Note 47 — XI. ESOTERIC ORIENTAL REINCARNATION.

In the explicit phrasing from which this section is derived, there are mentioned seven planets, through each of which the soul makes seven rounds, each round including seven races, and each race seven sub-races, and these again containing seven branches, multiplying the whole number of lives into a compound of seven. Everywhere the sacred number appears, but contrary to the strict interpretation of many students of oriental thought, we are certain that these figures are only symbols. Just as the spectrum might be split into only three essential components, or into a much larger number than seven, so the dissection of these courses of the soul into any one number seems to be an arbitrary mathematical representation of the fact that each division must include such components as will fit together in one indissoluble entirety.