Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal SocietyRoyal Society (Great Britain)
History
Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal Society
Royal Society (Great Britain)
Natural history; Science -- Early works to 1800; Voyages and travels -- Early works to 1800
They believe that every thing that hath Life hath a Soul, but
especially Man; and they accordingly affirm, that as these Souls
behaved themselves in their pre-existent State, so are their Actions
in this World either good or bad, by a sort of fatal Necessity, which
is very hard to conquer, or to overcome. Hence it is, say they, that
there are so many different Humours and Dispositions of Men, for their
Souls, before their entrance into their Bodies, being tainted with
different Affections, causes the like differences in the Parties,
whose Bodies are their Vehicles. So that if a Man happen to have a
suddain or unfortunate Death, they immediately ascribe the same to
the Party's own Wickedness, or the bad Life that his Soul led before
that it enter'd into his Body. For, say they, the afore-acted Evil
that his Soul did in its other Life, brought these accidents upon
him, by getting the upper hand of him, and by being too powerful and
strong. And those that dye thus, they believe that their Souls turn
immediately into Devils. They maintain _Pythagoras_'s Transmigration,
or _Metempsycosis_, but in a grosser sense than he did. For they
believe that Mens Souls, that have not lived so well as they ought, go
as soon as the Body dyes not only into Birds and Beasts, but even into
the basest Reptiles, Insects and Plants, where they suffer a strong
sort of purgation, to expiate their former Crimes: But as for the Souls
of the _Jogees_, or _Fuche's_, that is, of Religious Men and Saints,
they fancy that they go and inhabit with the good _Dewta_'s, or Angels,
among the Stars.
As for the Spirits, or Inferiour Angels, they believe that they are
very evil, and have a hand in all Wickednesses, Murders, Wars, Storms,
and Tempests; so that when they solemnize the Funerals of those that
are dead, they always present Dishes of Meat, as Offerings unto those
Spirits, and sometimes Sacrifice unto them, that they may not hurt the
Souls of the Dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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