furnish you with a clue to your former existence.

*  *  *

Other evidence of a previous existence is furnished by the memory of sounds. There is a case on record of a musician who remembered tunes which he had heard chanted 3,000 years ago in Egypt.

Tapping the Soul Memory

There is nothing remarkable about this. Nothing that ever existed is lost. Sounds have always passed into the surrounding ether and found their rate of vibration, just as they pass into it to-day. In former days we had no radio to detain them, but we shall yet construct machines which will produce the former sounds, as the radio produces the present sounds, and no doubt many people living then will remember having heard the sounds before.

*  *  *

Another way of tracing evidence is from the memory of places. If people could visit in their present existences the places which were familiar to them in their previous lives, the evidence of Re-incarnation would increase tremendously.

A young American woman who had never before been in India gave a very interesting demonstration of tapping the soul-memory, when, with a few friends and myself, she visited the temple of Konarak. known as the Black Pagoda, on the Bengal-Nagpur railway.

We stood outside the famous temple admiring its Orissan architecture and its rather audacious carving. We were discussing the legend of the lodestone said to be lodged within its masonry to attract and destroy the ancient sailors; much as the sirens of the German legend lured mariners to their death.

Figure That Was Missing

We had just decided that the temple must have served as a land mark to the sailors and acted as a friend rather than an enemy, when the American woman said: “How different it looks! The great figure of the chariot is missing.”

We asked her what she meant and she pointed to some fragments of stone and said: “They must be the remains of the wheels.”

Asking for further enlightenment she explained that when she knew the temple the sanctuary and the audience chamber stood on the raised plinth and represented the chariot of the sun.

The chariot had been magnificent. It had been drawn by seven horses. Each horse had been complete in itself, and the seven of them drew the huge chariot with its twenty four wheels.

She went on to describe the medallions which had hung on the horses’ heads, and the medallions used as axle features. The carvings on the medallions had represented elephants pouring water over the heads of goddesses, certain gods with their numerous attendants and the child Brahma sitting in the centre of the lotus flower.

When we asked her how she knew that such carving had existed she said she remembered the building of the temple, and she knew that the chariot and the horses had been added long after the original building was completed. Breathlessly and excitedly she explained the ancient carvings and the method of the artists who made them.

One of the party asked her if she remembered being a Hindu. She said she had not been a Hindu but a Buddhist, and that the structure was originally a Buddhist temple. Looking at what was very evidently a Hindu building, we wondered how she could make such a statement.

When She Was Here Before

Some time later among the archives of the museum I was shown an ancient drawing of the temple. The chariot and the seven horses adorned the facade, but, according to the records, these carvings had been added when the temple was restored by the Hindus. It had originally been a Buddhist temple.

*  *  *

It is possible for the ego to remember one existence as another, but it is not usual (unless the objective mind is obscured), to remember such a remote existence.

When I asked the American woman if she had ever dreamt of the temple or had seen it in a vision she assured me that she had no idea of its existence (In her conscious mind) until she stood before it, and then she remembered it at once, and also her previous life when she was a Buddhist.

She even remembered Buddhism being conquered by the Hindu faith. This was evidently when the chariot and horses had been added to the temple.

After that she visited with me many other famous places in India and Ceylon, but she never expressed any but a casual interest in them.

Next week, as an example of reconstruction, Gervée Baronte will reconstruct the previous lives of Shirley Temple.

9 September 1938

Looking Back with Shirley Temple

We are apt to think of Shirley Temple as a prodigy. In our minds we place her with the child who can solve difficult mathematical problems at the age of five, or the child whose performance at the piano leaves us breathless; but there is nothing of the prodigy about Shirley Temple.

As a matter of fact there is no such person as a prodigy. The law of reincarnation teaches that a genius is one who is continuing what he has done in former lives. It is the only sensible explanation of genius, for knowledge must be acquired somewhere. It does not come out of the void or the world would be full of genius.

Will Achieve Great Success

Shirley was born in California on April 23, 1929. The symbols cast for her birth-time denote extraordinary success in her present incarnation and the continuation of popularity which had its inception in the past. Shirley at any age will be popular. Many astonishing developments will occur in the film world in the next five years. Through many of these changes she will achieve greater success and certain benefits.

She is continuing her stage career, but in her present life the drama is her means of expression. In her former existence she expressed herself in music.

In Austria, where I find her at the end of the reign of Maria Therese, she was a singer. I have never known anyone to carry over this personal talent. Frequently musical ability is carried over; for example, the talent for instrumental music and for composition; but singing is a physical attribute depending upon the voice which is lodged in one particular body.

Together with a remarkable voice, Shirley had the allure which makes her irresistible now, the poise, the grace, the desire for romance, and the uncanny intuition. We who now watch her on the films know nothing of this unerring intuition. But as time goes on, we shall understand that this gift allows her always to see what the public wants.

Her Appealing Naturalness

After the “prodigy” phase is over she will gather greater triumphs in older parts, for, whatever we may think to the contrary, she has not yet arrived. There will be many ups and downs before she arrives, such as financial losses and minor accidents (especially when travelling), but she will take such mishaps in her stride to fame. Her lack of affectation will continue. This naturalness is what appeals to her public, for it allows her to get into the part she is portraying. She has always been practical, a good business woman, and very interested in security.

*  *  *

In her former life in Austria she needed her business ability, for she had to encounter adversity at times. She made a reputation then, but she acquired very little money. In Austria at that time art meant more than fortune. We all know how the great Mozart had to accept but £80 a year from Joseph the Second when he was appointed Kammer-Musicus to the Emperor; his duties being to supply dance music. Casting his musical pearls before swine, he rushed on to financial ruin as many other musicians have done.

Shirley was born in an exhausted Austria. The seven years war had embarrassed the finances; the people were discontented and the Army was weak. The Hungarians, with the assistance of Britain, supported the queen. But the support was not enough for this determined ruler. She tried to revive the country by fostering agriculture, by encouraging agriculture and commerce, and by patronizing the arts. For a time everyone felt the quickening of the new tempo and discontent passed temporarily from the volatile Austrians.

Indicated By Her Symbols

Vienna was gay again with brilliantly-lighted streets and flashing carriages drawn by the sleek Hungarian horses. Shop windows were filled with tempting wares and the people discarded their shabby clothes for costumes of the latest mode. This appearance of gaiety, while it did little to fill the purses of the artists, gave the theatre a new lease of life which enabled the people connected with it to achieve certain reclame, and above all to acquire a following.

Shirley, at the age of twenty, was having a share in this new prosperity. It is indicated by her symbols that she made good friends among the intellectuals. Even members of the royal family were interested in her. The Habsburgs have always been interested in music and musical people even if they have done little to support this art and its followers. Shirley’s father must have been a jeweller for I find the goldsmith’s symbol.

*  *  *

Love, intense and compelling, enters her symbols after marriage. The man she loved was a musician; highly placed in the musical world.

She continued to sing before the public. She received applause but little remuneration. Upheld by her love for the musician she struggled on. It is indicated that she was cheery and happy in spite of her circumstances. Her innate desire for security lay for a time prostrate under her love.

Giving Aid To Musicians

When she was thirty-six her husband’s “death” brought her a legacy, but evidently much less than she expected. It must have enabled her to have a home where artists constantly met. No doubt Mozart, well acquainted himself with poverty, discussed his compositions with her. Perhaps she heard some of the strains of the Magic Flute before this musical gem was finally set for the world.

She later returned to Vienna and the rest of her life is spent in helping musicians to achieve recognition and in teaching music.

She “passed on” at the age of 58 after a short illness.

Again, in her present life she will meet her musician sweetheart.

Another arrangement of the symbols and Shirley is in Spain. She seemed destined in her previous incarnations to appear in an exhausted monarchy.

With the accession of Philip IV. Spanish supremacy had declined and much of Spain’s former prestige had diminished. It was still the most potent kingdom in Europe, but its resources were badly drained.

Every country has a period of depression after a period of excitement. Spain’s rapid rise to power had been somewhat forced and premature. No country ever climbed so fast, with the exception of Alexander’s Greek Empire.

Caused Prestige to Decline

The thing which had added to its prestige had caused its prestige to decline. This was the acquisition of dependencies. Far flung ruins have always pointed to the evils of overgrown empire. The improvement of remote possessions has drained too many countries, and the neglect of them has lowered too many nations’ prestige.

Philip IV., finding himself between the devil of foreign possessions and the deep sea of dwindling resources at home could think of nothing to remedy conditions but to tax the people. First he taxed the manufacturers, who, unwilling to offer up what they had accumulated, fled to Italy or to Flanders. This ended the manufacture of fine wool and silk. Merchants who were wealthy enough to retire from their trades closed their factories and stayed at home.

Shirley’s father decided upon this course, having become wealthy from the manufacture of silk. His decision was unfortunate, for the pride of Spain had survived her greatness. In the aristocratic classes celibacy (or what passed for it) prevailed. In spite of their reduced circumstances, noble families did not care to replenish their coffers by marrying into families who had engaged in trade. Family pride erected convents and nunneries as obstacles to matrimony. Thus marriages occurred without desire or affection, simply from interest. Even the royal family had to consider these enforced marriages.

*  *  *

Shirley’s father managed to find a husband for his daughter among the noblemen.

Spanish girls could not interfere with their father’s choice in husbands, and in Shirley’s case there was no mother to intercede for her. According to her symbols her mother passed on when she was two years of age. She had no sisters and her three brothers had taken a portion of the family fortune and departed.

Intervention of Romance

A woman who became her staunch friend was evidently a nun and a power to be reckoned with in one of the convents. Under this woman’s example Shirley’s mind inclined to religion and to religious studies. She might have become a nun but for the intervention of romance. The love symbols were brought into her life by an Englishman who must have been in Spain on some mission for his government.

She left Spain for England, where, judging by the latitude symbols she must have gone, her life underwent a complete change. Great happiness is shown and after the death of her husband, she married the Englishman.

As in Austria she again associated with artists and intellectuals. While she was not actually on the stage interest is shown in the theatre and in dancing; especially of the interpretive sort.

Her mind had been practical in each of her incarnations which I have examined. When everything is against her she does not become panicky, but quietly and cleverly thinks her way out of an awkward situation. This habit of mind, together with her unfailing intuition should get her out of any difficulty.

The gloom which is always an attribute of the Castilian mind slumbers somewhere beneath her cheerfulness, but it is like the shade which emphasises the light of a picture.

She left her Spanish-English existence when she was full of years; 82 being the age the symbols indicate. Her husband had predeceased her by twenty years.

*  *  *

When the symbols are again set up Shirley is in Russia. It is the 15th Century and the country is emerging from the rule of the Vetch into the monarchial regime, which continued until the world war. Russia’s present form of Government is not her first attempt at democracy.

A Nobleman of Kiev

Her ancient Government, the Vetch, was an organisation ruled by popular council. The noblemen and princes of that day who had achieved their titles by the vast tracts of land they owned, decided to establish a monarchy in which the people would have no vote. Their weird rule resembled a nightmare more than a form of Government.

Towards the end of the Vetch rule conditions were little better than they had been at the beginning. Men fought against each other in the morning and dined together in the evening. Every man’s hand was raised against his brother or his friend. In a few hours the possessions of one nobleman became the possessions of another. In these transactions women were frequently included with the merchandise.

Shirley’s husband was a nobleman of Kiev who had migrated with other noblemen and his young wife to the city of Vladimir, which became the favourite residence of the men who wished to establish the new monarchy.

Affinity Symbol Shown

Under the new regime it is indicated that he became the military Governor of the Army which was recruited all over Russia. He had a very deliberate military policy not lacking in cruelty when it came to furthering the economic position of Vladimir.

Strong personalities were the only ones worth while in those days, and it is evident that Shirley adored her reckless, picturesque, hard-bitten husband, who, while so valiant in war and unscrupulous in acquiring loot for his city, was kindness itself to his wife.

The symbols denoting conjugal affection are very strong. In fact, the affinity symbol is shown. These two had much in common, principally the love of music. In gentler days this man’s voice would have carried him to the front ranks of operatic music.

It was during Shirley’s days in Russia that that country degraded the position of the serfs (peasants). These unfortunate people worked in the homes of the princes as well as in the fields.

Musician and Prince

In that land of snow and ice, with the hardship entailed by long dreary winters, Shirley must have suffered considerably at times. Her castle, however imposing, was bare and uncomfortable. There is little luxury where the floors are cold grey stone, the bed a wisp of straw raised but slightly off the stones, and the glassless windows are open to the elements. Added to the forlorn condition of the castle was a country constantly rent by internal strife.

Her husband was frequently away from home putting down one rebellion after another. From one of these rebellions it is indicated that his body was brought back to the castle by the other princes.

Shirley never fully recovered from the shock of his “death.” Carelessness about her health and the rigours of an usually severe winter caused her to follow him in two years time, at the age of twenty-four.

I have again set up the symbols of the Austrian musician, and I find that he was formerly this prince of Kiev.

The soul must encounter all manner of experiences as it threads each incarnation on the chain of life.

Another article on Re-incarnation, by Gervée Baronte, next week.

11 September 1938

Clark Gable: A Crusader through the Ages

If Clark Gable would go to Hampton Court, the palace where Henry the VIII spent much of his time, and listen attentively he might hear a voice out of the past speaking to him of the days when, as a member of the clergy, he was frequently at that palace while Henry the VIII. arranged the ecclesiastical affairs which opposed the existing order, and fostered his desire for divorce.

The voice might also mention the degraded condition of the clergy which had to take its orders from Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s favourite and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was allowed in Parliament to sit before the Archbishop of Canterbury. The voice might go on, mocking now, about the indignation of the members of the clergy when they saw at their head a blacksmith’s son who had taken no Orders and had never been to a university.

Blacksmith’s Son

Blacksmith’s sons play an important part in politics. The one now agitating Europe is much the same as the “hammer of the monks” of Henry’s time who also rose from a common soldier to become the king’s confidant.

*  *  *

By the symbols it is indicated that Clark Gable was related to Cardinal Wolsey, the original owner of Hampton Court. When the building passed into the hands of the Tudors it is probable that Clark Gable was in the king’s favour. He must have disagreed with his relative, the Cardinal, who had previously disagreed with the king concerning his intended marriage with Anne Boleyn. As a matter of fact the Cardinal had presented the palace to Henry as a peace offering after his former disagreement with him.

So closely are Clark Gable’s symbols connected with this building that it is constantly before me, in this, his English existence. In it he must have met the owners of many names famous in history. In the nature of spiritual adviser Clark Gable met these famous men and women. Considering their actions his advice must have been lightly passed over.

Remained An Idealist

His interest in Catherine Howard seems to have been more than religious. It is possible that he may have tried to snatch the document containing evidence of Catherine’s misconduct from the hand of Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, while the king was hearing mass in the Oratory. It is doubtful if he made any great effort to save her. The wits, even of the clergy, were no doubt muddled in a household where tea and coffee were unknown, where beer was drunk for breakfast and wine all the rest of the day, by the king and the meanest varlet of the palace; and where the great kitchens and the extensive wine cellars received more attention than any other parts of the establishment. Gluttony and drunkenness had reached a point never since approximated in England. Religious services were attended by people in various states of inebriation and frequently the prisoner who was being tried was the only sober person in the legal court. In this vile atmosphere Clark Gable contrived to remain an Idealist.

*  *  *

He passed out of his Tudor existence somewhere in the county of Middlesex, not far from Hampton Court, which he visited almost daily.

George the Second was the last ruler to live in the palace and that was in 1760. But some of the original building exists with the old. Cardinal Wolsey’s privy chamber is still part of the main building as is also the haunted gallery through which Catherine Howard was taker to the Tower and to her execution.

The voice from the past is sure to whisper to Clark Gable in Catherine’s gallery, should he again visit Hampton Court.

Looking backward I find him again in England and preparing for the eighth Crusade. It is the year 1248. Pope Innocent the 4th had convoked a council at Lyons urging his ecclesiastics to make a last stand against the Infidels. He asked the French “Saint Louis.” and Henry the Third of England, to impress upon their subjects the necessity for overcoming Mussulman power in Palestine.

The war which is going on in Palestine to-day between the Jews and the Arabs is much the same as that waged in 1248 between the Christians and the Saracens. There is about as much religious fervour in one as in the other. The holy Crusaders were just as interested in acquiring property—and used just as unscrupulous means of acquiring it—as the present dissenting parties.

The Pope’s appeal found a slower response in England than it did in France. English interest in holy war had died down considerably after the third Crusade in 1190, when Henry the 2nd, wishing to make a demonstration of sanctity, after murdering Thomas à Becket, decided to support an Order of the Knights Templar in Palestine.

However there were still certain Englishmen who wished to join the eighth Crusade. Clark Gable, the adventurous son of a wealthy family, permitted himself to be “crossed” (the Crusaders wore the Cross) in a spirit of dare-devilry rather than from any religious feeling. Like many pilgrims of those days he wanted to see the world.

“Saint Louis.” the French king, sailed for the Holy Land with 50,000 men. He had a fleet of 1,800 transports, including store ships. A storm separated the fleet, and part of it—the part Clark Gable was with, arrived at Damietta in Egypt.

Louis established a Christian government in Damietta; but neither the religious character of the war nor the importance of preserving military discipline had any effect upon the conduct of the holy warriors.

One Knight Who Escaped

They took anything they could find and destroyed what they couldn’t use. The least said about the ways they enjoyed themselves the better.

Finally, Louis got them together for a march on Cairo. This was a disastrous move, for the Sultan’s army gave battle. Many of the knights were killed.

*  *  *

Clark Gable escaped for I find him entering Jerusalem less than 250 miles overland from Cairo, with the English knights.

Jerusalem at that time was a city of patriarchs, of priests, of hurrying merchants and moneylenders. Clark Gable was, no doubt, impressed by the solemn melancholy of the rocky hills and the valleys through which he passed. The mount of Olives, where the knights might have camped, was separated from the town by a narrow ravine. Looking down from the Mount Clark would have seen Jerusalem lying below.

The valley of Jehoshaphat would have been seen on his left, and in the distance the sullen waters of the Dead Sea. The city hadn’t changed much since Alexander approached it.

Looking down upon it I wonder if Clark realised that his mission was to fight the infidel. This was the centre from which the word of God was to go forth to the world. Believing, or imagining that he did in the restoration of Israel, he must have been touched by the wonder of Hebrew patriotism. Painted against the sky were the domes of Christian churches and the minarets proclaiming the word of the Prophet.

His Pope had inspired him with hatred for the Prophet, but, being the soul he is, the slender beauty of the Prophet’s architecture must have appealed to him as such beauty always has, and no doubt he hoped that this beauty would not be demolished, even in the name of holiness.

But it is indicated that the swords of the knights tried to destroy this proud feudal civilisation; when not trying to annihilate the sons of Islam.

Fortunately Clark Gable was injured and I trace him to the Hospitallers; which Order became the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, then the Knights of Rhodes and finally the Knights of Malta. This Order was founded to care for the injured pilgrims of the Holy Sepulchre and dedicated to St. John the Baptist.

Interested in Politics

To illustrate the sequence which exists in Clark Gable’s incarnations—the site upon which Hampton Court was built was purchased by his relative Cardinal Wolsey from the Knights Hospitallers.

He remained with the Hospitallers in Jerusalem for some time, for the Crusade left Jerusalem without him.

Most of the Knights, especially the wealthy ones, when they returned to their own countries lived in security and in indolence. These warriors could triumph over tortures and die with a song on their lips. They could fight against any enemy—but luxury and ease.

Clark Gable did not follow their example when he returned to England. He seriously entered politics. He is still interested in this game and in movements of various sorts. I would not be surprised to know of him studying the law of Re-incarnation or investigating occult science.

*  *  *

Still probing into the past. I find Clark Gable in Rome. It is 800 A.D., the year in which Pope Leo the 3rd crowned Charlemagne as Augustus and restorer of the Western Empire. After the coronation Rome became once more the capital of the Empire. At Rome the Governors of the were to receive the golden crown from the hands of the Pope. This meant that they would also receive the silver crown from the kingdom of Germany and the iron crown of Lombardy at Milan.

This arrangement allowed Rome to acquire great wealth and great feudal power. The Papacy became the ambition of the Sacerdotal Order.

Every city in Italy armed its militia, and wars continued with the neighbouring towns. The militia was headed by the magistrates. Clark Gable was a magistrate with a leaning towards the Pope’s party—as against the party of the Emperor. Religion and the trouble it caused, was still strongly marked by his symbols.

Many of the magistrates were of noble birth. Clark was. His family belonged to the religious Orders, and it is indicated that one of his brothers was a Cardinal.

Symbols of Religion

Clark seems then to have been rather overbearing and fanatical.

He was thirty when he married a girl of 18. The symbols of affection are apparent for a year and then they are completely missing. There must have been dissension between his family and the family of his wife.

Two children are indicated, a son and a daughter. The son must have achieved considerable distinction in the Church. This son reincarnated again in the Tudor days, still bearing the symbols of religion into the confusion and chaos of that period. He lived in the reign of Elizabeth. Clark’s Roman daughter passed on at the age of twelve. I shall not trace her. I mention the son only because he followed his father into the Tudor days.

*  *  *

Clark Gable went down in his Roman existence while fighting for his cause. He was 42 years of age. His family survived for many years.

His various appearances on this planet follow in a sequence. Religion has played an important part in his “lives.” The pageantry and colourful ritual of his former existences was not so different from the drama he now follows.

Sequence is not always evident as a soul passes from one incarnation to another. In its various journeys a soul must encounter all the experiences necessary for its development. Sometimes these experiences follow in sequence; more often they do not. Where individuals express what we mistakenly call “genius” the soul is passing from one experience to another indefinite sequence.

28 August 1938