The term reincarnation comes from the Latin “re-carneus” and means “rebirth”. It represents the cycle of birth, death and rebirth in an earthly body.
The teachings of reincarnation are initially not very familiar to Western spiritual students. This is often due to their religious upbringing in the belief system of the mainstream Christian churches.
Reincarnation – Since the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, the official churches have eliminated almost all scriptures that refer to the cycle of reincarnation of mankind. Only those texts that were compatible with this doctrine were deliberately included in the canon of the Bible, as it is still found today in the various translations of the official churches.
The fact is that all the spiritual traditions of antiquity, including the early Christians and Gnostics, as well as Buddhists and Hinduists, and to some extent Islam and mystical Judaism, accepted and continue to accept rebirth as a fact.
For thousands of years in Central Europe, people who continued to accept the cycle of birth and rebirth as a fact and lived accordingly were persecuted and murdered as heretics, such as the Gnostics and the Cathars.
It was only after the scholarly rediscovery of the apocryphal gospels of Nag Hammadi and Qumran that the texts of the Gospel of Thomas, in particular, revealed to the general public that the state churches had deliberately withheld this essential essence of the original Christian doctrine from the people for almost 2000 years.
The first contact with the idea of rebirth in the German-speaking world was made by many secondary school students who discovered the literature of Hermann Hesse, in his wonderful book “Siddharta”.
This great work of world literature describes, in a magical way, the mechanism of Samsara; the eternal cycle of birth and rebirth.
The attentive researcher can find important passages in the Bible that escaped the censorship of the churches. For example, in Psalm 90, where it says: “You make men return to the dust and say: “Come again, people!
This is how the official churches once knew about the nature and consequences of reincarnation for human beings. But it was much easier and more promising for the sale of indulgences to make the sheep believe that this life was their only one. That salvation in heaven was only possible through atonement in this life.
This false creed is apparently impossible to abandon, yet anyone who has seen Michelangelo’s fresco “The Last Judgement” in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican will inevitably recognise the perpetual ascent and descent of souls who can only escape the wheel of return through purification.
The teachings of reincarnation are vast. However, it is not primarily about what awaits people one day, but about life in the here and now.
Human beings have the opportunity to find their way back to the lost paradise. Man also has the evolutionary potential to create a subtle body that will enable him to exist in the next world, as Christ also said in the Gospels.
The teachings of Hermeticism guard the appropriate tools to realise this ascent of the soul to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Hermeticism does not offer weekend seminars or crash courses but can be seen as a spiritual path of life. The Hermetic Academy is an authentic bearer of the Hermetic tradition, preserving these powerful methods and tools.
