Reincarnation is the idea and some would say fact that after we die we return and live other lives. The reason for this cycle is that the world offers us the chance to grow and learn based on the many physical challenges it offers. When we have learned and progressed enough, through numerous lives, there will be no more need to return. This book covers the various cultures that accept the idea, and what it really means to us, as individuals. Those who are steeped in pure logic reject the idea due to the lack of strong scientific evidence. They fail to realize that one cannot present spiritual proofs in a laboratory. Matter itself and the material world can show physical evidence but spirit and matter are two separate things. So where is the proof for reincarnation? One good answer, and a great starting point, is to open this book. Spiritual proof exists for those who can comprehend it.

The main subjects of analysis in the present book are the stages of initiation in the grand scheme of Theosophical evolution. These initiatory steps are connected to an idea of evolutionary self-development by means of a set of virtues that are relative to the individual’s position on the path of evolution. The central thesis is that these stages were translated from the “Hindu” tradition to the “Theosophical” tradition through multifaceted “hybridization processes” in which several Indian members of the Theosophical Society partook. Starting with Annie Besant’s early Theosophy, the stages of initiation are traced through Blavatsky’s work to Manilal Dvivedi and T. Subba Row, both Indian members of the Theosophical Society, and then on to the Sanâtana Dharma Text Books. In 1898, the English Theosophist Annie Besant and the Indian Theosophist Bhagavan Das together founded the Central Hindu College, Benares, which became the nucleus around which the Benares Hindu University was instituted in 1915. In this context the Sanâtana Dharma Text Books were published. Mühlematter shows that the stages of initiation were the blueprint for Annie Besant’s pedagogy, which she implemented in the Central Hindu College in Benares. In doing so, he succeeds in making intelligible how “esoteric” knowledge was transferred to public institutions and how a broader public could be reached as a result. The dissertation has been awarded the ESSWE PhD Thesis prize 2022 by the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.